Contractor screening cost planner
Separate what contractors pay at checkout from the verification charges your organization budgets for each month.
Short answer
What costs stay with the organization when contractors pay for background checks?
The contractor pays the selected package and applicable initial court access fees. The organization pays later county verification of nationwide database records and the access fees for that verification, billed monthly. This planner uses published service pricing and the existing fee schedule, with SafestHires’ 5% database-record planning estimate adjustable to your experience. It is not a quote or permission to charge workers.
Initial order
This scenario uses one jurisdiction for all initial searches. For multiple counties or states, calculate separate scenarios. Service pricing uses the state rate; access fees use the selected county or state default.
Later database-record verification
5% is SafestHires’ planning estimate, not an industry statistic or guaranteed outcome. Without a Nationwide Criminal Database Search, this later-cost scenario is zero.
Default verification service estimate: $13.32 per record from county pricing. Confirm your actual price; later per-record charges are not automatically given a package volume discount.
Who pays the initial and later charges?
The contractor pays the package and applicable initial court access fees when placing the order. Later county-court verification of records revealed by the Nationwide Criminal Database Search, plus applicable access fees for that verification, is billed monthly to the requesting organization. We cannot charge the contractor’s card a second time.
For planning, SafestHires estimates that about 5% of orders reveal a record in the Nationwide Criminal Database Search—about five orders in 100 on average. This is a company estimate, not a guaranteed rate; an order can reveal more than one record.
Tell contractors about possible initial court access fees before payment. Fees vary by jurisdiction and can reach $100 in the published county schedule. Use the access-fee lookup for the places being searched; later verification access fees are paid by the organization.
Estimate both sides with the contractor screening cost planner and explore the contractor onboarding workflow map. Service prices come from the pricing calculator; jurisdiction fees come from the access-fee lookup. Confirm your per-record verification price in a written quote.
Example results
These scenarios are fictional. Each result below is what the tool returns for those exact inputs.
100 orders · Bronx scenario
Inputs
- • SSN trace, national database and one county search
- • 5% flagged orders; one record each
- • Bronx for initial and later access fees
Result
$118.97 contractor initial per order; $566.60 organization monthly
Five expected records × ($13.32 service + $100 access fee). Initial package uses the 100-order service tier; access fees are not discounted.
How the tool works
- • Initial package = selected search quantities × existing service prices, less the pricing calculator’s monthly volume tier.
- • Known initial access fees use the same jurisdiction lookup as the access-fee calculator and are added to contractor payment.
- • Expected records = orders × database-record percentage × records per flagged order. Organization budget = expected records × (verification service price + verification access fee).
- • Inputs remain in your browser; print and CSV are generated there.
Limits and exclusions
- • 5% is a company planning estimate. Actual frequency, records and jurisdictions can differ.
- • State service prices are estimates, not a confirmed per-record quote. Missing access fees produce an incomplete total.
- • No automated payment, order placement, legal clearance, card recharge or hiring decision occurs here.
- • Other third-party fees are excluded. Fractional records represent expected averages, not actual billable events.
Primary sources
- SafestHires published service prices
- SafestHires supplied court access-fee schedule
- SafestHires contractor-payment arrangement
Links checked November 9, 2026.