DeleteMe vs Optery (2026): The Price Ranking Flips at Equal Coverage

Both services do the same job: find the people-search sites and data brokers holding a profile on you, file the opt-outs, and keep checking as the listings come back.

The comparison usually gets written as cheap-and-automated against expensive-and-human. That framing survives about as long as it takes to line the tiers up properly — because Optery's cheapest plan and DeleteMe's aren't buying the same thing, and once you correct for that, the price ranking turns over.

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How we compared them

We have not run a paid subscription with either company, so this is not a hands-on test and doesn't pretend to be. What follows is a comparison of published pricing, stated coverage, re-scan cadence and service model, verified against both companies' own sites on 3 September 2026, alongside third-party assessments from Wirecutter and PCMag.

Where the two describe the same thing in ways that can't be directly compared — site counts especially — we've said so rather than forcing a winner.

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Pricing

DeleteMe's prices below are what you pay through a partner link with the PARTNER20 code, which is a flat 20% off its list prices of $129, $229 and $329 a year. Optery's are its published rates, verified the same day.

	Optery	DeleteMe
Free tier	Yes — exposure scan + self-service tools	None
Entry plan	$39/year — 380+ sites, one name only	$103.20 first year — 1 person ($129 list)
Mid tier	$149/year — 560+ sites, unlimited names	$183.20 first year — 2 people ($229 list)
Top tier	$249/year — 635+ sites	$263.20 first year — family, 4 people ($329 list)
Longer commitment	—	2 years, 1 person: $167.20 ($209 list)
Billing options	Monthly or annual	Annual or two-year
Money-back guarantee	30 days	Not published

The headline price gap is smaller than it first looks, and it runs the other way at the tier that matters.

Optery's $39 Core plan is the cheapest thing on this page by a distance, but it carries a limitation worth understanding: it supports one name and one city/state per person. Extended and Ultimate support unlimited names. That matters more than it sounds, because relisting overwhelmingly happens through name variations — a former address, a maiden name, a variant spelling. Those are exactly what Core won't chase.

Compare the tiers that actually do the same job and the ranking flips: Optery Extended is $149/year against DeleteMe's $103.20 for a single person. DeleteMe is the cheaper of the two at comparable coverage.

For households the gap widens further in DeleteMe's favour. Two people cost $183.20 and a four-person family $263.20, both structured as single plans. Optery's tiers are priced per person.

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The word "first" in "first year"

DeleteMe's checkout says billed at $103.20 for your first year. That phrasing is doing work, and it's the same pattern we flag on Norton LifeLock: an introductory rate that renews at a different one.

We can't tell you the renewal figure, because DeleteMe doesn't publish it — which is itself the point. Check what it renews at before you subscribe, and treat the renewal price as the real price, because that's the one you'll pay in every year after the first.

We'd apply that standard to a service we had no commercial relationship with, so we're applying it here. Optery, for what it's worth, publishes flat annual rates with no first-year framing.

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The free tier is the real difference

Everything else on this page is a matter of degree. This one is structural.

Optery will scan for your exposure and show you which people-search sites hold a profile on you without asking for a card. DeleteMe will not, because it has no equivalent tier.

That matters more than it first appears, because most people have no idea how exposed they actually are. The honest answer to "do I need this?" depends entirely on how many sites list you and what they're publishing — your address, your phone number, your relatives' names — and that's unknowable in advance. Paying first and finding out afterwards is the wrong order.

So regardless of which service you end up buying, running the free scan first is the rational opening move. If it comes back near-empty, you've saved a subscription. If it comes back with forty listings including your home address, you'll make a better-informed decision about how much to spend.

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What "human-assisted" actually buys you

DeleteMe's pitch is that real staff handle the filings rather than software alone. That's easy to dismiss as marketing, and it isn't nothing.

Broker opt-out flows are deliberately awkward. Some require a phone verification call. Some send a confirmation email that expires silently in 72 hours. Some hide the removal form behind a search you have to perform first, then match against records that may be near-duplicates of each other under slightly different names. We wrote up exactly this friction in our guides to Whitepages, Spokeo and BeenVerified — those quirks are real, and they're the parts automation handles least well.

A person working through that can get further than a script on the sites that fight hardest. Whether that's worth the price difference depends on how much you value not thinking about it again.

DeleteMe has also been doing this since 2010, longer than most of the category, and carries the third-party credentials that go with that — an A+ BBB rating, an "Excellent" from PCMag, and inclusion in Wirecutter's data-removal coverage.

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Coverage: don't read the site counts as a scoreboard

Optery publishes precise numbers: 380+ sites on Core, 560+ on Extended, 635+ on Ultimate. DeleteMe describes its coverage as hundreds of broker sites without a comparable public figure.

It's tempting to treat that as Optery winning on transparency and leave it there. The more useful point is that these numbers aren't comparable between companies at all. There's no shared definition of what counts as a distinct site, no requirement to publish the list, and — most importantly — a broker that holds no record on you contributes to a total without doing anything for you.

What actually matters is coverage of the specific sites that list you, which is a different question for every person, and one the free scan answers directly.

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What neither one fixes

This is the part most comparisons of these services leave out, and it's the thing readers most often misunderstand.

Neither service stops your data being collected. Both remove records that exist now. Brokers rebuild continuously from public records, marketing databases and commercial feeds, so profiles come back — commonly within three to six months, and often through a side door the original request never covered: a former address, a maiden name, a variant spelling.

That's why both companies sell subscriptions rather than one-off cleanups, and it's the honest framing for both: you're buying ongoing maintenance, not a permanent deletion. Anyone promising otherwise is selling something that doesn't exist.

It's also why the cheaper option is more defensible than it looks. If this is a recurring cost you'll carry for years rather than a one-time purchase, the annual difference compounds.

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When DeleteMe is the better buy

• You want comparable coverage for less. At the tiers that do the same job it's the cheaper service — $103.20 a first year against Optery Extended's $149.
• You're covering a household. Two people for $183.20 and four for $263.20 on one plan, where Optery charges per person.
• You want it handled, not managed. You're paying for staff to work the awkward filings so you don't have to think about it.
• You've already decided you're paying for this. The free tier's advantage disappears once you know you want full coverage.
• You value the track record. Longest-running service in the category, with third-party assessments to match.
• You're in a higher-risk position — a public-facing job, a stalking or harassment concern, a past doxxing incident — where thoroughness beats price.

When Optery is the better buy

• You don't yet know how exposed you are. The free scan answers that for nothing, and nothing else on this page competes with free.
• You've gone by one name at one address. Core is $39/year and nothing here competes — but only if that single-name limit genuinely fits you.
• You want a price that doesn't move. Optery publishes flat annual rates; DeleteMe quotes a first-year price and doesn't publish the renewal.
• You want proof. Optery sends before-and-after screenshots of removed listings rather than a summary.
• You'd rather start small. Beginning on Core and moving up after seeing results is a lower-risk path than committing upfront.

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Bottom line

For anyone undecided, the sequence is clearer than the comparison: run Optery's free scan first. It costs nothing, needs no card, and turns "should I pay for this?" into a decision with evidence behind it.

What you do next genuinely splits, and not the way the sticker prices suggest.

Optery's $39 Core plan is the cheapest real option here, and if you've only ever gone by one name at one address it may be all you need. If you've moved, married, or been listed under a variant spelling, Core's single-name limit is aimed away from the problem, and Extended at $149 is the honest comparison point.

At that tier DeleteMe is cheaper, at $103.20 for the first year through a partner link — and cheaper again for households, where two people cost $183.20 against Optery's per-person pricing. Add human-filed removals on the brokers that resist automation and the premium framing mostly disappears.

The two caveats that decide it: DeleteMe won't tell you what year two costs, and Optery will tell you your exposure for free. Use the second to answer whether you need this at all, and ask about the first before you hand over a card.