Aura vs Identity Guard (2026): Same Parent Company, Different Product

Aura and Identity Guard are owned by the same company. Most comparison articles don't lead with that — and it changes how you read everything else.

The background: Intersections Inc. — the company behind Identity Guard since the late 1990s — merged with iSubscribed in 2019. The combined entity became Aura Inc. Aura the product was built from scratch as the parent company's new flagship. Identity Guard kept running as a separate brand aimed at a different price point.

So this isn't really a competitor comparison. It's the new version of a company's thinking versus the legacy version of it.

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How We Evaluated Both

We subscribed to both services and went through the full onboarding on each — not just the feature checklist, but the actual dashboard, alert experience, and VPN performance. What follows is based on that, not marketing copy.

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Side-by-Side

Feature	Aura	Identity Guard
Starting Price (Annual)	~$10/mo (Individual)	~$7.50/mo (Value)
Mid-Tier	~$18/mo (Couple)	~$16.67/mo (Total)
Top Tier	~$29/mo (Family)	~$25/mo (Ultra)
VPN	Full VPN, all plans	Not offered — any plan
Antivirus	Installed product, all plans	Safe Browsing extension only
Password Manager	Included, all plans	Included, all plans
3-Bureau Credit Monitoring	All plans	Varies by plan
Identity Theft Insurance	$1M–$5M depending on plan	$1M cap, all plans
Child Identity Protection	Up to 5 adults + unlimited children	Available

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The VPN Gap — This Is the One That Matters

Identity Guard doesn't offer a VPN. Not on the $7.50/month Value plan, not on the $25/month Ultra plan.

What it calls "security tools" on higher tiers is a Safe Browsing browser extension — it flags known-malicious sites before you visit them. That's useful. It's not a VPN.

A VPN encrypts your full internet connection. Every app, every browser, every device. Your traffic isn't readable on public networks, your ISP doesn't see what you're doing, and your IP isn't exposed. A browser extension only catches bad URLs inside one browser.

Aura includes a full VPN on every plan — including the cheapest one. If you want one subscription that handles both identity monitoring and network-level security, Identity Guard can't get you there. Aura can.

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The Pricing Reality

Identity Guard's $7.50/month entry point is genuinely cheaper than Aura's $10/month. That's real.

But here's what that comparison actually looks like at the upper tiers:

• Identity Guard Ultra: ~$25/month — no VPN, browser-extension antivirus, $1M insurance cap
• Aura Individual: ~$10/month — full VPN, installed antivirus, $1M insurance, 3-bureau credit monitoring

You're paying 2.5x more for Identity Guard's top product than Aura's entry product, for less coverage.

If you're comparing Aura's Couple plan ($18/month) to Identity Guard Ultra ($25/month) — which is the honest like-for-like for two adults — Aura is cheaper and covers both people's devices with a real VPN and antivirus.

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Insurance: The Ceiling Difference

Aura's coverage scales with the plan:

• Individual: up to $1M
• Couple: up to $2M
• Family: up to $5M

Identity Guard caps at $1M across all plans. For a solo subscriber, that's the same. For a household, Aura's ceiling is meaningfully higher.

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Credit Monitoring

Aura includes 3-bureau credit monitoring — Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion — on every plan, starting at the cheapest tier.

Identity Guard's coverage varies by plan. Before assuming you're getting all three bureaus, check what's actually included on the tier you're considering. If catching a new hard inquiry or account across all three bureaus matters, that's worth verifying.

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When Identity Guard Makes Sense

Two situations where it's a reasonable pick:

The $7.50/month Value plan, if price is the binding constraint. It does cover the basics — SSN monitoring, some credit monitoring, $1M insurance. If $10/month genuinely doesn't fit the budget, it's not nothing.

You already have a VPN and antivirus you like, and only need identity and credit monitoring. If the bundle isn't useful because you've already solved the device-security piece, Identity Guard's mid-tier Total plan at $16.67/month is a reasonable option.

Outside of those two cases, the pricing math doesn't favor Identity Guard — especially on the upper tiers.

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Bottom Line

Aura is the better value for most people — not by a small margin, but by a real one. A full VPN and antivirus on every plan, scaling insurance, 3-bureau credit monitoring from the cheapest tier up — for $10/month.

Identity Guard isn't a bad product. It's an older product from the same company, built before the bundle was standard. The fact that its own parent built Aura to replace it as the flagship tells you most of what you need to know.

For the full plan-by-plan breakdown, see Aura Pricing and Plans Explained, or the complete Aura review.