Sardinevs
Incode
Incode: Incode where the requirement is document and biometric identity verification at onboarding
Sardine
Device intelligence and behaviour biometrics for fraud and compliance
As of 1 September 2026, Sardine's pricing is not published; the vendor quotes on request. A fraud, compliance and payment protection platform built around device fingerprinting and behavioural signals collected by an SDK in your app. Softwr lists it under Cybersecurity. Sardine is made by Sardine AI, available on Web, iOS, Android.
Overview
What Sardine does
Sardine collects device, network and behavioural telemetry from a JavaScript or mobile SDK embedded in the customer application, then combines it with transaction data to score fraud, scams and money laundering risk. The product line covers onboarding fraud, account takeover, scam detection, ACH and card dispute handling, and AML monitoring, with a case management layer on top. The distinguishing signal is behaviour during the session rather than the identity documents presented at the start of it. Sardine looks at how someone types, whether they are pasting rather than typing a card number, whether a remote access tool is present, and whether the session shows the hesitation pattern of a person being coached on a phone call. Commercially that targets scam losses and first party fraud, categories where the identity is genuine and traditional KYC has nothing to flag. Buyers are fintechs, neobanks, crypto exchanges and payment platforms, generally growth stage rather than tier one banks. The trade-off is the SDK. Signal quality depends on getting the collector into your web and mobile clients and keeping it current, which puts your fraud roadmap on your mobile release train, and privacy teams in the EU will want a lawful basis analysis for the telemetry before you ship it.
What people use it for
- A neobank losing money to authorised push payment scams where the customer genuinely approved the transfer
- A crypto exchange trying to detect accounts being operated by remote access rather than by their owner
- A fintech seeing synthetic identity signups that pass document verification but share device characteristics
- A lender wanting first party fraud signals at application time that a credit bureau file does not contain
The honest half
Where it falls short
Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about Sardine.
- Signal quality depends on the SDK being embedded in your own web and mobile clients, so fraud improvements become dependent on your app release cycle and any coverage gap is a blind spot.
- Behavioural and device telemetry collection needs a documented lawful basis under GDPR, and EU privacy reviews frequently delay rollouts that were scoped as engineering work.
- Pricing is per session or per active user, so a consumer product with many low value sessions pays in proportion to traffic rather than to fraud exposure.
- As a younger private company it lacks the enforcement-tested audit history that a bank examiner expects, which makes it a harder sell inside a regulated bank than inside a fintech.
- It is strongest on session-time signals and weaker as a system of record for long horizon AML typologies, so larger institutions end up running it alongside a traditional monitoring platform rather than instead of one.
Cross-shopped
What people choose instead of Sardine
Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.
- SardinevsPlaid
Plaid: Plaid if the need is bank account data and ownership verification rather than behavioural fraud signals
Pricing
What Sardine costs
Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.
Sardine
On request
- Priced per user session or per monthly active user
- Annual contract with volume commitment
- SDK for web, iOS and Android
- Case management included
- No published self-service tier
Capabilities
Features
Device intelligence
Fingerprints devices and detects emulators, VPNs and remote access tools
Behaviour biometrics
Scores typing, navigation and hesitation patterns during a session
Scam detection
Flags sessions consistent with a customer being coached by a fraudster
Onboarding risk scoring
Risk decisions at signup combining device, identity and consortium signals
AML transaction monitoring
Rules and models over payment flows with case management
Dispute and chargeback handling
Workflow for ACH returns and card disputes
Rules editor
Analyst-editable rules without an engineering release
Answered, with sources
Questions people ask
Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.
Does Sardine do document verification?
It focuses on device, behavioural and transaction signals, and integrates identity verification providers rather than being one. Treat it as complementary to a KYC vendor.
What does it need from us to work?
An SDK in your web and mobile applications plus transaction feeds. Without the client side collector you lose the signals that differentiate it.
Is pricing published?
No. It is quoted, typically per session or per monthly active user with an annual volume commitment.
Keep looking
Where to go from Sardine
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Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for Sardine, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.
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