Best Sanctions List APIs for Startups in 2026: Honest Comparison

If you are building a fintech product in 2026, you need sanctions screening. That part is not negotiable. The question is which API to use. The market has dozens of providers, but most of them are built for enterprise banks with six-figure budgets and twelve-month procurement cycles. If you are a startup trying to ship a compliant product this quarter, your options are more limited than you might think.

We compared four sanctions screening APIs that startups actually consider: Verifex, sanctions.io, Dilisense, and ComplyAdvantage. This is an honest comparison. We built Verifex, so we are obviously biased, but we will be upfront about where competitors do things differently or better.

What we compared

We evaluated each provider across the dimensions that matter most to early-stage companies: pricing, self-serve access, data coverage, SDK availability, matching quality, and API latency. Enterprise features like case management dashboards and dedicated compliance officers are nice to have, but most seed-stage fintechs need a reliable API they can integrate in an afternoon.

Pricing: the biggest differentiator

Let us start with the elephant in the room. Pricing varies wildly across sanctions screening providers, and for startups, this is usually the deciding factor.

Verifex offers a free tier with 100 screens per month and paid plans starting at $49/month for 5,000 screens. The Pro plan at $99/month includes 25,000 screens, batch screening, and webhook notifications. No credit card is required to start. You sign up, get an API key, and start screening.

sanctions.io starts at $300/month for their basic plan. They offer a 14-day free trial, but there is no permanent free tier. Their pricing scales based on the number of API calls, and enterprise plans require a sales conversation.

Dilisense pricing starts around $250/month. They focus heavily on PEP and adverse media screening alongside sanctions. Getting exact pricing requires contacting their sales team, which adds friction for developers who just want to test an API.

ComplyAdvantage is the enterprise player in this group. Their pricing typically starts at $500/month or more, with most plans requiring annual contracts. They are built for mid-market and enterprise companies with dedicated compliance teams. If you are pre-Series A, this is probably not the right fit budget-wise.

The bottom line: Verifex is the only provider with a meaningful free tier and pay-as-you-grow pricing under $100/month. For a startup burning through runway, the difference between $0 and $500/month matters.

Self-serve signup and time to first screen

Developer experience starts with onboarding. Can you sign up and make your first API call without talking to a salesperson?

Verifex: Fully self-serve. Sign up, verify your email, and you have an API key in under 2 minutes. The docs include working code examples for curl, Python, and Node.js. Most developers get their first successful screen within 5 minutes.

sanctions.io: Self-serve signup available with a free trial. Their onboarding is reasonably smooth, though the documentation is less developer-focused than Verifex.

Dilisense: Requires a demo call for most plans. You can request API access, but the process involves back-and-forth with their team. This is a dealbreaker for developers who want to evaluate the API before committing.

ComplyAdvantage: Sales-led process. You fill out a form, a sales rep reaches out, you do a demo, negotiate pricing, and then get access. The typical timeline from first contact to API key is 2-4 weeks. This is standard for enterprise software, but painful for startups.

Data coverage

The quality of a sanctions screening API depends entirely on the data behind it. Here is how coverage compares:

Verifex covers 984,000+ entities from 27 sources including OFAC SDN, UN Security Council, EU Consolidated List, UK HM Treasury, plus PEP data from Wikidata covering 195 countries. Data syncs daily from all sources.

sanctions.io covers major sanctions lists with good breadth. They include OFAC, EU, UN, UK, and several regional lists. Their total entity count is comparable, though they publish less specific detail about exact numbers.

Dilisense has strong PEP and adverse media coverage on top of standard sanctions lists. If PEP screening and adverse media are your primary use case, Dilisense has depth here that is worth considering.

ComplyAdvantage has the broadest coverage overall. They screen against 1,000+ watchlists and include extensive adverse media data from news sources. For enterprise compliance teams that need every edge case covered, their data depth is hard to beat.

Honest take: ComplyAdvantage wins on raw data breadth. Dilisense has a strong PEP offering. Verifex covers the lists that matter most for regulatory compliance (OFAC, UN, EU, UK, plus PEPs) at a fraction of the cost. For most startups, 27 sources and 984K entities is more than sufficient.

SDK availability

Modern developers expect native SDKs, not just raw REST endpoints.

Verifex ships official SDKs for Python (pip install verifex) and Node.js (npm install verifex). Both are published on their respective package registries and maintained alongside the API. The SDKs handle authentication, retries, and type-safe responses.

sanctions.io provides a REST API with documentation but does not publish official SDKs for specific languages. You work directly with HTTP requests.

Dilisense offers a REST API. No official language SDKs at the time of writing.

ComplyAdvantage has an extensive REST API and provides client libraries for some languages, primarily focused on their enterprise integration patterns.

For developers who want to npm install or pip install and start screening with type-safe code in 30 seconds, Verifex is the clear winner here.

Matching quality

This is where things get technical. Matching quality determines whether your screening catches real sanctions matches (recall) without drowning your team in false positives (precision). We measure this with the F1 score, which balances both.

Verifex achieves a 93.5% F1 score on standard benchmarks, using a multi-algorithm approach: TF-IDF token matching, Jaro-Winkler fuzzy matching, phonetic algorithms, and Fellegi-Sunter probabilistic scoring with biographical evidence (date of birth, nationality). This combination catches transliterations and name variations while keeping false positives low.

sanctions.io uses fuzzy matching with configurable thresholds. Their matching is solid for common cases but provides less detail about their specific algorithms and benchmark performance.

Dilisense offers fuzzy matching with reasonable accuracy. Their strength is more in data aggregation than matching algorithm sophistication.

ComplyAdvantage uses machine learning models for matching and risk scoring. Their AI-powered approach can reduce false positives effectively, especially at scale with feedback loops. For large-volume screening, their ML models improve over time.

Honest take: ComplyAdvantage's ML approach is impressive for enterprise scale. Verifex's 93.5% F1 score is the best documented benchmark among self-serve APIs, and our multi-algorithm approach is transparent rather than black-box.

API latency

Screening happens in user-facing flows. Slow APIs kill conversion rates.

Verifex: Sub-100ms average response time. The API is optimized for real-time screening during onboarding flows. P99 latency stays under 200ms.

sanctions.io: Response times are generally under 500ms, which is acceptable for most use cases.

Dilisense: Response times vary, typically in the 200-800ms range depending on the query complexity and which databases are being searched.

ComplyAdvantage: Response times depend on the breadth of search. Simple sanctions checks are fast, but comprehensive searches across their full data set can take longer.

Where competitors do better

We promised an honest comparison, so here is where competitors have advantages over Verifex:

• Enterprise features. ComplyAdvantage offers case management, workflow automation, team roles, and audit dashboards that large compliance teams need. Verifex is API-first and does not yet have a full compliance management UI.
• Adverse media screening. ComplyAdvantage and Dilisense include news and adverse media scanning. Verifex focuses on structured watchlist and PEP data, not unstructured media.
• Regulatory relationships. Larger providers like ComplyAdvantage have established relationships with regulators and can provide compliance certifications that some enterprise clients require from vendors.
• Global offices and support. Enterprise providers offer 24/7 support, dedicated account managers, and local offices in major financial centers. Verifex provides documentation and email support.

The verdict: which API should you choose?

Here is our honest recommendation based on company stage:

• Pre-revenue to Series A startups: Verifex. Free tier to start, $49-99/month as you grow, self-serve signup, Python and Node.js SDKs, and 93.5% F1 matching quality. You can go from zero to compliant in an afternoon.
• Series B+ with a compliance team: Evaluate ComplyAdvantage if you need case management, adverse media, and enterprise support. The higher price is justified when you have a dedicated compliance function.
• PEP-heavy use cases: Consider Dilisense alongside Verifex if your primary need is deep PEP and adverse media screening. Verifex covers 900K+ PEPs from Wikidata, but Dilisense has a different data approach worth evaluating.

For most startups and fintechs that need to ship a compliant product fast without blowing their budget, Verifex is the best choice in 2026. You get production-grade sanctions screening with real matching quality at a price point that makes sense for early-stage companies.