OFAC screening cost-benefit analysis

A plain look at the cost of sanctions screening versus the cost of a violation.

TL;DR

TL;DR: Screening costs a few dollars a month and less than 100 ms per check. A violation starts at $356,000 and requires no intent, so the tradeoff is one-sided.

The cost of screening

Sanctions screening is inexpensive. sanctionsai.dev has a free tier of 5 checks per day with no signup and no key. Paid plans start at $19 per month for 10,000 checks and $99 per month for 100,000 checks, with usage pricing of $0.05 per check via x402. Each check completes in under 100 ms, so latency is negligible.

The cost of a violation

OFAC civil penalties start at $356,000 per violation, and liability is strict, meaning intent is not required. A single unchecked payment to a sanctioned wallet can trigger that exposure. There is also the cost of blocked funds, reputational damage, and the operational burden of responding to an enforcement action.

Why the comparison is one-sided

At $19 per month against a six-figure floor for one violation, the decision is not close. Screening 19,218 SDN names and 947 OFAC-listed crypto wallets across 16 jurisdictions, synced hourly, is cheaper than even a single hour of legal response. The paid plans also carry a $10K legal-fee guarantee, which further reduces the downside.