TL;DR. DeleteMe is the legacy player — broad broker coverage, white-glove service, and a price ($129+/yr) that reflects it. Incogni is the volume play — heavy automation, the cheapest of the three, but a thin progress report and almost no human in the loop. ShieldMyData sits in between: live progress dashboard, custom-URL takedowns on request, a one-time $49 Privacy Audit you can buy without subscribing, and pricing ($19/mo individual, $29/mo family) that undercuts both subscriptions.
Why people compare these three
If you've started searching, you're probably here because one of two things just happened: a wave of spam calls hit your phone, or you Googled your own name and the first page of results was your home address on a half-dozen sites you've never used. Both of those have the same root cause — your personal data is sitting in roughly 140 broker databases that exist solely to sell it.
You can file the deletion requests yourself. CCPA, GDPR-equivalent state laws, and broker-specific opt-out forms make it legal. They just don't make it practical: each request takes 15–60 minutes, brokers repopulate within 60–90 days, and you'd be doing it forever. Services like DeleteMe, Incogni, and ShieldMyData exist because nobody actually does that for themselves twice.
At a glance
| DeleteMe | Incogni | ShieldMyData | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Individual starting price | $129/yr ($10.75/mo) | $77/yr ($6.42/mo, promo) | $19/mo or $169/yr |
| Family plan | $229/yr (2 people) | $120/yr (4 people, promo) | $29/mo or $249/yr (5 people) |
| One-time option (no subscription) | — | — | $49 Privacy Audit |
| Brokers covered | ~750 (claimed) | ~190 | ~140 (verified) |
| Live progress dashboard | Quarterly PDF | Yes | Yes (live) |
| Custom URL takedowns | Higher tier | — | Included |
| Real human assigned | Yes | — | Yes |
| Dark web monitoring | Higher tier | — | Included |
| Cancel anytime | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Pricing reflects publicly advertised rates as of May 2026. Promotional pricing on Incogni varies; renewal rates are typically higher. Broker counts are claimed by each vendor — actual coverage overlaps significantly across all three.
DeleteMe: the legacy player
DeleteMe (by Abine) launched in 2010 and is the oldest service in this category. You get a real privacy operator assigned to your account, quarterly removal reports as a PDF, and the broadest claimed broker coverage of the three.
Where it shines. If you want a human you can email and a thorough quarterly report that reads like a deliverable, DeleteMe is the most polished version of that. Their B2B / enterprise tier is also the most mature.
Where it stings. Price. $129/year for one person is the highest entry point in the category, and the family plan only covers two adults. The quarterly PDF is great as a paper trail but is the opposite of "live" — if a broker re-listed you yesterday, you find out in 89 days. And custom-URL takedowns (you find your old address on a niche site, you want it gone) require their higher-priced tier.
People who want quarterly receipts and a name to email
If the white-glove model and a thick quarterly PDF matter more than price or real-time visibility — and the per-person cost is irrelevant — DeleteMe is the safe legacy choice.
Incogni: the automation play
Incogni (by Surfshark) launched in 2021 and took the opposite bet: build heavy automation against broker opt-out endpoints, charge less, scale wide. Their pitch is volume — they fire off requests, you watch a counter tick.
Where it shines. Price, mostly. Their introductory annual rate is the cheapest in the category. The web dashboard does show a live counter of requests sent, completed, and in progress — which is genuinely useful and a step ahead of DeleteMe's quarterly cadence.
Where it stings. Three things. First: almost no human in the loop. If a broker's opt-out endpoint changes (they do, often) or requires identity verification, your request can sit "in progress" indefinitely while support routes you back to FAQ articles. Second: no custom URL takedowns — if you find your data somewhere off their list, you're on your own. Third: renewal pricing. The advertised $77/yr is a promo rate; standard renewal is closer to $150/yr.
Price-sensitive buyers who want a dashboard, not a person
If you want the cheapest annual rate available and you're fine with "set it and forget it" — no custom requests, no human touchpoint, just a counter — Incogni's automation pitch is the right fit.
ShieldMyData: the hybrid
ShieldMyData is the newest of the three (2025) and was built around a specific gripe: nobody in this category lets you buy just the audit. If you don't want a subscription — you want to know what's out there, get the takedowns filed once, and decide for yourself whether to subscribe afterward — neither DeleteMe nor Incogni sells you that.
What's different. Three things.
- $49 Privacy Audit as a standalone product. One-time charge, no subscription. You get a personal dossier showing every broker that has your data, every breach you've appeared in, and a dark-web exposure check. If you subscribe afterward, the $49 credits toward your first month — you never pay twice.
- Live progress dashboard. Not a quarterly PDF, not just a counter — a per-broker view of what's been removed, what's in progress, what's queued, with a last-updated timestamp every time operations touches your record. See a sample dashboard →
- Custom URL takedowns included. Find your old address on a niche people-search site we don't cover by default? Paste the URL into your dashboard and we file the takedown manually. No upcharge.
Where it stings. ShieldMyData covers ~140 brokers — fewer than DeleteMe's claimed count. We're transparent about the list because broker coverage in this category is more marketing than measurement: most "750+" numbers include long-dead sites, regional duplicates, and broker shells. The 140 we cover are the ones that actually rank for your name in Google and resell to spam-call originators.
People who want to see exactly what's happening — and start without a subscription
If you'd rather pay $49 once to know the scope of your exposure before committing, want live visibility into every takedown, and need the ability to submit custom URLs without a price bump, this is the model built for that.
How to pick (3 questions)
- Do you want to subscribe before knowing what's out there? If no, ShieldMyData is the only option of the three that sells a one-time audit. If yes, all three are viable.
- How much do you want to see? Quarterly PDF (DeleteMe), aggregate counter (Incogni), or per-broker live status (ShieldMyData)?
- Do you have specific URLs you want gone? If you've already found your data on a long-tail site, custom takedowns are included with ShieldMyData and DeleteMe's higher tier, but not Incogni.
What none of them do
All three categorically do not remove your data from places you put it intentionally — your LinkedIn, your Facebook, your real-estate listing, your old GitHub commits. They also don't sue brokers on your behalf, don't remove news articles or court records, and don't change the underlying problem (that broker data is a $200B/year industry that regenerates as fast as you delete it).
What they do is keep filing the deletions on a rolling basis so the gap between "removed" and "re-listed" stays narrow enough to actually move the spam-call needle. That's the whole game.
See your exposure first — no subscription
Buy the $49 Privacy Audit. Get a personal dossier within 24 hours. Decide afterward whether you want the ongoing removal service. If you subscribe, your $49 credits toward month one.
See pricing →Frequently asked
Is one of these actually faster than the others?
Not meaningfully. All three depend on broker response times, which average 14–45 days regardless of who's submitting. The differences are in visibility (how fast you learn what happened), not in broker speed.
What happens when I cancel?
All three stop filing new deletions. Brokers will start re-listing you within 60–90 days because that's how their data refresh cycles work. Cancellation is the right move only if you're switching providers, not if you think the job is done.
Can I just do this myself?
Yes, legally, and it's worth doing the first round once so you understand what you're paying for. Plan on 25–40 hours for the initial pass and ~4 hours every quarter to keep up. We have a DIY walkthrough if you want to start there.