Incogni and Privacy Bee are well-known platforms that help users remove their personal information from the Internet. They scan the far reaches of the Internet for a user’s personal data and send automatic or manual deletion requests to websites that host that data.
Incogni was founded in 2021 and officially launched in 2022 by Surfshark, a virtual private networking (VPN) company. Surfshark developed Incogni to help users automate the recovery of their personal information from the Internet. It was later introduced as a stand-alone product and remains that way to this day.
Privacy Bee was founded in 2020 by entrepreneur Harry Maugans to provide users with an easy way to remove their personal information from data brokers and people search sites and to continually scan the Internet for information leaks. Since then, it has stayed true to its purpose and built a significant user base.
How do Incogni and Privacy Bee compare in key areas such as functionality, pricing, usability, customer support, and reporting? This guide answers these questions to help you choose the best option.
Broker coverage
Officially, Incogni supports automated queries for over 420 data broker sites; This number refers to websites where requests can be quickly written from predefined templates and submitted for rapid processing. In addition to automated queries, Incogni also supports custom queries for over 2,000 websites. These custom deletion requests are created by Incogni staff on a case-by-case basis and sent to the appropriate website for processing, which takes longer than automated requests.
Privacy Bee officially covers over 1,000 data brokers and people search sites with automatic deletions, and also offers custom queries for over 150,000 websites not included in the broker list.
While processing individual requests, Incogni or Privacy Bee staff will create and submit a one-time request to remove your information from the website. Incogni relies on human security staff for personalized requests, while Privacy Bee can send automated requests for sites that have already been processed, as well as human input elsewhere.
Response and processing times vary by location; Incogni’s processing time is approximately 7 days, so some patience is recommended. You can monitor pending requests through your dashboard and receive an email notification once a request has finally been processed.
About the data
As mentioned above, you can easily track all pending and successful data deletion requests in Incogni and Privacy Bee. Request information is displayed on your dashboard, so you always know which requests are still pending and which were successful. You will also receive regular email reports detailing requests deleted over time.
However, when testing the two platforms, I noticed one key difference. Incogni offers a simpler overview of the deletion process than Privacy Bee. Incogni provides real-time monthly information so you can see exactly which brokers are deleting your data and view the timeline of each deletion request (from inception to final processing). Privacy Bee provides a more detailed breakdown on the Atrocious Details page, which shows a complete timeline of the removal process.
In this case, I would say that Incogni is better for users who simply want to delete their data from the Internet and are not interested in the nitty-gritty, while Privacy Bee is better for users who are looking for a very detailed analysis of their data and the deletion process.
Additional Features
Privacy Bee is the clear winner when it comes to additional features. In addition to data deletion, it offers data breach monitoring, Google Maps home address deletion, dark web monitoring, vehicle exposure monitoring, and facial recognition database deletion. While some of these additional services require you to sign up for higher-tier plans, Privacy Bee offers many additional features that you won’t find on Incogni.
Incogni, on the other hand, focuses solely on data deletion and does not offer additional features. Excels at sending and tracking automatic or manual data deletion requests. However, don’t expect dark web monitoring and other additional features like those offered by Privacy Bee.
Ease of use
Incogni is an intuitive platform that follows a simple and direct process. After registration, provide your personal data so that Incogni can perform an analysis. Once the scan is complete, you will receive an email notification and will be asked to authorize Incogni to submit removal requests on your behalf.
Once you grant this permission, Incogni will run in the background on your behalf, sending requests to the websites where your data resides and notifying you when a deletion request has been processed. You can monitor the progress of all requests through its intuitive dashboard.
Privacy Bee is also easy to use and offers a similar process to Incogni. You can monitor the progress of each request through the Privacy Bee dashboard (“In Progress” for pending requests and “Closed” for successfully processed requests). Privacy Bee is intuitive and easy to use and offers a greater level of detail on cancellation deadlines.
Customer service
Incogni offers helpful support resources, starting with the Help Center, which provides user guides and answers to frequently asked questions (FAQs). The FAQ section was very helpful for first-time users of Incogni.
When the FAQ section wasn’t enough, I contacted the Incogni support team via phone or live chat and received timely responses. I also sent inquiries via email and received a response within 24 hours. There’s a catch, though: Phone support is only available to Unlimited plan users, not Standard plan users.
Privacy Bee also offers an FAQ section with detailed answers to common problems. I also looked at the user guides to make it easier for me to navigate Privacy Bee as a new user. When I needed outside help, I contacted the support team via live chat, phone, or email and generally received timely responses.
Packages and prices
Incogni offers four pricing plans: standard, Unlimited, FamilyAND Family without borders. For each plan you can pay monthly or annually, and an annual plan offers a 50% monthly discount.
The Standard plan costs $16 per month, but the annual payment costs $96. The unlimited plan costs $30 per month, or a reduced annual fee of $180. The main difference is that the Standard plan only supports automatic deletion requests, while the Unlimited plan allows both automatic and manual deletion requests.
The Family plan offers the same features as the Standard plan, but for up to 5 members covered by a single subscription: it costs $32 per month or $192 per year. The Family Unlimited plan offers the same features as the Unlimited subscription for five members: it costs $46 per month or $276 per year.
Privacy Bee offers three pricing plans: Essential, professionalAND Signature. Like Incogni, users can pay monthly or annually, the latter offering significant discounts, in this case a more than 50% discount from Incogni. The Essentials plan costs $19 per month, a significant reduction to $96 per year. It allows users to send automatic data deletion requests to over 400 search sites only.
The Pro plan costs $39 per month, but costs $18 per month annually. Enables automatic and manual removal requests for over 1,000 people search sites, as well as unlimited custom removal requests.
The Signature plan costs $67 per month and is billed annually (there doesn’t appear to be a monthly option). This plan includes access to many additional features and priority customer support.
Incogni is significantly cheaper than Privacy Bee, with the basic plan costing $8 per month per year, compared to $18 for Privacy Bee. Incogni also wins the competition for profitability of the other plans.
Which is the best?
Choosing between Incogni and Privacy Bee is difficult, but I would say the best option depends on what you want from your data deletion platform. Incogni stands out for its cheaper price compared to Privacy Bee. The latter stood out for the richness of its functionalities, which went beyond the elimination of personal data.
In my experience, if you need an affordable platform that monitors your personal data across the web and automatically submits deletion requests on your behalf, you should choose Incogni.
On the other hand, if you are looking for a complete package to promote yourself online, Privacy Bee stands out in this regard for its diverse range of functions, coverage, data analysis and competitive prices.