Optery review
Independent (Optery, Inc.), United States · founded 2020
Bottom line
Optery is the rare service that does well on both things that matter: trust and results. It's independently owned with no data-broker ties, SOC 2 Type II audited, and it was the single most effective consumer service in Consumer Reports' 2024 test. It even offers a free scan and a free tier. It's our top pick - and, in the interest of full disclosure, the one service on this page that currently pays us a commission.
We want to be square with you about that. Optery earns the top spot on the evidence, not the commission - and we've placed EasyOptOuts, which pays us nothing and matches Optery's effectiveness at a fraction of the price, right beside it as the better buy for many people. If Optery's evidence ever slips, so will its rating.
| Owner | Optery, Inc. - independent, VC-backed Delaware C-corp (Y Combinator W22). No parent conglomerate; still independent as of 2026. |
|---|---|
| "Both ends" conflict? | None found. Optery explicitly states it has never sold data or had any financial relationship with data brokers. It publicly criticised a rival's conflicts years before the press did. |
| Data you hand over | Free scan needs no account. Paid plans need name, addresses, phone, aliases/relatives. Government ID is optional. No SSN required. |
| Sells your data? | No sale of removal data. Note: its site runs retargeting ads it concedes "may be considered" a sale/share under CCPA - opt-out-able with Global Privacy Control. |
| Security | SOC 2 Type II (Prescient Assurance, since 2023). Not itself ISO 27001 (its AWS host is). AES-256, TLS, MFA, annual pen-tests. No known breach. |
| Independent test | 68% removed in 4 months - best of 13 services in Consumer Reports' 2024 study. PCMag Editors' Choice 2022–2026. |
| Coverage & method | ~375 sites (Core) up to 940+ (Ultimate, incl. custom removals). Automated on Core; humans + machines on higher tiers. |
| Price (2026) | Free "Basic" tier; Core $3.99/mo ($39/yr); Extended $14.99/mo ($149/yr); Ultimate $24.99/mo ($249/yr). Family & business plans. 30-day money-back. |
| Affiliate link? | Yes - our "Visit" button is an affiliate link. It doesn't change this rating. |
Who owns it - and can you trust them?
This is the question that matters most for a company you're about to hand your home address and relatives to, and Optery answers it well. It's an independent, venture-backed startup (Y Combinator's W22 batch, plus a roster of VCs), co-founded in 2020 by CEO Lawrence Gentilello, CTO Chen Atlas, and Dekel Barzilay. There's no parent conglomerate, and as of April 2026 it was still independent and privately held.
Optery states plainly that it "does not sell data, and has never in the past sold data to any organization, including data brokers," and has "never… had any financial relationship or affiliate partnership" with them. No independent reporting ties Optery to a data broker or people-search site - in fact Optery was calling out a competitor's conflicts back in 2021, years before KrebsOnSecurity's 2024 investigation confirmed them.
One bit of background worth knowing: before Optery, Gentilello led Oracle's BlueKai ad-data practice - an audience-data business adjacent, in spirit, to the industry Optery now helps you escape. That's disclosed prior employment, not a current stake or sibling company, and it doesn't amount to an active conflict. We mention it only so you have the full picture.
Does it actually work?
Optery has the best independent evidence in the category. In Consumer Reports' 2024 controlled study - which tested 13 services with real volunteers and found the industry "largely ineffective" overall - Optery removed 68% of exposures within four months, the highest score of any service tested. It has also been a repeat PCMag Editors' Choice pick since 2022.
Keep expectations honest, though: 68% is best-in-class, but it still means roughly a third of your known exposures were not gone after four months. No paid service is a one-and-done fix, which is exactly why the ongoing monitoring matters. Optery's own coverage and site-count numbers (up to 940+ sites on the top tier) are self-reported.
Your privacy & data
You can run a free "Quick Scan" with no account at all (results auto-delete after 14 days). Paid removal needs the identifiers required to match your records at brokers - name, addresses, phone, aliases, relatives - and offers government-ID upload as an optional verification step. There's no mandatory SSN. Data is processed in the US.
The one asterisk: Optery's own privacy policy discloses that it runs retargeted advertising with vendors like Google, and acknowledges this "may be considered selling or sharing" under California law. It's opt-out-able via Global Privacy Control signals, and it's separate from the core removal data - but if you're the kind of person reading this page, you'll want to know.
Security
Optery holds an AICPA SOC 2 Type II certification (audited by Prescient Assurance, first announced in 2023 and maintained since), and publishes real detail: AES-256 at rest, TLS in transit, mandatory MFA for production, zero-trust access, and annual third-party penetration testing. We found no evidence of an Optery breach as of mid-2026. One honest caveat: Optery itself is not ISO 27001 certified - only its AWS hosting layer is - so treat any "ISO 27001 certified" claim you see in third-party marketing with care.
Pros
- Best independently-measured removal rate (68%, Consumer Reports)
- Independent owner, no data-broker conflict
- SOC 2 Type II with published security detail
- Free scan and free tier; no SSN required
- Publishes the list of sites it covers
Cons
- Still leaves ~1/3 of exposures after 4 months
- Runs retargeting ads it concedes may be a CCPA "sale"
- Not itself ISO 27001 (only its host is)
- Some reviews report slow/incomplete family-linked removals
Try Optery
Run the free scan first to see your exposure - no account needed - then decide if a paid tier is worth it for you.
Visit Optery →This is an affiliate link: if you subscribe, Optery pays us a commission at no extra cost to you, which helps keep DataPurge free. It does not affect our rating - see our full disclosure. Prefer not to use it? Go straight to optery.com.
Sources
- Consumer Reports, "Services That Delete Your Data From People-Search Sites Don't Work Very Well" (2024 study; Optery 68%, best of 13).
- Optery, "Does Optery sell data or have an affiliation with any data broker?"
- Optery, "How We Secure Your Data" and SOC 2 Type II announcement (GlobeNewswire).
- Optery, pricing, privacy policy, and about us.
- KrebsOnSecurity, on a competitor's conflict of interest (context; not about Optery).
Last reviewed July 2026. Spot an error or something out of date? Let us know - we'll correct it.