FreeAML review
Pay-per-use verification at $20 per individual and $40 per entity (GST inclusive), with a client-pays option that can take a firm's direct cost to zero, and training, risk assessment and SMR/TTR preparation bundled.
At a glance
- Pricing
- pay-per-use — No subscription. $20 per individual (KYC), $40 per entity (KYB); no signup needed to run a check. The pricing page labels both prices "GST incl." (7 November 2026). Separately, the operating trust's ABN record (ABR, Nov 2026) shows it is not currently registered for GST; we report both and have not resolved the difference. Client-pays option shifts the fee to the customer. Free AML/CTF program generator, ML/TF risk assessment tool, staff training modules and Academy, SMR/TTR preparation, and ongoing monitoring (listed with individual checks) included. Custom volume pricing for 100+ checks a month on request. Source: freeaml.com.au/pricing and /help/team, Nov 2026 (the July 2026 prices were $15 and $35).
- Sectors covered
- Real estate, Legal practitioners, Accountants, Conveyancers, Trust & company service providers
- Best for
- Sole traders and small firms doing a few verifications a month who refuse to pay a subscription for capacity they won't use — now with training, reporting, compliance-officer roles and audit trails documented rather than bought elsewhere.
- Website
- https://freeaml.com.au
AUSTRAC obligation coverage
| Obligation | Coverage |
|---|---|
| AUSTRAC enrolment | Partial |
| ML/TF risk assessment | Yes |
| AML/CTF program & policies | Yes |
| Initial customer due diligence | Yes |
| Ongoing CDD & monitoring | Yes |
| Suspicious matter reports | Yes |
| Threshold transaction reports | Yes |
| Record keeping | Yes |
| Staff training | Yes |
| Compliance officer & governance | Yes |
| Independent evaluation | Unverified |
“Unverified” means we haven't yet confirmed this with the vendor or in testing — why we show gaps.
Where it's strong
- Zero fixed cost — still the cheapest route to compliant verification for very low volumes
- Client-pays model turns a cost line into a pass-through (or a margin, if you mark it up)
- Program generator, risk assessment tool, SMR/TTR preparation, ongoing monitoring and role-based governance with an audit trail bundled with checks
- Staff training: four short modules with quizzes and certificates, plus a free 19-lesson Academy
- No subscription or contract friction
Where it falls short
- Per-check prices rose from $15/$35 to $20/$40 between July and November 2026, which moves every breakeven against the subscriptions
- Passing a $20–40 fee (or a marked-up one) to clients is a commercial call, not just a compliance one
- Short track record: the operating trust's ABN dates from April 2026, and the operator is named only in the terms and privacy pages
- Aggressive comparison marketing against competitors; verify claims independently
FreeAML attacks the one thing every other vendor takes for granted: the subscription. There is no monthly fee and no signup to run a check — you pay $20 per individual verification and $40 per entity, and if you use the client-pays option, even that cost moves off your books. For a sole trader staring down Tranche 2 with three verifications a month, that maths is hard to ignore.
The honest summary: still the cheapest route to compliant verification at very low volumes, now with a program generator, a risk assessment tool, SMR/TTR preparation and staff training bundled — and a per-check price that rose a third in four months, which means the subscriptions overtake it sooner than they used to. All figures from freeaml.com.au, November 2026.
Correction, 4 November 2026: our July review marked FreeAML's ML/TF risk assessment, suspicious matter and threshold transaction reporting and staff training as “Unverified”, and said it had no training module. FreeAML wrote to us on 3 November 2026 pointing to its training modules, free Academy and risk assessment tool. We checked each against freeaml.com.au and they are there, as is SMR/TTR preparation on the homepage, so the coverage table, this review, our four head-to-heads and the sector guides have been corrected. The same check found the per-check prices had moved from $15/$35 to $20/$40, which we've updated too. FreeAML also told us it offers IFTI report preparation, franchise and head-office setups and white-label use; we could not find those on its public pages, so they are recorded as confirmed in writing rather than counted in the table. That's how corrections work here — facts change when better evidence arrives, and payment never enters into it.
Correction, 7 November 2026: FreeAML wrote again on 4 November pointing to help pages, themselves updated that day, on compliance-officer and team roles and on workspaces. We checked them. A Compliance role can be given to the appointed compliance officer; four roles (Admin, Workspace admin, Compliance, Staff) decide who can publish the AML/CTF program, manage compliance documents and export the audit trail and audit pack; and the audit trail, in the page's words, is “an append-only record of team changes, verification access, and exports” to which invites, joins, role changes and removals are written. So the compliance officer and governance row moves from Partial to Yes. The help pages also document more than one team (workspace) per login, each keeping its own verifications, credits and payouts. IFTI report preparation stays Unverified: the FreeAML article it pointed us to says the product does not lodge an IFTI and stays on customer due diligence, and describes no preparation feature. Its pricing page now labels both prices GST inclusive, which we have noted.
How free is FreeAML?
Precisely: the fixed cost is zero. No subscription, no contract, no signup to run a check — you pay per check, at $20 for an individual (KYC) and $40 for an entity (KYB), up from $15 and $35 in July 2026. The vendor bundles a free AML/CTF program generator, a risk assessment tool, staff training and ongoing monitoring with verifications, which is the part that makes the package more than a checking tool. The pricing page labels both prices GST inclusive, so $20 and $40 are the figures to put beside vendors who quote +GST. The ABN record for the operating trust shows it is not registered for GST; we note that without resolving the difference.
Run the numbers against the subscription market: three individual checks a month costs $60, still under the cheapest full platform in our database (AMLTranche at $59/month +GST, $64.90 including, plus whatever your checks cost there); five costs $100, which is already above it, though still a fraction of easyAML's $179 entry tier. The crossover now arrives earlier than it did at the July prices: a firm doing more than a handful of checks a month should price the subscriptions seriously, because per-check economics stop being friendly at scale.
The client-pays model, examined
FreeAML's signature move is letting the client pay the verification fee directly — turning your compliance cost line into a pass-through, or even a margin if you mark it up. For conveyancers and agents processing transaction parties, that reframes the whole Tranche 2 cost conversation.
Treat it as a commercial decision, not just a compliance one. A $20–40 fee landing on your client at settlement is a client-experience choice; marking it up is a pricing-transparency choice. Neither is wrong, but decide deliberately and disclose clearly — and check how it sits with your professional body's rules on disbursements. General information, not legal advice.
What's documented, and what still isn't
The training gap we flagged in July is closed: FreeAML now publishes four AML/CTF training modules (fundamentals, customer due diligence, suspicious matter reporting and Tranche 2 obligations, each about 15 minutes with a 10-question quiz and a certificate) and a free Academy of 19 short lessons, about 31 minutes in all (freeaml.com.au/training and /academy, November 2026). Keep the completion certificates — the obligation includes being able to show the training happened. The risk assessment tool covers customer, geographic, product, delivery-channel and operational risk, and an ML/TF risk assessment is listed with each individual check; the homepage says it prepares suspicious matter and threshold transaction reports for you to lodge in AUSTRAC Online (the terms are explicit that FreeAML does not lodge them for you).
The governance row moved to Yes on 7 November 2026. FreeAML's help pages (updated 4 November 2026) document a Compliance role for the appointed compliance officer; four roles (Admin, Workspace admin, Compliance and Staff) that decide who can publish the AML/CTF program, manage compliance documents and export the audit trail and audit pack; and an audit trail described as “an append-only record of team changes, verification access, and exports”, to which invites, joins, role changes and removals are written. The same pages document more than one team, or workspace, per login, each keeping its own verifications, credits and payouts, with a switcher in the header; FreeAML describes this as its setup for firms with several offices, which is as far as the public pages take it. Still unverified on its public pages: independent evaluation (a third-party review by definition), and the enrolment row stays partial. Ongoing monitoring is listed with individual checks but not with entity checks. IFTI report preparation is Unverified: FreeAML told us in writing that it prepares IFTI reports, but the IFTI article on its own site says the product does not lodge an IFTI and stays on customer due diligence, and describes no preparation feature. White-label use is also Unverified: told to us in writing, not on a public page. Two softer cautions remain: the operator is named only in the terms and privacy pages (Vaz Capital Pty Ltd as trustee for the Vaz Capital Trust, ABN 28 247 067 155, records hosted in Sydney), and its comparison marketing against competitors is aggressive — verify any competitor claim independently rather than taking either side's word, ours included.
Verdict
For a sole trader or small firm doing a few verifications a month, FreeAML is still the obvious starting point: zero fixed cost, no lock-in, a program generator, risk assessment and training included, and a client-pays option that can take the direct cost to nothing. The risk of trying it is close to nil — which is exactly what a cautious small firm should want in year one of Tranche 2.
Score it down for the price rise, the short public track record and the rows still unverified. With training, reporting and now governance documented, most small firms could run FreeAML as the whole answer rather than a component — but if the firm pays for the checks, re-price against the subscriptions as soon as you know your real volume, because at $20 a check the flat-fee platforms overtake it at four to five checks a month. If your clients pay the check fee, the firm's direct verification cost does not rise with volume, and the question becomes whether your clients will wear it. How we make money — and why it doesn't change verdicts.