Last Updated on December 12, 2024
Weeks of tests revealed that Aura is the best pick for identity protection, but IdentityForce is surprisingly good.
Though this would be an easy match-up to judge, it was a close race.
Ultimately, my decision was due to Aura’s emphasis on family protection. If you want to ensure your identity is as safe as possible while ensuring your children are safe online, your college-age kids can protect their credit scores, and your spouse isn’t vulnerable to cyber thieves, Aura is the best choice.
- You’re short on time and want the best all-in-one award-winning digital solution you can set and forget.
- You have children and want comprehensive tools to protect them from identity thieves to cyber bullies.
- You have assets worth protecting, like a home, so you want a range of digital safety products so you can strike down threats before they happen.
- You want the assurance that should something happen, you have the solution with the best insurance on the market.
- You want peace of mind knowing Aura is always keeping an eye out for you, and their white glove customer service is on standby 24/7/365.
- You’re looking for the most granular credit monitoring service available so you can feel confident that you’ll detect any suspicious activity early on.
- You’re happy to do manual work to keep your identity safe, like emailing data brokers to remove your info.
- You have kids and want a service to look out for them and protect them from cyberbullying and discrimination.
- You don’t currently own a home, so you’re not worried about a spammer changing your home title deed.
Their family plans offer more flexibility and safety features than IdentityForce. They also provide more insurance coverage (up to $5 million with a family plan). And Aura ends up being less expensive when you use our promo code.
So, though IdentityForce’s monitoring and threat resolution services are impressive, Aura wins overall.
Every family is different. You know what your family needs. If you want to know all the details behind my decision, read on. I’ll explain how these two services fared regarding monitoring, threat resolution, and more. That way, you can decide which one’s best for you and yours.
Aura vs. IdentityForce: Head-to-Head Comparison
Aura | IdentityForce | |
Monitoring | Award-winning identity theft and credit monitoring that’s comprehensive and accurate. | Incredibly accurate identity theft monitoring and unique credit tools are available with top-tier plan only. Need to include a few monitoring features, though. |
Threat Resolution | 24/7/365 U.S.-based customer service with an average of seven years of industry experience. | 24/7 U.S. – based customer service. Not available holidays. |
Family Plans | Flexible family plans to allow up to five adults and unlimited children with comprehensive parental controls and safe gaming features. | You must call to sign up for a family plan. Alternatively, you can add a child only to a regular plan online. No parental control features but a comprehensive social media monitoring suite. |
Theft Insurance | $1 million in theft insurance coverage per adult with ALL plans. | $1 million in theft insurance coverage TOTAL. |
Ease of Use | A little cluttered but easy to use. | Dated and needs a better layout, but usable. |
Online Safety Features | An exhaustive list of safety features includes a VPN, password manager, antivirus software, and more. | Includes some safety features, like a VPN, password manager, and anti-phishing software. |
Cost | Very affordable (mainly when you use our discount code) | The price seems justified but less affordable than Aura. |
Monitoring: Winner – Aura
Monitoring is a crucial aspect of any identity protection service because it gives you the power to stop thieves in their tracks. If you know an email is compromised or notice strange activity on your child’s credit report, you can do something about it before things worsen.
Most identity protection services offer some level of monitoring. How comprehensive they are, though, varies significantly.
Aura offers award-winning identity theft protection and credit monitoring, so it’s tough to beat in this category. It’s comprehensive, accurate, and provides fast alerts.
Ready for best identity protection and digital security? Try Aura free for 14 days →
That said, IdentityForce did surprisingly well when I tested it. Though it was less comprehensive than Aura, it managed to find a threat that even Aura missed. And its alerts were just as fast as Aura was.
Still, with IdentityForce, you don’t get the tools to monitor your credit and identity fully. So, Aura comes out ahead in this category.
Identity
At first glance, IdentityForce’s identity monitoring services cover everything. They and Aura both include:
But, IdentityForce needs to include one key feature – home and auto title monitoring, which Aura includes. If you own your home or car, title monitoring is an important feature. After all, your home and your vehicle are two of your most significant assets.
And title theft is a real threat. Just ask any of the 100 Los Angeles area homeowners cheated out of their homes by a criminal real estate agent. That means IdentityForce is at a real loss by not offering to monitor this area – and Aura is at a real advantage.
Of course, I give credit where credit is due – IdentityForce is shockingly good at catching threats.
After testing several services, I was convinced that finding something more accurate than Aura was impossible. But IdentityForce proved me wrong.
After scanning the dark web, Aura found nine impressive unique alerts. IdentityForce found ten!
As it turned out, I had one more email address that’d been compromised, which Aura failed to find in the initial scan.
This was disappointing but not a dealbreaker. Aura is still legit and far better at monitoring than most services, and as you’re about to see, it offers a much wider breadth of monitoring tools than IdentityForce. Not only does Aura include home and title monitoring while IdentityForce doesn’t, but it also includes a much better selection of credit monitoring services.
Credit and Financial
I have a couple of problems with IdentityForce in this area:
- It only offers credit monitoring tools with its top-tier plan.
- It doesn’t offer an in-portal credit lock
- It doesn’t offer bank fraud coverage.
Aura, on the other hand, offers three-bureau credit monitoring as a standard feature. They also include an in-portal Experian credit lock switch to lock your credit in one click. Plus, they include bank fraud monitoring which alerts you when someone opens an account in your name.
And they offer guided children’s credit freeze services. So, you can streamline the process of freezing your child’s credit.
These are handy and essential tools that good identity protection services should offer.
That said, if you opt for IdentityForce’s top-tier plan, you get unique features like a credit tracker and simulator tool. This is nice to have if you’re trying to make a big purchase or repair a damaged credit score, and Aura doesn’t include anything like it.
But there are free tools like CreditKrama and Experian CreditWorks that essentially do the same thing. Strangely, IdentityForce charges extra for these inclusions.
Aura and IdentityForce excel in one way, though – they offer 401(k) and investment account monitoring.
Given that your retirement savings are amongst your most valuable assets, having a service that monitors them is a good idea. Unfortunately, most of my tested services fail to offer investment account monitoring. Aura and IdentityForce stand out by including this service.
Threat Resolution: Winner – Aura
Even with highly accurate monitoring from Aura or IdentityForce, your identity could be more safe.
It’s sad, but it’s true – criminals can be savvy, and data breaches are all too common. It is pretty easy for a thief to get a hold of your identity (your spouse’s or your child’s). So, a good identity protection service will provide threat resolution and identity restoration services.
I’m partial to Aura in this area because I’ve had nothing but good experiences with their customer service team. However, my experience with IdentityForce could have been better – making this a very close category.
All in all, both IdentityForce and Aura provide excellent threat resolution, Aura is just slightly more comprehensive in their services.
Customer Service
IdentityForce and Aura both offer 24/7 customer service lines. However, Aura offers theirs 365 days per year. IdentityForce closes for the holidays.
It’s a minor complaint, I know. But Aura wins here because if you discover a threat to your identity on Christmas, New Year’s Day, or Memorial Day, you can call them right away and regain that peace of mind – something you’ll want if you plan on celebrating the holiday too!
Holiday availability aside, though, these two services are evenly matched.
I found them FRIENDLY and KNOWLEDGEABLE when I tested their customer service teams. In both cases, I connected to a live representative in under one minute when I called on a Monday night (after 9 pm). And it was clear both of their customer service teams are truly U.S.-based.
Identity Restoration Services
When it comes to identity restoration services, Aura and IdentityForce are, again, neck and neck.
They both include white glove restoration, which means a restoration specialist will work with you to restore your identity should you become a victim of identity theft. They’ll file paperwork, talk to financial institutions, and issue credit disputes on your behalf.
IdentityForce goes above and beyond here by including restoration services for deceased members. Unfortunately, stealing the identity of the recently deceased is an all-too-common occurrence, and it creates a major headache for surviving relatives. So, including this is a nice feature.
However, Aura arguably has a more experienced restoration team. They boast an average of seven years of industry experience – something IdentityForce can’t say.
All in all, though, I’d trust either service to restore my and my family’s identity if it came to that.
Lost Wallet Protection
IdentityForce and Aura both include lost wallet protection with their plans – meaning they both will help you cancel and replace your wallet’s contents should you lose it or have it stolen.
Aura’s lost wallet protection is slightly more comprehensive, though. They’ll work with you to create a complete remediation plan and help you monitor your credit more closely for signs of fraud. It’s a small service, but more than IdentityForce offers.
Family Plans: Winner – Aura
Here’s where the differences between Aura and IdentityForce become stark.
While IdentityForce offers family plans, you have to call and talk to a sales rep to sign up for one. That’s annoying and something no parent of young children has time for.
Even if you have time, though, forcing you to call feels a little shady. Why can’t they post family plan prices just like every other service does? What are they hiding? Is the price going to change depending on who I talk to and when?
Of course, IdentityForce does allow you to add their ChildWatch feature to any plan for $2.95 per child per month. This you can do when you sign up online.
I like Childwatch for single parents because you can sign your children up for protection without paying for a full family plan. However, because it’s a per-child rate, it gets expensive quickly. If you have more than a couple of children, it stops making sense to add-on children one by one.
ChildWatch provides full identity and credit monitoring and a unique social media tool that I’ll discuss in more detail below. But you’ll find Aura’s child protection tools are more thorough.
Aura also makes it very easy to sign up for a family plan. You can sign up online in a matter of minutes.
And they allow for an enormous amount of flexibility. Unlike most identity protection services that only allow for two adults on a plan, Aura allows you to add up to five adults and unlimited children to any family plan. That means you can cover your college-aged kids, your elderly parents, or your in-laws – whoever you need to protect.
Parental Control Features
If you’re a parent of young children, you know the internet, while valuable in many ways, is also a very dangerous place.
Aura seems to understand that in a way that most other services don’t. With an Aura family plan, you get Circle parental controls – an award-winning suite of features that allows parents to monitor and control their children’s internet usage.
With Circle, you can block and filter sites, set screen time limits, and even put a temporary pause on internet access. Every parent knows that those are invaluable features because they give you complete control.
IdentityForce doesn’t offer anything like this. Their ChildWatch service doesn’t include parental controls that let you block or filter sites. Instead, it focuses more on social media monitoring.
Depending on the age of your children, monitoring social media might be a major concern. In this case, IdentityForce might be worth looking into. But Aura’s parental controls are more useful overall because they give parents control across the web – not just on apps like TikTok and Instagram.
Safe Gaming and Anti-bullying Monitoring
Aura also includes a safe gaming and anti-bullying feature that no other service provides. Their ProtectMe service monitors over 200 popular games for signs of racism, bullying, harassment, and grooming tactics. It uses machine learning and AI to analyze children’s interactions with other players.
IdentityForce’s ChildWatch tool also has an anti-bullying feature, but it only works on social media. It scans posts for signs of bullying, violence, and profanity.
While bullying on social media is a problem, harassment within gaming platforms is arguably worse – with 60 percent of kids reporting they’ve experienced some form of it while playing online games. Of course, which service is more valuable to you depends on your family’s internet habits and concerns as a parent.
Theft Insurance: Winner – Aura
When it comes to theft insurance coverage, Aura wins by a long shot. They provide some of the most generous family protection by increasing coverage for each adult on your plan.
With every adult you add, Aura increases the insurance coverage by $1 million. Since you can add up to five adults, you can have up to $5 million in total coverage.
IdentityForce’s insurance offerings are more standard. They offer $1 million in coverage total.
The breakdowns for these two services are very similar, otherwise, though. Take a look –
Aura’s:
IdentityForce’s:
As you can see, there are a few minor differences – Aura puts a limit on CPA expenses, and IdentityForce offers a little more towards travel. But, overall, they’re very similar plans. Aura just offers more because it’s per adult rather than per plan.
Ease of Use: Winner – Tie
Neither Aura nor IdentityForce is hard to use, but I don’t love either of their interfaces to be honest.
Aura’s looks good at first, but the home page doesn’t put alerts front and center. Given that alerts are what I’d like to address first and foremost, this is a major flaw.
IdentityForce is relatively easy to navigate, but it looks really out-of-date. And the sidebar takes up a ton of space with irrelevant articles. I’m not looking for information on senior fraud or the odds of ID theft – I’m looking for threats to my identity and credit score. Homepage space is valuable and shouldn’t be filled with things I don’t need.
So, in this category, there’s no real winner. Both services are usable, but they could also both be better.
Online Privacy Features: Winner – Aura
Online privacy features aren’t necessary for a good identity protection service, but they’re nice to have – especially if you’re trying to keep your entire family safe online.
Aura stands out by offering a huge number of privacy features, including:
IdentityForce, meanwhile, only offers a password manager, VPN, online identity vault, and anti-phishing software.
I wouldn’t suggest picking an identity protection service for their online privacy features alone, but if you were going to, Aura would be the obvious pick. With that list of features, you can block everything from malware to those annoying “Scam Likely” phone calls using one service.
Price: Winner – Aura
IdentityForce offers very accurate monitoring and a decent breadth of services. Plus, their customer service is very good. So, I get why they charge what they do. For a family plan, they quoted me $35.90 per month for two adults and unlimited children.
However, Aura offers more services for families at a better price. When you use our discount code, you lock in a low rate for life. That makes Aura the clear winner here.
And that means…
Final Verdict: Aura vs. IdentityForce
Aura wins this battle overall. Though several categories were very close to call, Aura shot ahead by offering more family-friendly features, more generous insurance coverage, and more comprehensive monitoring tools.
Best of all, Aura does this at a better price than IdentityForce when you use our discount code.
So, if you want to protect your family from identity thieves, the choice is clear. Aura is the best identity protection service out there.
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