OSINT for the modern PI — without the enterprise sales call.

What PIs actually need from OSINT

Most of the OSINT software on the market is either consumer-grade ('background check for $29.99') or government-tier ('book a demo'). Neither fits the day-to-day work of a working investigator. What you need is the middle: a tool that runs structured lookups, surfaces real signals, and produces a court-defensible work product on demand — without requiring you to learn six different specialist platforms or fight a procurement process.

• Skip-trace on a name + DOB + last known address
• Find the social profiles a subject still operates
• Pull the LLC chain for asset-search work
• Generate a citation-anchored PDF for the file
• Do all of the above in under 20 minutes per subject

What Tracelight does for PIs

Tracelight runs a coordinated OSINT sweep against a subject across 30+ source categories: identity, address history, court records, social, professional networks, business filings, asset signals, and dark-web exposure. Every claim in the resulting report carries a clickable citation to the source. The report is yours — branded, exportable, defensible at deposition.

• Lookup: one subject → one report, ~15 minutes
• Watch: ongoing monitoring with alerts on new signals
• Vetting: structured deliverables for client-facing work
• Intel: aggregated dashboards across an open caseload

The economics for a solo PI

If you bill $125/hr and OSINT takes you 4 hours per case manually, Tracelight pays for itself in the first case of the month — Starter tier is $49/mo. If you're running 8+ cases a month, Pro at $149/mo is the right tier; the time savings on a single asset-search case typically covers a quarter's worth of subscription. Pay-as-you-go ($9/case, no monthly fee, waitlist) is also coming for investigators who work fewer than 5 cases a month.

A realistic case walkthrough

Skip-trace example. Client gives you a name, last known phone, and a 4-year-old address. You drop those into a Tracelight subject. The platform runs simultaneously: cross-platform username resolution, voter file alias check, address-history walk, social-platform presence by phone, court-record name search, and licensed-driver state-by-state index. Within 8-12 minutes you have: 3 likely current addresses ranked by recency signals, 4 active social profiles, the subject's likely employer per LinkedIn, and a list of associated phone numbers. Every signal is footnoted to the source.

FCRA-aware by default

Tracelight is not a consumer-reporting agency and is not a substitute for one when you're doing tenant or employment screening. The platform surfaces public-record signals; you make the eligibility decision. We explicitly do not provide bureau credit-pull data. The reports include a per-jurisdiction FCRA notice when run for purposes that may trigger it, so you don't accidentally use public-record signals to inform a covered decision.

Common objections

What we don't do

Honest positioning matters more than feature-list maximalism. Here's what we're explicitly not, so you can rule us in or out faster:

• We don't sell bureau-tier data (TLO, IRB, Tracers, LexisNexis). If you need date-of-birth-verified SSN traces, you still need a bureau subscription.
• We don't run the case for you. You drive the searches, drive the report, sign the deliverable.
• We don't certify findings under FCRA. If you're doing covered employment or tenant work, this isn't a substitute for a CRA.

Related workflows

Other audiences