Incogni vs. DeleteMe comparison [2025 review & explanation]

Summary: Incogni vs. DeleteMe

Incogni vs DeleteMe: key differences and similarities

Incogni and DeleteMe are data removal services that promise to remove your personal information from data brokers (aka information brokers) that collect, organize, share, and sell it.  

While both services help reduce your digital footprint and protect your online privacy, there are a couple of major differences between them. Here’s a brief overview (keep reading for more details): 

1. Incogni covers around 200 data broker sites. DeleteMe removes information from around 750 data brokers overall, but its standard plan covers around 100 sites plus 40 custom removal requests per year. Incogni sends weekly progress reports, while DeleteMe’s reports are sent quarterly
2. DeleteMe appears to find some of your profiles before requesting data deletion. Incogni’s technology doesn’t seem to allow them to find your profiles on most data broker sites. Instead, they simply send opt-out requests to all the websites on their list (and send your personal details to data brokers in the process)
3. Incogni does not use links or screenshots to prove profiles were found and removed. DeleteMe does provide links (for some sites)
4. Incogni’s service is fully automated, while DeleteMe employs a mix of automated and manual data removal processes
5. Incogni offers annual and monthly billing. DeleteMe offers annual and biannual billing. Both services have family plans: Incogni for up to 5 people, DeleteMe for 4 
6. Incogni offers a 30-day money-back guarantee. DeleteMe offers a full refund if requested before receiving your first privacy report (about seven days) and a pro-rated refund after that. 
7. While neither service has a free trial, DeleteMe offers a free scan

But how do these differences affect you as a customer? When it comes to personal data removal tools, we believe the most important considerations are quality of removal, number of sites covered, and transparency. Here’s what our research revealed about both services.

Data broker coverage: who removes from more sites?

DeleteMe says it removes personal information from more than 750 data broker sites. However, a deeper dive reveals that actually around 100 are included in their standard plan (the plan most people will sign up for).

You need to subscribe to a premium plan (which covers around 22 additional sites) or submit custom requests to get your personal data removed from the remaining 650 sites. A custom request is when you find your profile yourself, send the link to DeleteMe, and their team sends an opt-out request on your behalf. Standard plans provide 40 custom removal requests per year.

Incogni, on the other hand, covers around 200 sites, and that applies to every user regardless of plan. You’d need to stay with DeleteMe for more than two years to get the same level of coverage in terms of the number of sites (100 sites on the standard plan + 40 custom requests during your first year + 40 custom requests next year + 20-40 requests during your third year). 

While Incogni will remove data from more sites during the first year for most users, DeleteMe’s custom requests provide better flexibility and control over what sites you opt out of.

However, the number of websites covered is a tricky metric: more doesn’t mean better. Here, it’s important to understand what sites exactly your information will be removed from.

Types of data brokers covered

The number of data brokers covered isn’t the only thing to pay attention to when comparing data removal services. You also need to consider the types of data brokers each data removal service covers.

Our research reveals that DeleteMe’s standard plan mostly covers people-search sites. We believe that these are the most problematic type of data brokers because they publish your personal information online and make it easily available to anyone willing to look you up. Your profiles can include data points like your cell phone number, home address, and location history that ill-wishers could use for identity theft, hate crimes, or to locate and stalk you. People-search sites often rank well in search engines and are a major reason why it’s so important to limit your online presence and reduce your digital footprint.

Incogni covers some people-search sites as well but primarily focuses on marketing data brokers (who use consumer info for targeted advertising) along with a few recruitment and risk mitigation companies. These data brokers sell consumer data to businesses like insurance and credit card companies, and in most cases, their databases aren’t publicly available. Moreover, Incogni misses several major people-search sites like Spokeo, Whitepages, and BeenVerified, leaving your personal information available on some of the most widely known platforms.

Automation vs. manual: which removal process is more comprehensive?

In our opinion, automation is potentially more comprehensive than manual removal. We believe that automatic processes can scan more sites and submit more removal requests in a fraction of the time of a human using a manual process. In addition, automated services can constantly monitor data brokers to ensure your personal info isn’t republished, but humans must undergo a time-consuming process to check each site manually.

That said, we recognize that there are times when manual intervention is required to remove your private data. For example, if a data broker fails to comply with a removal request, a human can contact them and let them know they are violating data privacy laws. Personalized services are also often required for complex cases. Bots are great at routine tasks, but they might be not as effective when they encounter unexpected responses.

It’s also crucial to understand what exactly the automation is used for in each service as the processes vary between companies. Incogni states it doesn’t actually know whether your information is on a given website – instead, they claim to use an algorithm to send data removal requests to data brokers they think are likely to have your personal information (though the emails we received suggest they do scan some people-search sites). That means they mostly use automation to send requests, not to scan websites and find profiles. That also means they could share your personal information with data brokers that don’t already have your data, and it’s possible those sites could then use it to populate their databases.

DeleteMe states its experts look for your profiles, but it also appears to automatically scan some sites. Our best guess is that they combine automated and manual opt-out processes for most (if not all) of the sites on their standard plan, then perform manual removals for custom requests and any sites that do not comply with automated requests. We tried to verify this via their chat support but didn’t receive an insight into their processes.

Even though Incogni covers more sites than DeleteMe’s standard plan, we have to give the nod to DeleteMe because it focuses on people-search sites and appears to find your profiles before submitting official data removal requests.

That said, both data removal services share your phone number and email address with data brokers during the removal process, which might expose your information to brokers who don’t already have it.

User experience: evaluating setup and interface

Setup

We found the setup process to be a straightforward and user-friendly experience with both services. Once you select your plan, both Incogni and DeleteMe ask you to input contact details and other information that helps them remove your profiles from data brokers. They also ask you to sign forms authorizing them to act on your behalf during data removal. Note that these services are able to act as authorized agents only in states that currently have corresponding legislation: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah, and Virginia.

The primary setup differences are that:

1. DeleteMe allows you to add multiple aliases and previous addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses. Incogni lets you add multiple surnames, but not addresses, phone numbers, or email addresses. That could limit removals from data broker databases that have outdated information about you.
2. DeleteMe asks for more information than Incogni, including employment history, family member names, and an uploaded government ID. However, adding all of this data is optional. Though employment history and family member names could help DeleteMe discover more profiles, and some sites require you to verify your identity before they delete your profile, we don’t recommend sharing your government ID with data brokers.

Once you’ve finished filling out your profile (or Data Sheet, as DeleteMe calls it), the services will start working, and you’ll receive updates via email and your dashboard.

Data removal dashboard

Incogni’s dashboard has three pages: the main page, detailed view, and activity log. The main page displays an interactive timeline that shows the number of data removal requests:

• Sent
• In progress
• Completed

The main page also displays the number of suppression list entries, how much time the data removal service has saved you, and an activity log summary.

The detailed view lists all the data brokers Incogni has sent requests to, filterable by private and public databases, along with:

• Compliance score
• Severity score
• Current request status
• Additional information about each broker, such as associated risks

DeleteMe’s dashboard displays:

• Total number of data brokers checked
• Number of listings reviewed (these are the listings found for your name – not all of them are yours as they include people with the same name)
• Number of data brokers found with your information
• A chart listing what kind of data was exposed

DeleteMe’s dashboard does not list all the data broker websites their service found you on; instead, you need to download your most recent PDF report (issued after your first seven days, then every 90 days after that).

Incogni vs. DeleteMe: who has better features?

Progress reports

Incogni’s dashboard displays real-time status reports for each removal, and the company sends weekly email updates. However, they do not link to the pages containing your information, and they don’t list which details were exposed on each data broker site, so there’s no direct proof that your profile ever existed or was removed if it did.

DeleteMe’s dashboard isn’t as detailed, but its PDF reports are robust. Their reports list the sites they found you on and the type of information they found, though they only provide links to some of those sites. Your first privacy report arrives in seven days. After that, you’ll receive a detailed report every 90 days.

We like Incogni’s real-time reporting and more frequent updates. However, we consider it a drawback that Incogni doesn’t actually know if your personal information was on a given site and that it doesn’t link to data brokers to prove your information was found and removed. For that reason, we give DeleteMe the edge on reports.

Additional features

Incogni focuses exclusively on data removal, while DeleteMe also offers email and phone masking. Email masking is included with the standard plan, but phone masking costs $7 per number.

In addition, DeleteMe’s dashboard has a built-in Google Search feature that allows you to look yourself up on Google and make DeleteMe send a request to remove any results about you. It should be noted, though, that DeleteMe can’t guarantee the removal as Google’s policies are quite strict.

Analyzing pricing plans and subscription options

Incogni’s individual monthly subscription plan costs $14.98/month and the annual one is $89.88/year (which comes down to $7.49/month). Family plans for up to five people are available for $32.98/month or $197.88/year (which comes down to $16.94/month). They offer a 30-day money-back guarantee.

DeleteMe offers annual and biannual plans: individual, couple, and family. The individual annual subscription costs $129 (comes down to $10.75/month) and the biannual one costs $209 (comes down to $8.70/month). There are no monthly billing options. DeleteMe does offer a full refund if requested before your first report is sent (around seven days) and a pro-rated refund after that. The data removal service also offers upgraded and business plans, but details are only available if you contact them.

Assessing customer service quality

DeleteMe offers phone, email, and chat support as well as a knowledge base. Incogni also has a knowledge base and a contact form but does not appear to provide phone or chat support.

We tried DeleteMe’s chat feature during its customer support hours. The chatbot was able to answer simple questions, but more complex queries required a live agent. When we typed “live agent,” the chatbot simply presented us with DeleteMe’s customer support number and hours instead of connecting with an agent. 

We also tried Incogni’s contact form support. Their customer service team answered within one day, though they didn’t address our specific questions – even after we responded with follow-up questions. Rather, they seemed to offer boilerplate explanations for how the service works.

It’s worth noting that the DeleteMe service also offers a dedicated privacy advisor for questions and custom requests. However, they usually have the same standard “support” email address, not personalized email addresses for each individual.

All this leads us to believe that, though available for both services, DeleteMe’s support is more comprehensive.

Availability: does DeleteMe or Incogni cover more countries?

DeleteMe is available in the United States as well as Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Singapore, and the United Kingdom – a total of 12 countries.

Incogni is available in more countries as it covers the United States as well as Canada, Iceland, Isle of Man, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and multiple countries in the European Union (Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden) – a total of 35 countries.

Privacy compliance and regulations

Both Incogni and DeleteMe say they comply with online privacy laws such as the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). They also offer optional two-factor authentication which can help prevent unauthorized users from accessing your accounts.

DeleteMe additionally states it encrypts data in transit and at rest (256-bit AES and TLS 1.2 encryption), plus meets AICPA SOC 2 Type II requirements to help protect user privacy. We couldn’t find any statements about Incogni’s SOC status or encryption, other than a privacy policy statement that said the service encrypts passwords.

Though both services state they will not sell your personal information to third parties, Incogni and DeleteMe do share your email address and phone number during the removal process. That’s because many data broker sites require this information to verify your identity before they honor removal requests.

To sum it up

Both Incogni and DeleteMe are comprehensive data removal services that can improve your online privacy, each with unique strengths and limitations. The ultimate choice depends on your needs and preferences.

If you aim to lower the exposure of your personal information and protect your online identity, DeleteMe is a better choice. In case you are more concerned about marketing and recruitment databases, go for Incogni.

In addition, DeleteMe provides better insight into what information it finds and removes. Incogni, on the other hand, offers more flexible billing options and a 30-day money-back guarantee.  

Evaluation criteria: methodology behind our service comparison

We are Onerep, an alternative online privacy protection solution to the DeleteMe and Incogni personal information removal services. Since 2015, we’ve successfully removed more than 16,000,000 unauthorized user profiles across hundreds of data broker sites, providing comprehensive protection for our customers.

We are deeply ingrained in the industry, so we know how data brokers operate and understand the intricacies of the removal process. We believe that our experience and expertise – alongside our commitment to transparency – allow us to objectively evaluate the effectiveness of other services.