Sterling

Sterling (Sterling Check Corp) is a global background and identity screening provider offering criminal checks, employment and education verifications, drug and health screening, identity verification, and continuous (recurring) monitoring. The Sterling API is a documented RESTful, OAuth2-secured developer API that lets platforms, ATS/HRIS systems, and marketplaces initiate background checks, manage candidates and screening packages, retrieve results and reports (PDF/HTML), send candidate invites, and receive real-time status updates via webhook callbacks. Access is gated - developers request a Client ID and Client Secret per screening region (US, EMEA, Canada, or APAC) - and the docs are published via a Postman-hosted portal at apidocs.sterlingcheck.app with a developer portal at developer.sterlingcheck.app. Sterling was acquired by First Advantage Corporation for $2.2 billion, with the deal closing on October 31, 2024; Sterling now operates as "a First Advantage company."

Sterling publishes 7 API contracts indexed on the APIs.io network, including Authentication API, Candidates API, Invites API, and 4 more. Tagged areas include Background Screening, Identity Verification, Background Checks, Human Resources, and Compliance.

The Sterling catalog on APIs.io includes 1 Spectral governance ruleset.

Sterling’s developer surface includes authentication, documentation, engineering blog, and 10 more developer resources.

🌐 Visit website 📡 Profile data on GitHub

28.9/100 thin ▬ flat Agent 26/100 agent aware Front door AI 1/6 silent saas Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-11-06 · rubric v0.27.0 · Show this score on your site →

AccessEnterprise

1 published contract

Background Screening Identity Verification Background Checks Human Resources Compliance Gated API

What this lets a business do 1

Business capabilities this provider's published APIs can perform, derived from its own contracts. Browse all capabilities →

Human Capital Management

BC-300

CandidatesScreenings

POST /screenings POST /screenings/{screeningId}/cancel POST /candidates

Kin Score

Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-11-06 · rubric v0.27.0

Composite quality — 28.9/100 · thin

Contract Quality 9.1 / 19

Developer Ergonomics 4.7 / 15

Access Clarity 1.2 / 15

Operational Transparency 0.8 / 10

Contract Governance 1.2 / 9

Discoverability 5.0 / 8

Regulatory Posture 3.2 / 15

Create-or-Update Ergonomics 0.0 / 10

Agent readiness — 26/100 · agent aware

Machine-Readable Contract 18 / 18

Agentic Access Contract 10 / 10

Documented Reversibility 6 / 6

MCP Server 0 / 12

Machine-Readable Auth 10 / 10

Idempotency 0 / 9

Stable Error Semantics 0 / 8

Request/Response Examples 7 / 7

Rate-Limit Signaling 7 / 7

Typed Event Surface 0 / 6

Agent Skills 0 / 5

Well-Known Catalog 0 / 4

Consent & Bot Identity 0 / 3

A2A Agent Card 0 / 8

Dry-Run / Simulate Mode 0 / 4

Delegated User Identity 0 / 6

Protected Resource Metadata 0 / 5

Registration Without a Human 0 / 6

Agentic Commerce Well-Known Document 0 / 5

Pagination 0 / 5

Distinct Operations 3 / 3

MCP Tool Quality 6 / 6

Regulatory Posture applies to this provider. Its tags matched the Employment & Payroll regime (on an ambiguous tag, where no other regime matched), so Regulatory Posture carries 15 points of the composite. If this regime is wrong for your business, say so on your provider repo — the applicability map is public and we will correct it.

Create-or-Update Ergonomics applies to this provider. This API accepts writes, so it carries 10 points of the composite. It is scored from the published contracts themselves: whether a caller can create-or-update in one call, whether the write accepts a key the caller already holds, and whether the response says which branch ran. Without that, every write needs a search-and-branch in front of it, and the first time that check is skipped a duplicate record is created. Scored against the observed mean rather than raw — a provider at the catalog average is unchanged by this facet, not penalised by it.

The six quality facets above are damped to 75 points between them, because the conditional facet above carries the other 25. That is why each facet's contribution is shown against a damped maximum: raising a quality facet moves the composite by 75% of its nominal weight, not 100%. The full arithmetic is at apis.io/rating/.

Show this score on your site.

It updates itself when the score changes. Paste this where you link to your API docs:

<a href="https://apis.io/providers/sterling-check/"><img src="https://apis.io/badge/sterling-check/card.svg" alt="Sterling on APIs.io — Kin Score by API Evangelist"></a>

Other styles, a README pill and a shields.io endpoint are on the badge page.

Raise your score.

Agent readiness — checks not met, largest first (exact, from this profile):

MCP Server +12 pts — deployment.mode + probe verdict on the mcp/ manifest, not the pointer; an unprobed slug falls back to authorship
Idempotency +9 pts — OpenAPI mutating operations declare an idempotency key — a header, a request-body property, or a named de-duplication token whose own description says so (verified); else common[].type matches /idempoten/i (documented)
Stable Error Semantics +8 pts — OpenAPI $refs a shared error schema across 4xx/5xx responses (verified), else common[].type includes ErrorCatalog / ErrorCodes / DeclineCodes
A2A Agent Card +8 pts — a2a/-a2a.yml manifest, graded on conformance.grade against A2A 1.0.0
Registration Without a Human +6 pts — a `registration_endpoint` in the served RFC 8414 / OIDC discovery document
Delegated User Identity +6 pts — a served discovery document listing authorization_code in grant_types_supported (served), else an oauth2 authorizationCode flow or openIdConnect declared in an OpenAPI (documented)

8 more unmet checks in the Agent Readiness table above.

Kin Score — facets with the most composite points still available (weight × headroom):

Access Clarity scores 7.9 — up to +18.4 composite points
Developer Ergonomics scores 31.0 — up to +13.8 composite points
Contract Quality scores 48.4 — up to +12.9 composite points

Each check links to what satisfies it. Publish the artifact, or tell us where it already lives, and the score moves on the next scoring run.

Improve this rating by publishing the missing artifacts — every area above can be raised, and the full rubric is at apis.io/rating/. Every facet and dimension name above is a link: it opens that measurement's own page — what it means, the exact checks that feed it, how the whole catalog distributes on it, and the providers at the top of it. This rating is computed from the provider profile at artifacts.apis.io/sterling-check/apis.yml: open an issue on github.com/api-evangelist/sterling-check to ask a question or point us at an artifact you publish. Submit an artifact on GitHub — free → Manage your own listing — the Influence plan, $499/mo →

Markets this provider is in provisional

The Kin Score Market layer reads a provider inside its market: its position, and how deep its integrations go. Depth is only comparable within a position. Provisional and unweighted: not part of the Kin Score or agent readiness.

Market	Position	Depth	Registered MCP server	Declares compatibility
Biometrics Testing (biometric recognition vendors, identity verification depth)	undeclared	-	-	-

Registered MCP server and declares compatibility are report only — not weighted. Undeclared means we found nothing we can read, so there is no number: we never infer integrations.

Standards implemented 2

Standards this provider implements or carries. De facto ones are profiled and measured by the API Commons; formal ones come from the standards directory and are linked by the provider's own tags. The evidence column says how each claim was established — not that it was made.

OpenAPI

measured — observed by APIs.io (published)

OAuth 2.0

measured — observed by APIs.io (declared)

APIs 7

Individual APIs this provider publishes, each with its own machine-readable definition.

Sterling Authentication API

OAuth2 token exchange using your Client ID and Client Secret.

Sterling Candidates API

Candidate (subject) records that screenings are run against.

Sterling Invites API

Candidate invitations to complete consent and data collection.

Sterling Packages API

Screening packages (groups of screening products) available to your account.

Sterling Reports API

Results of completed screenings, with per-item statuses (PDF or HTML).

Sterling Screenings API

Screening orders and their lifecycle, including recurring/continuous screening.

Sterling Webhooks API

Real-time screening status callbacks.

Scroll for all 7

Open Collections 8

Open, tool-agnostic API collections (OpenAPI-derived and Bruno).

Sterling Authentication API

OPEN COLLECTION

Sterling Authentication Candidates API

OPEN COLLECTION

Sterling Authentication Invites API

OPEN COLLECTION

Sterling Authentication Packages API

OPEN COLLECTION

Sterling Authentication Reports API

OPEN COLLECTION

Sterling Authentication Screenings API

OPEN COLLECTION

Sterling Authentication Webhooks API

OPEN COLLECTION

Sterling API

OPEN COLLECTION

Scroll for all 8

Sterling API pricing

Not yet checked against Sterling's own pricing page. Compiled by API Evangelist on 2026-07-03 from www.sterlingcheck.com/services/api/; confirm before you rely on a figure.

Plan	Price
API Access (Gated) gated	—
Per-Screening (Usage) usage	—
Enterprise / Custom enterprise	—

Plan details, limits and sources →

Rate limits

API Requests: not published requests
Access Token Lifetime: short-lived (refresh required) seconds
Screening Result Delivery: asynchronous (minutes to days) latency

Compiled by API Evangelist, not yet checked against Sterling's documentation. Rate-limit details →

Pricing Plans 1

Published pricing tiers and plan structures.

Sterling Check Plans Pricing

3 plans

PLANS

Rate Limits 1

Documented rate limits and quota policies.

Sterling Check Rate Limits

3 limits

RATE LIMITS

Service Levels 1

Uptime the provider promises or reports, as SLA4OAI. Read from its own pages; APIs.io runs no monitors.

Sterling

SLA

FinOps 1

Cost, billing, and metering signals for API financial operations.

Sterling Check Finops

FINOPS

Spectral Rules 1

Spectral governance rulesets for linting and validating these APIs.

Sterling API Rules

64 rules · 61 errors 2 warnings 1 info

SPECTRAL

Security Posture 2

Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals.

Sterling Check Authentication

http/oauth2 · 2 schemes

SECURITY

Sterling Check Domain Security

TLSv1.3 · HSTS · DNSSEC · DMARC

SECURITY

Scopes 1

OAuth scopes governing access to this provider's APIs.

Sterling Check Scopes

OAuth 2.0 · no documented scopes

0 scopes

SCOPES

Agentic Access 1

Recommended x-agentic-access execution contracts for AI agents.

Sterling Check Agentic Access

15 operations · 8 acting

AGENTIC

Resources

Get Started 1

Portal, sign-up, and the first successful call

DeveloperPortal

DeveloperPortal

Documentation 1

Reference material describing how the API behaves

Documentation

Documentation

Agent Surfaces 1

MCP servers, agent skills, and machine-readable catalogs

AgenticAccess

AgenticAccess

Access & Security 3

Authentication, authorization, and security posture

DomainSecurity

DomainSecurity

Authentication

Authentication

OAuthScopes

OAuthScopes

Operate 1

Status, limits, changes, and where to get help

RateLimits

RateLimits

Commercial 2

Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use

Plans

Plans

FinOps

FinOps

Company 3

The organization behind the API

LinkedIn

Website

Website

Blog

Blog

Other 1

Properties that don't map to a standard resource type

CapabilityMap

CapabilityMap

Source (apis.yml)

aid: sterling-check
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/sterling-check/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
name: Sterling
kind: company
description: Sterling (Sterling Check Corp) is a global background and identity screening provider offering criminal checks,
  employment and education verifications, drug and health screening, identity verification, and continuous (recurring) monitoring.
  The Sterling API is a documented RESTful, OAuth2-secured developer API that lets platforms, ATS/HRIS systems, and marketplaces
  initiate background checks, manage candidates and screening packages, retrieve results and reports (PDF/HTML), send candidate
  invites, and receive real-time status updates via webhook callbacks. Access is gated - developers request a Client ID and
  Client Secret per screening region (US, EMEA, Canada, or APAC) - and the docs are published via a Postman-hosted portal
  at apidocs.sterlingcheck.app with a developer portal at developer.sterlingcheck.app. Sterling was acquired by First Advantage
  Corporation for $2.2 billion, with the deal closing on October 31, 2024; Sterling now operates as "a First Advantage company."
deliveryModel:
  model: saas
  open_source: false
  commercial: true
  callable_host: true
  label: Hosted service · you call their endpoint
  confidence: high
  source:
  - openapi
  - pricing
  generated: '2026-08-28'
  method: derived
accessModel:
  pricing: enterprise
  onboarding: unknown
  trial: false
  try_now: false
  public: false
  label: Enterprise
  confidence: medium
  source:
  - plans
  - authentication
  - security
  generated: '2026-11-06'
  method: derived
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/sterling-check.png
x-docs-platform: postman
x-docs-platform-confidence: high
x-docs-platform-checked: 2026-10-17
tags:
- Background Screening
- Identity Verification
- Background Checks
- Human Resources
- Compliance
- Gated API
tags_raw:
- Background Screening
- Identity Verification
- Background Check
- HR Tech
- Compliance
- Gated API
created: '2026-07-03'
modified: '2026-07-03'
specificationVersion: '0.23'
apis:
- aid: sterling-check:sterling-check-authentication-api
  name: Sterling Authentication API
  description: OAuth2 token exchange using your Client ID and Client Secret.
  humanURL: https://apidocs.sterlingcheck.app/
  baseURL: https://api.sterlingcheck.app/v2
  tags:
  - Authentication
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/sterling-check-authentication-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.sterlingcheck.com/services/api/
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://apidocs.sterlingcheck.app/
- aid: sterling-check:sterling-check-candidates-api
  name: Sterling Candidates API
  description: Candidate (subject) records that screenings are run against.
  humanURL: https://apidocs.sterlingcheck.app/
  baseURL: https://api.sterlingcheck.app/v2
  tags:
  - Candidates
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/sterling-check-candidates-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.sterlingcheck.com/services/api/
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://apidocs.sterlingcheck.app/
- aid: sterling-check:sterling-check-invites-api
  name: Sterling Invites API
  description: Candidate invitations to complete consent and data collection.
  humanURL: https://apidocs.sterlingcheck.app/
  baseURL: https://api.sterlingcheck.app/v2
  tags:
  - Invites
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/sterling-check-invites-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.sterlingcheck.com/services/api/
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://apidocs.sterlingcheck.app/
- aid: sterling-check:sterling-check-packages-api
  name: Sterling Packages API
  description: Screening packages (groups of screening products) available to your account.
  humanURL: https://apidocs.sterlingcheck.app/
  baseURL: https://api.sterlingcheck.app/v2
  tags:
  - Packages
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/sterling-check-packages-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.sterlingcheck.com/services/api/
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://apidocs.sterlingcheck.app/
- aid: sterling-check:sterling-check-reports-api
  name: Sterling Reports API
  description: Results of completed screenings, with per-item statuses (PDF or HTML).
  humanURL: https://apidocs.sterlingcheck.app/
  baseURL: https://api.sterlingcheck.app/v2
  tags:
  - Reports
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/sterling-check-reports-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.sterlingcheck.com/services/api/
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://apidocs.sterlingcheck.app/
- aid: sterling-check:sterling-check-screenings-api
  name: Sterling Screenings API
  description: Screening orders and their lifecycle, including recurring/continuous screening.
  humanURL: https://apidocs.sterlingcheck.app/
  baseURL: https://api.sterlingcheck.app/v2
  tags:
  - Screenings
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/sterling-check-screenings-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.sterlingcheck.com/services/api/
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://apidocs.sterlingcheck.app/
- aid: sterling-check:sterling-check-webhooks-api
  name: Sterling Webhooks API
  description: Real-time screening status callbacks.
  humanURL: https://apidocs.sterlingcheck.app/
  baseURL: https://api.sterlingcheck.app/v2
  tags:
  - Webhook
  tags_raw:
  - Webhooks
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/sterling-check-webhooks-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.sterlingcheck.com/services/api/
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://apidocs.sterlingcheck.app/
common:
- type: CapabilityMap
  url: capabilities/sterling-check-capability-edges.yml
  name: Sterling Business Capability Map
- type: AgenticAccess
  url: agentic-access/sterling-check-agentic-access.yml
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/sterling-check-domain-security.yml
- type: Authentication
  url: authentication/sterling-check-authentication.yml
- type: OAuthScopes
  url: scopes/sterling-check-scopes.yml
- type: LinkedIn
  url: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sterlingcheck
- type: Website
  url: https://www.sterlingcheck.com
- type: Documentation
  url: https://apidocs.sterlingcheck.app/
- type: DeveloperPortal
  url: https://developer.sterlingcheck.app/
- type: Plans
  url: plans/sterling-check-plans-pricing.yml
- type: RateLimits
  url: rate-limits/sterling-check-rate-limits.yml
- type: FinOps
  url: finops/sterling-check-finops.yml
- type: Blog
  url: https://fadv.com/resources/news/
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com

Sterling API — frequently asked questions

Does Sterling have an API?

Yes. APIs.io lists 7 APIs from Sterling, including Sterling Authentication API, Sterling Candidates API and Sterling Invites API, and 4 more.

Is there an OpenAPI specification for the Sterling API?

Yes. APIs.io indexes 7 OpenAPI specifications for Sterling, each linked for download from this page.

How do I authenticate with the Sterling API?

Sterling documents its authentication (http/oauth2 · 2 schemes). The details are profiled on APIs.io as Sterling Check Authentication.

How much does the Sterling API cost?

APIs.io lists 3 pricing plans for Sterling, with each plan's price, limits and inclusions under Pricing on this page.

Is the Sterling API ready for AI agents?

Sterling has a Kin Score of 28.9 out of 100 (thin) and an Agent Readiness score of 25.7 (agent-aware), scored by API Evangelist on 2026-11-06.

Work with this as data

Every provider here is available over the APIs.io API and to AI agents over MCP.

MCP server

One button, every client — Claude, Cursor, VS Code and the rest.

https://apis.io/mcp

Tools for providers

9 MCP tools reach this

find_providersBrowse and filter every provider in the catalog.
get_provider_artifactsEvery artifact this provider publishes, grouped by type.
get_provider_operationsEvery operation across all of their OpenAPIs — one call instead of parsing every spec.
get_provider_toolsEvery MCP tool they ship, with the operation each wraps.
get_provider_evidenceHow each part of their score was established. Free — the basis for a claim should not sit behind it.
get_provider_ratingPRO — composite, band, trend and facet scores.
apis_io_searchSTART HERE — APIs, providers and tags for one query, each with its total.
resolveTurn a domain, URL or GitHub org into the provider it belongs to.
find_cohortsEvery scored population of providers in the catalog.

All 92 tools →

Call it yourself

curl for this page

This provider

curl "https://apis.io/api/v1/providers/sterling-check"

All providers

curl "https://apis.io/api/v1/providers?limit=25"

Every operation they expose

curl "https://apis.io/api/v1/providers/sterling-check/operations?limit=25"

How their score was established

curl "https://apis.io/api/v1/providers/sterling-check/evidence"

Calls without X-API-Key need no key. Calls with it need a paid plan — get a key.

Get an API key

Free tier, no form to fill in. Signing in shares your email address with us — we store it to create your key and to recognise you if you sign in with another provider. See our Privacy Policy and Terms.

GitHub Google LinkedIn

A second provider on the same verified email joins the account you already have.