Aura vs IdentityIQ (2026): The Hidden Cost of IdentityIQ's Tiered Model

IdentityIQ's starting price is $6.99/month. That number does a lot of marketing work — but it doesn't tell you what it actually costs to get the coverage most people need.

Here's what the tiers look like once you map them to features:

• Daily 3-bureau credit monitoring: requires Secure Pro at $21.49/month
• VPN and antivirus: not included on any plan — sold separately as a cybersecurity add-on bundle
• LPOA fraud restoration: only on Secure Max at $31.49/month

Aura's Individual plan, which includes daily 3-bureau monitoring, a full VPN, installed antivirus, and a password manager, is ~$10/month billed annually.

That's the comparison. Everything else is detail.

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How We Evaluated Both

We went through IdentityIQ's onboarding on the Secure Pro tier and compared the dashboard, alert quality, and credit monitoring interface against Aura's. Where IdentityIQ's tiered model creates friction — specifically, which features actually require which plan — we mapped those out precisely rather than summarizing from a spec sheet.

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Side-by-Side

Feature	Aura	IdentityIQ
Entry Price	~$10/mo (Individual, annual)	$6.99/mo (Secure — 1-bureau only)
3-Bureau Daily Monitoring	All plans	Secure Pro — $21.49/mo
VPN	Full VPN, all plans	Add-on bundle (not standard)
Antivirus	Installed product, all plans	Add-on bundle (not standard)
Password Manager	Included, all plans	Not included
Identity Theft Insurance	$1M–$5M depending on plan	$1M on all plans
LPOA Fraud Restoration	Dedicated case managers	Secure Max only — $31.49/mo
Family Plan	~$29/mo — 5 adults + unlimited children	Secure Max includes family insurance
Free Trial	14-day free trial	7-day free trial

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The Real Cost of IdentityIQ

The $6.99/month Secure plan monitors one bureau. If your credit file gets hit at Equifax or TransUnion, you won't catch it in real time — you'll see it in an annual or biannual report, months later.

Daily 3-bureau monitoring — the standard that most paid identity protection services offer at their base tier — requires IdentityIQ's Secure Pro at $21.49/month.

From there, if you want a VPN and antivirus, add the cybersecurity bundle on top. There's no publicly fixed price for that add-on across tiers, but it pushes the real total meaningfully higher.

Meanwhile, Aura's $10/month Individual plan includes all three — 3-bureau daily monitoring, full VPN, installed antivirus — as a bundle. No tier to unlock, no add-on to activate.

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VPN and Antivirus: Add-On vs Built-In

Aura's VPN covers every device, every app, every plan. The antivirus is a full installed product — not a browser extension.

IdentityIQ's base and mid-tier plans don't include either. VPN and antivirus come through a separate cybersecurity bundle, which you purchase alongside a base plan. If you're comparing total protection rather than just credit monitoring, you need to include that add-on in your cost calculation.

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Where IdentityIQ Has a Genuine Edge

LPOA fraud restoration on the Secure Max plan.

LPOA — Limited Power of Attorney — means IdentityIQ's restoration team can legally act on your behalf: contact creditors, dispute fraudulent accounts, and work through the recovery process without requiring you to handle each call and letter yourself. That's a more hands-off recovery experience than most services offer.

If you've dealt with identity theft before and know how painful the recovery process is, LPOA is a real differentiator. Aura has dedicated fraud case managers, but formal LPOA is a higher level of support.

The catch: LPOA is only on the $31.49/month Secure Max plan, which is IdentityIQ's top tier — and VPN and antivirus still aren't bundled in even there.

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Insurance

Both services offer up to $1M in identity theft insurance at the individual tier.

Aura's coverage scales: up to $2M on the Couple plan, up to $5M on the Family plan. IdentityIQ holds at $1M across tiers for individual coverage, with Secure Max adding $25,000 in family protection as a supplement.

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Credit Monitoring Depth

	Aura	IdentityIQ Secure Plus	IdentityIQ Secure Pro
3-Bureau Daily Monitoring	Yes	No (1-bureau daily)	Yes
3-Bureau Reports	Monthly	Annual	Biannual
Price	~$10/mo	~$11.49/mo	~$21.49/mo

Aura matches or beats IdentityIQ Secure Pro on credit monitoring breadth, at less than half the price — and includes VPN and antivirus that Secure Pro doesn't.

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When IdentityIQ Makes Sense

You specifically want LPOA fraud restoration and the $31.49/month Secure Max price is acceptable. If you've been a victim before and want the most hands-off recovery process available, that matters — and it's not something Aura currently offers in the same form.

You're already covered on device security and want the cheapest possible identity monitoring tier. IdentityIQ's Secure Plus at $11.49/month is one of the lower-priced entry points for identity monitoring with $1M insurance — if you already have a VPN and antivirus sorted, it's not a bad basic option.

Outside those two cases, the pricing math doesn't support IdentityIQ once you're building toward the coverage most people actually need.

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Bottom Line

IdentityIQ's entry price is genuinely low — but it's a headline number for a narrow product. Getting to 3-bureau daily monitoring costs $21.49/month. Getting a VPN and antivirus costs extra on top of that. Getting LPOA fraud restoration costs $31.49/month, still without device security bundled.

Aura covers monitoring, VPN, antivirus, and a password manager at $10/month. If LPOA isn't the specific feature you need, the comparison isn't close.

If it is, IdentityIQ Secure Max is worth looking at — with the understanding that you'll likely need to add the device security bundle separately.

See the full Aura pricing breakdown or the complete Aura review.