DeleteMe Review: What It Does, What It Costs and Whether It’s Worth It in 2026

I couldn’t open a test account on 10/08/2026: DeleteMe creates the account only after payment, and this site doesn’t buy paid plans. Everything below comes from DeleteMe’s free scan, its checkout up to the payment button, and its published pages, not from inside the account.

Summary

• What it is: a paid service that sends opt-out requests to people-search sites and data brokers on your behalf and sends you a privacy report every three months.
• Price: $129/year for one person on 10/08/2026, $209 for two years. No free plan, no trial, no monthly plan.
• Best thing I found: DeleteMe publishes its whole broker list with a legend that says which plan covers which site. Most services don’t.
• Worst thing I found: the renewal amount isn’t on the checkout. The terms say the plan renews “at either the current or full retail rate.”
• Coverage, read carefully: the headline says 969 data brokers. The legend marks 91 domains as included in the Standard plan.
• Not for you if you want to see your results before paying, or if you mostly need the PeopleConnect sites removed. DeleteMe says those sites don’t accept its requests.

How we rate DeleteMe

Each grade comes from what I could check without paying. Where a grade leans on someone else’s test, the row says so.

Criterion	Grade	What it’s based on (10/08/2026)
Results (30%)	Good	969 lines on the published list, 91 marked Standard. 10 of our 16 control people-search sites marked Standard. Removals not checked: no account
Price & value (20%)	Good	$129/year, no free plan or trial, 40 custom requests a year included
Checkout honesty (15%)	Fair	Total shown before payment with no tax line, renewal amount not shown, auto-renew by a required checkbox
Data handling (15%)	Good	No SSN asked, datasheet fields optional per the privacy policy, account deletion in the dashboard per the help center
Ease of use (10%)	Excellent	Free scan in three short steps, a one-page checkout, and a datasheet that takes about five minutes in a reviewer’s video. Dashboard not seen by us
Support (10%)	Excellent	Phone, chat and email. Our question: human reply by email in about 6 minutes, both parts answered

Account type: none (payment required). Run date: 10/08/2026. How each criterion works is on the methodology page, and the checkout rules are on the US Privacy Checkout Test page.

What’s good

• The broker list is public and dated. The Sites We Remove From page listed 969 lines on 10/08/2026, with a legend for each plan and a note that it was updated on 09/17/2026.
• The checkout total matched the price page. $129.00 on the plans page and $129.00 at checkout, with no fees added for a New York address.
• The refund rule is the same everywhere I looked. Checkout, terms and help center all say: full refund before your first privacy report, prorated refund after.
• It doesn’t ask for your Social Security number. The privacy policy asks members not to provide it.
• People, not only scripts. Custom removal requests are included: 40 a year on Standard and 60 on Premium, per the comparison table on 10/08/2026.
• Support has long hours. Phone and chat Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. ET, and email at any time.

What’s bad

• No way to try it. There’s no free plan and no trial, and the account opens only after payment.
• The renewal amount isn’t shown. The checkout terms say renewal happens “at either the current or full retail rate,” with no number.
• The coverage number depends on how you count. 969 on the list page, 97 in the help center’s Standard US list, “over 50” in another help article, and “85+” in the email I got after the scan.
• Some big sites need you. DeleteMe’s help center says Intelius, TruthFinder and Instant Checkmate don’t accept its requests, and Radaris needs you to verify by phone for part of the data.
• Coupons change the first year only. SCAN20 cut checkout to $103.20, and the plans page calls that price “for your first year.”

What DeleteMe is and how it works

DeleteMe is a subscription from Abine, Inc. The footer of every page says “DeleteMe is built and run by Abine, Inc.,” and the checkout lists a mailing address at 1 Marina Park Drive, Suite 1410, Boston, MA 02210. The terms of service are governed by Massachusetts law. DeleteMe calls itself “the #1 personal data removal service since 2011” on its pricing page. DeleteMe’s help center calls it “a US-based Delaware Corporation founded in 2009,” while its About page says the founders “created DeleteMe in 2010.” The dates don’t match, and neither is 2011.

According to DeleteMe’s help center and terms, the service works in four steps:

1. You pay and fill in a datasheet. Name, date of birth, current and past addresses, phone and email. You can add up to six names, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses.
2. DeleteMe’s staff send opt-out requests to data brokers for you. The terms give Abine a limited power of attorney to do this, including signing opt-out forms and creating accounts at brokers in your name.
3. You get a first privacy report about seven business days after sign-up, then one every three months, four a year on Standard.
4. Custom requests fill the gaps. If you find a listing between reports, you paste the link in the dashboard and DeleteMe’s team handles it.

DeleteMe says it’s not a data broker and doesn’t sell members’ data. Its privacy policy adds that the datasheet is stored only in the United States.

Results in the US Privacy Checkout Test

DeleteMe’s row in our checkout test, run on 10/08/2026 with the 1-person, 1-year plan and a New York address:

Axis	What I saw
Renewal price before payment	Not shown. The terms on the checkout page say “current or full retail rate”
Tax and total	Total $129.00, no tax line, before the card step (ZIP 10118)
Auto-renewal disclosure	Required checkbox: “I agree to be charged now and upon each renewal until I cancel”
Card for trial	No trial. A card is required to start
Cancel path	I couldn’t test it without an account
Refund window as printed	Full refund before the first report, prorated after. Checkout and terms match
Data deletion	I couldn’t test it without an account. The help center describes a dashboard button
Support answer	human reply by email in about 6 minutes, both parts answered

Grades for each axis are on the test page, next to the other services.

Where DeleteMe stands in the Data Removal Coverage Index

DeleteMe says it removes information from 969 data brokers, and its list page showed 969 lines on 10/08/2026. By my count those lines hold 957 unique domains. The legend under the list splits them by plan:

Mark on the list	Meaning per DeleteMe’s legend	Unique domains (my count, 10/08/2026)
*	Included in Standard Plan and above	91
^	Custom Requests	562
◦	Exclusively in VIP Plan	145
~	International Plans	161
** and more	Business and higher plans	26

Of the 16 people-search sites we use as a control list, 10 carry the Standard mark: Whitepages, Spokeo, BeenVerified, FastPeopleSearch, TruePeopleSearch, MyLife, PeopleFinders, PeopleLooker, That’s Them and ClustrMaps. Four more appear under other marks, and Radaris and Acxiom aren’t on the list. The full count is on the Coverage Index page.

Pricing summary

DeleteMe sells yearly and two-year plans only. On 10/08/2026 the 1-person plan cost $129.00 a year, which the site shows as $10.75/mo, and two years cost $209.00. The checkout showed $129.00 with no sales tax line for a New York address. It didn’t show what the second year will cost: the terms on the same page say the plan renews “at either the current or full retail rate.” Auto-renew is part of the purchase, through a required checkbox. Refunds are full before your first privacy report and prorated after. Every plan and the coupon math are on the DeleteMe pricing page.

No free plan

DeleteMe has no free plan and no free trial. Its help center says, “Yep, you’ll need a credit card to get started with DeleteMe.” The free part is a scan: you enter an email, your first and last name, a city and state, and your age. It ran in about 30 seconds on 10/08/2026. It creates no account and removes nothing, and DeleteMe itself says the scan “checks a limited number of sites at one point in time.” Right after it, I got an email offering 20% off with code JOINNOW, and the results page offered SCAN20.

What the scan shows and which codes worked is on the DeleteMe free scan page.

Interface and ease of use

The parts I could reach were short. The free scan has three steps and a progress bar, and the checkout fits on one page: customer details, card, two checkboxes, and an order summary with two upsells, “Save $49, switch to 2 year plan” and “Save $29, add a family member.”

I didn’t see the member dashboard. In a walkthrough by the YouTube channel Cyber Sleuth (08/24/2026, an affiliate who paid with a partner code), the dashboard menu reads Dashboard, Protection, Custom Requests, Privacy Tools, Referrals and Settings (02:02). The datasheet there takes about five minutes: name, birth date, email, phone and address, with employer, relatives and a signed authorization marked optional (02:15). In the same video, the masked email, phone and card tools showed a notice that they were paused for “a platform update” (03:58).

DeleteMe’s help center describes the dashboard sections: Custom Request, Privacy Tools (masked email and masked phone), and Account with Billing & Subscriptions. DeleteMe had no data removal app in the U.S. App Store on 10/08/2026. The app Abine publishes there is Permission Slip by DeleteMe, a separate product, rated 4.7 from 5,707 ratings that day. How a custom request works, per the help center, is in the custom requests section below.

Coverage: which data brokers it removes you from

DeleteMe’s list mixes several plans, so the plan you buy matters more than the 969 headline. The legend says one star means “Included in Standard Plan and above.” 91 unique domains carry that mark, and they’re mostly U.S. people-search sites: Whitepages, Spokeo, BeenVerified, FastPeopleSearch, TruePeopleSearch, MyLife, PeopleFinders and That’s Them among them.

The help center has its own list, “Sites we remove from on the Standard US plan,” updated 10/05/2026. I counted 97 domains there. Seven of them have no star on the main list, and one starred domain is missing from the help center. Another help article, updated 10/04/2026, says Standard removes you “from over 50 top data broker sites.” I’m showing all three numbers because they don’t agree.

Two limits come from DeleteMe itself. The help center says PeopleConnect, the parent of Intelius, TruthFinder and Instant Checkmate, “currently does not honor opt-out requests submitted on your behalf by DeleteMe,” so you opt out of those yourself. And for Radaris, DeleteMe can usually remove the main profile, but “public mentions” need you to verify your own phone number.

The scan report: what it found about me

The free scan found nothing for my test identity. On 10/08/2026 the result page said “Clean Slate Detected” and “We Didn’t Find Anything (Yet).” That was expected: the test name isn’t tied to a U.S. address.

To see what a result looks like with matches, I ran a second scan for a very common name in New York, age 45. It reported 30 sites scanned, 8 sites with info found and 21 pieces of exposed personal data, with cards for PeopleFinders, That’s Them, Ownerly, Cyber Background Checks, Advanced Background Checks, USA People Search, VoterRecords and AnyWho. DeleteMe blurs the names and addresses on that page itself. The scan shows matches but not links to them, and the paid privacy report is a different document I didn’t see.

Removal timeline: what DeleteMe promises and what it shows

DeleteMe promises a first privacy report, not finished removals, within about a week. One help article says “about seven business days after you sign up,” and another says “within seven days of signup.” Both say the report is “a status update, not proof everything’s gone yet.” After that, DeleteMe checks brokers every three months on Standard and every two months on Premium, and the help center says listings “can come back.” The pricing page adds “Avg of 15 Public Google-able Listings removed within days,” and the scan page says DeleteMe removes data from 22 broker sites on average within 10 days of sign-up. I couldn’t check any of these numbers without a paid account.

Other reviewers posted their own reports. Security.org’s video (08/22/2025, affiliate, says it received complimentary products) shows a report dated 07/16/2025 with 1,702 listings reviewed, 19 removed and 18 brokers holding the reviewer’s data (03:23). All Things Secured (11/22/2022, affiliate) shows a one-year report with 5,379 listings reviewed and 22 removed (02:33). These are their numbers, not mine, and the interface may have changed since.

Custom removal requests

Custom requests are DeleteMe’s answer to sites outside its automated list. The comparison table on 10/08/2026 listed 40 custom requests a year on Standard and 60 on Premium. 562 domains on the main list carry the caret mark that means custom requests. According to the help center, you open the Custom Request tab, click New Request, paste the link to your listing and submit, and the team reports progress in the dashboard. I couldn’t send one without an account.

What it’s like to be a U.S. customer: price, cancellation, data, support

What you’ll actually pay at checkout

On 10/08/2026 the checkout for 1 person, 1 year showed $129.00 and a total of $129.00 with a New York address, ZIP 10118. No sales tax line appeared before the card step. The renewal amount wasn’t shown anywhere on the page: the terms below the form say the plan renews “at either the current or full retail rate.” With code SCAN20, the total dropped to $103.20, and the plans page calls that price “for your first year.” The payment block offered a card form and Link, with no PayPal button.

What’s in the plan (and what isn’t)

• 1 person, 1 year, renewing automatically
• Four scans and four privacy reports a year
• 40 custom removal requests a year
• Up to six names, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses on the datasheet
• Masked email and masked phone in the dashboard. Each masked phone number costs $7, per the help center
• Not included: the Premium extras (15 more broker sites, 60 custom requests, reports every two months), VIP-only sites, international coverage

How to cancel and get a refund

I didn’t reach the cancellation screen because DeleteMe opens an account only after payment. According to its help center, updated 09/24/2026, you log in, click Account, then Billing & Subscriptions, and switch Renewal from On to Off. That stops the next charge but doesn’t end the current term. To end the service now, you contact support by email (support@joindeleteme.com) or phone (833-335-3836). Refunds are full if you cancel before your first privacy report and prorated after it, and the checkout, terms and help center say the same thing.

What personal data they ask for — and how to delete it

DeleteMe asks for your full name, date of birth, current and past addresses, phone number and email, per its help center. It doesn’t ask for your Social Security number, and its privacy policy asks members not to provide one. The privacy policy, effective 05/22/2025, calls every datasheet field optional, but says more data lets DeleteMe find more listings. It also says DeleteMe has to send your datasheet data to brokers to opt you out and can’t control what brokers do with it.

To delete your account, the help center says to open Account, then Billing and Subscriptions, and click “Delete my account.” A confirmation screen warns that this is “non-reversible.” California residents can file a CCPA deletion request through a form, which DeleteMe says it “usually” handles within one business day. I couldn’t test either path without an account.

Who can sign up (U.S. only, state limits, age)

The plans I checked are U.S. plans, priced in dollars, and the Premium card says “U.S. residents only.” DeleteMe also sells separate international plans. I couldn’t find any state limits or a minimum age on DeleteMe’s site or in its terms on 10/08/2026.

Support: channels and hours (ET)

DeleteMe lists phone (833-335-3836) and live chat Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. ET, plus email at any time and a web form. I emailed our standard question to support@joindeleteme.com on 10/08/2026 at 12:40 p.m. ET: whether a cancellation in the first week gets a full refund, and whether my data is deleted after canceling. A support agent answered at 12:46 p.m. ET, about 6 minutes later. The refund answer matched the terms: full refund before the first privacy report is complete, prorated after. On data, the reply said, “if you request cancellation and want to close your entire account, we will remove your account permanently.” So deleting your account is a separate request you make when you cancel. The reply didn’t give a time frame for the deletion.

What we saw inside the account

I couldn’t open a test account on 10/08/2026: DeleteMe creates the account only after payment. Everything about the dashboard on this page comes from DeleteMe’s help center and from reviewers’ videos credited above, not from inside the account.

Is DeleteMe safe and legit?

DeleteMe is a real company product with public terms. Abine, Inc. does business as DeleteMe, its help center describes it as a Delaware corporation, and its legal address is in Boston. It publishes its broker list with a date, which lets you check what you’re paying for. The privacy policy says DeleteMe doesn’t sell members’ data and isn’t a data broker. On its security page, DeleteMe says it has kept “AICPA SOC 2 Type 2” compliance since 2021 and encrypts personal data “using 256-bit AES and TLS 1.2.” It doesn’t name the auditor or publish the report, so these are the company’s claims, not something I could check.

The privacy policy also says that, as of 05/22/2025, Abine had never received a National Security Letter or FISA order.

I found no FTC actions against Abine or DeleteMe in a search on 10/08/2026, and the CFPB complaint database had 0 complaints under Abine or DeleteMe that day. On CourtListener I found one federal case naming Abine, Inc.: Espinal v. Abine, Inc. (S.D.N.Y., 1:24-cv-08275), filed 10/30/2024 as a disability-access claim and closed 07/11/2025. DeleteMe isn’t on the California or Texas data broker registries, which matches its statement that it’s not a data broker.

The one thing to understand before paying is the authorization. The terms give Abine a limited power of attorney to send opt-outs, sign forms and create accounts at brokers in your name until you cancel. That’s how the service works, and it’s also why DeleteMe needs your real details.

On Trustpilot, DeleteMe had 262 reviews and 3.7/5 on 10/08/2026, and 14% of them were one star. The page said DeleteMe “hasn’t invited customers recently.” BBB rated Abine, Inc. A+ as an accredited business with 7 complaints closed in the last three years (10/08/2026).

What other users say

On Trustpilot, DeleteMe had 262 reviews on 10/08/2026. I didn't verify each case.

aside from voter records nothing is out there anymore.

Deleteme wont help on this stuff. You need to check your state

Three complaint themes passed our threshold of three independent mentions on at least two platforms between 10/2024 and 10/2026. I didn’t verify each case.

• Sites outside the list are left to you: 7 mentions (Trustpilot 6, Reddit 1). One reviewer wrote that DeleteMe “said those sites are not in our database” and told them to do it themselves (Trustpilot, 02/19/2025).
• Mixing it up with deleteme.com: 4 mentions (Trustpilot 3, Reddit 1). deleteme.com is a separate company with its own Trustpilot page and an address in Cyprus. DeleteMe by Abine is at joindeleteme.com.
• Doubts about paid endorsements: 5 mentions (Trustpilot 2, Hacker News 1, Reddit 1, Privacy Guides forum 1), from people who first heard of DeleteMe in sponsored videos and podcasts.

Praise passed the same threshold: 19 mentions say listings were actually removed and 15 say setup was easy, almost all on Trustpilot. Trustpilot’s page data tags 162 of the 200 latest reviews with the source “BasicLink” rather than “Organic.” That label usually means a link the company shares, but I couldn’t confirm it. Complaints that spam calls didn’t drop (13) appeared only on Trustpilot, so they stay below our threshold.

One outside test is worth knowing. Consumer Reports and Tall Poppy tested seven removal services with 32 volunteers from May to September 2023. DeleteMe had removed 13% of the volunteers’ profiles after a week and 27% after four months, which CR called a “midlevel” result. Manual opt-outs reached 70% in the same study (Consumer Reports, “Data Defense,” published 08/08/2024). The test is three years old, and DeleteMe may have changed since.

Who it’s for (and who it’s not for)

DeleteMe fits you if:

• You live in the U.S. and keep finding your address on sites like Whitepages, Spokeo or FastPeopleSearch.
• You want people to handle the opt-outs and the follow-up, and you’re fine paying for a full year upfront.
• You want a family plan: four people cost $329 a year on 10/08/2026.
• You’ll use custom requests for sites outside the automated list.

Look elsewhere if:

• You want to try a service before paying. DeleteMe has no free plan or trial.
• You want to know the renewal price before you buy.
• Your main problem is Intelius, TruthFinder or Instant Checkmate. DeleteMe says you have to opt out of those yourself.
• You want a service that shows every match with a link before you pay.
• You live in California and want to start free. The state’s DROP tool sends one deletion request to registered data brokers at no cost. California’s privacy agency says it launched in January 2026 and brokers began processing requests in August 2026 (privacy.ca.gov, 10/08/2026). This is not legal advice.

What I’d change

• Print the renewal amount on the checkout next to the first-year price.
• Use one coverage number across the site, help center and emails.
• Offer a monthly plan or a short trial, so people can see the first report before committing to a year.
• Show links to the matches in the free scan result, not only blurred cards.

Alternatives to DeleteMe (on this site)

• Incogni also has no free plan. Its checkout on 10/08/2026 showed $95.88 for a year and printed the renewal amount before payment, according to our checkout test.
• Optery lists a free Basic plan with ongoing monitoring on its pricing page (10/08/2026), so you can see results before paying.
• Aura lists data broker removal as one feature of its identity theft protection plans (aura.com, 10/08/2026), if you want both in one bill.

Head-to-head pages: DeleteMe vs Incogni, DeleteMe vs Optery, DeleteMe vs Aura and Cloaked vs DeleteMe. All five options side by side are on the DeleteMe alternatives page, and the full ranking is on best data removal services.

Verdict: is DeleteMe worth it in 2026?

Yes, for most people in the U.S. who want someone else to handle people-search opt-outs. DeleteMe is a legitimate company with a public, dated broker list, refund rules that match everywhere I looked, and support that answered my question in minutes. Its Standard plan covers the big U.S. people-search sites, including Whitepages, Spokeo, BeenVerified and FastPeopleSearch, and adds 40 custom requests a year for the rest.

Go in knowing three things. You pay $129 a year before seeing any result, the checkout doesn’t show the renewal price, and the plan you buy covers 91 of the 969 domains on the list. The only independent removal test I found, from 2023, put DeleteMe in the middle of the pack. If you want to see results before paying, a service with a free plan is a better start, and California residents can begin with the free DROP tool.

See DeleteMe plans

What we checked

• Test account: couldn’t open, because DeleteMe creates the account only at payment. Free scan run twice on 10/08/2026 (a test name and a common name)
• Checkout: went to the payment step on 10/08/2026 with a New York address. Saw $129.00 for the first year, renewal amount not shown, no sales tax line, auto-renew agreed by a required checkbox
• Cancellation and account deletion: not reached without an account. Paths taken from DeleteMe’s help center, articles updated 09/24/2026 and 10/07/2026
• Vendor pages: pricing, Premium plan, terms of service (effective 10/26/2023), privacy policy (effective 05/22/2025), 122 help center articles, the Sites We Remove From list — captured 10/08/2026
• Support: one question sent by email on 10/08/2026 at 12:40 p.m. ET — human reply at 12:46 p.m. ET, about 6 minutes later
• User reports: 262 Trustpilot reviews (3.7/5), 7 BBB complaints in the last 3 years, 11 Reddit threads from the last 24 months, 0 App Store or Google Play reviews (DeleteMe has no data removal app). Consumer Reports’ 2023 test read as a separate dated source — read 10/08/2026, complaint themes counted at 3+ independent mentions
• Public records: FTC cases (via a site-limited search), the CFPB complaint database and CourtListener searched 10/08/2026 — no FTC actions, 0 CFPB complaints, 1 closed federal court case (a website accessibility claim)
• Where the run stopped: payment step. DeleteMe creates an account only after you pay, and this run doesn’t buy paid plans. The dashboard, privacy reports, cancellation and account deletion are described from DeleteMe’s help center, not from inside an account.

FAQ

More on DeleteMe

• Is there a real free plan? →
• DeleteMe pricing and renewal →
• Cloaked vs DeleteMe →
• DeleteMe vs Aura →
• DeleteMe vs Incogni →
• DeleteMe vs Optery →
• DeleteMe alternatives →