How much does The Work Number cost per verification?

The Work Number’s public pay-as-you-go price starts at $73.45 for some reports if you verify 250 or fewer applicants a year, per theworknumber.com/pricing, read 2026-10-09. Enterprise rates, where most CRAs sit, are unpublished. Pass-through vendors billed customer fees of $105 to $130.69 after 1 January 2026.

This is for a verifications manager at a mid-size background-check firm on TazWorks or AIO Data that already buys The Work Number and needs the per-verification number before the next rate letter.

What the pricing page shows

Equifax’s pricing page, read 2026-10-09, lists two verifier tracks. Pay as you go is for 250 or fewer applicants a year. Enterprise is for more than 250. The public dollar is only on the first card.

	Pay as you go	Enterprise
Who it is for	250 or fewer applicants a year	More than 250 applicants a year
Public price	Starts at $73.45 for some reports	Prices vary by contract
How you pay	Per order at purchase, PDF receipt	Monthly invoice. Verification minimums may apply
Integrations, batch, dedicated manager	No	Yes
Account to order	Free to create. Each user needs their own account for the FCRA	Same. Talk to sales

The same page says pricing varies by purpose and by time frame. It does not print the matrix. “Some reports” means $73.45 is a floor on a subset, not the VOI a mortgage desk actually orders. Creating an account is free. A permissible purpose is required before you buy. Government and nonprofit rates are unpublished.

On the same page Equifax lists more than 5.06 million contributing employers and 839 million-plus employee records. The database answers in seconds when it holds the record. Keep the lookup on for those files. The leftover queue is a different line.

What a CRA actually pays

A mid-size firm on TazWorks or AIO Data is not on pay as you go. It is on enterprise, or it buys The Work Number as a pass-through inside a screening package. Those dollars are not $73.45, and they do not agree with each other.

Who published it	What they call the Work Number fee	When it applies
Equifax, theworknumber.com/pricing, read 2026-10-09	Starts at $73.45 for some reports	Pay as you go, 250 or fewer applicants a year
ClearStar, letter dated December 2025, read 2026-10-09	Customer fee of $105	Equifax increase effective 1 January 2026
Certn, read 2026-10-09	Pass-through $130.69 USD, up from $119.90	USA employment verifications that use The Work Number, 1 January 2026
Checkr passthrough fees, read 2026-10-09	The Work Number (TALX) $119.90	Listed as a non-marked-up third-party fee

ClearStar’s letter says Equifax set the increase and the customer fee is beyond ClearStar’s control. Certn says the same of its pass-through, and notes that more than one access fee can hit an order when more than one employer needs a database. Checkr’s charges FAQ, read 2026-10-09, says Checkr first searches databases such as The Work Number, charges when that database completes the verification, and restricts the Work Number fee to a single charge per candidate.

The 2024 antitrust complaint filed by Greystone Mortgage and First Financial Lending, as reported by National Mortgage News on 4 June 2024, put individual verifications at $66.45, up from under $20 a decade earlier. Those 2024 figures are the complaint’s numbers, not today’s enterprise card.

Do not average $73.45, $105, $119.90, and $130.69 into a “typical” price. They are different products on different contracts. Last month’s invoice is the only number that is yours.

What the $73.45 figure leaves out

The public floor is one line. The bill is several.

Purpose and time frame. Equifax prices by both. A current-employment check and a seven-year income history are not the same SKU. The dollar step is unpublished.

A miss is still a paid order. Equifax bills the report you submitted. What to do when The Work Number has no record is the leftover job after that miss. Superunit’s State of Employment Verification 2026, from 200,000-plus verifications in its own order mix, says about 65% of files still needed calls, emails, or faxes, and about one in three resolved in an instant database. When a named third-party platform was used, 73% of the time it was The Work Number. Direct pay-as-you-go on Equifax’s page is billed as you order the report. Checkr’s fee FAQ, read 2026-10-09, says it charges the Work Number fee when that database completes the verification. Read the invoice line.

The report is not priced per employer. You order a report. The database returns the records it holds for that Social Security number. Checkr bills The Work Number once per candidate. 3rd Degree Screening’s April 2026 post walks through a round $100 report split across eight employers at $12.50 each on the client invoice. That $100 is their example, not Equifax’s list. The split does not change what Equifax charged, and it does not refund a miss.

Enterprise minimums. Equifax’s pricing FAQ, read 2026-10-09, says invoiced customers may have verification minimums. The amount is unpublished.

Employer side is $0. Equifax’s FAQ, read 2026-10-09, says contributing employers do not pay to automate verifications. The verifier funds the database. A diner that has never contributed is leftover outreach.

How other verification methods publish a number

These figures are from each vendor’s own page, read 2026-10-09. They are not a ranked list. They do not replace Equifax’s quote.

	The Work Number	Truework	Superunit leftover chase	In-house specialist
Public price	PAYG starts at $73.45 for some reports. Enterprise unpublished	Standard VOE $59.95, VOI $64.95, VOE reverification $19.95	Starts at $1.50 per completed order. Volume unpublished	Superunit’s own table puts leftover files at $15 to $40+
What you pay for	The report, hit or miss	The request	A source-confirmed result. No charge if it cannot confirm	Wages and TAT while they sit in the tree
What it returns	Employed, title, dates, income when the contributor reports it, in seconds	VOE or VOI when Truework completes the cascade	Employer-confirmed facts on the leftover	Same facts, plus notes on employers the floor already knows
Who it covers	Contributors Equifax lists as 5.06 million employers and 839 million-plus records	Employers on Truework’s network, then its fallback	Restaurants, trucking, small LLCs, phone-tree HR	Hard employers the specialists already have a book on
On a miss	You paid for the lookup. No call, no recording	The cascade still leaves small-employer files for outreach	File stays on your TAT. You were not billed	You still paid the specialist’s time

The Work Number wins the files it holds. Nothing in leftover chase beats a database that already has the record. Truework wins a printed VOE and VOI rate, and a $19.95 reverification. Superunit’s pay-on-success price is the lowest published leftover rate, and it bills only when the source confirms, so a file that never confirms stays on the CRA’s TAT. An experienced specialist who already knows the hard employers is worth what they cost.

When the lookup is worth the invoice

Keep The Work Number on for the next order. Price the miss separately.

File in the queue	Order The Work Number?	Why
Employer is a known contributor, SSN and employer code are clean	Yes	The database answers in seconds. That is the job the fee buys
Mortgage or tenant file at a payroll-platform employer	Usually	Instant VOI when the record is there. Confirm the purpose and time frame on the quote so you are not buying the wrong SKU
Diner, five-truck shop, five-person LLC, phone-tree HR	Expect a miss	Coverage is the contributing employers, not the leftover. A paid no-record still needs outreach
Applicant froze the file	Ask the client	A freeze can look like a miss. You can still be billed for the lookup
You only have $73.45 in the budget	Wait for the enterprise or pass-through figure	That dollar is the PAYG floor for some reports. It is not the CRA invoice

You have a real Work Number number when the invoice lists the product name, the purpose, the time frame, the per-report amount after any minimum, and a count of no-record orders.

Pull last month’s Work Number invoice, the enterprise rate letter if you have one, and the leftover queue export from TazWorks or AIO Data with the employers that miss most. Those files already show what you paid per hit and what you still spent after the miss.