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Identity protection built with businesses and breaches in mind
AllClear ID is a little different than most ID theft protection services we’ve used. You might get an AllClear ID subscription through your employer as a benefit. Or you might get coverage from a company or organization that recently suffered a breach that may have compromised your data. The good news is that many users don’t have to pay for the service — as it’s often paid for by big companies. Of course, if you want to sign up on your own, you can do that, too.
Regardless of who foots the bill for AllClear ID, there are some things you’ll want to know about their packages, pricing, and value. We tested AllClear ID extensively for our review, and we’re sharing everything you need to know if you’re curious about signing up. We’re going to unpack your options and discuss AllClear ID plans, promotions, and deals — it’s all right here.
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AllClear ID is designed to protect your privacy and your identity. Like most identity theft services, AllClear gives you early warning about threats to your identity. The service can also help you recover from any identity theft incident, which we think is extremely important to help alleviate the post-theft burden (there are lots of “chores” to take care of!).
As mentioned, it’s possible to get AllClear ID through a company or another organization that has some cleaning up to do after a data breach. In which case, you’ll probably use a redemption code to get the service free of charge.
If you’re signing up on your own, you can choose between a free “Basic” plan and a paid “ProPlus” plan. You can also add ChildScan child monitoring to your account.
Note that there are big differences between the Basic and ProPlus plans. The Basic Plan doesn’t have credit monitoring or insurance, among other key features. Employer- and company-sponsored plans offer identity monitoring and recovery, but you’ll get different features depending on the preferences of the company paying.
Plan | Price |
---|---|
Basic | Free |
ProPlus | $14.95 / month |
ChildScan (add to ProPlus) | $4.95 / month |
Employer- and company-sponsored plans | Free with redemption code |
Sponsored plans don’t always offer the same coverage. But AllClear ID’s website makes it pretty clear to us that the price is always the same.1 Another thing to consider is that sponsored plans don’t all last the same amount of time. You may enjoy a sponsored plan for as long as you work at your current employer, or you may have a set number of months or years free as compensation after a breach.
Dark Web Monitoring | Yes |
---|---|
Credit Protection | Yes |
Family Plans | Yes |
Insurance Coverage | $1 million |
Free Trial | None |
Guarantee | None |
If you sign up for AllClear ID on your own, you can choose between a free Basic plan and the ProPlus plan at $14.95 per month. You’ll also have the option to add ChildScan to a ProPlus plan for $4.95 per month.
But… it’s likely that you won’t be paying for the service at all. So what then? Well, it’s important to remember that sponsored plans often include different levels of identity theft protection. So let’s break down the plan options and features.
This is your cheapest option. In fact, it’s free. But before you get too excited and sign up, there are some strings attached. First off, and as we noted in our AllClear ID review, their Basic plan doesn’t have any identity monitoring or credit monitoring. There’s no insurance coverage, either. This plan does offer access to AllClear ID’s recovery pros, but that’s it. After doing some digging, we see this plan as a way for AllClear ID to get in touch with potential customers.
Who it’s best for: The Basic plan is for folks who aren’t willing to pay for identity theft monitoring or insurance, and only care about getting recovery help.
Pro Tip: Social security number monitoring, credit monitoring, insurance, and recovery services are identity monitoring basics. Look for plans that include all four.
AllClear ID’s main option for individuals is ProPlus. With this plan, we get access to identity monitoring, alerts, recovery services, and insurance coverage.
The ProPlus identity monitoring service includes social security monitoring and credit monitoring. However, the credit monitoring only seems to include one of the three major credit bureaus. In our experience, three-bureau credit monitoring is always better than 1-bureau monitoring. But we’ll touch more on this in a bit.
Unfortunately, AllClear ID’s ProPlus plan doesn’t come with sex offender registry monitoring, social media monitoring, or other public records monitoring options that top competitors like IdentityForce or Identity Guard have. On the other hand, ProPlus does include solid identity theft recovery services and up to $1 million in identity theft insurance (the industry standard).
Since you can get AllClear ID’s ProPlus plan as an individual, we see it as a good option for customers who are losing their sponsored coverage.
Who it’s best for: Fans of AllClear ID who want to keep their coverage after a sponsored plan ends, or anyone looking for decent monitoring at a fair price.
If you have little ones in your home, you’ll want to consider ChildScan as an add-on monitoring service. Similar to dedicated family plans, AllClear ID will check for your child’s social security number in places where it shouldn’t be. There’s no credit monitoring with ChildScan, which makes sense, as children don’t usually have credit scores.
FYI: No one is immune to identity theft. It’s not all that uncommon for a criminal to get his or her hands on a child’s identity and use it in nefarious ways.
In our experience, ID theft protection add-ons like ChildScan are great safeguards. If your child’s identity is stolen and used to apply for loans, credit cards, or government benefits, it could take several years to find out. With a service like ChildScan in place, you’ll likely catch small issues before they turn into massive problems. We recommend child monitoring, but we’ve seen other brands offer this service for only $2.95 per month, so $4.95 is a touch pricey.
Who it’s best for: ChildScan is best for parents and families who want to be proactive in protecting the identity of their kids.
We tested an individual AllClear ID subscription to write our full AllClear ID review. So unfortunately, we can’t tell you exactly what’s included in the sponsored packages. The organization sponsoring a plan deals directly with AllClear ID, and they’ll decide the features and benefits included with their bundle.
With that said, note that a sponsored plan may include credit monitoring for one bureau, or credit monitoring for all three major bureaus. But you can almost guarantee it will include at least some credit monitoring. However, it may or may not come with free credit scores and reports. Insurance coverage and recovery services will vary, too. And the same goes for ChildScan, you just might luck out and have protection for your kiddos.
As you can see, these bundle plans can be all over the map in terms of features offered and level of protection. We have to imagine, though, that there’s typically a direct correlation between the severity of the data breach and the features included in your sponsored plan.
FYI: Credit reporting bureaus don’t share information with each other.2 It’s possible, however unlikely, that a key piece of your financial information could be discovered by just one bureau rather than all three bureaus. That’s why it’s safer to have credit monitoring with all three bureaus instead of only one.
We recommend three-bureau coverage and child monitoring. And we always recommend our readers to get at least some credit monitoring and insurance coverage. The AllClear ID plans sometimes fit our recommendations, and other times they don’t. But the good news is that AllClear ID is free with a redemption code. Even if they’re not perfect, we think identity theft protection from AllClear ID is better than nothing. So if you’re offered a sponsored plan, you should take it.
Who it’s best for: Sponsored plans are great for anyone getting it for free! Go for it, as there’s a chance that your sensitive data has been compromised.
If you’re offered AllClear ID through an employer or another company, you’ll probably get it for free. But if you want to sign up on your own, you’ll have to pay the price. Sure, $14.95 per month might not break the bank, but it’s certainly not as affordable as other great services like Zander Insurance.
As for great deals and discounts, we’re constantly searching for the lowest prices on AllClear ID. From what we’ve seen, the company rarely announces promotions, but we’ll keep you posted. In the meantime, you might find holiday deals on AllClear ID around Black Friday or Cyber Monday.
If you sign up with AllClear ID through your employer or a company that serves you, then we think the value is pretty clear (no pun intended). After all, it doesn’t get much cheaper than free! With someone else footing the bill, there’s no reason not to take advantage of all the features AllClear ID offers.
Remember: AllClear ID’s sponsored plans aren’t always bulletproof. But they’re free to users, so if you’re offered one, we recommend signing up! Otherwise, similar coverage from another brand will likely cost you between $15-$30 per month.
If you’re signing up as an individual, we think the AllClear ID ProPlus plan is a much better option than their Basic plan. There’s simply no monitoring included in the Basic plan, which kind of defeats the purpose of having identity theft protection in the first place. But even compared to some other companies in the industry, we think AllClear ProPlus offers good value for the price.
Keep in mind that AllClear ID’s ChildScan service adds child monitoring. Since child identity theft is fairly rare, we don’t think you should pay too much for child monitoring.3 We recommend it as an added layer of protection, but we did the research and found better options for child monitoring than AllClear ID. For instance, LifeLock is a top-rated brand that offers quality child monitoring add-ons (and their plans include Norton 360 device protection, too).
AllClear ID was founded in 2004 by Bo Holland, the company’s CEO. That was right around the time when identity protection was really taking off. From the start, AllClear ID focused on dealing with organizations and addressing security breaches. From what we’ve seen, the company is clearly focused on large-scale deals that cover lots of customers or employees.
It’s also worth mentioning that AllClear ID has a pretty good reputation with its customers. The company claims a 94% satisfaction rate among its users.4 Note that AllClear ID has also taken home its fair share of industry awards.
AllClear offers a free identity theft recovery service, but their monitoring services cost $14.95 per month.
Yes, but not by default. If you opt-in for three-bureau monitoring, alerts might come in triplicate.
No, AllClear’s monitoring services are strictly standard — for instance, no sex offender monitoring or social media protection.
Yes, AllClear can protect children at an additional cost of $4.95 per month per child.
Yes, an AllClear subscription comes with up to $1 million in reimbursement insurance — the industry standard.
AllClear ID. (Retrieved June 16, 2020). Experts in Data Breach Readiness, Response, and Recovery.
https://www.allclearid.com/identity-protection-services/
Issa, N. (2019, April 18). How Do Credit Scores Work? Credit.com.
https://www.credit.com/credit-reports/how-credit-works/
Federal Trade Commission Consumer Information. (Retrieved May 13, 2020). Child Identity Theft.
https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0040-child-identity-theft
AllClear ID. (Retrieved May 1, 2020). About AllClear ID.
https://www.allclearid.com/about-us/