LifeLock vs. Identity Guard 2024: Head-To-Head Identity Theft Prevention Solutions

LifeLock and Identity Guard are two of the best identity theft solutions. LifeLock is a bit more expensive, but it offers a more sizable identity theft insurance plan. While not as good, Identity Guard is still a substantial identity theft monitoring solution that comes with monitoring and a lower amount of insurance at a lower price.

We reviewed LifeLock vs. Identity Guard based on pricing, features, data security, and support to help you decide which one is best for you.

LifeLock vs. Identity Guard overview

LifeLock and Identity Guard have similar offerings, but you’ll want to sign up for the highest level to get the most value out of either subscription. From our experience, LifeLock’s Standard plan and Identity Guard’s Value plan, which are the most basic tiers, didn’t include enough protection.

However, the highest-tier plans for both companies offer extensive solutions to help protect your identity in several different ways. While the expense may seem high, ID theft protection is worth it to keep your personal information safe. 

LifeLock stands out for the amount of identity theft insurance you get with the Ultimate Plus Plan, while Identity Guard provides the most extensive monitoring with the Ultra plan. 

• LifeLock: Best for identity theft insurance
• Identity Guard: Best for mid-tier monitoring

LifeLock vs. Identity Guard review at a glance

	Our Pick
Star rating	4.8 AllAboutCookies writers and editors score products based on a number of objective features as well as our expert editorial assessment. Our partners do not influence how we rate products.	4.6 AllAboutCookies writers and editors score products based on a number of objective features as well as our expert editorial assessment. Our partners do not influence how we rate products.
Price	$7.50–$38.99/mo for first yr	$6.67–$29.99/mo
Types of identity monitoring	Dark web, social media, SSN, and home title monitoring	Dark web, social media, SSN, and home title monitoring
Credit monitoring
Identity theft insurance	Up to $3 million	Up to $1 million
Identity restoration services
24/7 customer support
	Get Norton LifeLock Read Norton LifeLock Review	Get Identity Guard Read Identity Guard Review

LifeLock is the more expensive of the two services, but the higher price comes with additional identity theft insurance. LifeLock offers up to $3 million in insurance, while Identity Guard offers up to $1 million.

LifeLock also offers a variety of plans, including individual, family, and family with children. This gives you greater flexibility based on the number of people you’d like on your account. Identity Guard offers only an individual or family plan. It doesn’t offer the third option for those without kids. However, Identity Guard's family plan covers unlimited kids, while LifeLock's covers up to five.

Neither option gives you access to your FICO score, but they do provide updates to your VantageScore. For the most comprehensive look at your credit, you should look at both your FICO and VantageScore.

LifeLock pros and cons

IdentityGuard pros and cons

Which identity theft protection is the better value?

LifeLock's ultimate plan offers more features than Identity Guard. While it's more expensive, it does have more value.

	Our Pick
Price range	$7.50–$38.99/mo for first yr	$6.67–$29.99/mo
Best value plan	LifeLock Ultimate Plus starting at $19.99/mo (billed annually) for first year	Identity Guard Ultra starting at $20.83/mo
Money-back guarantee	60 days	60 days
	Get Norton LifeLock Read Norton LifeLock Review	Get Identity Guard Read Identity Guard Review

LifeLock plans

LifeLock’s membership plans are structured similarly to Identity Guard, with three different tiers as well as family plans. LifeLock has family plans for two adults as well as family plans for two adults plus five kids.

• LifeLock Standard: LifeLock’s Standard plan is bare bones, but it does include identity and Social Security Number (SSN) alerts as well as Equifax credit monitoring. The Standard plan also includes dark web monitoring, data breach notifications, and utility account creation monitoring.
• LifeLock Advantage: Beyond the Standard plan features, the Advantage plan also includes additional reimbursement for stolen funds and personal expenses, which adds up  to. $1.2 million in coverage. Advantage also provides monthly credit scores, phone takeover monitoring, alerts on crimes in your name, and identity lock, which allows you to lock your TransUnion credit file.
• LifeLock Ultimate Plus: The Ultimate Plus plan includes the features from the previous two tiers and adds a lot of great additional features, including home title monitoring, sex offender registry reports, and social media monitoring. The Ultimate Plus plan also gives you up to $3 million in coverage for an identity theft incident. It also expands on credit features by providing annual three-bureau credit reports and three-bureau credit monitoring. 

Each LifeLock plan includes at least $1.05 million in identity theft coverage for lawyer fees, stolen funds reimbursement, and personal expenses. It also offers a 30-day free trial for new users to try the service and a 60-day money-back guarantee on annual plans.

Identity Guard plans

IdentityGuard offers several individual and family plans to help meet your identity protection needs. All of the individual plans cover one individual, while the family plan gives you protection for five adults and unlimited children. 

• Identity Guard Value: Identity Guard’s Value plan leaves a lot of gaps if you’re looking for comprehensive identity protection. You do get $1 million in identity theft insurance and monitoring for data breaches, high-risk transactions, and dark web monitoring. Unfortunately, you don’t get access to your credit scores or any credit bureau monitoring. All tiers come with safe browsing tools and a password manager.
• Identity Guard Total: The Total plan offers a bit more coverage, but it's still lacking some important features. You’ll get credit monitoring and a monthly credit score, but you won't be able to lock your credit — which can be an important tool after an identity theft incident. The Total plan adds bank account monitoring along with the features from the Value plan.
• Identity Guard Ultra: The Ultra plan includes all the bells and whistles. With the Ultra plan, you get fraud resolution services to help you after an incident. It also adds monitoring for social media, credit cards, home titles, among others. You can also use Experian Credit Lock and access your annual credit reports from Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion.

Identity Guard offers a 60-day money-back guarantee on all annual plans.

Which identity theft protection has the better features?

Identity Guard and Norton LifeLock offer similar features, such as credit, social media, and SSN monitoring.

Feature
SSN monitoring
Financial activity alerts
Credit monitoring
3-bureau credit reports	Yes — Experian, Equifax, TransUnion	Yes — Experian, Equifax, TransUnion
Credit score
Credit lock and freeze
Identity theft insurance	Up to $3 million	Up to $1 million
Dark web monitoring
Social media monitoring
Home title monitoring
USPS address change alerts
	Get Norton LifeLock Read Norton LifeLock Review	Get Identity Guard Read Identity Guard Review

LifeLock and Identity Guard’s top-tier plans provide an abundance of monitoring to help keep you safe online and offline. With both services, you get real-time monitoring in the following areas:

• Dark web: Scans the dark web for instances of your email addresses, passwords, phone numbers, or other personal information. If you know that your information is on the dark web, you can change passwords or information to mitigate potential theft.
• Bank accounts: Monitors your financial accounts for suspicious activity, such as large withdrawals. These alerts enable you to stop the fraudsters quickly if they have access to your accounts.
• Social media: Monitors your social media profiles and alerts you of abnormal activity or suspicious links. Identity thieves can use social media to gain personally identifiable information about you or to find new victims based on your friend list.
• Home title: Notifies you in case of any changes to your home title or deed. Keeps fraudsters from gaining access to your home equity or jeopardizing ownership of your home.
• Sex offender: Scans the sex offender registry for your name and personal information and alerts you if your name or information is found on the registry.
• USPS address changes: Alerts you to any changes made to your address through the United States Postal Service.

You won’t find too many differences between LifeLock and Identity Guard as far as monitoring. Neither LifeLock nor IdentityGuard offers access to your FICO score. While the VantageScore is becoming more popular, the FICO score is still the most widely used for new credit. Without access to your FICO score, you may not have an accurate picture of your credit.

LifeLock does offer more substantial identity theft insurance coverage. With the Premium Ultra plan, you can get up to $3 million in protection to help offset identity theft losses. The Standard plan starts by offering $1.05 million, which is slightly more than Identity Guard's standard $1 million.

Which identity theft protection is more secure?

Protecting your personally identifiable information is a critical component of keeping your identity secure. When looking for identity protection, it is important to ensure they’re protecting your data during the process. We looked at the privacy policies of both solutions to make sure they were collecting only necessary data and that they weren’t sharing data unless it was necessary as part of the solution.

LifeLock vs. Identity Guard data security

Both LifeLock and Identity Guard keep your identity secure. However, to do that they collect and save your personal data.

Collects data
Shares data with third parties	Minimal	Minimal
	Get Norton LifeLock Read Norton LifeLock Review	Get Identity Guard Read Identity Guard Review

Both LifeLock and Identity Guard offer two-factor and multi-factor authentication to help protect your account information. Multi-factor authentication can keep your account safe even if someone has access to your password. In order to gain access to your account, the fraudster will also need access to your other authentication items, such as a phone, biometrics, or email.

Identity Guard’s parent company is Aura, which is another identity theft product on the market. If you look at Identity Guard’s privacy policy, you’ll be redirected to the Aura policy. 

Both Identity Guard and LifeLock need a significant amount of personal information in order to perform the services outlined, so you’ll have to give up some data to gain the benefits of the service. We didn’t see any red flags in either privacy policy, just be aware of the data they share.

Which identity theft protection has better compatibility and customer service?

LifeLock and Identity Guard are compatible with Android and iOS, and offer remediation services and lost wallet support. However, LifeLock goes the extra step by offering 24/7 live chat support.

Platform	Our Pick
Android
iOS
Dedicated restoration specialists
Lost wallet remediation
24/7 customer supportt
Customer support options	Live chat, phone, email, forums, online guides	Phone, email, online guides
	Get Norton LifeLock Read Norton LifeLock Review	Get Identity Guard Read Identity Guard Review

Neither LifeLock nor Identity Guard has desktop apps for Windows or macOS. However, you can access your identity theft protection accounts from any web browser. From our testing, we thought LifeLock’s browser dashboard was more intuitive and easier to use than Identity Guard.

Additionally, you can access either identity theft protection service from their iOS or Android mobile app. The LifeLock mobile app was also more user-friendly than Identity Guard. We’ve used Identity Guard for some time, and each time we got an alert via email, it was a bit of a hassle to find the actual information — especially on a mobile device. You can’t access the full details of an alert from the app, so you’ll have to log in to the website to get all the pertinent information.

Both LifeLock and Identity Guard offer content libraries with helpful tips on what to do if you encounter identity theft or other issues with your identity. LifeLock also offers community forums, where you can ask other LifeLock users questions.

LifeLock comes with 24/7 member support via live chat, whereas Identity Guard offers 24/7 support via phone. This is a notable feature since identity theft can happen at any time. Being able to access customer support, even in the middle of the night, can help you mitigate any damages from identity theft. 

Identity Guard also offers customer support via email, but only during specific business hours and with no support on Sundays.

FAQs

LifeLock vs. Identity Guard: which is better?

While LifeLock and Identity Guard seem similar, we determined that LifeLock is ahead of Identity Guard in the race for the best identity theft protection service.

LifeLock is only a few dollars more than the comparable Identity Guard plan. We found the extra expense worth it, especially for the additional insurance coverage in the unfortunate event that we are a victim of identity theft. It’s also easier to use and navigate than Identity Guard.

Signing up for an identity theft protection program can both help you prevent identity theft and help mitigate any issues if your identity is stolen. However, identity theft programs are effective only if you use them, so make sure you set up your account in its entirety and pay attention to the monitoring alerts you receive. An unread monitoring alert is sort of like the old question, “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”

Category	Our Pick
Value
Features	Tie	Tie
Test results	Tie	Tie
User experience
24/7 customer supportt
Customer support options	Live chat, phone, email, forums, online guides	Phone, email, online guides
	Get Norton LifeLock Read Norton LifeLock Review	Get Identity Guard Read Identity Guard Review

Top identity theft protection alternatives

Although we've laid out the best use cases for LifeLock and Identity Guard, these services still might not be the best option for you. Here are some additional identity theft protection services to consider:

Service
Individual monthly price	Starts at $9.00/mo (billed annually)	Starts at $10.00/mo	Starts at $14.95/mo
Family monthly price	Starts at $17.00/mo (billed annually)	N/A	Starts at $17.00/mo (billed annually)
ID theft insurance	Up to $1 million	Up to $2 million	Up to $3 million
Credit monitoring
3-bureau credit reports
Details	Get Aura Read Aura Review	Get Omniwatch Read Omniwatch Review	Get IDShield Read IDShield Review