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Best for overall protection
Aura is the best option for all-around protection, based on its performance, price, and the security perks included with all plans. Although Zander offers core identity theft protection features at a more affordable price, it lacks credit monitoring.
Identity theft protection services aim to help users prevent identity thieves from accessing and stealing their personal data. In this article, we’ll compare Aura and Zander to help you decide which is right for you. We’ll explore prices, monitoring, customer service, and everything else you need to know.
Pricing
Features
Security
Compatibility and customer support
FAQs
Aura vs. Zander: Which is better?
Aura vs. Zander review at a glance
Aura is one of the best identity theft protection services on the market. It’s got all the features you’re likely to need, and the plan selection is simple — all you need to do is decide how many people you need to cover. That said, it lacks social media account monitoring, and the plans are a bit more expensive than Zander’s.
Zander is a more affordable option with a similar feature set, including extras like a virtual private network (VPN) and antivirus, but it lacks credit monitoring and uses tracking cookies.
Aura vs. Zander compared
![]() Best overall |
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Star rating | ||
Price | $9.00–$30.00/mo | $6.25-$21.99/mo |
Types of identity monitoring | Dark web, SSN, home and auto title monitoring, and more | Dark web, SSN, home title monitoring, and more |
Credit monitoring | Yes, 3-bureau credit monitoring with all plans | |
Identity theft insurance | Up to $1 million per adult | Up to $1 million per adult |
Identity restoration services | ||
24/7 customer support | ||
Learn more | Get Aura | Get Zander |
Aura pros and cons
- Includes password manager, antivirus software, safe browsing tools, and more on all plans
- Intuitive dashboard and weekly activity alerts
- Family plan includes parental controls and child fraud protection
- No social media account monitoring or alerts
Zander pros and cons
- Lower price than many competitors
- Easy-to-use dashboard
- Elite Bundle plan includes UltraVPN and UltraAV
- No credit monitoring, credit reports, or credit scores
- Uses tracking cookies and shares data with third parties
Which identity theft protection is the better value?
Even though Zander is cheaper, Aura offers more robust identity theft protection services across all plans.
![]() Our Pick |
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Price range | $9.00–$30.00/mo | $6.25-$21.99/mo |
Family plan | Aura Family for $25.00/mo (billed annually) | Elite Bundle Family for $21.99/mo |
Money-back guarantee | Yes, 60 days | |
Learn more | Get Aura
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Get Zander
|
Aura plans
Aura offers three plans: Individual, Couple, and Family. Child identity theft features are limited to the Family plan. Apart from that, all three options offer the same features and protection, including credit monitoring, antivirus, a VPN, a password manager, and more.
Online security tools, such as a password manager. antivirus software, ad blocker, and more help keep your personally identifiable information private, so it’s great that they’re included in even the most basic plans.
The only major difference between plans is the number of people covered, making plan selection straightforward. There’s also a 14-day free trial (credit card required) and a 60-day money-back guarantee, so you can try the service with confidence.
- Individual: This plan provides coverage for a single individual. It offers all the main Aura features, including $1 million in identity theft insurance, credit monitoring, financial account monitoring, spam protection, and 1 GB of secure cloud storage. Subscribers also get Aura’s antivirus and VPN. Individual plans cover up to 10 devices.
- Couple: This plan offers the same coverage but for two adults. It provides $2 million in identity theft insurance ($1 million for each individual) and 2 GB of secure storage. The Couple plan also covers up to 20 devices. Other features are identical to the Individual plan.
- Family: The Family plan covers up to five adults and unlimited kids and adds a few extra child-related features: child SSN monitoring, parental controls, and the safe gaming feature. This is also the only plan with AI-powered spam call protection. Aura Family also increases the insurance coverage to $5 million ($1 million per adult), provides 5 GB of cloud storage, and covers up to 50 devices.
Zander plans
Zander offers two plans: Essential and Elite Bundle. Both plans come in two versions: Individual and Family. Individual plans cover a single adult, while Family plans cover two adults and up to 10 dependent children.
Unlike Aura, Zander doesn’t offer a free trial or a money-back guarantee. However, if you sign up for an annual plan and cancel early, you may be able to get a refund for the unused time on the subscription.
- Essential Plan: This is Zander’s basic plan, which includes identity theft coverage, dark monitoring, data breach updates, and other essential identity theft protections. This plan is very affordable but lacks some monitoring features (like bank account and debit card monitoring) and other extras that come with the Elite Bundle.
- Elite Bundle: The Elite Bundle is Zander’s high-end offering. It includes everything in the Essential plan, plus additional monitoring (home title, bank and retirement accounts, and debit and credit cards), and bonus features such as UltraVPN, UltraAV, and a password manager.
Which identity theft protection has the better features?
Zander is missing credit monitoring and credit reports, which are essential for making sure your credit is safe. Aura offers these, along with social media monitoring.
Feature | ![]() Our Pick |
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Social Security number monitoring | ||
Financial activity alerts | ||
Credit monitoring | ||
3-bureau credit reports | Yes — Experian, Equifax, TransUnion | |
Credit score | ||
Credit lock and freeze | ||
Identity theft insurance | Up to $1 million per adult | Up to $1 million |
Dark web monitoring | ||
Social media monitoring | ||
Home title monitoring | ||
USPS address change alerts | ||
Learn more | Get Aura
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Get Zander
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The big difference between Aura and Zander, at least when it comes to monitoring and alerts, is credit monitoring.
Aura provides credit monitoring, credit reports, and can pull your credit score from all three major credit bureaus. Additionally, Aura offers three-bureau monitoring on all plans, a feature that is rare among identity theft protection companies. Credit bureau monitoring can provide clues that your identity has been stolen, and Zander misses a big piece of the identity theft puzzle by omitting them.
Yes, it’s true that you can technically monitor your credit on your own with free tools like Credit Karma. However, this requires checking additional services rather than having everything covered under one dashboard. Plus, Credit Karma is a data-sharing monster. It’s definitely a tradeoff you will have to take into account.
Which identity theft protection is more secure?
ID theft protection services have access to a lot of very sensitive data. For that reason, data privacy and security are extremely important and should be a top concern when selecting one of these services.
There aren’t any major red flags in terms of security with either Aura or Zander. Both are reputable companies that offer two-factor authentication to help keep your account safe.
Aura and Zander have similar security standards. Both collect your data for protection purposes and also share it with third parties for monitoring.
![]() Our Pick |
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Encryption | AES-256 and TLS 1.2 or higher | SSL/TLS |
Two-factor authentication | ||
Collects data | ||
Shares data with third parties | Minimal | |
Learn more | Get Aura
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Get Zander
|
We also found that Zander has trackers and cookies from third parties and affiliates on its website — this is potentially the other reason it’s able to offer its service for less than its competitors.
There doesn’t appear to be anything nefarious happening here, but privacy-conscious users should be aware that their data is being used for advertising purposes.
Which identity theft protection has better compatibility and customer support?
While the services have similar compatibility, Aura takes the lead in customer support with an added live chat contact method.
![]() Our Pick |
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Android | ||
iOS | ||
Dedicated restoration specialists | ||
Lost wallet remediation | ||
24/7 customer support | ||
Customer support options | Live chat, phone, email, online guides | Phone, email, online form, online guides |
Learn more | Get Aura
|
Get Zander
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Both Aura and Zander work on the most common platforms: Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS. Both services are easy to use and provide clear overviews of your identity alerts and other information.
As for customer support, both offer similar options, including email, phone, and online guides. Both are available 24/7, so you can get assistance anytime you have a concern about your identity.
In testing, we found Zander to be a bit slow to respond to form submissions, and there’s no live chat option.
FAQs
Why does Aura need my Social Security number?
Aura needs your Social Security number to pull your credit reports. The company is very transparent about this and claims that, despite having over 25 million members, it’s never lost customer data. All credit monitoring services will require your SSN to provide you with credit reports and credit scores.
What are Zander’s downsides?
Zander is a good identity theft protection company, but it does have a few downsides. The biggest is definitely the lack of credit monitoring, which means you’ll need to handle that yourself with another service.
Another downside is that the company collects and shares user data with third parties and affiliates. This isn’t unique to Zander, but it’s still a bit disappointing for a company selling an identity theft protection service.
Finally, the mobile apps have poor ratings, with complaints about usability and bugginess.
Is Zander worth it?
Overall, yes, we feel Zander is worth it if you don't want credit monitoring features. It’s a very solid identity theft protection service from a company that has been around for a long time, and the price is lower than that of many competitors. You’ll have to monitor your credit with another service, but, given the prices, this will be a fair tradeoff for many.
Aura vs. Zander: Which is better?
Aura is a better identity theft protection service than Zander. Aura offers a complete online security suite and is easy to set up and use. It’s a bit more expensive, but you won’t need a second service to monitor your credit.
Both Aura and Zander have a lot to offer. Aura offers a range of features to support identity theft protection, along with a straightforward plan structure and reliable mobile apps. However, it’s a bit pricey and lacks social media account monitoring.
Zander offers most of the features you might want at a lower price than many competitors, but it lacks credit monitoring and shares a significant amount of data with third parties.
![]() Our Pick |
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Value | ||
Features | ||
Privacy and security | ||
User experience | ||
Learn more | Get Aura
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Get Zander
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Top identity theft protection alternatives
Aura is one of the best identity theft protection services we've tested, but other top alternatives may be better for you. LifeLock offers more robust monitoring, Identity Guard is a budget-friendly Aura alternative, and OmniWatch provides affordable protection for individuals.
Service | ![]() |
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Price | Starts at $7.00/mo (billed annually) | Starts at $7.49/mo for first yr (billed annually) | Starts at $7.50/mo (billed annually) |
# of people covered | 1 - 2 adults | 1 - 2 adults, up to 5 children | 1 - 5 adults, unlimited children |
Types of identity monitoring | Dark web, data breach | Identity and SSN, dark web, phone takeover, home title, social media | Dark web, high-risk, bank account, social media, credit and debit card |
ID theft insurance | Up to $2 million | Up to $1.05 million through $3 million, depending on plan | Up to $1 million |
Credit monitoring | |||
Identity restoration services | |||
Details | Get OmniWatch | Get LifeLock | Get Identity Guard |
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