A pay-as-you-go background check API: $0.15 a call.
A pay-as-you-go background check API with one rule: you pay for the calls you make. $0.15 each, $0.11 for every call past 2,000 in a month, and nothing at all in a month you make none. No subscription, no minimum on search, no contract.
25 free calls · No card · $0.15 a call, $0.11 past 2,000 a month
curl -X POST \
https://api.offendersearch.app/v1/criminal/search \
-H "X-API-Key: $OFFENDERSEARCH_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"query": {
"firstName": "Morgan",
"lastName": "Okafor",
"dob": "1990-06-18",
"state": "OK"
},
"page": 1,
"perPage": 50
}'What does pay-as-you-go mean for a background check API?
Pay-as-you-go means the bill is the number of API calls you made, multiplied by a published rate, charged after the month ends. There is no plan to choose, no tier to outgrow and no commitment to sign before the first request.
It matters most at the two ends of a product’s life: at the start, when you do not yet know your volume and a monthly minimum is money spent on nothing, and at scale, when a per-seat or per-report model stops tracking what you actually use.
Per call, per report, or subscription: how background check APIs charge
Per call
A metered rate per API request for a data lookup. You see the price before you sign up and the bill follows usage exactly. This is the model here.
Per report
A fixed price for a finished consumer report on one person, usually sold in packages by a consumer reporting agency. The price covers a regulated process, not only the data.
Subscription or contract
A monthly or annual fee, often with a minimum volume or seat count, agreed with a sales team. Predictable for the vendor; costly if your volume is uncertain.
The whole pay-as-you-go price list
| Item | Price |
|---|---|
| First 25 calls on a new account | Free |
| Search call, first 2,000 in a month | $0.15 |
| Search call, past 2,000 in a month | $0.11 |
| Live re-verification, per completed source | $0.02 (capped at $2.00 a search) |
| Verification PDF, per document | $0.02 |
| Person monitor, per month | $3.00 |
| Location monitor, per month | $10.00 |
| Setup fee, seat licence, monthly minimum on search | $0 |
What pay-as-you-go costs at your volume
Computed from the schedule above. The effective rate falls as volume passes 2,000 calls a month.
| Calls / month | Monthly cost | Effective per call |
|---|---|---|
| 250 | $37.50 | $0.1500 |
| 1,000 | $150.00 | $0.1500 |
| 2,000 | $300.00 | $0.1500 |
| 5,000 | $630.00 | $0.1260 |
| 20,000 | $2,280.00 | $0.1140 |
| 100,000 | $11,080.00 | $0.1108 |
A person checked against both registries and criminal records is two calls. The same maths with more scenarios is on the background check API pricing page.
Per call next to a published per-report price
These are different products — a data lookup and a regulated consumer report — so this compares pricing models, not like-for-like value.
| Unit | Published price | Minimum | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Offendersearch standard API | One search call | $0.15, then $0.11 past 2,000 a month | None |
| Checkr Basic | One report | From $29.99 | See vendor |
| Checkr Essential | One report | $59.99 | See vendor |
| Checkr Complete | One report | $94.99 | See vendor |
Checkr prices as published on checkr.com/pricing, October 2026. A Checkr report is an FCRA consumer report with identity, verification and compliance steps included; a call here returns public records for your own software to use. For hiring and tenant decisions on our data, see FCRA Partner Access, priced by quote. A fuller comparison is on the Checkr alternative page.
How pay-as-you-go billing works
Usage is metered as calls are made and charged at the end of each month by default. The lower rate applies to each call after the 2,000th in that month — the first 2,000 stay at $0.15.
A batch is billed per row. A retried asynchronous search sent with the same Idempotency-Key returns the original job instead of starting — or billing — a second one, and a live check that fails is not billed.
When pay-as-you-go is the right model, and when it is not
A good fit
Prototypes and launches with unknown volume. Seasonal or spiky demand. Products that pass the cost through per check. Teams that want a number they can model: 10,000 calls is $1,180.00, every time.
Talk to us instead
Very high sustained volume, where a committed rate can be lower. FCRA workflows, which are priced per partner. Procurement processes that need an order form and invoicing rather than a card.
Start free, then pay as you go
New accounts get 25 calls at no charge — the details are on the free background check API page. Add a card when you are ready and the same key keeps working. The product itself is described on the background check API page, and what the standard API may be used for is on the non-FCRA background check API page.
Pay-as-you-go background check API questions
Is there a monthly minimum?
Not on search. A month with no calls costs nothing, and there is no fee to keep an account open. The Map API is a separate product with its own monthly minimum.
Do I need a subscription or a contract?
No. You add a card and are charged for what you used at the end of each month.
How does the volume discount work?
It is graduated. The first 2,000 calls in a calendar month are $0.15 each and every call after that is $0.11. The count resets each month.
What counts as a call?
One search request. A batch is billed per row. A registry search and a criminal search are separate calls.
Are there extra fees for photos, scoring or radius search?
No. Match scoring, photographs where a registry publishes them and radius search are part of a search call. Live re-verification, PDFs and monitors are the only add-ons, and each is priced above.
Why is a per-call price so much lower than a per-report price?
They are different products. A per-report price buys a finished consumer report and the regulated process around it. A per-call price buys a public-records lookup for your own software.
Can I get an enterprise rate?
Yes. At sustained high volume, contact us for a committed rate and invoicing.
Can I try it before paying anything?
Yes. Every new account gets 25 free calls with no card.
Pay for the calls you make, and nothing else
25 free calls to start. $0.15 a call after that, $0.11 past 2,000 a month.
The Offendersearch APIs
One account, one key, one bill — the sex offender registry and criminal records, side by side.
Sex offender registry
- Sex offender API — One call across 58 US sex offender registries, with scored matches and a citation on every record.
- Sex offender search API — Endpoints, request shapes, record fields, matching and batch, in detail.
- Sex offender database — The national registry data in one schema — photos, aliases, offenses, addresses.
- Registered offender database — What a registered offender record holds, and how its accuracy is measured.
- Bulk sex offender search — Screen a whole list of names in one upload or one API call.
- Sex offender registry API — Choose which of the 58 registries a search covers, and see which ones answered.
- Offender search API — The registry search and the criminal search side by side, on one key.
Criminal records
- Criminal records API — County, state and federal records — jail, prison, court and warrant — through one API.
- Criminal background check API — One cited answer per person for onboarding and screening flows.
- Criminal search API — The search endpoint itself: parameters, record types and coverage, call by call.
- Court records API — Criminal court cases with charges and a disposition on each charge.
- Arrest records API — County jail bookings: booking date, custody status, facility and photo link.
- Inmate search API — State prison and county jail custody, with sentence, release and parole dates.
- Background check API — The registry and criminal layers together, on one key and one bill.
- Employment background check API — The registry and criminal data layer for HR, ATS and screening platforms.
- Employment screening API — The stages of a hiring pipeline, and where criminal and registry checks sit in it.
- Bulk criminal record search — Run a list of names against criminal records in one call.
- Statewide criminal search — One state at a time: prison, court and warrant systems that cover the whole state.
- Federal criminal records — Federal criminal records through the same API, and what a federal search covers.
Build with it
- API documentation — Quickstart, every endpoint, the record object and the OpenAPI spec.
- Sex offender map API — Clusters, pins and names for your own map, and the full record when one is opened.
- Background check API pricing — $0.15 a call, $0.11 past 2,000 a month, 25 free calls to start — worked out by volume.
- Background check API integration — Keys, the first call, async and webhooks, batch, monitoring and errors, step by step.
- Free background check API — 25 free calls on real data, no card — what is included and what comes after.
- Background check API in Python — A working tutorial with requests: search, batch, async, errors and retries.
- Background check API in Node.js — A fetch client, response types, an Express webhook handler and retries.
- NSOPW API — Is there one? What exists, and a developer API for searching US registries.
- MCP server for offender search — Give Claude and other AI agents the same search as a tool.
- Integrations — Screening inside referral software — CarePort, ExtendedCare, Ensocare and Aidin.
- AI integration — Offender safety checks for AI agents and chatbots, with cited answers.
- Offendersearch vs offenders.io — A side-by-side comparison of the two registry APIs.
Screening and compliance
- Tenant background check — Screening applicants for a rental, and where an FCRA workflow is required.
- FCRA Partner Access — The FCRA workflow for hiring and tenant decisions — pricing by quote.
- FCRA-compliant background check data — Accuracy, disputes and permissible purpose for consumer reporting agencies.
- FCRA disputes API — Open, track and resolve a consumer dispute against a record.
- Sex offender monitoring — Watch a person or an address and get an alert when the registry changes.
- Tenant screening API — The registry and criminal layer for property software, with FCRA workflows for rental decisions.
- Non-FCRA background check API — What a public-records lookup may be used for, and when a decision needs FCRA instead.