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REVIEW | PublicRecords🔒 Confidential•★★★★★ Rated 4.8/5•32 Billion+ Records
Our #3 pick for top public records sites in 2026.
Our top-ranked sites are reviewed on the basis of our own views, knowledge, and expert opinions. We are able to provide this free resource thanks to referral fees we receive from companies reviewed here. This may influence scores and ordering but does not influence review content. The owner of this site is an employee of The Control Group Media Company, LLC, which provides management services to Instant Checkmate, TruthFinder, and Intelius.
Intelius is one of the oldest background check companies still in operation today. Founded in 2003, the service was a pioneer for people who wanted to learn more about neighbors and acquaintances online. However, just because a company has been around for a long time doesn't mean it offers the best experience — and Intelius is a good example of that.
To test it, I searched for someone I knew had a lengthy record and well-documented legal and tax issues, curious to see how much Intelius could surface.
The results page was helpful — the report I was looking for appeared right at the top, even though there are multiple people with the same name. That's a good sign. Intelius shows enough context (age, location) to narrow things down without giving away the full report for free.
After selecting a person, you have to choose from three report levels. Each gives you different data:
People Search Report includes the basics: full name, address, age & DOB, aliases, phone number, relatives, and address history.
People Search Plus adds social network profiles and email address search on top of the basics.
Background Report Plus is the full package — everything above plus state criminal & traffic records, bankruptcies, liens, judgments, lawsuits, and marriage & divorce records.
I went with the highest level to get as much data as possible. The report page is neatly organized with a summary at the top and expandable sections below. However, the data it delivers is lackluster in some areas.
Basic data like addresses and phone numbers was solid. Intelius correctly identified family connections and confirmed school history I was able to verify independently. But things got shaky when it came to court records — the report claimed this person, who famously had multiple run-ins with the law, had no criminal & traffic records in California at all.
Intelius did surface two civil court judgments — liens stemming from personal tax issues. But the absence of any criminal records was a significant miss. I paid an additional $19.99 to search all 50 states, and got back the same result: no criminal & traffic data available anywhere.
Intelius dropped the ball on social profiles too. It wasn't able to find any, despite the fact that the person I searched has very active Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter accounts. This is a notable weakness compared to our top picks.
You can search for people by their phone number. However, the way it works is a bit limited — it connects the number to a name and then searches for all reports with that name. Useful for uncommon names, but harder to narrow down for common ones.
There's also an option to search by email address. In my experience, the database of email addresses is fairly limited, and results were inconsistent.
Intelius offers a Premier membership for $19.95/month, which gives you unlimited searches for basic People Search reports. The Premier Plus plan runs $29.95/month and adds one full background report voucher per month. Individual report upgrades (like the all-50-states criminal search) are an additional charge on top of any subscription. The tiered pricing structure is genuinely confusing — figuring out which plan you need feels more complicated than it should be.
Intelius has been around since 2003, and you can feel that history in both the product's strengths and its limitations. Basic biographical data — addresses, phone numbers, relatives, address history — is solid. But a surprising amount of data simply wasn't available, especially criminal & traffic records and social media profiles.
The confusing pricing structure and the 45-day report viewing limit (after which you'd need to print them out) add friction that newer competitors have long since eliminated. If you're looking for fundamental information and Intelius's price point works for you, it's a viable option. But for more complete data, our top picks are a better choice.
Want better data coverage? Our #1 pick, Instant Checkmate, surfaces criminal records, social profiles, and financial data that Intelius regularly misses — all in one report.
Try Our #1 Pick Instead →