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Government · head to head

American Legal Publishing vs Unit21

A

American Legal Publishing

Government

Municipal Code Solutions

From
$150/month
Free plan
No
Unit21 logo

Unit21

Cybersecurity

No-code fraud and AML risk operations platform for fintechs and neobanks

From
On request
Free plan
No

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: American Legal Publishing a 2019 recodification contract between American Legal Publishing Corporation and the City of Dry Ridge, Kentucky, publicly posted by a separate Kentucky municipality as a model agreement, sets a base codification cost of $9,485 (USD) plus per-page increase rates of $18 (single column) and $21 (dual column) once the code exceeds the estimated page count, a one-time $550 setup fee to put the code in a searchable online format, $495 per year to host the code online after that, and a five-year supplement plan billed at $18-21 per reprinted page plus $200 per annual statutory update. This is one specific signed municipal contract, not a general price list, and actual costs for other municipalities will scale with code length.; Unit21 it is built for fintech scale rather than card issuer scale, so organisations reaching very high transaction volumes generally re-evaluate against heavier platforms and face a migration.
  • They diverge on capability: American Legal Publishing covers Code Codification, Unit21 covers No-code rule builder.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which American Legal Publishing and Unit21 actually diverge.

Attributes where American Legal Publishing and Unit21 differ
AttributeAmerican Legal PublishingUnit21
Starting price$150/monthOn request
Pricing modelsubscriptionquote
CategoryGovernmentCybersecurity
Founded1912Unknown

Identical on both: free tier (No), platforms (Web), user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in American Legal Publishing

  • Code Codification
  • Online Publishing
  • Print Services
  • Editorial Support
  • Code Search
  • Legislative Systems
  • Document Management
  • Public Portals

Only in Unit21

  • No-code rule builder
  • Case management
  • SAR filing
  • Backtesting
  • Identity and device signals
  • Data ingestion API

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

American Legal Publishing

  • Citizen Servicesnot Unit21
  • Records Managementnot Unit21
  • Public Safetynot Unit21
  • Civic Engagementnot Unit21

Unit21

  • A neobank whose sponsor bank requires a documented monitoring programme before it will keep the BIN sponsorshipnot American Legal Publishing
  • A crypto exchange needing SAR filing and case management without building an internal compliance engineering teamnot American Legal Publishing
  • A payments startup where the fraud lead needs to ship a new rule the same day a new attack pattern appearsnot American Legal Publishing
  • A lender consolidating fraud alerts from three point tools into one investigator queue with a single audit trailnot American Legal Publishing

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

American Legal Publishing

  • A 2019 recodification contract between American Legal Publishing Corporation and the City of Dry Ridge, Kentucky, publicly posted by a separate Kentucky municipality as a model agreement, sets a base codification cost of $9,485 (USD) plus per-page increase rates of $18 (single column) and $21 (dual column) once the code exceeds the estimated page count, a one-time $550 setup fee to put the code in a searchable online format, $495 per year to host the code online after that, and a five-year supplement plan billed at $18-21 per reprinted page plus $200 per annual statutory update. This is one specific signed municipal contract, not a general price list, and actual costs for other municipalities will scale with code length.

Unit21

  • It is built for fintech scale rather than card issuer scale, so organisations reaching very high transaction volumes generally re-evaluate against heavier platforms and face a migration.
  • No-code rule authoring shifts power to the risk team, which is the point, but without governance it produces rule sprawl that nobody can explain to an examiner two years later.
  • Detection quality depends on the signals you feed it, so a thin integration produces thin results and the platform cannot compensate with proprietary consortium data the way larger vendors do.
  • Pricing is quoted by volume with an annual commitment, so a fintech whose growth stalls pays for headroom it did not use.
  • SAR filing coverage is oriented to United States FinCEN reporting, so firms filing in the United Kingdom, European Union or Asia handle those submissions outside the tool.

Pricing, plan by plan

American Legal Publishing

$150/month
  • Online Code$150/month
    • Online Publishing
    • Code Updates
    • Search

Unit21

On request
  • Unit21 Platform$undefined/year
    • Priced by monitored volume and modules, annual contract
    • Fraud, AML and case management packaged separately
    • Implementation and historical data backfill quoted with the subscription

Which should you pick?

Choose American Legal Publishing if

  • You need code codification.
  • You also want online publishing.

Choose Unit21 if

  • You need no-code rule builder.
  • You also want case management.

Questions people ask

Is American Legal Publishing or Unit21 better?
Neither clearly leads. American Legal Publishing starts at $150/month and Unit21 at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, American Legal Publishing or Unit21?
American Legal Publishing starts at $150/month and Unit21 at On request.
Does American Legal Publishing or Unit21 run on more platforms?
Both run on Web, so platform support will not decide this one for you.
What is American Legal Publishing best used for?
American Legal Publishing is most often used for citizen services, records management, public safety, civic engagement. Of those, citizen services and records management are not what Unit21 is typically brought in for.
What can American Legal Publishing do that Unit21 cannot?
American Legal Publishing covers Code Codification, Online Publishing, Print Services, Editorial Support. Unit21 covers No-code rule builder, Case management, SAR filing, Backtesting.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Unit21: Do we need engineers to run it?

Only for the initial data integration. After that the design intent is that risk and compliance staff author and deploy rules themselves.

Unit21: Does it file SARs?

Yes, it generates and electronically files suspicious activity reports to FinCEN. Non-US regimes are not covered to the same depth.

Unit21: Can we test a rule before it goes live?

Yes. Backtesting against historical data to see projected alert volume is one of the more useful parts of the product, because alert volume is the real cost.

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