Pricing
$5 per check. That's the whole model.
No monthly platform fee. No per-seat charges. No contracts. Pay only for the checks you run.
Pricing so simple it's almost embarrassing.
Pay $5 per check for screening. Everything else to run your whole hiring program is free.
Pay As You Go
Buy credits one at a time. No commitment, no expiry.
- Federal, state & county courts — 650M+ records
- All 50 state sex-offender registries
- FBI Most Wanted, OFAC & global watchlists
- Free biometric identity verification
- Human review of every record, FCRA-compliant
- Free address-history check on every application
Starter Pack · 10 Credits
$4.50 per check. Credits never expire.
- Everything in Pay As You Go
- 10 background check credits
- 10% savings vs single-check rate
- Credits roll over, never expire
- Bigger bundles up to 25% off in-app
- Usage dashboard & reporting
Free Perks
Every management feature, included. Unlimited admin users.
- Everything in Pay As You Go
- Candidate pipeline tracking
- Audit-ready PDF & CSV reports
- Live hiring compliance roster
- Automated re-screening alerts
- AI offer & policy assistant (Claude)
Screening is always pay-as-you-go. Every management feature is included free.
The Problem
Background check companies have been overcharging employers for years.
Here's something the industry doesn't advertise: the vast majority of background checks come back completely clean. A 2017 Urban Institute study of 1.7 million background checks found that roughly 94% returned no criminal finding. A separate University of Georgia study found that approximately 92% of U.S. adults have no felony conviction on record.¹ Most candidates are exactly who they say they are.
Yet employers are routinely charged $25, $40, even $80 per report — and that's before hidden fees. SHRM's own pricing analysis found that “comprehensive” packages routinely exceed $200 once state/federal add-ons and jurisdiction fees are factored in — for the same 6% chance of finding anything.² Some providers bundle checks you don't need. Others charge monthly platform fees on top of per-check costs. PreHireBadge was built to fix that. We designed our pricing around what a national criminal check actually costs to run — not what the market will tolerate. That number is $5.
¹ Urban Institute (2017), analysis of 1.7 million employment background checks; University of Georgia (2017), felony conviction prevalence study. ² SHRM, “How Much Should a Reliable Background Check Cost?”
The Old Way
Typical Provider
What employers are paying right now
- National criminal check$25–$80 / report
- Monthly platform fee$49–$199 / mo
- Address history check$5–$15 extra
- FCRA adverse action noticesExtra charge
- API & Webhook access$99+ / mo add-on
- NLP / AI interfaceNot available
Est. annual cost — 200 checks
~$9,200 / year
200 checks × $40 avg + $100/mo platform fee
PreHireBadge
What it should cost
Transparent pricing, no surprises
- National criminal check$5 / report
- Monthly platform feeFree
- Address history checkFree, always
- FCRA adverse action noticesIncluded
- API & Webhook accessIncluded
- NLP / AI interfaceIncluded
Est. annual cost — 200 checks
$990 / year
200 checks × $5. That's it.
FAQ
Everything employers want to know before they start screening candidates.
PreHireBadge charges $5 per background check with no monthly fee. There are no setup fees and no contracts — you pay only when you run a check. A 100-credit bundle is available for $375, bringing the per-check cost down to $3.75. Credits never expire.
Start screening candidates today.
Free account. No credit card required to get started. Your first check is $5, or grab the 10-credit Starter Pack for $45. Credits never expire.