CleanSpeak
CleanSpeak, operated by Inversoft Inc., provides AI/ML-powered content moderation and multi-language profanity filtering software to enterprise customers in gaming, retail, and telecom via cloud or self-hosted REST API deployments.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2007
- HeadquartersDenver, United States
- Headcount1–10
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What CleanSpeak does
CleanSpeak, operated by Inversoft Inc. (a privately held Colorado corporation headquartered in Westminster, Colorado), is a content moderation and profanity-filtering software platform that has been under continuous development for over 15 years. The product combines fully customizable multi-language word and phrase lists with rule-based algorithms that detect hundreds of derivatives per entry, including leet-speak, unicode bypass, and embedded-word variants. In 2020 the company introduced native media filtering for images and video (covering offensive content, nudity, scam imagery, and weapon/alcohol/drug detection), and in July 2024 it released CleanSpeak 4.0.0 — a major architectural overhaul that consolidated the platform into a single package, removed Apache Tomcat in favor of a native HTTP server, and embedded in-house machine-learning models (toxicity, spam, incoherence, and content classification) directly into the core product.
The platform is delivered through synchronous REST APIs and supports both cloud-hosted (managed, 24/7/365 SLA-backed) and self-hosted deployments via RPM, DEB, ZIP, and Docker packages. It targets three vertical segments: Apps & Gaming (in-app chat and community moderation for studios such as Electronic Arts, Nintendo/Pokémon, Ubisoft, Miniclip, and Niantic), Retail & Hospitality (filtering of customer-facing content such as receipts and display screens for accounts like Panera and the Arizona Diamondbacks), and Enterprise Solutions (compliance, security, and self-hosted deployments for organizations such as Amazon, Comcast, and Verisign). Compliance features include COPPA-aligned handling for children under 13 and EU data-protection support, with the on-premise option positioning CleanSpeak as a non-third-party processor.
The business model is enterprise subscription licensing priced on a per-user and per-deployment basis with annual auto-renewal, supplemented by Basic and Enterprise support tiers, optional ML model add-ons billed as additional cost, hosted managed services, and configuration/customization professional services. Go-to-market is a direct, demo-led enterprise field-sales motion with a 30-day free trial (no credit card required) and stated startup and non-profit discounts. The company is bootstrapped with no disclosed funding rounds, operates with 1-10 employees, and is led by founder Brian Pontarelli and co-CTO Daniel DeGroff.
CleanSpeak firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- CleanSpeak
- Legal name
- Inversoft Inc.
- Website
- https://cleanspeak.com
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2007
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 1–10 employees
- Short description
- CleanSpeak, operated by Inversoft Inc., provides AI/ML-powered content moderation and multi-language profanity filtering software to enterprise customers in gaming, retail, and telecom via cloud or self-hosted REST API deployments.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
CleanSpeak industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Content Moderation Software
- NAICS
- Software Publishers (5132), Media Streaming Distribution Services, Social Networks, and Other Media Networks and Content Providers (516210)
- SIC
- Services-Prepackaged Software (7372)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Messaging, Chat & Live Interaction Safety (Text/Voice/Video) (BPAAALAC)
- akta.pro secondary industries
- Social Media & Community Moderation (BPAAALAA), Human Oversight, Review & Content Moderation Tooling (HDAAAMAH), Creator Tools & Production (Overlays, Alerts, Encoding, Editing, Audio) (MPAFAEAC)
Keywords
Where CleanSpeak is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Denver
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Offices1 record
Markets served
CleanSpeak business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Technology or R&D, Infrastructure, Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales
Revenue model
- Software License: Annual license agreement with automatic renewal for one-year terms. Pricing is usage/deployment based with fees for users and deployments as specified in Order Form. Payment is in US dollars with fees due prior to delivery.
- Hosted/Cloud Services: Company-provided hosting of the software for customers who prefer cloud deployment over self-hosting, with availability SLA commitments of 24/7/365
- Support Services: Technical support including error corrections, updates, and technical support contact assistance. Basic and Enterprise support tiers available with different response time SLAs
- Professional Services: Configuration, customization, and implementation services provided by the company under separate statement of work
- Machine Learning Models: Additional cost feature for machine learning model capabilities beyond basic filtering
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Freemium | Monthly | 30-day free trial with no credit card required |
| Subscription | Annual | Enterprise licensing based on users and deployments |
| Subscription | Annual | Support tiers: Basic and Enterprise |
Go-to-market motion1 record
Distribution channels4 records
Marketing channels6 records
CleanSpeak product offering
Product offeringCore offering
CleanSell builds and sells a content moderation and profanity filtering platform powered by AI/ML, exposing synchronous REST APIs for in-app chat, user-generated content, and media (text, image, video). Customers integrate the API to filter profanity, detect toxicity, and review or discipline users in real time across apps, with deployment available as cloud-hosted managed service or self-hosted on-premise.
Product overview
CleanSpeak is a comprehensive content moderation and profanity filtering platform offered by Inversoft. The product portfolio includes the core CleanSpeak Platform with integrated AI/ML-powered moderation tools, word/phrase filters for profanity detection across multiple languages, and machine learning models for analyzing text, images, and video content. The platform operates through a REST API architecture, supporting both cloud-hosted and self-hosted deployment options with scalability to handle tens of thousands of messages per second. Version 4.0.0 (July 2024) consolidated previous components (Management Interface, WebService, Search Engine) into a unified single-package architecture with native ML capabilities. The platform is used across industries including Apps & Gaming, Retail & Hospitality, and Enterprise, with customers including Amazon, Comcast, Electronic Arts, Nintendo, Ubisoft, and Panera Bread.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Products and services
- CleanSpeak Platform Fully customizable, AI/ML-powered content moderation and profanity filtering platform with multi-language support, exposed via synchronous REST APIs for real-time chat, user-generated content, and media moderation, deployable as cloud-hosted or self-hosted.
- CleanSpeak Word/Phrase Filters Multi-language profanity filter combining customizable word/phrase lists with algorithms that detect hundreds of derivatives per entry and defend against unicode, leet speak, and embedded-word bypass attempts, available as an integrated capability of the CleanSpeak Platform.
- CleanSpeak Moderation Tools Web-based moderation console providing approval queues, content alert queues, user discipline, escalation workflows, automated per-application actions, and webhooks for event notifications, available as part of the CleanSpeak Platform.
- CleanSpeak Machine Learning Models AI/ML content analysis for text (toxicity, identity attack, insult, profanity, severe toxicity, incoherent, spam, unsubstantial) and image/video (offensive, nudity, scam, weapon/alcohol/drug), offered as an additional-cost capability on top of the CleanSpeak Platform.
- CleanSpeak REST API Synchronous RESTful JSON API surface (Content, Users, Applications, Blacklist, URL, Kids Chat, Admins/Moderators, Status, System) for real-time filtering, user management, and per-application rule control, designed for typical 1–2 day basic integration.
Quantifiable outcome
- Filter 10,000+ messages per second on a single server
- +1 more outcomes
Companies that use CleanSpeak
Customer profileNamed customers10 records
Segments3 records
Ideal customer profiles3 records
CleanSpeak technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- Yes
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
AI capability7 records
Feature7 records
CleanSpeak partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Six partnerships are on record, tiered major and core.
- AmazonmajorAmazon is listed as a trusted customer of CleanSpeak. Amazon's logo appears in the 'Trusted by' section on the CleanSpeak website alongside other major enterprise customers.
- ComcastmajorComcast is listed as a trusted customer in the enterprise solutions section of CleanSpeak's website.
- Electronic ArtsmajorElectronic Arts is listed as a trusted customer in the gaming and apps section of CleanSpeak's website.
- Nintendo (Pokémon)majorNintendo (Pokémon) is listed as a trusted customer in the apps and gaming section of CleanSpeak's website.
- UbisoftmajorUbisoft is listed as a trusted customer in the apps and gaming section of CleanSpeak's website.
- Amazon Web Services (AWS)coreCleanSpeak integrates with Amazon Rekognition for video filtering capabilities. AWS IAM users, SNS topics, and SQS queues are required for configuring video moderation. The integration uses Amazon S3 for video storage and Amazon Rekognition for machine learning-based content analysis.
Scale indicators3 records
Recent moves5 records
Expansion highlights5 records
CleanSpeak competitors and assessment
Company assessmentEmerging players
- Bodyguard: Bodyguard offers real-time text and comment moderation with a focus on social platforms and gaming communities. It is an emerging European player with partial overlap to CleanSpeak's chat and UGC moderation use cases.
- OpenAI Moderation API: OpenAI's free moderation endpoint covers harassment, hate, self-harm, and other categories for text content. It serves as a free or low-cost baseline alternative that competes at the lower end of the market CleanSpeak targets.
Direct peers
- Hive: Hive provides AI-powered content moderation APIs for text, image, and video across moderation, classification, and safety use cases. It is the most direct competitor to CleanSpeak's multi-modal moderation offering, with overlapping customers in social and gaming.
- WebPurify: WebPurify offers profanity filtering and image moderation APIs for online communities, forums, and user-generated content platforms. Its product portfolio closely mirrors CleanSpeak's text and image filtering focus.
- Spectrum Labs (formerly Two Hat): Spectrum Labs provides AI-driven content moderation and user safety tooling with strong adoption in gaming and social platforms. It directly overlaps CleanSpeak's gaming chat moderation and toxicity detection capabilities.
- ActiveFence: ActiveFence is a trust & safety platform offering content moderation, threat intelligence, and policy enforcement for online platforms. It competes with CleanSpeak in gaming, social, and enterprise T&S deployments.
- Lasso Moderation: Lasso provides AI-powered content moderation for online communities and enterprise platforms, covering text, image, and video. It is a directly comparable API-first moderation platform for social and community use cases.
Broad incumbents
- Microsoft Azure Content Moderator: Azure Content Moderator is a hyperscaler offering for text, image, and video content moderation as part of Microsoft Azure AI services. It competes with CleanSpeak primarily at the mid-market where bundled cloud tooling is preferred.
- Amazon Comprehend: Amazon Comprehend provides NLP-based content analysis including toxicity and sentiment detection, and Amazon Rekognition provides image/video moderation — the same AWS services CleanSpeak previously integrated with. It is a broader incumbent alternative.
- Google Perspective API: Perspective API is Google's free toxicity-detection service used by publishers and platforms. It overlaps CleanSpeak's toxicity ML capabilities but lacks the broader profanity-filtering, media, and on-prem deployment options.
Market position
Strengths4 records
Weaknesses4 records
Competitive moat5 records
Key risks5 records
Key highlights6 records
Customer concentration
CleanSpeak social profiles
Digital presenceCleanSpeak compliance and trust
Trust signalCompliance3 records
CleanSpeak financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
CleanSpeak leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles2 records
CleanSpeak funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds
Investors
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
CleanSpeak M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about CleanSpeak
What does CleanSpeak do?
CleanSell builds and sells a content moderation and profanity filtering platform powered by AI/ML, exposing synchronous REST APIs for in-app chat, user-generated content, and media (text, image, video). Customers integrate the API to filter profanity, detect toxicity, and review or discipline users in real time across apps, with deployment available as cloud-hosted managed service or self-hosted on-premise.
Is CleanSpeak a public or private company?
CleanSpeak is a private company. It is classified as founder individual operated bootstrapped and is currently operating.
When was CleanSpeak founded?
CleanSpeak was founded in 2007. It employs 1 to 10 people.
Where is CleanSpeak based?
CleanSpeak is headquartered in Denver, United States, in the North America region.
How does CleanSpeak make money?
Five revenue lines are on record. Software License is the primary driver. The others are hosted/Cloud Services, support Services, professional Services and machine Learning Models.
Who are CleanSpeak's main competitors?
Emerging players on record are Bodyguard and OpenAI Moderation API. Direct peers are Hive, WebPurify, Spectrum Labs (formerly Two Hat), ActiveFence and Lasso Moderation. Broad incumbents are Microsoft Azure Content Moderator, Amazon Comprehend and Google Perspective API.
Does CleanSpeak have an API?
Yes. CleanSpeak provides a number of RESTful APIs that return JSON. All CleanSpeak APIs are synchronous, processing requests and immediately returning responses for real-time applications such as filtering chat before it is displayed. There are 7 primary groups of APIs: Admins/Moderators, Applications, Blacklist, Content, Kids Chat, URL, Users, Status, and System. APIs available include Content (primary integration point for filtering, analyzing, and moderating content), Users (secondary integration point for managing end-users), Applications (manage filter rules for different content sources), Blacklist (modify blacklist filter behavior), URL (control URL filter state), Kids Chat (download whitelist for auto-correct features), Admins/Moderators (manage moderators and administrators), Status (status information), and System (backup and restore). Authentication uses API keys configured through the Management Interface. Developer documentation is at cleanspeak.com/docs/3.x/tech/apis.
What industry is CleanSpeak in?
CleanSpeak's product category is Content Moderation Software. Its primary akta.pro industry code is BPAAALAC, Messaging, Chat & Live Interaction Safety (Text/Voice/Video), with a secondary code of BPAAALAA, Social Media & Community Moderation. Its NAICS code is 5132 and its SIC code is 7372.