APIVerve

APIVerve vs OpenSanctions

Looking for an OpenSanctions alternative for screening names against government sanctions lists? Compare APIVerve's Sanctions Screening API with the OpenSanctions API on list coverage, matching, pricing and licensing. An honest breakdown, including the PEP and watchlist data we don't have.

  • OpenSanctions alternative
  • OFAC, UN, EU & UK lists
  • Per-call pricing
Explore APIVerve APIs→Compare pricing
Head to head
3APIVerve wins
4Ties
1OpenSanctions wins

Across 8 compared capabilities · 200 free credits/mo to try.

At a glance

The fundamental difference

Why teams pick APIVerve

Sanctions list screening in one GET request

  • OFAC SDN, OFAC Consolidated, UN, EU and UK lists
  • Fuzzy matching built for transliterated names, scored 0 to 1
  • Source list, list ID and publish date on every result
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Where OpenSanctions falls short

Sanctions, PEP & Watchlist Data

  • Per-query price starts at €0.10 (500 credits for €50) and reaches €0.03 only at 500,000 credits
  • Credits are prepaid and expire one year after purchase
  • Data is CC BY-NC 4.0: business use of the bulk data needs a licence, priced by quote
The toolkit

The APIs behind these results

The endpoints behind APIVerve's side of this comparison. One key covers all of them, plus 300+ more.

Sanctions Screening/v1/sanctionscreening20 cr→IBAN ValidatorNew/v1/ibanvalidator2 cr→Tax ID Validator/v1/taxidvalidator10 cr→Email Validator/v1/emailvalidator20 cr→
Detailed comparison

Feature by feature

Every capability, side by side. Green marks the winner.

Lists & Data

What each one screens against

CapabilityAPIVerveOpenSanctions
OFAC, UN, EU and UK sanctions listsThe core government lists both screen against: OFAC SDN and Consolidated, UN Security Council, EU and UK
PEPs, debarment and 470+ other sourcesOpenSanctions adds politically exposed persons, debarred companies, warrants and regulatory watchlists. This is its core strength

Screening API

Running a name check from your own code or agent

CapabilityAPIVerveOpenSanctions
Scored fuzzy name matchingBoth rank candidates by a 0 to 1 match score built for spelling and transliteration variants
Monthly plan, credits reset each monthAPIVerve bills on a monthly plan; OpenSanctions sells prepaid credit bundles that expire after a year
One key for sanctions plus 300+ APIsThe same APIVerve key covers the IBAN, tax ID and email checks that sit next to screening in onboarding

Pricing & Value

What a screening costs

CapabilityAPIVerveOpenSanctions
Under $0.01 per screening on the entry planAPIVerve Starter: $29.99 for 10,000 screenings. OpenSanctions: €0.10 per query at the smallest bundle, €0.03 at 500,000
Free credits to startOpenSanctions: 2,000 credits on signup with a business email. APIVerve: free monthly credits for testing
Pay only for successful callsFailed requests don't count against your APIVerve credits
The bottom line

APIVerve or OpenSanctions?

OpenSanctions is the bigger dataset by a wide margin.

Use APIVerve if

  • You need OFAC, UN, EU and UK sanctions checks
  • Screening sits inside onboarding or payments
  • You want a lower cost per screening

Use OpenSanctions if

  • You need politically exposed persons or debarment lists
  • You screen against hundreds of national lists
  • You match on birth date and nationality as well as name
Read the full verdict

If your compliance program needs politically exposed persons, debarment lists, warrants or hundreds of national lists, or you want to match on birth date and nationality as well as name, it is built for that and APIVerve is not. APIVerve covers the narrower core most screening starts with: the OFAC SDN and Consolidated lists, the UN Security Council list, the EU financial sanctions list and the UK Sanctions List, each pulled daily from the government's own file. You send one name and get scored fuzzy matches that say which list each hit came from.

On the Starter plan that works out to about $0.003 a screening, against OpenSanctions' €0.10 to €0.03 a query, and the same key covers 300+ other APIs. If all you need is a government sanctions check inside onboarding or payments, APIVerve is the simpler and cheaper fit; if you need PEPs, use OpenSanctions.

OpenSanctions questions.

Common questions about switching from OpenSanctions to APIVerve.

Talk to us →
Is APIVerve an OpenSanctions alternative?
For screening names against government sanctions lists, yes. APIVerve checks the OFAC SDN and Consolidated lists, the UN Security Council Consolidated List, the EU financial sanctions list and the UK Sanctions List in one call. It is not a replacement for OpenSanctions' wider data: APIVerve has no PEP, debarment or adverse media coverage.
Does APIVerve screen politically exposed persons (PEPs)?
No. APIVerve screens government sanctions lists only. If you need PEP screening, OpenSanctions publishes a PEP collection of more than 900,000 people, and that is the better tool for that part of your program.
Can I use OpenSanctions data commercially for free?
OpenSanctions publishes its data under CC BY-NC 4.0, which is non-commercial. Businesses either pay per query through the hosted API or buy a bulk data licence, which is priced by quote. APIVerve's paid plans include commercial use of screening results in your own systems.
How much does sanctions screening cost on APIVerve compared with OpenSanctions?
A screening uses 20 APIVerve credits, so the Starter plan's 200,000 monthly credits ($29.99) cover 10,000 screenings, about $0.003 each. OpenSanctions sells prepaid bundles from €50 for 500 queries (€0.10 each) down to €0.03 each at 500,000 queries, with credits valid for a year.
How does APIVerve match names?
It normalizes accents and punctuation, drops corporate words like LTD and LLC, then scores your name against every primary name and alias with Jaro-Winkler token matching. Aliases the list itself marks as low quality are scored down. Each result returns a 0 to 1 score, a confidence band, the alias it matched on and the list it came from. Matching uses the name only; it does not take a birth date or nationality as input.
How fresh is APIVerve's sanctions data?
Each list is checked daily against its publisher's own file: US Treasury OFAC, the UN Security Council, the EU Financial Sanctions Files and the UK FCDO. Every response shows each list's publish date and record count. OpenSanctions updates four times a day.

Test it against OpenSanctions yourself. Start on the free plan.

Start free→

One key, 300+ APIs

Sanctions Screening, IBAN Validator, Tax ID Validator and 300+ other APIs on one key. 200 free credits a month to evaluate; paid plans from $29.99.

See pricing