Guide · Company data · As at 28 Oct 2026
What is a company data API? Registry, scraped and credit-bureau data compared
A company data API returns the record of a legal entity (name, number, status, legal form, address) as JSON from one request. Where that record comes from decides how far you can trust it: an official register, a crawl of the web or a credit bureau. Below: what the term means, a live sample call and a dated comparison with the public prices each vendor publishes.
Prometiam is a company data and risk intelligence API built on official registers; this page is the neutral explainer behind it.
What a company data API is
A company data API lets software ask the question people usually answer on a register's website: does this company exist, is it still active, what is its legal form, where is it registered? You send a company number or a name and a country, and the API answers with a structured record that an onboarding form, an ERP, a CRM or a compliance workflow can use without a person reading a web page.
The term covers three kinds of product that look alike from the outside: APIs that serve what official registers publish, datasets gathered from websites and other public web sources, and credit bureaus that add scores and payment behaviour to register data. They answer different questions, update at different speeds and are priced differently.
Try one call
This box sends a real request to the Prometiam API on the shared, read-only demo key: look up a UK company by its number or its name. The demo key excludes sanctions screening and company events and is rate-limited; the equivalent call on your own key is below.
The same lookup with curl
curl "https://api.prometiam.com/functions/v1/risk-api/companies/search?company_number=00445790&country=GB" \ -H "Authorization: Bearer rk_live_your_api_key"
curl "https://api.prometiam.com/functions/v1/risk-api/companies/search?company_number=00445790&country=GB&limit=1" \ -H "Authorization: Bearer $PROMETIAM_API_KEY"
Registry-sourced APIs, scraped data and credit bureaus compared
As at 28 Oct 2026. Prices are those each vendor publishes on its own page on that date, in the currency shown there; where a vendor publishes none, the cell says on request. This is not a ranking and not like-for-like: the units differ (calls, searches, credits), so compare on your own volume.
| Type | What the data is | Where it comes from | Freshness | Typical access | Public prices, as at 28 Oct 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Registry-sourced APIs | The record the register holds: legal name, number, status, legal form, address, and in some countries officers, filings and events. | Official company registers and the open data they publish, normalised into one schema. | Follows each register's publication rhythm, from daily to monthly by country. | REST API with a key; plans or credits; often a trial or free tier. | Prometiam: Starter EUR 9.99 a month (1,000 credits), Professional EUR 29.99 (10,000), Scale EUR 99.99 (50,000); Enterprise on request. CompanyData: plans from $34 a month, 7-day trial of 500 searches and 10 exports, card at signup (its API page). OpenCorporates: GBP 2,250 a year for up to 500 calls a month, up to GBP 12,000 a year for 5,000; Enterprise on request (pricing). |
| Scraped or web-collected data | Company and people profiles gathered from websites and public web sources: firmographics, headcount estimates, job posts, contacts. | Collected from the open web by the vendor, not issued by an authority. | Set by the vendor's collection cycle. | API or bulk datasets; credit-based plans. | Coresignal, which describes its data as public web data: from $49 a month for 2,500 credits (pricing). |
| Credit bureaus | Register data plus a score, payment behaviour and credit limits. | Official registries combined with the bureau's own sources and models. | Varies by bureau and product. | Contract or quote; API or portal; free API testing at some. | On request. Creditsafe (API page) and Dun & Bradstreet (D&B Direct+) publish no API price. |
Vendors are named only where their own page supports the row. CompanyData states that its data is sourced from official trade registers; OpenCorporates, that it collects from official registries; Creditsafe, that its company data is collected from official registries and enhanced with a credit score. Prices change: check the source before you buy.
Registry data or credit bureau data?
- Registry data answers: does the entity exist, in what state, with what legal form and address, and what has the register recorded about it? Each field has an authority behind it.
- Bureau data answers: how likely is the company to pay late or fail, and how much credit would a supplier extend? That is a model's opinion built on more than the register.
- Web-collected data answers: how big is the company, what does it hire for, who works there? Registers do not publish this, and quality depends on the source and the collection method, so ask where each field comes from.
Teams often combine them: registry data to verify the entity, a bureau score where credit limits matter, web data for sales segmentation. For the verification step, see the KYB API and the comparison of multi-country KYB and company-data APIs.
What to check before you choose
- Which countries are served, and what is served in each: companies only or also sole traders, officers, filings.
- What each status value means, and whether the vendor says so (company status meanings).
- How fresh each country is, which depends on how often the register publishes.
- Licence and attribution lines: open registers often require a credit line on what you show.
- The price of one call and what a call returns, not only the monthly figure.
What Prometiam is, and what it is not
Prometiam serves company records from official registers through one REST API and one standard company object, with corporate insolvency notices and monitoring with webhooks on the same key. Each country guide states what that register provides and what it does not; start from the UK, Spain or US guide, or browse all guides.
- Registry-sourced, not scored. It returns what each register publishes: no credit score, no payment behaviour, no company-profile pages and no lead lists.
- Scope differs by country. In several countries sole traders and other natural persons are not served, officers exist for only a few registers, and some countries serve LEI-registered entities rather than a full register.
- Insolvency notices: corporate only, sixteen markets (FR, DE, GB, AT, CH, NO, FI, US, NL, DK, HR, SE, ES, LV, EE, SG).
- Monitoring with webhooks: every live country except France and Chile.
Price and credits
Prometiam plans are counted in credits: Starter EUR 9.99 a month for 1,000 credits, Professional EUR 29.99 for 10,000, Scale EUR 99.99 for 50,000, Enterprise on request. A company search or a company record costs 1 credit, errors cost nothing and every response carries X-Credits-Cost. The free trial lasts 14 days with 500 credits; a card is required and nothing is charged during the trial, then Starter applies unless you cancel. Before you start the trial you can use the sample call above, the docs demo key, the free tools or the MCP server in demo mode. All plans: pricing.
FAQ
What is a company data API?
A REST interface that returns the record of a legal entity (name, number, status, legal form, address) from one request, so software can check a company without a person reading a register website. The record can come from an official register, from web collection or from a credit bureau.
What is the difference between registry data and credit bureau data?
Registry data is what the official register holds about the entity, with an authority behind each field. A credit bureau combines register data with its own sources and models to give a score and payment behaviour. The first says what a company is; the second estimates how it will behave.
Is scraped company data reliable?
It depends on the source and the collection cycle. Web-collected data covers things registers do not publish, such as headcount estimates and job posts, but it has no authority behind it. Ask the vendor where each field comes from and how often it is refreshed.
How much does a company data API cost?
Public prices as at 28 Oct 2026 run from EUR 9.99 a month (Prometiam Starter, 1,000 credits) and $34 a month (CompanyData) to GBP 2,250 a year (OpenCorporates, up to 500 calls a month). Credit bureaus publish no API price and quote on request. Units differ, so compare on your own volume.
Can I try a company data API for free?
Yes. The sample call on this page, the demo key in the docs, the free tools and the MCP demo mode work without an account. The 14-day trial gives 500 credits, requires a card and charges nothing during it; Starter then applies unless you cancel.
Related
- Company lookup API: one call per company, with every national identifier
- Free company data API: what the open registers give you for nothing
- Comparisons with other providers
- API documentation