There is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question, as the cost of a background report varies significantly depending on the information that is under investigation. In this post, we will delve into the costs of the different services available through backgroundchecks.com.

Usually, when someone asks about this cost, they are referring to the cost of the most common type of pre-employment investigation: the criminal report. Because there are so many different criminal background checks, it can be challenging to find a quick answer.

A county crime history search will carry one cost, while a national criminal report will have a completely different price. The most thorough criminal reports often include information from multiple crime history searches, meaning that the final price will be a combination of the costs of individual searches. 

Keep these factors in mind while reviewing our pricing details below.

Employers will often start by running county criminal reviews in the location of their premises. Since most criminal records are initially filed at the county level, county courthouses often offer the most up-to-date version of a person’s crime history, albeit without the geographic reach of a nationwide search.

A county crime history search has a base price, and additional court fees may apply. In New York, for example, court access fees can raise the total well above the base.

Many businesses use address searches to find out where their job candidates have lived in the past and then use those addresses to conduct county crime history searches in multiple areas. We offer an address history search, US OneTRACE, priced separately from criminal searches.

Statewide criminal reports involve a search of state criminal repositories, which different counties report into semi-regularly. While not all counties are vigilant about reporting their latest criminal filings to a repository, a state search can yield information from several counties in the state for about the cost of a county report.

At BackgroundChecks.com, state-level searches have their own base price. Additional court access fees may apply.

Not to be confused with a multi-jurisdictional or national search, federal reports involve conducting searches of individual U.S. District Court indices. This report works similarly to a county crime history search, but it finds federally prosecuted criminal records. Traditional county or state searches will never return information about federal crimes. 

Our federal criminal search has a base price, with additional court fees where the court charges them.

Employers regularly use our US OneSEARCH database, a proprietary multi-jurisdictional database that spans more than 650 million criminal records from counties, departments of correction, administrative offices of courts, and offender registries throughout the country. A search of the database for business use and other professional purposes is priced separately, with instant results in many cases.

Want to see what employers are seeing when they order a crime history report on you? Run a history search on yourself with our Personal background screening service.

This national crime report is a search of our US OneSEARCH crime history database, which includes over 650 million criminal records from all 50 states plus U.S. territories such as Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, and Guam. The search also looks at national sex offender registries from all 50 states. A personal self-report is priced separately from employer packages.

The biggest factor that affects the cost is the possible additional fees, which vary from one court or repository to the next. Some courts have no fees for conducting searches; others, such as New York, involve steeper fees.

Because prices can vary so significantly from one court to the next, backgroundchecks.com starts with a base price on each report but makes it clear that additional fees may apply. When we incur fees while running a history search on a client’s behalf, we charge the client accordingly.

The other significant variable with cost is the number of reports that you are running. Most employers aren’t running just one type of crime history search but are instead adding additional layers of investigation (such as searches in other counties or searches of our proprietary database) to ensure a broader and more accurate report.

Prices will also fluctuate if you decide to add extra non-criminal assessments, such as verification searches for education, past employment, references, or professional licenses. Education, employment, and reference verifications are priced per search. Professional license verification pricing (if offered) is separate.

Another factor that can affect the cost of a screening is bundling. At backgroundchecks.com, we offer three primary packages:

• is a bundle that starts with a Social Security Number review to pull all of the names or aliases (including maiden names and other legal name changes) associated with an SSN. We then run separate US OneSEARCH reports for each name variation. Package description kept; dollar removed. See order flow.

• includes all the benefits of the Instant Criminal+ package, plus a county crime history search in the county where the candidate has lived most recently. We run this county search using the name that the client provides. Bundle description kept; dollar removed. See order flow.

• includes all the benefits of the Instant Criminal+ package, plus an address review and a criminal records search of all the counties where the candidate has lived within the past seven years. Package description kept; dollar removed. See order flow.

We also offer packages specifically designed for industry sectors (Staffing, Construction or Manufacturing, Retail, and Volunteer Organizations), and custom search packages (including custom bundles, volume-based pricing, and drop-off searches) that deliver unique benefits for clients.

To learn how to get the maximum value out of your next investigation investment, contact us today.