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Background Check Services · Rank #2 of 10

First Advantage review and pricing

Largest pure-play background check vendor post Sterling acquisition; the new enterprise default.

By First Advantage Corporation · Founded 2003 · Atlanta, GA · public

First Advantage (NASDAQ:FA) is, as of Q1 2025, the largest pure-play background check vendor by revenue, having closed its ~$2.2B acquisition of Sterling Check Corp in March 2025. Founded 2003, IPO 2021, FA was already a top-three enterprise vendor before the Sterling deal; post-acquisition it operates a combined enterprise customer base spanning Fortune 1000, healthcare systems, financial services, and global logistics. The product depth is genuine: 200+ country coverage, deepest ATS integration breadth in the category, mature drug screening, and credentialed verification operations. The risk is integration risk; combining two enterprise-scale operations through 2027 introduces real customer-facing disruption, contract-renegotiation pressure, and platform-consolidation decisions that will favor FA-native technology over legacy Sterling stacks.

Visit First Advantage Compare to Checkr
Best for

Fortune 1000 enterprise needing a single global vendor across 28+ countries, deepest enterprise ATS integrations, and mature healthcare and financial services compliance operations.

Worst for

Small and mid-market buyers wanting self-serve pricing or modern UX, marketplace and gig hiring (Checkr and Yardstik are stronger), and any buyer who finds public-company integration risk unacceptable.

Vendor Trust Score

Is First Advantage a trustworthy vendor?

6.6/10
Mixed
Pricing transparency
Published rates; no hidden fees
4.5
Contract fairness
Reasonable terms; no auto-renew traps
6.0
Incident response
How they handle outages and breaches
8.0
Post-acquisition behavior
Customer treatment after M&A or PE
6.5
Executive stability
Leadership churn over 24 months
7.5
Roadmap honesty
Public commitments held
7.0
Trust signal log
  • 2021-06-23
    IPO on NASDAQ:FA at $15 per share
    Silver Lake-backed; raised ~$307M.
  • 2024-02-29
    Announced ~$2.2B acquisition of Sterling Check Corp
  • 2025-03-31
    Sterling acquisition closed Q1 2025
    Combined entity becomes largest pure-play background check vendor by revenue.
  • 2025-09-15
    Customer-facing tooling fragmented during integration
    Reports of legacy Sterling customers experiencing service degradation during platform consolidation.
  • 2026-02-10
    Q4 2025 earnings: integration on track but customer churn elevated
Vendor Trust is scored independently of product quality. A great product from an unfair vendor still earns a low trust score.
Review Intelligence

What 720 reviews actually say

Synthesized from G2, Capterra, Reddit, Trustpilot. Patterns >15% prevalence shown.

Last synthesized
2026-04-29

Praise patterns

  • Strongest enterprise ATS integration breadth in the category
    78% →
  • 200+ country coverage with native operations in 28 countries
    71% →
  • Mature drug and health screening operations
    64% →
  • Public-company disclosure useful for procurement diligence
    47% ↑

Complaint patterns

  • Pricing opaque, multi-year contracts with annual escalators
    64% →
  • Legacy UX in some workflows
    51% ↓
  • Sterling integration causing service disruption for legacy customers
    41% ↑
  • Customer service ratings declined post-IPO
    38% ↓
Sentiment trend (6 months)
68/100 0 pts
12
01
02
03
04
05
Patterns are extracted from review corpus and human-verified. We surface trends, not anecdotes.
Verified Pricing

What buyers actually pay

142 anonymized deal disclosures · last updated 2026-05-01

Contribute your deal price
Company size Median annual
500-5,000 employees $68,000
5,000-25,000 employees $420,000
25,000+ employees $1,850,000
Verified pricing is crowdsourced from buyers under anonymity guarantees. Vendor-listed prices are validated against actual deals quarterly.
Compliance & Security

Auto-verified certifications

Verified 2026-05-01
SOC 2 Type II
ISO 27001
HIPAA
GDPR
CCPA
PCI DSS
◐ FedRAMP In-Process

Editorial: Strengths

  • Largest pure-play vendor by revenue post Sterling acquisition (~$1.5B+ combined ARR estimated)
  • Deepest ATS integration breadth: Workday, SuccessFactors, iCIMS, Greenhouse, Avature, all enterprise ATS
  • 200+ country coverage with native operations in 28 countries
  • Mature drug and health screening operations (DOT-compliant, hair, urine, oral fluid)
  • Strongest credentialed verification operations (healthcare licensure, professional credentials)
  • Public-company financial disclosure required (NASDAQ:FA), useful for enterprise procurement diligence
  • Continuous monitoring at enterprise scale (CM3 product)

Editorial: Weaknesses

  • Sterling acquisition integration risk through 2027, expect contract renegotiation and platform consolidation pressure
  • Pricing opaque at enterprise tier; expect multi-year contracts with annual escalators
  • Legacy UX in some workflows; modernization roadmap not as aggressive as Checkr
  • Customer service ratings declined post-IPO 2021 through 2023 per G2 trend data
  • Two distinct technology stacks (FA + Sterling) during integration; customer-facing tooling fragmented

Key features & integrations

  • +National, state, county criminal records search across US
  • +International criminal records (200+ countries)
  • +Employment, education, professional license verification
  • +Drug and health screening (DOT-compliant, multi-panel)
  • +Motor vehicle records (MVR) and CDL verification
  • +Continuous monitoring (CM3 product)
  • +I-9 and E-Verify (US employment eligibility)
  • +Enterprise adjudication workflows and adverse-action management
200+ integrations
WorkdaySAP SuccessFactorsiCIMSOracle HCMGreenhouseAvatureCornerstoneUKG Pro
Geography supported
Global; 200+ countries; native operations in 28 countries
Best fit
1,000-500,000+ employees · Enterprise global organizations, especially regulated industries
Editorial deep-dive

Read our full ranking of Background Check Services

First Advantage ranks #2 in our editorial review of 10 background check services platforms. The deep-dive covers methodology, comparison tables, decision matrix, migration scoring, and FAQs.

Read the full ranking

Closest alternatives in Background Check Services

#1
Checkr
Modern API-first background checks for gig, marketplace, and high-volume tech hiring.
★ 4.4 partial
#3
Sterling
Legacy enterprise leader, now operating as part of First Advantage post Q1 2025 acquisition.
★ 3.8 opaque
#4
HireRight
Legacy enterprise vendor post 2018 GIS merger; Stone Point PE-owned.
★ 3.6 opaque
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