Companies House search vs a sales intelligence tool: when is free enough?
Companies House is free and authoritative but gives you records, not a call list. A sales tool adds filtering and timing. Here is when each suits a small UK B2B team.
Written from Lockley's index and the sources below, updated 10 October 2026.
Companies House is enough if you already know which companies to look at and want to check facts about them. A sales intelligence tool earns its fee when you need someone to read thousands of records each night and tell you which few companies matter today. Searching the register is free; reading it daily at scale is a job. This page compares the two fairly for a small UK B2B team.
Companies House search compared with a service built on it
What Companies House does well
It is the authoritative source for company profiles, officers, filings, charges and persons with significant control, and it is free. The API gives programmatic access to all public data held on companies at no charge, though you must register for a key and observe a rate limit of 600 requests in five minutes (see sources). If you are a developer or have an analyst, you can build much of a monitoring tool yourself.
It is also the right place to verify anything. Whatever tool you use, checking the filing itself before a call is good practice.
Where it falls short for sellers
The register is built for transparency, not prospecting. It does not tell you which of 5,576,889 active companies are worth a call this week. It does not show job postings, public contracts, planning applications or what a company sells. You can piece these together from separate sources, but doing so every morning takes time most small teams do not have.
Where a tool helps
The value is in reading many sources nightly and ranking the results. Lockley reads Companies House officers, charges and filings, Contracts Finder and Find a Tender, job postings, planning registers and each company's own website, then gives a short list. It starts with a free scan of your own website, which builds a private page of companies worth calling for you. Its differences are those on the table above; it does not replace the register, it reads it for you.
Who should use which
Use Companies House directly if you have a short, fixed target list, an analyst or developer, or a low call volume. Use a tool if you need fresh prospects every morning, have no one to monitor sources, or want each lead to arrive with its evidence. Many teams do both: a tool to find the company, the register to verify it.
A fair test
Spend one week trying to build a list of ten companies with a reason to call, using only Companies House and free sources. Time it. Then compare the hours with the monthly fee. If the hours cost you less than the fee, stay with the free route.
Questions
Is Companies House data free to use?
Yes. Searching the register and the API are free. The API needs an account and has a rate limit.
Does Companies House give contact details for directors?
It names directors and officers but is not a source of contact details.
Can I build my own monitoring on the API?
Yes, if you have the technical time. You would still need other sources for contracts, jobs and planning.
What does Lockley cost?
Core is £499 a month (first month £249) or £4,490 a year; Pro £999 a month or £8,990 a year; Agency £1,499 a month. Prices exclude VAT.
Does Lockley replace Companies House?
No. It reads the register and other public sources and links each finding to the record, so you can check it.
See which of these companies are worth calling for your business, with the source for each.
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