IDCrawl alternative: CheckMate.bio vs IDCrawl on results, errors, price and speed

CheckMate.bio is an IDCrawl alternative for when what you have is an email address. IDCrawl is free and matches names and usernames, and its email box is sponsored by Spokeo. In our test of four addresses, 36 of the 46 profiles IDCrawl found belonged to other people, while CheckMate.bio found 82 accounts registered to the addresses themselves and made 4 wrong finds. IDCrawl is the better choice for a quick, free look-up of a name or a username.

CheckMate.bio is ours, which is why every number below is broken down by address.

CheckMate.bio vs IDCrawl at a glance

How we tested them

We used four addresses: a well-known public test address and three real inboxes we have permission to check. IDCrawl's email search is sponsored by Spokeo, so on IDCrawl we searched the part before the @ as a username; CheckMate.bio ran its full report on the address.

Completeness: what each one found

CheckMate.bio found more on every address: 82 accounts by email and 34 through checked username matches, against IDCrawl's 10 correct profiles, four of them its own. A username search can match other people wherever it runs, CheckMate.bio's included.

Errors: false matches and profiles that belong to someone else

Made-up address test

A made-up address shows whether a tool reports accounts that cannot exist, so anything reported for it is a false match. CheckMate.bio searched our made-up Gmail address whole, IDCrawl the part before the @.

Neither CheckMate.bio nor IDCrawl listed anything for it, although two sponsored boxes on IDCrawl's page said "2 results found". MailAccess, which checks the email address itself, reported accounts and data breaches.

Wrong finds on real addresses

A username search shows everyone who registered the same name, and the person you're checking may be none of them. We marked 36 of IDCrawl's 46 finds wrong, among them all 12 it listed for Work address A.

If a profile matches only by username, open it and look for a photo, a name or a link to another account you know is theirs.

Price

IDCrawl is free, needs no sign-up and shows ads; two of its search boxes carry a sponsor's label. A CheckMate.bio full report costs $0.99, with no account and nothing that renews: about $0.05 per account found by email in this test.

Speed

IDCrawl is the quicker of the two: about 10 seconds for a username search in the two runs we timed, against 20 seconds to 2 minutes 2 seconds for a CheckMate.bio full report. The CheckMate.bio free search usually takes about a minute.

IDCrawl alternative test: conclusions

CheckMate.bio found more than IDCrawl on all four addresses: 82 accounts by email and 34 through checked username matches, against 10 correct profiles. About 5% of its email finds (4 of 86) and 8% of its checked username matches were wrong, against 78% of IDCrawl's. IDCrawl listed nothing for the made-up username, and it is free.

When IDCrawl is the better choice

• You want a free search now, with no sign-up or payment.
• You have a name and want a US person's contact details or public records, which IDCrawl collects.
• Speed matters most: IDCrawl answered in about 10 seconds.
• You know the exact username and want to see which sites have it.

Other IDCrawl alternatives we tested

• Spokeo sponsors IDCrawl's email box and found 6 right accounts and 13 wrong: CheckMate.bio vs Spokeo.
• BeenVerified sells memberships only, $36.89 a month or $71.94 every three months, and found 9 right accounts and 9 wrong: CheckMate.bio vs BeenVerified.
• TruePeopleSearch and FastPeopleSearch, free like IDCrawl, search US public records by name, phone or address.
• MailAccess checks the address itself, is free if you run it yourself and found 246 accounts on four public test addresses.

All of them are in True People Search alternatives: TruePeopleSearch, FastPeopleSearch, Spokeo, BeenVerified and IDCrawl compared.

Questions people ask

What is the best IDCrawl alternative?

If you have an email address, CheckMate.bio: in our test it found 82 accounts by email on four addresses, while IDCrawl's username search found 10 correct profiles. If you have a name and want a free search of someone in the US, TruePeopleSearch and FastPeopleSearch work much like IDCrawl.

Is IDCrawl free?

Yes. IDCrawl needs no sign-up and charges nothing. It shows ads, and its email and phone boxes are sponsored by Spokeo and Intelius.

Can IDCrawl search by email address?

It has a reverse email box, labelled "Sponsored by Spokeo". In our test we searched IDCrawl by username, the part before the @, and 36 of its 46 finds belonged to other people. To see which sites an email address itself is registered on, use an email lookup such as CheckMate.bio.

Why does IDCrawl show profiles of other people?

It matches by name or username, and many people share the same username on different sites. In our test, 36 of the 46 profiles IDCrawl listed for four addresses belonged to someone other than the address owner.

Can you use IDCrawl outside the US?

IDCrawl's terms say its products may only be accessed from within the US. Its homepage says it is trusted by millions of users worldwide.

How do I remove my information from IDCrawl?

Send the removal form your email address and the URL of the IDCrawl page that lists you, then follow the link it emails you. IDCrawl says removing information from its site does not remove it from the original sources.

What the results actually mean

CheckMate.bio groups findings into categories ('Social Media', 'Gaming', 'Dating', 'Finance', 'Business' and more) and attaches a confidence score to every match. A score of 80% or higher means the email is almost certainly linked to that service. A score between 50% and 80% is a likely match. Anything below 50% lands in the 'Possible matches' section and should be treated as a weak signal, not a verdict.

• Categories show the kind of accounts that exist: the shape of someone's online footprint.
• Per-service fields (usernames, display names, bio text, last active dates) help you confirm whether the match is really the person you care about.
• Confidence scores help you separate solid matches from noise. Treat low-confidence hits as leads to investigate, not as proof.

A note on ethics

CheckMate.bio indexes public and breach-derived data. It does not grant access to private messages or full passwords (passwords from breach records are always masked), or to anything you wouldn't be able to find with enough patience and the right search queries. Use it for the same reasons you'd Google someone: safety, due diligence, re-connecting with people, or simply knowing what a public profile says about you. Be honest about your reasons, and respect the answer you get.