Sanitext vs Private AI (Limina): A Self-Serve Alternative

What is the difference between Sanitext and Private AI (Limina)?

Both tools detect and redact personally identifiable information (PII) in text. They label entities like names, emails, phone numbers, addresses, dates, and account numbers, then mask them so you can safely log, store, or send the text to an LLM.

The difference is the buying model. Private AI (now Limina) is quote-only. Public data from Vendr puts a typical contract near $46k per year. It targets large enterprises that want on-prem deployment inside their own VPC and HIPAA expert determination support.

Sanitext is self-serve. You sign up, pay with Stripe, get an API key, and run a curl command in about 60 seconds. Pricing is flat and published: free, $29, $149, and $499 per month, plus a custom Enterprise tier. There is no sales call to start.

How do Sanitext and Private AI (Limina) compare on price and features?

Sanitext owns its open-weights model and runs it on its own Cloudflare infrastructure, so there is zero per-token AI cost. That is why pricing can be flat and your text never goes to a third-party LLM. Private AI also runs without sending data to outside LLMs and can deploy fully in your own environment, which is its biggest strength for regulated buyers.

When Private AI (Limina) is the better choice

We will be honest. Private AI is the better fit in several cases.

If you need the widest language coverage, Private AI supports 52 languages versus Sanitext's 30+. If you must run everything inside your own VPC or air-gapped data center with no outbound calls at all, Private AI is built for that. If your compliance team needs a HIPAA expert determination report from the vendor, Private AI offers that path. And if you have 50+ specific entity types to detect across complex documents, its breadth and accuracy are well regarded.

Large enterprises with procurement teams, long security reviews, and budgets that fit a roughly $46k-per-year contract will find Private AI's enterprise motion normal, not a blocker.

Where Sanitext wins

Sanitext wins on speed to value and cost transparency.

There is no quote and no sales cycle. You see the price, sign up, and ship. The free tier gives you 300K characters one time, with no card and no reset, so you can test on real data before paying. Paid plans run flat from $29/month, and overage is $0.35 to $0.60 per 1M characters, up to about 2x cheaper than metered hyperscalers that charge around $1.00 per 1M.

The API is simple. POST /v1/detect returns entity spans with a label, byte offsets, a score, and the matched text. POST /v1/redact returns your text with spans masked as [LABEL]. Labels include FIRSTNAME, LASTNAME, EMAIL, PHONE, ADDRESS, DATE, URL, ACCOUNT, SECRET, and PREFIX. Sanitext does not retain raw text; it logs counts and timings only. EU data residency and a DPA are available on Enterprise.

• —Self-serve in 60 seconds, no sales call
• —Flat published pricing from $29/month plus a free tier
• —Overage up to ~2x cheaper than AWS or Azure
• —No raw-text retention, no third-party LLM
• —30+ languages and secret/API-key detection

How do I switch from Private AI to Sanitext?

Migration is quick because the job is the same: send text, get back spans or redacted output.

First, sign up for the free tier and grab your API key. Second, map your entity labels. Private AI uses its own label set, so point your code at Sanitext labels like EMAIL, PHONE, ADDRESS, and ACCOUNT. Third, swap the endpoint. Replace your existing redaction call with POST /v1/redact for masked text, or POST /v1/detect if you need spans to apply your own masking. Fourth, run both tools on a sample of real text and compare output before you cut over.

Test against your own data in the playground first. The 300K free characters are enough to validate accuracy on a representative sample without spending a cent.

Is Sanitext a compliance guarantee?

No, and we want to be clear about this. Sanitext is a redaction and data-minimization aid. It is not an anonymization or compliance guarantee. No automated PII tool, including Private AI, catches 100% of identifiers in every context.

Use it to reduce exposure before text reaches logs, prompts, or storage, and keep human review where the stakes are high. If you need formal HIPAA expert determination or de-identification sign-off, treat that as a separate legal and compliance step on top of any redaction tool.

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