Our servers measure your data use by how much traffic we are passing from you and to you. If the VPN is not connected then there is no way that our servers will count more data as there's nothing connecting you to the service.

With that said, if your bandwidth has expired too early or seemingly disappeared, there could be a few reasons why:

1. Something in the background was left downloading or uploading without restriction. For instance a Windows/software update or a game download. These can start automatically and can often use up multiple gigabytes without you even noticing.
2. Your account may be connected to our servers in other places, sometimes even without your knowledge (Potentially, your account could be compromised). If you feel this might be the case, or just want to make sure that it isn't, we recommend deleting all your sessions and server credentials in order to kick everyone off the account. A password change is recommended after doing this. Click here to read more about deleting sessions and server credentials.
3. Another common issue is when someone downloads torrents and then doesn't exit out of the torrent client, so the files that were already fully downloaded remain there to be seeded (uploaded to other users). This causes a sort of "leak" of your bandwidth and unless you turn off the torrent client or your computer, those files will continue to upload.

If you'd like to avoid this issue, you can always increase your free monthly bandwidth or even consider upgrading to an unlimited bandwidth plan for as little as $3 per month using our Build-A-Plan option.