Availity vs Stedi
Two Claims & Clearinghouses vendors, side by side. Facts from public sources; judgments are ours.
At a glance
Derived from public facts · a rough scale, not a ranking
| Availity | Stedi | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Free to providers (funded by payers/pharma) · Essentials free; Plus from $25/month | Per-transaction / per-chart · Published pay-as-you-go rates, volume tiers, no minimum |
| Speed to go live | Self-serve portal registration | Self-serve signup, your developers integrate the API |
| Automation model | Data / network utility · Multi-payer clearinghouse network | Data / network utility · API-first clearinghouse |
| Built for | Small practices, Mid-size groups, Enterprise systems, Payers, Billing companies | Billing companies, Enterprise systems, Payers |
| Security posture | HITRUST, HIPAA | SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA |
| Company maturity | 25 yrs (est. 2001) | 9 yrs (est. 2017) |
| Financial backing | Payer-owned | $142M · Series C |
| Named customers | 4 named | 5 named |
| Published results | Specific numbers public | Specific numbers public |
| Documented integrations | 3 listed | 4 listed |
| Third-party validation | None found | None found |
Bottom line
- Pick Availity if you want free eligibility, claims, and auth transactions through the portal most payers already sponsor, before paying anyone for point solutions.
- Pick Stedi if you have engineers and want a modern clearinghouse API with transparent per-transaction pricing you can start testing today.
Availity
Payer-owned network for claims and eligibility
- Founded
- 2001
- HQ
- Jacksonville, FL
- Stage
- Payer-owned
- Raised
- n/a
What it does
- Multi-payer provider portal (Availity Essentials)
- EDI clearinghouse for claims, eligibility, and claim status
- Electronic prior authorization submission and status tracking
- Clinical data normalization via Fusion (Diameter Health)
- Business continuity clearinghouse switching (Lifeline, Rapid Recovery)
Where it's strong
- It is the mandatory front door to major payers (Elevance requires new submitters to use the Availity EDI Gateway), so connectivity is unmatched where those plans dominate.
- The core Essentials portal is free to providers, which keeps baseline cost near zero for eligibility, claims, and auth status checks.
- It proved operational resilience during the 2024 Change Healthcare outage, standing up Lifeline in 48 hours and processing 186 million stranded claims worth roughly $350 billion.
What buyers should weigh
- Ownership by Elevance, HCSC, and other Blues means the roadmap follows payer priorities, and provider workflow needs can come second.
- The free portal covers basics only; advanced clearinghouse features, analytics, and premium EDI services carry separate fees that are not published.
- Payer coverage is uneven outside Blues-heavy markets, so most provider organizations still need a second clearinghouse for full payer reach.
Named customers
Elevance Health · Humana · Florida Blue · Health Care Service Corporation
Integrations
Stedi
API-first clearinghouse for developers
- Founded
- 2017
- HQ
- New York, NY
- Stage
- Series C
- Raised
- $142M
What it does
- Real-time eligibility checks via JSON API (270/271)
- Insurance discovery when patient coverage is unknown
- Claim submission and claim status via API (837/276)
- Electronic remittance advice (ERA) retrieval
- Payer transaction enrollments managed programmatically
- Batch eligibility checks at high volume
Where it's strong
- Everything is accessible via API with public docs and transparent self-serve onboarding, which legacy clearinghouses like Availity and Optum do not offer.
- Support is unusually fast for the category, with a median ticket response under seven minutes across 1,500+ shared support channels.
- Well capitalized ($142M raised, backed by Stripe and Addition) with rapid traction: paying customers up 6x and billed transactions up 7x year over year into 2026.
What buyers should weigh
- It is clearinghouse rails, not a billing service; you need engineers to build eligibility and claims workflows on top of it.
- Its direct payer network is younger than Availity's or Optum's, so some connections still route through intermediary partners.
- The company only pivoted from general-purpose EDI to healthcare around 2023, so its healthcare-specific track record is short.
Named customers
Pair Team · Tennr · Candid Health · Nirvana · Berry Street
Integrations
Compare against the rest of Claims & Clearinghouses
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