Executive Brief · Background Checks

The Camp Vertical

For platform leadership
The one-line thesis

Every summer, camps buy hundreds of thousands of background checks. None of it happens inside your platform.

Camp directors are still emailing staff rosters to a third-party portal, reconciling PDFs, and chasing clear-to-hire flags — while you collect registration fees in your software. Owning this workflow is a margin line, a retention lever, and a trust signal, all in one SKU.

0
Seasonal camp staff hired annually in the U.S.
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Our per-check price range, state-dependent
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States with camp-specific screening statutes
Why this deserves 10 minutes
01
Spend is predictable and recurring.Background check spend scales with seasonal headcount and turnover — a forecastable line item every camp already budgets.
02
Per-check pricing is a stack, not a number.Base search + state criminal + registry + fingerprint. The stack is why "how much is a check?" has no clean answer.
03
State rules are a compliance maze.PA Act 153, NY SCR, CA Trustline, NJ fingerprint — each adds components and cost. Camps get this wrong.
04
Integration turns a chore into a checkout.Staff onboarding → check auto-ordered by state → results post back. Time saved, compliance guaranteed, margin earned.
05
$18–28 is below market, not at it.Camps pay $25–$75 depending on state stack. Our band sits at the low end of the distribution with ACA-grade coverage.
06
It's a stickiness play, not a feature.Once a director runs their staffing season through your platform end-to-end, re-platforming costs them a season.
At a glance
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Annual BGC spend per camp
by size + state stack
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New hires each season
summer turnover reality
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Manual ordering time per hire
director workload today
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Coverage post-integration
state-correct by default
Bottom line

Camps are a high-volume, compliance-heavy, seasonal hiring engine running outside your product.

A native background check integration is the rare feature that adds revenue, reduces churn, and shifts a painful manual task off the director's desk — in a single ship.

Annual spend by camp archetype

The math is linear, the totals aren't small.

Spend = staff × turnover × per-check. Seasonal turnover and state stack do most of the heavy lifting.

How the numbers get built
Camp typeStaffNew hiresState stackAnnual spend
Small day camp3050%Low ($22)$330
Mid day camp6055%Mid ($25)$825
Large day camp12060%Mid ($25)$1,800
Resident camp15065%High ($28)$2,730
Large resident camp30070%High ($28)$5,880

Staff counts include counselors, CITs, specialists, food service, and maintenance. Turnover reflects net new hires needing a first-time check that season.

What drives the bill up
A
Volume cadence.80%+ of checks run in a 6-week window (March–May). Peaks concentrate director workload and vendor-side error rates.
B
Turnover.Camps rehire roughly 35–45% of prior staff. The other 55–65% need first-time checks every spring.
C
State stack.A PA or NY camp pays more per head than an unregulated-state equivalent — for the exact same person.
D
Compliance re-runs.Many camps re-screen every 1–3 years per ACA guidance, not just at hire.
What it means for the platform

A mid-sized camp is a $1,000–$3,000 BGC line item with zero switching friction today.

If even a third of that moves through your platform, it compounds into real rev-share or markup dollars against near-zero incremental COGS.

Anatomy of a background check

"How much is a check?" is a stack question.

A camp-grade check is a bundle of components. Which components are included — and what each one costs — is what makes pricing move.

Basic national package$18–22
SSN traceNational criminalSex offender registry
Camp-grade (ACA-aligned)$23–28
SSN trace National criminal SOR State criminal State child-abuse registry
High-compliance (PA Act 153 / NJ / CA Trustline)$45–75 at market
SSN National SOR State criminal Child-abuse registry FBI fingerprint
What each component adds
ComponentWhat it catchesTypical add
SSN traceIdentity + address history$2–5
National criminal DBCross-state felony/misdemeanor$5–10
Sex offender registry (NSOR)50-state registry sweep$3–8
Statewide criminalCourt-level records in a state$5–15
County criminalCourt-level records in a county$8–20
State child-abuse registryPA CY-113, NY SCR, TX DFPS, etc.$10–40
FBI fingerprint (LiveScan)Federal fingerprint-based$22–50
MVR / driving recordFor staff who transport campers$8–15
Takeaway

A "background check" is a configurable bundle. Our job is to ship the right bundle for the right state automatically.

That's what turns a confusing $18–75 range into a clean, defensible in-app price.

Compliance intensity by state
Baseline
State criminal required
+ Child-abuse registry
+ Fingerprint / multi-registry
High-compliance stack
Tap a state to see its stack
Camp screening laws vary. Here's what each tier requires.
  • Baseline states — ACA accreditation is the driving standard; no state-specific add-ons.
  • State criminal — a statewide search is legally required in addition to the national.
  • Child-abuse registry — states like NY (SCR) and TX (DFPS) require a registry check on top.
  • Fingerprint / multi-registry — NJ and NH require fingerprint-based checks; bills compound.
  • High-compliance stack — PA Act 153 (State Police + Child Abuse + FBI fingerprint) and CA Trustline sit at the top.
The five highest-stack states
StateRequired stackMarket costOur cost
PennsylvaniaPA State Police + Child Abuse + FBI fingerprint (Act 153)$55–75$28
New JerseyState criminal + fingerprint$45–65$26
CaliforniaLiveScan fingerprint + Trustline (in-home care)$50–70$28
New YorkState criminal + SCR (child abuse)$35–50$25
New HampshireState criminal + fingerprint$40–55$25

Our price sits materially below market for every high-stack state. That's the deal with camps: we absorb the compliance complexity; they get a clean flat rate.

Why this matters for a platform

Camps in PA, NJ, CA, NY, and NH don't need to learn the rules — the software should.

Routing the right state stack automatically at the point of hire is where integration earns its keep. It's the part camps get wrong when they DIY.

The workflow today vs. after integration

Director's current Tuesday, March 18.

Build staff roster in spreadsheet → email to BGC vendor portal → upload consent PDFs → wait 2–5 business days → open vendor portal → download results → reconcile to roster → flag incompletes → email director of operations → update camp software manually.

~15 min per hire 2 systems Manual state selection Results live outside your product

The same Tuesday, post-integration.

Director hires a counselor in your platform → state is auto-detected from camp location → correct stack (PA Act 153, NY SCR, baseline, etc.) is ordered automatically → consent collected via your existing staff-onboarding flow → result posts back as a status on the staff record → dashboard shows red/yellow/green at a roster level.

Under 60 seconds per hire One system Compliance by default Data stays in your product
What the platform gets
New
Revenue line
rev-share or markup
Churn risk
sticker workflow
Parent trust signal
"all staff screened in-app"
Support tickets
no reconciliation bugs
What the camp gets
I
Time back.A 150-staff camp saves ~25 hours of director time per spring, every spring.
II
Right stack, every state.The system — not the director — knows PA Act 153 vs. NY SCR vs. baseline.
III
One bill.BGC spend lives on the same invoice as registration, payroll, and camper fees.
IV
Audit trail.ACA re-accreditation pulls a clean report from inside the platform instead of a vendor portal.
The integration thesis

This is not a screening product — it's a hiring-workflow product that happens to include screening.

Camps don't want to buy background checks. They want to hire counselors and be compliant. Put the screening inside the hiring flow and the SKU sells itself.

Where $18–28 lands in the market

Our price range vs. what camps pay today.

The band shows our $18–28 range. The tick marks show where a typical camp is paying today depending on state stack.

Our range
Baseline $25
State + registry $40
High-stack $60
PA / CA $75
$10$85
Head-to-head, by state stack
What the price range actually means
StackWho it's forOur priceMarketDelta
Basic nationalSmall day camps, unregulated states$18$22–30–$8
Camp-grade (ACA)Most day + overnight camps$22–25$28–40–$12
State + registryNY, TX, IL, WA, MA$25–27$35–50–$15
High-compliancePA, NJ, CA, NH$28$45–75–$25
The pitch in one line

$18–28, state-correct by default, inside your platform.

We're not the cheapest national DB scan on the internet. We're the cheapest compliant-for-camps rate — and the only one that ships with an integration your directors will actually use.