DeleteMe Review (October 2026): Pricing, Coverage and Consumer Reports’ Result

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By Lennit Herrera, founder and editor, Shielded Browsing  ·  Last updated October 16, 2026

The verdict: DeleteMe is a managed data-removal service for people who want someone else to do the paperwork and are willing to pay for it. One person pays $129 a year, or $209 for two years. The only independent measurement we can find is Consumer Reports’ 2024 study, where DeleteMe removed 27% of tracked people-search profiles within four months, well behind EasyOptOuts at 65% for $19.99 a year. That study is small and its testing ran in 2023, so DeleteMe may have changed since; read it as a warning, not a verdict. Most of what you are buying is the human handling, quarterly reports and a phone number to call.

Plans, the broker list, the refund and cancellation terms were read on DeleteMe’s own pages on October 16, 2026. The removal-rate figures come from Consumer Reports’ published study, and the California DROP details from the state’s own site. We do not test data-removal services ourselves, so this page makes no claim about how well DeleteMe works for you.

On this page

• DeleteMe at a glance
• Pricing: per person, per year
• What the plan includes
• The 969-site list and what Standard really covers
• What Consumer Reports found
• Refunds, cancellation and the fine print
• DeleteMe vs the alternatives
• The free option: California’s DROP
• What we like and what to watch out for
• What DeleteMe can’t do
• Who should buy it, and who should skip it
• How we researched this review
• Frequently asked questions

DeleteMe at a glance

Starting price: $129 a year for one person (Standard)  ·  Longer term: $209 for two years, one person  ·  Households: $229 a year for two people, $329 for four  ·  Premium: $180 a year for one person  ·  Scans and reports: quarterly on Standard, per its pricing page  ·  Custom requests: 40 a year on Standard  ·  Monthly billing: not offered  ·  Company: Abine, Inc. (Massachusetts law governs its terms)  ·  Free trial: none listed; a refund applies instead (see below)

See DeleteMe’s current plans on its own site →

Pricing: per person, per year

DeleteMe prices by the number of people covered and the length of the term. There is no monthly plan and no free tier on the pricing page. We read these figures on its pricing page on October 16, 2026, for US residents.

The per-person column is our arithmetic, not DeleteMe’s. It shows that the household plans are where the price drops: four people on a two-year term costs under half the one-person annual rate per head. A single person pays $129 or commits to two years for $209, which works out to $104.50 a year.

The page says plans are for US residents and renew automatically unless cancelled. It shows no separate renewal price, so we cannot tell you whether the figure above is also what you pay at renewal. Check the order screen and your confirmation email, and set a calendar reminder a few weeks before your term ends.

The Premium plan

DeleteMe’s Premium plan, one person, is $180 a year ($15 a month, billed annually). Its comparison table lists scans six times a year instead of four, 60 custom requests instead of 40, 15 additional data broker sites and bi-monthly reporting. The same page carries a second comparison table that says “Monthly” scans and 300 custom requests, which does not match, so we treat the first set of numbers as the Premium plan and recommend confirming at checkout. Higher tiers (the site list refers to Business Gold, Diamond, Platinum and VIP) add things like proactive Google scanning for Platinum and VIP members, but we did not find those prices displayed on the public pricing page.

What the plan includes

Every plan on the pricing page lists the same core features:

• Removal of unlimited aliases, previous names and email addresses.
• Email and phone masking tools.
• Custom removal requests alongside the automated service.
• Email, chat and phone support.
• Quarterly privacy reports, a named “Personal DeleteMe Expert”, and new opt-outs added during your term at no extra cost.
• A “100% Satisfaction Guarantee”, which the terms turn into the refund rule described below.

The pricing page also claims an average of 15 public, Google-able listings removed “within days”. That is DeleteMe’s own figure and we have no independent source for it. Its “How We Work” page describes four steps: you submit your information, its staff search for it, a detailed report arrives within 7 days, and scans and removals then repeat through the year.

The human layer is the product. You are paying for a team to find your listings, file the opt-outs, chase the sites that ignore them and report back, rather than doing that yourself.

The 969-site list and what Standard really covers

DeleteMe’s “Sites we remove from” page opens with “We Remove Private Information from 969 Data Brokers” and a list dated September 17, 2026. That number needs unpacking, because the list uses symbols to show who gets what. The key at the bottom of the page reads, in short: * is included in the Standard plan and above, ** is included in Business Gold, Diamond, Platinum and VIP, *** in Diamond, Platinum and VIP, **** in Platinum and VIP, ᵒ exclusively in VIP, ~ international plans, and ^ custom requests.

We tallied those marks by hand from the list. Roughly 91 of the 969 entries carry the single-star Standard mark (85 on their own plus 6 that are also tagged international). About 562 are marked as custom requests, about 145 as international and about 142 as VIP-only. Our count is approximate, since some entries carry more than one symbol, but the shape is clear: the sites DeleteMe automatically covers on the plan most people buy are a small fraction of the headline number. Everything marked “custom requests” depends on you spending part of your allowance of 40 a year to ask for it.

DeleteMe says on that page that list size is not always the best measure of a removal service, which is fair. A longer list is not proof of better results, and a shorter one is not proof of worse. But it does mean “969 data brokers” should not be read as “969 sites handled for you at $129”.

What Consumer Reports found

The only independent measurement of DeleteMe we found is Consumer Reports’ “Data Defense” study, published in August 2024. It used 32 volunteers in California and New York, signed them up for one of seven removal services (or had CR staff opt out by hand as a baseline), and checked 13 people-search sites after one week, one month and four months. The testing ran from May to September 2023. Prices in the report are as of July 2024.

CR called DeleteMe, IDX and Kanary “midlevel performers”. Across all seven services, only 117 of 332 profiles (35%) were gone after four months, and CR’s headline was that the services were largely ineffective. Every participant still had information on at least some of the 13 sites at every checkpoint.

The study’s own limits matter, and CR states them. Each service was evaluated with four participants, and CR says the results are not statistically significant or nationally representative. Participants did not check their dashboards, answer follow-up questions or file manual requests, which a diligent paying customer might. CR supplied only a name, current address and date of birth and did not upload ID, which some services use to confirm a match. It checked profiles only on the page where they were first found and did not re-check later for reappearance. And the testing is now more than three years old, so the product may have changed since.

So the fair reading is: in a small 2023 test, DeleteMe removed 27% of profiles after four months where a $19.99 service removed 65%, and it was slower at every checkpoint. No more recent independent number exists that we can find. The same report also notes that DeleteMe’s privacy policy says it may transfer personal information in a merger, acquisition or sale of assets, which some privacy-minded buyers would not want.

Refunds, cancellation and the fine print

From DeleteMe’s terms of service, read October 16, 2026:

• Auto-renewal. You are registering for a recurring subscription and are billed automatically at the end of the billing cycle.
• Cancelling. You can cancel at any time, for any reason, by emailing or calling DeleteMe. The terms name an email address and a phone number; we did not see a cancel button described.
• Refunds. A full refund if you cancel before your first Privacy Report. After that, a prorated refund based on the time left in your subscription. Since the first report is promised within 7 days, the full-refund window is short.
• No guarantee of results. DeleteMe will use “good faith, reasonable efforts” but says it cannot guarantee that third parties will honour requests or remove your data.
• Power of attorney. You grant Abine a limited power of attorney to submit opt-outs, sign opt-out documents and create accounts on your behalf.
• Your data. Abine says it will never sell your information, but must send it to data brokers to carry out your opt-outs, and cannot control what those brokers then do with it.
• Venue. Disputes are governed by Massachusetts law and heard in Massachusetts courts.

The pricing page’s “100% Satisfaction Guarantee” is real in the sense that a prorated refund exists, but the terms do not describe a no-questions money-back period of 30 days or similar. Read the terms, not the badge.

DeleteMe vs the alternatives

Incogni’s price and site count were read on its pricing page and EasyOptOuts’ on its homepage, both on October 16, 2026. For Optery’s tiers, which are too involved to squeeze into a cell, see our Optery review. For a head-to-head of all three paid options, see Incogni vs DeleteMe vs Optery, and for the wider field our best data removal services guide. Our Incogni review covers that service in detail.

Site counts across vendors are not comparable. “420+”, “134” and “969” count different things, and DeleteMe’s number includes custom-request and higher-tier sites. Treat them as marketing, not scoreboard.

The free option: California’s DROP

If you live in California, there is now a free way to ask hundreds of data brokers to delete your information at once. The state’s Delete Request and Opt-out Platform (DROP) launched on January 1, 2026. Per the state’s page, one request goes to over 600 registered data brokers, it is free, and you verify that you are a California resident through the state’s identity gateway. Brokers must start processing requests on August 1, 2026, checking the platform at least every 45 days, and it can take up to 90 days for your status to update. The page says that by November 2026 all brokers should have completed their first cycle and must then delete data every 45 days.

DROP covers registered data brokers, which is a different universe from the people-search sites that most removal services focus on, and there is no way for us to say how well brokers will comply in practice. But for a Californian, it is a free first step that costs nothing but a few minutes, and it changes the calculation on whether $129 a year is worth it. Outside California there is currently no equivalent single-click federal right, as CR’s own press release notes.

What we like and what to watch out for

What we like

• Hands-off by design. You give it your details once and it handles opt-outs, follow-ups and reports.
• Household pricing. Four people for $329 a year is about $82 each, a real discount on the one-person rate.
• Humans to call. Email, chat and phone support are listed on every plan.
• Transparent list. It publishes the sites it works with, with symbols for who gets what, and states plainly that list size is not the only measure.
• Custom requests. 40 a year on Standard lets you flag a site it doesn’t cover.

Watch out for

• The only independent number is weak. 27% after four months in CR’s small 2023 test, against 65% for a $19.99 service.
• The 969 is not what Standard covers. By our count about 91 of them carry the Standard mark; most of the rest need custom requests or a higher tier.
• No monthly plan, no free tier. You pay for a year up front.
• Cancellation by email or phone. That is what its terms describe; they do not mention an in-account cancel button.
• Pricing page inconsistencies. Two Premium comparison tables disagree on scan frequency and custom requests.
• Data sharing. It must send your details to brokers to opt you out, and its privacy policy allows a transfer of your data in a sale of the business.

What DeleteMe can’t do

It cannot make anything permanent. Data brokers rebuild profiles from public records, and the CR report itself notes that removed information can come back weeks or months later, although CR did not re-check after the first removal. That is why the service is a subscription with repeating scans. It cannot delete a Google result without first removing the source page, and its own FAQ says so. It also cannot reach everything: the terms say it cannot guarantee third parties will comply, and your information in places it does not scan, such as social media, public court records or a company’s own site, stays where it is.

It does not protect you from breaches, phishing or identity theft once data is already in criminal hands. If your concern is account security rather than people-search listings, a password manager and hardware keys are the better spend; see our best password managers and best hardware security keys pages.

Who should buy it, and who should skip it

Buy it if you want the whole job handed to a person, you value a phone number and quarterly reports, and you are covering a household where the per-person price drops. It also suits anyone who knows they would never do manual opt-outs.

Skip it if you are a California resident who has not yet tried DROP, if you are comfortable spending an afternoon on manual opt-outs (CR’s baseline removed 70%), or if raw cost-per-removal matters most; EasyOptOuts at $19.99 a year had the stronger measured result in CR’s test. Skip it too if you cannot accept a prorated refund after the first report.

How we researched this review

We read DeleteMe’s own pricing page (standard and Premium views), how-it-works page, site list and terms of service, the Incogni and EasyOptOuts pricing pages, California’s DROP page, Consumer Reports’ study PDF and its press release, all on October 16, 2026. We do not test data-removal services ourselves and have not signed up for DeleteMe. We could not verify DeleteMe’s “average of 15 listings removed within days” claim, its 4.7-out-of-5 rating claim or its PCMag “Excellent” quote, which are vendor statements, nor whether a renewal price differs from the sign-up price. Prices and plans change, so confirm them on the vendor’s page on the day you buy.

Frequently asked questions

How much does DeleteMe cost?

On October 16, 2026 the Standard plan was $129 a year for one person, $229 for two and $329 for four. Two-year terms were $209, $349 and $499. Premium for one person was $180 a year. There is no monthly option.

Does DeleteMe work?

The only independent test we found, Consumer Reports’ 2024 study, found it removed 27% of tracked profiles within four months, a “midlevel” result in a small, older test. DeleteMe’s own claims are not independently verified.

Is there a free trial or refund?

No trial is listed. Its terms give a full refund if you cancel before your first Privacy Report and a prorated refund afterwards.

How do I cancel DeleteMe?

Per its terms, by emailing or calling DeleteMe. Auto-renewal is on by default, so cancel before the term ends.

How many sites does DeleteMe remove data from?

Its site list says 969 data brokers as of September 17, 2026. By our hand count only about 91 carry the Standard-plan mark; the rest are custom requests, international, or higher-tier.

Is there a free alternative?

Californians can use the state’s free DROP platform. Everyone can opt out manually, which CR’s baseline found removed 70% of profiles.

Is DeleteMe worth it?

If you want a managed, phone-supported service and will pay for it, yes in that narrow sense. If you want the best measured result per dollar, the evidence points elsewhere.

Bottom line

DeleteMe sells convenience and a human, not a proven removal rate. At $129 a year it costs more than Incogni or EasyOptOuts, and the one independent test put it well behind a service at about one-sixth of the price. If hands-off service matters to you, it is a fair choice. If it doesn’t, try DROP if you can, and compare before paying.

This page is for information, not legal or security advice.

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