Aura vs IDShield: Which One Is The Right Choice?

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Brandon King
Editor
May 23, 2023

Based on my testing, Aura is the top choice! Aura provides far better dark web monitoring AND higher family theft insurance coverage (up to $5M). This combined with their parental controls makes it a better choice for most people.

And that’s saying a lot because IDShield is a worthy competitor especially with their excellent customer service & reputation management, but Aura beats it where it matters: monitoring and insurance.

You can lock in our OFF discount on Aura, they won’t increase your price next year.

60 Day Money Back Guarantee
You should get Aura if:
  • You want the best, most comprehensive threat monitoring & alerts
  • Up to $5M theft insurance appeals to you, especially if you have a family
  • 24/7/365 US-based customer care matters to you
  • You want the biggest identity-theft-protection bang for your hard-earned buck
14 Day FREE Trial
You should get IDShield if:
  • You are content with just $1M theft insurance
  • You don’t mind fewer alerts and less monitoring
  • You don’t want good support 24/7/365

But First, Why Should You Trust Us?

You can learn more about our testing process here.

Aura vs IDShield – Head to Head Comparison

Aura Vs IDShield

Overall Score

Best Identity Theft Protection

Monitoring & Alerts

  • Aura found 15 unique dark web alerts, the maximum in our test

  • Found 8 unique dark web alerts

Threat Resolution

  • White Glove support standard on all plans

  • Excellent customer service

Theft Insurance Per Adult

  • $5M Theft Insurance total on the Family plan with 5 adults

  • $1M per adult on all plans

  • $1M total Theft Insurance on all plans

Customer Support

  • Aura wins with their US-based 24/7 support

  • US-based 24/7 support

Additional Services

  • VPN

  • Antivirus

  • Parental Controls

  • Password Manager

  • VPN

  • Antivirus

  • Password Manager

  • Parental Controls

Cost

  • Aura offers an incredibly low price and highest bang for your buck

  • More expensive than Aura with lesser protection

Renewal Price Increased After 1st Year?

  • No. You lock in the price for life

  • No

Promo Code


Monitoring and Alerts: Winner – Aura

This is a matter of quantity plus quality being simply better than quality alone.

IDShield is actually an excellent service when it comes to monitoring. Its alerts are lightning fast, populating lists within minutes to seconds after something happens, and the alerts are quite detailed as well.

However, Aura matches it in terms of accuracy, and isn’t too much slower in the grand scheme (it takes about an hour to populate the list; well within an acceptable time range), but it has a wider monitoring breadth than IDShield, which goes for the most important and relevant to everyone types of monitoring.

IDShield offers:

  • Data breach and dark web monitoring
  • Social security number monitoring
  • Social media monitoring
  • Credit monitoring
  • Bank account monitoring
  • Payday loan monitoring

Which is an impressive array. But Aura augments this with home title monitoring (which is absolutely critical for any home owners out there), as well as 401(k) and investment monitoring, which is likewise important for many people.

The greater breadth combined with similar levels of performance means Aura takes it, though I do want to reiterate that IDShield’s monitoring is great compared to most of the market.

Threat Resolution: Winner – Aura 

Expertise

  • Aura's knowdlegeable support experts answered my call within 1-2 minutes

  • Very good customer service experience

  • IDShield offers a Identity restoration guarantee

US Based Support?

  • Yes

  • Yes

Customer Hours

  • 24/7/365 Support

  • 24/7/365 Support

Concierge Resolution

  • Available on ALL plans

  • Available

Lost Wallet Protection

  • Available

  • Available

This is an interesting one, as IDShield is one of the few services that offers a nonstandard form of threat resolution.

Most options, including Aura, offer two things: customer support, and wallet restoration, which is a more dedicated customer support line for canceling and re-ordering credit cards and the like if your wallet is lost or stolen.

Aura definitively wins the customer support department, offering 24/7 customer support year round.

IDShield by contrast has very limited hours. They’re open for standard use between 7 AM and 7 PM, though they do have 24/7 emergency support. However, calling this crew will generally result in them being unable to help you with most things, as they’re a skeleton crew without access to all the tools available during normal hours.

However, IDShield does have a nice side benefit: in-house private investigators that all customers have access to.

This is very close to a tie here, as that benefit is pretty huge for most customers. However, I give the edge to Aura because in roughly 90% of circumstances, having 24/7 customer support and knowledgeable representatives is going to matter more for the average user, and Aura’s insurance would pay for private investigations needed from third party investigators in any case.

Insurance: Winner – Aura 

Theft Insurance Score

Theft Insurance 

  • Up to $5M Theft Insurance on the family plan  ($1M per adult)

  • $1M Theft Insurance per Adult on Individual & Couple plans

  • Maximum $1M Theft Insurance total on all plans

IDShield loses in part because the site is a bit obtuse about the exact benefits of its insurance. It’s clear that you get $1 million in coverage from their plan, but even for an existing customer finding the exact details and limitations of coverage is extremely difficult.

Aura is much more straightforward and up front, offering $1 million in coverage for lost funds reimbursement, and a separate $1 million pool for expenses. And that’s $1Mil per adult on a Couples plan too.

Additionally, Aura offers up to $5 million in lost funds for each adult covered by their Family plan..

There’s no contest here, in other words.

Ease of Use: Winner – IDShield

IDShield has a pretty decent site layout, as opposed to Aura’s which just kind of annoys me more than anything.

IDShield’s site is a little bit clunky, but overall competent. Everything you’d really need access to is on the main dashboard page, except for, weirdly, the alerts, which you have to click to later. That’s mainly what makes me dock it points, as in some areas IDShield’s website is a little bit inconvenient to use. Still, it’s overall solid and definitely better than Aura’s site.

At first glance it’s a fine website, but a closer look reveals its faults. There are seven buttons on this page: five of them are mostly worthless. I say mostly because it is stuff you’ll likely want to mash at least once, just to make sure the option is activated or downloaded. After that though…you’ll never need to look at them again. And they’re just there forever now.

The only things that really belong here are your credit score and “watchlist info”. Arguably, the financial accounts monitoring page belongs here as well, but even if we give it that, there are still four mostly pointless options here.

I’m also not a huge fan that the alerts are in the top right corner with all the other notifications. This is a more minor nitpick, since at least they’re still noticeable, but I’d prefer a layout more similar to Identity Guard, Aura’s predecessor.

Additional Services: Winner – Aura 

Additional Services

  • VPN

  • Antivirus

  • Parental Controls

  • Password Manager

  • VPN

  • Antivirus

  • Password Manager

  • Parental Controls

Aura has a bit of a side focus on additional services, as lackluster as the offerings are. With Aura you get an antivirus program (which is decent, especially since you get it for free) and a “WiFi protection” service which acts as an extraordinarily limited VPN service; it’s really just an IP masking tool.

This is, however, better than most services, including IDShield which offers…nothing, really, in this slot.

Cost: Winner – Aura 

Aura
IDShield

Promo Code

Best Identity Theft Protection

Get Protected

Individual Plan Cost

  • $9/month 

Aura only offers one plan but offers the same benefits as Identity Guard's Ultra plan

  • $14.95/m  1 Credit Bureau Monitoring

  • $19.95/m  3 Credit Bureau Monitoring

Couple Plan Cost

  • $17/month 

  • Covers 2 Adults

  • No Couples plan

Family Plan Cost

  • $25/month 

  • Covers 5 adults & unlimited kids

Aura only offers one plan but offers the same benefits as Identity Guard's Ultra plan

  • $29.95/m  1 Credit Bureau Monitoring

  • $34.95/m  3 Credit Bureau Monitoring

Renewal Price Increased After 1st Year?

  • No. You lock in the price for life

  • No

Promo Code



This is clearly a case of no-contest when it comes to value for your money… Aura is not only cheaper for an individual, it is more flexible in terms of a couple. And with all you’re getting for these prices, it’s a no-brainer. 

IDShield’s family plan is a bit cheaper on the face of it, but you’re getting less for it too. With only $1M total in theft insurance it doesn’t compare very well to Aura. Instead, for just $25/m (using our coupon code), Aura has hands down the most flexible family plan deal on the market. Aura’s family plans cover 10 individuals. That is, adults and children in any combination, or 2 adults and unlimited children.. Adults can live in different households and everything, though there is a stipulation for children that they have to be under the legal guardianship of the primary account holder.

All of these accounts have separate logins and keep the information on them private from the primary account holder, and are fully featured: including insurance.

And don’t sniff at the added value of a 60-day money-back guarantee and a 14-day free trial… and if you make use of our exclusive coupon code, that price remains locked in for life.

It’s impossible for IDShield to compete with that kind of value.

Final Verdict – Aura Wins

Aura Logo

IDShield is one of the best, relatively “cheap” ID protection services out there, and I truly mean that. Despite being swept in every category that matters by Aura, there’s actually still a lot to recommend it over Aura in many ways.

The access to private investigators is great for certain kinds of fraud for example.

But for a lot more people, Aura simply has a wider breadth of monitoring, more features, and a lower price. If you need any kind of family coverage, getting Aura is a much better deal than any alternatives out there.

Read Also: Is Aura Legit or a Scam? Uncovering the Truth.

Other Comparison Articles:

Citations:

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

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

3. https://www.udmercy.edu/faculty-staff/hr/benefits/ID-Shield_Easy-Acess-Flyer.pdf

4. https://www.michigan.gov/mdcs/employeebenefits/voluntary-benefits/new-voluntary-benefits/identity-theft-insurance/identity-theft

5. https://nasafcu.com/personal/financial-planning/identity-theft-protection

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