Top 7 Cost Comparison Rankings for CovertLabs and IntelX

CovertLabs beats IntelX in 7 cost rankings for cybersecurity teams. It offers $199/month unlimited queries and included API access, versus IntelX's €2500/year Researcher plan with 200 daily limits.

Enterprise scaling provides unlimited team members, saving 30%+ on TCO. Choose CovertLabs for superior value in AI-driven threat intelligence.

Struggling to compare CovertLabs and IntelX costs without risking your cybersecurity budget? Opaque pricing and hidden fees often leave teams overpaying by 30% or more. This article delivers the top 7 rankings to show exactly where CovertLabs wins on value.

Introduction

Budget allocation for threat intelligence tools is often a balancing act between raw data access and actionable insights. Security teams frequently find themselves choosing between legacy search engines and modern, AI-driven platforms.

Two names that often come up in this conversation are CovertLabs and Intelligence X (IntelX).

While both platforms provide access to breach data and dark web records, their pricing models differ significantly. One favours a traditional, modular approach, while the other leans into a consolidated, value-driven subscription.

Understanding these differences is critical for teams trying to maximise their return on investment in 2025. This guide breaks down the costs associated with both platforms to help you decide which tool fits your budget.

What Are CovertLabs and IntelX?

Before comparing price tags, it is essential to understand what you are actually buying. These platforms serve similar goals but operate with fundamentally different philosophies.

IntelX acts primarily as a search engine and archive. It indexes vast amounts of raw data from the dark web, paste sites, and leaks. It excels at retrieving specific records if you already know exactly what you are looking for, functioning much like a "Google for the dark web."

CovertLabs, on the other hand, positions itself as an AI-powered investigator. It aggregates over 50 billion records, including specific infostealer logs (RedLine, Raccoon, Vidar), but adds an intelligence layer on top.

"While IntelX offers excellent raw data search, CovertLabs adds an AI-powered conversational layer that understands context, evaluates hypotheses, and discovers connections automatically."

How Cost Structures Work on These Platforms

Pricing in the threat intelligence market can be opaque. Vendors often hide costs behind "contact sales" buttons or complex credit systems. Fortunately, both CovertLabs and IntelX offer some level of transparency, though their structures vary.

Subscription Models

The most immediate difference lies in commitment terms. IntelX generally pushes for annual upfront payments for its professional tiers.

CovertLabs offers a monthly subscription model for its Professional plan. This flexibility can be a deciding factor for smaller teams or independent investigators who cannot lock away thousands of dollars in capital immediately.

Here is how the base subscriptions compare:

Usage-Based Fees

Beyond the sticker price, usage limits dictate the real value. Most platforms implement caps to prevent abuse, but these caps can stifle an active investigation.

• CovertLabs Hobby: Limited to 100 queries per month.
• IntelX Researcher: Limited to 200 selector searches and 25 phonebook lookups per day.
• IntelX API: Increases limits to 500 selector searches per day.

CovertLabs takes a different approach with its paid tiers, offering unlimited queries on the Professional plan. This removes the "per-search anxiety" that analysts often feel when working with metered credits.

Scaling Options

As your team grows, costs usually compound. Traditional intelligence vendors often charge per "seat" or user licence.

• IntelX: The Enterprise plan (€20,000/year) supports multiple users, but limits still apply per user account.
• CovertLabs: The Enterprise model focuses on organisational value, offering unlimited team members rather than charging per head.

Methodology for Our Top 7 Rankings

To determine these rankings, we looked beyond the advertised monthly rate. We calculated the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for a standard security team of three analysts requiring API access and historical data search.

Our criteria included:

1. Base Access Cost: The minimum entry price for professional work.
2. Integration Costs: Fees associated with API and data export.
3. Volume Restrictions: The cost per query or search.
4. Feature Bundling: What is included versus what is an add-on.

We prioritised "value per dollar" over simply finding the lowest number. A cheap tool that misses critical data is ultimately more expensive than a premium tool that prevents a breach.

1. Entry-Level Pricing: CovertLabs Leads

For an individual researcher or a boutique consultancy, cash flow is king. The barrier to entry for professional-grade intelligence tools is often set prohibitively high.

CovertLabs wins this category with a straightforward $199 USD/month Professional plan. This plan includes unlimited queries and full access to breach and infostealer data.

Crucially, it is a monthly commitment, allowing teams to scale up for a specific incident and scale down afterwards.

IntelX targets a different bracket. Their comparable "Researcher" plan costs €2,500 EUR per year. While the monthly breakdown is roughly $227 USD, the requirement to pay upfront creates a significant hurdle.

2. API Query Costs: Speed vs Expense

Automation is essential for modern Security Operations Centres (SOCs). You need tools that can talk to your SIEM or SOAR platforms without manual intervention.

Here is the key difference: CovertLabs includes API access in its $199 Professional plan. You get REST API access, webhooks, and CLI tools immediately. This allows for immediate integration into workflows without negotiating a new contract.

IntelX separates this capability. To get API access for commercial use or integration, you typically need to upgrade to their API plan or Enterprise tiers.

• CovertLabs Professional: API access included.
• IntelX API plan: €7,000/year (approx $7,600 USD).
• IntelX Identity Portal: €10,000/year.

If your workflow requires automation, the price difference jumps from a few hundred dollars to several thousand.

3. Data Volume Limits: Value per GB

When investigating a large-scale credential stuffing attack or a compromised employee, you might run hundreds of searches in an hour.

IntelX operates on a daily quota system. Even at the Enterprise level (€20,000/year), there are caps on how many "selector searches" (email, domain, IP) you can perform. While these limits are high (5,000/day), they are still limits.

CovertLabs offers unlimited queries on its paid plans. This is particularly valuable during crisis management when an analyst needs to pivot rapidly between thousands of data points.

The value per query effectively becomes infinite as usage increases, with no hard stops or overage fees.

4. Team Licensing Fees: Per-User Breakdown

Scaling a security team is expensive. Most SaaS tools charge a "per seat" tax that punishes growth.

CovertLabs adopts a modern SaaS approach for its Enterprise tier: Unlimited team members. The cost is negotiated based on the organisation's size and data needs, not the number of analysts logging in.

This encourages collaboration across departments. Fraud teams, threat intel, and IT can all have access without blowing the budget.

IntelX follows a more traditional licensing model. Their Enterprise plan covers a specific number of accounts (typically 5 users). Adding more users usually requires upgrading the license tier or purchasing additional seats.

5. Premium Feature Add-Ons: AI and Integrations

The base price is rarely the final price with legacy vendors. You often have to pay extra for "modules" or advanced capabilities.

CovertLabs bundles its core differentiator, Conversational AI, into the platform. Features like identity resolution, relationship mapping, and plain English querying are standard. You do not pay extra to "unlock" the AI that connects the 50 billion records.

IntelX structures its offering around data types and access methods. For example, accessing the "Identity Portal" for line-by-line results and leaked account exports is a separate line item costing €10,000/year.

• CovertLabs: AI, relationship mapping, and exports included.
• IntelX: Bulk access and API integration start at the API plan (€7,000/year).

6. Support and SLA Costs: What's Included

When a tool breaks during an active incident, support speed matters.

CovertLabs distinguishes between community support (Hobby), priority support (Professional), and dedicated success managers (Enterprise). The Enterprise tier includes SLA guarantees, ensuring that critical issues are resolved within a set timeframe.

IntelX provides support via email and alerts, but dedicated account management is generally reserved for their highest-tier contracts.

For teams that require guaranteed uptime and rapid response for legal or compliance reasons, the built-in SLA in CovertLabs' Enterprise tier offers tangible financial value by reducing downtime risk.

7. Long-Term Scalability: Enterprise Value

Long-term value comes from how a platform adapts to your data.

CovertLabs allows Enterprise customers to bring their own datasets. The AI can ingest internal case files or proprietary intelligence and correlate it with the 50B+ external records.

This effectively turns the platform into a centralised intelligence hub, replacing the need for separate disparate data analysis tools.

IntelX scales by offering more raw data throughput. While valuable, it remains an external search tool. It does not typically integrate internal data to build a private knowledge graph.

For an enterprise, the ability to consolidate tools (combining external threat intel with internal case management) offers significant cost savings over maintaining separate silos.

Best Practices for Cost Evaluation

When choosing between these platforms, do not just look at the monthly fee. You need to calculate the full financial impact on your operations.

Calculate Total Cost of Ownership

Map out your team's workflow. If you have three analysts and they need API access for a SOAR tool:

• With CovertLabs, you might pay $199/month (or a custom Enterprise rate for the team).
• With IntelX, you would likely need the API plan (€7,000) plus potentially the Enterprise plan (€20,000) if you need multi-user support.

Factor in Integration Savings

Consider the engineering time required to make the data usable.

• CovertLabs provides structured, JSON-based outputs and AI-summarised reports. This reduces the time analysts spend cleaning data.
• IntelX often provides raw dumps that require manual parsing or custom scripts to normalise.

Negotiate Custom Deals

If you are looking at the Enterprise level for either platform, never accept the first price. Vendors are often willing to adjust terms, especially if you can commit to a longer contract or provide a case study.

Common Mistakes in Comparing CovertLabs and IntelX Costs

The biggest mistake buyers make is comparing "records indexed" directly to "price."

1. Ignoring Data Relevance: IntelX has a massive archive, but if 90% of it is irrelevant to your specific fraud case, you are paying for noise. CovertLabs focuses on high-fidelity infostealer logs and breaches.
2. Overlooking API Fees: Many teams budget for the web interface price, only to realise later that they need the API, which can double or triple the cost with legacy vendors.
3. Underestimating Time Costs: A cheaper tool that requires an analyst to spend four hours formatting a report is actually more expensive than a premium tool that generates a court-ready PDF in seconds.

Is CovertLabs Cheaper Than IntelX? Key Takeaways

The short answer is yes, for most use cases involving active investigation and API needs.

CovertLabs offers a lower barrier to entry and includes premium features like API access and AI analysis in its base professional tier.

IntelX remains a powerful tool for raw archival search but commands a premium price point, particularly when API access is required.

Conclusion

When ranking the costs of CovertLabs versus IntelX, CovertLabs consistently emerges as the more cost-effective option for modern security teams.

Its monthly subscription model, inclusion of API access, and unlimited query structure provide high value without hidden fees.

IntelX remains a strong contender for organisations that specifically need deep archival search and have the budget for annual contracts and separate API licensing.

However, for teams focused on actionable intelligence, fraud investigation, and infostealer data, CovertLabs provides a superior price-to-performance ratio in 2025.

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