Checkr Pricing 2026: Cost per Hire With Passthrough Fees

Prices checked on Checkr's pricing page, passthrough fee page and fee estimator, October 16, 2026 · Research-based guide, not hands-on testing · Not legal advice

Checkr pricing starts at $29.99 per report for Basic, $59.99 for Essential and $94.99 for Complete, but the price you actually pay per hire depends on where your candidate has lived. Courts, DMVs and verification databases charge access fees that Checkr adds to the invoice at cost. In the four hires we priced below with Checkr's own fee estimator, those fees ranged from $0 for a retail associate in Ohio to between $199 and $319 for a bookkeeper who had lived in New York and New Jersey, more than the package itself.

This guide shows every list price, explains where passthrough fees come from, and works out what a single hire and a year of hiring cost. For other guides on screening and hiring software, start at the Saazora HR and hiring tools hub.

Checkr pricing per report in October 2026

Every workforce price on Checkr's page is marked "starting from", with an asterisk that points to passthrough fees.

Identity verification now runs first on Essential and Complete. The candidate submits a government ID and a live selfie on a phone before any search starts, and Checkr's identity verification page says "failed or incomplete verifications prevent a background check from starting", with up to three resubmission attempts. So on those two packages a failed ID check stops the order before county or state searches run (checked October 22, 2026).

US dollars before passthrough fees and tax, from checkr.com/pricing, checked October 16, 2026. Prices are unchanged from our October 10 and 15 checks.

Checkr's small business page says screenings are pay-as-you-go "with no contracts or minimums", and its signup page says there are no sign-up fees. So the only recurring cost is the reports you order. If you mainly want the deal summary, our Checkr offers page with free setup and package prices keeps it short.

What passthrough fees are and who sets them

Passthrough access fees are what courts, DMVs and third-party databases charge to release a record. Checkr's fee page says they "are standard across the industry" and that no background check provider is exempt. Checkr says it passes them on "at cost, with no markup", and the same page adds that you pay any taxes on them.

Three kinds of fee affect most hires:

• County court fees. Essential and Complete search every county that shows up in the candidate's SSN trace address history (Checkr's county check article describes this as the "unlimited option"). Each county that charges a fee adds it. Checkr's fee data lists 798 county fee entries across 27 states, from $0.45 to $95.
• State court fees. These apply to statewide criminal searches, which come with Complete or as an add-on. 24 states charge one in Checkr's table. New York is the highest at $95; Kansas and Vermont ($30 each) and Tennessee ($29) come next.
• DMV fees. Every state DMV charges for a driving record, so an MVR always costs more than $9.50. Among the 50 states and DC, the fee runs from $2.00 in California to $25.00 in Delaware and Oklahoma.

Where a candidate has lived matters as much as the package. In Checkr's data, Georgia, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Kentucky list no county court fees at all, and Texas lists only two counties (Parmer, $5, and Refugio, $10). New York sits at the other end: Kings, Queens, Bronx, Nassau, New York County and several other counties list $95 each. North Carolina has the most fee-charging counties (100), but each charges $1.50.

Four hires priced out, fee by fee

We put four common small-business hires through Checkr's own passthrough fee estimator, then added the list prices. These are Saazora calculations, not Checkr quotes. Our assumptions: the candidate's SSN trace returns only the counties named; the MVR is pulled from the state named; each package costs its "starting from" price; tax is left out.

Saazora calculations: Checkr list prices (checkr.com/pricing) plus the estimator's output on checkr.com/pricing/passthrough-fees-overview, both on October 16, 2026. Your candidate's real address history decides the actual fees.

The Ohio hire costs exactly the list price. The driver's fees are modest, but every DMV charges, so an MVR always costs more than $9.50. The bookkeeper's fees are higher than the Complete package, mostly because New York charges $95 at both the state and the county level. If a role does not need a statewide search, Essential instead of Complete would drop the $100 in state fees for this candidate, along with $35 of package price.

The Basic example is a useful warning. Basic has no county search in its package list, yet Checkr's estimator still shows a $0 to $14 county criminal range for Suwannee County. Treat Basic's $29.99 as a floor, not a fixed price.

A year of hiring: how much passthrough adds to the budget

A Saazora calculation for a business making ten hires a year from the examples above: six associates like the Ohio hire, three drivers like the Colorado hire and one bookkeeper like the New York hire.

Passthrough fees make up 27% to 35% of this example budget, and the single New York hire accounts for about 79% to 86% of them. The average cost per hire comes to $92.65 to $104.65, against $67.59 if you only add up list prices. A budget built from list prices alone would be about $250 to $370 short.

Add-on fees that are easy to miss

Checkr's fee page lists several charges outside county, state and DMV fees. They only apply when you order the matching check:

• Employment verification: third-party database fees of $17.95 to $119.95 when records sit outside Checkr's own database. If Checkr's direct-match payroll database is used, the fee is a one-time $58 "no matter how many times we use it". If it is not, fees can stack across several past employers.
• Education verification: $3.95 to $50.00, set by each school or the database used.
• DOT employment verification: $7.00 to $70.00 for transportation roles.
• Drug tests: a $90 after-hours fee for tests on weekdays between 7pm and 7am or at weekends, and a $10 per-candidate fee for random selection.
• Pennsylvania PATCH: the state police charge $22 for the PATCH criminal history database.

Two items have no separate fee: Checkr says international criminal and adverse media checks, and its Continuous Crim monitoring, include passthrough fees in their price.

Which package a role actually needs

The cheapest saving is not over-ordering: write a screening policy per role, then match the package to it.

• Basic covers national database, registry and watchlist searches only.
• Essential adds county court searches. Checkr's criminal background check page calls county records "often the most complete source of criminal histories", which is why many employers start here.
• Complete adds state and federal searches. Use it when your policy or industry rules call for them, and remember that it brings state court fees in 24 states.
• Add-ons such as an MVR or drug test belong only to roles that need them.

Whatever you choose, apply the same package to every candidate for the same role. The EEOC and FTC's joint guide tells employers to "apply the same standards to everyone".

Ways to keep Checkr's cost per hire down

Checkr publishes no coupon code, so the savings come from how you order:

• Use the free setup and pay per report. With no contract or minimums, quiet hiring months cost nothing.
• Run the estimator before you order. Enter the candidate's states and counties to see likely fees, especially for New York, Arizona (where some counties list $28 or $58) or Michigan.
• Do not default to Complete. In our bookkeeper example, Complete's state searches added $100 in fees on top of a $35 higher package price.
• Use the right product line. Landlords should use the tenant packages from $24.99, not workforce packages. Individuals who want to see their own record can use Checkr Personal, which starts at $49.99, with their own consent.

Saazora may earn a commission if you sign up through the link below, at no extra cost to you.

To price your own first hire, set up a free Checkr account and order a single report (affiliate link). Checkr's help center says new accounts must be credentialed before they can request background checks, and you need a permissible purpose under the FCRA, such as employment.

The FCRA steps that come with every order

Paying for a report does not end your obligations. Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the employer has its own duties. This is not legal advice; ask an employment lawyer about your situation, especially for state and city rules. The federal steps, as the FTC and EEOC describe them:

1. Disclose and get consent. Tell the candidate in writing that you may use a background report. The FTC says the notice "must be in writing and in a stand-alone format", not buried in a job application. Get their written permission.
2. Certify your purpose. Confirm to the screening company that you gave notice, got permission, follow the FCRA and will not misuse the information under equal opportunity laws.
3. Send a pre-adverse action notice. Before deciding against someone because of the report, give them a copy of the report and "A Summary of Your Rights Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act", published by the CFPB. This gives the person a chance to explain or dispute.
4. Send an adverse action notice. After the decision, tell the person it was based on the report, give the screening company's name, address and phone number, state that the company did not make the decision, and explain their right to dispute and to get a free copy of the report within 60 days.

The decision is always yours, not the screening company's: the FTC's required notice says exactly that. Checkr's platform includes adverse action workflows, but a person on your team still decides. The EEOC adds that hiring records must be kept for at least one year, and reports must be disposed of securely afterwards. Many states and cities also have fair-chance or "ban the box" rules that limit when and how criminal history can be considered; check the rules where you hire.

Checkr pricing questions

Is there a Checkr coupon code?

No. We found no public coupon code on October 16, 2026. The real savings are free account setup, pay-as-you-go pricing and choosing the smallest package your policy needs.

Why is my invoice higher than the package price?

Because passthrough fees from courts, DMVs and databases are added to it, plus any tax on those fees. They depend on where the candidate has lived and which checks you ordered. In our examples they ranged from $0 to $319 per hire.

How we researched these numbers

On October 16, 2026, we read Checkr's pricing page, its passthrough fee page and the fee data behind it, its small business and signup pages and its county background check article. We then ran four scenarios through Checkr's public fee estimator and recorded each result. Every cost per hire and yearly total above is Saazora's own calculation from those figures. We did not order background checks or open a Checkr business account, so this is a research-based guide, not a test. Some third-party listings still show older prices (Capterra showed $54.99 and $89.99 for the two upper packages on October 16), so check the date on any price you see. FCRA steps come from the FTC's "Using Consumer Reports: What Employers Need to Know", the joint EEOC and FTC guide Background Checks: What Employers Need to Know and the CFPB's Summary of Rights. If you also need software to manage applicants, our Breezy HR applicant tracking deals page covers one option. More on our process: Saazora's review and research process.

Sources (checked October 16, 2026): Checkr pricing page, passthrough access fees page and fee estimator, small business page, Square signup page, "County Background Checks" article; FTC, "Using Consumer Reports: What Employers Need to Know" (updated August 4, 2020); EEOC and FTC, "Background Checks: What Employers Need to Know"; CFPB, "A Summary of Your Rights Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act".

Research-based guide, not hands-on testing and not legal advice. Checkr did not pay for or review this article.