Revenue cycle · Claims clearinghouse
Stedi
Stedi is an API-first healthcare clearinghouse that software teams use to check eligibility, send claims, and receive remittances, with published usage-based prices.
Strong fit
- Healthcare software companies that need to build eligibility checks and claims into their own product
- Billing teams with engineers who want a clearinghouse they can automate
- Buyers who want usage pricing with no monthly minimum
Weak fit
- Practices without technical staff that want a ready-made billing screen
- Health systems that want denial management and patient payments from one vendor
- Buyers who want decades of clearinghouse history
Bottom line
Stedi is an API-first healthcare clearinghouse. Software teams use its APIs to check eligibility, send claims, and receive remittances, and it publishes its usage prices. It fits digital health companies and technical billing teams that want to automate claims work instead of using a legacy portal.
Score breakdown
Weights: Outcomes 35% · Product 30% · Implementation 20% · Pricing clarity 15%.
Zack Kanter founded Stedi after running Proforged, an auto parts brand in Boulder, Colorado, that sold through O'Reilly Auto Parts and Amazon. Exchanging purchase orders with retailers over X12 EDI, the same file standard healthcare uses for claims, was slow and expensive, and he started Stedi to make that exchange work like a modern API. Stedi now focuses on healthcare. Its APIs check eligibility, send claims, and return remittances in JSON, and it offers an MCP server and an AI agent that retries failed eligibility checks.
When the Change Healthcare cyberattack took that clearinghouse offline in 2024, Stedi launched a drop-in replacement for customers who needed to move fast. In August 2025 it raised a $70 million Series B co-led by Stripe and Addition, bringing total funding to $142 million, and it had about 125 employees working remotely. Stedi publishes its prices, which is rare for a clearinghouse, and its customers are mostly software companies building billing into their own products.
Compare Office Ally when a small practice wants a cheap portal it can use without engineers, Claim.MD when a practice wants another low-cost portal, Availity when payer tools and prior authorization matter, Waystar when a health system wants claims, denials, and patient payments together, Experian Health when patient access checks come first, and AKASA when the goal is AI that works claims after they are sent.
Competitor landscape
| Vendor | Overall | Ease of implementation |
|---|---|---|
| Stedi | 8.3 | 8.0 |
| Waystar | 8.0 | 7.7 |
| AKASA | 7.5 | 7.0 |
| Availity | 7.5 | 7.3 |
| Claim.MD | 7.3 | 8.5 |
| Office Ally | 7.1 | 7.9 |
| Experian Health | 7.0 | 6.7 |
Pricing
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Model | Published usage-based prices with no monthly minimum; volume discounts lower the per-transaction price. |
| What usually drives cost | Volume of eligibility checks, claims, and remittances, plus support level. |
| What to ask in diligence | Your expected monthly volumes, the price tier they reach, and the cost of premium support. |
| Published pricing | Published on stedi.com. |
Published pay-as-you-go prices start at $0.30 per eligibility check, $0.30 per claim, and $0.20 per remittance, falling to $0.08, $0.10, and $0.08 at the highest volumes.
Prerequisites for purchase
| Need | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| What you need to get Stedi to function | |
| Engineer who owns the integration | Stedi is used through APIs. |
| Payer list and enrollment plan | Remittances need payer enrollment. |
| Billing operations owner | Rejections still need people. |
| Test patients and claims | Lets the team test before going live. |
| Volume forecast | Sets the price tier. |
| What will maximize your value | |
| Start with eligibility checks | Fastest to build and test. |
| Use the AI agent on failed checks | Recovers checks without staff. |
| Move claims after eligibility works | Reuses the same integration. |
| Deal-breakers | |
| No engineering time | |
| Wants a full billing screen | |
| Needs denial analytics in the same product | |
Value creation time frame
| # | Stage | Typical range |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Account and sandbox testing | 1-2 weeks |
| 2 | Eligibility live | 2-4 weeks |
| 3 | Claims and remittances | 1-3 months |
Leadership
Methodology
| Weight | Factor | What it measures |
|---|---|---|
| 35% | Customer outcomes | Whether buyers get measurable operational or clinical-workflow results after go-live |
| 30% | Product | Capability depth, reliability, and fit for the job the category buys |
| 20% | Implementation | How hard it is to stand up, integrate, train, and stabilize |
| 15% | Pricing clarity | Whether a buyer can model total cost without a mystery quote |
| Label | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Highly recommend | Strong outcomes and product with manageable caveats |
| Recommend | Solid fit for the right buyer; know the tradeoffs |
| Conditional | Only with a specific use case or heavy caveats |
| Not recommended | Avoid for most buyers in this category |
Read our full methodology for how we weight scores and assign recommend labels.