Identity Guard is one of the leading, highly trusted and well-established identity theft protection services on the market. They pretty much beat every other service when it comes to actually finding and providing alerts. Except for Aura. 

Aura leads at the very top of the list of all alternative identity theft protection services to Identity Guard, for so very many reasons. Our testing has established that without a shred of doubt. 

With the most comprehensive range of monitoring, the highest number of alerts in our tests and incredible value for money (particularly if you have a family – up to $5 million in theft insurance), Aura soars above all the other services we’ve compared. 

In this article, I’ll first present the three best alternative services to Identity Guard before closing with a few others that, while not great, may be worthwhile for a small subset of you reading this article.  

Keep in mind that – as Aura’s predecessor – we already rank Identity Guard pretty highly according to our quantitative scoring. Its Value Plan is a decent and very affordable service, but we still like Aura better.

Read on to learn whether Identity Guard is the right service to protect you and your family, and what the top alternatives to it are.

Best Alternatives to Identity Guard

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Top Identity Guard Competitors

Aura

Aura was designed as a successor to Identity Guard and both are owned by the same parent company, Intersections LLC.

Identity Guard has such a strong reputation in the space, rather than sunset it, Aura has opted to keep the two brands separate while beginning to merge many of their features and technology.

Aura offers the same outstanding monitoring and well-timed alerts as Identity Guard, but is priced more affordably. Notably, it also has a few extra features that Identity Guard lacks, namely its VPN, antivirus, and parental control software (Circle).

Aura vs Identity Guard: Head to head comparison

Aura Pros

The list of what Aura monitors is extremely long – including 401(k), investment and home title monitoring – rarely covered by other services and when they do, at a higher price. 

Aura outshines every other service with the number of alerts it’s provided in our test(except Identity Guard of course, but they both use the same engine), and extremely quickly – 35 in total and 15 unique dark web alerts (an important aspect because time is of the essence when thieves get hold of your identity).

If you consider what you’re getting for Aura’s prices, the value for money is a huge pro too – bumped further up when you use our discount link (50 percent off). Plus that price is locked in for life once you’ve signed up. 

Furthermore, the $5 million theft coverage is way more than any other service offers, especially if you have a family. Also, couples each get $1 million on the couples plan – another pro you won’t find with any other service.

Aura Cons

Aura is, well, so great it’s hard to find anything to complain about. 

If I had to nitpick, I’d say that their VPN is really just an IP masker and their antivirus software is not particularly robust.

That said, if you or a loved one are not using any VPN or antivirus, what Aura offers will represent a major improvement.

Aura Pricing, Free Trial & Promo Codes

The discount link we offer gets you 50% off and you get a 14-day free trial. Locking in the price for life is pretty cool too.

When you consider what you’re getting for this price, Aura is definitely the most cost-effective service out there. 

IdentityForce

Identity Force is touted as a great little budget-friendly option if you can’t afford a more robust service, but honestly, it’s pricey for what you get (Aura offers so much more, for a lot less. For example, for an individual, IdentityForce charges more than double Aura’s $9 per month! See below.)

They offer: advanced fraud monitoring, change of address monitoring, court records monitoring, dark web monitoring and data analysis, sex offender monitoring, payday loan monitoring, and bank and credit card monitoring.

Identity Force vs Identity Guard: Head to head comparison

Identity Force Pros

For a relatively small service, Identity Force offers a reasonable array of monitoring tools that covers most of the basics.

The monitoring is also timely (it took 1 minute), and accurate. In our test, Identity Force came back with 19 dark web alerts and 7 unique dark web alerts.

Their Childwatch ID Protection service is great to have if you have children. You can purchase this as an add-on (at $2.75 a month) to an individual plan which will come in handy for any single parents reading this. This includes child credit monitoring, social media monitoring (watching out for things like cyberbullying and discrimination), and full identity monitoring.

Identity Force Cons

Identity Force’s customer support is only available between 8 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. (EST) every day – it’s great that this includes weekends, but the hours are a problem if you need to handle an alert ASAP outside of office hours.

Important monitoring such as home title and 401(k) and investment monitoring is missing. 

It doesn’t offer any extras, barring the VPN and a few forms which are handy to fill out if you need to be taken off mailing lists for companies like Experian, for example.

It’s expensive for what it is, especially if you (sensibly) opt for 3-bureau monitoring – compare the individual membership to Aura’s $12/month. 

Your spouse would have to get an extra individual membership as there is also no couples plan, which makes it even less cost-effective.

By the way, their tier pricing on their website is confusing! The prices below explain – sort of. The annual UltraSecure yearly amount remains strange.

IdentityForce Pricing, Free Trial & Promo Codes

Identity Force currently has a 30-day free trial period and if you don’t use our discount link, they’re offering their own (small) discount- a bigger one if you take the most expensive plan on an annual basis.

IDShield

IDShield is another relatively small service but at a relatively high price for what you get Note: the more expensive tiers with 3-bureau credit protection are the better options, but that comes with surprisingly fair offerings. 

They include roughly the same range of options and even better performance than many of the middle tier plans of average identity theft protection services. 

Monitoring includes: data breach and dark web monitoring, social security number monitoring, social media monitoring, credit monitoring, bank account monitoring, payday loan monitoring, and reputation and privacy management.

IDShield vs Identity Guard: Head to head comparison

IDShield Pros

IDShield was quick to come back with alerts, better than quite a few other services in fact. While their monitoring is limited to mainly the basics it’s not bad at all seeing as they’re 70 percent to 80 percent of what you’re likely to need. They came back in our test with 24 alerts in total, and 8 unique dark web alerts which is pretty good.

Unique to this service, IDShield has in-house private investigators who can help you recover your identity. 

Another unusual offering (not generally seen with other services) is ‘reputation and privacy management’ (helps you review your social media accounts for old posts/photos so you can be confident in how you appear online, and consultation and restoration specialists are available to make requests on your behalf to keep your information off data broker websites).

IDShield Cons

401(k) and investment monitoring, as well as home title monitoring, are not available with IDShield.

Customer support is limited – they’re available between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m., though they do have 24/7 emergency support. However, this is generally manned by a skeleton crew without access to the normal tools available during normal hours, meaning they can’t do much to help you as a result.

It’s overcharged for what it actually offers (compare it to what Aura offers at a lower price point.)

There are no discounts, promo codes or free trials.

IDShield Pricing, Free Trial & Promo Codes

There is no promo code and IDShield is not currently offering any free trial period or discounts.

Costco Complete ID

Complete ID is a basic identity theft protection service, and is only available to Costco members. They offer dark web surveillance, Social Security number monitoring, “neighborhood watch”, criminal record monitoring, alternative loan monitoring, “child monitoring”, financial account takeover services, and mail change alerts. 

Costco Complete ID vs Identity Guard: Head to head comparison

Costco Complete ID Pros

There’s not much to say about Complete ID pros, unless you are already a Costco member and enjoy the benefits of that membership, of course.

One thing they do extremely thoroughly, is sex offender and criminal registry monitoring – they call it neighborhood watch monitoring. This notifies you of known criminals in your area and their details. The neighborhood watch alerts come back in astounding detail (more than any other service we’ve examined).

Costco Complete ID Cons

401(k) and investments, and home title monitoring aren’t offered at all. They also don’t cover USPS address change monitoring or social media monitoring of any kind.

Seeing as you have to be a Costco member to sign up, this means that Complete ID actually costs you an extra $60 per year (for Business/Gold Star members) or $120 a year (for Executive members).

Family plans cover two adults and 5 children – only – that’s less than many other services.

You also need to note that In terms of insurance, reimbursement for legal fees cannot exceed $125 an hour. 

Also, the $1 million for each plan means that on the couple’s or family plan, you actually get only $500,000 for each adult.

There are no promo codes, discounts or free trials.

Costco Complete ID Pricing, Free Trial & Promo Codes

Complete ID currently has no free trial, no promo code and no discounts.