How the Gauge Score Works

Tunnelgauge is an independent VPN review desk. We exist because most of the pages that rank for “best VPN” are published by companies that own the VPNs they recommend, and we think a reader deserves a score built from evidence they can check rather than from a marketing budget. This page explains exactly how the Gauge Score works, so you can argue with it.

The five pillars

Every provider is graded 0–10 on five pillars, then we take a weighted average and multiply by ten to get a Gauge Score out of 100.

• Privacy & trust — 30%. Independence and recency of no-logs audits, jurisdiction relative to the 14 Eyes, ownership transparency, RAM-only infrastructure, and any court-tested no-logs record.
• Security — 25%. Protocols shipped (WireGuard, OpenVPN, proprietary), encryption, kill switch, DNS and leak protection, multi-factor auth, and whether the apps are open source.
• Value — 20%. The lowest long-term price, the money-back window, the number of simultaneous devices, and whether a safe free tier exists.
• Features — 15%. Split tunnelling, obfuscation, dedicated IP, ad/tracker blocking, multi-hop, and port forwarding.
• Transparency — 10%. Open-source code, transparency and warrant-canary reporting, clear ownership disclosure, and how often audits are published.

What the score deliberately excludes

There is no speed number in the Gauge Score. Speed matters, but we have not measured it under controlled, reproducible conditions, and folding an unverifiable figure into the maths would defeat the point of an evidence-based score. Where speed is relevant we describe it qualitatively from the protocols a provider ships, and we say plainly that we did not benchmark it.

We also do not score marketing claims. “Military-grade encryption”, “total anonymity” and “fastest VPN in the world” carry no weight because they cannot be verified. A no-logs claim only moves the privacy pillar once an independent firm has audited it and published a dated report, or a court has tested it.

How we handle facts and dates

Every figure we publish — a price, an audit date, a server jurisdiction — carries the date we last confirmed it against a primary source, usually the provider's own trust centre or the auditor's report. Prices are shown as the lowest advertised long-term rate on a read-date, with a reminder to check the current price, because VPN pricing changes constantly and varies by region and term. Where we could not verify something, we label it rather than guess.

Independence and how we are funded

Some outbound links to providers are affiliate links, marked and disclosed. A commission never changes a Gauge Score — the score is computed from the pillar table before any commercial consideration, and Mullvad and Windscribe, which pay us nothing, are recommended wherever the evidence supports it. If you think a score is wrong, the pillar breakdown is published precisely so you can check our arithmetic and tell us. Read the full affiliate disclosure for the detail.