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Vendor trust scorecard

First Advantage vendor trust score

Trust scoring is the “is this vendor a fair counterparty” question, deliberately separated from product quality. Six dimensions, dated, sourced where events warrant it.

6.6
/10
mixed
Verdict

First Advantage's vendor trust profile is mixed. The dimension scores below show where to negotiate hard and what to monitor across a multi-year contract.

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.

How to read this score

  • Trust is separate from product quality. A vendor can ship great software and treat customers badly — or vice versa. We score the two independently.
  • 8.0+/10: strong. Few concerns at renewal or procurement.
  • 6.5–7.9: mixed. Negotiate hard on the lowest dimensions; monitor across the contract term.
  • 5.0–6.4: cautious. Add explicit mitigation language to the master agreement.
  • Below 5.0: concerning. Treat this as a contracted-risk evaluation, not a product-fit evaluation.
  • Updates: we re-verify scoring quarterly. Material trust events (acquisitions, breaches, leadership change, hostile contract terms) get logged on the timeline above.

Related editorial

Last updated 2026-05-10. Scoring methodology: editorial standards. Disagree? Tell us.