Is LifeLock Worth It? What You Need To Know Before You Buy

Is There a Better Option Than LifeLock?

Since launching in 2005, LifeLock has built a strong reputation for safeguarding sensitive and financial information against identity thieves. But twenty years later, the market for identity theft protection has changed significantly.

So, is LifeLock still the best value for your money? Not always.

While LifeLock offers robust safety plans, there are some critical limitations and downsides that potential customers should be aware of.

This includes:

• Limited proactive safety features. No company can completely prevent identity theft. Like many other identity theft protection providers, LifeLock’s features lean heavily on monitoring and recovery after you become the victim of identity theft. Proactive protection features — such as antivirus and device security — are only available with the Norton 360 add-on.
• Tiered plans that force users to choose between critical features and affordability. LifeLock's Standard plan is light on important features — such as three-bureau credit monitoring and bank account alerts — while its feature-heavy packages cost more than many other comparable services.
• Sky-high renewal fees. LifeLock advertises deeply discounted introductory pricing on all of its plans — but after your first year as a customer, your subscription cost can increase by over 50%.
• Security and reputation issues. Features, pricing, and limitations aside, LifeLock's reputation has taken a hit in recent years, including a 2023 security breach and past fines of over $100 million for failing to secure customer data.

Whether you're looking for a LifeLock alternative or just the best identity theft protection for you and your family, it pays to know exactly how LifeLock measures up against its competitors.

LifeLock Review: Is It Worth the Money?

LifeLock helps protect customers by monitoring personal data, information, credit, and financial accounts, alerting you to signs of fraud, and providing insurance coverage and recovery assistance if you become a victim.

In 2017, the cybersecurity company Symantec (the makers of Norton) purchased LifeLock, allowing users to add Norton360’s digital security suite to their identity theft protection services — for an additional cost.

While this partnership made Norton LifeLock more of an all-in-one provider, it also added to the already weighty price and plan options.

LifeLock relies on a complex tiered system of plans, ranging from the barebones Identity Advisor plan up to the fully-featured LifeLock Ultimate Plus with Norton 360 plan. Unfortunately, this system means that:

LifeLock reserves its most powerful safety features exclusively for customers of its most expensive “Ultimate Plus” plan tier.

Specifically, lower-tiered plans don’t include three-bureau credit monitoring or bank account monitoring and alerts, and receive lower insurance coverage for stolen funds and personal expense reimbursement.

Here’s a breakdown of the key differences between LifeLock’s plans (for individuals) as of October 2025:

Remember, no LifeLock plans include proactive digital security tools to protect you against data leaks, hacking, or malware (unlike Aura). For this, you need to add Norton 360 to your package. If you want to protect other family members, that's another additional cost.

Ultimately, whether or not LifeLock is “worth it” may depend on the plan you’re able to afford.

The bigger question: Do you really need identity theft protection?

You should really only pay for identity theft protection if you’re unwilling or unable to monitor your own credit and accounts, want insurance against losses and expenses, or require digital security tools to protect your devices (even though these features don’t come standard with LifeLock’s plans).

In reality, you can perform many of the services that LifeLock offers for free, such as:

• Monitoring your own credit reports by visiting AnnualCreditReport.com
• Freezing your credit file with the major credit bureaus
• Scanning the Dark Web for your information at scan.aura.com

LifeLock Identity Theft Protection’s Best Features

LifeLock promises to protect you against identity theft, hacking, and fraud. But there are nuances and limitations that you should understand before becoming a paying customer.

At a high level, LifeLock’s main pros and cons include:

Looking more closely at its main features shows how LifeLock protects you — and where it could fall short.

LifeLock identity monitoring

The best identity theft protection services constantly monitor your personally identifiable information (PII), including your phone number and Social Security Number (SSN).

According to its homepage, LifeLock claims to scan “hundreds of millions of data points every second” across the internet, including data breaches, court records, USPS change of address verifications, and the Dark Web. If your information is at risk, LifeLock’s Dark Web monitoring should send you a notification.

What to know: LifeLock’s "fictitious identity monitoring" looks for synthetic identity fraud by scanning for names and addresses tied to your Social Security number. It may miss instances of synthetic identity fraud that fall outside this scope.

One- or three-bureau credit monitoring

Identity thieves can apply for payday loans or credit cards in your name and damage your credit score and standing with financial institutions. You can review your own free credit reports by visiting AnnualCreditReport.com or you can enlist a credit monitoring service to do it for you.  

LifeLock's Ultimate Plus plan offers three-bureau credit monitoring and annual three-bureau credit reports. If suspicious activity appears on your credit file, LifeLock sends you an alert so you can investigate it.

What to know: You have to pay for the most expensive LifeLock plan to receive robust credit monitoring. LifeLock’s Standard and Advantage plans only monitor your Equifax credit file; it does not include monitoring for Experian or TransUnion. Neither plan offers three-bureau credit reports.

Fraud protection with “Identity Lock”

While most banks provide fraud detection services and alerts, you can double up your protection with LifeLock’s fraud alerts. Once you link accounts, LifeLock will notify you of suspicious transactions and signs of fraud on your credit report, bank accounts, and even your investment accounts.

Customers on the LifeLock Advantage plan or higher also get access to “Identity Lock” — a quick way to lock and unlock your TransUnion credit file from the LifeLock app or website.

What to know: LifeLock warns users about suspicious activity associated with their names and accounts, but it does not monitor the transactions within all of their accounts. Some customers have also complained about late or insufficient alerts.

$1 million+ identity insurance

It can cost a lot of time and money to recover from identity theft. You may spend months or even years fighting court battles to clear your name with banks and debt collection agencies.

LifeLock's services provide insurance for victims of identity theft, including money for lost wages and expense compensation.

However, while LifeLock advertises a Million Dollar Protection™️ Package — with the top-tier plan advertising up to $3 million in coverage — this figure can be highly misleading if not properly understood. The actual reimbursement for stolen money varies dramatically between plans:

What to know: Your insurance coverage will vary greatly depending on what plan you choose. For example, LifeLock's standard plans only include $25,000 in personal expenses and stolen funds reimbursement. To get the $1 million coverage for stolen funds that the company promotes, you need to pay for the most expensive Ultimate Plus plan.

24/7 identity restoration and support

Dealing with the impact of fraud can be confusing and stressful. The best identity theft protection apps make sure that you aren't alone, offering expert guidance to help you navigate each step of the resolution process.

LifeLock advertises 24/7 support from a U.S.-based team of fraud restoration specialists. These experts offer advice and support to help you deal with banks, vendors, and legal counsel when you fall prey to identity theft.

LifeLock also provides stolen wallet protection, which helps you cancel and replace stolen credit cards, Social Security cards, and driver’s licenses.

What to know: Despite its claims of round-the-clock U.S.-based assistance, LifeLock only provides “priority” support to Ultimate Plus plan members. Furthermore, many customers have complained about sub-par support from seemingly foreign call centers.

Family plans and child protection

Many ID theft protection plans offer family plan options, which extend the coverage from individual plans to adult family members and children.

LifeLock's family plans include child identity and SSN alerts and child credit file detection. LifeLock will also help guide you through a child credit freeze (a free service offered by the three main credit bureaus). For members who get the Norton 360 add-on, LifeLock offers parental controls, such as content filters, screen-time limits, and online surveillance tools.

What to know: LifeLock provides industry-standard protection for families, but its family plans are expensive and somewhat limited. Compared to Aura’s family plans that cover up to five adults (who can reside in different households) and unlimited children, LifeLock only covers two adults and five children.

Optional digital security (from Norton)

If you bundle LifeLock with Norton 360 (for an additional price), you receive antivirus software for smartphones, laptops, and tablets. LifeLock also offers a “virus protection promise,” which qualifies you for a refund if LifeLock’s support can’t remove the virus from your device.

LifeLock's additional privacy and digital security tools include a secure VPN to encrypt your online activity, a privacy monitor, a password manager, a “SafeCam” for Windows PC, at least 100 GB of cloud storage, and phone takeover monitoring.

What to know: While LifeLock provides digital security that is comparable to many of its competitors, the company doesn't include online and device protection on its standard plans. To get what other providers build into their services, you need to pay extra with LifeLock.

What Are the Downsides of Using LifeLock?

Despite its reputation as a leader in identity theft protection, LifeLock is not without its shortcomings.

Here are some of LifeLock's biggest drawbacks:

Complicated and expensive plans

LifeLock has a wide variety of plans, each offering different features and levels of protection. Unless you know exactly what you want from an identity theft protection provider, choosing any one plan can seem overwhelming.

Once LifeLock’s one-year promotional period expires, prices go up significantly.

For example, the top-level plan for families with kids is $467.88 for the first year, but renews for $799.99 — an increase of over 70%.

Here’s a basic look at LifeLock’s pricing when you sign up and then after your first year of service (as of October 2025):

Note: The table above examines only LifeLock's individual plans without Norton 360. LifeLock's pricing increases for plans including digital security for couples and families.

Limited protection on lower-priced plans

LifeLock's lower-tier plans may feature competitive prices, but they lack the coverage and protection provided by competitor packages in this price range.

LifeLock's Standard plans might not provide full support or coverage for credit and financial fraud.

Here are some of the shortcomings found in LifeLock’s more affordable plans that could affect customers:

• One-bureau credit monitoring
• No credit reports
• Only $25,000 in stolen funds reimbursement
• No digital security
• Non-priority member support

Recent security incident that exposed nearly one million passwords

Early in 2023, Norton LifeLock informed customers that nearly one million user accounts were potentially at risk after a significant password leak. According to TechCrunch, at least 6,450 accounts were confirmed compromised in the subsequent attacks.

Perhaps most alarming, Norton informed customers of the breach on January 9, 2023:

• More than five weeks after the leak
• Nearly one month after the attacks were first detected
• 18 days after the breach was confirmed

📚 Related: How Much Does LifeLock Cost For Seniors? (Price Breakdown) →

Inconsistent alert system

Speed and accuracy are crucial for fraud alerts, yet LifeLock has encountered issues in both areas. Delayed or vague alerts make it difficult for customers to combat identity theft. Conversely, frequent false alarms can desensitize users, leading them to potentially ignore genuine threats.

Here are some Trustpilot user reviews for LifeLock's alert system:

• "The email notifications that we receive are typically days old and we hear about the risk from other sources." Source
• "I usually get notified by SoFi or Credit Karma prior to hearing from LifeLock." Source
• "I had to inform LifeLock regarding my info being on [the] dark web. I was notified of this by another service." Source

A 2025 mystery shopper consumer study conducted by ath Power Consulting found that, on average, Aura alerted customers to fraud in just three minutes, compared to over 9 hours for Norton3.

$100 million FTC fine for not protecting user data

Identity theft protection providers store a significant amount of personal customer information. Although LifeLock assures users that it safeguards their data, it hasn't always lived up to that promise.

After a 2018 website bug exposed LifeLock’s customer emails to anyone with a web browser, security expert Brian Krebs said the creators of LifeLock, “lacked a basic understanding of website authentication and security.”

Here are some of LifeLock's other past data protection controversies:

• In 2010, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) fined LifeLock $12 million, partially for false data security claims and its vulnerable data security system.
• In 2015, the FTC fined LifeLock $100 million for failing to secure user data as ordered in 2010.

Very limited online privacy features

One of the best ways to stay safe online is to remove your personal information from places where it can be easily found — such as data broker and people search sites, as well as Google search results.

Unfortunately, LifeLock only offers very basic data broker removal features — and only with either the additional Norton 360 add-on or by paying for the standalone Norton Privacy Monitor Assistant tool.

Norton Privacy Monitor — which comes with the Norton 360 add-on — also requires you to manually submit opt-out requests to data brokers. Whereas Aura automatically scans data broker sites and submits removal requests on your behalf. Aura also scans and sends removal requests to Google to remove your personal information from search result pages.

Complaints about poor customer service

LifeLock promotes 24/7 live member support and U.S.-based identity restoration specialists, but customers have reported a different reality. In fact, many users complain that human support is difficult to access, seems to be based overseas, and unhelpful overall.  

Here are some Trustpilot user reviews for LifeLock's customer service:

• "Can’t get phone support. [It’s frustrating] I actually get better alerts from my bank [and] my brokerage firm." Source
• "Interestingly, the only way I could speak with a human agent was by pretending to be a new customer interested in signing up. Once I explained I was an existing customer, I was once again directed to the same verification process and robot." Source
• "[...] I find their customer support terrible and their web site doesn't help at all. I think it's time to move on to a more friendly company with good support." Source

📚 Related: How To Cancel LifeLock (and Get Your Money Back) →

LifeLock vs. Aura: Feature, Pricing, and Protection Comparison

LifeLock has been around for many years, but the competition has caught up and there are now numerous LifeLock alternatives that offer similar or better protection — often without the downsides.

Aura comes with advanced features built specifically for the digital age and provides users with robust coverage (including three-bureau credit monitoring, online security, and more) no matter what plan they choose.

Aura has also been rated as the #1 choice for modern identity protection by Money.com, TechRadar, USNews.com, Forbes, and more.

Here’s how Aura and LifeLock compare head-to-head:

While some of the Aura and LifeLock features are comparable, Aura stands out in a few critical areas:

• Faster fraud alerts. Speed is critical when stopping identity thieves. In a 2025 mystery shopper survey, Aura’s credit fraud activity alerts were found to be the fastest and most reliable in the industry — up to 185x faster than LifeLock³.
• Included online security. Aura prioritizes online security, offering strong protection against malware, fake and malicious websites, and phishing calls and emails — without the need to upgrade to a more expensive plan.
• Online privacy protection. Aura helps you stay private and safe online by helping to remove your data from over 130 data brokers, requesting removal of your sensitive information from Google search results, and helping you clean up old and unused accounts.
• Simple and transparent pricing. Unlike LifeLock’s layered pricing, Aura offers simple plans based on the number of people you want to protect — just you, you and your partner, or your entire family.
• More robust family protection. Aura's family plans cover more family members and extends protection to multiple households. This makes Aura a more cost-effective solution for large families that include aging grandparents, college students away from home, and children who are not yet cognizant of internet dangers.
• Better support (that’s available when you need it). Aura offers 24/7 support from a dedicated team of U.S.-based support specialists to provide help when you need it most.

LifeLock is backed by a popular brand name and a long history, but it may not the best option for everyone. If you're still unsure that Aura can outperform LifeLock, consider signing up for a free Aura trial.