Aura vs. LifeLock – There’s A Clear Winner (Get 50% OFF)

Based on 3 months of testing, I can safely say that Aura is the clear winner for most people. Aura was easier to set up and found more data breaches (15 to 1) compared to LifeLock. Aura also provides a much higher theft insurance across all plans.

Do you want to protect yourself and perhaps your family from identity thieves? I found that the peace of mind offered by Aura (coupled with their lower cost) leaves LifeLock in the dust.

Not to mention, if you lock in our OFF discount on Aura, they won’t increase your price next year like LifeLock.

LifeLock has long been one of the top dogs on the market when it comes to identity theft protection, which means Aura has a lot to prove in comparison, despite its impressive pedigree as the successor of Identity Guard.

So, let’s dig deep into these two services, and see which one comes out on top by the end.

But First, Why Should You Trust Us?

You can learn more about our testing process here.

LifeLock vs Aura – Head to Head Comparison

Our Video Comparison

Editor’s Ranking Table

Aura vs. LifeLock: In-Depth Feature Comparison

Monitoring and Alerts: Winner – Aura

Ah, this is where Aura shines.

On the surface, they are fairly similar, actually. Both Aura and LifeLock provide comparable levels of identity monitoring. And an insane amount of monitoring tools with their highest tier of service, ranging from the most common to the most niche (though still important) options, including:

• Dark web and data breach monitoring
• Payday loan monitoring
• Social security number monitoring
• Bank account monitoring
• Sex offender and criminal registry monitoring
• USPS address change monitoring
• Social media insights
• 401(k) and investment monitoring
• Home title monitoring

In terms of breadth, both services are unbeatable.

Both are also very accurate, giving a satisfying amount of detail to each alert. It’s not as detailed as some options I’ve looked at, but the much broader selection of monitoring more than makes up for it.

So what’s the difference here? Speed and Dark Web Monitoring Coverage:

Setup Speed:

Aura populates its initial list of alerts in under an hour, and provides alerts about new activity at roughly the same speed. It’s slower than other Aura alternatives I’ve looked at, which can throw up a full list of alerts in just a few minutes, or even seconds, but an hour of delay is largely meaningless; anything under 12 hours is about the same in your ability to act on it in my book.

LifeLock is considerably less impressive though and blows past that roughly 12 hour metric easily compared to Aura. The fastest I’ve ever seen LifeLock give you an alert for some activity is about 48 hours, with an average closer to 3 days, and some taking a week or more to show up. That is simply unacceptable, and a big black mark against an otherwise excellent suite of monitoring tools.

Dark Web Monitoring Coverage:

Aura was hands down the winner here. When I tested LifeLock, I got one alert that my identity had been compromised on the dark web. One! In comparison, Aura was able to quickly find 15 different instances of data breaches where my personal information (mostly logins) had been shared on the dark web.

I don’t know about you but I’d say Aura hit that out of the park. In fact, both Aura & Identity Guard (Aura’s predecessor) found the most data breaches, compared to all other Aura alternatives.

Threat Resolution Services: Winner – Aura

On the surface, these services are roughly identical in how they handle threat resolution.

They have two primary methods, one minor and one major. The minor one is the dedicated wallet restoration hotlines. These are there so if you lose your wallet you can start quickly and easily canceling and re-ordering all of your credit cards, your driver’s license, and so on so nobody can use them and you gain access to them again as quickly as possible.

The more important one though is very simple: 24/7/365 customer support.

And that’s where the difference is.

Aura provides 24/7/365 customer support that is very knowledgeable and based in the US. When I called them on a Saturday night, I was talking to a competent and friendly customer service representative within a minute. He also seemed very knowledgeable and eager to help. Pretty impressive compared to LifeLock.

Learn more: Aura identity theft protection review

Theft Insurance: Winner: Aura

While LifeLock’s insurance is pretty good in some respects, it’s actually weirdly below what I’d consider the market average.

Most services I’ve looked at offer a standard insurance suite: $1 million in insurance for stolen funds. Sometimes this is split into two separate pools: one for stolen funds, and one for expenses (giving you effectively $2 million in coverage but for different types of financial harm). This is how Aura does it.

Some offer only $1 million in expenses and lost funds combined.

LifeLock very oddly splits the difference here, with their lower tier plans offering very small amounts ($25,000 and $100,000) of money in terms of stolen funds reimbursement, and $1 million for expenses.

This isn’t terrible, but as mentioned it’s not what I’d expect; even much smaller services have offered the full $1 million in two pools coverage.

That’s already enough to put Aura ahead of LifeLock, since it meets that standard ($1M theft insurance) even at its lowest membership plan, but it goes a step further than anything on the market I’ve seen on the couples and family plan.

Here Aura gives you up to $1M per adult. So, if you are on the couples plan, you are eligible for up to $2M theft insurance. On the family plan, this goes up to $5M total ($1M per adult) (LifeLock Ultimate Plus family plan $2M).It’d be hard for LifeLock to compete with Aura even if it did have the industry standard plan for its lower-tier options, but as it stands it is just miles better in this regard.

Related: Is Aura Legit or a Fraud?

Additional Services: Winner – LifeLock

Both services offer primarily the same additional services to secure online privacy: an antivirus plan, and a VPN plan.

The difference is mainly that LifeLock’s version of both is simply…better.

Compared to Aura’s antivirus plan is fine, it’s nothing to write home about. The VPN service is mediocre, and was wisely named “WiFi security” in most places because it really doesn’t perform all the same functions and online security safety you’d expect a VPN to. It basically just masks your Internet IP address and location (useful when you post photos online.)

LifeLock is significantly better in every way here. Their anti-virus is one of the best on the market, which makes sense given that this is Norton’s primary focus as a company. The VPN is honestly nothing special, and compares very poorly to other paid VPN services, but is more than good enough for something that you get as part of the normal monthly payment for LifeLock’s service. 

Aura gets some points for trying, compared to its predecessor, but it could do with enhancing these options and making them more worth using over free options that perform better.

Ease of Use: Winner – LifeLock

When it comes to being easy to navigate and get a quick grasp of everything the service offers, Identity Guard (Aura’s predecessor) was the best on the market, matched only by Norton LifeLock identity.

Aura (the “new Identity Guard”) does not inherit that particular aspect, sadly. From a website layout I could genuinely call great, Aura’s is now merely…okay.

The service isn’t terrible, but its front page is extremely busy, and doesn’t actually provide much in terms of useful information. I get what they were going for by shunting the alerts up to the top right corner, but I don’t think it works. Being able to quickly view your alerts at a glance and navigate to their specific page is great, and mixing them in with other notifications is a mistake.

Most of the shortcuts to feature options are also fairly unimportant. Even if the features were critical, they are generally things you activate once and then never need to look at again, since they’ll be downloaded onto your computer. Of the seven options here, only two, maybe three really should be here; the rest should be moved to a separate tab to make way for more important features.

LifeLock, by contrast, does this well.

The page is clean, with alerts being front and center. The tabs are clearly labeled and easy to navigate, without needing to pull open a dropdown box like Aura does. All of the features on the front page are ones you would want quick access to, and give a good representation of what the service is most useful for.

Note that even though one of LifeLock’s big selling points is the antivirus and VPN service that’s bundled with the plan…it’s nowhere to be seen here, unlike with Aura. That’s because it doesn’t need to be, as it’s something you can find in your list of features, download once, and never look at again.

It’s like night and day here.

Cost Comparison: Aura wins

No contest here. Aura is one of the most affordable options on the market, while LifeLock is by contrast one of, if not the most costly service of this kind. Keep in mind the costs below are based on using the affiliate discounts we’ve been provided for each service, so the prices will be higher for both on their own website.

A quick comparison:

LifeLock does offer child protection alone for an additional $5.39 per month as well, so you don’t necessarily need to buy a family plan as a single parent to cover your child.

Overall, the price difference here is staggering. To get an apples-to-apples comparison, I will compare Aura’s plan with the LifeLock Advantage plan.

Aura’s Individual plan is about 50% cheaper.

Aura’s Couples plan is also 50% cheaper.

Finally, Aura’s family plan covers up to 5 adults and unlimited kids per family plan. That can be adults and children in any combination, up to 10 people, with the only restriction being that all children need to be under the guardianship of the account holder.

Yet, Aura’s family plan is still 35% cheaper than what LifeLock offers, and the credit monitoring service as a whole is better to boot.

This, really, is where Aura shines. It doesn’t just have top-notch performance, but it’s surprisingly affordable as well.

Plus, it doesn’t jack your prices up on renewals like LifeLock does.

Conclusion: Winner – Aura

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• LifeLock vs Complete ID: Comparison
• LifeLock vs Identity Guard – Which is best?
• LifeLock Vs. IdentityForce – Ultimate Showdown
• LifeLock vs CyberScout – Face-Off
• LifeLock Vs. Experian: The Face-Off
• LifeLock vs. Zander – Which Is Right For You?

Citations:

1. https://www.slu.edu/human-resources/benefits/pdfs/lifelock-fact-sheet.pdf

2. https://concordia-assetsprod.azureedge.net/concordia-assets/docs/default-source/non-resource-library/idguardsummary.pdf?sfvrsn=5c99d721_4

3. https://cooperativenetwork.coop/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Aura-Identity-Guard-Factsheets-2022.pdf