Comparison · Pappers

Pappers Alternative

A multi-country alternative to Pappers. Official registries across Europe under one REST API, with sanctions and US export-control screening (beta, 7 sources) included.

TL;DR

Pappers is the strongest modern product for French company data — clean UX, transparent pricing, deep BODACC + INSEE coverage. If your team needs France-only, Pappers is excellent and we'll say so. If you need Spain or the UK alongside France — or you want sanctions and US export-control screening (beta, 7 sources) in the same API — Prometiam covers all of them under one REST endpoint with comparable freshness.

Why teams look for a Pappers alternative

1. You need more than France. Pappers is France-first; Pappers International is partial EU but charged separately and less complete than the FR product.
2. You need sanctions screening alongside registry data. Pappers doesn't bundle this; you'd need a second vendor or a separate API.
3. API ceilings get expensive at high volume. Pappers' API tiers are great for early use but pricing climbs as you scale.

Pappers vs Prometiam — at a glance

Where Pappers is genuinely better

If your work is exclusively French and your use case involves:

• French legal-tech, judicial-procedure tracking
• Deep INPI (industrial property / trademark) data
• Pappers POI for politically-exposed-persons specific to France
• French SMB-focused integrations where the language and UX of a French vendor matter

… stay with Pappers. It's a better tool for those use cases. Prometiam doesn't compete on French-justice-data depth.

Where Prometiam is a better fit

If your work crosses borders:

• Spain + France — Prometiam covers both natively at the same price point
• France + UK — same
• Any combination of the live countries — same
• KYB workflows that need sanctions screening — Prometiam's /sanctions/screen (beta) is a core endpoint on Professional. Adding a second sanctions vendor on top of Pappers typically costs more than Prometiam's full Professional tier.

Coverage and freshness

Both draw on official French sources daily. Pappers has deeper INPI integration and Pappers Justice for litigation; Prometiam treats France as one of its live countries with a unified schema; the France company data API guide sets out what it returns for a French company.

For Spain, Prometiam is built on the official BORME register, updated daily. Pappers' Spanish coverage is via Pappers International, which is partial and less complete than its French product. For the UK, Prometiam draws on Companies House (bulk + daily delta). Pappers' UK coverage is similarly partial.

API and developer experience

Both have public REST APIs and modern UX. Pappers is well-documented and stable. Prometiam offers a unified schema across countries (the same response shape regardless of the ?country= value), the sanctions endpoint built-in, bearer-token auth (no key-rotation friction), and cursor pagination on list endpoints. Where Pappers is stronger: it is France-native with deeper French filings, and its compliance product covers both international sanctions and politically-exposed-person (PEP/PPE) screening — Prometiam screens sanctions and US export-control lists and offers PEP screening only as a beta, Spain-only set with no relatives or close associates, and does not offer adverse-media screening. If full PEP screening is a hard requirement, Pappers (or a dedicated screening vendor) is the better fit.

The choice between them is coverage and use-case more than DX.

Built for the API-native workflow

The comparisons above are about registries. This is about the call a developer actually writes: resolving a customer's identifier, or a few typed letters, into a company record for an onboarding form, an invoice or a CRM row.

• Every identifier, one parameter. SIREN or SIRET, NIF/CIF, the Companies House number, the CRO number, the KRS number, the organisasjonsnummer and each other registry's own number all go in the same parameter — ?country= picks the register, the parameter doesn't change.
• Name search built for a form field. ?name= is a normalised, partial match — call it on every keystroke and wire it into a type-ahead field.
• One schema, every registry. The same response shape for every ?country= value.
• Auth and rate limits. A single bearer key (Authorization: Bearer rk_live_...); limits scale 10 to 600 requests/minute by tier.
• A typed client, if you want one. prometiam-risk-api on npm — TypeScript types, retries on 429/5xx, cursor pagination, typed errors. The same client for Python: prometiam-risk-api on PyPI.
• From an agent, not just a form. The MCP server (prometiam-risk-mcp on npm) puts the same lookups in Claude Desktop, Cursor or any MCP client.
• Public pricing, monthly or annual. Every tier is published; paying yearly is ten months' price for twelve. Starter begins with a 14-day trial — 500 credits, 10 requests/minute, card required, card required, nothing charged for 14 days. Subscribing keeps the same key working; it is not an ongoing free plan.
• Try an identifier before signing up. Free SIREN, NIF, Companies House number, KRS, CRO number and organisasjonsnummer lookup tools run the same call with a shared key.

Who should choose Pappers

• Your scope is French-only and likely to stay French-only
• You need Pappers Justice or deep INPI data (Prometiam doesn't replicate these)
• Your team is French-speaking and values a French-vendor relationship
• You're an FR legal-tech, FR fintech, or FR SMB-focused product

Who should choose Prometiam

• Your scope crosses borders (ES + FR, FR + GB, or any combination of the live countries)
• You need sanctions screening alongside registry data, in one API
• Your sweet spot is the standard KYB / counterparty / supplier-onboarding loop, not French-justice or INPI deep dives
• Public pricing on a single Professional tier (€29.99/mo) at 10,000 credits/month is a fit

Migrating from Pappers

1. Sign up free at prometiam.com/signup
2. Map endpoints. Pappers' /entreprise/{siren} maps to /companies/{id} after a ?siren= lookup via /companies/search. Pappers' /recherche maps to /companies/search?name=. Corporate-event timelines map to /company-events/timeline?company_number=.
3. Confirm coverage parity for the French entries you actually use. For most KYB/registry use cases, parity is high; if you use Pappers Justice or deep INPI, those don't transfer.
4. Add the second-country flow — if you previously paid for FR-only and supplemented with another vendor for ES/UK, consolidate by calling the same endpoints with ?country=ES or ?country=GB
5. Verify sanctions parity — call /sanctions/screen?name=…&threshold=80

Beyond the registry record

Two derived signals, neither of them a rating. Both are dated facts carrying the source they came from, so whoever reviews your file can check them.

• Companies that stopped filing. A company that quietly stops trading rarely dissolves; the register notices first. The registry_compliance flag returns that state in one shape for Spain (provisional closure of the registry sheet), the United Kingdom (a strike-off proposal, or annual accounts overdue), Ireland (the strike-off list) and Norway (compulsory liquidation). Read it on GET /companies/{id}?include=risk_flags, or list those companies with risk_flag_type=registry_compliance. It is a compliance signal, not an insolvency: read it together with status.
• Public contracts, and the buyer behind them. GET /procurement/awards returns public-contract awards from Spain, France, the UK, Ireland, Poland and Norway by supplier, buyer, identifier, CPV code and date, linked to the supplier’s registry record where the identifier resolves. GET /procurement/buyer/{id} scores the contracting body itself: the probability that its next award draws a single bid, and the probability that a supplier it awards to enters insolvency within two years.

Both are ordinary REST calls on the published price and included in the 14-day trial. Procurement awards cover Spain, France, the UK, Ireland, Poland and Norway (Ireland, Poland and Norway above the EU thresholds only), the buyer scores are Spain and France and in beta, and a score is a prompt to look, never a finding of wrongdoing.

FAQ

Is Prometiam better than Pappers for French companies?
Not categorically. Pappers has deeper French-justice and INPI data and is a stronger FR-only product. Prometiam is better when scope crosses borders or when sanctions screening alongside registry data is needed.

Does Prometiam cover BODACC?
Yes — BODACC data is updated daily and surfaced under /companies/search?country=FR and /company-events/search?country=FR.

Can I replace Pappers + a sanctions vendor with just Prometiam?
For most KYB and counterparty-monitoring use cases, yes. The Professional tier (€29.99/mo) includes sanctions screening (beta).

How does Prometiam's France coverage compare to Pappers International for Spain or UK?
Prometiam is built on the official registers: BORME (Spain) and Companies House (UK), not via partner data.

Pappers has a free tier and Prometiam a trial — which is more useful?
Prometiam's Starter plan begins with a 14-day trial (500 credits, card required, nothing charged for 14 days) with the same response shape as paid tiers — closer to "production with low volume" than Pappers' web-search-only free tier, but it is a trial, not an ongoing plan; subscribing keeps the same key working.

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