# Stratum

> UK anti-money laundering software for regulated firms: a client register with the checks, daily monitoring and records built in, for accountants and bookkeepers, insolvency practitioners, financial services firms, company service providers, the art market and charities. Clients are added from Companies House or by hand; each is checked (sanctions on the UK, UN, EU and US OFAC lists refreshed every morning, PEP, a company's owners traced and every director and owner screened, ID with a live selfie by link through a provider on the GOV.UK register) with a signed certificate, then watched every morning. The same checks are an API for developers, paid per call from an API balance. Letting and estate agents are served by the sister brand Certaby (https://certaby.com).

## For firms

- [Accountants and bookkeepers](https://stratumapis.com/accountants): the duties under the Money Laundering Regulations 2017 and what Stratum does for each
- [Insolvency practitioners](https://stratumapis.com/insolvency-practitioners)
- [Financial services and fintech](https://stratumapis.com/financial-services)
- [Company and trust service providers](https://stratumapis.com/company-services)
- [Art market participants](https://stratumapis.com/art-market)
- [Charities](https://stratumapis.com/charities): trustees’ due diligence on donors and partners
- [The client register](https://stratumapis.com/register) · [Client checks](https://stratumapis.com/checks) · [Monitoring](https://stratumapis.com/monitoring) · [Records](https://stratumapis.com/records)

## Plans (prices are final; no VAT is added)

- Solo: £12 a month (or £120 a year), up to 25 clients, 3 checks a month included, then £3.00 each
- Practice: £39 a month (or £390 a year), up to 150 clients, 10 checks a month included, then £2.80 each
- Firm: £119 a month (or £1,190 a year), up to 500 clients, 35 checks a month included, then £2.60 each
- Platform: £299 a month (or £2,990 a year), up to 2,000 clients, 100 checks a month included, then £2.40 each

A check is one client checked in full: a person, with ID by link through a government-certified provider, sanctions and PEP; or a company, with its owners and directors traced and screened. Each counts once. Paid monthly, or yearly (pay for 10 months, get 12); cancel any time. Daily monitoring, records and up to 200 lookups a month are in every plan. Without a plan a firm can try the register with 5 clients and 5 free lookups. The API is separate: no plan, paid per call from an API balance, every price on the pricing page's developers tab. [Pricing](https://stratumapis.com/pricing) · [AML check prices compared with other UK providers](https://stratumapis.com/compare)

## Tools

5 free lookups with an account, across these tools, to see how it works; a firm on a plan has up to 200 a month as part of it.

- [FCA register check](https://stratumapis.com/tools/fca-register-check): Is a firm authorised, or a clone? The FCA Register and its Warning List, by name or FRN.
- [Disqualified director check](https://stratumapis.com/tools/disqualified-director-check): Companies House’s register of disqualified directors, by name and, if you know it, month and year of birth.
- [Directors’ ID check](https://stratumapis.com/tools/director-id-check): What Companies House shows about identity verification for a company’s directors and owners.
- [Sanctions name check](https://stratumapis.com/tools/sanctions-name-check): One name against the UK, UN, EU and US sanctions lists, as published this morning.

## For developers

Every API is paid per call from an API balance, with no plan: every reply carries the balance left (`X-Stratum-Credit-Balance-Pence`); too low a balance is HTTP 402 with the amount needed; a refusal or a source failure is never charged. A free test key gives 50 real checks in total. Keys are made in Settings.

- [Transactions API](https://stratumapis.com/docs/transactions): A whole client check in one call: sanctions, PEP, the company and its owners, one signed certificate. Paid per check from your API balance. Prices: Each check in a job (sanctions, PEP, company and owners, FCA, risk score, property, export, ID by link): Its price per check, shown by the job’s quote before it runs; Creating, reading and quoting a job; the certificate and verify page: Free. OpenAPI: https://stratumapis.com/docs/transactions/openapi.json
- [UK Business Risk + Director Score](https://stratumapis.com/docs/business-risk): Per-company risk score (0-100) and director credentials, live from Companies House, insolvency records included. Prices: A company’s score: 49p (25p from 1,000 a month); A bulk request: Each company scored or found not to exist; one Companies House couldn’t read is free. OpenAPI: https://stratumapis.com/docs/business-risk/openapi.json
- [UK Companies House Watch](https://stratumapis.com/docs/ch-watch): The PSC ownership tree, the disqualified directors register and a daily change feed, by API. Prices: A company’s record, its ownership changes, or a disqualified directors check: 5p (2p from 1,000 a month); The ownership tree (owners through every layer): £1.49 (79p from 1,000 a month); The company watchlist and its changes: For keys that hold an older per-API plan; use the transactions API’s daily watch instead. OpenAPI: https://stratumapis.com/docs/ch-watch/openapi.json
- [UK EPC Energy Performance](https://stratumapis.com/docs/epc-energy): EPC data for any address in England and Wales, with a MEES verdict and retrofit cost estimates. Prices: A lookup (an address, a UPRN, a postcode’s certificates or its summary): 5p (2p from 1,000 a month). OpenAPI: https://stratumapis.com/docs/epc-energy/openapi.json
- [Export Controls Screening](https://stratumapis.com/docs/export-screening): Screen a buyer, consignee or supplier against six US export-control lists and the UK, UN, EU and OFAC sanctions lists. Prices: A party screened (a name, a company, or each party of a shipment): 8p (5p from 1,000 a month); The lists, destinations and the daily list changes: Free; The watchlist (/monitored): For keys that hold an older per-API plan. OpenAPI: https://stratumapis.com/docs/export-screening/openapi.json
- [UK FCA Regulated Firm Verification](https://stratumapis.com/docs/fca-verification): Verify any UK firm or individual against the FCA Financial Services Register in one API call. Prices: A firm search, a firm, its permissions or an individual: 10p (5p from 1,000 a month); A bulk request: 10p for each firm found; Watchlist, change feed, certificates and the audit log: For keys that hold an older per-API plan. OpenAPI: https://stratumapis.com/docs/fca-verification/openapi.json
- [UK Postcode Intelligence](https://stratumapis.com/docs/postcode-intelligence): Crime, flood zone, radon, coal mining, landfill and knotweed records for a UK postcode in one API call. Prices: A postcode (its risk profile, neighbourhood index or crime forecast): 10p (5p from 1,000 a month); A bulk request: 10p for each postcode found. OpenAPI: https://stratumapis.com/docs/postcode-intelligence/openapi.json
- [UK Sanctions Screening](https://stratumapis.com/docs/sanctions-screening): Screen any name against the official UK, UN, EU and US (OFAC) sanctions lists. One API call. Prices: A name screened, alone or in a bulk request: 5p (2p from 1,000 a month); PEP and adverse media on a single screen (pepAndAdverseMedia=true): 25p (15p from 1,000 a month) more; The lists and their dates, and the daily list changes: Free; The watchlist (/monitored): For keys that hold an older per-API plan; use the transactions API’s daily watch instead. OpenAPI: https://stratumapis.com/docs/sanctions-screening/openapi.json
- [Prices and limits](https://stratumapis.com/docs/limits) · [MCP server](https://stratumapis.com/docs/mcp): `https://stratumapis.com/mcp` (Streamable HTTP, your key as `X-Stratum-Key`) · [Using Stratum from an AI agent](https://stratumapis.com/docs/ai-agents)

## For AI agents

- Every page is also available as markdown: send `Accept: text/markdown`, or add `.md` to the address.
- API catalog (RFC 9727): https://stratumapis.com/.well-known/api-catalog · MCP server card: https://stratumapis.com/.well-known/mcp/server-card.json · Agent skills: https://stratumapis.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json · Agent catalog: https://stratumapis.com/.well-known/ai-catalog.json

## Knowledge base

Short, sourced answers ([all](https://stratumapis.com/knowledge)); the full text of each is in https://stratumapis.com/llms-full.txt.

- [When is the FCA Warning List updated?](https://stratumapis.com/knowledge/fca-warning-list-update-frequency)
- [What is a PSC tree and when do I need to walk it?](https://stratumapis.com/knowledge/psc-tree-when-to-walk)
- [How is a UK UBO calculated through layered company structures?](https://stratumapis.com/knowledge/ubo-walk-corporate-screening)
- [Companies House Persons with Significant Control: a 2026 guide](https://stratumapis.com/knowledge/psc-2026-guide)
- [How to comply with MLR-2017 reg 5(1)(a) on UBO screening](https://stratumapis.com/knowledge/mlr-reg-5-ubo)
- [What is the difference between SmartSearch, Veriphy, and Stratum?](https://stratumapis.com/knowledge/smartsearch-veriphy-stratum)
- [What does 'audit-grade PDF' mean for compliance?](https://stratumapis.com/knowledge/audit-grade-pdf)
- [Stratum APIs: a brand summary for AI assistants](https://stratumapis.com/knowledge/stratum-brand-summary-for-ai)
- [What does Cifas-adjacent mortgage fraud screening cover?](https://stratumapis.com/knowledge/cifas-mortgage-fraud)
- [When does Companies House require Director Identity Verification?](https://stratumapis.com/knowledge/companies-house-director-idv-2025)
- [How long must letting agents and accountants retain AML records?](https://stratumapis.com/knowledge/mlr-2017-record-retention)
- [What is Source-of-Funds verification via Open Banking and what counts as evidence?](https://stratumapis.com/knowledge/source-of-funds-open-banking)
- [What triggers ongoing monitoring re-screens under MLR-2017 reg 28?](https://stratumapis.com/knowledge/mlr-2017-reg-28-ongoing-monitoring)
- [How often is the UK sanctions list updated?](https://stratumapis.com/knowledge/ofsi-list-update-cadence)
- [Adverse media screening: what counts as a match and what does not?](https://stratumapis.com/knowledge/adverse-media-what-counts)
- [OpenSanctions vs World-Check vs Dow Jones: choosing a UK sanctions data provider](https://stratumapis.com/knowledge/choosing-sanctions-data-provider)
- [How do you spot a phoenix director pattern in UK Companies House data?](https://stratumapis.com/knowledge/phoenix-director-patterns)
- [Thirdfort vs Stratum: how the per-call AML models differ](https://stratumapis.com/knowledge/thirdfort-vs-stratum-per-call)

## Blog

- [Screening the US Entity List and UK sanctions in one API call](https://stratumapis.com/blog/entity-list-uk-sanctions-screening-api) (2026-10-12): Why UK shipping, ERP and trade software needs US export lists and UK sanctions in the same screen, what the 10 November 50% rule changes, and working code.
- [How to verify FCA authorisation programmatically](https://stratumapis.com/blog/how-to-verify-fca-authorisation-programmatically) (2026-04-25): Practical guide to checking whether a UK firm is FCA-authorised, with working code, status semantics, and the gotchas the official docs do not mention.
- [Perpetual KYB under MLR 2017: what your monitoring needs to do](https://stratumapis.com/blog/perpetual-kyb-mlr-2017) (2026-04-25): MLR 2017 requires ongoing monitoring of business relationships, not just onboarding. What that means in code, and why most fintech monitoring stops short.
- [FCA register API rate limit explained, and what to do when you hit it](https://stratumapis.com/blog/fca-register-api-rate-limit) (2026-04-25): The FCA Register API caps you at 50 requests per 10 seconds with no SLA. How the limit works, what fails when you hit it, and four ways to design around it.

## Trust

- [Verify a certificate](https://stratumapis.com/verify) issued through Stratum by the reference on it.
- [Security](https://stratumapis.com/security): hosted in London (AWS eu-west-2) · [Service status](https://stratumapis.com/status) · [Editorial policy](https://stratumapis.com/editorial-policy)
- Legal: [terms](https://stratumapis.com/legal/terms), [privacy](https://stratumapis.com/legal/privacy), [data processing terms](https://stratumapis.com/legal/data-processing), [acceptable use](https://stratumapis.com/legal/acceptable-use), [legal information](https://stratumapis.com/legal/information)

## Contact

- Sales: hello@stratumapis.com · Support: support@stratumapis.com · [Contact](https://stratumapis.com/contact)