Best Background Check Site

GoodHire is both a consumer reporting agency and the best background check site for a company. As the name suggests, it specializes in providing background screening services looking into would-be employees, allowing employers access to all the relevant information on people applying for a job at their company.

Features

GoodHire is a company dedicated to providing extensive employee screening services. It is FCRA-approved, meaning you can safely use the information provided in its reports to determine whether you’ll hire someone or not. This also means that the information it provides has to be extremely accurate: GoodHire boasts a dispute rate of just 0.05% on the information it provides.

Naturally, GoodHire isn’t a cheap background check service. The company’s offer isn’t really suitable for running one or two checks, although it offers that option as well. It allows companies to run quick and efficient background checks by giving them access to a customizable interface and automating their workflow.

GoodHire’s employment background check covers a lot of different types of information, depending on the plan you opt for. These range from basic information checks to credit checks, criminal and court records, employment and reference verification, healthcare sanctions, and even background checks for international employees.

The amount of information provided, coupled with extreme accuracy, is what makes GoodHire worthy of the mantle of the best site for a criminal background check and official background checks in general.

Furthermore, GoodHire claims that most of its results come in less than a minute, and the company’s API integrations allow HR departments to integrate GoodHire’s search engine with their own software seamlessly.

Pricing

There are four pricing plans, each one bringing more screening possibilities to the table than the last. The first three are tailored to those performing no more than 25 checks per year, but the last option expands on that. On top of these costs, there is a $49.99 setup fee, so if you need the best free background check site, keep looking.

• Basic – $29.99 per background check. Includes SSN trace, a nationwide criminal database search, and a National Sex Offender Registry search.
• Standard – $54.99 per check. Everything from the Basic package + a domestic watchlist search and a county criminal court search.
• Premium – $79.99 per check. Everything from the Standard package + education and employment verification.
• Custom – GoodHire offers to create a custom plan for you. You can negotiate services and get a quote by contacting the company.

The Standard and Premium plans might have third-party fees from various institutions, although these won’t be charged without your prior approval. That’s the cost of in-depth FCRA-approved searches, which are part of why GoodHire is also the best criminal background check site.

Final Thoughts

GoodHire is the optimal choice for companies looking to get quick, FCRA-approved background checks for employee screening. While these services don’t come cheap, the quality of results is unmatched by GoodHire’s competitors.

Instant Checkmate is the first item on our best site to run a background check list. It performs background checks by scanning various public databases to create comprehensive reports containing all the data it could acquire. While the databases it uses are freely accessible to anyone who wants to take a look, what would otherwise take hours of manual searching can supposedly be obtained in 10 minutes with Instant Checkmate. Aside from some dubious marketing practices, Instant Checkmate is a tried and true background checker.

Features

Instant Checkmate’s site follows the traditional UI layout found on the best online background check websites. As soon as you enter the platform, you’re greeted by the USA people search bar in the middle of the screen. On the top bar, you can swap between People Search – a source of general info on a given person without specific constraints – and Criminal Search, which encompasses warrants, criminal or arrest records, and more.

Instant Checkmate does not scan any hidden or private databases – all the records it compiles are public and can be otherwise accessed by anyone. However, getting all that data yourself would take hours or days. By using this background checker, you’re effectively letting Instant Checkmate do the legwork for you.

What makes Instant Checkmate possibly the best background check service is the sheer amount of information included in its reports. These reports include basic information such as name, age, possible relatives, contact information, date of birth, location, and social media accounts. Furthermore, you’ll find criminal history data regarding arrests, warrants, or convictions. Instant Checkmate also scans the National Sex Offender Registry, displays employment history, and tells you whether the contact has had any bankruptcies, evictions, or other potentially unsavory dealings in the past.

While the UI is flashy and fairly pleasant to use, conducting a search via Instant Checkmate is far from instantaneous. Although it’s considered by many to be the best background check site, it takes several minutes to several hours for you to get your results. There are various prompts during the search process that you have to answer to refine your search, so you have to keep an eye on it the whole time.

Instant Checkmate clearly states that it is not a consumer reporting agency and that the data gathered through its site cannot be used for selection purposes.

Pricing

Instant Checkmate does not display its pricing outright – it doesn’t even tell you that the service will cost you money until after you go through the complete search process. However, this somewhat underhanded approach to billing is the industry standard. The prices are nothing to sneeze at, either: though possibly the best site to check a person’s background legally, it’s on the expensive side.

You can sign up for a five-day trial for $1, but the regular cost of Instant Checkmate’s services is $34.78 per month, with discounted fees if you subscribe for longer.

Final thoughts

Instant Checkmate provides accurate data packaged in easy-to-read reports. However, getting results takes considerable time and the company doesn’t display its pricing transparently.

While many background check sites employ fear-inducing marketing tactics, scaring you with the prospect of meeting or working with potential serial killers or hardened criminals if you don’t run a background check beforehand, Spokeo focuses on connecting people. And unlike other platforms on our best background check site list, what it lacks in detailed criminal background checks, it makes up for in customer-friendly pricing.

Features

Spokeo’s site is fairly simple in design. The UI is minimalistic, with a single bar in the middle of the screen used for any type of search. True to its utilitarian design, it gets the job done quickly.

You run a people search by entering either the person’s name, email address, phone number, or physical address. Once you type in your search parameters, you’ll receive a list of matching results. Besides the first and last name, every result includes state and county information, as well as age, which helps you pinpoint whether you’ve found the right person.

Like other platforms in the best background check site race, Spokeo’s reports contain a treasure trove of useful information about the people you look for. The data found in the reports often include personal details like relationship status, contact information, location history, social media profiles, and court records.

We were pretty amazed by the speed at which Spokeo retrieves results. It only takes 10-15 seconds for it to compile information and present you with a report. As far as the quality of its data is concerned, Spokeo can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with most other names on our list.

However, Spokeo is definitely not the best site for a background check for renters or employers, nor can its data be used for those purposes. After all, Spokeo is not a consumer reporting agency as defined by the FCRA.

Pricing

Like most background check sites, Spokeo obscures its pricing until you conduct your first search. You’ll be pleased to know that a monthly membership costs $13.95 – significantly cheaper than its competitors. If you want access for longer, you can subscribe for a lower monthly price. However, if your search is more of a one-time thing, you can choose to purchase individual reports for as little as $0.95.

Final thoughts

While Spokeo won’t get you more detailed reports than its competitors, it will provide them in a much quicker time frame and for significantly less money.

TruthFinder is the best free background check site on our list. While it does have a subscription-based service that unlocks full reports and an extensive background check, it offers its People Search free of charge. Additionally, it has features like the dark web scan, which helps it stand out from the competition.

Features

TruthFinder is not a consumer reporting agency, either. While it does scan official government databases and archives and strives to provide the most accurate information possible, this data cannot be used for screening candidates. However, it is widely considered to be the best site to check criminal background thanks to the in-depth reports it compiles.

In addition to criminal background checks encompassing previous arrests, warrants, and so forth, TruthFinder also provides access to court filings, a variety of personal information like names of relatives, date of birth, bankruptcies, tax liens, weapons permits, property records, and much more. However, this kind of federal background check is a paid option.

The free People Search only provides you with tidbits of basic information, but that can also be extremely useful if you’re trying to locate a lost relative or get in contact with a former colleague. In our opinion, this makes TruthFinder potentially the best site to do a background check, as most of its competitors tend to be much stingier. TruthFinder also gives you pointers on how to obtain the various public documents yourself, should you wish to do so.

Furthermore, TruthFinder allows you to conduct a dark web scan. This search engine is used to see if your personal data has been leaked on the dark web – a great addition to the usual search options.

Speed-wise, TruthFinder is smack bang in the middle – not particularly fast, but on par with its paid competitors. The accuracy of the information provided is its strong suit, made more interesting with facts not usually on offer, like astrological compatibility.

Pricing

By now you’re probably used to the fact that even the best criminal background check site obscures its pricing until you run an actual background check, and the same is true of TruthFinder.

The monthly fee for unlimited searches is $27.78, or you can get a two-month bundle for $46.04 ($23.02 per month). You can also buy a reverse phone number check membership for $4.99/mo.

Final thoughts

While similar to other background check services, TruthFinder stands out with its dark web search, greater transparency, and free People Search.

BeenVerified is a fairly popular background check site that helps you find who you’re looking for. Like many a contender for the title of best site for a background check, it doesn’t provide any information that you couldn’t get otherwise, but it does save you an incredible amount of time and effort by compiling all this data and presenting you with complete reports.

Features

BeenVerified is not a consumer reporting agency, and the site has multiple disclaimers stating this to avoid any confusion or improper use. As such, you are not allowed to use the information acquired via BeenVerified for employee or tenant screening, loan approval, and so forth. To address those needs, look for the best background check site for landlords or other specialist companies.

These disclaimers are important, as there has been legal action in the past against sites that failed to make this distinction clear. Before you run your search on BeenVerified, you have to comply with FCRA regulations for using the provided data.

While a decade ago you’d be forced to personally scour courts, police stations, and other government institutions to get this info, now most of it can be obtained online. Still, it would take an incredible amount of time to obtain it, so BeenVerified does this for you – for a price.

It may not be the best background check site for employers, nor can it legally be used that way, but BeenVerified does provide you with a variety of potentially useful knowledge. This includes addresses, phone numbers, social media accounts, photos, and criminal/court records.

One significant pitfall of BeenVerified is its slow searching pace: During our test, we waited for 20+ minutes to get a report. Still, this doesn’t seem too unreasonable considering how long it would take to manually rifle through all those databases.

Pricing

After the site runs its seemingly free criminal background check and other scans, you’re greeted by the payment page – a trick we’ve already seen with Instant Checkmate and the other best employment background check site options.

BeenVerified charges a monthly fee of $26.89, for which you get access to unlimited searches. The price goes down to $17.48 per month if you subscribe for three months ($52.44 in total).

Final thoughts

Sourcing its info from public government databases, BeenVerified provides mostly accurate data and is cheaper than Instant Checkmate. However, it suffers from the same pitfalls – slow speed and a lack of transparency.