Best Data Removal Services in 2026: 5 Services We Took to Checkout and Compared
Reviewed · Updated
On 10/08/2026 I took five data removal services as far as each would go without a card: their free scans, sign-ups and checkouts up to the payment field, their cancel and delete paths, and the same support question. Two let me open a free account, Optery and OneRep. The order below is the order of the scores on our scale.
Key takeaways
- Top score: Optery, 8.8/10. Its section below says why, and where it falls short.
- Best free option: Optery Free Basic scans with no card and shows what it found, but it doesn’t send removals for you.
- Cheapest year: Optery Core at $39, which covers 152 named sites. The cheapest plan with the renewal price shown before payment was Incogni Standard: $95.88, renewing at $95.88.
- Most upfront checkout: Incogni showed the renewal amount and a $0.00 tax line before the card. OneRep printed the date and amount of the first charge.
- No renewal price before payment: Optery, DeleteMe and Aura.
- Biggest list on an entry plan: Incogni’s 420 rows, the same on every plan. OneRep covers 314 people-search sites on its cheaper plans and 873 brokers on Pro.
- No public list: Aura says 425+ brokers but publishes none I could count.
Quick comparison
| # · Service | Score | Best for | Brokers covered (Index) | Price/yr (renewal) | Free scan | Cancel | Data asked | Support | Try |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Optery | 8.8/10 | Free plan; widest price range | 944 on its listCore 152–380, Ultimate 634 | $39/yrrenewal price not shown | Yes, Free Basic plan | In account (help center) | Name, email, city, state, birth year | chat: reply in 20 min | Visit Optery |
| 2 OneRep | 7.8/10 | People-search sites; see matches before paying | 873 on its list314 on non-Pro plans | $99.95/yrrenews at $99.95 | Yes, plus a free account | In account (help center) | Email; name and card for the trial | chat: reply in 2 min | Visit OneRep |
| 3 Incogni | 7.6/10 | Renewal price shown upfront; hands-off | 417 on its listsame on every plan | $95.88/yrrenews at $95.88 | Yes, no account | In account (help center) | Email and card; then name, address, DOB, phone | email: no reply yet | Visit Incogni |
| 4 DeleteMe | 7.1/10 | Staff-run opt-outs, quarterly reports | 957 on its list91 on Standard | $129/yrrenewal price not shown | Yes, no account | In account (help center) | Name, email, address, card | email: reply in 6 min | Visit DeleteMe |
| 5 Aura | 7.0/10 | Removal bundled with identity protection | No public listclaims 425+ | $144/yrrenewal price not shown | No, 14-day trial with a card | Account or phone (help center) | Email, name, home address | email: no reply yet | Visit Aura |
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Ranking by our scale · Checkout Test 10/08/2026 · Coverage Index 10/08/2026 · Prices verified 10/08/2026 · Cancel: path from each help center, not tested
How we built this ranking
Every service went through the same steps from our US Privacy Checkout Test on 10/08/2026: the free scan or sign-up, the checkout up to the payment field with a New York address, the cancel and delete paths, and one identical question to support. DeleteMe and Incogni open an account only after payment, and Aura asked for a home address before payment. For those three, the dashboard and cancel steps come from their help centers.
I didn’t enter a card anywhere, so no removals ran. Coverage comes from each service’s published broker list, which I counted for the Data Removal Coverage Index and checked against a control list of 16 people-search sites.
The score combines six parts: Results 30% · Price & value 20% · Checkout honesty 15% · Data handling 15% · Ease of use 10% · Support 10%. A service is ranked once it has a run and a score. Kanary, Privacy Bee and EasyOptOuts haven’t been run yet, so they aren’t here.
The order of this table is the order of the scores. Whether a company pays us a commission or nothing at all doesn’t move a single row.
1. Optery — best overall
For people who want to see what’s out there for free first, then choose how much coverage to pay for.
- Checkout
- Plan
- Cancel
- Your data
- Eligibility
- Support
- Inside
Free · paid plans from $39/yr · verified 10/08/2026
8.8/10: for trying before you pay. Free Basic needs no card and shows what it found, but the $39 plan covers far fewer sites than the $249 one.
Optery is the only service here with a free plan that doesn’t expire. I signed up on 10/08/2026 with a name, email, city, state and birth year, and no card. After the first scan the dashboard showed the matched profiles with screenshots. Free Basic gives you links to opt out yourself; Optery sends removals for you only on paid plans.
Paid plans run from $39/year for Core to $249/year for Ultimate, the widest range here. Coverage follows the price. By Optery’s own list, Core covers 152 named sites, or 380 if you sign a limited power of attorney for Expanded Reach. Ultimate covers 406, or 634. Ultimate held 13 of the 16 sites on our control list; Core held 4.
A person answered both parts of my chat question about 20 minutes after I asked, matching the help center. You can delete the account yourself in the dashboard.
Where it falls short: the Core checkout showed no total, tax or renewal price before a card, only “Awaiting payment method for calculating tax.” The terms say plans renew “at the then-current non-promotional rate.” Whitepages and Intelius are covered only on Ultimate. Newsletter and promotional emails were switched on by default.
- Results9.5
- Price & value9.5
- Checkout honesty7.0
- Data handling7.0
- Ease of use9.5
- Support9.5
2. OneRep — best for people-search sites
For people whose main worry is people-search sites and who want to see their matches before paying.
- Checkout
- Plan
- Cancel
- Your data
- Eligibility
- Support
- Inside
Free · paid plans from $99.95/yr · verified 10/08/2026
7.8/10: for people-search sites. 15 of the 16 sites on our control list are covered on every plan; the trial needs a card and turns into a paid plan on day six.
I opened a free OneRep account on 10/08/2026 with an email address only. For a common New York name, the dashboard listed 1,104 profiles on 43 of the 314 people-search sites it scans. Every removal sat on hold, because removals start only with the 5-day trial.
Its checkout was the clearest of the five about dates. Each plan showed $0.00 today and the first charge in a required checkbox, such as $99.95/year on 10/13/2026. Support answered my standard question by chat in about 2 minutes. You can also pay monthly, from $14.95.
Read the coverage number carefully. The 873 on the pricing page includes 559 marketing and B2B brokers that only the Pro plans cover, from $191.40/year. On the cheaper plans it’s 314 people-search sites.
Where it falls short: there’s no delete button in the account. I emailed support and was told to sign out and wait 72 hours. The Subscription Terms ask for written notice 30 days before an annual plan ends, which the checkout doesn’t mention. I didn’t see removals finish. OneRep’s founder said in 2024 that he still owned part of Nuwber, a people-search site.
- Results9.5
- Price & value7.0
- Checkout honesty7.0
- Data handling4.0
- Ease of use9.5
- Support9.5
3. Incogni — most upfront checkout
For people who want a hands-off subscription with the renewal price on screen before they pay.
- Checkout
- Plan
- Cancel
- Your data
- Eligibility
- Support
- Inside
Paid from $95.88/yr · verified 10/08/2026
7.6/10: for a hands-off subscription with no price surprises. The $95.88 renewal was on screen before payment, but you pay before you see anything.
Incogni’s checkout was the only one of the five that showed both the renewal amount and a tax line before the card. It read “renew for the same duration at $95.88 (price may change),” and the sales tax line showed $0.00 for New York 10001. I got the same $0.00 line with addresses in five other states.
Its broker list is public. I exported 420 rows on 10/08/2026: 417 unique domains, 277 of them people-search sites. A Deloitte limited-assurance report, covering the state as of 07/18/2025 and signed 08/06/2025, backs its schedule of repeat requests: every 60 days for people-search sites, every 90 days for private databases.
There’s no free plan or trial. The free scanner asks only for an email and a name and creates no account. The dashboard opens after payment, and a 30-day refund covers the first purchase.
Where it falls short: 6 of the 16 sites on our control list aren’t on its list, including BeenVerified, TruthFinder, Intelius and Radaris. You can delete your account only through support. My support email of 10/08/2026 had no reply when I wrote this. Custom removal requests need the Unlimited plan, $179.88/year.
- Results7.0
- Price & value7.0
- Checkout honesty9.5
- Data handling7.0
- Ease of use9.5
- Support7.0
4. DeleteMe — best staffed service
For people who want staff to send opt-outs and a privacy report every three months, and don’t need to try it first.
- Checkout
- Plan
- Cancel
- Your data
- Eligibility
- Support
- Inside
Paid from $129/yr · verified 10/08/2026
7.1/10: for handing opt-outs to a staffed service. A person answered my email in 6 minutes, but the checkout doesn’t say what renewal costs.
DeleteMe has no free plan and no trial, so I ran its free scan and its checkout up to payment on 10/08/2026. The scan asked for an email, a name, a city and state and an age. For a common name it found matches on 8 of the 30 sites it checked. The checkout total was $129.00 for one person for a year, with no tax line for a New York address.
Its list page names 969 data brokers, and a legend says which plan covers which. By that legend, 91 domains are in the Standard plan, including Whitepages, Spokeo, BeenVerified and FastPeopleSearch. Standard adds 40 custom requests a year for other sites.
Support answered my refund and data question by email 6 minutes after I sent it. The answer matched the terms: a full refund before the first privacy report, a prorated one after.
Where it falls short: the checkout terms say the plan renews “at either the current or full retail rate,” with no number. DeleteMe’s help center says Intelius, TruthFinder and Instant Checkmate don’t accept its requests. At $129/year its entry price is the second highest here, after Aura, and you pay before you see any result.
- Results7.0
- Price & value7.0
- Checkout honesty4.0
- Data handling7.0
- Ease of use9.5
- Support9.5
5. Aura — for an all-in-one bundle
For people who want data broker removal in the same subscription as identity theft protection, credit monitoring and antivirus.
- Checkout
- Plan
- Cancel
- Your data
- Eligibility
- Support
- Inside
14-day free trial · paid from $144/yr · verified 10/08/2026
7.0/10: for people buying identity theft protection anyway. Removal comes in the same $144 first year, but there’s no public broker list to check.
Aura isn’t a data removal service first. Its plans bundle identity theft protection, three-bureau credit monitoring, insurance, antivirus, a VPN and a password manager. Every plan lists data removal “from 425+ Data Brokers, People Search Sites, Junk-mailers, & Google Search Results” (pricing page, 10/08/2026).
I started the 14-day trial for the Individual plan on 10/08/2026. The summary showed “$288.00 $144.00 billed yearly” and “Pay $0 now,” then asked for a home address “to verify your identity” before payment. I had no test address, so I stopped there and saw neither the dashboard nor any removal results.
I found no public list of the brokers Aura contacts. Its help center describes a list inside the account only, so Aura has no count in our Coverage Index. Annual plans come with a 60-day refund, requested by phone.
Where it falls short: the renewal price isn’t on the pricing page or the enrollment screen; the terms say it renews at the price shown in your account dashboard. Three low-star Trustpilot reviews from 2026 said spam and broker removal did less than they expected. My support email of 10/08/2026 had no reply when I wrote this. If data removal is all you want, Aura has the highest entry price of the five.
- Results7.0
- Price & value7.0
- Checkout honesty7.0
- Data handling7.0
- Ease of use7.0
- Support7.0
What we don’t recommend (and why)
No data removal service is on our list of what we don’t recommend yet. That isn’t praise: I haven’t run the others, so I can’t rank them either way. What I’d skip, whoever sells it:
- A checkout that hides the renewal price. Three of the five here did: Optery, DeleteMe and Aura.
- A request for your Social Security number to remove you from people-search sites. None of the five asked for one in the steps I saw.
- A promise that you’ll be gone “forever.” Profiles come back, which is why every service here rescans.
- A broker count you can’t check. If there’s no public list, ask for one before you pay.
How to choose: buying guide
How many brokers do you actually need covered?
Search your name first. If it turns up on people-search sites such as Whitepages, Spokeo or BeenVerified, check that those sites are on the list for the plan you’re buying, not just in the headline number. On entry plans the lists I counted ran from 91 domains (DeleteMe Standard) to 420 rows (Incogni Standard).
Do you need custom removals?
Custom requests cover sites that aren’t on a service’s list. DeleteMe Standard includes 40 a year. Optery includes them on Ultimate only, from day 30. Incogni includes them on Unlimited, and OneRep on its Pro plans. Aura didn’t say.
Will they ask for your SSN?
Not in what I saw. To send requests, these services ask for your name, birth date, current and past addresses, phone and email. If a removal-only service asks for your SSN, ask why first.
Monthly or yearly?
OneRep sells monthly plans from $14.95. Incogni’s month-to-month Standard was $15.98, twice its annual rate. DeleteMe sells only annual and two-year plans. If you’re not sure a service is for you, a monthly plan or a free scan is a cheaper test than a year upfront.
Can you do it yourself?
Yes, for free, one site at a time: our data broker opt-out guide walks through it, and how to remove your personal information from the internet covers Google results too. What a paid service adds is the time saved and the rescans; is data removal worth it weighs the two.
What we checked
- Optery: free account opened 10/08/2026 (Free Basic), first scan, Core checkout up to the card field, the delete-account dialog up to the confirm step, one chat question (a person replied in about 20 minutes)
- OneRep: free account opened 10/08/2026 with an email address only, free scan, all eight plans up to the payment step, a deletion request by email (reply in 16 minutes), one chat question (reply in about 2 minutes)
- DeleteMe: free scan and checkout up to payment on 10/08/2026 (no account without payment), its published list of 969 rows counted, one email question (reply in 6 minutes)
- Incogni: free scanner and the Standard checkout up to payment on 10/08/2026 with addresses in six states, its published list of 420 rows exported, one email question (no reply when this page was written)
- Aura: Individual trial enrollment up to the home address step on 10/08/2026, pricing page, terms, help center and two insurance summaries, one email question (no reply when this page was written)
- All five: no card entered and no removals run; cancel steps taken from each help center, not tested
FAQ
Do data removal services actually work?
They send opt-out requests to data brokers for you and rescan, because profiles come back. OneRep’s own help center says removal “is rarely permanent.” I didn’t enter a card at any of the five services, so this ranking doesn’t measure how many removals finished; it rests on published broker lists, checkouts and support.
How much does a data removal service cost?
On 10/08/2026 the cheapest one-person annual plans were Optery Core at $39, Incogni Standard at $95.88, OneRep Individual at $99.95, DeleteMe Standard at $129 and Aura Individual at $144 for the first year, which also includes identity theft protection. Plans with more sites or custom requests cost up to $249/year at Optery.
Is there a free data removal service?
Optery’s Free Basic plan is free with no card: it scans and gives you links to opt out yourself, but sends no removals for you. OneRep’s free account shows your matches only. DeleteMe and Incogni offer a free scan with no account. You can also opt out of each site yourself, which costs nothing but time.
Will a data removal service ask for my Social Security number?
None of the five asked for one in the steps I saw on 10/08/2026. To send requests they ask for things like your full name, date of birth, addresses, phone and email. An SSN request is common for credit monitoring, not for removal from people-search sites.
Can I cancel and get a refund?
Optery, Incogni and OneRep advertise a 30-day refund on the first purchase. DeleteMe refunds in full before your first privacy report and prorates after it. Aura gives 60 days on annual plans, by phone. I didn’t test cancellation at any of them; the paths come from their help centers.
Which data removal service covers the most data brokers?
By the lists they publish, counted on 10/08/2026: DeleteMe 957 unique domains, Optery 944 names, OneRep 873 and Incogni 417. Your plan matters more than the headline: DeleteMe marks 91 for Standard, Optery Core covers 152 (380 with Expanded Reach) and OneRep’s cheaper plans cover 314. Aura publishes no list.