Identity theft protection plans cost $8 to $35 a month, $96 to $420 a year per adult, and a couple on a typical $19.99 tier pays $479.76 a year. Meanwhile the single strongest protection available, a credit freeze at all three bureaus, is free under federal law. Here's the math that sorts who should pay from who shouldn't.
Common enough to take seriously. The FTC logged more than 1 million identity theft reports in 2023, and a Bureau of Justice Statistics survey estimated roughly 24 million U.S. residents age 16 or older experienced identity theft in a 12-month period. Most of it is card fraud that banks absorb, but the scary subset, new accounts opened in your name, tax fraud, and synthetic identity abuse, is where victims spend months untangling records.
The honest framing matters here: the risk is real, but the protection product being sold is mostly a detection and cleanup service, not a shield. Whether it's worth $240 to $500 a year depends on which risks you actually face and which ones you've already closed for free.
Before comparing subscriptions, know what's already free, because the free list covers most of the prevention column:
The paid column is real too, but narrower: near-real-time 3-bureau alerts, SSN and dark-web scanning, and above all a restoration caseworker who does the disputing for you.
| Feature | Free DIY stack | Basic ($8–15/mo) | Standard ($15–25/mo) | Premium ($25–35/mo) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New-account fraud blocked (freeze) | ✓ | — | — | — |
| Tax-fraud block (IP PIN) | ✓ | — | — | — |
| Credit monitoring alerts | Limited (free apps) | ✓ 3-bureau | ✓ 3-bureau | ✓ 3-bureau |
| SSN + dark-web monitoring | — | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Dedicated restoration caseworker | — | Limited | ✓ | ✓ |
| Expense reimbursement | — | ~$25k | ~$100k | Up to $1M |
| Annual cost (1 adult) | $0 | $96–$180 | $180–$300 | $300–$420 |
Run your own numbers with the identity theft protection calculator, which scores your risk from ten factors and prices any tier against the free stack.
Ten honest checkboxes produce your risk score and the tier that matches it, with the real multi-year cost of paying versus going DIY.
Identity Theft Protection Calculator →Monthly pricing hides the total. A couple on a $19.99-per-adult standard plan pays $39.98 a month, which sounds manageable, and $1,439.28 over three years, which sounds like a decision. A family doubling down on premium at $29.99 per adult pays $3,598.80 over five years, more than many of the incidents the plans cover would cost out of pocket after bank reimbursements.
That's not an argument that the plans are a scam. Restoration help is genuinely valuable when you need it: victims of new-account fraud can spend dozens of hours on calls and certified letters, and a caseworker absorbs most of that. The argument is narrower: know the total, know the free alternative, and buy based on exposure.
Everyone else, low exposure, willing to spend one evening on setup, is probably better served by the free stack plus the habits that stop account takeover: unique passwords from a password generator, 2FA on email and financial logins, and a carrier PIN on your mobile account to block SIM swaps.
Order matters. File at IdentityTheft.gov first, that report is the skeleton key creditors ask for. Then freeze all three bureaus, place a one-year fraud alert, change passwords starting with email, and notify banks and issuers. Log every call and keep every letter. If you later add a paid plan, that's the moment its restoration service earns a decade of premiums in one case.
One more angle: the money you'd spend on monitoring compounds elsewhere. $40 a month is $480 a year, money that could instead build the emergency fund that absorbs identity-theft friction costs, or close liability gaps with an umbrella policy. Risk budgeting is still budgeting. Price both sides before subscribing.
No. Monitoring and alerts tell you after something has already happened. The only tool that prevents new-account fraud outright is a credit freeze, which is free at all three bureaus under federal law. Paid plans are faster detection plus professional cleanup, not prevention, no matter what the ads imply.
Typical mainstream plans run $8 to $15 a month for basic 3-bureau monitoring, $15 to $25 for standard tiers with SSN and dark-web alerts plus restoration, and $25 to $35 for premium with up to $1 million of expense reimbursement. For a single adult, that's roughly $100 to $420 a year, and couples usually pay per adult, $479.76 a year on a $19.99 tier.
Usually not the money itself. Fraudulent credit card charges are reimbursed by the issuer (federal law caps your liability at $50), and fraudulent bank transfers fall under separate banking protections. What the policy covers is recovery costs: certified mail, notaries, legal fees, sometimes lost wages while you untangle things. Useful in a bad case, narrower than the '$1 million protection' headline reads.
Visit each bureau directly, Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion, and request a security freeze online or by phone. It's free for everyone under federal law since 2018, takes about 15 minutes per bureau, and you get a PIN or login to lift the freeze when you actually apply for credit. Freezing does not affect your score, and thawing is instant at most bureaus when you need it.