Best Background Check Services 2026 (Tested & Reviewed)
Tried and tested, legitimate background check tools to help you verify people, protect your family, and stay safe in 2026.
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Choosing a background check service starts with knowing which type of check you actually need.
If you’re screening someone for a job, you need an employment-screening provider that handles candidate consent, reporting and the relevant compliance process. Checkr is our top choice for that job, with GoodHire offering a simpler route for smaller businesses and Certn standing out for modern, international screening.
If you’re trying to verify someone you’ve met online, reconnect with a relative or check publicly available information, you need a personal people-search service instead. TruthFinder gives you the deeper report, while PeopleFinders is the quicker and more affordable option for contact details and straightforward lookups.
Landlords have a separate set of legal and practical requirements. RentPrep is our dedicated tenant-screening recommendation.
We’ve tested the services on this page and compared what they returned, how useful the reports were, what was missing, how easy each platform was to use and what the final price looked like. This guide will help you choose the right type of check first, then the provider we’d use for that job.
Start with Checkr, GoodHire or Certn. These services are built for employment checks and include the workflows employers need to request consent and use the results appropriately.
Our first choice is Checkr.
Start with TruthFinder or PeopleFinders. These services search public and commercially available records for personal research, contact information and checking details about someone.
They must not be used to make decisions about employment, tenancy, credit or insurance.
Choose TruthFinder for the deeper report or PeopleFinders for a faster, lower-cost lookup.
Start with RentPrep. Tenant screening has its own reporting and legal requirements, so a general people-search subscription isn’t the right substitute.
Choose RentPrep for landlord and tenant-screening checks.
RentPrep — Best for landlord and tenant screening
These recommendations aren’t interchangeable. Use the employment providers for hiring, the personal-search services for personal research and RentPrep when you’re screening a tenant.
| Provider | Best for | What we found | Pricing and billing | Biggest limitation | Next step |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Checkr | Employers wanting the best overall screening workflow | We’ve used Checkr for real DSS hiring for more than a year. Setup took around 25 minutes, candidate tracking was easy to follow and 78% of our criminal-record checks completed within 24 hours. | Basic from $29.99, Essential from $54.99 and Complete from $89.99 per report. Pay as you go, with possible court and third-party fees. | Checks needing court records or extra verification can take longer. | Start a Checkr background check or read our Checkr review |
| GoodHire | Smaller businesses making occasional hires | I found the guided ordering and candidate self-service easier to manage without a dedicated HR team. The packages were clearly separated, and many of our reports returned within one to three business days. | Basic from $29.99, Essential from $59.99 and Complete from $94.99 per report. Additional fees can apply. | Slower searches can feel heavily automated when you need human help with an exception. | See GoodHire pricing or read our GoodHire review |
| Certn | International and cross-border hiring | Certn is the option I’d consider first when the candidate, employer or records sit in different countries. Its digital workflow is well suited to international screening, but I’d plan around the country and type of check rather than rely on one promised turnaround time. | Pay as you go with regional pricing. Canadian criminal checks start from CA$24.99, while employment and education verification start from CA$29.99. UK Basic DBS checks start from £31.50 and Standard DBS checks from £33.50. Pass-through fees may apply. | International employment and education verification can require additional documents and take considerably longer than straightforward domestic checks. | See Certn pricing |
| Provider | Best for | What we found | Pricing and billing | Biggest limitation | Next step |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TruthFinder | Detailed personal background searches | Across more than 15 searches over three weeks, it gave me the most context around each person and the deepest reports in the personal-search group. | The three-month people-search plan costs $28.33 a month and is billed at $84.99 every three months. It renews automatically. Separate reverse-phone, reverse-email, dark-web and PDF options may cost extra. | Its reports can include outdated or mismatched records, so important details still need verifying. | Visit TruthFinder or read our TruthFinder review |
| PeopleFinders | Fast, affordable personal lookups | Across 15 comparative searches using the same five people, it consistently returned results in under three minutes and surfaced phone and email details that some pricier services missed. | The three-day introductory offer costs $0.95 and then renews at $24.95 a month unless cancelled. | It’s quicker and cheaper than TruthFinder, but it doesn’t provide the same depth of surrounding context. | Search with PeopleFinders or read our PeopleFinders review |
| Provider | Best for | What stands out | Pricing and billing | Biggest limitation | Next step |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RentPrep | Landlord and tenant screening | RentPrep gives landlords the records needed for a tenancy decision without trying to repurpose a consumer people-search report. Its fuller screening route combines criminal and eviction information with judgments, bankruptcies and optional income or employment checks. | Full Background Check costs $29 and is landlord-paid. The Complete Background Check costs $49 and can be paid by the landlord or tenant. Income verification costs $10, while combined income and employment verification costs $15. | Income and employment verification can add friction for applicants, so I’d allow enough time for documents and follow-up. | See RentPrep packages |
I’ve used Checkr for real DSS hiring for more than a year. The first setup took me about 25 minutes, which was considerably less painful than I expected from an employment-screening platform.
Once candidates were moving through the system, I could see where each check was without chasing people manually. The dashboard made it clear who’d completed their information, which checks were still running and where something needed attention. That visibility became more useful as we moved beyond the first hire.
The speed is a big part of why Checkr remains my first choice. In our testing, 78 per cent of the criminal-record checks we ordered through Checkr were completed within 24 hours. It wasn’t perfect every time, particularly when a search needed court records or extra verification, but it gave me the best balance of speed, visibility and not having to babysit the process.
I also prefer Checkr when several candidates are moving through the same hiring process. Its automated invitations and status tracking remove more of the repetitive work than GoodHire’s more guided approach.
Checkr’s Basic package starts at $29.99 per report, Essential at $54.99 and Complete at $89.99. Court access and other third-party fees can increase the final price.
If I were screening regularly or wanted the strongest all-round employment workflow, I’d choose Checkr. A smaller business making occasional hires may find GoodHire easier to approach, but Checkr gives me more room to manage candidates without adding manual follow-up as hiring grows.
GoodHire felt easier to get into than most employment-screening platforms I’ve used. I didn’t need to spend ages working out which package did what, and once the candidate had their link, most of the process moved without much intervention from me.
The guided ordering is its biggest advantage. The packages are easy to distinguish, the candidate enters their own information and the dashboard keeps the employer updated without turning a straightforward hire into an HR project. Many of the reports we ordered returned within one to three business days.
That’s where I think GoodHire beats Checkr for some smaller businesses. If I were making occasional hires without a dedicated HR team, I’d rather have GoodHire’s guided process than pay for automation I wasn’t going to use. Checkr gives me more control when I’m managing several candidates, while GoodHire makes an individual check easier to start and follow.
The dashboard and status notifications usually make the process feel simple. The trade-off appears when a search needs extra verification. Those checks can take longer, and the experience can feel more automated when you need a person to help resolve an exception. No polished dashboard can make a court, school or previous employer respond immediately.
GoodHire’s Basic package starts at $29.99 per report, Essential at $59.99 and Complete at $94.99. Additional court or third-party fees may apply.
If you want a clear self-service process for occasional small-business hiring, GoodHire is the one I’d choose. If hiring is more frequent or you need stronger workflow automation, I’d move up to Checkr.
If I were hiring across borders, Certn is the one I’d look at first. Checkr and GoodHire are easier to understand for a straightforward US check, but Certn makes much more sense once the candidate, employer or records sit in different countries.
Certn supports screening across more than 200 countries and territories. I like that its candidate-first digital process is designed around those international checks rather than treating them as an awkward addition to a domestic service.
I also wouldn’t select it because of a headline turnaround time. Straightforward domestic or criminal searches can move quickly, while employment and education verification in another country may take days or considerably longer. Candidates can be asked for extra documents when records can’t be confirmed automatically, and the process then depends on institutions responding.
That unpredictability isn’t unique to Certn. It’s part of checking records across different legal systems, languages and institutions. I’d rather use a service built to manage that process than choose a simpler US platform and discover its international coverage was too limited after the candidate had already started.
Certn uses regional and pay-as-you-go pricing rather than one universal package. Canadian criminal checks start from CA$24.99, while employment and education verification start from CA$29.99. In the UK, Basic DBS checks start from £31.50 and Standard DBS checks from £33.50. International and pass-through charges depend on the country and records ordered.
For a straightforward US hire, I’d still choose Checkr or GoodHire. For a company recruiting across several markets, Certn is the more natural fit.
TruthFinder was the service I kept returning to when the first answer created another question. A phone number might lead to an address, the address to a possible relative and then to another record that needed checking.
Across more than 15 searches over three weeks, it consistently gave me more context than the cheaper lookup services. The reports brought together previous addresses, contact information, possible relatives and public-record matches in a way that made it easier to see how the different details might connect.
That didn’t make every result correct. Some information was old, and a matching name or address still needed checking before I treated it as belonging to the right person. The useful difference was having enough surrounding context to decide which details were worth verifying next.
PeopleFinders was quicker when I only wanted a number, email address or basic address history. TruthFinder was better when I needed to keep digging after the first match. I’d choose it for personal research, contact information and checking details about someone when a shallow lookup wasn’t enough.
The three-month people-search plan costs $28.33 a month and is billed at $84.99 every three months. It renews automatically. TruthFinder also sells separate reverse-phone, reverse-email, dark-web monitoring and report-download options, so I’d check the order summary before paying.
TruthFinder is a personal people-search service. Don’t use it for employment, tenant, credit, insurance or other decisions requiring a regulated consumer report.
PeopleFinders surprised me because the thing it did best wasn’t depth. It was speed.
I ran the same five people through 15 searches at peak times, off-peak and over a weekend. The results consistently came back in under three minutes. It also found phone and email details that some of the more expensive services missed.
That made it useful when I already had a name, number or address and wanted to connect it to the right person quickly. The reports were easier to scan than TruthFinder’s, and I didn’t have to work through as much surrounding information to reach the basic contact details.
I’d still choose TruthFinder when I wanted to investigate a person’s wider history. Its longer reports gave me more addresses, relatives and record context to compare. If I simply needed to identify a phone number, find current contact details or check an address connection, PeopleFinders was often the faster and cheaper route.
The introductory offer costs $0.95 for three days and then renews at $24.95 a month unless cancelled. I’d treat it as a subscription from the start rather than assuming the introductory payment buys a one-off report.
Like TruthFinder, PeopleFinders is for personal research. It isn’t an employment, tenant, credit or insurance screening service.
If I were screening a tenant, I’d use RentPrep rather than trying to make a people-search service do a job it wasn’t built for.
The fuller report is much closer to the information I’d want before making a tenancy decision. It can combine criminal and eviction records, judgments, bankruptcies and optional income or employment verification in one process. Reports are also reviewed by FCRA-certified screeners, which gives landlords more help interpreting possible record matches than a basic database search provides.
That depth is the main attraction. Landlords repeatedly favour RentPrep when they want more than a credit score or a quick identity match. I’d find that more useful than receiving a thin report quickly and then having to order separate checks elsewhere.
I’d allow extra time when income or employment verification is involved. Recent landlords have reported more friction in that part of the applicant workflow, and it’s exactly the sort of step I wouldn’t want to discover was slowing things down the day before I needed to make a decision.
The Full Background Check costs $29 and is paid by the landlord. The Complete Background Check costs $49 and can be paid by either the landlord or tenant. Income verification costs $10, while combined income and employment verification costs $15.
RentPrep is the separate landlord recommendation here because tenant screening is a regulated housing decision. TruthFinder and PeopleFinders may help with personal research, but they shouldn’t be used to decide whether somebody gets a home.
Start with the decision you’re making.
Employment, tenancy and personal research use different types of reports and follow different rules. A detailed people-search report may look useful, but it isn’t a legal substitute for an employment or tenant-screening service.
Once you’ve chosen the right category, compare
A longer report isn’t automatically a better report. Choose the service that answers your question, explains its limits and gives you enough information to verify the result.
Employment-screening providers usually charge per candidate or report. The advertised starting price may not include county court fees, motor-vehicle records, employment verification, education checks or international searches.
Personal people-search services usually use renewing subscriptions. A low-cost introductory search can become a monthly plan, so check the renewal date and full subscription price before paying.
Before choosing a service, check
TruthFinder and PeopleFinders are personal people-search services. Use them to research public information, identify contact details or investigate information connected to someone you’ve met.
Don’t use them to decide whether to employ someone, rent them a home, approve credit or provide insurance.
In the US, employers using a background-reporting company must obtain the candidate’s written permission and follow the Fair Credit Reporting Act when using the report. Checkr, GoodHire and Certn provide employment-screening workflows, but the employer remains responsible for using the results lawfully.
US landlords should use a proper tenant-screening service and follow federal, state and local requirements rather than relying on a personal people-search report.
In England and Wales, a Basic DBS check can be requested for any role, but Standard and Enhanced checks are only available for eligible positions and must go through an employer or other authorised organisation. Scotland and Northern Ireland use their own disclosure systems.
A background check can connect a person to records, addresses, contact details, employment information or criminal-history data available to that service. It can’t guarantee that every record is current, complete or connected to the correct person.
It also can’t prove that an online identity belongs to the person whose name or photographs appear on the account. A scammer can use a real person’s identity, copy their photographs or combine genuine details with an invented story.
Use the report to verify specific information and look for inconsistencies. Check names, dates, locations and other identifiers before treating a possible match as confirmed.
If you’re checking someone you met online, use how to verify someone’s identity online alongside the background report. If the profile itself looks suspicious, how to spot a catfish takes you through the photos, accounts and personal details worth checking.
For employment screening, Checkr is our top recommendation. It gave us the strongest combination of speed, usability, candidate experience and employer workflows.
Choose GoodHire if you run a smaller business and want a more guided self-service process.
Choose Certn if international hiring and a modern digital experience are higher priorities.
For personal research, choose TruthFinder when you want the deeper report or PeopleFinders when you need a faster, more affordable lookup.
Landlords should use RentPrep rather than a personal people-search service.
If you’re ready to screen a candidate, check current Checkr pricing. If you’re still comparing its reports, speed and limitations, read our tested Checkr review.
For a personal search, choose the provider based on depth. TruthFinder is the stronger option for a fuller report, while PeopleFinders is the better starting point for a specific name, phone number or address.
I don’t judge a background-check service by how many records it can cram into a report. I want to know whether I can make sense of what comes back and whether the process helps me reach the right next decision.
For people-search tools, I ran known people through the services and checked the addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, relatives and public records against information we could verify. I also repeated searches at different times and compared how much useful context each service returned around the same person.
For employment screening, I looked just as closely at the process around the report. I wanted to know how quickly I could place an order, what the candidate had to do, whether the dashboard made progress clear and how much manual chasing was still required.
I compared each service on
Price looks very different once you use these services. A $29.99 employment check can cost more after court fees or verification searches are added, while a $0.95 people-search offer can become a monthly subscription three days later. I include those details because they change which provider I’d choose.
I also keep the three types of service separate. Checkr, GoodHire and Certn are employment-screening platforms. TruthFinder and PeopleFinders are personal people-search services. RentPrep is built for landlord and tenant screening. They may surface some of the same records, but they aren’t interchangeable.
If you’re hiring a nanny, carer or another paid worker, use the employment-screening route rather than a personal people-search service.
Yes, background check services are legal in both the US and UK, but how you use them matters. In the US, employment, housing, and credit checks must comply with the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). In the UK, official checks are carried out through the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) and require the subject’s consent for anything beyond a Basic DBS check.
For professional use, services like Sterling and Checkr stand out for accuracy because they verify records directly with institutions and courthouses. For personal use in the US, TruthFinder and BeenVerified aggregate millions of records, though accuracy depends on the source. In the UK, a DBS check remains the gold standard for criminal history.
In the US, employers should use FCRA-compliant services such as Checkr, GoodHire, or Sterling, as they include consent management, compliance workflows, and verified education/employment history. In the UK, employers must use the DBS system, with Standard or Enhanced checks depending on the role, often via an umbrella provider.
In the US, costs vary from around $29 per report for professional checks to $26–35 per month for unlimited consumer searches. In the UK, a Basic DBS check is £21.50 when ordered directly through Gov.uk, while Enhanced checks via umbrella providers typically range from £60–£73.50 depending on the level of detail required.
For personal use in the US, consumer background check sites allow you to search public records without consent, but results cannot be used for hiring, housing, or credit decisions. In the UK, only a Basic DBS check can be self-requested, and employers must always obtain written consent for Standard or Enhanced DBS checks.
In the US, subscription-based services like BeenVerified or TruthFinder offer the best value for multiple searches, while one-off professional checks through GoodHire or Checkr start around $29. In the UK, the most affordable option is a Basic DBS check at £21.50 ordered directly through the government website.
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