Lodestone as a TLOxp alternative.
TLOxp is the enterprise incumbent in this category, and for a large operation it is a serious product. If you’re weighing the two, here’s a straight account of where they differ.
Broader bureau coverage, and provenance TLO does not show you.
We start from the same premium tier TLOxp does: credit header from the nationwide bureaus, property and vehicle registries, court and public records, billions of records. On a straightforward subject, both of us will find them.
Where we go further is alternative credit bureaus. TLOxp is built for enterprise volume, and enterprise volume is dominated by subjects the big three cover well. The files that stall are the other kind: thin-file and no-file people, recent immigrants, young debtors, subjects living in the cash economy. Alternative bureaus are how those get resolved, and they are in the base price here.
And we show our work. Every material field carries source attribution, and each result is marked single or corroborated according to how many independent sources agree. Enterprise platforms tend to hand you one merged identity and leave you to trust it. When a garnishment goes to the wrong person, "the database said so" is not a defence.
Run twenty subjects you already know through both, and count wrong answers alongside hits. We would rather you test the claim than believe it.
The commercial shape, and how purpose is recorded.
Priced for a small firm, not an enterprise
Enterprise platforms are built around negotiated agreements, and the economics tend to assume volume. Ours are published on the website: a flat $5 a month for account maintenance, then per-search rates that anyone can read before applying. A solo investigator running thirty searches a month pays for thirty searches.
No search minimum, and a seat for everyone on the file
A seat is $5 and buys no search credit, so there is no spend to commit to. At that price every investigator, paralegal and clerk can have their own login and their own line in the audit trail. Share one expensive seat and accountability quietly disappears.
An access agreement with no commitment
You do sign one. A platform carrying this data cannot responsibly hand it out on a click-through, so the agreement sets out permissible purpose, data handling and audit obligations. What it does not contain is a term, a volume commitment or a termination fee. Cancel whenever you like.
Purpose recorded per search
Every search carries its own permissible-purpose code and matter reference, not the account, not the session. If the account is not credentialed for that purpose against that data class, the search does not run, is not billed, and is still written to the log. Blocked attempts are part of the record, which is what makes the record worth anything.
Bank and brokerage location is not offered
Not at any price, and no product code returns it. If account location from the same vendor is part of your workflow, we are not that vendor, and you should know that now rather than in the middle of a matter.
What TLOxp actually charges, from their own schedule.
TransUnion does not publish TLOxp pricing. One schedule is public anyway: a law-enforcement rate card released under FOIA and hosted by the Brennan Center for Justice. It is the clearest look anyone outside their sales process gets, so it is worth reading carefully.
| TLOxp, law enforcement schedule | Rate |
|---|---|
| Most searches, people, phones, assets, courts | $0.40 |
| Comprehensive Report | $7.00 |
| Relationship Report | $5.00 |
| Business Report | $7.50 |
| Monthly minimum, transactional plans | $75.00 |
TransUnion, TLOxp Transactional Pricing Schedule: Law Enforcement, revised December 2021. Rates may have changed; commercial rates are higher and have never been published.
What that schedule does not show
The $75 minimum is a floor, not a ceiling: it is what you pay in the month a case settles early and you run nothing. Those are also TLOxp’s law enforcement rates, the lowest tier they publish anywhere, from December 2021. Commercial rates for private firms are higher and have never been disclosed, so a private firm comparing against that card is comparing against a number nobody will show them.
A $7.00 Comprehensive Report is also one report drawn from one company’s own file, delivered as a single line with no indication of which record came from where. The comprehensive report on our rate card is eleven separate searches against three independent providers, itemised on the invoice, every field carrying the source it came from and marked single or corroborated. The three heaviest searches are deliberately not in it, so confirming an identity does not carry the price of an asset sweep you did not ask for. Add them per file, at the published rate, when the file needs them.
Common questions
What does TLOxp cost?
TransUnion does not publish TLOxp pricing. A law-enforcement schedule released under FOIA and published by the Brennan Center for Justice prices most searches at $0.40, a Comprehensive Report at $7.00 and a Business Report at $7.50, with a $75 monthly minimum on transactional plans. Commercial rates for private firms are higher and unpublished.
Is Lodestone Data a good TLOxp alternative?
Yes. Published rates against pricing you have to ask for, no search minimum against a $75 monthly floor, and a seat for everyone who touches the file. Identity candidates are kept apart rather than merged, every field carries its source, and the county assessor is read on the addresses that matter.
Compare it on your own subjects.
$5 plus whatever you actually run.