If you’re looking to keep your payment history out of your bank’s hands, you can use Bitcoin to pay for your Proton VPN paid plan.
Bitcoin is not available as a payment method during account sign-up, though it can be used to purchase account credits once you have created your account. You can then use those credits to purchase your Proton paid plan.
To purchase a Proton plan with Bitcoin:
1. Sign up for a Proton VPN Free plan at account.protonvpn.com/signup if you haven’t already.
2. Click the Upgrade button in the top right-hand corner of your screen.
3. Select the subscription period and click Select… on the plan you want and continue to the checkout.
4. Choose Bitcoin as your payment method.
This will bring up a QR code, BTC address, and the total Bitcoin due for your upgrade transaction.
If you’re using a mobile Bitcoin wallet, you can scan the QR code displayed to automatically process the payment.
If you don’t have QR scanning ability within your Bitcoin wallet, you can manually submit the transaction using the provided BTC address. To do so, copy the BTC address into the recipient address of your wallet and select the amount of BTC displayed next to the BTC amount in the payment module. (For example, the above amount is 0.0072601 BTC.)
Important: Please do not re-use the same QR code/BTC address from previous payments. Due to a limitation of our API, subsequent payments to the same address will not be recognized. So you must begin the payment process again for each new payment.
5. After you’ve successfully sent the Bitcoin transaction, a confirmation message will be sent to your Proton Mail address letting you know the transaction has been confirmed by the Proton system.
Since the system requires several confirmations for the payment to be verified, it may take up to 12 hours until you receive your confirmation message in your Proton Mail inbox.
6. Once the account transaction is verified, you’ll have Proton credit in your account. You can verify this by going to Subscription → Credits.
7. Now it’s time to upgrade your account using your new Proton credit. To do so, click the Upgrade button at the top right of your screen.
8. Click Select… on the plan you want and continue to the checkout.
9. Check the Payment Summary. You’ll see your credit automatically applied to the amount due. Select Pay… to confirm the payment and complete your upgrade.
Note: Bitcoin payments currently don’t have the ability to turn on Autopay. To avoid interruptions to your Proton services between billing periods, we recommend that you make your Bitcoin payment at least 24 hours before your bill is due. The credit you receive in your Proton Account when paying with Bitcoin never expires.
You can also pay for your Proton plan with cash.
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