TRACETRACE / PIMEYES ALTERNATIVE
COMPARISON · UPDATED 1 AUGUST 2026THE PIMEYES ALTERNATIVE
WITH NOTHING TO CANCEL.
Trace does the same job as PimEyes — upload one photo, find out where that face appears on the public web — but with no account to create, no monthly subscription and credits that never expire. You also see a free blurred preview of what was found before you decide to pay for anything.
No sign-up, no email · Free preview first · Credits never expire
WHO SHOULD SWITCH, AND WHO SHOULDN'T.
Switch to Trace if you search faces occasionally rather than professionally, and a $29.99 monthly plan for a question you will ask twice a year is the wrong shape. There is no subscription: you buy credits, they never expire, and there is no account or card on file to go back and clean up afterwards.
Stay with PimEyes if you are running face searches every day, you need saved-face alerts that notify you when a new match appears, or you want the managed takedown service that PROtect bundles. Those are real products that Trace does not have, and no comparison table is going to change that.
Figures below reflect each service's public pricing as of 1 August 2026. PimEyes changes its plans periodically — check their site before you buy.
TRACE VS PIMEYES.
The rows that actually change your decision, not a feature checklist padded out to thirty lines.
| Trace | PimEyes | |
|---|---|---|
| Platform | Any browser. Installable to the home screen as a web app | Any browser. No installable app |
| Account | No sign-up form — no email, no password, just a key you copy once | Required — sign-up before you can use a plan |
| Entry price | No subscription — smallest credit pack is 5 searches, $4 | Open Plus from $29.99 / month |
| Search allowance | However many credits you bought | Up to 75 per day on Open Plus, more on higher tiers |
| Unused allowance | Never expires — a credit sits there until you spend it | Daily cap — today's unused searches are gone tomorrow |
| How you pay | Card, Telegram Stars or crypto — we never see your card number | Card, on their own site |
| Cancelling | Nothing to cancel — no recurring charge exists | Through your account on their site |
| Free preview | Blurred preview of the faces actually found, no credit spent | Free search shows matches; opening sources needs a plan |
| Confidence score | Numeric 70–100 on every single result | Results shown by similarity |
| Where results live | In your account, reachable from any device with your key | In your account |
| Uploaded photo | Deleted after 30 days, or immediately when you delete the scan | Governed by their own privacy policy — read it first |
| Alerts | No — you run each search yourself | Yes — saved faces trigger notifications |
| Takedown service | No | Yes, on the PROtect tier |
| Index size | Billions of public images, smaller than PimEyes | Larger index, built up over a longer period |
WHERE TRACE WINS
- Nothing to sign up for. No email address, no password, no user record that can leak — your account is a key you copy once.
- No subscription. You buy credits and stop; there is no plan sitting on your card waiting to be cancelled.
- Credits never expire. A daily cap punishes you for not using it; a credit balance doesn't.
- A free blurred preview shows whether there is anything to find before you pay, so an empty result costs nothing.
- No card details. Payment happens inside Telegram with Stars, so a face-search company never holds your card.
- Every result carries a number from 70 to 100, so you know the difference between "worth a look" and "that's them".
WHERE PIMEYES WINS
- A bigger index. More images crawled over more years means more matches on obscure faces.
- Alerts. Save a face and get told when a new match shows up — Trace has nothing equivalent.
- Takedown help. PROtect will chase removals for you; Trace shows you the pages and stops there.
- Volume. 75 searches a day is a different product from 20 a month, and if you need that, you need PimEyes.
- Ordinary card payment. Telegram Stars means having Telegram; PimEyes takes a card like any other website.
- PDF reports and investigator-oriented features that Trace deliberately doesn't build.
WHAT ACTUALLY CHANGES WHEN YOU SWITCH
Seeing whether there is anything to find, first
The uncomfortable thing about paying for a face search is that you are paying before you know what you are buying. Run a scan on Trace with no credits at all and you get the finished screen: the layout, the score bands and a card for each source, with the sources locked. It is a walkthrough of the result rather than a search of your photo, and it costs nothing and needs no account. A credit runs the real search and unlocks the part that is actually worth having: the platform, the handle and a link you can open and judge yourself.
No account is not a marketing line
There is no sign-up form anywhere in Trace. No email address, no password to reset, no user record to breach — the first time you open the panel it generates an account ID and a recovery key, shows them to you once, and your browser stays signed in on its own from then on. Your uploaded photo is deleted after 30 days or the moment you delete the scan, and the copy that goes out to run the search is served from an unguessable address for at most 10 minutes. For a tool whose entire input is a photograph of a human face, that is worth more than a feature checkbox.
The pricing model, honestly
PimEyes sells a daily allowance: up to 75 searches a day on Open Plus, from $29.99 a month as listed in August 2026. If you use it daily that is excellent value and Trace cannot match it on cost per search. But most people are not investigators. Most people have one photo and one question — is this person real, is this profile stolen, where did my picture end up. Charging that person a monthly subscription is charging them for eleven months they will not use, so Trace sells credits instead. They never expire, nothing renews, and there is no card on file to come back and cancel.
Paying without handing over a card
Trace takes payment in Telegram Stars, inside Telegram. That is a genuine trade-off and worth being clear about: it means you need Telegram, which PimEyes does not ask of you. What it buys is that no face-search company — including this one — ever holds your card details, and that there is no subscription quietly renewing in the background, because Stars is a one-off purchase by construction.
What neither tool will do
Neither Trace nor PimEyes is a background check. Neither returns addresses, phone numbers or records, and neither opens anything behind a login. Both read what is already public on the web and tell you where the same face appeared. The conclusion is yours to draw, which is why Trace shows a similarity score rather than a verdict.
Using either one responsibly
Face search sits inside real privacy law. In the EU and the UK that is the GDPR; in Türkiye it is the KVKK. Search photographs you have the right to search — your own, or someone else's with their consent — and use the result to verify or to protect your own image, not to identify, locate or pressure a stranger. Trace is built for that first use and explicitly not for the second.
PIMEYES ALTERNATIVES — COMMON QUESTIONS.
What is the best PimEyes alternative without a subscription?
Trace is the closest fit if the monthly plan is what is putting you off: no account and no email address, credits instead of a subscription, credits that never expire, and a free blurred preview of what was actually found before you pay anything. PimEyes stays the stronger choice if you need a very large index, saved-face alerts or a managed takedown service.
Is there a free PimEyes alternative?
Not a credible one. Every search runs real compute against an enormous image index, so anything advertised as unlimited and free is either using a tiny index or making money from you some other way. PimEyes lets you run a free search but keeps the source links behind a paid plan. Trace works the same way and says so plainly: a free scan returns a blurred preview of the faces it really found, and one credit unlocks the platform, the handle and the link. What differs is that Trace sells credits rather than a subscription, and they never expire.
How much does PimEyes cost compared to Trace?
As publicly listed in August 2026, PimEyes' entry plan Open Plus starts at $29.99 a month with up to 75 searches a day; PROtect and Advanced cost more and add alerts and removal services. Trace has no subscription — the smallest pack is five credits and credits never expire. Search daily and PimEyes is much cheaper per search. Search occasionally and you are paying $29.99 a month for an allowance you will never touch.
Does Trace need an account like PimEyes does?
There is no sign-up form, no email address and no password. Trace generates an account ID and a recovery key on your first visit and shows them once; the browser stays signed in by itself afterwards. Your uploaded photo is deleted after 30 days, and the copy that goes out to run the search is served from an unguessable address for at most 10 minutes.
Do I need to install anything?
No — both tools run in the browser, so this is not where they differ. Trace can additionally be installed to your home screen as a web app: on Android tap Install in the header, on iPhone use Share → Add to Home Screen. It then opens full screen with its own icon and keeps you signed in.
Can I use Trace to find my own photos online, like PimEyes PROtect?
You can search your own face and see where your pictures have been reposted, scraped or attached to an impersonating account — that is one of the main reasons people use Trace. What Trace does not do is the step after: there are no automated alerts and no managed takedown service. If you want removals filed on your behalf, PROtect is the product built for that.
Is Trace affiliated with PimEyes?
No. Trace is an independent service made by Trace Labs. PimEyes is a separate company and PimEyes is their trademark; it is named here only to describe how the two tools differ. Nothing on this page is endorsed by or connected to them.
About this comparison. Written and last checked on 1 August 2026 using each service's publicly available pricing and feature pages. PimEyes is a trademark of its respective owner and is referred to here purely for identification and comparison; Trace is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by PimEyes. Competitor pricing and features change — verify on their own site before you buy.
Responsible use. Only search photographs you have the right to search: your own, or someone else's with their consent. Trace returns publicly available web results with a similarity score. It is not a background check, not an identification service, and results are not proof of identity. Use it in line with applicable law, including the GDPR and the KVKK.
ONE PHOTO. THIRTY SECONDS.
No sign-up, no subscription, and your card number never reaches a face-search website. The first preview is free.