By Dave Whire, Chief Editor, ReVroom • Updated August 2026
A Carfax report costs $44.99 for a single vehicle. That number is what sends most people looking for something else — and there are real alternatives, from $9.99 NMVTIS reports up to Experian's AutoCheck, plus two free federal lookups that cover theft and open recalls. None of them is a drop-in replacement for the others, because they pull from different databases and answer different questions. Here is what each one costs in 2026, what it actually shows, and which one to reach for depending on the car in front of you.
A single Carfax report is $44.99. Carfax also sells three reports for $79.99 and five for $99.99, and offers an unlimited subscription at $39.99 for a rolling 30-day window. Those bundles only pay off if you are actively comparing several cars in the same month — for one vehicle, $44.99 is the number. That is roughly four to five times what the cheapest full report on the market costs, which is why the search for an alternative usually starts here.
The three main paid alternatives are AutoCheck, EpicVIN and VinAudit, and they run between $9.99 and $29.99 for a single report. AutoCheck is Experian's product, listed at about $24.99 to $29.99 per report; it carries the strongest auction coverage and adds a single score estimating how likely the car is to still be on the road in five years. EpicVIN lists reports at $14.99 and offers a free basic lookup. VinAudit is the cheapest of the three at $9.99 for one report, $19.99 for five and $29.99 for ten. All three draw on NMVTIS, the federal title database where title brands, total-loss records and reported odometer readings actually live.
Partly — two free lookups exist, and between them they answer the two questions worth answering first. The National Insurance Crime Bureau's VINCheck tells you whether a vehicle has been reported stolen and not recovered, or declared a total loss by a participating insurer, free for five lookups a day. The NHTSA recall lookup tells you whether the car has an open safety recall, free and unlimited. Neither one gives you service records or a full ownership timeline, so use them as a first filter and pay for a full report once a car makes your shortlist.
Buy whichever one covers the gap you actually care about, because neither is complete. Carfax has the deeper network of dealer and independent service records, so it is stronger on maintenance history and ownership detail. AutoCheck has better auction coverage, which matters when a car has moved through wholesale channels. Both miss anything that was never reported to them — work paid for in cash, or a repair done at a shop that does not report — and that limitation applies to every report on this page. A report tells you what was recorded, not everything that happened.
Shopping while you read? Click here to browse state-certified rebuilt and branded title cars, where the full vehicle history is already attached to every listing, and here to explore more guides on buying, selling and understanding title brands.
Here is the same information side by side. Prices are each provider's own listed 2026 rate for a single report and they do change, so confirm before you buy.
| Feature | Carfax | AutoCheck (Experian) | VinAudit / EpicVIN | ReVroom Report |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price for one report | $44.99 | About $24.99-$29.99 | $9.99 (VinAudit) / $14.99 (EpicVIN) | Free while the first 500 last |
| Where the data comes from | Carfax's own reporting network plus state DMV records | Experian's network plus NMVTIS | NMVTIS, the federal title database | Documented vehicle history plus live clean-title market comps |
| Shows a title brand | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Service and maintenance records | The deepest of the four | Some | Limited | Not the focus |
| Auction history | Limited | The strongest of the four | Limited | Not the focus |
| Grades how serious the recorded event was | No | No | No | Yes - minor, moderate or severe |
| Prices the car against clean-title comps | No | No | No | Yes |
| Which cars it covers | Any vehicle | Any vehicle | Any vehicle | Rebuilt and branded title vehicles only |
Worth knowing if the car you are checking has a branded title: every vehicle on ReVroom is state-certified and road-ready — rebuilt or branded title only, never salvage. A salvage car cannot legally be registered or driven; a rebuilt one has been repaired and passed a state safety inspection before the state reissued the title. Every ReVroom listing publishes its full vehicle history up front, so the report and the listing tell the same story rather than contradicting each other.
It depends almost entirely on what the title says. On a clean-title car with a straightforward history, $44.99 buys confirmation of something you already largely expect, and a $9.99 NMVTIS report will usually tell you the same thing. On a car with a branded title the calculation flips — the brand is the single biggest factor in what that car is worth, and Carfax will confirm the brand exists without telling you how serious the underlying event was or whether the asking price reflects it. Same price, very different value, depending on the car.
Every report on this page will tell you that a title is branded. None of them tells you how severe the original event was, or whether the price in front of you is fair for it. That is the real gap when you are shopping branded cars from a standard history report: "branded title" covers everything from a hail-dimpled roof to a car that needed structural work, and those two cars are worth thousands of dollars apart. A ReVroom Report is built for exactly that gap — it reads the documented history, grades each recorded event as minor, moderate or severe against defined standards, and measures the asking price against clean-title comparables. It covers rebuilt and branded title vehicles only, and ReVroom is currently giving the first 500 reports away free.
Two links worth keeping open while you shop: browse state-certified rebuilt and branded title cars, where the vehicle history is already attached to every listing, and pull a ReVroom Report on any rebuilt or branded car you are considering, wherever you found it.
I was comparing two cars in the same week and very nearly bought a Carfax report for each of them. Ninety dollars, to answer two questions that turned out to need completely different tools. The first car was clean-title, one owner, sensible mileage. A $9.99 NMVTIS report covered it and told me the same story the expensive one would have — no total loss, no title brand, odometer readings that lined up.
The second car had a rebuilt title, and that is where the standard report left me stuck. It confirmed the brand, listed the loss date, and stopped. It could not tell me whether that car had taken a hard structural hit or sat through a hailstorm — and those are not the same car, or the same price. What finally settled it was a report that graded the event and put the asking price next to clean-title comparables. The lesson stuck with me: match the report to the title, not to the brand name you happen to recognize.
A single Carfax report costs $44.99 in 2026. Bundles lower the per-report price — $79.99 for three and $99.99 for five — and an unlimited 30-day subscription is $39.99. For one car, $44.99 is what you pay.
Among paid reports, VinAudit is generally the cheapest at $9.99 for a single lookup, with five for $19.99 and ten for $29.99. EpicVIN lists reports at $14.99. If all you need is theft and total-loss history, the NICB VINCheck is free for five lookups a day, and ReVroom Reports are free right now for rebuilt and branded title cars.
No free report matches Carfax's full coverage, but two free lookups are genuinely useful: NICB VINCheck for theft and total-loss records, and the NHTSA tool for open safety recalls. ReVroom Reports are also free while the first 500 last, though they cover rebuilt and branded title vehicles only.
Neither is better across the board. AutoCheck, owned by Experian, has stronger auction coverage and adds a single predictive score. Carfax has the deeper service-record network. Both only know what was reported to them, so a repair never filed with an insurer or a reporting shop will not appear in either one.
Yes. A title brand is recorded in state DMV data and appears on Carfax and on every NMVTIS-based report. What none of them shows is how serious the original event was or whether the asking price reflects it — and on a branded car, that is the part that decides whether it is a good deal.
A ReVroom Report is a vehicle analysis built specifically for rebuilt and branded title cars. It pulls the documented history, grades each recorded event as minor, moderate or severe against defined standards, and compares the asking price against clean-title comparables. ReVroom is giving the first 500 reports away free, and you can pull one on any eligible rebuilt or branded car — on a dealer lot, in an online listing, or in a neighbor's driveway.
Looking at a rebuilt or branded title car somewhere else and want to know what is behind it? Pull a free ReVroom Report to see the graded vehicle history and how the asking price compares to clean-title cars, or browse state-certified rebuilt and branded title cars where that history is already attached to every listing.
Get a ReVroom History Report →