Best Data Removal Services in 2026: An Honest Comparison

The best data removal services for most people are the ones that cover the people-search sites you actually appear on, re-check them on a schedule, and show you what was removed. As of September 2026, Optery and EasyOptOuts are the cheapest paid starting points, Incogni and DeleteMe are mid-priced options, Privacy Bee and Kanary offer broader coverage on their higher plans, and Aura bundles data removal into a wider identity protection plan. Before paying for any of them, try the free routes: DIY opt-outs, California’s DROP platform if you live there, and Google’s own removal tools.

This page compares the major services side by side, gives each a short and fair entry, and links to our full reviews, head-to-head comparisons and pricing guides. There are no star ratings or scores here, for anyone, including us.

How we compared data removal services

This comparison is research-based. We didn’t sign up for these services or test them on real accounts, and we don’t claim to have measured removal rates. Every fact about a service comes from that company’s own public pages (pricing pages, plan descriptions, site lists and terms), checked in September 2026.

We looked at the same things for each service:

• Price and billing. The lowest plan shown, whether monthly billing exists, and what renews.
• Coverage. How many sites the company says it removes you from automatically, and how it describes the rest.
• Custom removals. Whether you can send the service a URL it doesn’t cover.
• Households. Whether family or multi-person plans exist.
• Refunds and trials. What the company says happens if you cancel early.

Treat coverage numbers with care. Each company counts sites differently: some count only sites they remove from automatically, some include sites handled on request, and some count data brokers that never publish profiles at all. A bigger number doesn’t automatically mean more of your listings come down. Prices and plans change often, so check each company’s pricing page for current terms.

Summary table: the major data removal services

All details as of September 2026, from each company’s own website. “Not stated” means we couldn’t confirm it on the company’s pages.

Service	Lowest paid plan shown	Automated coverage claimed	Custom removals	Multi-person plans	Refund or trial
Incogni	$95.88 per year (Standard), or $15.98 monthly	420+ data brokers	On Unlimited plans (3,000+ additional sites)	Family plans, up to 5 members	30-day money-back
DeleteMe	$129 per year (1 person)	Not stated for the Standard plan; its list is headed 969 brokers, but its key marks most entries as custom-request, international or higher-tier	Included on the Standard plan	2-person and 4-person plans	Full refund before first report, prorated after
Optery	$39 per year (Core), or $3.99 monthly; free Basic tier	380+ sites (Core) to 635+ (Ultimate)	Unlimited, on Ultimate	Family discount of up to 30% off	30-day money-back (consumer accounts)
Aura	$12 a month billed annually (Individual), or $15 monthly	425+ data brokers, people-search sites and junk mailers	Not stated	Couple and Family plans	14-day free trial; 60-day refund on annual plans bought from Aura directly
Kanary	$250 per year per account (Core)	Search engines and data brokers; site count not stated on pricing page	Unlimited, on Advanced	Family members at 50% off	30-day money-back on the first month (per its FAQ)
Privacy Bee	About $8 a month billed annually (Essentials)	517 people-search sites (Essentials); 1,133 data brokers (Pro)	Pro (not stated for Signature)	Multi-person discount	30-day money-back on Essentials and Pro
EasyOptOuts	$19.99 per year	200+ sites	Not stated	No family plan	150-day money-back

Check each company’s pricing page for current plans before you buy, since promotions and prices change often.

Short, fair entries for each service

Incogni

What it is: an automated data removal subscription that sends opt-out requests to 420+ data brokers, started by the Surfshark team in 2021.

Pricing as of September 2026: Standard is $7.99 a month billed annually ($95.88 a year) or $15.98 billed monthly. Unlimited is $179.88 a year (annual only), Family is $191.88 a year or $31.98 billed monthly, and Family Unlimited is $275.88 a year. Every plan carries a 30-day money-back offer.

Strengths: a clear, largely hands-off process, monthly progress reports, 24/7 chat on every plan, monthly and annual billing, family plans covering up to five people, and requests in 35 countries by Incogni’s own account. Unlimited plans add custom removal requests across what Incogni describes as 3,000+ additional sites.

Limits: custom removals and live phone support are only on the Unlimited tiers, and much of the process is automated rather than handled by a named person. Read our full Incogni review, the plan-by-plan Incogni pricing breakdown, or Incogni alternatives if it isn’t the right fit.

DeleteMe

What it is: one of the longest-running removal services (the company says it has operated since 2011), with a personal DeleteMe expert on its Standard plan.

Pricing as of September 2026: $129 a year for one person, $229 for two and $329 for four, with cheaper two-year terms. A Premium plan is listed at $180 a year, adding 15 more brokers and more reporting, though DeleteMe’s own two comparison tables disagree on its scan frequency and custom-request count, so confirm with DeleteMe. There’s no monthly plan, and US plans are for US residents.

Strengths: phone, chat and email support, custom removal requests and email and phone masking on the Standard plan, quarterly privacy reports, a published refund policy (full refund before your first report, prorated after), and household plans that bring the per-person cost down sharply.

Limits: no monthly billing (you pay upfront for one or two years), and its key marks most entries on the 969-broker list as custom-request, international or higher-tier, so that isn’t the Standard-plan count. See our DeleteMe review, the full DeleteMe pricing guide and DeleteMe alternatives.

Optery

What it is: a removal service with a free tier that shows where you’re exposed, plus paid tiers that automate removals.

Pricing as of September 2026: Free Basic costs nothing. Core is $39 a year or $3.99 monthly (380+ sites), Extended is $149 a year or $14.99 monthly (560+ sites) and Ultimate is $249 a year or $24.99 monthly (635+ sites, plus unlimited custom removals for 950+ sites). Consumer accounts carry a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Strengths: the free exposure report lets you see the problem before paying, the entry price is low, and the higher tiers add screenshot reports about every 90 days and a human privacy agent. Optery says it is SOC 2 Type II.

Limits: Core is fully automated, with no human agent, and covers one name and one city and state. Optery notes its coverage figures depend on enabling a setting it calls Expanded Reach. Read the Optery review and our Optery vs DeleteMe comparison.

Aura

What it is: an identity theft protection bundle, not a standalone removal service. Data removal is one feature alongside credit monitoring, identity theft insurance, fraud remediation, antivirus, a VPN and a password manager.

Pricing as of September 2026: Individual is $12 a month billed annually or $15 monthly, Couple is $22 billed annually or $29 monthly, and Family (five adults, unlimited kids) is $32 billed annually or $50 monthly. Aura offers a 14-day free trial and a 60-day refund on annual plans bought on its site or through its support (not monthly plans or renewals).

Strengths: good value if you want identity and credit monitoring anyway, with data removal from 425+ data brokers, people-search sites, junk mailers and Google search results included.

Limits: if removal is all you want, you’re paying for features you may not use. See our Aura review and Aura vs DeleteMe.

Kanary

What it is: a removal and monitoring service founded in Chicago, with Core and Advanced tiers and team plans for organizations (five or more seats).

Pricing as of September 2026: Core is $250 a year per account and Advanced is $500 a year, with family members added at half price ($125 or $250 a year). We couldn’t confirm a monthly price.

Strengths: Advanced adds social media and AI/LLM sources, weekly or daily scans, unlimited custom removals and address confidentiality enrollment, which suits people facing targeted harassment. Kanary notes that some Advanced configurations may cost extra.

Limits: one of the pricier options for an individual, no free tier, and we couldn’t confirm an exact site count. Its FAQ offers a 30-day money-back guarantee on the first month. Read our Kanary review.

Privacy Bee

What it is: an Atlanta-based removal service with three tiers: Essentials, Pro and Signature.

Pricing as of September 2026: Essentials is about $8 a month, Pro about $16 a month and Signature about $67 a month, each approximate when billed annually. Essentials and Pro carry a 30-day money-back offer; Signature does not.

Strengths: some of the widest stated coverage (1,133 data brokers on Pro), unlimited custom sites on Pro, SOC 2 Type II, and a free scan with no card. Its FAQ is candid that public records can be hard or impossible to remove and that it doesn’t remove bad reviews or press.

Limits: Essentials covers people-search sites only, and the broader coverage costs twice as much. See our Privacy Bee review.

EasyOptOuts

What it is: a low-cost, fully automated service covering 200+ sites.

Pricing as of September 2026: $19.99 a year for one person, with a 150-day money-back offer. It runs three scans a year.

Strengths: by far the lowest paid price here, a long refund window, and a fully automated process.

Limits: no family plan, no human handling, and a narrower list (200+ sites) than the bigger services. It suits people whose problem is mostly the common people-search sites.

Weighing the two best-known names directly? Our Incogni vs DeleteMe comparison covers price, coverage and refunds cell by cell.

What no data removal service can do

Every service above works on data brokers and people-search sites. None of them can:

• Keep you off for good. Brokers buy fresh data and relist people, which is why these are subscriptions.
• Force every site to comply. Some sites ignore requests or need you to verify in person.
• Remove public records. Court filings, property records and voter files stay public at the source.
• Touch articles, reviews or social posts. Those go through each platform’s own rules or the law.

Our guides on whether data removal services are worth it and how data broker removal services work go deeper on these limits and how to vet a provider.

Free options to try first

Many people can get a large part of the result without paying anything. These are the free routes, in the order we’d usually try them.

Our free Reputation Scanner (launching soon)

Our free Reputation Scanner isn’t available yet, and it isn’t a broker opt-out service. It’s a self-search tool designed to find the harmful results about you, rank them by how serious they are and how likely they are to be about you, and draft removal requests from templates (copyright, intimate images, personal information or doxxing, corrections, and same-name clarification). You review, edit and send each request yourself. It will be free to use, with no account and no billing, and it’s being designed to keep your scan data on your own device. It suits people whose problem is a specific harmful result, rather than dozens of broker listings.

DIY opt-outs

Most people-search sites offer a free opt-out. The cost is time: finding yourself on each site, submitting the form, confirming by email or phone, and re-checking every few months. Our data broker opt-out list gives you a starting order, and our guide to removing yourself from people-search sites walks through the process. Use a separate email address and keep a simple tracking sheet.

State tools: California’s Delete Act and DROP

If you live in California, the Delete Act gives you a free shortcut. The state’s Delete Request and Opt-out Platform (DROP), run by the California Privacy Protection Agency, lets you send one deletion request that registered data brokers must pick up and process on a recurring basis. It only covers companies registered as data brokers, and only California residents can use it. Our California Delete Act guide explains how it works and what it leaves out. Residents of other states with comprehensive privacy laws can often send deletion requests to brokers directly under their own state’s law.

Google’s own tools

Google’s “Results about you” tool can alert you when your phone number, home address or email appears in Google results and lets you request removal of those results from Google. It doesn’t delete the source page, but it reduces who sees it.

How to choose a data removal service

1. Find out where you are first. Search your name with your city on the major people-search sites, or use a free exposure scan, and write down each site that shows you.
2. Compare site lists, not headline numbers. Check that each service you’re considering covers the sites on your own list automatically.
3. Decide how much hands-on help you want. Fully automated plans cost less. Plans with human agents or custom requests help when a site needs extra steps.
4. Count the people. If relatives’ profiles expose your address, a household plan may be better value than a single one.
5. Check billing and refunds. Know whether you’re paying monthly or upfront, what renews, and how long you have to cancel for a refund.
6. Read the privacy policy. You’re handing over the very data you want protected. Look for clear limits on how it’s stored, shared and deleted when you leave.

If your situation is	Consider first
A few listings and some spare time	DIY opt-outs, plus DROP if you’re in California
Many listings, tight budget	EasyOptOuts or Optery Core
Many listings, want hands-off removal and reports	Incogni or DeleteMe
A whole household to cover	Family or multi-person plans from Incogni, DeleteMe or Aura, or Optery’s family discount
Also want credit and identity monitoring	Aura
Targeted harassment or high public profile	Kanary Advanced (address confidentiality enrollment), or the custom removals on Privacy Bee Pro or Optery Ultimate
A specific harmful article, image or post	Not a broker service: our Reputation Scanner (launching soon) or a free audit

A worked example

This is an illustrative scenario, not a real client.

Theo, a high school coach in California, discovers his home address on several people-search sites after a dispute with a parent. He works through it in this order:

1. He submits a DROP request through the state’s platform, since he’s a California resident.
2. He searches the main people-search sites himself and writes down the six that show his address.
3. He compares the stated coverage of two low-cost services against those six and picks one that covers all of them.
4. Two months later he spot-checks the six sites. Five are clear, and he opts out of the last one himself.
5. He notices a local news story about the dispute ranks for his name. No broker service touches that, so he looks at a separate removal and reputation route for it.

When you need more than data removal

If the thing people see when they search your name is a news article, a mugshot, a review or a forum thread, a data removal subscription won’t change it. That needs a different mix: removal requests where a site’s policy or the law allows, Google’s removal tools, and accurate content that outranks the problem. Our content removal service covers those routes, and personal reputation management handles the broader cleanup of your name in search. We’ll tell you plainly what’s realistic.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best data removal service?

There isn’t one best service for everyone. As of September 2026, EasyOptOuts and Optery Core are the lowest-cost paid options, Incogni and DeleteMe are mid-priced hands-off choices, Privacy Bee and Kanary offer broader coverage on their higher plans, and Aura bundles removal with identity protection. The best one for you is the one that covers the sites you actually appear on.

Are there free data removal services?

Yes, in part. Optery has a free tier that shows your exposure and offers self-service removal tools, most people-search sites have free opt-outs, and California residents can use the state’s free DROP platform. Our own Reputation Scanner, launching soon, will be free to use for finding harmful results and drafting removal requests.

Do data removal services really work?

They do what they describe for the sites they cover: submit opt-outs to the sites they cover and re-check on a schedule. They can’t stop brokers relisting you, some sites ignore requests, and public records stay public. Spot-check your own list of sites every few months, even with a service running.

Is a data removal service worth it compared with doing it myself?

It depends on how many sites you’re on and whether you’ll keep up with re-checks. If you only appear on a handful of sites, DIY is often enough. If you’re on many, or your safety is at stake, a service can save a lot of repeat work.

Can a data removal service remove news articles or reviews?

No. Data removal services work on data brokers and people-search sites. Articles, reviews and social media posts go through each site’s policies or legal routes, which is a content removal job rather than a broker opt-out.