A Free VPN for iPhone and iPad: The SingLinkVPN Free Plan on iOS

What the Free Plan Includes on iOS

The Free Plan is not a trial and not a time-limited preview. It is a standing plan tier whose allowance resets every day, and running out of data does not void the account. On iOS it gives you a complete, working encrypted connection; what is limited is how much data you can push through it and which protocols you can pick.

The quickest way to judge whether it fits is to look at what you actually do on your iPhone. Looking things up, messaging, scrolling a text-and-image feed, opening a site you need for a moment — 200 MB a day usually covers that. Streaming a series or pulling down large files over the tunnel is not what this tier was built for, and the numbers further down make that concrete.

• Included: a full encrypted connection, Beta protocol nodes marked "Free", and a 200 MB allowance that resets daily
• Not included: an unconditional "1 GB every day" (1 GB is only the campaign ceiling), the Sola, Mini and SingLink 2.0 protocols, and the dedicated high-performance resources allocated to paid tiers
• Not required: a credit card, a stored payment method, or watching ads for baseline data

How the 200 MB Is Counted, and When an iPhone Can Reach 1 GB

The allowance is tied to device type rather than to your account. Each device counts its own usage for the day, and every device resets at midnight. Under one account, your iPhone has its own 200 MB and your iPad has a separate 200 MB; neither eats into the other. The flip side is that an iPhone which has run dry cannot borrow from anything else.

Desktop clients start from a 500 MB daily baseline, mobile clients from 200 MB. During campaigns, the daily allowance can go up to 1 GB, depending on the campaign. It is conditional and time-bound, and campaigns can apply to both mobile and desktop, iPhone and iPad included — but not every campaign offers it, and eligibility and dates are whatever the app shows at the time. On days without a campaign, the number you see on an iPhone is 200 MB.

Any unconditional claim of "1 GB of free data every day, no credit card required" does not describe iOS. The accurate statement is that the mobile tier gets 200 MB a day, and 1 GB is the ceiling during campaigns, depending on the campaign — not something you get every day.

What 200 MB Covers on an iPhone, and What It Does Not

Rather than argue about whether 200 MB is "enough", here are orders of magnitude. The table below lists rough consumption levels for common activities. Real figures shift with content, video quality, compression and app version, so treat these as ballpark guidance rather than a promise.

The conclusion is blunt. Text-first and light-image usage will generally carry you through a day on 200 MB. The moment continuous video playback starts, the allowance drops by the minute. That is not a limitation of the iOS client — it is simply how large video files are. The same 200 MB would not last long streaming HD on any service. Stating the boundary plainly beats letting you hit it by surprise.

These are common-case magnitudes, not product commitments. The usage figure shown inside the client is authoritative.

Installation Goes Through the App Store Only

The App Store is the only way to install the iOS client. This differs from desktop, where Windows and macOS users pick up an installer from the download page on this site. There is no equivalent direct .ipa link for iOS, and this site will not offer one. The reason is platform-level: iOS places strict limits on app distribution and on privileged capabilities such as VPN, and App Store distribution is the legitimate, sustainable route.

In practice this makes things simpler. Search the App Store for SingLinkVPN, or use the download button on this page to jump straight to the store listing, and install. Updates are handled by the App Store from then on, so there is no hunting for a newer build and no uninstall-reinstall cycle. If you also run a desktop client, remember that the two carry entirely separate allowances; installing one has no effect on the other.

• Entry point: the App Store, via search for SingLinkVPN or the download button on this page
• Not offered: direct .ipa links, sideloading, or configuration-profile installs
• Updates: handled by the App Store; leaving automatic updates on is recommended
• Device requirements: as stated on the App Store listing

The Step Unique to iOS: Approving the System Prompt

On iOS, no app can quietly open a VPN tunnel on its own. The system requires VPN functionality to be built on the Network Extension framework, and it requires a VPN configuration to be written into Settings first — which only happens with your explicit consent. That is why the first time you tap connect, iOS itself puts a prompt on screen asking whether SingLinkVPN may add a VPN configuration.

That prompt comes from iOS, not from the client drawing its own dialog, so its wording and appearance are decided by the system. Tap Allow and iOS asks once more for Face ID, Touch ID or your device passcode; the configuration is written only after that check passes. You do this once. Later connections skip it entirely, and once the tunnel is up the VPN badge appears in the status bar.

If you tap Don't Allow by accident, the connection fails and the app has no way to work around it — that is the system behaving as designed. Tapping connect again re-triggers the prompt. If it does not reappear, open Settings, then General, then VPN & Device Management, remove the existing configuration, and connect again to run through the approval once more. Neither desktop nor Android has an exactly equivalent step, which is why people arriving from a computer often stall here.

The exact wording of the system prompt varies slightly between iOS versions; what your device shows is authoritative. The flow on iPadOS is identical to iPhone.

Free Nodes Run the Beta Protocol and Nothing Else

SingLinkVPN maintains four in-house protocols: Beta, Sola, Mini and SingLink 2.0. The Free Plan can use Beta protocol nodes only; the other three are not open to free accounts. This is a plan-tier permission boundary, not a gap in the iOS client — on the very same iPhone, upgrading the account unlocks whichever protocols that tier allows.

Beta is built around speed, which suits web browsing, social media and messaging: precisely the workloads people run inside a free allowance. Worth knowing: free nodes are a shared, finite resource used by every free account, so speeds can fluctuate at peak hours and an individual node may be briefly unreachable. Paid tiers draw on separately allocated resources that free nodes do not touch.

• Available on the Free Plan: Beta protocol nodes
• Not available on the Free Plan: Sola, Mini, SingLink 2.0
• How to spot them in the client: entries in the node list carrying the "Free" label

The full comparison between protocols lives on the Beta protocol page: /fr/tech/protocols/beta/ .

Making 200 MB Last Longer on an iPhone

iOS ships with a handful of switches that cut data use noticeably, and they pair well with a capped allowance. The whole idea reduces to one principle: let the VPN run only when you actually need it, and while it is running, shut down the things that consume data in the background without being asked.

People tend to assume the allowance goes on whatever they deliberately opened. In reality, background refresh, autoplay and automatic downloads often account for a sizable share. Once those are under control, the same 200 MB stretches over noticeably more usable time.

• Connect on demand: turn it on when you need it — a disconnected tunnel consumes nothing
• Turn on Low Data Mode: enable it separately for cellular and for Wi-Fi so the system throttles background transfers
• Turn off Background App Refresh: Settings, then General, then Background App Refresh — or leave it on only for the few apps that need it
• Disable video autoplay in feeds: this is the single fastest way social apps drain an allowance
• Avoid app updates, system updates and iCloud backups while connected
• Remember the allowance is per device: an iPhone and an iPad each get their own 200 MB, neither shared nor pooled

When It Will Not Connect, or the Allowance Runs Out

Connection problems on iOS cluster around two causes: the system permission was never granted, or the day's allowance is already spent. Check both before investigating the network, and you will usually save yourself a detour.

If the allowance is gone, there is no top-up for that day. The Free Plan has no watch-an-ad-for-data mechanism, and the day's cap is whatever the app shows. Service resumes at the midnight reset. If you find yourself empty by every afternoon, your usage has simply outgrown what this tier was designed for, and upgrading will be less work than rationing.

• Confirm you tapped Allow on the system VPN configuration prompt during the first connection
• Check the remaining allowance in the client to rule out a drop caused by hitting the daily cap
• Switch to a different Beta node that also carries the "Free" label; individual nodes can be briefly unavailable at peak times
• Toggle between Wi-Fi and cellular to rule out local network or carrier-side problems
• Confirm in the App Store that the client is up to date, and sign out and back in to refresh the node list if needed
• If it still will not connect, note the node name, the time and the error message, then contact support

Getting Started with the Free Plan on iPhone (Three Steps)

Connecting to your first node on an iPhone or iPad with the SingLinkVPN Free Plan takes three steps: create an account and sign in, install the client from the App Store, then pick a node labelled "Free" and connect. iOS adds one system permission prompt on the first connection, which the third step covers.

1. 1

   Create an account and sign in

   Register a SingLinkVPN account and sign in. The Free Plan asks for no credit card and no stored payment method. Once signed in, the account sits on the Free Plan tier, with the allowance counted separately for each device.

2. 2

   Download the client from the App Store

   Open the App Store and search for SingLinkVPN, or use the download button on this page to open the store listing, then install the iOS client. There is no direct installer for iOS; distribution and updates both run through the App Store. Open the app once installed and sign in with the account from step one.

3. 3

   Pick a node labelled "Free" and connect

   Find a Beta protocol node carrying the "Free" label in the node list and tap connect. On the first connection iOS shows a system prompt asking whether to add a VPN configuration. Tap Allow and confirm with Face ID, Touch ID or your device passcode; once the configuration is written the tunnel comes up and the VPN badge appears in the status bar. This approval is needed only once.

Frequently asked questions