How to choose a sanctions screening tool

Evaluate a screening tool on list coverage, speed, integration fit, and pricing before you wire it into payments.

TL;DR

TL;DR: Pick a tool that screens against the current SDN List in under 100 ms, integrates with your stack programmatically, and prices per check you actually run. For AI agents, speed and a clean HTTP API matter most.

List coverage and freshness

A screening tool is only as good as the list behind it. The SDN List is published by OFAC, part of the US Treasury, and updates regularly. Ask how often the vendor syncs. A live feed synced hourly is safer than a quarterly snapshot, because a newly designated party is caught the day it appears.

Speed and latency

Sanctions checks sit in the payment path. A slow check delays authorization or times out. For agents that pay automatically, a single HTTP call under 100 ms is the practical ceiling. Anything slower starts to degrade the payment experience.

Integration patterns

Confirm the tool exposes a plain API you can call from your runtime. Look for support for the protocols your agents already use, such as x402, MCP, LangChain, CrewAI, or the OpenAI Agents SDK. A self-hostable, MIT-licensed option keeps the check inside your own infrastructure when that matters.

Pricing and coverage

• Free tier: useful for testing with a handful of checks per day.
• Paid tiers: scale by monthly check volume.
• Per check: predictable when volume is low or variable.

Questions to ask a vendor

Does it block on a match automatically? Does it log every screen for audit? Does it cover wallet addresses as well as names? Weigh each answer against your transaction volume and the cost of a missed match, because a single unblocked designated wallet can cost far more than the subscription.