Optery vs DeleteMe vs Incogni 2026: Which Data Removal Service Is Worth It?

We independently score every service with our Experience Index. We may earn a commission if you subscribe through links on this page — it never affects our scores or picks.

Optery is the best starting point for most people because of its genuinely free exposure-report tier and the lowest-cost paid plan ($3.99/mo); Incogni is the strongest value if you want full automated coverage with independent third-party verification (a published Deloitte assurance report); DeleteMe is the most expensive of the three and the only one with no monthly billing option at all.

All three do the same core job: file and refile opt-out requests at data broker sites on your behalf. Where they split is price, how many sites they claim to reach, and — the underrated one — how much proof you get that anything actually happened. Optery is the cheapest way in and the only one with a real free tier. Incogni is the only one that let an outside auditor check its numbers. DeleteMe costs the most and won't bill you monthly.

Best for: Anyone comparing the three most-discussed data removal services before committing to a paid subscription.

If you haven't already, start with our reality check on whether data removal services actually work — it covers what none of these three services can do (remove public government records) before you decide which one to pay for.

Key takeaways

Optery is the only one of the three with a genuinely free ongoing tier (an exposure report with screenshots, no payment required).
DeleteMe has no monthly billing option — its cheapest plan is $129/year for one person, verified on security.org and corroborated across multiple 2026 outlets.
Incogni is the only one of the three with a published third-party audit of its coverage claims (a Deloitte Independent Limited Assurance Report, August 2025).
All three offer some form of money-back guarantee on paid plans, but only Optery and Incogni offer a flat 30-day window across every paid tier — DeleteMe's is event-gated: full refund only before your first Privacy Report, pro-rated after.
Family/multi-person plans are available on all three, but the math differs a lot — Incogni's is the cheapest way to cover multiple people.

Pricing, side by side

Service	Cheapest paid plan	Top individual tier	Free tier?
Optery	$3.99/mo or $39/yr (Core)	$24.99/mo or $249/yr (Ultimate)	Yes — Basic, free indefinitely
DeleteMe	$129/yr (Individual, no monthly option)	~$180/yr (Premium, 1 person)	No
Incogni	$15.98/mo, or $7.99/mo billed annually ($95.88/yr) (Standard)	$14.99/mo billed annually ($179.88/yr) (Unlimited)	No

Optery vs DeleteMe vs Incogni — individual-plan pricing, verified July 2026.

Optery Core$39/yr

Incogni Standard$95.88/yr

Optery Extended$149/yr

Incogni Unlimited$179.88/yr

DeleteMe Individual$129/yr

Optery Ultimate$249/yr

Annual cost by plan, verified July 2026. Plans aren't feature-equivalent — see coverage below.

Multi-person plans

Service	Plan	Cost	People covered
DeleteMe	Couple	$229/yr	2
DeleteMe	Family	$329/yr	4
Incogni	Family	$31.98/mo, or $15.99/mo billed annually ($191.88/yr)	Up to 5
Incogni	Family Unlimited	$45.98/mo, or $22.99/mo billed annually ($275.88/yr)	Up to 5
Optery	—	Multi-person via account add-ons; no distinct published family tier found	—

Family/multi-person pricing, verified July 2026.

Do the division and the gap is stark. Incogni Family works out to about $38.38 per person per year ($191.88 ÷ 5). DeleteMe's Family plan is $82.25 per person ($329 ÷ 4) — more than double, for coverage that isn't apples-to-apples in either direction.

Broker coverage claims

Service	Coverage claim
Optery Core	380+ sites
Optery Extended	555+ sites
Optery Ultimate	635+ automated, 950+ total with unlimited custom requests
DeleteMe	950+ data brokering sites (per Security.org's review)
Incogni (all paid tiers)	420+ automated data brokers
Incogni Unlimited	420+ automated, plus 2,000+ additional sites via unlimited custom requests

Claimed broker/site coverage by tier, verified July 2026.

How each one proves a removal happened

Price you can compare in a table. Proof is harder, and it's where these three actually diverge.

Pros

Optery: free exposure report includes screenshots at signup; Extended and Ultimate tiers add removal reports with screenshots roughly every 90 days.
Incogni: the only one of the three with a published third-party audit — a Deloitte Independent Limited Assurance Report (August 2025) validating its coverage and removal-cycle claims.
DeleteMe: assigns a named human "privacy expert" to each account and issues quarterly progress reports.

Cons

Optery: no independent third-party audit of its coverage claims published as of July 2026, unlike Incogni's Deloitte report.
Incogni: reporting is more automated and less human-reviewed than DeleteMe's named-expert model.
DeleteMe: Consumer Reports' 2024 testing found DeleteMe removing only 27% of tracked listings within four months — 5th of the 7 services tested, well below the study's leaders — so treat a "clean" dashboard status as a filed request, not confirmed removal, and spot-check your own listings.

Money-back guarantees

All three have a refund window, but only two of them are a flat 30 days:

Optery: 30-day money-back guarantee across its paid tiers, verified on optery.com, July 2026.
Incogni: 30-day money-back guarantee across its plans, verified on incogni.com, July 2026.
DeleteMe: not a flat 30-day window — a full refund if you cancel before your first Privacy Report is delivered, and a pro-rated refund for the time remaining in your subscription if you cancel after (DeleteMe Help & Support, "What is your refund policy for DeleteMe subscriptions?", joindeleteme.com). Check current terms directly on joindeleteme.com before subscribing.

Which should you pick?

Get Optery's free exposure report

Choose Optery if you want to start free and see your actual exposure before paying anything, or you want the lowest-cost paid entry point ($3.99/mo).

Choose Incogni if independent third-party verification of coverage claims matters to you, or you're covering a family of up to 5 and want the lowest per-person cost of the three.

Choose DeleteMe if you specifically want a named human contact managing your account and don't mind paying the highest annual price of the three with no monthly-billing flexibility.

For the rest of a privacy stack beyond data removal — VPN, password manager, encrypted cloud, and email — see the best privacy subscriptions in 2026.

Frequently asked questions

Which is cheaper: Optery, DeleteMe, or Incogni?

Optery is the cheapest way in — its Core plan is $3.99/month ($39/year), and it also has a genuinely free tier with no automated removals. Incogni's cheapest ongoing plan is its Standard tier at $7.99/month billed annually ($95.88/year). DeleteMe is the priciest entry point at $129/year for one person, with no monthly option at all. For the deepest coverage tier of each, Optery Ultimate runs $249/year, Incogni Unlimited runs $179.88/year, and DeleteMe's Premium single-person plan runs about $180/year.

Which service covers the most data brokers?

By total sites, Optery Ultimate claims coverage of 950+ sites (635+ with Expanded Reach, plus unlimited custom requests for the rest), matching DeleteMe's claimed 950+ broker coverage. Incogni's automated coverage is 420+ data brokers, extending to 2,000+ additional sites via custom removal requests on its Unlimited tier. Raw broker counts aren't directly comparable across providers since each defines "covered" differently — some counts include sites reachable only via manual custom request, not automated removal.

Does DeleteMe, Optery, or Incogni have a free trial or free tier?

Optery is the only one of the three with a genuinely free ongoing tier — its free Basic plan generates a personalized exposure report with screenshots and self-serve opt-out links, indefinitely, at no cost. Incogni and DeleteMe do not offer free tiers. Incogni backs paid plans with a flat 30-day money-back guarantee; DeleteMe's refund policy is event-gated instead — a full refund before your first Privacy Report, pro-rated afterward — which still functions as a way to test the service without full commitment.

Which has the best independent verification?

Incogni is the only one of the three that has published third-party independent assurance: a Deloitte Independent Limited Assurance Report (August 2025) validating its 420+ broker coverage claim and a bifurcated recurring removal cycle of no more than 60 days for public brokers and up to 90 days for private-database brokers. Optery provides its own before/after screenshots as evidence within its reports, particularly on the Extended and Ultimate tiers. DeleteMe provides quarterly reports from a named privacy expert, though Consumer Reports' 2024 testing found it completing only 27% of tracked removals within four months — 5th of the 7 services tested, well below the study's leaders — worth weighing against the reporting cadence.

Bottom line

Pull Optery's free exposure report before you spend a cent. It costs nothing and it tells you whether automation is worth buying at all — for some people the answer is genuinely no.

If you do decide to pay, Incogni is the strongest all-around choice: audited coverage claims and the cheapest per-person family math of the three. DeleteMe makes sense if you specifically want a named human on your account and don't mind paying the most for it. Either way, spot-check a few of your own broker listings by hand instead of trusting the dashboard, and plan on paying indefinitely. This is maintenance, not a fix.