Privacy Bee vs Kanary: Reviews, Pricing, and Which Is Worth Paying For

Privacy Bee and Kanary turn up together in every roundup of data removal services, usually a few lines apart, usually with a star rating and no prices. Put their actual rate cards side by side and the pairing stops making sense. These two are not competing for the same buyer. One is among the cheapest broad-coverage services in the category and the other sells the most expensive individual seat in it, and the reason is that they are solving different problems.

Every figure below was read on 1 September 2026 from each company's own pricing page. Where a number is our arithmetic rather than something a vendor published, that is said plainly. Neither company pays us anything and we sell a competing product, which is why this is sourced rather than scored.

Privacy Bee vs Kanary pricing, every plan side by side

The first thing to notice is that these two companies do not even quote prices the same way. Privacy Bee publishes monthly figures and labels them approximate when billed annually, without printing an annual total anywhere. Kanary publishes annual totals per account and offers a monthly option behind a toggle, describing the annual term as two months free. So the per-year column below is our arithmetic for Privacy Bee and Kanary's own published number.

Scroll the table sideways to see every column.

The $1,250 figure is ours: five Core seats at $250 is the cheapest way to satisfy Kanary's five-seat minimum. Kanary does not publish it as a package price, and it discounts family members at 50 percent ($125 for a Core seat, $250 for an Advanced one), so a household buying together pays considerably less per head than the sticker suggests.

Kanary Core is the most expensive entry-level seat in the category

This is the number that reframes the whole comparison. $250 a year for one person, to cover search engines, data brokers and social media on a monthly scan cadence, is more than double what DeleteMe charges for a plan that names 986 brokers and assigns a human privacy expert. It is six times Optery Core. Against the field, checked the same day, it looks like this.

Scroll the table sideways to see every column.

Read that table too quickly and Kanary looks overpriced. It is more accurate to say Kanary is not really selling the same thing. Its plans are described as threat-model based, its cheapest way in for an organization is a five-seat team with SSO and an API, and its Advanced tier includes attorney general escalation and address confidentiality enrollment, which are things you want when somebody is actually after you rather than when you are tidying up. Everyone else on that list is selling volume removal to consumers. Kanary is selling incident response with a removal engine attached.

The one thing Kanary covers that nobody else does

Kanary's Advanced plan lists AI and LLM sources as a site type it monitors and files against, alongside search engines, data brokers and social media. No other vendor in this comparison names that as a covered surface. Whether it works well is not something anyone outside Kanary can verify, and the practical mechanics of getting personal data out of a trained model are genuinely unresolved across the whole industry. But it is the only place in this category where somebody has put it on a rate card, and if your concern is what an assistant says about you when someone asks, that is the only plan here that even claims to address it. It is worth separating the two jobs before you pay for either, though: if what you actually need is to know when your name or your company surfaces somewhere new, that is ongoing monitoring of where you get mentioned, which is a different purchase from having a listing taken down.

Kanary's other distinguishing features sit at the same end. Address confidentiality enrollment refers to the state programs that let people at risk of stalking or domestic violence use a substitute address on public records. Attorney general escalation means taking a non-compliant broker to a state regulator rather than filing again. Both are on Advanced, both are marked as potentially carrying additional cost, and neither is something a $39 automated subscription is going to do for you.

Privacy Bee covers more brokers than anyone, for less than DeleteMe

The Pro plan claims 1,122 data brokers, broken down publicly by category: 361 people-search sites, 156 people-search affiliates, 242 advertising and marketing firms, 151 data enrichment companies, 130 list brokers, 24 surveillance technology companies, 17 background check services, 14 job recruiting databases, and smaller counts for healthcare insurance, geolocation and income verification. That breakdown is more transparent than what most of this industry publishes, and the number is larger than DeleteMe's 986 at roughly $192 against $129.

The category breakdown is worth pausing on, because it explains why the number is so much bigger. Most of this industry removes you from people-search sites, which is the visible layer: the pages a stranger finds when they search your name. Privacy Bee counts the invisible layer too, the advertising, list broker and data enrichment firms that never publish a profile page but do sell your record onward. Whether removal from those matters more or less than removal from the visible ones depends entirely on what you are worried about. If your concern is somebody looking you up, the people-search count is what matters and Privacy Bee's is 517. If your concern is the volume of marketing that finds you, the wider number is the relevant one.

The Essentials plan is the one to be careful with. At about $96 a year it covers 517 people-search sites only, uses mostly automated takedowns, and hands you DIY guides for exposures it does not cover. That is priced against Incogni's $95.88 for 420+ sites and well above Optery Core's $39, and it is the plan most people will land on from the pricing page.

Is Privacy Bee legit, and is Kanary?

Both are real companies with real products. Privacy Bee is headquartered in Atlanta, holds an AICPA SOC 2 certification, publishes its full broker breakdown, and staffs its top tier with W2 employees in its own facility rather than contractors. Kanary launched its consumer app in 2020, says over 20,000 people use it, has raised venture capital from Y Combinator and 2048, and is SOC 2 certified with SSO and API access on team plans.

The caveat is thin evidence rather than bad evidence. Privacy Bee holds 4.0 out of 5 on Trustpilot across 13 reviews. Thirteen. That is not a rating anyone should lean on in either direction, and it sits against 2,927 reviews for Incogni, 261 for DeleteMe and 222 for Optery. Kanary does not have a meaningful independent review base either. When you are evaluating the two smallest vendors in a category, the absence of a large review sample is the finding, and it argues for buying the shortest commitment you can and judging the product on your own data instead.

Which one should you actually buy?

For most people, neither, and that is a genuine answer rather than a dodge. If you want broad automated removal at the lowest price, Optery Core is $39 a year and Incogni is $95.88, and both are cheaper than either plan here for comparable people-search coverage. If you want a human working your account, DeleteMe puts a named privacy expert on a $129 plan. Privacy Bee and Kanary both start above those numbers.

Buy Privacy Bee Pro if the advertising, list broker and data enrichment layer is specifically what bothers you. It is the only vendor that itemizes that layer and prices it, and at about $192 a year it is cheaper than DeleteMe for a larger claimed roster. Buy Kanary Advanced if you are managing an actual threat rather than general exposure, because attorney general escalation, address confidentiality enrollment and daily scanning are not things the cheaper services offer at any price. Buy Kanary Team if you are an employer or a firm covering executives or clients, where the SSO, the API and the admin console are the product and the per-seat price is a rounding error against the risk.

And before you pay any of them, find out how exposed you actually are. Optery's free tier will show you with screenshots and no credit card, our own scan will do the same, and the answer decides whether a $250 seat is proportionate or absurd. Some people appear on a handful of sites. Some appear on dozens. The rate cards on this page are only meaningful once you know which one you are.

Frequently asked questions

Is Privacy Bee legit?

Yes. Privacy Bee is a real company headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, holds an AICPA SOC 2 certification, and publishes an itemized breakdown of the 1,122 data brokers it claims to cover, which is more transparency than most of this industry offers. It also offers a 30-day money-back guarantee. The fair caution is that its independent review base is very small, at 13 Trustpilot reviews, so there is little third-party evidence either way.

How much does Privacy Bee cost?

Checked 1 September 2026, Privacy Bee publishes three plans as approximate monthly prices when billed annually: Essentials at $8 a month, Pro at $16 and Signature at $67. It does not print an annual total, so those work out at roughly $96, $192 and $804 a year. Multi-person and multi-year discounts are offered without published figures, and all plans carry a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Is Privacy Bee free?

No. Privacy Bee has no free removal tier. Its cheapest plan is Essentials at about $8 a month billed annually, which covers 517 people-search sites. If you want to see your exposure before paying anyone, Optery runs the only genuinely free tier in this category, giving you an exposure report with screenshots and no credit card, and our own scan is free as well.

How much does Kanary cost?

Kanary Core is $250 a year per account and Kanary Advanced is $500 a year per account, both billed yearly, checked 1 September 2026. Family members are added at 50 percent off, so $125 and $250 respectively. Team plans require a minimum of five seats and can mix Core and Advanced. A monthly option exists behind a toggle, with the annual term described as two months free.

Is Kanary worth it?

For ordinary exposure cleanup, no: $250 a year is the most expensive individual seat in the category and Optery Core does broadly similar people-search removal for $39. Kanary earns its price in a narrower case. Its Advanced plan adds AI and LLM sources, daily scanning, address confidentiality enrollment and attorney general escalation, which matter when you are managing a real threat rather than tidying up.

Privacy Bee vs Incogni: which is better?

On price they are close, at about $96 a year for Privacy Bee Essentials against $95.88 for Incogni Standard. Incogni covers 420+ sites and sells month to month at $15.98, which Privacy Bee does not advertise. Privacy Bee Essentials covers 517 people-search sites, and its Pro tier at about $192 claims 1,122 brokers including the advertising and data enrichment layer Incogni does not itemize.

Privacy Bee vs DeleteMe: which covers more?

Privacy Bee Pro claims 1,122 data brokers at roughly $192 a year, against DeleteMe's 986 at $129. But the counts are not measuring the same thing: DeleteMe describes 986 as brokers it has found and removed data from, and Privacy Bee's 1,122 includes advertising, list broker and data enrichment firms that never publish a profile page. DeleteMe assigns a named human expert on every plan; Privacy Bee does so from Pro up, with US-based analysts only on Signature.

Privacy Bee vs Optery: which should I pick?

Optery is far cheaper to start, at $39 a year on Core against about $96 for Privacy Bee Essentials, and it is the only one of the two you can try free. Privacy Bee wins on the breadth of its claimed roster, particularly the non-people-search layer. A practical route is to run Optery's free exposure report first, which costs nothing and tells you whether the wider coverage Privacy Bee sells is solving a problem you actually have.