Incogni Review 2026: Data Broker Removal That You Rent, Not Buy
Incogni automates data broker deletion requests across 420+ brokers from $95.88 a year, backed by Surfshark. What it removes, why coverage depends entirely on which country you live in, and the structural catch the whole category shares: cancel and your data comes back.
Table of contents
Incogni is a personal data removal service from Surfshark. It contacts data brokers on your behalf, demands your records be deleted under privacy law, and keeps re-sending those demands on a schedule. It launched in 2022 and now covers 420+ data brokers automatically, with annual plans starting at $95.88 a year.
It is not a VPN, and it doesn't do anything a VPN does. It solves the problem a VPN has never touched: the information about you that companies already hold and sell.
Here's what it actually does, what it can't do, and the one structural fact about the whole category that determines whether it's worth your money.
What a data broker is, and why this exists
Data brokers are companies whose product is you. They buy, scrape and aggregate public records, purchase histories, app telemetry and marketing lists into profiles — name, current and previous addresses, phone numbers, relatives, employer, estimated income — then sell access. People-search sites are the consumer-facing tip of it; most brokers you've never heard of.
You can opt out of them individually. Each has its own process: a form here, an email there, some demanding a photo of your ID, some deliberately tedious. Doing it across hundreds of brokers is weeks of work, and it has to be repeated because the profiles come back.
Incogni automates that. It's the same reasoning that makes a password manager worth paying for — the manual alternative is technically possible and practically nobody does it.
How it works
- You create an account and verify your identity, which is what lets Incogni act as your legal agent when it contacts brokers.
- It matches your details against the brokers likely to hold a profile on you.
- It sends deletion requests citing the law that applies to you — GDPR in the EU, UK GDPR, CCPA and its state equivalents in the US, PIPEDA in Canada.
- It tracks responses in a dashboard showing which brokers were contacted, which complied, and which are still pending. Brokers typically have around 45 days to respond.
- It re-sends automatically, roughly every 60–90 days, because this is not a one-time job.
That last step is the whole product. Read on.
Pricing
All plans carry a 30-day money-back guarantee.
| Plan | Annual price | Effective per month | Covers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | $95.88/year | $7.99 | 1 person, 420+ brokers, automated |
| Unlimited | $179.88/year | $14.99 | Standard + custom removals across 2,000+ additional sites, live phone support |
| Family | $191.88/year | $15.99 | Up to 5 people, automated removals |
| Family Unlimited | $275.88/year | $22.99 | Up to 5 people, everything in Unlimited |
Incogni advertises the annual plans at around 50% off the rolling monthly rate, so paying month-to-month costs meaningfully more — check the current monthly figure at checkout, because the site's own presentation of it is muddled. Given the service only works through repeated cycles, the annual term is the sensible choice anyway.
The thing to understand before you buy
You are not buying deletion. You are renting suppression.
A broker that deletes your profile today can rebuild it tomorrow from the same public records, purchase data and marketing lists it used the first time. Nothing stops it. That's why Incogni re-sends requests every couple of months, and it's why this is a subscription rather than a one-off purchase.
The consequence is straightforward and rarely stated plainly: if you cancel, your data comes back. Not instantly, not everywhere, but the suppression stops being maintained and the profiles gradually re-form. Anyone selling a data removal service is selling an ongoing process, and you should price it as a permanent line item rather than a one-year cleanup project.
This isn't a criticism of Incogni specifically — it's true of every service in the category, including the ones charging considerably more. But it changes the buying question from "is this worth $95.88?" to "is this worth $95.88 every year, indefinitely?"
The trade you make signing up
To remove your personal data, Incogni needs your personal data. Name, addresses, phone numbers, email, plus identity verification so brokers accept it as acting on your behalf.
That's not a flaw in the design — an agent can't demand deletion of records it can't identify — but it is a real decision. You're consolidating exactly the information you're worried about into one more company's systems, in exchange for that company clearing it out of hundreds of others. Incogni states it encrypts customer data with AES-256 at rest and in transit, and it hasn't been the subject of FTC enforcement or major litigation as of this writing.
The net position is still favourable for most people: one accountable company with a privacy-based business model, versus several hundred brokers whose business model is the opposite. Just make the trade knowingly. It's the same category of decision we cover in how privacy tools fit together.
Where it works — and where it doesn't
This is the single most important eligibility question, and it gets skipped constantly.
Incogni's leverage is legal, not technical. It doesn't hack anything out of a database; it sends a legally binding request that a broker is obliged to honour. If no such law applies to you, the request is a polite email a broker can ignore.
Coverage follows the law:
- United States — all 50 states, under CCPA and equivalent state statutes
- European Union — all member states, under GDPR
- United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, plus the Isle of Man
- Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein
- Canada — under PIPEDA
Outside those jurisdictions, the service isn't offered, and that's honest of them rather than a gap. It also means the scope of what can be removed varies by where you live, because the underlying rights differ. A US user and a German user are not buying the same product.
Standard vs Unlimited: is double the price worth it?
Standard handles the 420+ brokers automatically. Unlimited adds custom removals across 2,000+ additional sites and live phone support, for roughly twice the money.
The automated 420 are the ones that matter for most people — they're the high-traffic people-search sites and the large aggregators that actually feed background checks and marketing lists. If your concern is generic exposure, Standard covers the meaningful surface.
Unlimited earns its price in a specific situation: you have a concrete problem at a specific site. A stalker or abusive ex using a particular people-search page. A niche industry directory publishing your home address. A forum post or regional site with your details that no automated list will ever include. Being able to point at a URL and have someone pursue it is a genuinely different service from bulk automation, and if that's your situation, the price difference is not the deciding factor.
If you can't name a specific site you're worried about, start with Standard.
What it does not do
Being clear about this is more useful than another feature list:
- It is not a VPN. It doesn't encrypt your traffic, hide your IP, or stop your ISP seeing where you connect. See what a VPN actually hides and how your ISP tracks you.
- It doesn't stop new data being collected. Removing a profile doesn't prevent the next purchase, app install or public record from feeding a new one. Removal and prevention are separate jobs, and you need both.
- It doesn't clean Google. It removes data from brokers' databases; search results referencing those pages drop off as the pages change, but Incogni isn't editing search engines.
- It doesn't touch data you handed over directly. Your bank, employer, insurer and the social networks you use are not data brokers, and this doesn't apply to them.
- It doesn't undo a breach. Data already leaked is out. See can a VPN protect you from password leaks for the same distinction in a different context.
- No service can guarantee complete removal. Brokers vary in compliance, some drag out the timeline, and no vendor covers every broker in existence.
This is the standard "different tools for different problems" point we keep returning to in VPNs vs firewalls vs password managers and VPN vs antivirus vs password manager. Incogni fills a real gap in that lineup — the historical data none of the others touch.
Strengths and weaknesses
What it does well
- Genuinely hands-off after setup; the recurring cycles are the point and they run without you
- A dashboard that shows per-broker status rather than a vague progress bar
- Broad automated coverage at the lower end of the category's pricing
- Family plans at a sane multiple — five people for twice the individual price, not five times
- Backed by an established privacy company rather than a one-product startup
- 30 days to change your mind
Where it falls short
- Removal notifications are thin on detail; you often see status changes without much explanation
- Heavily automated, with case-by-case attention reserved for the Unlimited tier
- Timelines are inconsistent and largely outside Incogni's control
- The value proposition quietly depends on you never cancelling
- Scope varies by jurisdiction in ways the marketing flattens
Who should buy it
- Anyone whose details are uncomfortably easy to find. Search your own name plus your city. If people-search sites return your address and relatives, this is the tool for that problem.
- People with a safety reason to be un-findable — domestic abuse survivors, anyone being harassed. Consider Unlimited for the custom removals; this is the case it exists for.
- Anyone drowning in targeted spam and scam calls. Broker profiles are where a lot of that sourcing starts. Pair it with call screening — see our look at free call blocking on Android.
- Families — the per-person economics are the best part of the pricing.
Who should skip it: anyone outside the supported jurisdictions (it won't work), anyone expecting a permanent one-time fix (it isn't one), and anyone who'd rather spend the same money on the prevention side first. If you have no VPN, no password manager and no 2FA, those come before cleaning up historical exposure — see the best VPN services in 2026 and how we test.
The verdict
Incogni does what it says, at the cheaper end of a category where the expensive options aren't proportionally better. The automation is the product, the dashboard is honest about what's pending, and Surfshark behind it is a meaningful reassurance for a service you're handing your identity to.
Buy it understanding what it is: an ongoing subscription that suppresses broker profiles rather than a one-time deletion, with legal leverage that only exists if you live somewhere with the right laws. Within those limits it's a well-priced, low-effort answer to a problem that genuinely can't be solved by hand.
Start with Standard unless you have a specific site you need pursued, take the annual term since the service only works over repeated cycles, and use the 30-day guarantee to check the dashboard actually finds and reports on brokers holding your data before you commit to it as a permanent expense.
