Best Data Removal Services We Tested in 2026

Optery is the best overall data removal service I tested, largely because it does a better job than its rivals at removing your data according to third-party data, and it shows you the work it did. Granted, its effectiveness comes with a hefty price tag — $250 a year for the Ultimate plan. But many full-featured data removal plans are in that ballpark, so if you value success and transparency, Optery is the best you’ll find for that price.

What we like

Based on Consumer Reports’ 2024 testing, Optery’s Ultimate plan removed 68% of online profiles it found after four months, giving it a slight edge over EasyOptOuts’ 65%. None of the other services tested achieved a 40% removal success rate. While Consumer Reports found manual removal to be the most effective method (70% of profiles removed), Optery offers almost identical performance with considerably less work.

Optery’s efficacy is the biggest selling point, but I also appreciated its transparency. The service shows you where and when it found your data, and it explains the steps it took to remove it. Optery even screenshots of when and where it finds your data before and after it’s removed. And the service provides additional information about each data source, like what kind of data broker it is, and email addresses for the data brokers. All that information helped me trust that Optery was consistently and effectively working to scrub my personal info from various sources.

The Ultimate tier falls short in some areas, namely in the sources it covers. While Optery covers more data sources than many competitors, some of those sources may not be applicable to most people, and if you enable the service’s Expanded Reach feature, it may send opt-out requests that contain your info to places that don’t actually have it already. Data retention laws might require holding onto such emails with your info, which could then be leaked in the event of a data breach. Optery’s custom removal process also requires you to submit links and screenshots of where you found your information, which is more work than other services require for custom data removal. 

Despite those shortcomings, Optery’s industry-leading transparency and effectiveness make it the best choice for most people.

Incogni is a great choice, but Optery just edges it out. You’ll get a wider reach than almost any other service I reviewed. According to third-party efficacy testing from Arxiv, Incogni removed an average of 76.6% of records per user, so you can expect effective removals.

What we like

Incogni’s coverage area is the largest I’ve seen, reaching more than 3,000 data broker and people-finder sites on its Unlimited plan. A lot of those require custom removal requests, which are a little more work on your end, but the extra effort helps guard against accidentally sending your personal info from sources that might not have it yet. So if a broad reach is your top priority, Incogni wins that contest.

Incogni is also highly transparent, providing you with an activity history and information about the data broker and people-finder sites it covers. The service ranks these sites with sensitivity scores to show how much of a risk certain sources pose relative to others, based on the data collected. For example, demographic data gives a lower score, while health and financial information result in a higher score. I appreciated this ranking system because it let me know what kind of data might be collected and which sources to double-check and make sure my data was removed from.

Incogni is the one service I reviewed that underwent a Deloitte audit, a nice touch for trust and transparency. The audit examined the scope of Incogni’s coverage, its removal process and its data-handling policies. It ultimately concluded that Incogni is true to its word about the number of sources it covers, the fact that it performs recurring removals and that it hadn’t sold user data.

The one major drawback: Incogni doesn’t allow you to add as many pieces of information to scan for as some other services. This could result in some gaps in your coverage, especially if you’ve changed your name or moved a lot. That said, if you want a service that covers more brokers than others and is fairly transparent about where it found your data, Incogni makes a compelling case overall.

Kanary is a unique data removal service that can help you monitor social media for your private information. Kanary is the only data removal service that offers this, making it a great pick for people with critical needs, like folks with large online followings. But its Advanced tier is also the most expensive service I tested, at $50 a month or $600 a year.

What we like

Kanary offers unique features, such as social media scanning, that are helpful for anyone concerned about serious threats, like doxxing, stalking or reputation abuse. If you become the victim of a problem like doxxing, the service can help you take down these posts and offers escalation options to help protect your data. It might be difficult to force a social media platform to remove your information if someone else posts it, so these escalation options can help you figure out the best way forward. It also offers a feature that aims to monitor ChatGPT for your personal information that shouldn’t be there, and can manage removal requests.

However, its automated scanning comes in the most expensive data removal service I looked at. The Advanced tier costs $50 a month or $600 a year, which is about double what you’d pay for other services that offer automated scanning. 

If that’s outside your budget, you’ll have to work to remove your information from online. Kanary’s other tiers offer a lot of useful features to help you remove your data, but those plans are mostly self-guided and only available through the mobile app. 

That price is higher than I’d recommend for most people. But if you’re someone with a high risk or have a moderate following online, like an influencer or company executive seeking to reduce your online footprint and keep your private information private, Kanary offers features you won’t find anywhere else.

DeleteMe offers a bevy of proactive privacy tools at no additional charge, making it a great choice for people who want to stop their data from spreading to data brokers and people-finder sites in the first place. This service doesn’t offer subscribers as much transparency about where and when your data was found, or the steps it took to remove it, which means it asks for a lot of trust. But DeleteMe is still solid for people who want to take their privacy into their own hands before it spreads online.

What we like

In addition to automated opt-out requests sent to data brokers and people-finder sites, DeleteMe gives you privacy tools to help keep your data safe at no extra charge. This makes DeleteMe one of the more useful services and a veritable data privacy toolkit. It offers phone and email masking, which can help keep your email and telephone number out of databases, as well as credit card masking, which can help protect your financial information in the event of a data breach.

The drawback is that DeleteMe isn’t as transparent as other services on this list. It doesn’t show a detailed activity history of where and when it found your data, much less screenshots of the personal information it locates. Some of that information can be found in your exposure reports, but some services found my info multiple times on the same source, and that showed up in my activity history. That said, the additional privacy features make up for this lack of transparency, especially since you still see the removals in your reports.

DeleteMe told CNET in a video call that it hopes to offer more protective features in the future, giving me confidence that the service is actively looking for ways to improve its performance and grow. DeleteMe is a good choice for anyone looking for a data removal service that aims to protect your information before it reaches data brokers. 

If you’re looking for a low-cost, efficient service, EasyOptOuts is your best — and maybe only — option. It boasts the lowest price tag I’ve seen on a data removal service, while still maintaining an effective service per third-party data. According to data from Consumer Reports, EasyOptOuts had the second-highest removal success rate, just barely trailing Optery.

What we like

EasyOptOuts is the epitome of a budget-friendly service. While other services cost hundreds of dollars a year, an EasyOptOuts subscription costs just $20 a year. And even that might be negotiable. If you can’t afford that price, EasyOptOuts writes online that you can reach out to them for help, stating, “We want our service to be accessible to everyone.” 

That low price does mean you don’t get any extras with the service. While other services might offer privacy tools, custom removals and even a more usable dashboard, EasyOptOuts eschews those things in order to keep the price as low as possible. After you sign up for the service, you may never need to log back into your account, unless you need to add a name or address to your account. 

EasyoptOuts is so hands-off, in addition to being our budget pick, it’ll also likely be the one service on this list you’ll forget about after you sign up. Which is great if you want a set-it-and-forget-it approach in your data removal service. But less great if you want to pore over detailed reports and activity history.

If you want a wide range of features or a more hands-on experience, look elsewhere. But if you’re looking for the best price-to-performance ratio, you can’t beat EasyOptOuts.