Comparison · reviewed 2026-07-30

AM Forensics vs Thomson Reuters CLEAR

CLEAR aggregates US public records — addresses, corporate filings, liens, court records, licensing, and more — into a single investigative search platform used by investigators, law enforcement, and compliance teams.

Public-records search platform Subscription plus per-search fees Data vendor

Book the scoping call See the comparison Free. No sales sequence. A real answer, including "you don't need us."

/ How each is bought

The clearest difference is usually not features. It is what you are actually buying, who performs it, and what you own at the end.

AM Forensics

An independent investigative due-diligence practice: open-source intelligence, public and corporate records, and metadata investigations for financial institutions, fintechs, investors, and counsel.

Engagement: Per-subject or per-matter engagement
Pricing: Fixed price and turnaround quoted at scoping
Who does the work: Named investigator, start to finish
Independence: Independent — no data-licensing revenue, no referral fees

Thomson Reuters CLEAR

Public-records search platform

Engagement: Subscription plus per-search fees
Pricing: Seat subscription with transaction charges
Who does the work: Your investigator runs and interprets searches
Independence: Data vendor

/ Side by side

These rows describe how each firm operates — facts you can verify — rather than judgments about product quality. Where a flat yes or no would mislead, the cell says so.

Capability	AM Forensics	Thomson Reuters CLEAR
Named investigator does the workNo handoff to an offshore research pool.	Yes	No
Every finding tied to a cited sourceReports footnote the record behind each assertion.	Yes	PartlyRecords are attributed; verification against the primary filing is a separate step.
Primary public and corporate recordsFilings, courts, registries — not database aggregation alone.	Yes	Partly
Metadata and digital-artifact analysisDocument provenance, EXIF, file-history examination.	Yes	No
Fixed price quoted before work beginsScope and cost agreed in writing, not billed open-ended.	Yes	NoPer-search transaction fees make total cost variable.
Report structured for counsel and courtWritten anticipating challenge and privilege.	Yes	No
Single-subject engagements acceptedNo annual contract or subscription minimum.	Yes	No
AML and financial-crime contextFindings interpreted against BSA/AML expectations.	Yes	Partly
Named turnaround commitmentA date, agreed at scoping.	Yes	Yes

Provided Partly, or with a caveat Not part of the model

/ Where Thomson Reuters CLEAR is the better call

We would rather you buy the right thing than buy from us. Here is where Thomson Reuters CLEAR genuinely wins.

Thomson Reuters CLEAR does this well

Very broad US public-records aggregation in one search
Fast identity and address resolution
Well established with investigators and law enforcement

Best for: In-house investigative teams with the credentials, training, and time to run searches themselves.

Where teams still come to us

Aggregated records need verification against the primary source before you rely on them.
Access is credential-gated by permissible purpose, so not every team can hold it.
It is a search tool — the analysis, the writing, and the accountability are yours.

AM Forensics fits when: When you do not have an in-house investigator — or you have one and need an independent second look with the findings documented for a file.

/ Three reasons teams choose AM Forensics instead

Search results are not a finding

Aggregated data carries staleness and transcription error. AM Forensics retrieves the underlying filing, verifies it, and cites it — so the finding survives challenge.

You get the report, not the tooling

No credentialing, no permissible-purpose administration, no per-search meter. A fixed price and a written report.

Structural reading, not lookups

The valuable findings — layered ownership, dissolved-and-refiled entities, shared agents and addresses — come from reading a filing history, not from a query returning a row.

No-cost, no-obligation

Subject Scoping Call

A 30-minute call on one live subject: what the open record is likely to hold, what it will not, and what a defensible report would cost. If the answer is that you do not need an investigation, we will tell you.

Realistic read on what OSINT and records can establish
Jurisdiction and source-availability constraints, up front
Fixed price and turnaround before you commit

Name

Company

Work email

Your role

What is the matter?

Timeline

Anything we should know

Business email required. Privileged matters welcome — reply within one business day. We do not sell, share, or rent your details, and there is no mailing list attached to this form.

/ Top Thomson Reuters CLEAR alternatives in 2026

If Thomson Reuters CLEAR is not the right fit, these are the options worth comparing — starting with the one we would look at first.

Independent practice

AM Forensics

An independent investigative due-diligence practice: open-source intelligence, public and corporate records, and metadata investigations for financial institutions, fintechs, investors, and counsel. When you do not have an in-house investigator — or you have one and need an independent second look with the findings documented for a file.

Book the scoping call
Due-diligence research database

LexisNexis Diligence

LexisNexis provides due-diligence research tooling built on its news, legal, and public-records archives, letting compliance teams run adverse-media, sanctions, and background searches from a single platform.

Compare
Corporate ownership data platform

Sayari

Sayari builds a graph of global corporate ownership, trade, and supply-chain data, letting analysts trace beneficial ownership and counterparty networks across jurisdictions from a single interface.

Compare
Global investigations firm

Kroll

Kroll is the best-known name in corporate investigations, offering business intelligence, due diligence, forensic accounting, and cyber investigations at global scale. It is the default choice for large corporates and law firms on high-stakes matters.

Compare
Investigative due diligence firm

Mintz Group

Mintz Group is a specialist investigations firm focused on background investigations, due diligence, and fact-finding for law firms, corporates, and investors, with a strong reputation for rigorous, source-based work.

Compare
Global investigations firm

Nardello & Co.

Nardello & Co. is a global investigations firm founded by a former federal prosecutor, known for discreet, senior-led work on complex disputes, FCPA matters, and reputational investigations.

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Global risk consultancy

Control Risks

Control Risks is a global specialist risk consultancy covering political risk, security, crisis management, compliance, and investigations, serving multinationals operating in complex environments.

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Corporate intelligence & cyber

S-RM

S-RM is a corporate intelligence and cyber-security consultancy providing due diligence, investigations, and incident response, with a strong presence in the private-equity and law-firm markets.

Compare
Screening & risk-intelligence database

LSEG World-Check

World-Check, now part of LSEG Risk Intelligence, is one of the most widely used screening databases for sanctions, PEPs, and adverse media, embedded in KYC workflows across the financial-services industry.

Compare

/ Questions we actually get asked

Can we just run this ourselves?

If you have credentialed, trained investigators and the time, yes. Most compliance teams have neither, and the gap shows in the file.

Do you verify aggregated data?

Always, for anything material. The primary filing is retrieved and cited rather than the aggregator record being relied on.

What about permissible purpose?

AM Forensics operates within applicable permissible-purpose and privacy constraints and will decline work that does not meet them.

How is your report different from a CLEAR export?

An export is data. A report is a dated, cited assessment of what the record shows, what it does not, and what that means — signed by the person who did the work.