DeleteMe and Incogni are two of the best data removal services you’ll find. I tested both for a few months to gauge their effectiveness at reducing your info on people-finder sites and data brokers. While both provide basic data removal, each has unique features, so the biggest choice is whether you’re more interested in preventative measures or a wider reach.

DeleteMe is a great data removal service that offers additional tools at no extra charge, which can help keep your data from ending up on people-finder sites and data brokerages in the first place. But Incogni is a better option for folks who want to remove their data from more places online.

Data removal services can be tricky to compare. In my experience, it’s hard to truly measure a service’s efficacy and how many sources it covers. One company might count a data removal request sent to a network of data brokers and people-finder sites as one removal, whereas another company might count it as dozens or hundreds of removals. Regardless of whether a service finds your information on a people-finder site or data brokerage, some count the absence of your data as a successful removal. 

Let’s dive in and compare DeleteMe and Incogni in more detail to help you decide which is better for you.

DeleteMe vs. Incogni at a glance

DeleteMe has more features, but Incogni is more transparent

While both services remove your data from various sources, Incogni is more transparent thanks to additional scans and an activity history, while DeleteMe offers helpful privacy features at no extra cost. Overall, Incogni is excellent for insight into removal handling. But choose DeleteMe if you want useful tools like email and phone number masking to beef up privacy.

Most data removal services offer automated removals, which are standard and don’t require work from you. Custom removals, which require you to input where you found your information, are less common. Both companies offer automated and custom removals. Incogni has a much wider reach for custom removals compared to DeleteMe. If you sign up for any of Incogni’s Unlimited plans, it covers over 3,000 sources for custom removals compared to DeleteMe’s 560 sources.

In addition to automated and custom removals, Incogni performs other scans that you’ll need to review. If it finds relevant information, you can confirm, and Incogni will start the removal process. If you deny that the information pertains to you, Incogni will ignore it. DeleteMe doesn’t offer anything similar.

Both DeleteMe’s and Incogni’s online dashboards show you stats about how many data sources each service scanned for your information and how many removals were performed. However, Incogni’s dashboard is more detailed. It shows in-progress removals, the total number of removal requests sent and how compliant certain data brokers are. Because not all data brokers comply with requests, this is a nice way to set expectations around Incogni’s removal success rate.

Incogni offers more transparency than DeleteMe by providing a detailed activity history. This shows where Incogni found your information and the steps it took to remove your information from that data source. This is a key trust indicator that shows your data removal service in action. 

DeleteMe offers proactive tools that can help you stop your data from leaking in the first place by masking your email, credit card and phone number. When you’re ordering something online and a website bafflingly asks for your phone number, you can use DeleteMe to create a decoy phone number instead. 

By comparison, Incogni is a pure data removal service without additional privacy tools like those offered by DeleteMe. Incogni does offer a plan bundling identity theft protection via Coveron, which is also owned by parent company Nord Security. But it lacks email, phone number and credit card masking. 

DeleteMe is slightly more usable than Incogni

DeleteMe and Incogni are both fairly easy to use for basic data removals, but DeleteMe is better for folks who want to scan for more info. Submitting custom removals to each is straightforward and intuitive. While approving or denying Incogni’s additional scans is simple, single-user plans don’t let you scan for as much information, so DeleteMe is a better option for folks who have moved around a lot or gone by different names. 

Once you sign up for either DeleteMe or Incogni, you’ll input information that the services scan sources for — which is how other data removal services operate. You can add more information to scan for, like other addresses, once you finish signing up. However, DeleteMe scans for more information than Incogni.

You can only enter one name in your Incogni profile on single-user plans, as well as three different addresses, phone numbers and email addresses. By comparison, DeleteMe can scan for up to five name variations, and it blows past Incogni’s limit of three variations for other pieces of information. DeleteMe is currently scanning for five different addresses I’ve lived at over the years, and I can add more. DeleteMe also lets you add employers and relatives that it will scan for, which are more data vectors than Incogni allows.

Custom removals on DeleteMe and Incogni are easy to submit. In each case, you only have to submit a link to where your information was found. You can submit a screenshot of where you found your information to DeleteMe if you want to help the service locate it. However, it’s not necessary.

Similarly, approving or denying information from Incogni’s additional scans is user-friendly. You can review these scans and then click Remove Me, Skip or Not Me. Once you make your choice, no other work is required. 

Generally, DeleteMe is more user-friendly because its single-user plans can scan for more information than Incogni can. Incogni’s additional scans are uncomplicated to navigate and can help you increase your coverage, but many people, especially folks who have gone by a different name or have moved around a lot, will appreciate DeleteMe’s additional data vectors on single-user plans. 

DeleteMe has one plan with all the features, but Incogni has more options

DeleteMe and Incogni are both reasonably priced for the included features, so what you want and how you use a data removal service will influence which is right for you. Go with Incogni if you plan to take advantage of its broad custom removal coverage. If you want additional privacy tools at no additional cost, try DeleteMe. 

Based purely on the numbers, DeleteMe is more expensive than Incogni. DeleteMe starts at $129 annually while Incogni’s plans begin at $96 per year. However, DeleteMe’s plans give you more features compared to Incogni’s. 

Every DeleteMe plan comes with email, phone and credit card masking as well as custom removals, and all plans include the same suite of features and capabilities. 

DeleteMe’s plans differ by how many people are supported. There are single-user, two-person and four-person family plans available. 

Incogni has two plans with different features, Standard and Unlimited, both available as single-user or five-person family options. Custom removals are only available on the Unlimited plans, not Standard tiers. So if you want to take advantage of Incogni’s custom removals, which deliver the widest reach of the data removal services I tested, you’ll need to pony up the extra cash for either the single-user or family Unlimited plan, which cost $180 and $276 per year, respectively.

Uniquely, Incogni lets you bundle Coveron identity theft protection with your data removal service subscription for added protection. This bundle gives you access to all the features of an Incogni Unlimited plan as well as up to $1 million in identity-theft insurance for $249 a year. 

However, bundling normally means you save a significant amount in order to justify the cost. That’s not the case with Incogni and Coveron. One year of Incogni Unlimited for a single user is $180 and one year of Coveron Identity Theft Protection for a single user is $72, for a combined total of $252. Paying for Coveron and Incogni separately is more than the bundled price of $249 per year, but it’s not enough of a difference to meaningfully save any money. 

If you plan on using custom removals, Incogni Unlimited’s higher price tag of $180 a year could be worth it. If you want more privacy tools and don’t think you’ll need that many custom removals, DeleteMe’s $103 a year is a good option.

Bottom line: Incogni is better for bulk removals, while DeleteMe is better for proactive protection

DeleteMe and Incogni are two of the best data removal services for clearing your information from people-finder sites and data brokers. While both perform data removals effectively, key differences make them great choices depending on your specific situation. 

I recommend DeleteMe if you want privacy features to proactively protect your phone number, email address and credit card information. Additionally, DeleteMe handles folks with multiple names — like nicknames or changed names — better than Incogni. On the other hand, I recommend Incogni for people who want more removals across a wider digital landscape, because it supports custom removals from over 3,000 data sources, which trounces DeleteMe. Overall, Incogni handles removals across a wider digital landscape. 

Zachary McAuliffe

Senior writer

Zach began writing for CNET in November, 2021 after writing for a broadcast news station in his hometown, Cincinnati, for five years. You can usually find him hanging out with his wife, son and dog. You can reach him at zmcauliffe@cnet.com.

See full bio