KYC and Client Onboarding in 2026: What Veriff, Sumsub, Persona and a Custom Workflow Cost

Short answer: for a lender, broker or payments firm that verifies about 1,500 new customers a month, Veriff Essential costs $0.80 per verification ($14,400 a year), Sumsub Basic $1.35 ($24,300 a year) and Sumsub Compliance, which adds AML screening, $1.85 ($33,300 a year), while Persona prints only "starting at $250/month" on a 12-month term. A custom onboarding workflow does not replace any of them; it sits around the one you pick and costs $15,000 to $50,000 once, or $50,000 to $100,000 once when it handles regulated data across several systems. Every vendor figure below was read from the vendor's own page on 16 October 2026.

Key facts, read 16 October 2026:

• Sumsub and Persona charge only for successful verifications, Veriff does not charge resubmissions, and each has a monthly minimum or contract term.
• The identity check is the cheap part; the review queue, approval rules and audit record are where staff time and risk sit.
• A custom build lowers none of the per-check fees. It pays for itself only when the onboarding steps around the check are where your staff time and risk sit.

For a range on your own scope, the AI development cost calculator gives one in about a minute.

The routes, with published prices

Want the number for your own scope? Send a short brief: what takes your team the most manual time, which systems are involved, roughly how many people touch it. A senior engineer replies within two working days with a band and the questions we would ask on a call. No call needed. Or get a range in a minute from the AI development cost calculator.

How to read these numbers. Subscription prices are the vendors' published list prices on the date shown, before taxes, overages, add-ons and seat growth. The custom-build figures are KUMO's published bands for the build only: hosting, model usage, third-party fees and ongoing engineering ($5,000 to $10,000 per month if you have no engineers) sit on top, and we say so wherever a total is compared. A standard tool is the right answer when your workflow fits it; configuration is enough when the gap is small; a custom build is justified only by a specific complexity named on this page, not by preference.

How to read the table. Veriff and Sumsub print dollar prices per verification with a monthly minimum; Persona prints one starting price and says contracts are pay per successful verification. Sumsub states that a verification is the full bundle of checks on its plan, charged at full price even if you use only some of them. They exclude your own review staff, credit-bureau fees and hosting.

The arithmetic for one business

Take one business: a 40-person lending and payments firm that verifies about 1,500 new customers a month, with 10 percent of them (150 cases) going to a human for review. These are KUMO's calculations on the published prices above.

• Veriff Essential: 1,500 x $0.80 = $1,200 a month, $14,400 a year. Adding the PEP and sanctions check at +$0.64 makes $1.44 a check, $2,160 a month, $25,920 a year.
• Sumsub Basic: 1,500 x $1.35 = $2,025 a month, $24,300 a year, for identity only.
• Sumsub Compliance: 1,500 x $1.85 = $2,775 a month, $33,300 a year, with AML screening and monitoring included.
• Persona Essential: $250 x 12 = $3,000 a year as the entry minimum, and the per-verification charge at 1,500 a month is a quote.
• The review queue: 150 manual cases at an assumed 12 minutes each is 30 hours a month of staff time. That figure is an assumption for illustration; replace it with your own count of reviews and minutes.

The verification fee is $14,400 to $33,300 a year across these routes. A custom workflow does not reduce it. What it changes is the 30 hours: it routes each case to the right reviewer, applies your approval rules, keeps the evidence and decision in one record, and sends the same result to your core system and your reporting. Over three years Sumsub Compliance is $99,900 in fees alone, so the build decision is about the process around the fee.

When each route is the right one

1. Fewer than a few thousand checks a month, one country, no special rules: buy the vendor's own flow. Veriff Essential or Sumsub Basic with their hosted pages is enough, and a build adds cost without removing any.
2. You need AML screening from the same vendor: compare the all-in figure. Sumsub Compliance bundles it at $1.85; Veriff adds PEP and sanctions at +$0.64 per check.
3. Cases need a different path by country, product or risk score: configure first, build when the rules outgrow the dashboard. If you describe the rules in more than a page, or they change monthly, a custom rules layer is cheaper than workarounds.
4. The same customer must be approved in your core system, your credit-bureau check and your ledger, with an audit trail: build. This is the $50,000 to $100,000 band when regulated data and several integrations are involved.
5. You may switch vendors, or use two by region: build the layer that sits above the vendor. Your rules, queue and records stay yours, and a vendor change is a connector, not a rebuild.

Related: Softr vs Bubble vs a custom client portal prices the portal your customers see.

What a Starter Build buys

A KUMO Starter Build ($15,000 to $50,000) is a launched first production version of one onboarding flow: the intake form, the rules that decide approve, review or decline, the reviewer queue, the audit log, and the connection to your chosen verification vendor, tested on your real cases, running in your own cloud account, with a handover another engineer can continue from. See AI workflow automation for how builds are scoped and the financial services page for the sector view.

The proof is direct: FLIN is a mobile credit-information platform KUMO designed and built for Indonesian consumers, with WhatsApp OTP sign-in, live ID and selfie identity verification with OCR-derived confirmation, a credit-bureau integration, consent screens for the paid report and a PDF record delivered by email for the compliance flow. KUMO is a software engineering studio that builds custom AI agents, workflow apps and portals for 10 to 100 person companies; its founders built Volopay's first production version as its founding engineers.

Costs after launch

Vendor fees recur every month and rise with sign-ups. A custom workflow adds hosting, monitoring and engineering time when a country, document type or regulation changes, and when the vendor changes its API. Decide before you sign who owns those changes; if you keep adding products and markets, the $5,000 to $10,000 monthly band applies.

How to get a real number this week

Count your verifications a month, the share that goes to manual review and the minutes each takes, then ask Veriff, Sumsub and Persona for a written quote at that count with AML included. For the process around the check, a free 30-minute call with an engineer gives a band for your brief, or start with a scoped estimate for your client onboarding workflow.

FAQ

How much does KYC verification cost per customer in 2026? On 16 October 2026 Veriff listed $0.80 to $1.89 per verification and Sumsub $1.35 to $1.85, each with a monthly minimum. Persona prints no per-check fee, only "starting at $250/month".

How much does it cost to verify 1,500 customers a month with Sumsub? Sumsub Basic at $1.35 is $2,025 a month, $24,300 a year, and Compliance at $1.85, with AML screening, is $2,775 a month, $33,300 a year.

Is Veriff cheaper than Sumsub? On list price Veriff Essential at $0.80 is lower than Sumsub Basic at $1.35. Veriff adds $0.64 for PEP and sanctions, so compare the total with your required checks, not the headline.

How much does it cost to build custom KYC and onboarding software? A custom onboarding workflow around a verification vendor is $15,000 to $50,000, and $50,000 to $100,000 across several systems or regulated data. It does not remove the per-check fee.

Should I build my own identity verification instead of using Veriff or Sumsub? For the document and liveness check itself, use a vendor. Build the onboarding workflow around it, where your rules, review queue and audit record live.

Last verified 16 October 2026. Veriff prices from veriff.com/pricing, Sumsub prices from sumsub.com/pricing, Persona prices from withpersona.com/pricing, all read on that date. Annual totals are KUMO's calculations on those published prices at the volume stated, and the review-time figure is an assumption. KUMO bands are KUMO's published prices.

The numbers in one file. The Build vs Buy Price Book, October 2026 has the published prices of 40 business tools read in October 2026, what they cost a 40-person company, and the four tests that say whether a custom build is worth it. Download the PDF (8 pages, free, no form).