Frequently asked questions

The right option depends on your technical capacity, expected usage volume, legal requirements, and how much flexibility and control you need. You can also think of the self-hosted/on-premise version as a ceiling on the total cost of using OpenSanctions: using the SaaS API is often a good starting point, but when screening volumes exceed the cost of operating your own instance, you can avoid a cost explosion by switching to a flat-rate, self-hosted plan.

SaaS API – Pay-As-You-Go Convenience

Best for:

• Teams that want to get started quickly
• Low to moderate request volumes
• No infrastructure maintenance

Pricing: €0.10 per successful API call per month, with volume pricing above 20.000 req/mo.

Pros:

• Easy to get integrated
• Always up-to-date data, no syncing
• Scales automatically

Consider if: You're making fewer than ~6,000 API calls per month (as 6,450 calls = €645, the starting price of a bulk license). This is often the most cost-effective choice unless you expect very high volume.

Self-Hosted Bulk Data License – Full Control & Unlimited Use

Best for:

• High-volume usage, frequent re-screening
• Compliance teams with strict data privacy requirements
• Complex configuration, including custom datasets and fine-tuning the matching scores

Pricing: Starts at €645/month for an internal use license Full licensing details →

Pros:

• Unlimited internal usage
• Customer data remains entirely on your systems
• Ideal for large-scale batch processing
• Open source yente application can be customized and tuned

Important to know: Running our API software on your own infrastructure requires engineering effort. You'll need infrastructure to store, update, and query the data efficiently. This might involve building or extending your internal systems, which can add additional time and cost beyond the license fee.