Onerep has garnered quite a bit of attention since a widely read investigative report by Brian Krebs published on March 14, 2024 broke the story “CEO of Data Privacy Company Onerep.com Founded Dozens of People-Search Firms” and where many of the details covered in our August 2022 blog post were corroborated “Data Privacy Double Agents – Can We Trust OneRep, HelloPrivacy, DataSeal and BrandYourself?“. Read on for our detailed review of OneRep.
Are you looking for an in-depth review of Onerep? Or the best alternative to Onerep?
You’ve reached the right place—packed with screenshots and in-depth analysis This is the most comprehensive review of Onerep on the internet!
| Feature | Onerep | Optery |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription Pricing | $14.95/month for individuals, $27.95/month for families (6 members); discounts for annual payments | Starts at $3.99/month, up to $24.99/month; significant discounts for annual payments and additional family members |
| Data Broker Coverage | 199 data brokers | 560+ data brokers |
| Free Version Available | No, but a 5-day free trial is offered | Yes, with free report and self-service tools |
| Transparency & Reporting | Dashboard updates, no real proof of removal provided | Detailed exposure and removals reports with live screenshots, including before and after proof |
| Security Credentials | SOC 2, Type 1 certified | SOC 2, Type 2 certified |
| Removal Process | Fully automated | “Humans + Machines” approach, combining automation with human oversight |
| Billing Options | Monthly and yearly, can cancel at any time | Monthly and yearly, can cancel, pause or reactivate at any time. Provides seamless upgrades and downgrades between plans and pro-rated billing |
| Support | Email, live chat, and phone support | Email and live chat support |
We’re confident after reading this review you’ll save yourself loads of time in your search for the best personal data removal service for your hard-earned money.
Onerep has strong name recognition in the personal data removal industry and has some attractive product features. However, for the reasons we will lay out in this review, we believe the Onerep product does not match the value Optery provides.
“[With Optery] you sign up for free, and an hour or two later you get a report telling you the brokers it has found your data in. This report includes deep links and instructions on how to opt out, as well as screenshots of the info itself so you know what they have.”
Devin Coldewey
Writer, TechCrunch
In this review, we take a close look at Onerep and describe why we believe Optery is the superior choice when it comes to selecting a personal data removal product. Using clear screenshots and straightforward examples, we show why we’re confident Optery is the smarter move for you, your family, or your business.
We believe Optery beats Onerep across all key areas. We believe Optery provides more value for your money, covers more data brokers and people search sites, provides more detailed reporting on your data broker exposures and removals, and has a more solid process for getting your information removed from the internet. In addition, Optery is based in the USA, does not have any financial arrangements or affiliate partnerships with data brokers, and is SOC 2 Type II certified – none of which can be said of OneRep as of the time of this writing. Keep reading to see why we’re confident in every one of these areas.
If you are an existing Onerep customer, you can create a free Optery account and get live screenshots of profiles Onerep has missed. Based on our research and testing, Optery finds ~50 additional exposed profiles for customers of other data removal services.
Onerep and Optery provide services to remove personal data for groups of employees, individuals and families. This review is about Onerep’s services for individuals and families. We plan to review their business products at a later date separately. In the interim, the best way to compare Onerep for Business and Optery for Business is to test them through a demo or a free trial.
Last Updated March 2024. If you find incorrect or outdated information, let us know at support@optery.com and we’ll investigate right away.
Table of Contents:
- Introduction: What are Personal Data Removal Services?
- Onerep Company Profile
- Onerep Subscriptions & Pricing: Affordability, Value & Data Broker Coverage
- Onerep Scan: Exposure Reporting
- Onerep Removals Process and Reporting
- Onerep Flexible Billing Options
Onerep Data Security - Onerep Review Conclusion
- Appendices
🕵️ Introduction: What are Personal Data Removal Services?
Many companies share and sell our personal details on the internet without us saying it’s okay. They might tell others where we live, our phone number, email, the names and ages of individuals in our family, how much money we make, our background, our political party, or our estimated net worth. These companies are often called data brokers, or people search sites. If you go to a search engine like Google, and search for your name plus the word “address”, you’re likely to see results from data brokers. Some well-known data brokers are WhitePages.com, BeenVerified, Radaris, TruthFinder, and Social Catfish.
Companies like Onerep and Optery help people take their personal information off various data broker websites in order to improve their online privacy and manage their personal reputations. While Onerep and similar companies require a payment method to use their services, Optery provides two options, a free version with no payment method required and paid subscriptions.
We recommend evaluating personal data removal services across the following categories:
Affordability and Value
Data Broker Coverage
Exposure Reporting
Removals Process and Reporting
Flexible Billing Options
Support for Families
Support for Businesses
Data Security Credentials
⚖️ Onerep Company Profile
Onerep was founded in Belarus in 2015 by an opaque ownership group that has been linked operationally to the people search site data broker Nuwber. In 2018, Onerep utilized International Legal Counsels PC to create an LLC in Virginia, which they now claim as their headquarters.
Update, March 14, 2024: the investigative journalist Brian Krebs broke the story “CEO of Data Privacy Company Onerep.com Founded Dozens of People-Search Firms” on his popular blog Krebs on Security where many of the details regarding Onerep’s origins, history with the data broker Nuwber, and connections into the people search site industry are revealed. If you are looking for more information on Onerep, we highly recommend reading his excellent article.
Also during our research, we found an article by PrivacyDuck which makes some surprising claims about Onerep. Sadly, the founder of PrivacyDuck, Will McAdam, passed away at age 39 on July 18, 2021, but his significant contributions to the privacy community lived on in his YouTube channel for several years where he documented several business practices that OneRep has since ended or concealed from the public. In his YouTube videos about OneRep, which have subsequently been taking down by Onerep alleging copyright violation, McAdam shared his detailed research into the origins of OneRep and its seemingly symbiotic operations with the people search site Nuwber starting back in 2016.
“Since no location is verifiably provided (and lengths seem to have gone through to hide the location), we had to go by their public senior staff list and then what those individuals openly post on public social media accounts.
In conclusion, we have every reason to believe OneRep is operated out of Eastern Europe.”
The PrivacyDuck article goes on to examine Onerep’s apparent connection to the data broker Nuwber, and reveals a complex history with personal data.
“OneRep.com came upon the scene in late 2015 alongside their sister site (run by the same company) Nuwber.com.
[…] Any people search profiles containing your Personally Identifiable Information that were on Nuwber.com were also mirrored identically on OneRep.com, down to the relatives’ names and address histories. Both sites offered the same immediate opt-out process. Both sites had the same generic contact and support structure. They were—and remain—the same company.”
We attempted to verify the claims made by PrivacyDuck. However, Onerep.com has erased their historical site from The Internet Archive and PrivacyDuck’s supporting YouTube videos have also been removed due to copyright violation claims by Onerep LLC. Even though we could not verify those specific claims, we can confirm that Onerep has continued to work with people search sites as affiliate partners (see ClustrMaps screenshot below).
Onerep was passed over in PCmag’s authoritative review series of the top personal data removal produts, even though nearly every other major personal data removal company was reviewed. Onerep remains one of the most commonly mentioned data removal services out there, so we can only speculate why PCMag.com has chosen not to review them.
PrivacyDuck was the first company to bring awareness to the alleged financially incestuous relationship between OneRep and the people search site Nuwber: it doesn’t seem right for someone that is supposed to help you keep your information private to also make money by sharing it. To use an analogy, how would you feel about an anti-virus software company that approved as affiliate partners the creators and distributors of computer virus programs?
“[…] which equally feeds into the same “bait and switch” scam. Bottom line: You shouldn’t be paying a company to remove your personal information when they were the ones displaying it in the first place.
What do people like about Onerep and what should you be aware of?
The positive feedback about OneRep from Trustpilot highlights their effective data removal services, making users feel safer, and simplifying online privacy protection. Customers appreciate the company’s expertise in managing and reducing public data presence, its automated service that requires minimal effort, and the reduction in spam email and phone calls calls. The Onerep customer support team is praised for being helpful and caring, and users are satisfied with the control they regain over their online presence. Ethical concerns aside, OneRep has a solid product, one of the better ones on the market.
On the negative side, Onerep’s murky origins and affiliate partnerships with data brokers such as Nuwber and ClustrMaps are cause for significant concern. Why help fund the very data brokers you’re trying to be removed from? Also, like most data removal services, Onerep does not provide the same level of transparency and reporting as Optery does with its Exposure and Removals Reports. Read the rest of the review for more details and screenshots.
📦 Onerep Subscriptions & Pricing: Affordability, Value & Data Broker Coverage
Onerep has a simple pricing scheme: $14.95 per month for an individual, $27.95 per month for the Onerep family plan covering 6 people. Both plans are discounted by 45% when paid annually.
Onerep subscriptions cover 199 data brokers and they provide a list of Sites We Remove From. Unlike some other data broker removal companies like DeleteMe, Onerep’s list is easy to understand, which we appreciate. Onerep covers many more of the most popular data brokers than Incogni.
You can see Onerep’s list of data brokers covered once you log into their Dashboard. The interface gives you a link to each of the 199 data brokers in the list, along with meta information including a link to your profile on that data broker, the status of your opt out, a sample PDF for each data broker, and a DIY opt out guide for each data broker.
💨 What Does a Onerep Subscription Include?
Onerep was one of the first data broker removal services to market itself as fully automated. From Onerep’s LinkedIn page:
“Onerep is a fully automated privacy platform that removes unauthorized personal information from the internet.”
In their help documentation, Onerep explains in simple terms how they perform their automatic removal process.
Based on our research, Onerep offers:
- Removals coverage for 199 data brokers
- Custom Requests available with an Individual+ account
- App Reporting dashboard summarizing findings and activity
- Email, chat, and phone support
🏷️ How Does Onerep Compare with Optery in Affordability & Value?
Optery offers completely transparent pricing for the services you get on its Pricing page. Subscription plans start at $3.99 / month or $39 per year for 90+ data broker sites, all the way up to $24.99 per month or $249 per year for 560+ data broker sites and Unlimited Custom Requests.
Optery provides monthly automated scans and removals for paying customers. Optery Exposure Reports provide visibility of exposure with live screenshots, and Removals Reports are delivered to Extended and Ultimate plan customers quarterly with before and after screenshots proving Optery’s work, something Onerep does not provide. Optery has a patented search technology and the most advanced data broker scanning software in the world.
Optery’s Ultimate plan covers 50% more data brokers than Onerep.
On Optery’s Pricing page, you can easily find the data brokers that are included in each of Optery’s subscription options; Core, Extended, and Ultimate. Optery offers unlimited “Custom Requests” for Ultimate subscribers as well as a range of unique, advanced features.
In summary, we believe Optery offers superior affordability, data broker coverage and value compared to Onerep.
📊 Onerep Scan: Exposure Reporting
Data broker scanning technology is a cornerstone of a good personal data removal service. The quality of the free scan is usually a good indicator of the effectiveness of its removals. If a company can’t produce a high quality free scan, that’s a bad sign.
🧐 Does Onerep offer a free trial, or a free trial period?
Onerep does not have a free tier like Optery does, but they do offer a 5-day free trial period. To sign up for the 5-day trial, you need to provide your name, email, and credit card information. If you cancel before the 5-day trial period ends, you will not be billed.
Once you have signed up for the trial, you will be directed to the sign up steps. There is a 6 step process to collect your information.
Once you’ve entered your information, you’ll move on to the Onerep dashboard. Below, you can see updates on scans and recent activity. For new users, there’s an interactive guide that goes over how everything is arranged and the features available.
For this review, we signed up for a Onerep account and waited for a few days for the dashboard to update. Below are the screenshots on Day 1, Day 2, and Day 5 after signing up.
The Onerep dashboard indicates that the next scan will take place in 30 days. After around day 5, we saw our profile had 19 completed data removal requests. To verify the presence or absence of your personal information, Onerep users have to click the “View profile” link for each data broker.
🔬 How Does Onerep Compare with Optery in Exposure Scanning & Reporting?
Optery offers the most robust exposure scan results on the market with its patented search technology. Optery pioneered providing a free report with dozens of screenshots of exposed profiles. Optery’s exposure scans find more exposed profiles than anyone, including Google.
Optery scans hundreds of data broker sites and finds an average of ~100 exposed profiles per user, and averages ~50 more exposed profiles for customers of most competing data removal services. Optery reports are displayed within ~1 hour of signing up and include real live screenshots of where your profile is exposed – proving its effectiveness. Optery does not require a payment method or to sign up for a paid account in order to obtain full and complete access to all of your exposed profiles in the report.
It doesn’t get much better than that.
“Open the report and prepare to be amazed. Unlike any other product I’ve seen, Optery doesn’t just state that your data was found, like IDX Complete. It also doesn’t simply list the found data items, like DeleteMe. Rather, the report presents you with a screenshot of your actual profile data on the site.”
Neil Rubenking
Lead Analyst for Security, PCMag.com
Optery users can retrieve the results of their free Optery Exposure Report scan by clicking the screenshot thumbnails on the dashboard:
Clicking on a screenshot image thumbnail opens a detailed screenshot view:
Visiting the Exposure Reports page allows you to download a PDF of your full Exposure Report:
Optery’s Free Basic account offers free self-service tools so you can submit your own opt outs at the places you’ve been found. Anyone can take control of their online privacy.
In summary, we believe Optery offers superior free scans and exposure reporting compared to Onerep.
📊 Onerep Removals Process and Reporting
Onerep prides itself on being fully automated. Competitors like DeleteMe, emphasize human-powered manual data removal requests, which we at Optery regard as outdated and error-prone. Automation, on the other hand, can be advantageous for customers. Automation can speed up the removal process, reduce errors, and lower costs. However, we believe restricting a personal data removal service to 100% automated is not necessarily a good thing. Some data removal services that rely solely on low-effort automatic removal request techniques essentially charge users to bulk send emails to data brokers requesting data removal.
In our research, it was difficult to determine where Onerep falls on the automation spectrum. On the positive side, Onerep’s dashboard is attractive, intuitive, and easy to understand. Summary statistics are available at the top of the dashboard. Those numbers update daily, so that customers can stay up-to-speed with the status of their profile removals, unilke DeleteMe, whose reports are updated every 3 months.
On the negative side, Onerep’s reporting, which is the dashboard itself, demands a lot of trust from the customer. For each of the 199 data brokers Onerep removes profiles from, customers must trust that the profile scanned and identified was their correct profile (not a trivial assumption), and then trust that the profile removed was actually removed (also not a trivial assumption). There is a “View Profile” button customers can click to verify the presence and removal of their info… 199 times, for each of the 199 data brokers. We believe this is a fundamental limitation to most data removal services other than Optery.
Customer support is another component of the data removal user experience, and this is an area where Onerep stands out. Many consumers appreciate that Onerep has telephone, chat, and email support. So, while the concrete reporting in Onerep fell short of our expectations, the customer support team exceeded our expectations.
⚔️ How Does Onerep Compare with Optery in Removals Process & Reporting?
All subscription plans offered by Optery include monthly information scanning and data removal. This cycle of activities is conducted every month throughout the subscription period.
The heart of Optery’s removals process is what Optery refers to as a “Humans + Machines” approach. The “Machines” part of the process is monthly automated exposure scans and opt out submissions by Optery’s automated software. The “Humans” part of the process is an assigned human Privacy Agent who examines the automated scans and removals for quality assurance. Whereas some data removal services emphasize removals by human privacy advisors manually such as DeleteMe, and other data removal services emphasize removals via automation such as Onerep, we believe Optery’s “Humans + Machines” approach provides the best of both worlds.
Optery assigns a human Privacy Agent to each customer account on its Extended and Ultimate tiers. However, Optery does not display the name or an icon for the assigned Privacy Agent in the app. Instead, Optery relies on a shared live-chat support app and email inbox to ensure continuous coverage in the event the assigned Privacy Agent is offline, or otherwise occupied.
Optery Live Support by Human Privacy Agents – October 2023
Optery also offers paying customers workflows for submitting Custom Requests and Removals Issues. All Optery paying customers can submit Removals Issues (i.e. Core, Extended, and Ultimate tier subscriptions). However, only Optery Ultimate subscription tier customers are eligible for Custom Removals.
Optery’s Removals Report has no equal in the marketplace and displays before and after screenshots proving its work. Optery sends its Removals Reports quarterly. At the time of this writing, Onerep does not provide screenshots, or before and after screenshots as a way to prove the removal work that’s been done.
Optery offers superior Removals Reporting for paying customers to view the exposure and removals status by data broker, updated in real time.
“After 90 days it would present me with the crown jewel of the service—the [Optery] Removals Report. The Exposure Report shows screenshots from sites that have your data, with links to let you see that data right on the site. With the Removals report, you see what was found along with a new screenshot demonstrating that the data was removed, and a link to verify the removal. No other personal data removal service I’ve seen gives you this level of verification.”
Neil Rubenking
Lead Analyst for Security, PCMag.com
In summary, we believe Optery’s in-depth scans and removals vs. Onerep’s comparatively opaque scanning, Optery’s “Humans + Machines” approach vs. the fully automated approach Onerep advertises, Optery’s real-time removals status dashboard reporting, and Optery’s Removals Reports with “before and after” screenshots vs. Onerep’s dashboard without any screenshots at all, make Optery the superior choice by far when it comes to Data Broker Removals Processing and Reporting.
💲Onerep Flexible Billing Options
Onerep offers monthly and yearly billing. The plans are $14.95 per month for an individual, or $8.33 per month when paid annually. Customers are not locked into a long-term contract. They can cancel at any time. In addition to plans for individuals, Onerep has a family plan. The Onerep family plan covers 6 family members and is $27.95 per month, or $15.00 per month when paid annually. Onerep also offers coverage for businesses and an API.
⚔️ How Does Onerep Compare with Optery in Flexible Billing Options?
Optery also offers flexibility with monthly or yearly plans. With Optery, there’s no need to get locked into a lengthy contract—you can pay month to month and cancel at any time. Optery also offers customers the ability to seamlessly upgrade or downgrade subscription tiers with pro-rated billing. What this means is you can effortlessly migrate between plan tiers (i.e. Free Basic, Core, Extended, Ultimate) and plan terms (i.e. monthly or yearly).
For example, you could start with an Ultimate Monthly plan for a few months, then downgrade to Free Basic for a few months, then upgrade to Extended Yearly for a year, and then change back to Ultimate monthly. Any remaining value on your plan when you perform a change will carry forward and be applied to your next billing cycle.
You can manage unlimited family members with Optery for Family. Discounts across all plans increases as each additional family member’s coverage is activated. The discounting is 20% off all plans for 2 plans, 25% off all plans for 3 plans, and 30% off all plans for 4 or more plans. To be clear, each incremental covered family member will incur an additional subscription charge.
Optery also offers Optery for Business both to small businesses and large enterprises with volume discounting based on the list pricing on the Optery Pricing page. Anyone can create an Optery for Business account for free and get started with self-service tools immediately or reach out to Optery support to schedule a live demo and discuss custom pricing with our Sales team. Enterprise customers and those seeking custom solutions have an additional option: the Optery API for Partners allows integration into Optery’s patented search technology directly into other systems.
In summary, we believe Optery’s monthly and yearly billing options, ability to migrate seamlessly across different plan tiers and plan terms, and the option to pause and re-activate subscriptions at any time make Optery the superior choice when it comes to pricing flexibility.
🔐 Onerep Data Security Credentials
We believe data security credentials are probably the most over-looked factor when choosing a personal data removal service. Selecting a personal data removal service is about prioritizing and investing in your security. Holding your personal data removal service to the highest data security standards is a must.
Unfortunately, most personal data removal services on the market today have not completed an AICPA SOC 2 Type II audit and have extremely limited data security controls and standards.
How does Onerep stack up in the realm of data security?
It appears Onerep has stronger data security credentials than most as evidenced by its SOC 2, Type 1 certification.
Onerep SOC 2, Type 1 certification as of October 2023
“This achievement marks a significant milestone for us at Onerep. It underscores our commitment to protecting our customers’ sensitive information at all levels. While we haven’t changed how we do business, we now have this important external expert validation, and our customers can rest assured that their data is handled with the highest level of security and integrity.”
Source: https://onerep.com/business/articles/onerep-achieves-soc2-type1-certification
What is the AICPA SOC 2?
According to Wikipedia, “System and Organization Controls (SOC), (also sometimes referred to as service organizations controls) as defined by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), is the name of a suite of reports produced during an audit. It is intended for use by service organizations (organizations that provide information systems as a service to other organizations) to issue validated reports of internal controls over those information systems to the users of those services. The reports focus on controls grouped into five categories called Trust Service Criteria.”
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_and_Organization_Controls
Consumers may also wish to review Onerep’s Privacy Policy. The privacy policy outlines the types of personal information Onerep collects (like registration information and payment details), the purposes for its use (operational, analytical, and security), and the conditions under which information may be disclosed to third parties (including service providers and law enforcement). Noteworthy is the explicit statement that they do not sell personal information.
🔒 How Does Onerep Compare with Optery in Data Security?
Firstly, Optery has publicly posted a detailed “Statement on Data Security” since its inception in 2021:
https://www.optery.com/how-we-secure-your-data/
You can learn more about Optery’s data security practices from Optery’s Statement on Data Security, including that Optery has completed its AICPA SOC 2, Type 2 security audit, and makes its audit report available to select Optery for Business corporate customers under NDA.
While Onerep has completed its SOC 2, Type 1 audit, Optery has taken its security credentials and certification one step further to the more rigorous SOC 2, Type 2 certification.
⚖️ Onerep Review Conclusion
OneRep and Optery are both personal data removal services targeting data brokers, including people search sites. Despite its notoriety and strong product relative to most personal data removal products on the market, we do not feel Onerep matches the quality and robust features that Optery provides. Onerep emphasizes automation only in the removal process and at the time of this writing, does not provide transparency in their reporting through Exposure Reports and Removals Reports with screenshots as Optery does. By comparison, Optery sets itself apart by offering transparency and evidence of profile removals through real-time updates and visual proof, including before-and-after screenshots.
Additionally, Onerep has a questionable past and has maintained affiliate partnerships with the very people search sites you’re paying them to be removed from, such as Nuwber and ClustrMaps. The breadth of Onerep’s coverage also falls short of Optery, with Onerep’s 199 data brokers compared with Optery’s 560+ and counting.
Ultimately, the choice between Onerep and Optery depends on individual preferences and priorities; desired level of coverage, affordability, and the need for transparency in the removal process.
We believe Optery is the far superior choice over Onerep for personal data removal.
But don’t just take our word for it, Optery has been awarded the coveted “Editors’ Choice” by PCMag.com as the most outstanding personal data removal product on the market the last three years in a row in 2022, 2023 and 2024, and Fast Company awarded Optery “Next Big Things in Tech” for Security and Privacy in 2023.
“Optery’s handling of the core data removal task outshines the rest, and its free tier brings privacy protection to those who can’t afford expensive subscriptions. In the realm of personal data removal, Optery is our Editors’ Choice.”
Neil J. Rubenking
Lead Analyst for Security, PCMag.com
🔍 Appendices
Read below for additional information, screenshots, and links supporting the review above.
-
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DeleteMe Review | Pros and Cons – What Do The Experts Think
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