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Best for Couples or Families
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Excellent identity theft protection service
Includes a password manager and VPN
Robust tools for children’s security
Best for Comprehensive Identity Protection
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Comprehensive three-bureau credit monitoring
Dark web and social media alerts
When comparing Aura and Experian IdentityWorks, it's important to consider what each offers for identity theft protection. In general, couples and families will appreciate Aura's robust monitoring and alerts. It also has generous identity theft insurance, parental controls, and device protection.
On the other hand, Experian IdentityWorks is operated by Experian, one of the three major credit bureaus in the United States. It has credibility, and offers comprehensive identity protection alerts.
We’ll dive deeper into Aura and Experian IdentityWorks to learn more about what each offers and how they share your data. Let's review the main points of each service.
Budget is often a primary factor in choosing an identity theft protection, and Aura offers the best value. It has affordable plans and provides the monitoring and credit alerts you’d expect from ID theft protection companies. The service gets more affordable with additional people, so it's ideal for couples or families. It even has additional services for preventing children's identity theft.
Meanwhile, Experian IdentityWorks is the more costly option, but it does provide comprehensive identity theft protection. Unlike Aura, it has social network monitoring and change of address alerts. Experian also provides quarterly credit reports, while Aura only does annual reports.
If you’re looking for a free option, Experian IdentityWorks offers a basic plan with minimal identity monitoring features like dark web surveillance, personal privacy scan, and free Experian credit reports and monitoring. It's a good option if you aren't ready to invest in identity theft protection yet but still want to monitor your credit.
 Aura |
 Experian IdentityWorks |
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| Price | $9.00–$30.00/mo | $24.99–$34.99/mo |
| Identity theft insurance | Up to $1 million per person | Up to $1 million |
| Credit monitoring | ||
| 3-bureau credit reports | ||
| Credit score | ||
| Identity recovery | ||
| Dark web alerts | ||
| Social media account alerts | ||
| Learn more | Get Aura | Get Experian IdentityWorks |
| Our Pick
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| Billed annually | $15.00–$50.00/mo | $24.99–$34.99/mo |
| Billed monthly | $144–$444/yr | N/A |
| Best value plan | Family for $25.00/mo (billed annually) | Family for $34.99/mo |
| Identity theft insurance | Up to $1,000,000 per adult | Up to $1,000,000 |
| Learn more | Get Aura | Get Experian IdentityWorks |
All Aura plans offer a 14-day free trial and a 60-day money-back guarantee on annual plans. Every plan has the same identity theft protection features and digital security tools, including antivirus software, password manager, and a virtual private network (VPN). But, the number of people, devices, and storage allowed increases with each plan.
Aura also provides $1 million in identity theft insurance for each adult on the plan. The insurance policy can make it easier to manage identity theft losses.
The biggest difference between plans occurs with the Family plan. It covers up to five adults and an unlimited number of children. It also includes several family protection features to monitor a child's identity and ensure their safety online. An additional feature of the Family plan is spam call and message protection, which blocks robocalls and other suspicious phone numbers.
All Experian IdentityWorks plans have a seven-day free trial. Unlike Aura, there's no money-back guarantee. So, you want to maximize your free trial to ensure its features are right for your needs. The paid plans include features like credit monitoring and alerts from all three credit bureaus, financial alerts, identity theft alerts, and access to Experian CreditLock.
Experian IdentityWorks offers a free plan that only offers one-bureau credit monitoring from Experian and limited identity theft monitoring. It's ideal for those on a budget or who might not be ready to invest in full-service identity protection yet.
| Feature |
|
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| Credit monitoring | ||
| Financial activity alerts | ||
| 3-bureau credit reports | Yes — Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian | Yes — Experian, Equifax and TransUnion |
| Credit score | ||
| FICO score | ||
| Credit lock and freeze | ||
| Identity recovery | ||
| Dark web alerts | ||
| Social media account alerts | ||
| Social Security Number monitoring | ||
| Home title monitoring | ||
| Address change alerts | ||
| Learn more | Get Aura | Get Experian IdentityWorks |
When comparing the paid plans, the differences in monitoring and alerts are minimal and may depend on personal preferences.
The biggest difference is how Aura provides online monitoring for children. Aura is the family-friendly choice if you’re looking to protect your child's identity and ensure their safety online. Aura offers cyberbullying alerts and parental controls for online browsing.
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Another difference between Aura and Experian is how often credit reports are delivered. Aura provides annual credit reports, while Experian IdentityWorks provides them quarterly. And if you’re on Experian's Family plan, you get Experian credit reports daily. However, both services offer ongoing credit monitoring, so you'll always get an alert on inquiries on your credit report.
A notable difference is Aura doesn't provide FICO scores like Experian IdentityWorks. Instead, it shares VantageScore credit scores. While both credit scores are valid, 90% of lenders use FICO to make lending decisions.[1] Aura not providing a FICO score is a missing part of its financial fraud protection.
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When you use an identity theft protection service, you need to share your personal information, like your Social Security number (SSNs), financial data, and more. Otherwise, the service can't track your identity and alert you to suspicious activity.
It's unavoidable for Aura or Experian IdentityWorks to collect your personal data. But it does have a responsibility to protect it.
| Our Pick
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| Multi-factor authentication | ||
| Collects data | ||
| Shares data with third parties | Yes — as necessary to work with partners | Yes — sells it to other companies |
| Learn more | Get Aura | Get Experian IdentityWorks |
Aura's privacy policy clearly states that it doesn't sell your data. It only shares data as needed.
Meanwhile, Experian IdentityWorks has a lengthy table revealing what sensitive personal information it has sold to third parties. Data like SSNs, geolocation, and citizenship/immigration status have been collected and sold, shared, or disclosed to third parties.
| Our Pick
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| Windows | Yes (for VPN and antivirus) | |
| macOS | Yes (for VPN and antivirus) | |
| Android | ||
| iOS | ||
| 24/7 customer support | ||
| Customer support options | Live chat, phone, email, online guides | Phone, mail, contact form |
| Learn more | Get Aura | Get Experian IdentityWorks |
As far as compatibility, Aura and Experian IdentityWorks have the same offerings. Both can be accessed from any browser on your desktop, and they offer mobile apps for Android and iOS so you can receive identity alerts on the go. Aura’s VPN and antivirus also have desktop apps for Windows and macOS.
However, Aura and Experian IdentityWorks have noticeably different approaches to customer support.
Aura provides 24/7 customer support. It's possible to contact them via live chat, phone, or email. It also has online guides to help you with problems or questions about Aura.
Experian IdentityWorks doesn't provide 24/7 customer support. It's a bit more difficult to contact them since it doesn't openly share a phone number on its website. Surprisingly, you can get customer support through snail mail, but it's a slow option. Finally, you can contact Experian via an online form. But it's not clear when you’ll get a response back.
Aura is a legitimate monitoring service to prevent or stop identity theft. It monitors online accounts, financial transactions, credit reports, the dark web, and more. It has an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau.[2]
Experian IdentityWorks is operated by Experian, one of the leading credit bureaus. It handles millions of people's sensitive financial information. Your data is most likely safe with Experian. But, you should ensure you are using a strong password and enable multi-factor authentication to protect your account.
Aura has robust identity theft protection features and is more affordable overall. Meanwhile, LifeLock provides a higher insurance policy. Get a full comparison of Aura and LifeLock to learn more about their similarities and differences.
Experian is a major credit reporting agency in the United States. It's responsible for collecting and sharing consumer credit information. Experian IdentityWorks focuses on identity theft protection.
Experian IdentityWorks is operated by one of the three major credit bureaus. While it does have credibility and all the necessary tools for identity theft protection, it's also more expensive than Aura. It also admits to selling your personal information to third parties.
Aura offers a single service that covers device security and identity theft protection. It's more user-friendly for families and offers tools to protect your children's identity and online browsing experience.
Overall, Aura is the better choice. It's more affordable, has robust child protection services, includes device security, and doesn't sell your data to third parties. You can review our identity theft protection and credit monitoring guide to learn more about how a service like Aura can protect you.
If you're looking for the best identity theft protection service for you, then you want to research your options. While Aura is a good choice, you may also want to consider these alternatives to determine if their ID theft protection is worth it:
Excellent identity theft protection service
Includes a password manager and VPN
Robust tools for children’s security
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