IDShield vs LifeLock Review: Our Pick After Months of Testing

In the battle between IDShield vs. LifeLock, IDShield wins. 

After over 700 hours of testing, we can confidently say that IDShield offers better threat detection (it found eight unique alerts while LifeLock only found one). 

IDShield also includes 24/7 U.S.-based customer support. LifeLock claims their support team is on U.S. soil, but we have major doubts. 

And IDShield provides peace of mind with $1 million in identity theft insurance for all plans. LifeLock significantly lowers its insurance coverage with its mid-level and lower-tier options.

With our discount code, you can lock in on IDShield, guaranteeing you the lowest possible rate (and ensuring you avoid LifeLock’s renewal price hikes). 

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IDShield vs LifeLock – Head to Head Comparison

Monitoring and Alerts: Winner – IDShield

The IDShield vs LifeLock comparison is sort of a battle of quality versus quantity. IDShield offers much better monitoring in many ways, but LifeLock offers more types of monitoring.

IDShield is what I like to call a “basic protection” identity theft protection service. They cover the core, important types of identity monitoring. These include:

This covers maybe 70% to 80% of all potential types of identity fraud, and at least helps to keep an eye on the other 20% to 30%. Within the bounds of these monitoring types, IDShield is one of the best on the market, standing toe to toe with the absolute best in the industry, like Identity Guard.

Their monitoring is exceptionally fast, and provides a lot of accurate, detailed readouts for any identity alerts it comes across.

Dark Web Monitoring

When I tested IDShield dark web monitoring capabilities, I got 8 unique dark web alerts.

LifeLock, on the other hand, is very slow. That’s the primary failing for LifeLock. While their information is accurate, it takes them longer to come to a conclusion than other services, which means on average you’re going to be receiving alerts a day or two after another service would have alerted you. Sometimes up to a week in my tests.

LifeLock also only showed me one unique dark web alert, way lower than IDShield which is 8.

On the flipside though, LifeLock has more to offer in terms of credit and financial records monitoring…

Credit and Financial Records Monitoring

On the LifeLock Advantage plan, you can now get a monthly 1-bureau credit score and report (VantageScore by Equifax) instead of annually. Ultimate Plus members get a daily 1-bureau credit score & report. These are in addition to the annual 3-bureau credit score and report. 

They also have a TransUnion credit file lock and now a Payday Loan lock but only on the Advantage and Ultimate Plus plans.

IDShield, on the other hand, is surprisingly vague on their website about how they monitor your credit scores, simply saying that you can (and should) apply for a report once a year with any or all of the 3 credit agencies via annualcreditreport.com. However, in my testing I received a monthly credit report from VantageScore by Equifax, although there was no credit lock possible.

LifeLock also offers a lot more monitoring types than IDShield, adding the more niche identity monitoring elements like home title monitoring (an absolute necessity for any homeowner). In 2021 LifeLock introduced LifeLock Home Title Protect, which monitors for and notifies you of filings made at the recorder’s office related to your home title. It is available as a standalone product ($9.99/month or $99.99/year) or as an add-on service with LifeLock plans ($4.99/month or $49.99/year).

This is alongside 401(k) and investment monitoring, which helps protect your retirement plans and other investments. 

This means it’s going to come down to what kind of monitoring you need and your priorities. Obviously, if you have a strong need or desire for those rarer identity theft alerts, LifeLock is the proper choice between the two. But if you don’t need them, IDShield provides a much higher quality of service that LifeLock cannot match.

Threat Resolution: Winner – IDShield

Both IDShield and LifeLock claim to have 24/7 US-based threat resolution experts. That sounded really nice to me, on the face of it, but I don’t like taking the companies at their word, so I put their claims to the test – by actually trying to call off hours and ask them tough questions.

IDShield’s threat resolution expert answered my call within a minute – which is saying a lot since I called at midnight on a weekend. The expert was friendly and very competent – easily answering all my questions.

IDShield does also mention in-house private investigators who can help you recover your identity, but I haven’t tested that claim out yet. It’s a nice little differentiator though.

LifeLock, on the other hand… when I finally connected, I was very disappointed with the “expertise” of LifeLock’s threat resolution care team. I was not able to get any clear answers and honestly left the call with more questions than before I spoke to them.

IDShield wins hands-down!

Identity Theft Insurance: Winner – IDShield

Both of these services hit the top level of insurance, offering up to $1 million in reimbursement for lost funds and expenses, tracked as separate pools of money to draw from (so up to $1 million in each category).

The difference is that LifeLock only offers the full $1 million with its top-tier plan, the Ultimate Plus option. The other options offer significantly less, with Standard offering $25, 000 in lost funds reimbursement, and Advantage only offering $100, 000 of the same.

Both still cover $1 million in expenses, but it’s still worth noting.

While I dock IDShield points for being really vague about its insurance details and making them difficult to find for users (it’s easier to track down a succinct list of your benefits with LifeLock), it’s still the overall better choice and a great option for one person to get cheap insurance that fully covers most fraud events.

Ease of Use: Winner – LifeLock

IDShield has a very easy-to-navigate layout, and while its utilitarian design isn’t much to look at, it gets the job done quite nicely. Loading speeds are good, and it’s all around quite nice.

The only real failing is how its Alerts page is set up. Or, more accurately, Alerts pages. What little extra bit of organization is gained by separating each type of alert into its own little tab is outweighed by it being slightly annoying to navigate when all you want to do is look at all your alerts in one convenient space.

LifeLock provides this capability, alongside just having an overall more appealing design to look at and a somewhat better organization of how its tabs are laid out and arranged into categories with the tabs being arranged in order of most commonly used tabs.

Additional Services: Winner – LifeLock

No contest here. Additional services are, in many ways, the focus of LifeLock, as LifeLock is essentially meant to be a total cybersecurity package.

As a result, it comes with the use of Norton’s pretty solid antivirus program, a decent VPN, and a smattering of PC health tools (of admittedly dubious value) that help sweeten the deal for the service.

IDShield doesn’t have much of a note. Their member perks system is neat in concept but essentially boils down to a smattering of coupons for major brands that you’re probably not going to get a ton of use out of.

It’s reminiscent of a free service like Honey, or those provided by many banks, which try to automate coupons via an app. Except all of those services are much, much better at it.

Likewise, I don’t really value their “reputation management” system, which scans for accounts that may be potentially associated with you so you can vet them for authenticity.

While an interesting concept, the execution is lacking, and I found the list rarely if ever, populated with anything worth noting.

Cost: Winner – LifeLock

This is a contest between two pretty bad options when it comes to cost-effectiveness. Another reason to get Aura instead!

I am confident that Aura is the best choice for most people. I recommend you read our Aura vs LifeLock and Aura vs IDShield comparisons as well to see why we prefer Aura.

LifeLock is definitely the more expensive of the two. It is also, by a long shot, the most expensive service I’ve reviewed.

This cost, however, is justified by how much you get with the Advantage and Ultimate Plus plans (I’d stay far away from the Standard plan, honestly). Great service, very wide breadth of monitoring, good accuracy (if a bit slow), and a plethora of other services on top.

IDShield, by contrast, is extremely good for what it is…but in my opinion way overpriced for what it offers compared to similarly competent, basic monitoring plans.

This, in part, comes down to what you can see there. Family protection costs twice as much as regular protection; there’s no bundled discount here. You can save a bit of money by using their 1 Bureau plan and shifting to a free credit report service (like Credit Karma) for your three-bureau monitoring, but you still run into the issue of it costing slightly more than LifeLock’s family protection at the Advantage tier (which is LifeLock’s most competitively priced option).

So it’s difficult to recommend anything but IDShield’s 1 Bureau credit monitoring plan for a single adult.

If you want to protect your family, LifeLock is significantly more cost-efficient. Just bear in mind it covers only 2 adults and 5 kids (IDShield covers 2 adults and an unlimited number of kids.

LifeLock provides a number of practical, useful services that are costly on their own merits and add to your overall internet health and protection. The best thing that can be said about IDShield’s additional services is that you aren’t forced to use them and once in a blue moon they could be mildly useful.

LifeLock vs IDShield Final Verdict:

I will say if you’re considering buying LifeLock’s Advantage plan for just yourself, go with IDShield instead. It’s better and cheaper, especially if you go with the 1 Bureau credit monitoring option.

However, if you require more niche monitoring (eg. home title monitoring) or family coverage, LifeLock is going to be the better choice of the two.

Or, Just get Aura!

I know you came here looking for the best choice between LifeLock and & IDShield, and while that might have been the right question a year ago, that’s no longer the case.

Aura blows both of these out of the water. Get Aura – you will have the peace of mind you deserve, at a price your wallet loves…

You can lock in our OFF discount on Aura for life, today!

Related Comparison Articles:

Citations:

1. https://hr.caltech.edu/documents/4883/2022_IDShield_Overview.pdf

2. https://www.hood.edu/sites/default/files/Benefits/IDShield%20Activation%20Steps.pdf

3. https://www.cerritos.edu/hr/_includes/docs/Benefits/IDShield_Plan_Summary.pdf

4. https://hr.ua.edu/benefits/lifelock

5. https://www.slu.edu/human-resources/benefits/pdfs/lifelock-fact-sheet.pdf