How Clearlist compares
The incumbents are good at what they do. This page is for working out whether what they do is what you need. If you have an investigations team and a procurement process, you probably want them. If you have a wallet to ship and a bank asking questions, read on.
Chainalysis
KYT screens transactions and addresses for compliance teams; Reactor is the investigation tool. Chainalysis also publishes a free sanctions-screening API that answers one question, whether an address is a direct sanctions hit: no public labels, no exposure, no policy, no evidence record. Its free on-chain oracle was deprecated on 18 March 2026 (no longer maintained, no new addresses added, not recommended for new integrations); see the migration guide at /oracle-migration. Clearlist's own oracle, with the same isSanctioned(address) signature, is built and tested; deployment pending.
Elliptic
Navigator for transaction monitoring, Lens for wallet screening, Investigator for forensics. Sold to financial institutions, exchanges and regulators under enterprise agreements.
TRM Labs
Wallet and transaction screening for compliance teams and a forensics product used heavily by government agencies. Enterprise contracts.
Name-screening APIs
Screen customer names against sanctions lists, PEP lists and sometimes adverse media. They do not screen chain addresses and have no notion of counterparty exposure, so a crypto app usually needs one of these plus a chain-analytics vendor.
Side by side
Vendor descriptions are general: their pricing and terms are not published, so no dollar figures are stated. Rows marked “their advantage” are where the incumbents are stronger today, and we say so.
| Clearlist | Chainalysis | Elliptic | TRM Labs | Name-screening APIs | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Built for | Developers at wallets, payment apps, ramps, DeFi frontends and fintechs adding crypto. A compliance function of one. | Exchanges, financial institutions and government; compliance teams (KYT) and investigators (Reactor). | Financial institutions, exchanges and regulators; compliance (Navigator), screening (Lens) and investigations (Investigator). | Exchanges, banks and government agencies; Wallet Screening, Transaction Monitoring and Forensics. | Fintechs and banks screening customer names and PEPs. ComplyAdvantage, Sanctions.io and similar. |
| How you buy | Sign up, create a key, call the API. No sales call. | Sales-led for KYT and Reactor. A free sanctions-screening API and on-chain oracle are self-serve. | Sales-led. | Sales-led. | Mostly sales-led; some offer self-serve starter plans. |
| Pricing visibility | Public. Free trial, then $299 or $1,500 a month. Foundation and Enterprise from $50,000 a year. | Not published for KYT or Reactor. The sanctions API is free. | Not published; quote-based. | Not published; quote-based. | Varies; usually quote-based above a starter tier. |
| Minimum commitment | None on self-serve tiers: month to month, cancel any time. Annual billing is optional. Foundation and Enterprise are annual agreements. | Annual enterprise contracts are typical for KYT. None for the free sanctions API. | Annual enterprise contracts are typical. | Annual enterprise contracts are typical. | Usually an annual contract above a starter tier. |
| Time to first screen | Minutes. The curl in the docs works with a test key. | Weeks for KYT. Hours for the free sanctions API. | Weeks. | Weeks. | Days to weeks. |
| What a decision looks like | allow, review or block, with a list of reasons. Each reason has a one-sentence summary and the evidence behind it. Plus a user_message you can show your end user. | Risk level and exposure category per alert in KYT; the trail is in Reactor. The free API returns a yes/no for direct OFAC hits. | Risk score with configurable rules and exposure categories. | Risk score with category and attribution per alert. | Match score per name with the matched list entry. No chain context. |
| False-positive controls | Your policy (thresholds and actions per category), your allowlist, a review queue with one-click clear or confirm. A name never blocks on its own. | Configurable alert rules and thresholds in KYT. | Configurable risk rules in Navigator. | Configurable rules and thresholds. | Fuzzy-match thresholds; whitelisting varies by vendor. |
| Evidence export and attestation | A per-decision evidence file (the decision plus the complete list records and batch versions behind it), a printable attestation page with a share link, and a Compliance Pack (policy, risk assessment, procedure) generated from your real configuration. | Case and report exports from Reactor; alert history in KYT. | Reports from Investigator; alert history in Navigator. | Case exports from Forensics; alert history in monitoring. | Match reports and audit logs. |
| Name screening with corroboration | Yes. Names, with DOB, nationality, country and ID number as corroborators. A strong name match alone is review, never block. | Not a KYT feature; address and transaction based. | Not the core product; address and transaction based. | Not the core product; address and transaction based. | Yes, this is the product. Names, PEPs, often adverse media. Corroboration handling varies. |
| Sanctions lists covered | OFAC SDN and Consolidated, EU Financial Sanctions File, UK OFSI, UN Security Council. Fetched from the publishers, versioned as batches. | Global sanctions designations mapped to addresses. The free API covers OFAC addresses directly. | Global sanctions designations mapped to addresses. | Global sanctions designations mapped to addresses. | Hundreds of lists: sanctions, PEPs, enforcement, watchlists. No chain addresses. |
| Public labels (mixers, hacks, scams) | Yes, from cited public sources: mixers, hacks, scams, darknet markets, ransomware, sanctioned services. Every label carries its source URL. | Proprietary attribution, the largest in the industry. | Proprietary attribution. | Proprietary attribution. | None. |
| Exposure depth Their advantage | One hop today, two hops reported as information. Growing. Honest limit: this is where they are stronger. | Deep multi-hop attribution graphs; Reactor for the trail. | Deep multi-hop graphs; Investigator for the trail. | Deep multi-hop graphs; Forensics for the trail. | None. |
| Chain coverage | 45 chains screened, 32 EVM. Exposure on 32. A new chain is added the week it launches; the registry is public. | Broad; Ethereum-first, newer chains later. The free API is address-only. | Broad; Ethereum-first, newer chains later. | Broad; Ethereum-first, newer chains later. | No chain coverage. |
| Investigations tooling Their advantage | None. Clearlist answers the question at the point of decision; it is not a graph explorer. | Reactor: excellent. | Investigator: excellent. | Forensics: excellent. | None. |
| SOC 2 Their advantage | Planned. Not yet audited. | Yes. | Yes. | Yes. | Usually yes. |
| Bring your own data | Planned: bring your own Chainalysis key and use Clearlist as the decision layer (policy, allowlist, review, evidence) on top of their data. | Their data, their platform. | Their data, their platform. | Their data, their platform. | Their data. |
When to choose them instead
Choose Chainalysis, Elliptic or TRM if you are a large exchange or institution with an investigations team; if your program depends on deep multi-hop attribution graphs (following funds through clusters and services, not just the immediate counterparty); or if you need law-enforcement-grade forensics and case management. Those are their products, they are excellent at them, and Clearlist does not try to replace them.
Choose a name-screening API alone if you never touch a wallet address. If you do both, Clearlist screens names and addresses in one call and keeps the evidence in one format.
Bring your own Chainalysis key
Planned, not yet built: plug a Chainalysis API key into Clearlist and use their attribution data for exposure while keeping Clearlist as the decision layer. Your policy, your allowlist, your review queue, your evidence file and your attestation page, with their data behind the exposure reasons. For a team that already has the contract but wants decisions a developer can act on.
What Clearlist is, in one line
Self-serve screening on 45 chains with explainable decisions, your own false-positive controls, and evidence you can hand to a bank. Unlimited free address checks; 1,000 metered screens a month on Free.