Frequently Asked Questions
Answers for buyers, builders, and compliance reviewers.
A consolidated answer sheet covering what iQ Intel is, how the data is produced, how it compares to existing credit sources, and how each product surface is delivered. If your question is not covered here, email jonathan@crelytic.ai.
CRELYTIC iQ Intel is a CRE tenant-credit intelligence platform that publishes industry benchmarks (TRI), a market-demand heat map, credit drift alerts, and a company intelligence API derived from de-identified TenantIQ underwriting events under strict min-N thresholds.
All questions
What is CRELYTIC iQ Intel?
CRELYTIC iQ Intel is a commercial real estate (CRE) intelligence platform that publishes tenant-credit-risk benchmarks, a market-demand heat map, credit drift alerts, and a company intelligence API. Every product is derived from de-identified research events captured through the TenantIQ underwriting platform. Subscribers are CRE lenders, REITs, brokerage research teams, credit risk officers, and portfolio managers who need a governed, externally-produced view of tenant-level credit risk that complements — rather than replaces — their internal underwriting workflow.
What is CRE tenant credit risk?
CRE tenant credit risk is the probability that a commercial tenant fails to meet its lease obligations over a given horizon. Unlike consumer credit, it is not scored by a single regulated bureau. Landlords, lenders, and asset managers assemble their own view from financial statements, litigation history, operational signals, and market position. iQ Intel structures this qualitative diligence into four measurable dimensions — financial, operational, litigation, and market position — and aggregates them into an industry-benchmark composite score.
How does iQ Intel compare to traditional credit bureaus?
Credit bureaus (Dun & Bradstreet, Experian Business, Equifax Commercial) report on individual consumers and regulated business-credit files. iQ Intel aggregates de-identified commercial-lease diligence outcomes — a different data layer, different regulatory framework, different use case. See our comparison page for a side-by-side breakdown. Most subscribers use iQ Intel alongside a bureau check rather than as a replacement.
Is iQ Intel regulated under FCRA?
No. iQ Intel is not a consumer reporting agency and its products are not consumer reports under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Every dataset concerns commercial entities, and outputs are aggregated under strict de-identification floors so no individual report, researcher, or tenant is identifiable. Customers must not use iQ Intel data to make decisions about individual consumers. FCRA and the Fair Credit Billing Act do not apply; commercial-tenant diligence sits outside that statutory perimeter.
What is a min-N threshold?
A min-N threshold is the minimum sample size a bucket must reach before any aggregate figure is published. iQ Intel uses N ≥ 3 reports per industry-quarter for the Tenant Risk Index and N ≥ 5 events per city-period for the Market Demand heat map. Buckets below threshold are suppressed for that period and automatically resume when volume returns. Min-N is the core de-identification control — it makes reverse-engineering any individual report mathematically implausible.
What industries does TRI cover?
TRI covers every NAICS industry with at least three captured reports in a given quarter. Coverage expands as the TenantIQ capture volume grows. As of early 2026, three industries publish real benchmarks — Convenience Store/Fuel Retail, Coffee QSR, and Unknown — with roughly 34 additional industries accumulating below threshold. Every quarterly report includes a methodology appendix listing which industries published that period.
How is the composite score constructed?
The composite is a weighted combination of four dimension sub-scores: financial (balance-sheet strength, liquidity, leverage), operational (store count trend, employee signals, supply-chain integrity), litigation (active suits, regulatory actions, bankruptcy history), and market position (brand strength, competitive standing, category growth). Weights and dimension definitions are documented in the methodology appendix included with every report. Methodology is versioned; any changes are flagged explicitly.
Where does the underlying data come from?
Every data point originates from a research event — a CRE professional running a tenant-underwriting workflow on a live prospect through the TenantIQ platform. An ETL process strips personally identifiable information, retains only commercial-entity signals, and writes the result to the intelligence schema. Aggregation under min-N thresholds means no individual report, researcher, or tenant is identifiable in any iQ Intel output.
How fresh is the data?
TRI ships quarterly. The Market Demand dashboard refreshes nightly; the weekly digest covers the prior Monday-through-Sunday window. Credit Drift Alerts re-evaluate scores as new research events land and fire alerts on the first breach of a threshold. The Company Intelligence API returns the latest captured snapshot for any covered company at query time.
Can I cite TRI in external memos or board decks?
Yes. TRI is licensed for citation in investor memos, board decks, research notes, and marketing material. Use attribution format: 'Source: CRELYTIC Tenant Risk Index, [quarter] [year].' The license is covered in the Terms of Service. Team and Firm subscribers may also generate embeddable widgets and co-branded extracts for distribution to their own clients.
What is credit drift?
Credit drift is a net-negative change in a tenant’s composite score across a configurable lookback window. The Drift Alerts product lets you upload a watchlist, set a drop threshold (e.g. five or ten points), and receive a signed webhook plus email the moment any tenant on the list breaches the threshold. Dimension-level drift alerts are also available — for example, financial-dimension-only drift independent of the composite.
How are drift webhooks verified?
Every outbound webhook carries an X-Intel-Signature header in the form t=<unix>,v1=<hex>. The signature is HMAC-SHA256 over the concatenation of the timestamp, a period, and the raw request body, keyed by your account’s webhook signing secret. Reject any request where the computed signature does not match, where the timestamp is older than five minutes, or where the secret has been rotated. Full verification examples are in the public docs.
What is the difference between TRI and Market Demand?
Both products are derived from the same TenantIQ research events but measure different things. TRI measures risk intensity — the distribution of composite scores within an industry. Market Demand measures research volume — the count of underwriting events per geography and industry. TRI answers "how stressed is this sector?"; Market Demand answers "where is this sector being shopped?". Many subscribers use both for complementary views.
Is there a free trial?
Yes, on annual plans only. TRI, Market Demand, and Drift Alerts offer a seven-day trial on any annual checkout. Monthly plans do not include a trial (a single monthly cycle is intentionally close to the trial length). The Company Intelligence API does not offer a trial — it is usage-based with per-lookup transparency built in.
How does seat-based billing work on Team tiers?
Team (TRI) and Firm (Market Demand) subscriptions include five seats. The owner invites teammates by email; invitees accept through a tokenized confirmation flow and inherit full product access until the subscription ends or they are revoked. Seat members do not see billing, team management, or API keys — only the product surface. Owners can revoke seats at any time from the Team settings page.
How is API authentication handled?
The Company Intelligence API uses bearer-key authentication. Each key is generated from the dashboard, stored server-side as a sha256 hash, and transmitted in the Authorization: Bearer header. Rate limits and usage counters are returned on every response via X-RateLimit-* headers. Revoked keys fail closed immediately and do not count against any grace window.
Do you offer enterprise or white-label terms?
Enterprise terms — including custom rate limits, IP allowlists, SLA commitments, and white-label API access — are on the roadmap and available to qualified partners on request. Contact sales@crelytic.ai with the use case, expected volume, and any SOC 2 or diligence requirements so we can scope appropriately.
What data governance controls are in place?
Three controls run in parallel. First, de-identification at capture: every ingested research event has personally identifiable fields stripped before landing in the intelligence schema. Second, commercial-entity-only scope: no individual consumer signals are ingested. Third, min-N suppression at publish time: N ≥ 3 for industry-quarter benchmarks, N ≥ 5 for city-period demand buckets. Every published figure passes all three gates.
Where can I see the methodology in detail?
The methodology page walks through every step from capture to publication — dimension definitions, composite weighting, QoQ delta calculation, drift detection, and the min-N framework. Every quarterly TRI report also ships with a dated methodology appendix that captures the specific rules and sample sizes used for that period.
How do I get started?
Sign up for a free account to explore the dashboard, then subscribe to the product tier that matches your use case. Annual plans include a seven-day trial. For custom deployments, enterprise pricing, or partnership conversations, email sales@crelytic.ai or reach the team directly at jonathan@crelytic.ai.
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