Data broker removal services compared. DeleteMe, Incogni, Optery, and doing it yourself.

What removal actually means

No service deletes your data from a broker’s systems. An opt-out suppresses your profile from public search results on that broker’s site. The underlying record stays archived, ready to resurface when a new data feed re-creates it. We documented this mechanic in data brokers don’t delete you, they archive you, and it is the single most important fact for setting expectations.

It also defines what you are buying. You are not buying deletion. You are buying suppression at scale, plus monitoring for re-listing, plus the labor of dealing with brokers that make opting out deliberately painful.

Second structural fact: these services work on people-search brokers, the Spokeo and Whitepages tier that publishes your address and family ties to anyone with a browser. Wholesale brokers like Acxiom or LexisNexis Risk sell to companies, not to the public, and respond mainly to legal-basis requests under CCPA or GDPR. Some services file those too. None controls what happens downstream.

The three services

DeleteMe

The oldest of the three, running since 2010, built around human operators. Staff handle the brokers that require faxed forms, notarized letters, or phone calls, which is exactly where automated services stall. Coverage spans roughly 750 sites on paid plans, with custom removal requests on higher tiers. Reporting arrives as a quarterly summary of what was found and removed.

The human layer is the product. It is also why DeleteMe costs more than the alternatives and why turnaround on the long tail is measured in weeks. Our standalone DeleteMe review covers the removal-by-removal results we measured.

Incogni

Built by Surfshark, fully automated. Incogni sends legal-basis requests citing CCPA, GDPR or applicable state law to its broker list and escalates non-responders. Automation means breadth and speed on the brokers that accept email opt-outs, and weakness on the ones that demand a human in the loop.

It is the cheapest credible option and the best fit for EU residents, since the GDPR machinery does most of the work once the request is filed. What you give up is judgment. An automated request that a broker rejects on a technicality stays rejected until the next cycle.

Optery

The transparency play. Optery runs a free exposure scan that shows you which brokers list you before you pay anything, and its paid tiers deliver before-and-after screenshots of every removal. For anyone who needs to demonstrate removal, a stalking victim documenting due diligence, a lawyer advising a client, the screenshot trail is the differentiator.

Coverage at the top tier is comparable to DeleteMe, with custom removals included. The free scan alone is worth running even if you buy nothing, because it converts a vague worry into a list.

The manual route

Every listing these services remove, you can remove yourself. The opt-out pages are public, the process is free, and for the fifteen highest-traffic people-search sites it takes an afternoon. Initial cleanup across the long tail runs ten to fifteen hours. Then the real cost starts: brokers re-list suppressed profiles within months as new data feeds arrive, so the work recurs quarterly.

Manual data broker removal is the right answer when budget is zero, or as the first move while you evaluate paying for maintenance. It is the wrong answer for anyone whose exposure carries physical risk, because re-listing happens silently and you will not be watching.

Verdict by profile

Address exposure with a physical-risk component, military households, anyone with a stalker: a paid service for the monitoring, plus a manual pass on the top people-search sites in week one. Speed matters more than price. Military families have an extra layer of veteran-targeted brokers, mapped in our guide to veteran data brokers.

Contested divorce or harassment case where you may need proof: Optery, for the screenshots.

EU resident: Incogni, and let GDPR do the lifting. US resident on a budget: manual, with a calendar reminder every quarter.

Whether broker removal is even your first move depends on who is actually looking for you. That is a threat-model question, and our guide on how to build a threat model settles it in twenty minutes.

Costs and the time math

Pricing across the category clusters in the same band: roughly a hundred to two hundred dollars a year for an individual at the tiers worth buying, with family plans cutting the per-person cost and Incogni sitting at the bottom of the range. Against that, the manual route prices your own time: ten to fifteen hours of initial cleanup, then a few hours each quarter, indefinitely. For one person the math is a judgment call. For a household under active threat, the subscription is cheaper than the attention.

Whichever route you take, the first week is the same. Clear the top fifteen people-search sites by hand, because that is where a casual search actually lands. File Google’s results-removal request for anything exposing your home address. Then either hand the long tail to a service or put the quarterly manual pass in your calendar. The order matters: the high-traffic sites are ninety percent of the practical exposure and one afternoon of the work.

One more budgeting note: brokers reappear, so whatever you spend, spend it on the maintenance, not the one-time sweep. A perfect cleanup with no monitoring is worth about six months.

Frequently asked questions

How long before my listings disappear?

The big people-search sites process opt-outs in days. The long tail takes weeks to a few months, whichever service you use, because some brokers batch their suppression runs. Expect the bulk of visible results to clear within the first month and stragglers after that.

Will removal stop someone from doxxing me?

It raises the cost, which is the realistic goal. Broker listings are the cheapest source of a home address, and clearing them forces an adversary toward breach data, public records, or social engineering. Determined and funded adversaries still get there. Casual ones usually stop.

Do these services cover breach data or the dark web?

No. Opt-out services suppress broker listings. Credentials and personal data circulating in breach dumps are a separate problem with separate tools, and no subscription pulls data back out of a dump.

Is it safe to give a removal service my personal details?

You hand over name, addresses and birth date so the service can match listings, which is an act of trust in one company to reduce your exposure everywhere else. Read the retention policy before subscribing. The three covered here publish theirs; the dozens of lookalike services that advertise aggressively often do not.

Can I remove myself from Google instead?

Google offers a results-removal tool for pages that expose personal contact details, and it works on individual URLs. It treats the symptom. The broker page still exists, still feeds other sites, and still answers direct visitors. Do both: suppress at the broker, then request the Google removal for anything that lingers.

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There’s no perfect setup. Anyone selling you perfect is selling fear. The goal is simple: make yourself a harder target than the person next to you.