Companies House vs paid checkers: when to pay, when to stay free
Every UK company checker — free or paid — starts with the same statutory data at Companies House. The paid tools do not have secret data. What they sell is enrichment, scoring, monitoring, integration and workflow. If your job is casual research, the free register plus Sell Ltd's free tools is enough. If your job is monitoring, credit, KYC or portfolio work, you should pay — but pay for the right specialist.
Statutory UK register — free
Endole, CompanyCheck, DueDil, Red Flag Alert, Creditsafe, etc.
Use Companies House when you want raw filings on one company at a time and you are not making a regulated decision on it.
Pay for a specialist checker the moment you need monitoring, credit scoring, KYC, UBO traversal or portfolio-scale automation. Generalist paid tools usually get replaced by a specialist within a year.
Companies House is the UK's statutory register of limited companies, LLPs and CIOs. Its Find and Update service is free at the point of use and publishes every statutory filing including accounts, confirmation statements, director appointments/resignations, PSC filings and charges. It is authoritative but deliberately unenriched.
Paid checkers — Endole, CompanyCheck, DueDil, Red Flag Alert, Creditsafe, Kompany and dozens of white-label products — consume this data and layer enrichment on top. They differ from Companies House in packaging, scoring, monitoring and integration, not in the underlying source of truth.
Companies House vs Paid checkers — full comparison matrix
Honest, row-by-row. Where Paid checkers wins, we say so.
| Axis | Companies House | Paid checkers | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free | £5/mo to £60k/yr | Companies House |
| Raw filings | Complete | Complete (re-served) | Tie |
| Credit score | None | Yes | Paid checkers |
| Portfolio monitoring | None | Yes | Paid checkers |
| Event alerts | Basic RSS | Email + webhook | Paid checkers |
| UBO ownership graph | PSC filings only, no traversal | Multi-hop UBO | Paid checkers |
| Sanctions & PEP | None | Bundled in KYC tools | Paid checkers |
| Insolvency early-warning | Filings only | Model-driven (Red Flag Alert etc.) | Paid checkers |
| API for automation | Free Companies House API | Commercial APIs | Companies House |
| Audit trail for KYC | Manual PDF export | Time-stamped, evidenced | Paid checkers |
| International coverage | UK only | Available | Paid checkers |
| Directors' history view | Available but clunky | Polished cross-appointment views | Paid checkers |
Deep dive per axis
What paid checkers actually add
Every paid checker layers three things on top of Companies House: (1) enrichment (firmographics, financial ratios, credit scores), (2) workflow (monitoring, alerts, portfolio dashboards, API integration), and (3) evidence (time-stamped audit trails suitable for regulated onboarding). None of them have data Companies House does not publish.
The generalist trap
Most SMEs buy a generalist paid tool (Endole, CompanyCheck) then find it does not quite do their real job — insolvency early-warning, or KYC, or credit monitoring — so they end up buying a specialist too. The pattern we see: buy the specialist first (Red Flag Alert for credit, DueDil/FullCircl for KYC, Creditsafe for trade credit), use free Companies House and Sell Ltd research pages for everything else.
The Companies House API is underrated
For developers, the free Companies House API is one of the best value integrations in UK B2B. Rate limits are generous for reasonable use, the schema is stable, and you can build a serious research tool on it. Paid checkers exist because most buyers cannot or will not build; if you can build, the free API is genuinely enough for a lot of workflows.
Freshness has a hard ceiling
No paid tool can be fresher than the statutory filing cadence. What they offer is push-based delivery of the same events — you learn the day it is filed instead of on your next manual sweep. If your workflow does not need sub-daily reaction, the free register plus a calendar reminder is genuinely enough.
Regulated buyers must pay
For AML/KYC-regulated onboarding you must keep an evidenced, time-stamped audit trail. Free Companies House PDFs work in theory but do not scale, and auditors routinely challenge them. Paid tools solve this cleanly.
Where Sell Ltd sits
Sell Ltd's free research pages combine Companies House data with valuation signals, accounts summaries and director history in one view — the workflow most SMEs are actually trying to buy from Endole. If you then need monitoring, credit or KYC, pay for a specialist, not a generalist.
Who each is right for
SME owner checking a supplier
Free Companies House + Sell Ltd research covers this without a subscription. Save your budget.
Credit manager monitoring 200 debtors
Pay for Red Flag Alert or Creditsafe — portfolio monitoring is the exact job Companies House cannot do.
Fintech onboarding lead
Regulated KYC requires evidenced audit trails and UBO traversal. Pay for DueDil/FullCircl or a KYC specialist.
What real users say (Trustpilot, G2, Reddit)
We synthesised public reviews across both brands. This is the recurring pattern, not cherry-picked praise.
Reddit r/UKBusiness · Cost sensitivityRecurring theme: SMEs cancel a paid checker after a year and revert to free Companies House when their use-case turns out to be casual.
G2 · Specialist beats generalistBuyers who moved from generalist paid tools to specialists (Red Flag Alert, DueDil) rarely revert. The generalists lose renewals to specialists year on year.
Trade press · Companies House upgradesThe Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act (2023–ongoing) is progressively upgrading Companies House data quality — narrowing the gap paid checkers can defend.
The free register is undervalued. Paid tools are usually oversold. Buy for job, not brand.
If you cannot articulate exactly which of the twelve axes in the matrix above justify paying, stay on Companies House and Sell Ltd's free research. When your workflow actually crosses the line, pay a specialist directly — skip the generalist middle.
Companies House vs Paid checkers — FAQs
Is Companies House free?
Yes. Companies House (gov.uk/companies-house) is the UK's statutory register, funded by taxpayers and filing fees. Its Find and Update service is free at the point of use — no subscription, no rate limit for casual use.
Then why do paid checkers exist?
Because the free register is a filing archive, not a research tool. Paid checkers layer scoring, enrichment, monitoring, ownership graphs, sanctions, insolvency early-warning and workflow integrations. They pay for themselves the moment you cross into portfolio-scale work.
Do paid checkers have data Companies House doesn't?
Some. They add credit scores, PSC UBO traversal, sanctions screening, court judgments and CCJs, gazette notices, and firmographics like employee counts and revenue banding. The statutory filings themselves are identical.
Is Companies House data accurate?
It is authoritative — filings are made under directors' criminal liability — but not verified. Companies House does not audit filings for accuracy. Paid checkers add cross-referencing and outlier detection.
How fresh is Companies House?
Event filings (director changes, address changes) must be filed within 14 days. Accounts are filed annually with a 9-month grace period for private companies. This is the ceiling every downstream product operates under.
When should I stop using free Companies House?
When you need any of: portfolio monitoring across 50+ counterparties; API-driven ingestion; regulated KYC; UBO ownership traversal at scale; credit scoring; or event-driven alerting.
What is the cheapest way to enrich Companies House data?
Combine the free register with Sell Ltd's free research pages (accounts, valuation signals, director history) and a cheap monthly tool like CompanyCheck at £4.99/month for director-level history.
Do paid checkers all use the same source?
Yes, at the base layer. Every UK checker starts with Companies House. The difference is what they add and how they present it.
Is there any legal risk to relying on free Companies House?
For casual research, none. For regulated KYC or credit decisions on regulated counterparties, you are usually required to keep an evidenced audit trail — paid tools provide that; the free register does not.
What about international data?
Companies House only covers the UK. For international coverage you need a paid tool: Creditsafe, D&B, Experian Business, Kompany, or a dedicated market bureau.
Can paid checkers show data Companies House will not?
They cannot legally publish data that isn't public. What they do is present it more usefully — long director-history views, PSC graphs, industry benchmarks. Nothing beyond the underlying source.
Bottom line — should I pay?
For occasional lookups: no. For monitoring, portfolio credit, KYC or investment research: yes, but pay for the specialist tool aligned to your job, not the generalist one.