Aura vs. IdentityForce 2024

When you see a respected credit reporting agency offering an identity theft protection service, it's easy to believe it’s the best option.

After all, it would be easy for them to monitor financial records, review credit scores, and lock accounts when detecting suspicious activity. It would also be simple for the company to restore your identity and get life back to normal.

However, despite IdentityForce being a TransUnion brand, we found that Aura provides many of the same services at a cheaper monthly cost. What’s more, it includes additional tools to protect your identity online.

Here’s what we found when we personally tested out these two popular products.

Prices and Packages

As mentioned, we liked Aura more because it gave us better value. But that doesn’t mean all of their plans are less expensive. Instead, they gave us more functionality for the price.

Aura

Aura has a plan for everyone. Here’s a quick overview of Aura’s plans and pricing:

The Kids plan leans toward parental controls and online safety instead of protecting a child’s identity online. It includes features like screen time limits, internet usage reports, and in-game voice and text monitoring.

You can get everything you need to protect your identity and manage the fallout if an incident occurs with the Individual, Couple, and Family plans. We went with the Individual plan when we tested Aura. Don’t worry, though, we’re not lonely. With any of these plans, you can lock your credit and access insurance funds to cover damages. There’s also 24/7 access to remediation experts to help you during a potentially difficult time.

While it’s easy to choose a product based on its name, Aura includes a 14-day free trial and a 60-day money-back guarantee on all of its annual plans for additional assurance.

IdentityForce

The most important decision you’ll need to make when purchasing an IdentityForce product is whether you want to pay extra for credit monitoring. Here’s how much IdentityForce’s plans cost with and without credit monitoring:

All of IdentityForce’s plans include dark web monitoring, identity theft insurance, and access to a restoration specialist who can create an action plan and resolve cases of fraud.

But you’ll need to pay extra for TransUnion credit reports and three-bureau credit monitoring. For the additional costs, you’ll also get phishing and botnet monitoring along with quarterly three-bureau credit reports.

IdentityForce provides a 30-day free trial to help you choose the right option. But there’s no money-back guarantee with your purchase.

What’s Included

Aura and IdentityForce include an extensive range of features to help you monitor your personal information, prevent anyone from stealing your details, and recover your identity should it be stolen. Here’s a quick comparison:

Some critical features, like three-bureau credit monitoring and monthly credit scores, come at a premium with IdentityForce, whereas they’re available on all Aura plans.

Another minor difference is how their respective VPNs work. IdentityForce’s version only works on mobile devices. When activated, it encrypts your data when it travels across networks. But you can’t choose your preferred server or access options in other countries.

Aura’s VPN is a version of Hotspot Shield, which the parent company owns. You can choose a server from over 80 countries, and it’s compatible with laptops, desktops, and phones.

Where Do They Differ?

While there are some variances in VPN performance, there are more significant differences between Aura and IdentityForce.

Aura

Our Aura dashboard with 23 alerts

Aura stands out the most against IdentityForce in how it protects children online.

IdentityForce includes dark web social media monitoring, identity restoration, and credit activity monitoring for children. Although we didn’t take advantage of these features since we don’t have any kids, Aura takes it several steps further with tools like:

• Parental controls: Filter inappropriate websites and limit the time spent online and on apps like YouTube, Snapchat, and Roblox.
• Safe gaming alerts: Receive alerts when your kids receive threats via voice or text messaging while playing PC games.
• SSN monitoring: Get notifications when someone uses your child’s Social Security number to open new accounts or take out loans.

Another significant inclusion is antivirus. Aura can keep you safe from malware, ransomware, spyware, and more. The number of devices you can protect is limited based on your plan. Plans with coverage for kids offer support for more devices.

IdentityForce

IdentityForce Social Media Alert

Where IdentityForce outshines Aura is in its monitoring options. Some of the alerts they outperform Aura on are:

• Investment account alerts: Receive instant notifications about suspicious deposits, withdrawals, duplicate transactions, and balance transfers across multiple accounts.
• Change of address monitoring: Find out if anyone redirects your mail through USPS.

Another feature IdentityForce provides that Aura doesn’t is social media monitoring. It can scan Facebook, X, Instagram, and YouTube for posts that use profanity or may contain violent material. This can help keep your kids safe from hate on social media.

Comparing Privacy Policies

Given the volume of information we provided Aura and IdentityForce when signing up, we checked each company’s privacy policy first. We wanted to make sure they stored our data responsibly and minimized the spread of our data.

Aura’s Privacy Policy

The privacy policy for Aura is straightforward. We skipped straight to the section about how they use our data and whom they initially share it with. As many of the features come powered through third-party providers like Circle, some sensitive information is shared with them to help ensure effectiveness.

However, it also states Aura may provide your personal data to partners for offers. It doesn’t sell this information, however, and there are restrictions around how they can use these details to present promotions to you.

IdentityForce’s Privacy Policy

IdentityForce’s privacy policy is dicier. The first section that made us nervous referred to using our information for special offers or promotional and marketing materials (including sweepstakes and contests) on behalf of IdentityForce or third parties.

Once you register for IdentityForce’s events, you agree to their rules. One includes using your name, voice, or likeness in marketing efforts. While Aura used our data for offers, it couldn’t use our details in marketing materials without additional consent.

There is also a section titled “How and when do we sell/share or disclose information with third parties?” Fortunately, it refers to transferring your personal data to credit reporting agencies in a way that may be considered a sale under specific state privacy laws and regulations.

Verdict: Aura or IdentityForce?

Features-wise, there isn’t much that separates Aura and IdentityForce. While Aura provides antivirus protection and child safety services, IdentityForce counters with more monitoring options for your home address and investments.

IdentityForce might have a 30-day free trial, but we’re not big fans of its privacy policy or its VPN's limited functionality. And its restriction of specific credit monitoring features to premium products provided a third strike. Even with these limitations, its basic tier is more expensive than Aura.

No matter which Aura plan you choose, you’ll get everything you need to protect your identity online. That’s why it's our preferred choice.

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