Best People Search Sites in 2020

There’s probably no people finder more famous than Intelius. Almost exclusively at the top of all the industry’s “best of” lists, this is a service with quite a reputation. And that reputation is absolutely deserved.

The site offers three search options: name, phone number, and address. Searching by phone is the goold old White Pages method and it works exactly like you’d expect. Both name and address searches require inputting the person’s city and state. This site can only access free public records of people in the United States, but it’s the best people search engine when it comes to the search process and analyzing results.

Once initiated, the search is interactive and may ask you to pick certain criteria to narrow down the results. It does take a while, but provides the most precise results of all the websites on this list. The data is presented in a spider graph and contains a lot of information, including employment and educational history. Intelius is especially popular among recruiters for that exact reason. Aside from the aforementioned searches, you can also run a reverse address lookup or pull up a criminal records database.

Granted, this is not a free people finder service. If you need to run just one simple search, you’ll need to pay $3.95 to access the results page. One full individual background check is $39.95, but our recommendation in that case is to subscribe to the monthly plan. It costs $29.95, and it includes one full check per month and unlimited address and name verifications. The price might be steep, but it’s expected considering how detailed the data is.

We’ve already touched upon the user experience, so let’s elaborate. The interactive search prompts you with clear questions that are relevant to your search. If you need technical help, Intelius support is available Monday through Friday via phone and email.

If you’re looking for the best US people search site, look no further than TruthFinder. Yes, its name is perhaps needlessly bombastic, but this is a great people lookup tool nonetheless. The truth is not only “out there” – it’s available to you in just a few presses of a button.

So, in how many ways can you search for the truth? Well, the basis of the system is its quick name search all across the US. If you need something different, you can also search by address, phone, or even email. 

This site offers a rather unorthodox feature called the “dark web search.” No, it doesn’t really go to that underground part of the internet. Instead, it runs a free email lookup for data breaches containing your email address. 

Without paying a dime to TruthFinder, you can run some basic searches. This is a great incentive to go and try the website, since most competing services ask for money upfront without letting customers try out the platform.

Once you subscribe to a monthly plan, not only will you get more options for searching, but the results go into much greater detail. It pretty much covers any digital trace a person has left and is presented in a neat document where everything is logically sorted. Price-wise, it’s on par with Intelius and other competitors.

While the user experience is smooth and there no doubt this is one of the best people search engines around, we did notice some fearmongering within search pages. For example, before you run a deep web search, the site bothers you with stats on how many accounts get stolen each year. It’s silly and a tad unprofessional – there’s no reason to scare off customers like that. Other than that, there really are no downsides to this platform. You can even use it on the go thanks to its mobile app.

BeenVerified has been operational for more than a decade. Founded in 2007, this site searches through public records and presents them in a neat, easy-to-read format. With BeenVerified, you won’t need to dig through many websites and it’s one of the best people search sites for that reason alone.

This site has a very simplified people search process. Simply input the person’s first and last name and then, through the background check app, you can narrow down the search based on many different parameters. 

One of the most impressive features is how the website doesn’t require strict spelling. Of course, exact spelling helps, but it’s nice to know you don’t have to be 100% accurate with each piece of data you’re feeding into the algorithm.

We’re here to find the best people search website, but what if you need to track vehicles? BeenVerified can help you learn more about that used car you saw at a dealership – you’ll just need to input the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) and off you go. Another unusual search option is for unclaimed property. You might have some unclaimed tax returns that you don’t know about, and this tool can help you find exactly what you’re looking for.

As for subscriptions, BeenVerified uses a traditional monthly membership model that costs $26.89 and provides unlimited searches. If you know you’ll use this website for a longer period of time, the $52.44 quarterly subscription will save you plenty. There’s a catch, though. Unlike other top people search sites, BeenVerified charges an additional $15 fee for premium data per report. That means that if you want to get absolutely everything with every search, you’re at risk of running up a huge bill on your credit card.

Reporting tools are worth it alone. This is one of those rare websites that offer PDF exporting for every search. That’s very handy for offline reading, especially if you live in an area with a spotty internet connection. Other than that, it’s a really user-friendly website that offers a slew of helpful documents, so you can read up on and learn more about people searching.

Instant Checkmate might sound like a website for chess geeks, but it’s one of the fastest people search sites like TruthFinder. As a matter of fact, the site shares a lot of similarities with the aforementioned engine, including its visuals and tools. The reason for that is simple – these are sister companies sharing both backend tools and databases they pull the data from.

That said, the search process isn’t exactly the same at both sites. Here, you don’t even need to start with the person’s full name; you can simply start by selecting the first letter and searching through some common last names. Reporting tools also include PDF exports, with the addition of a timeline view that gives a better overview of the person’s history.

While we said that TruthFinder is the best people finder based on the user experience alone, we don’t share the same sentiment for Instant Checkmate. Yes, you can search public records and whatnot, but the onboarding process is tedious. You can’t just sign up for an account. Instead, the site forces you to run a search first. After that process is complete, you’ll be able to create an account and start using the full potential of this people directory.

This site is a bit more expensive than TruthFinder. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as some services that TruthFinder charges for are completely free on Instant Checkmate. However, you’ll still have to deal with regular upsells. 

Detailed reports might be included in the subscription, but PDF exports and deep web searches are charged extra. This is still one of the best search engines to find people, though. The only real choice boils down to what you personally need more: exporting documents to PDF or having everything exclusively online but including deeper data analysis.

Spokeo was founded in 2006. Originally, it was only able to find social media profiles, but has evolved by time into a fully fledged people finder app. This California-based company uses deep web crawlers to collect data from public records and boasts about having a database with more than 12 billion records.

It’s also a no-frills website. Here you can simply pick a search then run it with no unnecessary complications. Even better, there are none of those scare tactics employed by some other people search engines; this is just a clean website with a straightforward user experience. 

You can search by name, phone number, address, or email. The results come up pretty fast; in fact, this is one of the fastest engines we’ve encountered during our tests, which is why it’s no surprise that some famous companies like Forbes have featured this service.

This site, like pretty much all of them in this business, operates on a subscription-based model. The monthly plan costs just under $14, so it’s cheaper than any other service we’ve included on this list. But despite being one of the most affordable people search sites, unfortunately there are some additional fees involved. 

You get just basic search results in reports via Spokeo. Accessing criminal records, some historical records, and PDF exporting costs extra. On top of that, the site limits the number of monthly searches you can run. Getting unlimited access costs $21 per month on top of the subscription you’re already paying for. Basically, it ends up costing the same as other people finder websites.

Luckily for Spokeo, the user experience is impeccable. We didn’t run into any problems while using the address finder and could also search social networks by using emails. The customer support team works seven days a week and will gladly help you if you run into any issues.