5 Costco Complete ID Alternatives and Competitors (2024)

If you’re a Costco member, Costco Complete ID might make sense. The price is certainly attractive, and its monitoring services are impressively accurate. 

But it’s still not my first pick for identity protection. After testing several identity protection services, I found Aura to be the best choice. 

Aura’s award-winning identity theft and credit monitoring is more comprehensive and just as accurate as Costco Complete ID. Its alerts are more actionable, its insurance coverage increases with each adult you add to the plan, and its added features are more exhaustive- including everything from data broker removal services to a full parental control suite. 

And you don’t need a Costco membership to get a great price on Aura. When you lock in our OFF discount, Aura’s price is very affordable.

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Complete ID Alternatives Price Comparison

Costco Complete ID Alternatives

Complete ID is, at first blush, a low-cost identity theft protection service offered by Costco that gives basic but significant protection at a good price.

Luckily, there are many alternatives to Costco Complete ID. Below, I’ll list my top five picks, starting with my favorite – Aura.

1. Aura
2. Identity Guard
3. IDShield
4. LifeLock
5. IdentityForce

1. Aura

How It Compares

Aura is the best option for identity protection. It comes with the most digital privacy features, offers award-winning identity theft and credit monitoring, gives you 24/7 access to an expert threat resolution team, and offers the most flexibility for families.  

Let’s start with the most important parts first – monitoring and alerts. 

Aura’s monitoring is comprehensive, accurate, and not nearly as annoying as Complete ID. Aura includes niche monitoring services that Complete ID misses, like home title, auto title, and investment account monitoring. 

And it’s accurate – it caught the same alerts Costco Complete ID did but organized them in a more actionable way.  Instead of giving multiple alerts on my phone number, Aura gave me one streamlined alert to take care of. 

As far as credit monitoring goes, both Costco Complete ID and Aura offer three-bureau credit monitoring with the ability to issue an Experian credit lock in your dashboard. But Aura goes a step further here by including a credit tracker and additional financial tools, allowing you to monitor all of your bank accounts in one place. 

Also crucial to an identity protection service is threat resolution. Here, Costco Complete ID and Aura are evenly matched, offering expert help 24/7/365. Both also include lost wallet assistance, helping to cancel your credit cards and replace your ID should you lose your wallet. 

When it comes to theft insurance, though, Aura pulls ahead by offering $1 million per adult on your plan. So, if it’s you and your spouse, you get $2 million in coverage. 

And, with Aura, you can have up to five adults on your plan. That means you get up to $5 million in theft insurance coverage to protect you, your spouse, adult children, parents, and anyone else you need to. 

Aura’s plans also include a ton of added features. If you are a parent of young children, you’ll love their parental control suite, which includes setting screen time and pausing the internet with one click. 

Plus, it offers safe gaming monitoring, which watches interactions between players on over 200 popular games. If it detects signs of cyberbullying, harassment, or grooming, it sends a notification to parents so they can step in. 

Even if you don’t have young children, Aura’s added features surpass Complete ID’s by including extras like data broker removal services, antivirus software, and a secure family password and file-sharing vault. 

Best of all, Aura offers all of this at a very reasonable price. With our discount code, you’ll get Aura for a price that rivals Complete ID’s Executive Costco Member rate. Given how much more Aura includes, that’s an incredible deal.  

Aura’s only flaw is in its interface. It uses a scrolling feature that shows all of its “activity.” It feels like social media to me and isn’t my favorite. 
But it beats Costco Complete ID for usability, so this issue is hardly worth mentioning. I didn’t want you to think I only sing Aura’s praises – no service is perfect (though Aura comes close).

2. Identity Guard

How It Compares

Identity Guard is another great option if you’re looking for a Costco Complete ID alternative. 

Identity Guard is one of the oldest and most reputable identity protection companies. It provides monitoring that’s just as accurate as Complete ID and just as comprehensive as Aura. Also, like Aura, its alerts are actionable. 

Identity Guard offers $1 million in identity theft insurance coverage per adult on the plan. As with Aura, you can include up to five adults on any family plan, which means you can get up to $5 million in coverage. 

Identity Guard comes with an excellent threat resolution team, too. But this is where its benefits start to fade. 

Unfortunately, Identity Guard’s customer service team has limited hours, and full identity restoration is only available with Identity Guard’s top-tier plan. 

Because Identity Guard doesn’t include the same amount of extra features (it has a password manager and safe browser, but no VPN or other privacy add-ons), I don’t think purchasing the top-tier plan is not worth the price. You’re better off with Aura or even Complete ID. 

However, if you’re looking for a low-cost option- even lower than Complete ID charges Executive Costco members, Identity Guard’s Value plan is worth considering. 

You should know, though, that this plan includes next to nothing. You’ll get basic identity monitoring and insurance coverage, but that’s it. No identity restoration services exist, and specialized monitoring (like home title monitoring) isn’t included. 

Still, it’s better to have some protection than none. If your budget is extraordinarily tight, this is your best option.

Full brand comparisons: Complete ID vs Identity Guard.

3. IDShield

How It Compares

Of all the services I’ve tested, IDShield is the most unique. It features licensed private investigators on its threat resolution team and offers reputation management tools that job seekers might find particularly useful. 

So, depending on your needs, you might find that IDShield is a good alternative to Complete ID. But before you opt for this service, there are a few things you need to know. 

First, IDShield’s monitoring isn’t accurate. In testing, it failed to find a single threat. So, while its identity restoration services are seemingly top-notch, you’re not going to be able to proactively protect your identity or credit. 

Second, IDShield charges substantially more for three-bureau credit monitoring. Given the number of free credit monitoring services available, that’s a strange choice, and I’m not sure the price increase is really justified. 

Third, the reputation management tools were pretty useless. The tools are supposed to connect to your social media, but it took me three tries to get it to link to Reddit, and I was never able to get it to work on Instagram. 

Once I got it connected, I expected to see at least one or two things flagged – I’ve been on social media for over ten years, after all! But it came up with nothing. That’s not to say it wouldn’t work for you, though. 

What was nice is that it listed every post I’ve ever made in one place, so I could go through them and delete anything I didn’t want the world to see. 

The real dealbreaker for me, though, was IDShield’s interface. Each section opens up a new dashboard, some of them forcing you to reenter your login credentials. This gets pretty tiresome to use.

I can’t recommend IDShield over Costco Complete ID except in very specific situations. If you’re worried about your online reputation, are currently looking for a job, or just really want access to licensed private investigators, it is a service worth considering. But, for everyone else, I’d pick a different identity protection company.

4. LifeLock

How It Compares

LifeLock might be the biggest name on this list, but it’s not the best option in most cases. 

Don’t get me wrong; I like a lot about it. But, the cons outweigh the pros overall. 

Let me explain. 

LifeLock has a stellar user interface and a ton of features. Its monitoring is just as comprehensive as Aura and more comprehensive than Costco Complete ID. It also includes a whole host of digital security add-ons, including a VPN and Norton’s antivirus software. 

At it’s top-tier, LifeLock also offers incredible insurance coverage, offering $1 million each in stolen funds, expense reimbursement, and legal fees per adult. That’s $3 million in total theft insurance coverage per adult – up to $6 million total.  And they offer over $1 million in theft insurance for each child on your plan too. 

But that’s only with the top-tier option. Lower-level plans offer significantly less – as low as $25,000 each for stolen funds and expenses. And unfortunately, LifeLock’s top-tier plan is prohibitively expensive. 

Worse, LifeLock ups its prices upon renewal. So, even if you can afford the top-tier plan initially, you might not be able to later on. 

LifeLock’s monitoring also isn’t as accurate as Costco Complete ID. When I tested it, it found one threat. 

And don’t get me started about their customer service. I’ve called several times now to test their service promises and each time I’ve been disappointed. 

I’m always put on hold for at least a few minutes (but often longer), and their team is based overseas. Though they promise their identity restoration team (which is separate from customer service) is U.S.-based, you have to call customer service before you’re connected to them. 

This is a frustrating process and one I certainly wouldn’t want to experience if my identity were actually compromised. 

So, if you can afford LifeLock’s top-tier plan and don’t mind its other flaws, it might be worth considering over Costco Complete ID. But, for most people, there are better alternatives out there.

5. IdentityForce

How It Compares

Though IdentityForce isn’t my top pick for identity protection, it certainly remains among my top choices. 

Its monitoring is comprehensive, including specialty services like investment account monitoring. It’s also accurate (in testing, it found the same threats that Aura and Costco Complete ID did). 

And its threat resolution services are uniquely good– they’ll even restore the identities of immediate family members without a family plan.

IdentityForce also offers several additional services that are worth looking at, including its ChildWatch suite. ChildWatch offers full identity monitoring and threat resolution for children alongside an exhaustive social media monitoring tool. This feature watches for signs of bullying, violence, and racism on your children’s social media feeds. 

IdentityForce’s insurance is nothing to write home about. They offer a standard $1 million total, regardless of how many people you put on a plan. And, their family plans aren’t any more flexible than Costco’s – they only allow for two adults. 

But, my main gripe with IdentityForce is in its pricing structure. 

IdentityForce isn’t an inexpensive service, and it charges a big price hike for credit monitoring. Credit monitoring is available for free from companies like Credit Karma, so I don’t think this price hike is justified. 

Yes, IdentityForce includes some unique credit tools, like a credit simulator, but to say that makes it worth the $15 per month price increase is a little much. 

So, while IdentityForce might be a good alternative to Costco Complete ID, it’s not my top choice – unless you’re willing to pay substantially more for your identity protection service.

How We Choose The Best Identity Protection Services

If you’re shopping for an alternative to Costco Complete ID, it might help you to know which area of an identity theft protection service matters most. When we evaluate services at Home Security Heroes, we look at the following areas first:

Final Thoughts

I like Costco Complete ID – it’s accurate, its threat resolution team is great, and added security features are a nice touch. But, I’ll put it this way, I’m an Executive Costco member, and I don’t use Costco Complete ID. Even though the pricing would make sense, I opt for Aura. 

I like Aura’s added features, such as their safe gaming and parental controls, far better than Costco Complete ID’s inclusions. I also find Aura’s alerts to be more useful. And I like knowing my family is protected with plenty of insurance coverage. I’m even able to protect my parents with their family plan.

With our discount code, you can also get Aura at an affordable rate. And, let me tell you, the peace of mind Aura brings is more than worth its cost. So, if you want an alternative to Costco Complete ID, I suggest trying Aura.

Related Article: Costco Complete ID Full Review.