Best Identity Theft Protection in 2023

While many identity theft protection companies save the bonus features like monthly credit scores, social media monitoring, and account activity monitoring for their top-tier plans, IDShield includes these in both the individual and family protection plans. 

At about $15 a month, IDShield provides comprehensive individual coverage without requiring add-ons. The only upgrade to consider is if you want monitoring for one credit bureau or all three. You can get a family plan starting at about $30 a month.

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On top of the usual identity protection services like dark web and social security number monitoring, IDShield also offers reputation management. Plus every plan includes identity restoration services and access to licensed private investigators who work  to help restore your good name.

You also get a full suite of financial and cybersecurity protection services. IDShield provides continuous credit monitoring and alerts to help protect your finances from scammers and hackers. Plus, you get protection for up to three devices, including password monitoring, anti-malware protection, and lost device coverage.

If you've got a whole crew to protect, IDShield also has family plans starting at $29.95 month. One feature that stands out is minor child monitoring. IDShield will help protect your child's online reputation and credit score so they can start out with a clean slate when it comes to future activities like job hunting and applying for credit. 

All plans give you instant access to credit reports, but the UltraSecure+Credit allows you to access reports from the three major bureaus.

The plans also monitor your credit score, check the dark web for your private information, watch for address changes on your accounts, monitor your social media, and keep an eye on all of your accounts for suspicious activity. If IdentityForce sees anything fishy, it sends an alert to your smartphone.

One of IdentityForce's strongest selling points is its two-factor authentication. Your IdentityForce account will contain a lot of sensitive financial and personal information, and the last thing you want is a criminal hacking it.

Two-factor authentication requires anyone logging into your account to enter in not only a username and password but also something like a PIN number or an answer to a security question. We're hoping that all identity theft services follow suit and add this feature to protect their customers.

Identity Guard lacks some important features found in our other top picks, like financial account activity monitoring or sex offender alerts, but its second-tier plans offer financial account takeover alerts and address change monitoring.

We like the unique tax refund alerts that will let you know when your taxes have been filed in case someone tries to file in your name. We don't like Identity Guard's limited customer support hours—they're not 24/7 like the others on our list—but on the plus side for customer service, users say it's easy to cancel the service if you need to.

ReliaShield's coverage isn't as complete as IdentityForce—it lacks any anti-phishing or anti-keylogging tools. But its plans start at $7.19 a month, and it checks all the boxes for basic tools like dark web monitoring, credit report monitoring, address change alerts, and Social Security number tracking.

Other services like social media monitoring, payday loans, and sex offender alerts are included only in higher-tier plans. While ReliaShield doesn't give you regular credit reports, the top-tier plan gives you a monthly credit score. The service will also remind you to request your free credit report each year so you can check it for errors.

The pricing for family plans is straightforward: just double the cost of the individual plans. For top protection for an entire family, you can expect to pay around $32 a month.

Maybe you know someone who's had a bad experience with one of the companies mentioned above, or maybe you're looking for a specific feature that you didn't see in one of our top three service selections. Here are two more quality options that didn't quite make the top of our list but still offer unique identity theft protection features for you to consider.

Between its excellent value, full-service coverage, and top-notch security, IdentityForce easily came in first among the best identity theft protection services.

IdentityForce's UltraSecure Plan also includes all the essentials, like wallet recovery, address change alerts, anti-phishing protection, data leak notifications, and a million-dollar insurance plan. And of all the companies we reviewed, IdentityForce is the only one that offers its members two-factor login authentication, which is crucial if you're giving a company your bank account numbers, Social Security number, and other personal information.

Check out our tips and FAQ below to learn more about identity theft. Or head over to our antivirus software review for another way to protect yourself online.

The most important thing to remember when it comes to identity theft protection is that it's more like a security system than a bodyguard. If your identity is like your home, an identity theft protection service can alert you once a criminal has gotten in, and it can limit the damage, but it can't always protect your information or your money from being stolen.

Pretty much all the identity theft services out there have insurance policies up to $1 million to help you with the financial costs of recovery, so don't let that impressive number sway you to choose one over the other. And remember that no identity theft companies can guarantee to protect you against all types of identity theft.

The biggest question to ask yourself before you purchase an identity theft protection plan is how much work do you want to do to protect your identity?

Unless you're a computer expert, you probably don't know how to do your own dark web monitoring, but most other services offered by identity theft protection companies are things you can do yourself for free, like checking your credit report, scanning your financial accounts for fraudulent activity, freezing your kids' social security numbers, and doing the legwork if your identity gets stolen.

But all of these things take time, and for most busy people, time equals money.

Decide how much protection you want and shop for identity protection companies that offer the recovery services that are most important to you. Check out identity theft 101 to learn more.

To find the top identity theft protection services, we researched each company to dig into pricing, services, and insurance offered. We put all the information we found into a huge comparison table so we could clearly see which company offered the best services for the most competitive prices.

We also checked out other review sites to see what customers were saying about their experiences with each company. If you want to know more about how we rank and review services like these, check out our full methodology.

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1. Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, "LifeLock Offers to Protect You from the Equifax Breach—by Selling You Services Provided by Equifax," September 2017. Accessed September 23, 2021.