Middesk vs Sumsub

Middesk and Sumsub both come up when a B2B fintech, payments company, or lender needs to verify businesses. Middesk was built for business identity from day one. Sumsub added KYB to a broad verification and compliance platform. Both are good products, and which fits depends mostly on where your customers are and how much individual KYC you need in the same flow.

Middesk vs Sumsub at a glance

Middesk is business identity infrastructure. It matches business names and TINs against the IRS, searches Secretary of State filings across all 50 states and DC, screens businesses and associated people against OFAC and other watchlists, and monitors for changes. It also provides underwriting data like UCC filings, embedded business registration, and fraud models. Middesk says it verifies 7 million businesses a year and draws on 400+ government and authoritative sources.

Sumsub is a verification and compliance platform covering KYC, KYB, AML screening, transaction monitoring, fraud prevention, and the crypto Travel Rule, with case management on top. Its KYB product verifies companies, UBOs, and directors in the same flow, citing 30,000+ data sources across 220+ countries, and Sumsub says it has more than 4,000 clients.

KYB depth and coverage

Middesk. Middesk is at its best in the US. Data comes straight from the IRS and state registries, which matters for TIN validation, finding every state a business is registered in, and spotting dissolved or inactive entities. Outside the US, Middesk now verifies businesses in 30 countries across Canada, Europe, and APAC through the same API and data model, so US-first teams don't need a second vendor for their first international customers.

Sumsub. Sumsub is built for breadth. It covers registries across many more countries, verifies UBOs and directors with the same KYC and liveness checks it runs on consumers, extracts data from corporate documents in any language, and offers an in-house team that manually reviews complex corporate documents from 140+ countries. If your merchants are spread across many markets, that matters more than US depth.

Owners, individuals, and the rest of compliance

Middesk. Middesk verifies and screens the people tied to a business, but it is not a consumer KYC vendor. For document and selfie checks on owners, Middesk has partnered with identity providers such as Socure. Its edge is the business side: underwriting data like UCC filings and liens, and business registration for companies that need to register in new states.

Sumsub. Sumsub runs individual KYC, AML screening, and transaction monitoring itself, so business owners, directors, and the business's later transactions can all live in one platform and one case queue.

AI agents and review

Middesk. Middesk Agents are API-first. Orchestration agents plan the work and specialist agents handle TIN, address, people, and OFAC checks, beneficial ownership, litigation research, merchant risk, and operating status. Every finding comes with sources and reasoning. Middesk positions them as a way to get audit-ready KYB decisions without building a manual review queue. The CIP workflow launched in public beta for existing customers.

Sumsub. Sumsub uses AI agents for KYB document extraction and to filter AML screening false positives, and Summy AI Copilot helps investigators summarize cases inside Sumsub's case management. Its MCP integration also lets outside agents review applicants and propose configuration changes, with configuration changes approved by a person.

Pricing

Middesk. Pricing is not published; it is sold through sales.

Sumsub. Sumsub publishes KYC pricing: Basic at $1.35 per verification ($149 monthly minimum) and Compliance at $1.85 per verification ($299 monthly minimum). Business verification is on its custom plan, so KYB pricing is also sold through sales.

Where Runtime fits

Runtime doesn't verify businesses. Middesk or Sumsub does that well. Runtime covers the work that starts once identity is settled.

A merchant review at a payments company is mostly not about identity. It is about whether the merchant's processing matches what it said at onboarding, why chargebacks spiked, whether to hold a payout or apply a reserve, and what to tell the merchant and the sponsor bank. That work spans risk, underwriting, payment ops, finance, and support, and today each team investigates in its own tools.

Runtime is the AI agent harness for those teams. Agents run on isolated computers in your cloud, use Middesk or Sumsub as tools alongside your ledger, processor, ticketing, and the browser for portals with no API, and draft the decision with evidence. A person approves in Slack or Teams before anything moves money, and the whole investigation is one record, exportable for your sponsor bank or examiner. A forward-deployed AI engineer builds the first agents with your team.

Which should you choose

Choose Middesk if

• Most of the businesses you onboard are in the US
• You need IRS TIN matching, full state registry coverage, and UCC data
• You want API-first agents to resolve KYB identity questions

Choose Sumsub if

• You onboard businesses across many countries
• You want KYB, owner KYC, AML, and transaction monitoring in one platform
• You want manual review of complex corporate documents as a service

Choose Runtime (alongside either) if

• Merchant reviews need processing, dispute, and payout data, not just identity
• KYB changes create work for underwriting, payment ops, finance, or support
• You want agents in your cloud, with approvals and one record per case

Frequently asked questions

Is Middesk or Sumsub better for KYB?

For US businesses, Middesk goes deeper: it matches name and TIN against the IRS and searches Secretary of State filings in all 50 states and DC. For businesses in many countries, or when you also need ID and liveness checks on owners in the same flow, Sumsub covers more ground in one platform.

Does Middesk do KYC on individuals?

Middesk is focused on business identity. It verifies the people tied to a business, screens them against watchlists, and has partnered with identity providers for individual verification. Sumsub runs document, liveness, and AML checks on individuals itself.

Do Middesk and Sumsub have AI agents?

Yes. Middesk Agents are API-first agents for OFAC false positives, address discrepancies, beneficial ownership, and CIP, CDD, and EDD investigations, with evidence on every finding. Sumsub has Summy AI Copilot for case review, AI agents for KYB documents and AML hits, and an MCP integration for outside agents.

How much do Middesk and Sumsub cost for KYB?

Middesk does not publish pricing. Sumsub publishes KYC pricing from $1.35 per verification, but business verification is on its custom plan, sold through sales.

Where does Runtime fit with Middesk or Sumsub?

Runtime runs next to either. The KYB vendor verifies the business. Runtime agents take merchant reviews and re-reviews further, across processing data, disputes, payouts, underwriting notes, and support tickets, and keep one record with approvals.