Optery Review 2026: Pricing, the Free Scan, and Which Plan Is Worth It

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By Lennit Herrera, founder and editor, Shielded Browsing  ·  Last updated September 25, 2026

The verdict: Optery is the data removal service with the best independent evidence behind it. In the only published head-to-head test of these services, Consumer Reports found Optery’s Ultimate plan removed 68% of tracked people-search profiles within four months, the highest of seven services. It is also the only one whose free tier is useful on its own: an exposure report with screenshots of what it finds, no credit card needed. The catches: that 68% belongs to the $249-a-year Ultimate plan, nobody has measured the $39 Core plan, and a researcher opting out by hand did slightly better (70%). Run the free scan first.

Plan prices, site counts and plan limits were verified against Optery’s own pricing page, help desk and legal pages on September 25, 2026. Removal-rate figures come from Consumer Reports’ published study, not from us. We do not test these services ourselves.

On this page

• Optery at a glance
• What Optery actually does
• Pricing, plan by plan
• What the independent evidence says
• Expanded Reach: the 635+ number explained
• What we like and what to watch out for
• Optery vs EasyOptOuts, Incogni, DeleteMe and California’s DROP
• Is it safe to give Optery your details?
• What Optery can’t do
• Who should buy it, and who should skip it
• How we researched this review
• Frequently asked questions

Optery at a glance

Starting price: Free Basic $0; paid plans from $3.25/mo billed yearly ($39/yr)  ·  Free tier: yes, no card required  ·  Sites covered: 380+ / 560+ / 635+ by paid tier with Expanded Reach on, plus custom removals across 950+ sites on Ultimate  ·  Independent removal rate: 68% at four months (Ultimate, Consumer Reports)  ·  Guarantee: 30-day money-back, individual accounts only  ·  Available in: US, Canada (not Quebec), Australia, New Zealand, South Africa  ·  Operator: Optery, Inc., a Delaware C corporation headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area

Run Optery’s free exposure scan →

What Optery actually does

Data brokers compile profiles on you (address history, phone numbers, relatives) and people-search sites publish them. US state privacy laws let you demand removal, but only one company at a time, and records come back as brokers buy fresh data. Our data removal services comparison covers the whole category. Optery does three things:

1. Scans. It searches hundreds of broker sites plus your Google and Bing results and builds an exposure report with screenshots of each profile it finds, often with a link to the live listing.
2. Removes. On paid plans its software submits opt-out forms, solves captchas, clicks verification links and sends legal demands for you, using what Optery calls “a blend of technologies, including AI and machine learning.”
3. Repeats. Paid plans rescan and resubmit monthly. Extended and Ultimate add a before-and-after screenshot report about every 90 days, so you don’t have to take “removed” on trust.

Pricing, plan by plan

Yearly billing is the real price. Month to month, Core works out to $47.88 a year, Extended to $179.88 and Ultimate to $299.88. Optery’s “save 17%” label for yearly billing is accurate. At the time of writing, a banner on Optery’s site also advertised a FALL2026 code for 20% off at checkout. We couldn’t confirm from the page which plans or billing terms it covers, so check at checkout rather than planning around it.

Families. Optery for Family has no headcount cap, and the discount rises to 30% off all plans once you have four or more paid plans. Free Basic members cost nothing. Family discounts can’t be combined with promo codes.

Refunds and renewal. Individual accounts (not business) get a 30-day “no questions asked” money-back guarantee. Plans auto-renew until you cancel, which you can do any time from your account page.

Which plan the evidence supports. Only Ultimate has an independent removal rate. Core, Optery’s own “80/20” plan, handles one name and one address with no human checking results, so if you’ve moved, married or use a nickname, it will miss records. For most people, Extended is the lowest tier that matches how your data actually appears online.

Compare Optery plans on its pricing page →

What the independent evidence says

There is exactly one published, independent, head-to-head test of these services. Consumer Reports, working with the digital-safety firm Tall Poppy, published Data Defense: Evaluating People-Search Site Removal Services on August 8, 2024, from testing run May to September 2023.

Thirty-two volunteers took part: 28 were signed up to one of seven services (Confidently, DeleteMe, EasyOptOuts, IDX, Kanary, Optery and ReputationDefender), and four opted out by hand as a control group. Researchers checked 13 people-search sites, including Spokeo, Whitepages and Radaris, after one week, one month and four months.

Source: Consumer Reports, Data Defense report (PDF), August 2024. Prices are what each service charged at the time of the study. Optery’s Ultimate price is still $249 a year as of September 25, 2026.

Across all seven services, only 117 of 332 profiles found (35%) were gone after four months. Optery led, but only three points ahead of EasyOptOuts at about a twelfth of the price. Almost 80% of all removals came in the first week.

Four caveats matter before you lean on that 68%:

• It measured Ultimate, not Core. The plan tested covered all of Optery’s automated sites. Core is a different product, capped at one name and one address, and it has never been independently measured.
• The services were handicapped, and Consumer Reports said so. They got only a name, current address and date of birth, and participants “did none of these things” when it came to checking dashboards or answering follow-ups. Optery says about 80% of its customers add a middle name and sign its limited power of attorney, so real results could be better. Nobody has measured that independently.
• It covered 13 sites, not 635. The study tells you how well each service cleared the biggest people-search sites. It tells you nothing about the long tail.
• It didn’t check whether profiles came back. Once a profile was gone, researchers didn’t re-check it. Reappearance, which is the whole case for paying every year, was not measured.

Optery’s rebuttal points out that the manual opt-outs were done by trained researchers, not ordinary consumers, across just 13 sites. That’s fair. So is Consumer Reports’ finding: if you’ll put in the time, doing the biggest sites yourself works as well as any service tested.

PCMag rates Optery 4.5 out of 5 with Editors’ Choice (review last updated November 13, 2024). Its one listed con: the reporting “doesn’t distinguish removed data from never-found data.” A zero might mean a removal, or that you were never listed.

Expanded Reach: the 635+ number explained

Optery’s headline site counts all assume you have turned on a free add-on called Expanded Reach, and its own help article is open about what that involves.

• Without it, coverage drops sharply. Core falls from 380+ sites to 150+, Extended from 560+ to 330+, and Ultimate from 635+ to 405+.
• You have to sign a limited power of attorney first. That lets Optery act as your authorized agent, because some brokers won’t process third-party requests without one.
• These are brokers Optery can’t fully verify. In Optery’s words, Expanded Reach covers brokers “who do not yet meet Optery’s rigorous removal verification standards, but that still provide a viable opt out mechanism.” Judging by Optery’s own list, most are marketing, advertising and analytics firms rather than people-search sites.
• It may send your details to companies that didn’t have them. Optery warns it “may send your personal info (e.g. full name, city and state) to data brokers that didn’t have it in the first place,” since you can’t check these databases first.

Every service that emails private brokers has this problem. Optery is just more upfront about it. Turn Expanded Reach on if marketing and data-trade exposure is your worry. Leave it off if people-search listings are, and compare plans on the lower numbers.

What we like and what to watch out for

What we like

• The best independent evidence in the category. Top removal rate in the only published head-to-head test, with PCMag Editors’ Choice on top.
• A free tier that produces evidence, not a sales pitch. Screenshots of your actual exposed profiles, plus opt-out tools and guides if you want to do it yourself.
• Before-and-after proof on Extended and Ultimate. You don’t have to take a “removed” status on trust.
• A security audit to point to. Optery says it has completed an AICPA SOC 2 Type II audit. That’s an independent audit of its security controls, not a guarantee against breaches.

Watch out for

• The 68% belongs to the $249 plan. The $39 plan in most “from $3.25 a month” headlines has never been independently tested.
• Core’s one-name, one-address limit. If your records sit under a maiden name, a nickname or a past address, Core won’t chase them.
• The headline site counts depend on Expanded Reach, which needs a power of attorney and may send your name to brokers that never had it.
• Reports can blur “removed” and “never found”, per PCMag. Read a zero as “nothing showing now,” not as proof something was deleted.
• Hand-done opt-outs matched it. Trained researchers opting out by hand scored 70% in the same study. With patience and a short list of sites, you may not need to pay anyone.

Best for: anyone who wants the strongest evidence-backed result, anyone at higher personal risk, and anyone who just wants the free exposure report before deciding.
Skip it if: price is the deciding factor (EasyOptOuts came within three points at $19.99), or you live in California and haven’t filed a free DROP request yet.

Start with Optery’s free scan →

Optery vs EasyOptOuts, Incogni, DeleteMe and California’s DROP

Prices checked September 25, 2026 at easyoptouts.com, incogni.com/pricing and joindeleteme.com/pricing. DeleteMe’s figure is its standard one-person, one-year price. Its page carries more than one price set, so confirm at checkout.

Optery vs EasyOptOuts. This is the comparison that matters: EasyOptOuts removed 65% at $19.99 a year, Optery Ultimate 68% at $249. The extra money buys screenshot proof, a much larger site list, custom removals and a human agent. If you just want the big people-search sites cleared cheaply, EasyOptOuts is the better value.

Optery vs Incogni and DeleteMe. Incogni targets private, unsearchable brokers and wasn’t in the Consumer Reports study, so it has no measured rate to compare. Pick it if marketing-list exposure worries you more than people-search listings (our full Incogni review covers its plans). DeleteMe removed 27% to Optery’s 68% in the same study. Its case is its human-led service, not its measured results.

If you live in California, file with the state’s free Delete Request and Opt-out Platform (DROP) before paying anyone. The state says one request reaches over 600 registered data brokers and needs only your name, date of birth and ZIP code. Since August 1, 2026 brokers must process it, then re-check for new matches at least every 45 days. DROP doesn’t reach unregistered brokers or publicly available data. That gap is what Optery fills. More in our DROP section.

Is it safe to give Optery your details?

Any removal service needs your name, address and date of birth to work. Here’s what Optery’s own documents say, as read on September 25, 2026:

• It says it isn’t a data broker. Its privacy policy (last updated May 17, 2026) states that Optery “does not sell or rent Personal Data for monetary consideration to any third party.”
• Brokers receive your details as part of removal. The policy says plainly that brokers become independent data controllers once they receive a request, and that Optery can’t control what they do with it. That’s true of every service in this category.
• AI processing is optional. Optery’s subprocessor list names OpenAI as “Optional/Opt-in,” used for verifying profile matches and generating reports. If you don’t want your data processed that way, don’t opt in.
• If it’s sold, you get notice. Consumer Reports flagged that Optery’s data could transfer in a merger. The current policy promises 30 days’ written notice by email, with the option to delete your account before any transfer.

This category has a known conflict-of-interest problem: in March 2024 KrebsOnSecurity showed that Onerep’s founder had launched dozens of people-search sites. We found no reporting that ties Optery to the brokers it removes you from.

What Optery can’t do

• It can’t make removals permanent. Brokers buy fresh data all the time. Stop paying and your listings rebuild over months. Optery’s monthly rescans are the product you’re paying for.
• It can’t clean up Google. Ultimate can ask search engines to drop outdated pages once a broker listing is gone. News articles, court records and social posts stay.
• It can’t undo breaches. Passwords and emails already leaked stay leaked. A password manager and a hardware security key protect your accounts. Data removal doesn’t.
• It can’t make you anonymous online. Removing people-search listings is one privacy layer. Tracking, your ISP and your home network are separate problems. See our guides to staying anonymous online and securing your home network.

Who should buy it, and who should skip it

Everyone should run the free scan. It costs nothing and tells you whether you have a real exposure problem or three stale listings.

Buy Extended ($149 a year) if the scan turns up a lot, especially if you’ve moved or changed your name. Buy Ultimate ($249 a year) if you’re at higher risk of harassment or doxxing, or the scan finds sites outside the automated list. It’s also the only plan with an independent removal rate. Core ($39) suits one name, one address history and a light footprint.

Skip Optery if you mainly want the big people-search sites cleared for as little as possible (EasyOptOuts is the better buy), if you live in California and haven’t filed a DROP request yet, or if you’ll actually do the top sites yourself every few months.

How we researched this review

We checked Optery’s four personal plans against its own pricing page, help desk, terms, privacy policy and subprocessor list on September 25, 2026. We compared it with four alternatives (EasyOptOuts, Incogni, DeleteMe and California’s DROP) at their own pages that day, and with two independent sources: Consumer Reports’ Data Defense study and PCMag’s review. We do not test data removal services ourselves and haven’t used Optery’s paid plans. Every removal rate here comes from Consumer Reports, and Optery’s descriptions of its own features are attributed to it.

Frequently asked questions

Is Optery legit?

Yes. Optery, Inc. is a Delaware C corporation headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area. It finished first among seven services in Consumer Reports’ 2024 removal study, holds PCMag’s Editors’ Choice, and says it has completed a SOC 2 Type II security audit. Legit doesn’t mean perfect: the study also found that careful manual opt-outs did slightly better.

Is Optery free?

The Free Basic plan is free with no credit card. It gives you an exposure report with screenshots, a Google and Bing scan, and self-service opt-out tools. Optery won’t remove anything for you on the free plan. Automated removals start with Core at $39 a year or $3.99 a month.

How long does Optery take to remove my data?

In the Consumer Reports study, Optery Ultimate removed 52% of tracked profiles in a week, 58% in a month and 68% in four months. Almost 80% of all removals happened in the first week, so a listing still up after a month or two rarely goes with more waiting.

Can I cancel Optery and get a refund?

Individual accounts get a 30-day money-back guarantee. Business accounts don’t. You can cancel any time from the Plans & Billing section of your account. Plans auto-renew unless you do.

Bottom line

Optery has the best evidence, the most transparent reporting and the only free tier worth using on its own. But the measured result belongs to the $249 Ultimate plan, and the headline site counts depend on an add-on that trades some privacy for coverage. Run the free scan, file a DROP request if you’re in California, then buy the plan that matches how many names and addresses you have. For most people, that’s Extended.

Run Optery’s free exposure scan →  ·  See all six data removal services compared →

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