The cheapest way to add live sanctions, SEC, court, and recall data to an agent

Last updated: May 21, 2026

The cheapest way to add live sanctions, SEC, court, and recall data to an agent is a single MCP server over US public data, on a free tier. LiveDataLink's free key gives you 1,000 queries per month with no credit card, and it reaches all four of those domains (plus 54 more) through one endpoint. Paid plans start at $10 per month if you outgrow it.

The four domains, and the tools

Sanctions. sanctions_screen_entity screens a name against OFAC SDN, EU, UN, and BIS lists in one call. sanctions_screen_batch handles up to 50 names.
SEC. edgar_company_facts and company_lookup pull registration, financial facts, and filings by name, ticker, or CIK.
Federal courts. The CourtListener-backed tools surface federal litigation tied to a party, so an agent can flag ongoing cases.
Product recalls. recall_screen sweeps CPSC, openFDA (drug, device, and food), and NHTSA in one call, deduped and severity-rolled.

Why one server beats four integrations

Each of these sources is free at the origin, but free is not the same as cheap. Building and maintaining four separate clients, each with its own auth, rate limits, and response shape, is real engineering time, and it is time you spend again every time a source changes. One MCP endpoint replaces all of that with a single bearer key and one response convention. The marginal cost of adding the fifth or fiftieth domain is zero code on your side.

Connect and screen in two calls

Add the server (get a key at /signup/free):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "livedatalink": {
      "url": "https://livedatalink.ai/mcp",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" }
    }
  }
}

Then screen a name:

{
  "method": "tools/call",
  "params": {
    "name": "sanctions_screen_entity",
    "arguments": { "name": "Acme Trading LLC" }
  }
}

What each query costs

The free tier is 1,000 queries per month with no card. If you need more, Starter is $10 per month for 5,000 queries and Pro is $49 per month for 50,000, and every tier can call all 278 tools. For higher-value questions, the packaged decision tools at /decisions answer things like "is this counterparty safe?" in one call instead of many, which stretches your query budget further.

FAQ

Is the free tier really enough to build on?

For prototyping and low-volume production, yes. 1,000 queries per month with no credit card is enough to wire sanctions, SEC, court, and recall checks into an agent and run real traffic before you pay anything.

Does one query hit all four domains?

A single tool call counts as one query. Composite tools like recall_screen and the decision tools at /decisions fan out across several sources internally but still count as one call, so they are efficient with your budget.

Is this data safe to redistribute in my product?

Yes. All four domains are US public-domain data, which is resale-safe. See /trust for the provenance and licensing detail.

Last updated: May 21, 2026 · LiveDataLink home