Most of this market will not tell you a price, so any answer that quotes a single confident number is guessing. What can be said precisely is what the providers who do publish actually print, what those figures cover, and which add-ons reliably take an employer above the advertised floor. All three are below, with the figures quoted from each provider's own page.
The published figures, quoted
GoodHire publishes Basic starting from $29.99 a check, Essential from $59.99 and Complete from $94.99. Checkr publishes the same three figures per report. Ferretly publishes Professional starting at $29.00 a report and Fama publishes $34.99 for an Essential report, both of which are social media screening rather than criminal search. RentSpree, on the tenant side, publishes $39.99 for a standard screening report and $49.99 for a comprehensive one. Across the entry tiers that is a median of $29.99, a minimum of $29.00 and a maximum of $39.99.
Why twenty providers publish nothing
Every enterprise provider in this record keeps a live pricing page carrying no figure. HireRight, Sterling, First Advantage, Accurate, Cisive, Certiphi, DISA and the rest all sell configured programmes priced against hiring volume, search mix and integration work, and a single headline rate would misdescribe that. The consequence for a buyer is worth stating plainly: you cannot shortlist the enterprise tier on price before you speak to them, and if you hire in low volume the published-price providers will usually be both cheaper and faster to buy.
What takes you above the floor
In rough order of impact: additional county criminal searches, since most convictions are held at county level and each county is a separate search with its own access fee; employment and education verifications, which are priced individually and are the slow part; a motor vehicle record if the role involves driving; drug testing, which is a separate supply chain entirely; and federal district court searches. Ask any provider for a worked example rather than a rate card. One candidate, three counties across seven years, two verifications, one motor vehicle record produces a number you can actually compare.
Who pays
The employer. Charging an applicant for the cost of screening them is prohibited in several states and is a poor idea everywhere, because the report is obtained for your purposes rather than theirs. In tenant screening the position is different and an application fee is common, but many states cap it, require it to reflect actual cost plus reasonable administration, and in some cases require the unused portion to be refunded or a copy of the report to be provided on request.
Questions people ask about how much is a background check
How much does a background check cost?
Among the five providers on this site that publish a rate, advertised entry packages run $29.00 to $39.99 a report with a median of $29.99. Every one of those pages says starting, so it is a floor for the smallest configuration.
Why will most providers not publish a price?
Twenty of the twenty-five here keep a live pricing page carrying no figure. They sell configured programmes priced on volume, search mix and integration, so they quote rather than publish.
What makes a check more expensive?
Extra county criminal searches first, then verifications, then driving records, drug testing and federal court searches. County count is the biggest single driver because each county is a separate search with its own fee.
Does the applicant pay?
Not for employment screening. Charging an applicant is prohibited in several states and inadvisable everywhere. Tenant screening application fees are different and are capped or regulated in many states.