Incogni and Privacy Bee are well-known platforms that help users scrub their personal information from the web. They scan the ends of the web for a user’s personal data and send automated or manual removal requests to sites hosting such data.
Incogni was created in 2021 and formally launched in 2022 by Surfshark, a virtual private network (VPN) company. Surfshark created Incogni to help users automate scraping their personal data from the web– it was later rolled out as a separate product and has remained so since then.
Broker coverage
Officially, Incogni supports automated requests for over 420 data broker sites; this figure refers to sites where requests can be quickly drafted from preset templates and sent for quick processing. Apart from automated requests, Incogni also supports custom requests for over 2,000 sites. These custom deletion requests are drafted case by case by Incogni’s staff and sent to the relevant website for processing, which takes longer than automated requests.
Privacy Bee officially covers 1,000+ data brokers and people-finder sites with automated removals, and also provides custom requests for over 150,000 sites not included in the broker list.
When handling custom requests, Incogni or Privacy Bee’s staff will draft and submit a unique request to delete your data from the site. Incogni relies on human security agents for custom requests, while Privacy Bee can submit automated requests for sites they have handled before, and human submissions elsewhere.
Response and processing times vary by site, with Incogni's turnaround being about 7 days, so some patience is warranted. You can monitor ongoing requests from your dashboard, and you’ll receive an email alert once any request has been finally processed.
Data insights
As mentioned, on both Incogni and Privacy Bee, you can easily monitor all pending and successful data removal requests. Request insights are displayed on your dashboard, so you always know which requests are still pending and which have succeeded. Likewise, you’ll receive regular email reports listing the requests removed over time.
However, I noticed a key difference when testing both platforms. Incogni provides a more simplified overview into its removal process than Privacy Bee does. Incogni provides real-time and month-by-month insights so you can see precisely which brokers your data is being deleted from and view timelines for each deletion request (from initiation to final processing). Privacy Bee provides a more detailed breakdown in it's 'Excruciating Details' page, which displays a full time-line of the removal process.
In this case, I would say that Incogni is better for users who just want their data taken off the internet and aren't interested in the nitty gritty, whereas Privacy Bee is better for users looking for a highly detailed breakdown of their data and the process behind removal.
Extra features
Privacy Bee is the clear winner when it comes to extra features. In addition to data removal, it offers data breach monitoring, blurring of home addresses on Google Maps, dark web monitoring, vehicle exposure monitoring, and removal from facial recognition databases. Although some of these complementary services require a subscription to higher-tier plans, Privacy Bee offers many extra features that you won’t find on Incogni.
On the other hand, Incogni focuses solely on data removal and doesn’t provide complementary features. It excels at sending and following up on your automated or manual data removal requests, but don’t expect dark web monitoring and other extra features like Privacy Bee offers.
Ease of use
Incogni is a user-friendly platform that follows a simple, hands-off process. After signing up, you’ll provide your personal data so that Incogni can conduct a scan. Once the scan completes, you'll be notified via email and asked to authorize Incogni to send removal requests on your behalf.
Once you provide this authorization, Incogni runs in the background on your behalf, sending requests to sites where your data is found and notifying you when any deletion request has been processed. You can track the progress of all requests from your intuitive dashboard.
Privacy Bee is also user-friendly, and offers a similar process to Incogni. You can monitor the progress of each request from Privacy Bee’s dashboard (“In Progress” for pending requests and “Closed” for successfully processed requests). Privacy Bee is intuitive and easy to use, and provides a superior level of detail into removal timelines.
Customer support
Incogni offers helpful support resources, beginning with the Support Center that provides user guides and answers to frequently asked questions (FAQs). The FAQs section was very helpful when navigating Incogni as a first-time user.
When the FAQs section wasn’t sufficient, I contacted Incogni’s support team by phone or live chat and received quick responses. I also sent some email inquiries and got a response within 24 hours. However, there’s a drawback: telephone support is available only to users subscribed to the Unlimited plan, not the Standard plan.
Similarly, Privacy Bee provides a FAQs section with detailed answers to common problems. I also scoured user guides to help me navigate Privacy Bee as a first-time user. When I needed external help, I contacted the support team via live chat, telephone, or email and generally received fast responses.
Plans and pricing
Incogni has four pricing plans: Standard, Unlimited, Family, and Family Unlimited. For each plan, you can pay month to month or annually, with an annual plan offering a 50% discount compared to month-to-month.
The Standard plan costs $16 per month, but an annual payment costs $96. The Unlimited plan costs $30 per month or a discounted $180 annual fee. The key difference is that the Standard plan supports only automated removal requests, while the Unlimited plan allows both automated and manual requests.
The Family plan provides the same features as the Standard plan, but for up to 5 members covered with a single subscription: it costs $32 per month or $192 annually. The Family Unlimited plan unlocks the same features as the Unlimited subscription for five members: it costs $46 per month or $276 annually.
Privacy Bee offers three pricing plans: Essentials, Pro, and Signature. Like Incogni, it allows users to pay month to month or annually, with the latter offering significant discounts —in this case, a discount larger than Incogni’s 50%. The Essentials plan costs $19 per month, or a hefty discount to $96 per year. It allows users to send automated data removal requests to over 400 people-search sites only.
The Pro plan costs $39 per month, but $18 per month annualized. It allows automated and manual removal requests to over 1000 people-finder sites and unlimited custom removal requests.
The Signature plan costs $67 per month, billed annually (it doesn't seem to offer a month-to-month option). This plan includes access to broad complementary features and priority customer support.
Incogni is noticeably more budget-friendly than Privacy Bee, with its entry plan priced at $8 per month, annualized, compared to Privacy Bee’s $18. For other plans, Incogni also wins the budget-friendliness competition.
Which is best?
Choosing between Incogni and Privacy Bee is tough, but I’d say the best option depends on what you want from your data removal platform. Incogni stands out for greater affordability compared to Privacy Bee. The latter stood out for its rich feature set beyond personal data removal.
From my experience, you should choose Incogni if you need an affordable platform that’ll monitor the web for your personal data and automatically send deletion requests on your behalf.
In contrast, if you are looking for a complete package to annonimize yourself on the internet, Privacy Bee's diverse feature set, coverage, data insights, and competitive pricing makes it stand out in this regard.
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