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How Much Does a Background Check Cost?
Background checks are an essential risk management tool for HR professionals and hiring managers when bringing on new talent–especially in the age of hybrid hiring, where it’s more challenging to screen candidates effectively and retain employees.
Background checks bolster pre-employment screening and interviews by providing a clearer, more comprehensive picture of a candidate’s skills, experiences, character, and potential areas of concern.
Variable Costs
Background checks vary in price depending on where you get them done and the level of detail needed in the report. Generally speaking, background checks cost can range anywhere from a few dollars, with more in-depth checks costing upwards of $100 per employee.
Every business is unique, meaning that each employer has a different set of needs when it comes to screening candidates. For example, healthcare or education employers might need to run professional license verifications, while other organizations do not.
It’s critical to understand the individual needs of your business before running a check so you don’t pay for information you don’t need. Click here to learn more about the different types of screenings to hone in on exactly what you want from a background check.
How to Decide What to Pay
While there are some free background check search tools, getting results back takes a long time, which can slow down your hiring cycles. Additionally, these tools don’t provide the same level of vetting and verification as a paid service like S2Verify—meaning they don’t guarantee the same level of accuracy in results.
The best employment background check service allows you to customize your screening package to only pay for what you need, just like the pricing program at S2Verify. Plus, it might be worth it to pay for a background service known for quality customer support so you can keep things on track and get help when needed. S2Verify boasts an award-winning customer support team to ensure that our product never slows our clients down.
Additional Fees
When searching for county records, oftentimes, you’ll pay a data access fee that the courthouse charges for access to their records. Regardless of whether you’re using a service or doing it on your own, you will incur this data access cost. These fees differ from county to county; they can be as low as $1 or as high as $65 for some counties in New York. With some background screening services (including S2Verify), you can negotiate a flat rate price to include fees, should you desire to do so.
Additionally, when an applicant can be identified by several different names, you will be charged for each alias–as if you are running a search on different people. For example, if a candidate got married and took her husband’s last name, you’d likely need to order a search on her current last name as well as her maiden name—and you will be charged accordingly for each search. Again, with certain services–including S2Verify–you can negotiate a flat rate price to include all AKAs, another reason to go through a background screening service rather than doing it on your own.
To learn more about background check services and pricing at S2Verify, click here.