The Best Background Check Software 2023 | Top 12 Reviewed In Depth

With the best background check software, you’ll be able to source every bit of detail you need — whether you’re an employer looking to verify the suitability of a candidate or to streamline your hiring process, or perhaps a private investigator looking to delve into marriage records, contact information, or the likes — these tools are the answer.

From criminal records to drug tests, identity verification, and a boatload more, these 12 best background check software tools are the best on the market for reliability and sourcing accurate data. Read on to discover whether the popular TruthFinder or another suits your needs best as we pit them against each other and review their features, pricing, and leading pros and cons.

The Best Background Check Software 2023 | Quick Look

With a sea of background check software out there, it can be hard to avoid cumbersome or outright scamming tools. Today, we’ll be taking an in-depth look at the best of the best, and although TruthFinder has set the bar further than any other tool, there’s a lot to see in the competition as well:

1. TruthFinder — Overall, the Best Background Check Software in 2023
2. Checkmate — Best Background Check Software for Private Investigators
3. US Search — Best US Criminal Background Check Software
4. Intelius — Top Background Check Software for Intuitiveness
5. Certn — Best Background Check Software for International Companies
6. Paycom — Best Background Check Service for Automation
7. Turn — Top of the Line Criminal Background Checker
8. Checkr — Robust and Intuitive Background Check Software
9. EZ Screen — Excellent All-Rounder Background Check Software
10. Employment Hero — Robust Background Check Service With Superb Peripherals
11. GoodHire — Versatile Background Check Software for SMBs
12. Good Egg — Solid Background Check Software for Continuous Checks

The Best Background Check Software 2023 | In-Depth Reviews

Looking for all the nitty-gritty details about how these tools can help you? Read on as we explore them in more depth below.

1. TruthFinder — Overall, the Best Background Check Software in 2023

TruthFinder takes the cake due to the sheer depth, detail, and customizability of its background checks. Amassing over 60,000 5-star reviews across thousands of satisfied businesses, PIs, and landlords alike, it’s certainly doing ample right.

Pre-employment background checks are one of the most important parts of the hiring process. Finding out the details behind a prospective hire’s education, licenses, job experience, and criminal record is crucial in making the right hiring decision.

However, in the 21st century, it’s also incredibly important to know your employees at a deeper level. TruthFinder shows you all of their public statements and social media posts, so you can vet how they’ll fit the company culture.

Not only does TruthFinder show you cold facts like employment history, reference confirmation, drug tests, criminal records, and basic personal information, but it’ll also show you blogs, social media profiles, and personal websites.

The biggest challenge for most background check software is finding accurate and up-to-date records of criminal activity. Although most of these tools will let you look at a potential employee’s criminal record, TruthFinder once again goes above and beyond.

TruthFinder scrapes the dark web — parts of the internet ripe with criminal activity — and finds out if the hire has ever leaked information. The tool covers your entire business this way, ensuring your data stays safe.

For private investigators, TruthFinder’s reverse phone lookup feature lets you type in a phone number to identify the owner.

After that, you can take advantage of the best private investigator background check software’s regular search to find out more. This shows you their location history, marriage records, and everything else you could possibly want or need to know.

2. Checkmate — Best Background Check Software For Private Investigators

Checkmate is the ideal background check solution for private investigators as it’s loaded with a variety of business-oriented features. It pools data from a massive array of sources, analyzes it, and presents it in an easily digestible way.

Checkmate looks at all public records available, looking at traffic records, gun licenses, criminal history, arrests, marriage history, and of course basic information like address history and identity verification.

If you’re looking for something more personal, it’ll look through all the target’s social media, as well as any websites they’re associated with. Using its Android app, you can easily bring up this info in order to get more data on the target while you’re on the go.

If you’re a private investigator, keeping your data and searches untraceable is undoubtedly important. To ensure this, Checkmate uses Norton Smantec security alongside 256-bit encryption for all of your payment data. This is the same level of security that satisfies many militaries, as well as the best VPNs out there.

Beyond this, the website takes advantage of a secure, 128-bit encrypted SSL connection to ensure your data is secure. This makes it so your target is unable to find your searches, and ensures your information won’t be leaked.

As the best private investigator background checker, Checkmate also has a reverse phone lookup feature. With it, you can write in a phone number, such as an unknown number calling you, the client, or the target, and find the number’s owner.

This feature and others like this can be instrumental in investigating personal cases, such as tracking down a cheating spouse. It allows you to find out a lot of information on the target even without taking advantage of a cheating spouse spy app.

3. US Search — Top Background Check Software for Intuitiveness

US Search is one of the best background check software tools for US businesses looking to learn if a prospective employee has a criminal history, or has made court appearances.

The tool gathers information in public records, analyzes it, then puts out a concise, easy-to-read report. The report will contain all criminal records, public drug tests, employment history, court appearances, and even traffic violations.

It has an extremely thorough criminal record check, and to top it off, it has an incredibly low false positive rate, which helps ensure you don’t hire a felon, only suitable fits for your business.

Besides all this, US Search is quite cheap and sports a modern, intuitive user interface, which makes it one of the best background check software solutions for small businesses based in the US — and although it’s affordable, US Search is incredibly reliable.

To top it off, US Search is also a common go-to solution for private investigators, as it excels at finding contact information. So whether you’re looking for someone’s phone number, social media profile, or email address, US Search is a solid option, particularly if you’re looking to gain the ability to contact your target without them knowing you’re onto them.

4. Intelius — Top Background Check Software For Intuitiveness

Intelius is the perfect choice for businesses looking to get the most intuitive background check software money can buy. All you need to do is write a couple of relevant bits of information, and Intelius will output a clear, succinct report with all you need to know to make a hiring decision or investigate someone.

The tool’s UI is extremely slick and modern, making sure you don’t waste time browsing unnecessary information. Plus, it’s a phenomenal option if you’re looking to base your hiring decisions on a broad spectrum of criteria as opposed to a few specific ones.

Of course, it covers the usual location history, contact details, criminal records, and similar, but it’ll also cover held assets, licenses, and countless others. This makes you privy to all the info you need to find the best prospective employee for your business.

If ever you find yourself in need of assistance, Intelius’ customer support won’t disappoint. You can contact their support via phone or email through their site from 7 AM to 5 PM PT every work day.

And on top of this, if you’re looking to snag a deal on background check software, you’ll be happy to know Intelius has regular promotions. If you register on the Intelius website, you’ll get an email containing either a discount or a 5-day free trial.

Being able to use some of its features for free combined with its ease of use, makes Intelius the perfect background search software for beginners.

5. Certn — Best Background Check Software For International Companies

Certn is the top pick of thousands of international businesses — and for good reason. It’s one of the best background check software for conducting international background checks, hence its popularity with large enterprises and SMBs looking to hire remotely or internationally with ease.

Conducting the simplest international background checks covering relevant information, like criminal history, credit checks, employment history, or even simple identity verification, can be extremely difficult across national borders.

Checkr helps you navigate the complications introduced by international laws and regulations, allowing for a simple and effective experience.

Pulling its data from over 200,000 sources, the tool will show you your prospective employee’s employment and education history, criminal records, drug tests, and more. Due to the depth of its reports, Checkr is a great tool to patch up holes in other reporting systems.

It’s extremely important you know where your employees live, whether for tax purposes or others. Because of this, Certn will let you know the location of all the prospective hire’s properties, and try to ascertain where they live. It does all of this with quick turnaround times — sitting at just about 10 minutes.

If you’re a small business looking to expand hiring internationally, you can take advantage of Checkr’s cheap package, giving you access to up to 100 annual searches at just $10/month. Then, if you’re interested in a specific candidate, you can pay for a more in-depth check.

6. Paycom — Best Background Check Service for Automation

Paycom provides social media screening company services as well as background checks. It seeks to ensure a smooth, automation-heavy candidate screening experience to help you hire more qualified candidates, in less time.

Paycom is a Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) compliant toolkit with a boatload of different utilities. It’ll provide management assistance, applicant tracking capabilities, help with onboarding, and, of course, conduct background checks to attain all the usual information.

This FCRA-compliant tool comes with a variety of different benefits, including management streamlining, onboarding assistance for employees, applicant tracking, and more.

Because of this, many businesses use Paycom as a kind of one-stop shop for all of their HR needs. The tool is excellent at ensuring managers and talent acquisition experts can conduct their daily operations without learning or using separate tools.

This, alongside its automation, where you can automatically conduct a background check on all applicants for a certain job post, ensures your business’ employees can focus on tasks that actually need them.

Once a candidate applies, it’ll immediately give you a criminal background check, education, identity, and employment verification, alongside a boatload of other data. You can even set up automated reference checks, so you don’t need to call their former workplaces manually.

Finally, Paycom’s systems can automatically scan all of a candidate’s data and compare it to a list of criteria. If the candidate matches them, it’ll let you hire them with a single click, while not wasting your time with the ones that don’t.

7. Turn — Top of The Line Criminal Background Checker

Turn is intuitive and highly effective hiring software that comes packed with a background checker. It’s available internationally, and its thousands of customers have enjoyed a huge decrease in time-to-hire — by up to 73%.

Turn provides some of the most in-depth criminal background checks on the market. Outside of areas covered by most background check software like sex offenses and felonies, Turn checks international watchlists, traffic offenses, and court appearances as well.

For some industries, these data points can be incredibly relevant when deciding on a suitable hire. For example, you wouldn’t want someone with a plethora of traffic offenses to be hired as a driver. Finding this data on time ensures you only hire competent, qualified individuals.

With each of Turn’s reports being backed by their internal compliance team, alongside FCRA compliance, it’s no wonder many enterprises choose it.

It uses machine learning, multiple compliances, attack-blocking services, and content security policies to ensure that your data is always kept perfectly safe. This is incredible for enterprises that can’t afford their data to leak online.

However, if you want to try this background check software free of charge, you can do so for the first 20 applicants today. This is perfect for small businesses that only need to scan a few clients, or those weighing if they need background check software in the first place.

8. Checkr — Robust And Intuitive Background Check Software

Checkr is the perfect background check software for those looking for a robust, yet incredibly simple solution. Private investigators are easily able to pull up essential background data with a couple of clicks, and while small businesses can have a hard time with the more complex tools on here, Checkr won’t cause any such issues.

Checkr’s standout feature is its capability to set rule sets for the tool to assess candidates for a certain position automatically — while similar features exist in other tools, none are quite like this.

For example, you could look at the candidate’s criminal record and drug test results for a programming position, while looking at felonies and health screens for a warehouse one.

By doing this, you can streamline your hiring process and make sure all of your employees are meeting your standards without looking at each resume individually.

Outside of this, Checkr is available in over 200 countries, which makes it a top choice for international enterprises and SMBs looking for a tool to help with international and remote hires.

Needless to say, this means that you can set up Checkr at all of your business locations, lowering the training requirements for hiring new employees, as well as for those switching departments. Plus, Checkr will automatically screen references and experience, ensuring you don’t fall victim to fraud.

With that being said, Checkr’s biggest advantage is its continuous checks. This feature automatically runs checks on all of your employees periodically, reporting back any changes to their backgrounds. This lets you get ahead of problematic behavior and resolve issues before they can affect your business.

9. EZ Screen — Excellent All-Rounder Background Check Software

EZ Screen is an SMB-focused US-based employee background check software that provides a well-rounded set of features in a user-friendly package.

The tool splits its background searches into multiple types of checks. This means you can streamline your hiring process by only looking at the data that interests you for a specific candidate.

Being able to look at credit checks, criminal records, and similar — all individually — will help your talent acquisition experts stay focused on the important parts, rather than spending hours on irrelevant bits of background information.

For each of these background check types, EZ Screen provides it quickly and takes its info from hundreds of thousands of available public sources.

Being able to pull from this many sources just within the US ensures EZ Screen maintains a high degree of precision in its reports. This is crucial, especially for smaller businesses, as they don’t have the luxury of not hiring a highly qualified candidate due to a faulty background check.

Besides all this, EZ Screen integrates with over 200 ATS (Applicant Tracking Systems,) giving you even more avenues to streamline the hiring process.

Through this, you’ll be able to set the tool up so that it instantly tells you if a candidate meets your criteria. From there, you can accept or reject their application with the press of a button — in comparison to manual checks, imagine how much time you’ll save with this if you deal with ample applications.

10. Employment Hero — Robust Background Check Service With Superb Peripherals

Employment Hero is a full software package that provides its services to over 80,000 businesses across the globe. Their focus is on offering companies high-quality HR software and in-depth background checks to simplify the hiring process.

As a full software suite, Employment Hero is an impressive one-stop shop for HR and recruitment needs. For example, besides the background check software, you’ll get review assistance, payroll management tools, an HR manager, and other tools.

With all these combined, you’ll be able to ensure a smooth recruitment process and ensure your talent acquisition professionals can focus on finding the talent, rather than wasting time screening unqualified candidates.

Employment Hero is available internationally, acting in accordance with international rules and regulations to conduct credit history checks, international police checks, and others. Having a variety of different options like this, in addition to its native integration with the rest of your HR software, makes ensuring your hires fulfill your prerequisites trivial.

Finally, the tool provides compliance assistance. This is crucial for international enterprises that need to comply with rules and regulations across multiple fields or countries. As compliance becomes increasingly important, tools like Employment Hero become more and more valuable.

11. GoodHire — Versatile Background Check Software for SMBs

GoodHire is a tried-and-tested SMB-focused background check software with a variety of innovative features designed to streamline your workflow.

This software takes advantage of artificial intelligence combined with a boatload of databases to showcase everything you need to know about your potential employee.

However, GoodHire is very meticulous when it comes to following state laws and regulations. For example, it won’t show you non-convictions in states where hiring based on that isn’t legal.

Much like some of its competitors, you can set up your own rulesets on GoodHire to weed out candidates that don’t pass your requirements.

For pre-employment background checks, GoodHire will show you the candidate’s address, criminal record, drug tests, and others. With that said, unfortunately, GoodHire only works in the US, so international businesses will be better off with a different tool.

On a final note, GoodHire offers some native integrations, however, if a certain tool isn’t supported natively, you’ll be better off with a solution that lets you create them like Checkr.

12. Good Egg — Solid Background Check Software For Continuous Checks

Good Egg is a phenomenal background check software for business owners looking for bleeding-edge, innovative features without much concern for price.

While background checks can ensure that a new employee has never done anything that would reflect poorly on your firm, they’re generally unable to do so once you’ve hired them.

To solve this problem, Good Egg has implemented its continuous checking feature. It splits its reports into 3 parts: Past, Present, and Future. This ensures that you’re always on top of not only who your employees were but also who they are, and any ongoing events.

In the Past section, you’ll find most of the content generally found in background checks. Whether they’ve got a criminal record, their education, employment history, etc.

The Present section, on the other hand, will show you their current address, current positions, their drug tests, etc. This gives you a clear-cut picture of the candidate, letting you look into those that maybe haven’t always been exemplary, but have improved.

In the Future section, you’ll find all of their web screening results, professional references, social media activity, and other factors that can impact your risk assessment. This way, you know how risky each individual hire is, and who to keep an eye out for in the future.

How We Chose the Best Background Checker Software

There’s a lot that goes into a comprehensive background check and finding software that goes above and beyond to deliver precisely what you need. Here are the key factors we considered when compiling our list of the top 12 best background check software:

How to Use a Background Checker App

Here we’ll be going over how to use the best background checker app in our testing, TruthFinder.

Step 1 — Make an Account and Sign Up

To start the account creation process, visit the TruthFinder website through the button below. Then, make your account by giving your email and password.

Afterward, pick and purchase your desired subscription, and you’ll get an email from TruthFinder confirming your details. Click the link in the email, and your account will be set up.

Step 2 — Familiarize Yourself With the Dashboard

When you’re finished making your account, log in to have a look around the dashboard and view any reports you might want to create.

Step 3 — Setting Up a Background Check

To conduct your first background check, you’ll want to go to the TruthFinder website and put in the name, surname, and city/state of whoever you’re looking to check.

From there, select the type of background check you want and press “Search.” Once TruthFinder is done with the check, you’ll be able to find it in the Reports tab.

Background Check Software FAQs