Best credit monitoring companies of November 2023
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BLUEPRINT
Updated 12:48 p.m. UTC Nov. 1, 2023
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Keeping an eye on your credit activity is essential to maintaining a healthy credit score and preventing identity theft. A credit monitoring service is a great way to keep your credit goals on track, but the sheer number of services on the market promising to help can be overwhelming. That’s why we’ve taken a deep dive into the best credit monitoring services to help you make an informed decision.
What do our choices for the best credit monitoring services have that set them apart from the rest? We analyzed a wide range of providers and their various plans and considered factors including affordability, ease of use and specific coverages. So, whether you’re starting to pay attention to your credit for the first time or are looking for more robust protection, we’ve done the research to find the very best products available. Keep in mind, it’s always smart to research your options thoroughly, in case our selections don’t fully align with your particular needs.
Here are our top picks for the best credit monitoring services of November 2023.
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Aura Individual
: Best credit monitoring service
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Norton 360 with Lifelock Ultimate Plus Individual
: Best for security
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LifeLock Ultimate Plus Individual
: Best for daily monitoring
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Aura Couple
: Best for couples
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ID Watchdog Premium
: Best for families
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McAfee+ Ultimate Individual
: Best for convenience
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IdentityForce UltraSecure+ Credit Individual
: Best for dark web and social media monitoring
Aura Individual
Best credit monitoring services of November 2023
Aura Individual
Norton 360 with Lifelock Ultimate Plus Individual
LifeLock Ultimate Plus Individual
Aura Couple
ID Watchdog Premium
McAfee+ Ultimate Individual
IdentityForce UltraSecure+ Credit Individual
Compare the best credit monitoring services of November 2023
Best credit monitoring service: Aura Individual
Plan highlights
With 24/7 customer support and a 60-day money-back guarantee on annual plans, you can have the confidence that you’ll get the support you need when you start your credit monitoring journey. With the Aura Individual plan, you can instantly lock your Experian credit file and can even freeze your child’s credit file through all three credit bureaus. This plan offers all of the coverage you need at an affordable price to stay on top of your credit health.
Price: $12 per month billed annually or $9 per month billed monthly.
Identity insurance: $1 million.
Credit bureaus monitored: Equifax, TransUnion, Experian.
Best for security: Norton 360 with Lifelock Ultimate Plus Individual
Plan highlights
With Norton 360 with LifeLock Ultimate Plus, you gain access to identity theft protection in addition to credit monitoring. You also get security features that help protect your household’s PC, Mac, Android or iOS devices. The protection you get across the board with this plan extends to investment account activity alerts, too.
Price $29.99 per month billed monthly or $299.88 billed annually for the first year. After, $34.99 per month or $349.99 per year.
Identity insurance: $1 million.
Credit bureaus monitored: Equifax, TransUnion, Experian.
Best for daily monitoring: LifeLock Ultimate Plus Individual
Plan highlights
If you’re working on improving your credit score, then the daily report you receive via the LifeLock Ultimate Plus Individual plan can be helpful — with updates available daily from one credit bureau and full reports and scores available from all three bureaus annually.
Additionally, this plan will help you keep an eye out for signs of fraud. Between identity and Social Security number alerts, bank and credit card activity alerts, and alerts on crimes committed in your name, you can keep a close eye on your personal data and know right away if anything is compromised.
Price: $19.99 per month billed annually or $23.99 per month billed monthly for the first year. After, $28.33 billed annually or $34.99 billed monthly.
Identity insurance: $1 million.
Credit bureaus monitored: Equifax, TransUnion, Experian.
Best for couples: Aura Couple
Plan highlights
Couples who want to work together to keep their credit in tip-top shape can turn to the Aura Couple plan, which makes it easy to view your credit reports from all three major credit bureaus and to get near real-time alerts whenever there’s an inquiry on your credit files.
Because all plans come with $1 million insurance, couples can rest easy knowing that if they do fall prey to identity theft, they’ll have some financial protection to help them set things straight. Couples with computers, laptops, tablets and mobile phones will also be able to benefit from the plan’s online and device security feature which offers protection for up to 20 devices (10 per adult).
Price: $20 per month billed annually or $17 per month billed monthly.
Identity insurance: Up to $2 million ($1 million per adult).
Credit bureaus monitored: Equifax, TransUnion, Experian.
Best for families: ID Watchdog Premium
Plan highlights
If identity security for your entire family is top of mind. ID Watchdog Premium is a great option as it offers child credit monitoring and child credit lock features. This plan also notifies account holders of potential cyberbullying directed at them or their children, as well as any reputation-damaging information that is being spread on major social media sites. Parents can also use the registered sex offender reporting feature to stay up to date with what is going on in their community.
Price (minimum-maximum costs): $21.95 per month or $220 per year.
Identity Insurance: $1 million.
Credit bureaus monitored: Equifax, TransUnion, Experian.
Best for convenience: McAfee+ Ultimate Individual
Plan highlights
One of the main appeals of credit monitoring services is that they make it much easier to stay alert when it comes to your credit report. The McAfee+ Ultimate Individual plan offers this convenience through alerts for credit activities with all three major credit bureaus and the ability to lock or freeze your credit file.
This service will also help remove personal information from more than 40 data broker sites who are in the business of harvesting and selling personal data. If your identity is stolen, they have licensed experts on hand who can help you work through the process of clearing your name and preventing future breaches.
Price: $179.99 per year for the first year. After, $279.99 per year.
Identity insurance: $1 million.
Credit bureaus monitored: Equifax, TransUnion, Experian.
Best for dark web and social media monitoring: IdentityForce UltraSecure+ Credit Individual
Plan highlights
The TransUnion-owned IdentityForce provides continuous monitoring of your accounts, including dark web ID theft detection, potential cyberbullying and account hacking on social media accounts. The company will send alerts to your cellphone, tablet or desktop computer and offer actionable steps to help protect you.
Price: $29.95 per month or $359.40 billed annually.
Identity insurance: $1 million.
Credit bureaus monitored: Equifax, TransUnion, Experian.
What do credit monitoring services do?
You can use a credit monitoring service to stay up to date on any changes that occur on your credit reports. This may include having a credit card balance that is approaching or exceeds your limit, missing a payment, opening a new account or any new credit line inquiries. These updates are especially helpful if they are due to fraudulent activity as they can alert you that you may be a victim of identity theft.
Mistakes can also occur innocently, and knowing about them gives you a chance to report those mistakes to the credit bureaus and have them removed from any applicable credit reports.
Is credit monitoring right for you?
“Credit monitoring is essential in detecting identity theft-related fraud. Detecting identity theft can be very time-consuming and credit monitoring companies offer automated services to monitor consumer reports and accounts to detect fraud on a timely basis,” says Henry Bagdasarian, the Founder and President of Identity Management Institute, a certification organization in identity and access governance, risk management and compliance.
Anyone can benefit from using credit monitoring services to keep an eye on their credit score and to watch out for any signs of potential fraud or identity theft. But make sure to evaluate how much credit monitoring is worth to you — only you can assess if you’re willing to pay for the enhanced monitoring services offered by one of the services listed here, rather than just opting for alerts you may be able to get through certain credit card issuers like Capital One or Discover.
What to look for when choosing the best credit monitoring service
When choosing a credit monitoring service, you will want to compare how much each service is charging on a monthly basis to the features they offer. Ideally, you will want to gain access to credit monitoring for the credit reports maintained on you by each of the three major consumer credit bureaus (Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax). You can also compare the additional benefits each service may offer on top of credit monitoring.
Can a credit monitoring service prevent identity theft?
While credit monitoring services simply alert you to changes that occur on your credit report, identity theft protection services can help prevent identity theft and if you do fall prey to fraud, these services can help you recover your identity. Note that credit monitoring and identity theft protection services may often be bundled together in one subscription, as you see with the services we’ve selected for this list.
Alongside offering credit monitoring, identity theft protection services should also monitor the dark web to ensure your personal information isn’t being used by someone besides yourself. You can typically get real-time alerts when someone applies for credit using your name and if your Social Security number is being used with aliases. You can also gain access to insurance for stolen funds due to identity theft.
Benefits of a credit monitoring service
Credit monitoring services can be worth paying for as they help you protect yourself from fraud and can give you insight into what’s on your credit reports. That being said, there are free credit monitoring services that can also alert you to changes to your credit. It’s important to identify what benefits you need and the level of coverage you’re seeking to determine if a free service is good enough or if it’s worth shelling out for more robust coverage with one of the paid services listed here.
Methodology
Our editorial team has spent numerous hours analyzing credit monitoring companies. We took a deep dive into the details of each product and that analysis, combined with our years of experience covering the industry, informed us as we developed these rankings. Factors we considered included:
- Monthly fees, whether free trials were offered and any yearly price discounts.
- Monitoring of the three major credit bureaus.
- Other types of monitoring that could help keep your credit safe, such as financial, social media, home title and anything else that could compromise your identity.
Which credit monitoring service is best for you depends on your unique needs and preferences. That being said, we find that overall Aura Individual has a great price and a robust suite of features that can help you monitor your credit effectively and easily.
By law, you are entitled to a free copy of your credit report from each of the three major credit bureaus once annually (Through Dec. 2023 you can request a copy of your credit report weekly.) You can request your free credit report at AnnualCreditReport.com.
Some credit monitoring services also provide free credit reports and scores. For example, the credit bureau TransUnion offers access to your credit report for free once a year, as well as the option to sign up for a paid monitoring service with more features. With the bureau Experian, you can monitor your credit report and credit score for free at any time.
How much credit monitoring costs depend on your service of choice. While Experian offers this service for free, TransUnion charges $29.95 per month for its credit monitoring services. Our top pick for the best credit monitoring service, the Aura Individual Plan, costs $12 per month if you sign up for an annual plan or $15 per month if you want to pay monthly.
While you can access some credit monitoring services for free, credit monitoring can also be worth paying for if you find you want access to features you can only get through a paid subscription model.
It’s important to monitor your credit to help watch out for signs of fraud and to gain a clear understanding of where you stand credit-wise and how you can improve your credit score. You may also get more support from experts in the event of identity theft by signing up for a good paid service.
¹$1,000,000 Identity Theft Insurance for Eligible Losses: Identity Theft Insurance underwritten by insurance company subsidiaries or affiliates of American International Group‚ Inc.. The description herein is a summary and intended for informational purposes only and does not include all terms, conditions and exclusions of the policies described. Please refer to the actual policies for terms, conditions, and exclusions of coverage. Coverage may not be available in all jurisdictions.
²60-day Money-Back Guarantee: 60-day money back guarantee is only available for our annual plans purchased through our websites or via our Customer Support team. You may cancel your membership online and request a refund within 60 days of your initial purchase date of an eligible Aura membership purchase either through your Aura Account Membership portal or by calling us at 1-855-712-0021. If you signed up for Aura through a free trial, then your membership purchase date will be the date you signed up for your free trial, and you will have 60 days from the date you signed up for your free trial to cancel and request a refund. If you switched to a new annual plan within 60 days of your initial Aura annual subscription, you may still qualify for the Money Back Guarantee (based upon your initial annual plan purchase date).
No one can prevent all identity theft or monitor all transactions effectively.
Blueprint is an independent publisher and comparison service, not an investment advisor. The information provided is for educational purposes only and we encourage you to seek personalized advice from qualified professionals regarding specific financial decisions. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
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