How Much Does Data Removal Cost?

Data removal has two prices, and most articles only quote one of them. There is the cash price, the yearly fee a service charges to file opt-outs for you, and there is the time price, the hours it takes to do the same work yourself for free. Which one is cheaper depends entirely on how you value an afternoon. Here are the real 2026 numbers for both, with no promo-rate games.

For context: we are building a data removal service that has not launched, so we are not quoting our own price to undercut anyone. We read broker opt-out forms all day, which is why the figures below are the standard published rates, checked in July 2026, not a discount that expires next week.

Data removal cost at a glance

Option	Cost	What you get
Do it yourself	$0, about 20 hours	Every broker's free opt-out, filed by hand, and re-filed by you when listings return.
Incogni	$95.88 / year ($7.99 / mo billed annually)	Automated opt-outs across a wide broker roster. Unlimited tier $179.88 / year.
Optery	Free tier; Core about $39 / year; Ultimate about $249 / year	Screenshot-verified removals, with coverage rising by tier.
DeleteMe	$129 / year for one person	Human-verified removals and a quarterly report. Two people $229 / yr, family of four $329 / yr.

So the realistic range for one adult is about $96 to $130 a year for a mainstream service, free if you do it yourself, and a few hundred a year if you want a premium tier or you are covering a whole household. Everything after this is the detail behind those numbers.

What each service actually charges

Incogni is the low-cost anchor. Its Standard plan is $7.99 a month billed annually, which comes to $95.88 for the year, and it also offers month-to-month at a higher rate for people who want to try it without committing. Its Unlimited tier runs $14.99 a month billed annually, or $179.88 a year, and adds custom removal requests and a wider reach. It is fully automated, which is what keeps the price down.

DeleteMe is the human-verified option and the reason it costs more. One person is $129 a year, billed annually only, with no month-to-month plan. Two people run $229 a year and a family of four is $329 a year. In exchange for the higher price you get people, not just software, checking the removals and a report every quarter. We put the two head to head in DeleteMe vs Incogni, and cover DeleteMe on its own on our DeleteMe alternative page.

Optery is the one with a genuine free tier, which is unusual. The free plan finds your exposures and lets you remove some by hand; the paid tiers, Core at roughly $39 a year and Ultimate around $249 a year, add automated removals and screenshot proof that each listing came down. If you want to start at zero and pay only if the exposure warrants it, that is the model, and we break it down on our Optery alternative page. Prices across all three shift, so treat these as the published July 2026 rates and check the current page before you buy.

The hidden cost: your time

Free is not the same as cheap. A thorough first pass across the major people-search and background-check sites takes most people around 20 hours, because there are well over a hundred brokers worth removing from, each with its own form, its own verification step, and its own habit of re-listing you a few months later. If your time is worth $30 an hour, that first cleanup has a real cost of about $600 in hours, which reframes a $100 subscription entirely. If you enjoy the work or your footprint is simple, the trade tilts the other way, and doing it yourself is genuinely the right call. Our data broker opt-out list is the free map for that route.

What the yearly fee does and does not buy

The price does not buy permanent erasure, and any service implying it does is overselling. Brokers rebuild from public records no one can delete, so listings reappear. What the fee actually buys is the second and third pass: the re-scanning and re-filing that catches a listing when it comes back, month after month, which is the part almost nobody keeps up with by hand. Judge a service on whether continuous monitoring is included or bolted on, because that recurring work is the whole reason a recurring charge makes sense. We argue this out in are data removal services worth it.

It also helps to treat the subscription like what it is: one more line item that auto-renews. Before adding it, it is worth pulling every recurring charge you already pay into one view, because a privacy service is easy to justify and just as easy to forget you are paying for two years after your exposure was already handled.

How much does DeleteMe cost?

DeleteMe costs $129 a year for one person, billed annually, with no month-to-month option. Two people are $229 a year and a family of four is $329 a year. The premium over cheaper rivals pays for human-verified removals and a quarterly progress report rather than a purely automated process. There is no free tier, so the entry point is the full annual charge.

How much does Incogni cost?

Incogni costs $95.88 a year on its Standard plan, which is $7.99 a month billed annually, and it also sells month-to-month at a higher per-month rate. The Unlimited plan is $179.88 a year and adds custom removals and broader coverage. It is the least expensive of the mainstream services because it automates the opt-out process end to end rather than putting a person on each removal.

Is it cheaper to remove your data yourself?

In cash, yes: every broker a paid service uses has a free opt-out you are entitled to file, so the out-of-pocket cost of doing it yourself is zero. In time, often no, because a complete first pass runs about 20 hours and then needs re-checking every few months as listings return. DIY wins when your footprint is small and your time is flexible; a service wins when your history is messy, your time is scarce, or the ongoing re-filing is work you know you will not keep up with.

How much does it cost to remove your information from the internet?

For one adult, plan on $0 to about $130 a year. Free means doing every opt-out by hand and re-filing them yourself; roughly $96 to $130 a year buys a mainstream automated or human-verified service that files and monitors for you; and a few hundred a year covers premium tiers or a whole household. No amount removes everything, since breach data and underlying public records are beyond any service's reach, so what you are really paying for is a much smaller, much harder-to-find footprint that stays that way.

If you want to see how we approach the trade-off between price, coverage, and honesty about the limits, that is what our pricing page lays out.