Checkr vs Certn (2026): Price per Hire, Role by Role

Research-based comparison built from each company's public pages: Saazora did not open an account or order a check with Checkr or Certn for this article · Prices read on checkr.com/pricing and on Certn's US and Canada pricing pages on October 30, 2026 · US prices in US dollars, Canada prices in Canadian dollars as Certn prints them · Not legal advice · We may earn a commission if you sign up for Checkr through links on this page.

Checkr vs Certn comes down to the role you are filling. At list price on October 30, 2026, Certn was cheaper for an hourly hire with a county search and an ID check ($53.49 vs $59.99), for an office hire with one employer and one degree verified ($79.99 vs $84.99) and for a US hire who has lived in Canada ($71.48 vs $86.99). Checkr was cheaper for a driver, because its driving record costs $9.50 against Certn's $25.99 ($69.49 vs $79.48). Across a sample year of 32 mixed hires the gap is about $121 in Certn's favor, before court and DMV fees. Certn also prices checks for candidates who live in Canada in Canadian dollars; Checkr's posted Canada price is a single $27.00 criminal check in US dollars.

Below, each of the four hires is priced line by line from the two companies' own pages, with "not published" wherever a price is not public. We also list the places where Certn's own pages give different prices or names for the same thing, because that changes what you should ask before signing up. If you are still choosing between more than two providers, start with our roundup of Checkr alternatives with posted prices.

What each company posts: the price list behind every hire

Both companies sell pay-per-check background screening with a self-serve sign-up and a sales-led enterprise tier. Checkr sells three tiered packages and lets you add checks on top. Certn's US page sells three criminal packages plus single checks, and its top package bundles verifications rather than more court searches.

From checkr.com/pricing, checkr.com/pricing/international and certn.co/us/pricing, read October 30, 2026. Certn's US pricing page metadata shows it was last modified October 15, 2026. Checkr's prices are "starting from" figures. Fees and tax excluded.

Two structural differences drive every total below. First, Certn's cheapest package leaves the county search to Certn's system, and its page does not say how often that $9.99 charge applies or whether it is per county. Checkr's Essential runs county searches with no count limit. Second, Certn puts verifications inside a package, while Checkr prices each verification by lookback or by number of degrees. Which of those you prefer depends on the role, which is why the rest of this page goes one hire at a time. For every Checkr fee in one place, including pass-through fees, see our Checkr pricing guide.

Hire 1: an hourly worker who needs a county search and an ID check

Think of a warehouse associate, a retail clerk or a front-desk hire. A common policy for these roles is a criminal search that reaches county courts, plus a check that the person is who they say they are. Here is how that order looks at each company.

Saazora arithmetic from list prices, October 30, 2026. Court fees may be added at either company.

Like for like, Certn is $6.50 cheaper per hire. The bigger difference is in the budget order: Certn's Core screen costs less than half of Checkr's Basic, but whether the county search runs is decided by Certn "where applicable". If your written policy says every candidate gets a county court search, compare Essential with Complete, not with Core. Our Checkr vs GoodHire comparison covers the same Essential package from the angle of Checkr's own sister brand.

Hire 2: an office hire with employment and education verified

For an accountant, an office manager or a coordinator, many employers add a check of the last job and the highest degree. This is where Certn's bundle is strongest.

Saazora arithmetic from checkr.com/pricing, Checkr's passthrough fee page and certn.co/us/pricing, October 30, 2026. "Current employer" (Checkr) and "most recent" employer (Certn) are each company's own wording and may not be identical.

Certn saves $5 here and puts the whole order at one fixed price, which makes budgeting simple. Two caveats from Certn's own pages: "Current employers are contacted only if permitted to do so," and results can come back "Partially Verified" while an item is still in progress. Checkr's advantage is range: you can price a three-, five-, seven- or ten-year history before you sign up, while Certn's page does not publish the cost of anything beyond the one employer in Complete+. How these verifications work, and why some come back "unable to verify", is covered in our guide to employment verification checks.

Hire 3: a delivery driver who needs a driving record

Anyone who drives for your business, in a company van or their own car, usually needs a motor vehicle record on top of the criminal search. The driving record is the line where the two price lists split the most.

Saazora arithmetic, October 30, 2026. Neither pricing page lists the state DMV fee amounts; Checkr says every state DMV charges one and passes it through at cost.

Checkr is $9.99 cheaper per driver like for like, and the gap comes entirely from the $16.49 difference in the MVR line. For a fleet that re-checks drivers, Checkr also publishes a monthly monitoring price, which Certn's pages do not. Certn's driver page gives a turnaround of "1-15 Business Days*", noting that some states return results within an hour. Which violations show up on a driving record, and how often to re-run it, is in our MVR background check guide for drivers.

Hire 4: crossing the border between the US and Canada

Mixed hiring is where Certn's catalogue is broader. There are two different cases, and they price differently.

A US hire who has lived in Canada

You hire in the US, and the candidate's address history includes a few years in Canada. You want the US county search plus a Canadian criminal record check.

• Checkr: Essential $59.99 + Canada criminal $27.00 = $86.99. Checkr's fee page says pass-through fees "for international criminal and adverse media checks are included in the screening price", so the Canadian line has no extra court fee.
• Certn: US Complete $49.99 + OneID $3.50 + Basic Canadian check $17.99 = $71.48, or $74.99 with the Enhanced Canadian check ($21.50), which adds searches of the CPIC investigative data bank and the Police Information Portal. Certn says the Canadian check requires a successful identity verification first; we assume one OneID covers both parts of the order, which Certn's page does not confirm.

A hire who lives and works in Canada

Certn's Canada pricing page prints prices in Canadian dollars: Basic Canadian criminal record check CA$24.99, Enhanced CA$29.99, a Quebec court record search (SOQUIJ) CA$39.99, OneID CA$4.99, employment or education verification CA$29.99 each, and a provincial driver's abstract CA$35.99, which "is not available in Alberta". A basic Canadian screen with ID is CA$29.98. Certn's Canadian package page sells the same pairing as its Essential package "From $29.99 CAD /per person".

Checkr's posted prices for Canada are lines on its international price list in US dollars: the $27.00 criminal check, a $10.00 driving record and a $20.00 driving record with history. We found no Canadian package, Canadian ID check or Canadian verification price on checkr.com/pricing, so for a team hiring mostly in Canada, those are "not published". Certn's US page lists its two Canadian checks at $17.99 and $21.50 in US dollars, and its Canada page lists them at CA$24.99 and CA$29.99. We did not convert currencies; if you pay in one currency, ask which price list your account uses.

A year of mixed hiring at list price

To see whether the per-hire gaps add up to anything, here is a Saazora calculation for a sample US employer making 32 hires in a year: 20 hourly hires (Hire 1), 4 office hires (Hire 2), 6 drivers (Hire 3) and 2 hires with Canadian address history (Hire 4). Each uses the like-for-like order above.

Saazora calculation from list prices on October 30, 2026; excludes court, DMV and database fees, tax, and any volume discount from either sales team.

Certn comes out $121.08 lower, about $3.78 per hire. Change the mix and the answer moves: every driver you add narrows the gap by $9.99, so at 19 or more drivers in this mix, Checkr becomes the cheaper list. A gap this size is small next to your time; an integration with your payroll or applicant tracking system, or a policy that requires a county search on every hire, will usually matter more than $4 a hire.

Where Certn's own pages disagree

While pricing these hires, we read nine Certn pages. Several give a different price, count or name for the same thing than the pricing page does. None of this means a price is wrong; product pages are often updated less often than pricing pages. But these are the lines to confirm in writing before you budget.

Certn pages read on October 30, 2026; modified dates are from each page's metadata where shown. Saazora summary.

The first row matters most. A buyer who lands on Certn's criminal record check page sees $17.99, while the pricing page says $13.99 for the US Core screen; $17.99 is the price of the Basic Canadian check. The help center article describes US products by county coverage (base, single county, unlimited county), which is a different way to slice the same searches, so it is worth asking which of those your account's "US Complete" maps to.

For fairness, Checkr's pages have their own wrinkles. Its main pricing page lists international checks "Starting from $32/check", while its international price list shows Canada at $27.00. Its fee page states "There are no passthrough fees for Canada MVR checks." but also shows a table of provincial fees for driving records with history, from CA$0.00 in Alberta to CA$25.00 in Prince Edward Island. We used the more specific international list in every calculation.

What Certn does well, by its own description

Certn is not just the cheaper sticker. On its own pages, these are the strengths it states, and we found no reason in our reading to doubt that they are real product features. Turnaround figures are Certn's own claims, not measured by Saazora.

• Canada is a home market, not an add-on. Basic and Enhanced Canadian checks, a Quebec court search and provincial driver's abstracts are priced on its Canada page, and its help center notes that the Enhanced check is called a Judicial Matters Check in Ontario.
• Cheaper identity check. OneID costs $3.50 against Checkr's $4.99 add-on, and Certn says it verifies in "<30 Seconds" with government IDs "from 195 countries".
• Verifications in one price. Complete+ puts the last employer, the highest degree and an ID check into $79.99, and Certn says its "in-house Verifications team initiates the process within one business day."
• Checks Checkr does not price publicly. Reference checks ($29.99) and social media checks ($42.99) sit on Certn's US price list.
• Stated turnaround for criminal checks. Certn says US criminal checks are "typically less than 72 hours", and employment verifications usually get a response "within 2-5 business days in the US or Canada".

Checkr's strengths in this comparison are the ones that show up in the totals: unlimited county searches in its mid-tier package, a much cheaper driving record with a published monitoring price, state and federal searches in Complete, and verification prices by lookback that you can read before signing up. How Checkr compares with the large enterprise screening firms is in our Checkr vs Sterling vs HireRight comparison.

Checkr or Certn: choosing by the hires you make most

• Mostly drivers, couriers or field staff: Checkr. The $9.50 driving record and the $2.50 monthly monitoring price outweigh Certn's lower criminal package.
• Mostly hourly hires with a county search: Certn's US Complete plus OneID is $6.50 cheaper per hire. If you want state and federal searches too, only Checkr's Complete posts them.
• Office or professional hires, one past employer and one degree: Certn's Complete+ at $79.99 is the simplest fixed price. If you verify several past employers, Checkr is the one that publishes those prices.
• Hiring on both sides of the border: Certn, which prices Canadian criminal, ID, verification and driver checks in Canadian dollars. Checkr posts only a few Canada lines in US dollars.
• High volume or a custom package: ask both sales teams; neither publishes volume prices.

Saazora may earn a commission if you sign up for Checkr through the links below, at no extra cost to you. We have no affiliate relationship with Certn.

If your hiring is US-based and driver-heavy, or you want county searches without a cap, you can open a Checkr account and price your first report (affiliate link). To check Certn's current numbers yourself, its US pricing page and Canada pricing page are the ones used here. Checkr's current sign-up terms are collected on our Checkr offers page.

The legal steps do not change with the vendor

Switching between Checkr and Certn does not move any legal duty off the employer. For US hires, the Fair Credit Reporting Act's consent, pre-adverse action and adverse action steps apply whichever company runs the report, and state and city fair-chance rules decide when you may look at criminal history. Canadian hires fall under Canadian privacy and human rights law, which we did not research for this article. This is not legal advice; ask an employment lawyer for each place you hire.

Checkr vs Certn: common questions

Is Certn cheaper than Checkr?

For most of the hires we priced, yes, by $5 to $15.51 per hire at list price on October 30, 2026. The exception is any role that needs a driving record: Certn's $25.99 MVR makes a like-for-like driver order $9.99 more expensive than Checkr's.

Does Certn's $13.99 check include a county search?

Only when Certn's system decides one is needed. The pricing page says Certn "automatically completes county searches where applicable at a charge of $9.99." For a county search over every address in the last seven years, Certn's package is US Complete at $49.99.

Can Checkr run a Canadian criminal record check?

Checkr's international price list includes a Canada criminal check at $27.00 with an average turnaround of 1 to 2 business days, and Checkr says pass-through fees are included in international criminal prices. We found no Canadian package on its main pricing page.

Which one verifies employment for less?

For a single recent employer, Certn's Complete+ includes it in $79.99, and Checkr charges $12.50 for the current employer on top of a package. For longer histories, only Checkr publishes the price ($15 to $50 by lookback); Certn's pricing page says "Price Varies", while its employment verification page shows $21.50.

How we researched this comparison

On October 30, 2026 we read Checkr's pricing page, its international price list and its passthrough fee overview, and Certn's US pricing page, Canada pricing page, Canadian package page, US criminal record check, driving record, employment verification, credential verification and identity verification pages, and its help center article on background check products. Every price and quote on this page comes from those pages; page modified dates are taken from Certn's page metadata where the page shows one. The four hire totals, the 32-hire year and the driver break-even are Saazora's own arithmetic from list prices, with court, DMV and database fees left out because neither company publishes state DMV fee amounts on the pages we read. We did not open an account, order a check or speak with either company's sales team, so we cannot say what a quote or an invoice would show. More on our process: Saazora's review and research process.

Sources (checked October 30, 2026): Checkr, Pricing and Packages; Checkr, international check prices; Checkr, Passthrough fees; Certn, US pricing (modified October 15, 2026); Certn, Canada pricing (modified October 15, 2026); Certn, Pay-As-You-Go Background Check Packages for Hiring in Canada; Certn, Criminal Record Checks (modified November 17, 2025); Certn, DMV Driving Record Checks in the US (modified October 17, 2025); Certn, Employment Verification Services (modified November 17, 2025); Certn, Credential Verification (modified March 26, 2025); Certn, OneID Verification (modified November 17, 2025); Certn Help Center, Background check product information.

Research-based comparison, not a test of either service and not legal advice. Neither Checkr nor Certn paid for or reviewed this article.