Top identity theft protection compared

About Top identity theft protection compared

Identity theft protection services sit at two different price points. Some brands run a free model and make their money elsewhere, while others charge a monthly subscription and sell you monitoring, alerts and recovery help. This ranking covers 112 brands across the tech group, and the main trade-off is simple: a plan you pay nothing for versus one that hands you a fraud team when something goes wrong. Price matters at entry and again at renewal, so the monthly figure and the long term figure are tracked separately. The typical monthly price across this ranking is €9.99, and the long term figure sits lower at €5.21, which is the usual pattern when a term discount applies. What the plan includes is the second filter. Some entries here are identity apps, some are broad security suites that bundle protection, and a few are insurers or banks selling their own brand. Where a brand lists a number of credit bureaus or an insurance amount, both appear next to its price.

How we picked

Every brand in this ranking is scored on three parts. Price carries a weight of 40%, the offer carries 40%, and trust carries 20%. Together those decide the order, and each figure is drawn from the brand's own pages rather than from a summary written elsewhere. Price is read twice. The monthly figure is what you pay at entry, and the long term figure is what a committed term costs, so a brand that looks cheap on one and not the other is not treated as cheap overall. The offer score covers what the plan actually includes: monitoring, alerts, credit bureau reach, insurance cover, family pricing, trial length and the model, whether a brand is free, budget or paid. The trust score reads the company behind the product, its legal entity, its headquarters country and the support channels a customer can reach. Support is compared as a list, not a feeling. 89.2% shows how common a help centre is across the field, with 65.7% and 58.8% the next most common and 29.4% and 33.3% behind them. Partners are listed first, ahead of the scored order, and that is a placement rule rather than a quality claim.

Our top picks

1. 3. Kaspersky

   Kaspersky is in this ranking on price and reach rather than on identity specific cover, which is a fair trade for readers who want a low cost security suite. The model is free, the trial runs 30 days and the company behind it is AO Kaspersky Lab, headquartered in CH and founded in 1997. Support runs on help centre and community, a help centre and a community forum only, with no phone, email or chat, which is the thinnest channel list in the ranking. No credit bureau or insurance figure is listed. LifeLock directly below is the opposite trade: a paid range, a wide bureau reach and phone support, at a higher price.

   • Devices: 10
   • Server countries: 93
   • Money-back period: 30 days

   Pros

   • Kaspersky Premium bundles the VPN, password manager and parental controls (vpn, password manager and parental controls) in one subscription a family plan can share
   • Device and platform coverage is generous: 10 devices at once, with apps for Windows, macOS and Android on desktop and mobile
   • Streaming and travel are stated features, with Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Disney+ supported and kill switch and split tunnelling built in as standard

   Cons

   • Support runs on help centre and community only, so quick answers go through documentation or the community rather than live chat
   • The protocol list is WireGuard, so readers who want a wider choice of protocols have less room to compare
   • The free version that Kaspersky lists sits with antivirus rather than a free VPN, so VPN features start on a paid subscription

2. 4. ESET Brasil

   ESET Brasil makes this ranking because it is one of the few entries offering both a free model and a paid trial, so you can watch the alerts work and then decide whether to pay. The trial runs 30 days, and the model is free at the entry point. Support runs on phone, email and help centre, adding a community forum on top of phone, email and a help centre, which is a wider mix than the two entries above it. The company is KS Solucoes Corporativas Ltda, headquartered in BR and founded in 1992. Vipre Security below it is a budget model with a family price, so it is the first entry here without a free model.

   • First-year price: R$64.22
   • Devices: 1 to 25
   • Platforms: Windows, Windows Server, MacOS, and 2 more

   Pros

   • First-year price of BRL 64.22 ranks 1 of 36, ahead of the €49.95 category median.
   • Support runs on phone, email and help centre, with phone and email alongside self service material.
   • Protection plans bundle vpn and parental controls, so one subscription carries a VPN and child controls.
   • A single plan covers Windows, Windows Server and macOS, mixing consumer desktop and mobile with a server edition.
   • Encryption covers files, folders and USB drives, with full disk and removable media encryption for business.

   Cons

   • Device cover runs 1 to 25, short of the 50 that Comodo (Xcitium) covers, so wider estates must shop elsewhere.
   • The free version is reached through the mobile security app rather than a desktop product, and the model is listed as free.
   • The bundled VPN reaches 40 to 70, below the 74 median across antivirus listings.
   • Prices are quoted in BRL under BR, so they do not line up with the USD first-year price of $14.99 at Vipre Security.

3. 7. Surfshark

   Surfshark is in this ranking because it pairs a cheap entry price with insurance cover attached, and the figures back that up. The monthly price is €2.49 and the insurance amount is $1,000,000, both lower than the dedicated identity brands further down. The model is budget, the trial runs 7 days, and support runs on email, chat and help centre. The legal entity is Surfshark B.V., headquartered in NL and founded in 2018. Norton next shares that insurance ceiling but comes with a higher monthly price and a wider credit bureau range.

   • Monthly price: €2.49
   • Long-term plan price: €2.49
   • Server countries: 100

   Pros

   • Servers in 100 countries, ranking 7 on coverage among 62 brands compared.
   • The no-logs policy is independently verified by Deloitte, with the current audit listed as Deloitte 2025.
   • A single subscription covers Windows, macOS and Linux.
   • Cover of $1,000,000 is listed with the plan, which matters for readers who buy privacy as risk cover.

   Cons

   • There is no free plan, so the 7-day free trial, 3 devices is the only way to try Surfshark before paying.
   • Support runs on email, chat and help centre only, with no phone line for urgent problems.
   • Price-first readers have cheaper options: MEGA lists $1.67 and Sinew Software Systems lists $1.99 for a long-term plan.

What to look for

Price at entry and at renewal

Read the monthly figure and the long term figure as two separate numbers. This ranking's monthly price has a median of €9.99, with the lower quartile at €5.85 and the upper quartile at €15. Long term pricing is lower, with a median of €5.21. A gap between the two is where renewal cost hides.

Free model against a paid plan

A free model means the core service costs nothing and the company earns elsewhere, so ask what alerts you actually get. Free models are the most common pricing style here, and the trial figure tells you how long a paid plan can be tried before money changes hands.

What the plan covers

Credit bureau reach sets how wide the monitoring is. The median brand in this ranking covers 2.5 bureaus, and insurance cover has a median of €876,962.20. Both figures vary widely, so a plan that looks identical on price can differ sharply on cover.

Family pricing

Family plans spread one subscription across a household, which changes the effective monthly cost per person. Check the family price against the single plan price rather than the headline number, since a large family discount can make a higher tier cheaper in practice.

Support you can actually reach

Identity theft is a stressful problem to solve, and the support channel decides how fast it gets solved. A help centre is the most common channel in this ranking, followed by email, then phone. Live chat and a community forum rank lower, which matters if you would rather call than type.

Free trial length

A trial is the only honest way to see whether the alerts are useful before you commit to a term. Longer trials give you time to check that fraud alerts, credit monitoring and recovery help work for your situation rather than just reading about them.

Frequently asked questions

Top identity theft protection compared by country

• Australia
• Brazil
• Canada
• China
• France
• Germany
• India
• Italy
• Japan
• Mexico
• South Korea
• Spain
• Turkey
• United Kingdom
• United States

Providers compared head to head

• NordVPN vs WEBROOT master
• NordVPN vs Kaspersky
• NordVPN vs ESET Brasil
• WEBROOT master vs ESET Brasil
• Kaspersky vs ESET Brasil

The data behind this ranking

All data and the CSV