Identity Verification Pricing: Models and Typical Cost per Check

Why the headline price per check is rarely the price you pay

Most identity verification services quote a unit price, but your real cost depends on what counts as a "check", which attempts are billable, and how many customers need more than one check to get through. Two vendors with the same headline rate can produce very different invoices once retries, minimums and add-on screening are included.

This page covers market-wide pricing: the models vendors use, what drives the cost of each check type, the charges that surprise buyers, and a method for estimating monthly spend. For how verification works technically, see What Is Identity Verification? How Online ID Checks Work.

A note on figures. Vendor prices change often, differ by volume and region, and many vendors only publish them after a sales conversation. We do not quote competitor prices here because we cannot verify them as current. Where this page uses numbers, they are labelled illustrative and are not any vendor's price list. Always take figures from the vendor's own price page or written quote, and record the date you took them.

The three common pricing models

The models are not mutually exclusive. A common pattern is to start on pay-per-check while you validate conversion and fraud rates, then move to a tier or contract once volume is predictable enough that a commitment saves money rather than creating waste.

What drives cost per check by check type

A single "verification" is often several checks bundled together. Pricing follows the cost of the underlying data and processing, so the ordering below holds broadly across the market even though absolute prices vary.

In rough terms, public price pages and quotes in this market tend to sit between a few cents for lightweight lookups and database checks, and up to a few dollars for full document-plus-biometric verification. Treat that as an orientation range, not a benchmark, and confirm against current vendor pricing.

You can read more about each check type: eIDV, document authentication and biometric verification.

Match the check to the risk, not the other way round

The cheapest compliant answer is the lightest check that meets your risk assessment. The FATF standards promote a risk-based approach to customer due diligence (see FATF), and the NIST Digital Identity Guidelines describe identity proofing at different assurance levels, with stronger evidence and verification for higher levels (see NIST SP 800-63). Neither sets a price, but both support tiering your journey instead of running the most expensive check on everyone.

Which method is acceptable for your products and jurisdiction is a matter for your regulator and your own compliance team. Requirements change, so check the current rules with the regulator or legal counsel. This page is information, not legal advice.

Cost per verified customer, not cost per check

The number that matters for budgeting is the cost of getting one legitimate customer through, not the unit price of one attempt. Three factors move it:

• Escalation mix. If a database check clears most applicants and only the remainder go to document and selfie, your blended cost falls well below the full-verification price. This is why a sequenced flow usually beats a single-method flow on cost.
• Retry rate. Blurry photos, glare and expired documents cause retries. If each attempt is billed, a retry rate of 15% means you pay about 15% more on that step.
• Abandonment. A step that is cheap but loses applicants has a hidden cost in acquisition spend. This is not on the invoice, but it belongs in the comparison.

Hidden costs to ask about before signing

• Setup and integration fees. One-off charges for onboarding, custom workflows or sandbox access.
• Minimum commitments. Annual or monthly minimums you pay whether or not you reach the volume.
• Billing for failed or abandoned checks. Ask exactly when a check becomes billable: on session start, on submission, or only on a returned result.
• Retries and re-submissions. Whether a second attempt by the same user is a new charge.
• Separate screening fees. AML screening and ongoing monitoring are frequently priced apart from identity checks.
• Data source surcharges. Some countries or data sources cost more than the base rate.
• Support and SLA tiers. Faster support may sit behind a higher plan.
• Renewal terms. Auto-renewal, notice periods and rate increases.
• Manual review. Cases the system refers for human review cost staff time, even if the vendor does not charge for them. Case tooling can reduce that; see case review.

How to estimate monthly cost

Use this sequence with quotes from each vendor you are comparing:

1. Estimate monthly applicants who reach the verification step.
2. Decide which checks each applicant type needs, and the share escalating to stronger checks.
3. Multiply by each check's unit price.
4. Add the retry rate on the billable steps.
5. Add screening, monitoring and any fixed fees, then compare with any minimum commitment.

Illustrative example (hypothetical prices, not a vendor's rates). Suppose 10,000 applicants a month, an eIDV check at $0.20 run on all of them, and 40% escalating to document plus selfie at $1.50.

• eIDV: 10,000 × $0.20 = $2,000
• Document plus selfie: 4,000 × $1.50 = $6,000
• Retries: 15% of 4,000 = 600 extra attempts × $1.50 = $900
• Total: $8,900, or about $0.89 per applicant, before screening and fixed fees

Change the escalation share from 40% to 25% and the total drops noticeably; change the retry rate and it moves again. That sensitivity is why you should model your own mix rather than compare headline rates. For a worked estimate using ScreenlyyID's own rates, see the KYC Cost Calculator guide (coming soon).

ScreenlyyID pricing

ScreenlyyID offers identity verification (document authentication, biometric and liveness checks, and eIDV database checks), AML, sanctions and PEP screening, address, email and phone validation, BIN lookup, and IP and device intelligence through one API, with self-serve sign-up. Current plans and rates are published on the ScreenlyyID pricing page (also at /pricing/), which is the only source we treat as authoritative for our prices. We do not reproduce the figures here so that this page cannot go out of date.

When you compare ScreenlyyID with another vendor, use the same questions: what triggers a billable check, whether retries are charged, what the minimum commitment is, and whether screening is included. You can review the identity verification product and AML screening to see which checks you would actually be buying.

Buying versus building

If you are weighing vendor fees against the cost of running verification yourself, that is a different decision with different costs. It is covered in Build vs Buy KYC: In-House Verification or a Platform? (coming soon). Returning to the wider topic, the identity verification hub links to the related guides.

Checklist for comparing quotes