What I Learned After Using IDShield Identity Protection

The dangers of identity theft are no longer a distant worry; they have become a salient threat that looms over individuals and families as digital footprints continue to grow. This is why you need a dedicated identity theft protection platform to safeguard your identity online.

One such popular provider is IDShield, offering capable identity protection through active breach alerts, as well as comprehensive social media and dark web monitoring. It even offers plans bundled with a VPN and password manager. In this article, we put IDShield to the test and examine its features, pricing, and interface while also comparing it with other similar tools on the market.

Read on till the end to find out whether IDShield is the ideal identity theft protection solution for your needs.

IDShield: Plans and pricing

IDShield pricing varies primarily based on whether you opt for one-bureau or three-bureau credit monitoring.

For individuals, plans typically start around $14.95 per month for one-bureau credit monitoring (usually Experian). If you want more comprehensive credit oversight, the three-bureau option (monitoring Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax) is available for approximately $19.95 per month.

For families, IDShield provides coverage for two adults and eligible dependent children under 18 living in the same household. A one-bureau family plan typically costs around $29.95 per month, while the three-bureau family plan is approximately $34.95 per month.

What we like most about this pricing structure is that you get all the features IDShield has to offer, even with its basic Individual and Family plans. The only point of difference is the number of credit bureaus that track your credit score and financial accounts. So, if you’re someone with limited financial exposure but need a feature-rich identity protection plan, IDShield is a good choice.

This is much cheaper than Identity Force, where you have to pay $34.90/month for credit monitoring. That said, IDShield’s three-bureau credit monitoring is still more expensive than Bitdefender’s Identity Theft Protection plan, which effectively costs only $8.33/month.

IDShield: Features

IDShield has one of the most comprehensive feature sets we have seen across identity theft protection platforms. For starters, you get all the usual protection features, such as Social Security number monitoring, dark web monitoring, and social media monitoring.

Along with this, there are some niche features such as court record monitoring, which scans legal databases to alert you to any criminal identity theft, and address change monitoring, which scans the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) National Change of Address database and alerts you if any change-of-address request is filed in your name.

Besides monitoring your identity, IDShield also does a good job of keeping tabs on your finances with continuous credit monitoring and a monthly updated credit score tracker. IDShield also instantly alerts you whenever a financial institution makes a hard credit inquiry.

The platform also offers a pretty interesting financial threshold monitoring feature, which lets you set alerts on a financial account for large credit card purchases, low account balances, and unusually large withdrawals. There's also a pretty nifty payday loan monitoring feature, which tells you if a scammer tries to secure a payday loan using your identity.

One of the best features of IDShield is its 24/7 emergency assistance from dedicated licensed private investigators who work closely with you to help restore your identity in the event of identity theft. Additionally, there's also $3 million in reimbursement for unrecovered costs and losses incurred due to any identity theft that takes place during your subscription period.

The kicker is the complementary cybersecurity and device protection features that IDShield offers. This includes a VPN, password manager, and malware and antivirus protection. All these features are offered in partnership with Trend Micro. However, we found these add-ons to be quite limited during our testing.

For instance, you can only connect to 30+ VPN locations using the VPN, which also lacks essential features like a kill switch. The password manager lacks password inheritance and secure sharing, and it marked weak passwords as strong in some instances. Competitors like Norton LifeLock and Bitdefender also offer such bundled packages and perform better than IDShield.

IDShield also offers a pretty unique reputation management dashboard, which lets you improve your online reputation by cleaning up social media posts and comments and improving your Google search results. For starters, you'll see a reputation score on a color-coded semicircle graph out of 1,000. Below this, you'll see various suggested actions you can take to improve this score.

You can review each of the scanned results and mark them as positive or negative. Of course, you'll need to connect your various social media accounts, such as X, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. Although a niche feature, this might come in handy for influencers or public figures who are trying to build a personal brand.

IDShield: Interface and in-use

IDShield’s dashboard is pretty simple and easy to navigate. You'll see a list of options on the left: Home, Credit Security, Inbox, and Accounts. The Home dashboard displays your credit score at the top on a color-coded scale, followed by all your recent identity and credit monitoring alerts.

If you want to use the security suite that comes with IDShield, you’ll have to go through a separate installation and setup process for Trend Micro Maximum Security. You only get the license key with IDShield’s subscription. The same is true for the included VPN and password manager tools.

IDShield: Support

IDShield offers multiple support channels to ensure timely and convenient assistance.

For immediate assistance, customers can call IDShield's dedicated phone support line at 1-888-494-8519, available from Monday through Friday, from 7 AM to 7 PM Central Standard Time (CST). IDShield also offers email support along with a live chat option for customers who prefer real-time assistance.

In addition to these support channels, IDShield also provides a comprehensive knowledge base and frequently asked questions (FAQs) section on their website. Customers can find answers to common questions, troubleshooting tips, and other resources without contacting support directly.

IDShield: The competition

IDShield is a pretty attractive identity theft protection platform, even given its affordable starting price of $14.95 per month. That said, it does not offer the best value for money, even at this price point.

Take Norton LifeLock, for example. While you have to pay $19.95 per month with IDShield for three-bureau credit reports, the same is available for just $16.67 per month with LifeLock. Besides this, you also get new AI protection features such as Card Exposure Control and Suspicious Charge Alerts.

While IDShield promotes its bundled security suite, VPN, and password manager, they don’t perform as well as some other bundles on the market. LifeLock, for instance, offers protection and a VPN for five devices, along with identity insurance and breach alerts, for just $8.33/month, offering better value for money.

Similarly, Bitdefender’s bundled plans start at $89.99/year ($7.50/month), offering a VPN with 3,000+ servers, a password manager, an ad blocker, and essential identity theft protection.

IDShield: Final verdict

You should choose IDShield if you're looking purely for an identity theft protection platform. It has all the important features, such as breach alerts, dark web and social media protection, along with identity restoration services. At just $19.95 per month, you can get three-bureau credit monitoring along with everything the platform has to offer, with nothing hidden behind paywalls.

That said, if you're tempted by IDShield's bundled offering of a VPN, password manager, and security features, there are better value-for-money options available. You could look at Norton LifeLock or Bitdefender's bundled plans for all-round protection, both of which cost less than IDShield.

Take a look at our full guide to the best identity theft protection