AML tool comparison
Sanctuary vs TRM Labs
TRM Labs sells cross-chain tracing and policy authority to agencies and large exchanges. Sanctuary sells the daily screening workflow at a price on the page. Both matter; they are not the same purchase.
The short answer
Facts checked August 2026TRM Labs runs Forensics, Screening and Transaction Monitoring, and it has the balance sheet to keep building: a $70M Series C in February 2026 with Goldman Sachs and Citi Ventures participating valued it at $1B. It publishes no pricing and sells through an enterprise motion. Sanctuary is the smaller, operational choice: $199 a month for 1,000 checks, a 0-100 score on every one, across 12 chains and 20+ intelligence sources, with API, monitoring, case management and a signed audit trail in the same tier.
Choose TRM Labs when tracing has to cross bridges and chains for an investigation, when your regulator or agency counterpart already works with them, or when your vendor policy weighs funding and longevity. Choose Sanctuary when the recurring job is screening deposits, withdrawals and P2P counterparties, and you would rather spend the first hour checking addresses than scheduling a discovery call.
- TRM Labs publishes no pricing and sells through enterprise sales. Sanctuary lists $199/month for 1,000 checks and $499/month for 5,000.
- Chainabuse, TRM's free scam-reporting platform, is public, but it is not free access to the screening product.
- TRM's forensic tracing and policy research go deeper than anything Sanctuary publishes. Sanctuary's answer is the workflow around the check, not the depth behind it.
$199/mo
1,000 checks, API and monitoring included
TRM Labs: pricing not published
$1B
TRM Labs valuation, February 2026
$70M Series C, Goldman Sachs and Citi Ventures participating
3/day
free bot checks, no signup
TRM Labs: no free product tier published
Feature by feature: Sanctuary vs TRM Labs
Feature
Sanctuary
TRM Labs
Risk score precisionSanctuary returns a 0-100 score on every check. TRM scores risk inside its products; the scale is not published outside customer documentation.
0-100 on every check
Not published
Public pricingSanctuary lists tier prices on its pricing page. TRM Labs quotes through sales.
Entry priceTRM Labs publishes no entry price and no per-check rate. Sanctuary's entry tier is $199/month with $0.20 overage.
From $199/mo, public
Not published
Procurement motionSign up and start, or talk to sales. TRM Labs runs an enterprise sales cycle.
Self-serve + sales
Sales-led
Free tierTRM runs Chainabuse, a free scam-reporting platform, which is not free access to its screening product. Sanctuary's bot gives 3 free checks a day.
3 free daily
Free reporting portal
Telegram botSanctuary's bot is button-driven and needs no account. TRM Labs publishes no Telegram bot.
Sanctions screeningBoth screen addresses against sanctions designations.
Continuous monitoring (KYT)Transaction Monitoring is a TRM product. Sanctuary includes monitoring and webhook alerts from $199/mo.
Included from $199/mo
REST APISanctuary issues an API key on the paid tier. TRM access comes with the contract.
Included from $199/mo
Enterprise contract
Investigation workbenchTRM Forensics is a dedicated investigation product. Sanctuary ships graph tracing and case handling, not agency-grade forensics.
Limited
On-chain graph analysisTRM's cross-chain tracing is one of its stated strengths. Sanctuary's graph is built to explain a screening verdict, not to run a multi-week trace.
Entity attributionBoth attribute addresses to services and entities; depth differs by chain on both sides.
Chains supportedSanctuary screens 12 chains. TRM covers a broad set; no single figure is published.
12 chains
Broad, count not published
Reviewer evidenceBoth produce reviewable output. Sanctuary packages sources, attribution and history into an evidence pack tied to the decision.
Evidence packs
Policy and regulatory researchTRM publishes policy and regulatory research used across the industry. Sanctuary covers regulator activity in its news feed, at a smaller scale.
Limited
Case managementCases, assignment and resolution are in Sanctuary's base paid tier. TRM does not publish its case workflow outside customer documentation.
Not published
Signed audit trailSanctuary signs a snapshot of every check. TRM does not publish this detail.
Not published
Where each tool wins
Choose Sanctuary if
- You want a number you can budget against today: $199/month, 1,000 checks, $0.20 after that.
- Your volume is recurring screening decisions, not multi-week traces.
- Monitoring, webhooks, cases and audit trail belong in the base tier for you, not in a second contract.
- The desk needs a free check from a phone before a P2P deal settles.
- Two to ten people screen addresses, and nobody has time to run a procurement process first.
Where TRM Labs still fits
- A contract or regulator names TRM in writing, so the vendor choice is out of your hands.
- You want a vendor whose policy and regulatory research your own team can cite.
- Funds move across bridges and chains, and the trace itself is the deliverable.
- You are signing a multi-year six-figure contract, and the budget line for it already exists.
What switching actually buys you
The invoice drops, the checks don't
Public pricing: $199 a month covers 1,000 checks with API access included. No quote call, no annual lock-in, overage at $0.20 a check.
Verdicts you can forward
Every check returns a 0-100 score with named sources — sanctions lists, darknet clusters, exchange attribution — and exports to a PDF your bank or partner can read.
Live in the next five minutes
Your first check runs in Telegram before a sales call would even be scheduled. 3 free checks a day, and the same account later carries to web and API.
Frequently asked questions
How much does TRM Labs cost?
TRM Labs does not publish pricing. Access to Forensics, Screening and Transaction Monitoring is quoted per customer through enterprise sales, so the figure depends on products, volume and term. Sanctuary publishes its numbers: $199/month for 1,000 checks with API, monitoring and case management included, $0.20 per additional check, and $499/month for 5,000 checks at $0.15. If you need a budget line before you can start, that difference decides the shortlist.
Is TRM Labs free? What about Chainabuse?
TRM's products are not free. Chainabuse, the free scam-reporting platform TRM runs, lets anyone report and look up reported scam addresses, which is useful but is not screening access. Sanctuary's Telegram bot runs 3 full checks a day free, no signup, returning a 0-100 risk score across 12 chains.
What is the difference between Sanctuary and TRM Labs?
TRM Labs leads with cross-chain tracing depth and regulatory research, sold to agencies and large institutions on enterprise terms. Sanctuary leads with the workflow around a screening decision: a 0-100 score on every check, evidence packs, monitoring, cases and a signed audit trail, all in a $199/month tier. If your deliverable is an investigation, TRM has more to give. If your deliverable is a documented decision made quickly, Sanctuary is built for that shape of work.
Can Sanctuary replace TRM Labs?
For screening volume, often yes. For forensic tracing across bridges and chains, no, and we would rather say so. Teams that use TRM for both usually keep it for investigations and move recurring screening to Sanctuary, where 1,000 checks cost $199. Test it the honest way: run addresses you already have verdicts for through the free Telegram bot and compare what a reviewer sees.
Compare the two on addresses you already screened
Pick ten from last month's queue and re-run them free in the Sanctuary bot. Three a day, no signup, no card.
Compare other AML tools
Competitor facts checked August 2026 against public documentation and pricing pages. Product names and trademarks belong to their owners. Spotted something outdated? Tell us