Proton Unlimited Review: Is It Worth It?

Proton Unlimited is Proton’s all-in-one plan, bundling Mail, VPN, Pass, Drive, Calendar, Wallet, Docs and Sheets in one subscription. It is worth it if you will use several services, but poor value if you only want email.

I use Proton Mail, Proton VPN, Proton Pass and Proton Drive, so the plan makes financial sense for me. Those four services are the reason I continue paying for Unlimited.

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Proton Unlimited pros and cons

Pros

• Costs $95.64 / €95.64 a year less than buying Mail Plus, VPN Plus, Pass Plus and Drive Plus separately.
• One account and one bill for several services.
• Proton VPN download speeds stayed within about 5 to 8% of my normal connection during testing.
• Proton Pass syncs my passwords reliably across my devices.
• Proton Mail uses the same encryption as every other Proton plan.

Cons

• Poor value if you only want email.
• Introductory deals renew at the standard price.
• The Proton Pass autofill prompt occasionally fails to appear.
• Unlimited is a single-user plan.
• I do not use Calendar or Wallet enough to count them towards the value.

What is Proton Unlimited?

Proton Unlimited is a paid subscription from Proton, the Swiss company behind Proton Mail. It combines the premium versions of Proton’s main privacy services under one account. You can pay monthly or choose a yearly subscription, which costs less per month but requires an upfront payment.

The plan includes 500 GB of storage shared across Proton services, 15 email addresses and support for three custom email domains. It also provides unlimited hide-my-email aliases and Proton VPN connections on up to 10 devices at once. Hide-my-email aliases are alternative addresses that forward messages to your inbox without revealing your usual email address.

What is included in Proton Unlimited

Proton Mail

Proton Mail is Proton’s encrypted email service, and it is my main inbox. Unlimited gives you the full paid version, including custom domains, unlimited hide-my-email aliases and Proton Mail Bridge for desktop email apps such as Outlook or Thunderbird. The aliases are the feature I use most, because I can sign up to things without handing out my real address.

Proton VPN

Proton VPN encrypts your internet connection and routes your traffic through a VPN server. Unlimited includes the full paid VPN features, with connections on up to 10 devices at once. These include access to Proton’s worldwide server network, streaming support and NetShield for blocking ads and malware.

Proton Pass

Proton Pass is an encrypted password manager that stores and autofills your login details across devices. Unlimited includes the paid Pass features, such as a built-in two-factor authentication (2FA) authenticator, unlimited hide-my-email aliases, dark web monitoring and secure vault sharing. It is the password manager I use every day, and I cover how it has held up below.

Proton Drive

Proton Drive is Proton’s encrypted cloud storage service for files, photos and documents. Unlimited provides 500 GB of storage shared with Proton Mail and access to Drive’s paid features. I use it for my website images, and I cover how that has gone below.

Proton Calendar

Proton Calendar is an encrypted calendar for organising appointments and events. Unlimited includes its paid features, such as additional calendars and calendar sharing. I do not personally rely on it, so I am not going to pretend to offer an in-depth verdict on how it compares with other calendars.

Proton Wallet

Proton Wallet is Proton’s self-custodial Bitcoin wallet, which lets you manage Bitcoin while controlling your own wallet keys. Unlimited includes the paid Wallet allowance, rather than just the free plan’s limits. It is included in the plan, but it is not a service I personally use enough to review properly.

Proton Docs and Sheets

Proton Docs and Sheets are encrypted document and spreadsheet editors built into Proton Drive. You can create, edit and collaborate on documents and spreadsheets, with your files stored in Drive. Both editors are also available on Proton’s free tier, while Unlimited provides the larger shared storage allowance.

Proton Sentinel

Proton Sentinel is an advanced account protection programme included in Proton Unlimited. It combines automated threat detection with human analysis to help prevent account takeovers. It also provides additional protection against suspicious sign-in attempts and greater visibility into account activity.

Proton Unlimited price and current deal

The yearly subscription is charged as one payment for the whole year, rather than monthly instalments. It costs less per month than the monthly subscription, but requires paying the full amount upfront.

Proton sometimes offers introductory deals for new subscribers. These apply to the initial subscription period, after which the plan renews at the standard yearly rate. The renewal price matters when deciding whether Unlimited is worth keeping.

Current offers are listed on our Proton Unlimited deals page. The standard prices and billing options for each plan are covered in our Proton Mail pricing guide.

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My experience using Proton Unlimited

Proton Mail

Proton Mail is the foundation of the bundle for me. The email encryption is the same across Proton’s plans. Paying for Unlimited does not give the messages themselves a special form of encryption that cheaper Proton plans lack. What Unlimited adds is more storage, more addresses, more custom domains and access to the rest of the Proton suite.

I already pay for and use Proton Mail, so the decision is not whether email alone justifies Unlimited. It is whether adding the other services makes the higher price worthwhile. For me, it does.

Proton VPN

I tested Proton VPN on my own internet connection to see how much speed I lost when connecting to servers at different distances. These results reflect one connection, on one day, using my own equipment. They should not be treated as a guarantee of the speeds another person will receive.

My connection without the VPN was 136.57 Mbps down and 20.93 Mbps up. I then tested servers in Manchester, Boston and Bucharest.

The download speed stayed between roughly 125 and 129 Mbps across all three locations. Compared with the 136.57 Mbps baseline, that was a drop of about 5 to 8%.

I was happy with that result. Every VPN slows your connection a little, because your traffic goes through another server first. How much depends on the server, the distance and the time of day, so a 5 to 8% drop is about as good as it gets.

The clearer difference was latency, shown as ping. The Manchester server produced a ping of around 33 to 36 milliseconds. The more distant Boston and Bucharest servers were closer to 100 milliseconds. That increase is expected when data has further to travel, and it could matter more for gaming or video calls.

For how I use a VPN, the practical result was straightforward. Browsing felt normal and video streamed without a noticeable problem on every server I tested. The download speed remained close to my normal connection speed, while the ping increased with distance.

Proton Pass

A password manager stores your login details and fills them in when you sign in to websites and apps. I have used Proton Pass for years across my tablet, phone and PC. My passwords have synced reliably between the three devices, and autofill works most of the time when I sign in or complete forms.

There is an occasional flaw. Mostly on my tablet, and sometimes on my PC, the Proton Pass prompt does not appear when I click inside a login or form field. Refreshing the page normally fixes it.

This does not happen often enough to make the service unreliable, but it is noticeable when it happens. A password manager is supposed to remove friction from signing in, so an autofill prompt that occasionally fails to appear is a genuine weakness.

Even with that problem, Proton Pass has worked well for me overall. My passwords remain available across my devices, new logins sync properly, and autofill usually appears when expected. It also fits naturally with the hide-my-email aliases included with Unlimited: I can create an alternative email address for an account while keeping the login details stored in the same service.

Proton Drive

I use Proton Drive to store the images from my websites. My experience has been simple. I uploaded images from my tablet, and they were properly synced and available when I opened Proton Drive on my PC.

It is a drive. I click to upload, the files appear on my other device, and that is the end of it. I do not have much more to say about it, which is really the point. Cloud storage should just work quietly in the background, and for how I use it, Proton Drive does.

Proton Unlimited vs buying separately

The main reason I pay for Unlimited is that it costs less than the four services I use would cost separately. Here is how its standard yearly price compares with buying Mail, VPN, Pass and Drive individually.

UK prices differ slightly because they include VAT.

Proton Unlimited costs $95.64 / €95.64 less per year than buying all four standalone plans at their standard yearly rates. If you would otherwise pay for three or four of these services, the bundle costs less than buying them separately.

If you only want one or two services, standalone plans can be cheaper. The important question is which subscriptions Unlimited would actually replace, rather than how many products Proton includes.

Proton Unlimited vs Mail Plus, Duo and Family

If you only want paid Proton email, Mail Plus is the more sensible choice. I chose Unlimited because I am one person using several Proton services. Duo is the same idea for two people, and Family covers a household of up to six.

Is Proton Unlimited worth it?

Proton Unlimited is worth it when it replaces several subscriptions you would otherwise pay for separately. The $95.64 / €95.64 yearly saving compared with buying Mail Plus, VPN Plus, Pass Plus and Drive Plus individually shows why the bundle can make financial sense.

That is the calculation that matters in my case. I would otherwise need a private email service, a VPN, a password manager and cloud storage. I actively use all four through Proton Unlimited. Even at the standard renewal price, paying for one bundle makes more sense for me than maintaining four separate subscriptions.

There is also a practical benefit to having them under one account. I do not need to manage four billing dates or four separate providers. That convenience alone would not justify paying more, but it matters when the bundle already costs less than the services it replaces.

It would be easy to overstate the value by counting every included service as money saved, but I do not use Proton Calendar or Proton Wallet enough to count them. They are included, but I would not otherwise be paying for separate replacements. Their theoretical value does not reduce my real monthly costs. Mail, VPN, Pass and Drive do.

The same calculation can produce the opposite answer for someone else. If you only want private email, Unlimited is difficult to justify. It is also less convincing if you already have a VPN or password manager you like. Replacing a service that works well just to make a bundle appear cheaper does not create a real saving.

Who should get it, and who should not?

Proton Unlimited makes sense for someone who wants private email and expects to use several other Proton services. It is particularly easy to justify when you would otherwise pay separately for a VPN, password manager and cloud storage. Using four parts of the suite turns it into a genuine bundle rather than an expensive way to upgrade your email.

It may also suit someone who wants to keep these services under one provider instead of managing several subscriptions. That is useful, but it should remain a secondary consideration. The services still need to meet your needs.

You probably should not get Proton Unlimited if email is the only part you care about. Mail Plus gives you paid Proton Mail without charging you for the full suite. A cheaper provider may suit you better if price matters more than having everything connected. Tuta gives you private, encrypted email for less, without the wider suite you would be paying for here.

Unlimited is also harder to justify if you already pay for a VPN, password manager or cloud storage service that you are happy with. It only saves money when it replaces those costs.

My honest verdict is that Proton Unlimited is well worth it if you will use several of its services. I use four of them, and it remains good value for me at the renewal price. If you only want email, Mail Plus is the better buy.

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