Incogni Review for 2024

It’s no secret that someone spies on us and collects our data the moment we get online. After gathering information, many data brokers analyze and sell it to advertisers for profit.

That happens on a massive scale, and few people even begin to assume how much various marketing companies and, possibly, cybercriminals know about them.

Still, there’s a way to make data brokers stop selling your personal information, and that's where Incogni steps in.

What Is Incogni?

Developed by Surfshark, Incogni is a service that removes personal information from data brokers’ databases on behalf of its clients.

It regularly sweeps the brokers’ databases after deleting info to ensure clients’ personal information hasn’t been added again. 

When you retain the company’s services, you can expect your online privacy to be protected and no bad actors to access your private information without your consent. The company will stop private data circulation between brokers and companies using your data for advertising purposes (or worse).

Incogni sends official data removal requests to marketing, risk mitigation, financial information, and recruitment data brokers, to name a few.

At present, you can use this service to remove your personal information from the databases of more than 130 brokers.

This number could quickly change as Incogni expands its list of data brokers. 

How Does Incogni Work?

When was the last time you received a call from a company you had nothing to do with or an email from an unknown sender? Are Facebook ads starting to hit a little too close to home? If this happens far too often, your personal info is all over the web, and you may be one of 33% of Americans that have fallen victim to identity theft. 

Incogni can help you stop receiving those calls and messages by removing your personal data from data brokers’ databases. To get started, you must subscribe and choose a plan.

The Sign-Up Process

The Incogni subscription process is straightforward and takes only a few minutes to complete. You’ll be required to provide the usual - email, a password, and personal information, including your name and address - as well as sign a power of attorney for Incogni to represent you when dealing with data brokers. 

The private information you fill in is crucial since Incogni will use it to send data removal requests to data brokers. Once the internal algorithm finds a match, it will contact the data broker to have your personal data removed.

Incogni Pricing Plans

Incogni has two pricing plans – monthly and annual. The monthly subscription is $11.49, while the annual subscription, billed every 12 months, costs $5.79 per month, for a total of $69.48. 

No free trial is available, but you can take advantage of the 30-day money-back guarantee if you are unsatisfied with the service. Lastly, you can unsubscribe at any time later on. 

Furthermore, you can use a promo coupon code at the checkout for the cost of the annual plan to go down to $55.58 or $4.63 a month. 

The Data Removal Process

Once you sign the limited power of attorney, you give Incogni consent to scour the web in search of your private information. The algorithm compares the data you entered during the subscription process with those in data broker databases. 

Once it finds a match, Incogni contacts the data broker companies to submit the data removal request based on the General Data Protection Regulation and California Consumer Privacy Act. 

Here’s the timeline of the data removal process:

Day One - Official Data Removal Requests Sent to Data Brokers

Incogni starts searching for your personal info the moment you subscribe. If and when it finds it in any database, the company contacts the data brokers and sends official removal requests. 

Week One - Data Brokers Start Responding

Our review found that data brokers respond for the first time within a week. The law obliges them to process data removal requests and remove personal information from their online databases within 30 to 45 days.

The process typically doesn’t take longer than that, although some data brokers may try to stall.

The First Month - Most Requests Are Processed

The company reviews data removal requests at all times and sends you updates about the progress.

It also follows up on requests that data brokers didn’t process and keeps researching databases to ensure your private information is not added again.

The Incogni User Interface

Incogni has a minimalist, user-friendly interface showing progress on data removal requests.

The dashboard shows the total number of data removal requests and those completed, in progress, and rejected. You can also see the data presented in the form of a pie chart.

You can click ‘Detailed View’ to see details of each individual case, including:

• The data sensitivity level on a scale from 1 to 10
• The data broker category (marketing, financial information, etc.)
• The request status (In progress, etc.) 
• The data broker’s industry

Customer Service

Incogni’s customer support is rather difficult to contact, with only an online form available on the website and not so easy to get to, as no direct link leads to it from the home page and most other pages.

What you need to do is select the Help link in the header or footer of the website, then scroll down to find the ‘Contact Us’ button. You will then be directed to the online form.

Is Incogni a Legit Business?

Incogni is a trustworthy data removal service developed by Surfshark, a proven data security company. It works with various consumer protection agencies to protect its clients’ right to online privacy.

It also monitors databases and again contacts data brokers to prevent removed data from being re-entered into their databases.

Is Incogni Worth It?

Incogni works hard to find and prevent the misuse of your personal information.

Once your sensitive personal information has been removed from data brokers’ databases, Incogni will do a fresh sweep to determine if your data has again found its way to data brokers’ databases. 

Seeing how it works first-hand during our review makes us confident in recommending subscribing to Incogni, especially since it charges less than many competitors.

Benefits and Drawbacks

Let's quickly recap the company's pros and cons. One of the key benefits is obvious: Sending data removal requests is handled by Incogni, and the process is automated.

We loved that the company offers a 30-day money-back guarantee, though its plans are affordable to start with, with prices as low as $4.63 a month with the promo coupon.

On the flip side, there is no free trial, and the online form is the only way of reaching customer support.

Key Takeaways

So, if you have to deal with spam emails, calls from pushy advertisers, and other aggressive forms of marketing over and over again, Incogni can help you eliminate them.

You can benefit from its efficient service for a fraction of the price its competitors charge, and rest assured that no personal data of yours will remain in data brokers’ databases for long. 

The sign-up process is quick, and the service will cost you only a few bucks a month, while potentially saving you hours and hours of work it would take to do it all manually.