Lodestone as a TLOxp alternative.
TLOxp is the enterprise incumbent in this category, and for large operations it is a serious product. If you are comparing it against us, here is a straight account of where the two differ — and where they do not.
Broader bureau coverage, and provenance TLO does not show you.
This is not a cheap file undercutting an expensive one. We start from the same premium tier TLOxp does — credit header from the nationwide bureaus, property and vehicle registries, court and public records, billions of records. On a straightforward subject, both will find them.
Where we go further is alternative credit bureaus. TLOxp is built for enterprise volume, and enterprise volume is dominated by subjects the big three cover well. The files that stall are the other kind: thin-file and no-file people, recent immigrants, young debtors, subjects living in the cash economy. Alternative bureaus are how those get resolved, and we treat them as part of the base rather than an upsell.
And we show our work. Every material field carries source attribution, and each result is marked single or corroborated according to how many independent sources agree. Enterprise platforms tend to hand you one merged identity and leave you to trust it. When a garnishment goes to the wrong person, "the database said so" is not a defence.
Run twenty subjects you already know through both, and count wrong answers alongside hits. We would rather you test the claim than believe it.
The commercial shape, and how purpose is recorded.
Priced for a small firm, not an enterprise
Enterprise platforms are built around negotiated agreements, and the economics tend to assume volume. Ours are published on the website: a flat $5 a month for account maintenance, then per-search rates that anyone can read before applying. A solo investigator running thirty searches a month pays for thirty searches.
No search minimum, and seats that cost five dollars
Seat cost is not a spend commitment and does not convert into search credit. At $5 a user, every investigator, paralegal and clerk gets their own login and their own line in the audit trail rather than sharing one expensive seat — which is how accountability quietly disappears.
An access agreement with no commitment
You do sign one. A platform carrying this data cannot responsibly hand it out on a click-through, so the agreement sets out permissible purpose, data handling and audit obligations. What it does not contain is a term, a volume commitment or a termination fee. Cancel whenever you like.
Purpose recorded per search
Every search carries its own permissible-purpose code and matter reference — not the account, not the session. If the account is not credentialed for that purpose against that data class, the search does not run, is not billed, and is still written to the log. Blocked attempts are part of the record, which is what makes the record worth anything.
Bank and brokerage location is not offered
Not at any price, and no product code returns it. If account location from the same vendor is part of your workflow, we are not that vendor — worth knowing before you apply rather than mid-matter.
What TLOxp actually charges, from their own schedule.
TransUnion does not publish TLOxp pricing. One schedule is public anyway: a law-enforcement rate card released under FOIA and hosted by the Brennan Center for Justice. It is the clearest look anyone outside their sales process gets, so it is worth reading carefully.
| TLOxp, law enforcement schedule | Rate |
|---|---|
| Most searches — people, phones, assets, courts | $0.40 |
| Comprehensive Report | $7.00 |
| Relationship Report | $5.00 |
| Business Report | $7.50 |
| Monthly minimum, transactional plans | $75.00 |
TransUnion, TLOxp Transactional Pricing Schedule: Law Enforcement, revised December 2021. Rates may have changed; commercial rates are higher and have never been published.
On per-search price, they win — above about 94 searches a month
TransUnion owns the file. We license ours. On the products they own outright, their retail price sits below our wholesale cost, and there is no version of this page where that is not true. What the schedule also shows is the $75 floor: below roughly 94 searches a month the minimum dominates, and you are paying for capacity you did not use. The full arithmetic, including where we lose.
Reasons to stay where you are.
If you run at real enterprise volume and already have a negotiated agreement, your effective per-search cost may well beat our published rates. Compare the actual numbers rather than the list price, and count the integrations you would have to rebuild.
We are also newer, and we do not have a decades-long operating record. If that is what your risk committee needs, it is a legitimate reason to choose otherwise. What we offer instead is published pricing, no lock-in, and a compliance model you can inspect before committing anything.
Common questions
What does TLOxp cost?
TransUnion does not publish TLOxp pricing. A law-enforcement schedule released under FOIA and published by the Brennan Center for Justice prices most searches at $0.40, a Comprehensive Report at $7.00 and a Business Report at $7.50, with a $75 monthly minimum on transactional plans. Commercial rates for private firms are higher and unpublished.
Is Lodestone Data a good TLOxp alternative?
For intermittent use, yes: published rates, no search minimum and $5 seats, against a $75 monthly floor. For steady high volume, TLOxp is cheaper per search on the data TransUnion owns.
Compare it on your own subjects.
$5 plus whatever you actually run.