LifeLock Identity Theft Protection Review 2025

LifeLock’s Plans

LifeLock is packed with services and features. We go into more detail in our LifeLock subscriptions guide, but here’s a taste of what’s available. Each plan is priced for individuals, couples, and families. The family option covers two adults and up to five kids. Here’s what the plans include.

Just to be clear – this is a list of the primary features for each plan. There are other extras like password managers, and ad-tracker blockers included as well. Another thing to note is that these prices only cover one person. If you want protection for you and your partner or the whole family, you’ll pay more. Here’s how much it costs for couples:

And here’s a breakdown of those costs for families:

A good way to understand this pricing is to compare it to the competition. When we compared LifeLock to Aura, we noticed that Aura’s equivalent to Ultimate Plus costs just $32 per month. While the Standard and Advantage plans are cheaper, they have fewer tools and monitoring features. The newly released Identity Advisor plan is a basic option that includes monitoring and restoration features.

LifeLock’s Features

During our testing, we noticed each feature is categorized into alerts, identity monitoring, credit monitoring, financial monitoring, and digital protections. This made it easy to navigate through the menus to find the service we were looking for.

Even the cheapest LifeLock plans offer a wealth of features, so let’s discuss them one category at a time and see what you can expect from each.

Monitoring and Alerts

LifeLock and similar services protect your identity by monitoring activity related to your identity and alerting you when something pops up. Ideally, you want a service that catches suspicious activity and alerts you as quickly as possible, so any damage can be avoided or minimized.

Most identity protection services monitor credit bureaus and financial institutions for activity. When we tested LifeLock, we applied for a mortgage and quickly were alerted that our Social Security Number might have been used to secure a loan. Okay LifeLock!

The extent of credit monitoring depends on your subscription. With our Ultimate Plus plan, we had monitoring at all three major credit bureaus. However, the Standard plan only has one bureau monitoring. To be clear, some people say monitoring one bureau is adequate, but we feel that monitoring all three agencies eliminates concerns about credit fraud.

>> Compare: A Comprehensive Comparison of Identity Guard and LifeLock

Identity Monitoring

All LifeLock plans have the standard identity monitoring features we expect, like dark web monitoring, ID verification, and data breach notifications. LifeLock has also added utility account creation monitoring, which requires a credit check but doesn’t impact your score. Some of the identity monitoring features are:

• USPS address changes
• Crimes registries
• Court records
• Sex offender registries
• Dark web content
• Data breach notifications

If any changes occur or if your personal information appears in places like data breach lists, LifeLock will let you know. That is vital, because if any of those identity theft signs appear, someone likely got ahold of your personal information. With LifeLock keeping watch, you stand a fighting chance to prevent identity theft, or at least minimize the damages of an identity theft.

We didn’t receive a lot of notifications during our testing period, but that doesn’t mean LifeLock didn’t work. We take our privacy seriously and do our best to mitigate our online exposure. We did receive some notifications about past data breaches involving old accounts we no longer use, so we headed to those websites and deleted our accounts permanently. Knowing that LifeLock was constantly scanning gave us peace of mind.

In addition to monitoring, LifeLock takes a proactive approach with their Privacy Monitor feature that acts as a data removal service. It helps you scrub personal information off people-search sites that cobble together public information to create profiles that list your name, age, address, phone number, and more. During our tests, Privacy Monitor found a website with our personal information so we could have it taken down.

Word to the wise, keep a list of the data broker sites. Some sites grant opt-out requests but don’t remove your information from their databases. They just take it off the site. That means your data might reappear again. Or you can invest in one of our favorite data removal services — they automate the process, so you don’t have to think about it.

Credit Monitoring

With our Ultimate Plus subscription, LifeLock provided us with comprehensive triple-bureau credit monitoring complete with credit reports and score updates from all three bureaus. Credit reports arrived monthly, while the credit score on the app updated daily.

By identity theft protection standards, three-bureau credit monitoring is the industry best. In fact, that’s one of the reasons why LifeLock is one of the best identity protection services with credit monitoring and reporting.

Not all LifeLock plans include three-bureau credit monitoring. Only the Ultimate Plus plan offers it. The lower-tier plans will only monitor one credit bureau, and with the most basic subscriptions, free credit reports are not included.

LifeLock also offers a proactive approach to protecting your credit by helping you file a TransUnion credit lock. This prevents anyone, including yourself, from opening new credit lines without filing a request to unlock your credit. Taking this step might sound like a hassle, but it stops credit fraud before it happens.

We found out this works by accident. We were trying to set up a joint savings account with our partner, and the bank said it couldn’t access our credit file. We logged on to our computer, switched the lock off and it was smooth sailing from there. Happy to know that LifeLock’s functionality works in that regard.

Of course, for complete protection, you’ll also need to freeze or lock your accounts with the other two major credit reporting bureaus: Experian and Equifax. You can’t do that with the help of LifeLock, unlike with TransUnion, but you can contact Experian and Equifax directly to freeze your credit for free.

Financial Monitoring

With an Ultimate Plus subscription, LifeLock monitored our credit, checking, and savings accounts. We could get alerts when our money moved in those accounts, or someone requested information changes. LifeLock also monitored for new accounts with our name and changes to our 401(k) investment accounts.

During our test period, we didn’t get many of these alerts. We still recommend turning them on, though, as any of these activities could be a major red flag that your identity is being stolen.

LifeLock also offers reimbursement in the event that we experienced losses due to identity theft. Our Ultimate Plus subscription covers up to $1 million in losses, which is standard across the identity monitoring industry. Also worth noting — LifeLock covers $1 million in personal expense compensation and another $1 million for legal expenses. That’s a $3 million coverage total.

The $1 million legal fee coverage is included in every LifeLock plan, but the compensations for personal and legal expenses scale with the plan you have. It starts at $25,000 for each if you have the lowest-tier plan and increases to $100,000 each for the mid-tier Advantage plan. The $1 million coverage we mentioned applies only to the Ultimate Plus plans.

Digital Protections

Here comes the Norton part of the package. Norton is best-known for its Norton antivirus software, the software it offers in Norton 360 with LifeLock bundles.

The monitoring features from LifeLock help in early detection of identity theft. On the other hand, Norton’s role is preventative. The antivirus software offers protection from any type of devastating malware, including those used to steal sensitive information from your devices.

Norton also provides additional tools. For example, some bundles include a VPN, which is the same as the Norton Secure VPN we reviewed. It doesn’t have the bells and whistles of some of our favorite VPNs, but it does function well in helping you stay anonymous online. There’s also a password manager, which can help you secure your passwords and online accounts from hacking.

These tools can help you secure your identity, but to do so, you have to use them regularly. You can’t just install the antivirus software and forget about it. You need to run regular scans. If you’re paying for the VPN, you should use it as much as possible, even if it sacrifices a bit of speed. When we used these tools, it gave us a sense of how comprehensive LifeLock’s protections are.

Now that you have a good idea of the features included with LifeLock, let’s change gears and talk about what it’s like to use this service on a daily basis.

Setting Up and Using LifeLock

As with other identity theft services we’ve tested, we lived with LifeLock for several months to get a sense of the daily experience. This started with the setup process and continued as we attempted to get the most value out of our sizable investment.

To set up LifeLock, we created a password and entered our basic information. Then, we entered our billing information and paid for the year. Once we made the purchase, the LifeLock dashboard appeared on our screen.

Once at the dashboard, we were asked if we wanted to add more personal information including:

• Insurance information.
• Bank account numbers.
• Driver’s license number.
• Credit card numbers.

We recommend putting in as much personal information as possible. This gives LifeLock a better chance at catching signs of identity theft. Remember: LifeLock — and other identity theft protection services — can only protect the information it has on you.

Other than that, there isn’t much more to talk about when it comes to the setup process. It took us about 15 minutes from start to finish, and we were on our way to being protected within an hour. On the day to day, the desktop app is easy to use, and the dashboard is intuitive. This is more than we can say for a lot of providers — some of them can get convoluted at times.

That said, let’s take a minute to discuss some of the potential drawbacks of using LifeLock.

>> Further comparison: Lookout Identity Protection Review

LifeLock Drawbacks

One of the biggest drawbacks of LifeLock is that it can be confusing. When you’re purchasing your subscription package, you need to pay close attention to make sure you get the features you want because there are so many options.

Technically, Norton and LifeLock are two different entities, so it can get confusing if you’re trying to use these features on your mobile device — you’ll have to download two separate apps. Ultimately, we didn’t mind this during our testing period, but it did cause some confusion when we were looking around for the right functionality.

The second drawback is the price. Like we said above, these services aren’t cheap. They aren’t outrageous, but make sure you understand what your security needs are and budget accordingly. Also, if you pay annually — which you should, as you’ll save in the long run — the price goes up after a year. In some cases, the increase is almost double.

We don’t consider this a bait and switch, but it’s definitely something to be aware of when you’re making your purchase. Whichever identity theft protection service you go with, you’re likely going to want to keep it for the long haul. If you go with LifeLock, you want to make sure you can afford it.

With those two drawbacks in mind, let’s move on to the final word. Do we recommend LifeLock or not?

Is LifeLock Worth It?

Whether or not LifeLock is worth it comes down to your individual needs and budget, but here are a few key factors to consider when deciding if it’s right for you.