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Best for Couples or Families
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Top-rated identity theft protection service
Provides up to $3 million in coverage
Multiple monitoring features including dark web, home title, and social media monitoring
Best for Individuals
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Comprehensive three-bureau credit monitoring
Dark web and social media alerts
Identity theft protection services like Norton LifeLock and Experian IdentityWorks can help you catch identity theft in its early stages or remediate an issue if you become a victim.
LifeLock has great support options, including a community forum that we found invaluable. Experian can work with any budget, providing basic, essential monitoring with its free plan. Check out our comparison below if you’re curious about what else they offer.
These two ID theft protection services have a lot of similarities, but some key differences may matter to your situation. People on a tight budget who want identity protection could benefit from Experian’s free plan. Experian is definitely for you if you want to monitor your FICO score.
On the other hand, LifeLock comes from Norton and can be used on its own or bundled with Norton’s other security products. Norton has so many options, providing a slew of support options to fit your preferences.
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| Price | $8.29–$40.99/mo for first yr | $24.99–$34.99/mo |
| Identity theft insurance | Up to $3 million | Up to $1 million |
| Credit monitoring | ||
| 3-bureau credit reports | ||
| Credit score | ||
| Identity recovery | ||
| Dark web alerts | ||
| Social media account alerts | ||
| Learn more | Get LifeLock | Read Experian IdentityWorks Review |
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Our Pick
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| Paid annually | $8.29–$40.99/mo for first yr | N/A |
| Paid monthly | $11.99–$79.99/yr | $24.99–$34.99/mo |
| Best value plan | Ultimate Plus starting at $24.99/mo for first yr | Premium for $24.99/mo |
| Identity theft insurance | Up to $3 million | Up to $1 million |
| Learn more | Get LifeLock | Read Experian IdentityWorks Review |
LifeLock offers a lot. Each of the plans we listed below is intended for a single person. Couples receive the same features per person, and family plans include special features for children. Each family plan can cover up to five children.
LifeLock offers a 60-day money-back guarantee for annual plans and a 14-day money-back guarantee for monthly plans.
Experian is surprisingly robust, given it’s one of the three major credit bureaus. The plans we listed cover one person, except for the family plan, which covers an additional adult and up to 10 children. We wish Experian offered a plan for couples without children like LifeLock does.
The paid plans offer a seven-day free trial to try out the features before committing to the service.
| Feature |
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Our Pick
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| Credit monitoring | ||
| Financial activity alerts | ||
| 3-bureau credit reports | Yes — Experian, Equifax, TransUnion | Yes — Experian, Equifax, TransUnion |
| Credit score | ||
| FICO score | ||
| Credit lock and freeze | ||
| Identity recovery | ||
| Dark web monitoring | ||
| Social media account alerts | ||
| Social Security Number monitoring | ||
| Home title monitoring | ||
| Address change alerts | ||
| Learn more | Get LifeLock | Read Experian IdentityWorks Review |
LifeLock and Experian share a lot of similarities with one big difference. While both VantageScore and FICO are used to assess your creditworthiness, FICO scores tend to be used more over time than VantageScore. Experian offers FICO, while LifeLock offers VantageScore. We haven’t seen a lot of identity theft protection services that use FICO, so this is a deviation from the norm in a good way.
Additionally, Experian offers three-bureau monitoring on its paid plans, while LifeLock only offers it on the Ultimate Plus plan.
LifeLock monitors your home title to alert you if it’s transferred, which is good if you own a home. However, we don’t think it’s absolutely necessary, so it’s not a deal breaker for us that Experian doesn’t include it. Critical features like SSN monitoring, dark web monitoring, and the ability to lock your credit are included in both service’s offerings.
Overall, both of these services offer the core alerts and monitoring features you’ll need to monitor your credit and personal information.
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Experian alert
You give a lot of personal information to identity theft protection services, so you need to know what those services are doing with your data. You also deserve to know how they protect the information you entrust to them. Finally, you deserve to know who has access to all that data. We’re not in love with third-party sharing, especially when it’s for marketing purposes.
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| Two-factor authentication | ||
| Multi-factor authentication | ||
| Collects data | ||
| Shares data with third parties | ||
| Learn more | Get LifeLock | Read Experian IdentityWorks Review |
Experian offers multi-factor authentication (MFA) which isn’t as widely adopted as two-factor authentication (2FA). The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) recommends MFA.
Otherwise, these two are pretty similar. We weren’t thrilled with how much data the service collects and shares. While both services are transparent about data sharing, it’s still not the best practice.
Experian collects as much data as possible and shares it with various third parties. It’s outlined very clearly in the U.S. privacy policy. We expect your spam calls and emails to go way up with this data sharing. LifeLock isn’t better, using all the data it collects for various purposes, including promoting the interests of its third-party affiliates.
| Platform | Our Pick
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| Windows | ||
| macOS | ||
| Android | ||
| iOS | ||
| 24/7 customer support | ||
| Customer support options | Online guides, community forums, chat, phone | Online guides, phone, question submission |
| Learn more | Get LifeLock | Read Experian IdentityWorks Review |
Both LifeLock and Experian are user-friendly and have clean, easy-to-use dashboards. There’s a lot to explore within each service, and we found that the information organization was comparable. Design is also important, and both dashboards are aesthetically pleasing and modern.
The biggest difference we found was access to customer support. Experian customer service was kind of terrible. Phone hours are limited, and there’s no chat option. We tried searching for answers, but we mostly got blog post suggestions. The FAQs weren’t very helpful either.
LifeLock offers more options, including a live chat. We didn’t find that helpful either, as the tech didn’t seem to be well-trained or knowledgeable. But LifeLock's community forums were incredibly helpful, so that’s a win.
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LifeLock chat session
We believe that Aura identity theft protection is one of the best, if not the best, services out there. Aura offers features like parental controls, safe gaming features with cyberbullying alerts, spam call and message protection, device protection, an identity theft protection service, and financial account monitoring. Aura’s prices are comparable to LifeLock’s first-year prices, but you can try the product for 14 days before purchasing.
Overall, we feel Aura offers more for your money and doesn’t dangle a pricey renewal fee over your head. If Aura isn’t your thing, our identity theft protection and credit guide can help you figure out what will work best for you.
Yes, Experian IdentityWorks is a great, robust product. We liked the amount of features and the free plan that gives you some basic protection. It also uses MFA, a form of security that requires more than just a password to log in to your account.
In general, identity theft protection is always worth it. Like car insurance, you absolutely need it when something happens.
There are a lot of similarities between Experian and LifeLock, but some of the key differences are the customer support options, access to FICO score, and a free plan. LifeLock offers better customer support options, while Experian offers monitoring and alerts on your FICO score, which can be accessed even from its free plan.
When looking between the two services, we determined that Experian IdentityWorks won. Experian IdentityWorks offers a free plan so you can get basic monitoring and a host of other features that we appreciate. Neither service has ideal customer support options, but both come up pretty equal regarding security and data protection. We will give LifeLock a shout-out for the community forum, but nothing beats reliable personalized customer support.
Overall, though, both of these options will give you a host of protections for both your identity and your other accounts. While LifeLock offers $3 million in identity theft insurance, more than its competitors, both services offer remediation specialists to help you, so you won’t have to navigate that alone. Whatever you decide, the best identity theft protection services keep you safe from hackers and identity thieves and give you a rounded view of your credit.
If neither LifeLock nor Experian suits your needs, consider one of these alternatives. Identity theft losses can destroy your credit, take significant time, effort, and funds to clean up, and possibly even land you in some legal hot water. An identity theft protection service will help you fix any issues and restore your identity with ease and assistance.
Top-rated identity theft protection service
Provides up to $3 million in coverage
Multiple monitoring features including dark web, home title, and social media monitoring
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