Optery

Optery is a US service that files opt-out requests with data brokers and people-search sites on your behalf, then searches those sites again every month. Personal plans are sold in the United States, Canada (except Quebec), Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Optery does not offer personal plans in the UK or the EU.

Two independent studies have measured Optery’s results: Consumer Reports in 2024 and a peer-reviewed academic study in 2025. Consumer Reports found it removed more profiles than any other service in its test, though filing the opt-outs by hand removed slightly more, and the 2025 study found that the dashboard does not tell a removed record from one that was never found.

Removal Effectiveness

Optery lists 630+ sites on its Ultimate plan in the US. This number of brokers covered is Optery’s own figure, and it depends on the plan: Core covers 380+ sites and Extended 555+. Each number includes sites reached only through an optional setting called Expanded Reach; without it, the three plans cover 150+, 325+ and 405+ sites. Outside the US the lists are much shorter: 51+ to 69+ sites in Canada and 35+ to 55+ in Australia, depending on the plan.

Paid plans search the listed sites again every month (re-check frequency) and file new requests for profiles that reappear after removal, which is called re-listing. Ultimate also lets you ask Optery to remove you from sites outside its list, 945+ sites in total, and submits outdated search results to Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo and Yahoo for removal.

In the Consumer Reports test, published in August 2024, researchers signed four people up for Optery’s Ultimate plan and checked 13 people-search sites over four months in 2023. Optery removed 52% of the profiles within a week and 68% within four months, the highest share among the seven services tested. When the researchers filed the opt-outs by hand, 70% of the profiles were gone. Optery disputes the study design: it says the manual opt-outs were done by experienced researchers, only 13 sites were checked, and participants skipped optional features Optery recommends, such as the limited power of attorney.

The 2025 study, published in Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies, gave participants one month on Optery’s $14.99 plan. All of Optery’s removals happened within the first 32 hours, and nothing more changed during the rest of the month. Participants marked on average 29.9% of the records Optery found for them as incorrect, and 33.0% as unclear. Of the four services in the study, Optery was the one whose results differed most from user to user: on average 72.5 brokers per pair of users.

Like any removal service, Optery works only on the brokers on its list. It does not remove your data from breaches or government records, or from brokers outside the list (except through Ultimate’s custom requests), and the search-engine submissions on Ultimate cover outdated pages, not all results that mention you.

Privacy & Data Handling

To start, Optery needs your first and last name, city and state, birth year and an email address for the account. The data you hand over is that, and Optery recommends adding a middle name, full birthdate, phone number, home address and relatives’ names to find more profiles. The city and state are not a street address, and the birth year is not a full date of birth. Optery sends some of these details to each broker to locate and remove your record, and its privacy policy says it cannot control what the brokers do with them.

The optional Expanded Reach setting covers brokers whose results Optery cannot verify, and Optery itself warns that it may send your name, city and state to brokers that did not have them. In 2025 this went wrong: the broker Meltwater asked for customers’ email addresses before it would process opt-outs, and on 30 May 2025 it emailed some Optery customers who had turned Expanded Reach on and whom it had no record of. Optery stopped sending requests to Meltwater and, in early June, reviewed the data in all its requests. Expanded Reach also requires signing a limited power of attorney that lets Optery act as your authorized agent with brokers.

Besides removal, Optery uses some of your data for marketing, which is what the service does with your data. The privacy policy says Optery does not sell personal data for money and uses only account data, such as your name and email, not your removal profile, to market its service. Its retargeted ads with vendors such as Google may count as a sale or share of data under California law, and the policy offers an opt-out. Deleting your account deletes your data at once, and backups are cleared within 7 days.

Optery is based in the San Francisco Bay Area, and customer data is stored on AWS in the US. Optery says it passed a SOC 2 Type II security audit by Prescient Assurance in 2023 and again for 2024 and 2025. Optery paid for the audit, and the report is shared only with business customers under a non-disclosure agreement. There is no known data breach of Optery’s own systems.

In September 2026 Surfshark acquired a majority stake in Optery. According to the announcement, Optery continues as an independent company with its own team, product and technology, and its service does not change for existing customers for now. The announcement adds that the businesses plan to share knowledge and technology with the group’s other data-removal products. Optery’s privacy policy promises 30 days’ notice by email, with the option to delete your account, before your data is transferred in a merger or acquisition.

Transparency & Verifiability

Optery’s proof of removal depends on the plan. Every paid plan shows a status for each site in the dashboard, and only Extended and Ultimate add a Removals Report with before-and-after screenshots about every 90 days. The screenshots come from Optery, not an outside party, and sites reached only through Expanded Reach get no verified status at all.

The two studies above are the only independent verification of Optery’s results. The 2025 study found one gap in the dashboard: Optery shows a record that was removed and a record that was never found under the same status, so the dashboard does not tell you which of the two happened.

Optery publishes the full list of sites it covers on its pricing page, and its help desk explains which details it sends to brokers.

Usability & Support

The free plan is a free scan: it shows screenshots and direct links to the profiles Optery finds at hundreds of sites, with the opt-out page for each, but Optery files no requests until you pay. Paid plans start filing as soon as you subscribe and show progress in the dashboard. There are apps for Android and iPhone.

Core removes profiles for one name and one city and state only, with no human help; Extended and Ultimate accept name variations and past addresses and assign a human agent to cases the automation cannot handle. Optery says support answers around the clock, and Ultimate customers get priority email support.

A family plan lets one person invite and manage other members, with a discount that grows with the number of members, up to 30%. Optery also sells business plans for companies that cover their employees.

Price & Value

Optery is sold separately and needs no other subscription. In the US, Core costs $3.99 a month or $39 a year, Extended $14.99 a month or $149 a year, and Ultimate $24.99 a month or $249 a year. All three come with a 30-day money-back guarantee for personal accounts.

Core costs $39 a year but is limited to one name and city, and the screenshot reports start on Extended. For readers in the UK or the EU, Optery offers no personal plan at all.

Pros and Cons

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