Best Data Removal Service: How to Choose a Personal Data Removal Service
Scan first, then buy. The scan below shows which brokers are actually publishing you, so you can judge any service on the sites that matter to you rather than on its broker count.
No account needed. Adding a city and state is what lets us tell your record apart from everyone who shares your name.
The short answer
There is no single best data removal service, there is a best one for what you need.
Incogni is the cheapest broad automated coverage at $7.99 a month. Optery starts at $3.99 a month and gives you before and after screenshots. DeleteMe puts human specialists on your removals and sells annual terms. Deindex costs more, at $29 a month, and earns it by citing the legal basis on every request, keeping dated evidence of each removal, and re-filing when a broker relists you. Pick on breadth, proof, or a person, in that order.
Last updated July 2026. Competitor prices read from each vendor's own pricing page.
Honest comparison
Data removal services compared
Prices and coverage claims below are each vendor's own, read from their pricing pages in July 2026. Where a vendor does not publish a number, the cell says so rather than guessing. Prices change, so check before you buy.
| Service | Published price | Sites covered (vendor's claim) | How removals are filed | Proof you get | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Incogni | $7.99/mo, or $95.88 billed yearly | States 420+ data brokers on the automated plan | Automated opt-out and delete requests | Status dashboard, no per-removal screenshot published | The cheapest way to cover a lot of brokers at once |
| Optery | Core $3.99/mo ($3.25/mo billed yearly), Ultimate $24.99/mo | States 380+ sites on Core, 635+ on Ultimate | Automated removals, custom removals on higher tiers | Before and after screenshots, which is rare and genuinely good | Buyers who want visual proof and a low entry price |
| DeleteMe | Not published on the pricing page, shown at checkout | Not published as a site count | Human specialists file and review removals | Quarterly privacy reports, assigned expert | People who want a human handling it, plus masking tools |
| Deindex | $29/mo, or $19/mo billed yearly | 50 data brokers and people-search sites today | Broker opt-outs plus CCPA/CPRA delete and GDPR Art. 17 erasure, legal basis cited on each request | Dated before and after screenshot for every removal | Buyers who need documented, legally grounded proof a listing is gone |
Two of these services are cheaper than we are and one has been doing this far longer. We would rather you read that here than find it out after you pay us. What we will not do is publish a broker count we cannot stand behind, or tell you a listing is gone without showing you the page.
What to actually compare
Six things that separate a data removal service that works from one that bills you
Broker counts are the easiest number to inflate and the least useful thing to buy on. These are the questions that decide whether your name is still on page one a year from now.
How many sites it really covers
A broker count is a marketing number until you see the list. Ask which sites are covered, then check that the ones actually publishing your address are on it. Coverage of 400 obscure brokers is worth less than coverage of the five people-search sites that rank for your name.
Whether it cites a legal basis
An opt-out is a request a broker may ignore. A delete request under the CCPA and CPRA, or an erasure request under GDPR Article 17, is a statutory obligation with a deadline. Services that cite the law on each request have leverage that a polite opt-out form does not.
What proof you get
A dashboard that says "removed" is a claim. A dated before and after screenshot is evidence you can keep, forward to an employer, or hand to a lawyer. If a service cannot show you the listing before and the empty page after, you are trusting a status label.
How it handles relisting
Brokers re-ingest public records and put you back. Any service worth paying for re-scans on a schedule and re-files when you reappear. Ask how often it re-scans and whether re-filing costs extra, because this is where a cheap plan quietly stops working.
What it admits it cannot do
No service can remove news reporting, court filings or other lawful public records, and any company implying otherwise is selling you something it cannot deliver. Honesty about scope is a reliable signal of how the rest of the work gets done.
What it costs over two years
Removal is a subscription because relisting is continuous, so compare the two year cost, not the first month. A $4 plan that stops re-filing and a $29 plan that re-files every month are not the same product at different prices.
Match the tool to the job
Which data removal service should you buy?
Four honest recommendations, including the two where we are not the answer.
Buy Incogni or Optery if price is the deciding factor
At $7.99 and $3.99 a month they are the cheapest automated coverage on this page, and for a person whose exposure is a handful of ordinary people-search listings, automated opt-outs across a long broker list is a reasonable thing to buy. Optery also publishes before and after screenshots, which most of the category does not.
Buy DeleteMe if you want a human on it
DeleteMe assigns a specialist, handles custom removal requests, and adds email and phone masking so you stop feeding the brokers new data. It bills in one and two year terms rather than monthly, and it does not publish a price on its pricing page, so you will see the number at checkout. We go through what DeleteMe actually removes and what it costs in detail, including where it beats us.
Buy Deindex if you need the removal to be provable
Every request we file names the law it is filed under: a delete request under the CCPA and CPRA, erasure under GDPR Article 17, or the broker's own published opt-out. Every removal lands in an evidence locker as a dated before and after screenshot. When a broker relists you, we re-file. That is what the $29 buys, and it matters most when someone else needs to believe the listing is gone.
Buy nothing yet if you have not scanned
Run the free scan at the top of this page first. If three sites are publishing you, the removal guides will walk you through opting out by hand for nothing, and the worklist for removing your information from the internet sets out the order to do it in. If thirty are, that is when paying someone starts to make sense.
The honest limit
What no data removal service can remove
Any company that tells you it can delete anything about you is lying, and it is worth knowing which parts of your record are permanent before you pay anyone. Lawful public records stay: news reporting, court filings, arrest and property records, professional licensing databases, and anything you published yourself on a platform you control.
What a removal service can do is take down the aggregated profiles built on top of those records: the people-search listing with your home address, the background-check preview with your relatives, the marketing profile sold to advertisers. That is the part that ranks for your name, and that is the part we go after.
FAQ
Questions buyers ask before choosing a data removal service
There is no single best data removal service for everyone. Incogni is the cheapest way to cover a large broker list, Optery gives you screenshot proof at a low entry price, DeleteMe puts a human on it, and Deindex cites a legal basis on every request and keeps dated evidence. Match the service to whether you need breadth, proof, or a person.
It is worth it if your address, phone and relatives are published and you value the hours it would take to opt out of dozens of sites by hand, one form at a time, then do it again when they relist you. It is not worth it if the only results for your name are a news story or a court record, because no service can remove those.
Yes. Every broker in our catalog publishes an opt-out route, and each of our removal guides documents it step by step at no cost. Doing it yourself is free and slow: expect a few hours for the first pass across the major sites, then a repeat pass every few months as listings come back.
Most people-search sites process an opt-out within a few days to a few weeks. Statutory delete requests carry legal deadlines: 45 days under the CCPA, extendable to 90, and one month under GDPR Article 17. The search result can linger after the page is gone, which is why the outdated content tool matters.
Yes, routinely. Brokers rebuild profiles from public records, so a name that was removed in March can reappear in June from a fresh voter file or property record. This is why removal is sold as a subscription and why re-scanning matters more than the size of the initial broker list.
Of the services compared here, Optery has the lowest entry price at $3.99 a month for its Core plan, and Incogni is $7.99 a month for automated coverage of the brokers it lists. Both are cheaper than Deindex. If price is the only thing that matters to you, start there.
Keep reading
Related pages
Personal data removal services
What these services cover for an individual, what they cost in 2026, and whether to pay at all.
DeleteMe alternative
A feature by feature look at DeleteMe and where Deindex differs.
Incogni alternative
What Incogni covers, what it does not, and who should pick which.
Remove personal information from Google
What the Results About You tool removes, and what it cannot touch.
Deindex pricing
Personal, Family, Executive and Business, with no free removal tier.
Removal guides
Opt out of 50 brokers yourself, step by step, for free.
Executive and staff coverage
Per seat removal for security teams, with SSO, an audit log and an SLA.
See your exposure before you pay anyone
The scan is free and unblurred. It checks 50 brokers and people-search sites for your name and shows you exactly what each one is publishing. Then decide whether this is a job for an afternoon and our free guides, or for a service.