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Best for Overall Identity Protection
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ID theft protection that monitors your SSN, bank accounts, credit cards, and brokerage and retirement accounts for suspicious activity
Every plan includes the full feature set, so no additional cost to unlock monitoring, insurance, or restoration
Bundles data removal with identity theft protection, antivirus, VPN, and a password manager in one subscription
Best for Cheap Identity Coverage
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Affordable identity protection and restoration services
Easy-to-use dashboard
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.
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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 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. By leveraging AI-powered tools, Aura can provide continuous monitoring.
Aura offers a robust set of digital security and privacy software, including a password manager, data removal, antivirus with real-time malware protection, an ad blocker, and a VPN. The Family plan includes Aura Parental Controls, our top pick for teens, which offers personalized insights into online habits.
But what's special about the Aura identity theft package is that it doesn't charge extra for three-bureau credit monitoring like other ID theft services. In fact, Aura offers robust identity and credit monitoring that includes financial account transactions and data breaches.
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 some features similar to Aura, including a virtual private network (VPN) and antivirus software. Its dashboard is straightforward and easy to use, in part because there aren't many bells and whistles.
Zander offers two plans: Essential covers basic monitoring, like Social Security number (SSN) monitoring, dark web monitoring, and data breach updates. Elite includes UltraAV and UltraVPN, and both plans offer unlimited recovery services, lost wallet service, and up to $1 million for stolen funds and expenses.
One major downside is that Zander lacks credit monitoring, so you won't get credit reports or credit scores. The Elite plan adds new account monitoring and credit lock through Experian, but it's not a full substitute for three-bureau credit monitoring.
Another downside is that the Zander website uses tracking cookies to share data with third parties for marketing. Your sensitive info is safe, but your online activity while navigating the site may be shared.
Even though Zander is cheaper, Aura offers more robust identity theft protection services across all plans.
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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 | Elite Bundle Family for $21.99/mo |
| Money-back guarantee | Yes, 60 days | |
| Learn more | Get Aura
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Get Zander
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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.
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.
Zander is missing credit monitoring and credit reports, which are essential to keeping your credit safe. Aura includes both on every plan.
| Feature |
Our Pick |
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| SSN 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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Aura and Zander both cover the basics: SSN monitoring, dark web monitoring, and USPS change-of-address alerts. The difference is how much you get on the base plan.
Aura includes every monitoring feature across all plans. That includes financial account monitoring for your bank, credit card, brokerage, and retirement accounts, home and auto title monitoring, criminal and court records monitoring, and dark web monitoring.
Family plans add child SSN monitoring, alerts for registered sex offenders within one mile of your address, and Safe Gaming alerts.
Zander splits its monitoring across two plans. The Essential plan covers SSN monitoring, daily dark web scans, change-of-address monitoring, and data breach updates. You'll need the Elite Bundle for home title monitoring; bank, retirement, debit card, credit card, and loan monitoring; account takeover monitoring; and new account monitoring.
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The big difference between Aura and Zander, at least when it comes to monitoring and alerts, is credit monitoring.
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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, which can provide clues that your identity has been stolen. 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.
Aura bundles a full security suite into every plan: antivirus, a VPN, a password manager, an ad blocker, and data removal. It also includes AI spam call and text protection, a digital account cleanup tool, and 1 GB of encrypted Vault storage per adult. Individual plans cover 10 devices, and Family plans cover 50.
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Aura Data Removal has expanded into one of the best data removal services. It now covers 425+ data brokers, up from 30+ when we first tested it. With the Digital Account Cleanup tool, Aura scanned our Gmail inbox, found 92 accounts, and flagged the ones with poor privacy policies.
Zander's extras are exclusive to the Elite Bundle. You get UltraVPN, UltraAV antivirus, and a password manager, with up to 20 devices covered on the Elite Family plan.
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.
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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
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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.
We also found that Zander has trackers and third-party and affiliate cookies 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 here, but privacy-conscious users should be aware that their data is used for advertising.
While the services have similar compatibility, Aura takes the lead in customer support with an added live chat contact method.
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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
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Get Zander
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Aura and Zander can be accessed via browser on your desktop. 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. Zander also had a lot more hurdles to cancel our subscription. We sent an email to support asking to turn off autorenew and they let us know we needed to call so they could verify our identity.
Once on the call, Zander's representatives were pushy with us about why we were trying to cancel. With Aura, all we had to do was go into our account settings and disable autorenew.
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, while OmniWatch provides affordable scam protection for individuals. Here's how Aura compares:
| Service |  OmniWatch |
 Aura |
 LifeLock |
| Best for | Best for scam protection | Best overall identity theft protection | Best for online identity monitoring |
| Price | Starts at $7.99/mo | Starts at $9.00/mo | Starts at $10.42/mo |
| # of people covered | 1 - 2 adults | 1 - 5 adults, unlimited children | 1 - 2 adults, up to 10 children |
| Types of identity monitoring | SSN, identity, dark web | Identity and SSN, account breach, home and auto title, criminal and court records | Identity and SSN, dark web, phone takeover, home title, social media |
| ID theft insurance | Up to $2 million through $8 million, depending on plan | Up to $1 million per adult | Up to $1.05 million through $3 million, depending on plan |
| Credit monitoring | |||
| Identity restoration services | Yes, including U.S.-based scam resolution specialists and 24/7 dedicated identity restoration agents | Yes, including white glove fraud resolution, a custom recovery plan, and 24/7 access to U.S.-based fraud resolution specialists | Yes, including access to U.S.-based personal restoration specialists |
| Details | Get OmniWatch | Get Aura | Get LifeLock |
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.
/images/2023/05/25/logo-aura.png){kind=logo}
ID theft protection that monitors your SSN, bank accounts, credit cards, and brokerage and retirement accounts for suspicious activity
Every plan includes the full feature set, so no additional cost to unlock monitoring, insurance, or restoration
Bundles data removal with identity theft protection, antivirus, VPN, and a password manager in one subscription
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.
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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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Aura needs your SSN to pull your credit reports. All credit monitoring services will require your SSN to provide you with credit reports and credit scores.
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.
Yes, if you don't need credit monitoring. Zander covers the basics, like SSN and dark web monitoring, plus up to $1 million in identity theft insurance, for less than many competitors.
Technically, Zander isn't an insurance product. It's a service contract with reimbursement benefits. If you want credit monitoring in the same plan, Aura is the better pick.
Zander costs $6.75/mo, depending on the plan and how many people you cover. That's cheaper than Aura, which runs $9.00/mo. The tradeoff is that Zander doesn't include credit monitoring.
LifeLock costs more but adds premium protection features. See our full Zander vs. LifeLock comparison for details.
ID theft protection that monitors your SSN, bank accounts, credit cards, and brokerage and retirement accounts for suspicious activity
Every plan includes the full feature set, so no additional cost to unlock monitoring, insurance, or restoration
Bundles data removal with identity theft protection, antivirus, VPN, and a password manager in one subscription
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