Cognito
by Cognito · Identity verification, KYC and AML screening via API
BenchRank score
Screenshots of Cognito
Homepage
Overview
Cognito provides identity verification and compliance checks through four products: Flow (all-in-one ID verification), Identity (phone-number-based verification), Screening (watchlist, AML and PEP checks) and Business (business onboarding). Verification combines database checks against government sources, ID document capture and selfie liveness, integrated by hosted link, hybrid API or full API.
- Best for
- Companies that need KYC, AML screening and identity checks built into customer onboarding.
- Pricing
- The captured pages show no prices for Cognito; the site directs visitors to sign up, request a demo or contact sales.
- Runs on
- Web
Strengths and trade-offs
Strengths
- Covers onboarding IDV and ongoing watchlist screening together
- No-code, hybrid and full API integration options with client SDKs
- States 209 countries and 13,000 ID documents supported
- Daily watchlist re-scans across 20+ screening lists
Trade-offs
- No pricing published; you must sign up or talk to sales to learn cost
- Pass rates (98% US, 93% rest of world) are vendor-reported figures
- Site promotes Plaid Identity Verification and Monitor as the newer products
Pricing
Published plans and prices from Cognito’s own pricing page.
How this score is made up
Each dimension is scored out of 100 and combined into the headline score using fixed weights.
MCP support
Whether an agent can drive the product through the Model Context Protocol, and how much setup that takes.
API quality
Public API surface: machine-readable spec, official SDKs, documented auth, errors, rate limits and versioning.
Documentation
Publicly reachable docs — coverage, freshness, code samples and machine readability.
Agent friendliness
How readable the site is to an automated client: llms.txt, structured data, server-rendered content, crawler access.
Pricing transparency
Whether real prices are published, self-serve signup exists, and usage costs are knowable without a sales call.
Changelog
A public, dated record of what shipped and when — the clearest signal that a product is still alive.
Marketing site structure
Whether the site answers a buyer's questions: clear positioning, the pages that matter, and accessibility.
Page speed
How fast the site loads for real visitors: Chrome UX Report 75th-percentile LCP, INP and CLS, with a Lighthouse mobile run standing in where a site has too little traffic for field data.
Operational trust
Status page and incident history, security disclosure, compliance and data-processing documentation.
Measured, but not part of the score
Useful to know, but not a mark for or against the product — so these do not affect the ranking.
Openness
Source availability, self-hosting, data export and open standards. Scored and shown, but not part of the composite — paid SaaS is not worse for being paid SaaS.
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Where this comes from
The Cognito pages BenchRank reads when it scores the product — its documentation, release notes, status and security pages, and its repository where there is one.
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