Is there a better alternative to Companies House search?

It depends on the job. For authoritative single lookups, nothing beats Companies House itself. For filtering, financials, ownership mapping or monitoring, tools like OpenCorporates, Company Check, Beauhurst or an intelligence platform add what the free register lacks.

Is there a free alternative to Companies House?

Companies House Advanced Search adds free SIC, location and status filtering, and OpenCorporates offers free multi-country search. Both build on or alongside official registry data.

Why use a paid tool when Companies House is free?

Paid tools turn filed accounts into comparable financials, add credit scores, contact data and ownership maps, enable bulk filtering and export, and provide monitoring — none of which the free interface does well at scale.

What makes CompaniesIQ different?

It is live-only, querying the Companies House API directly rather than reselling a snapshot, pairs company data with live Nomis/ONS regional indicators, and publishes the provenance of every figure on its sources page.

Companies House Search Alternatives: When the Free Register Isn't Enough

The free Companies House register is the authoritative source for UK company facts, but it is built for looking up one company you already know — not for filtering, list-building, financial analysis or monitoring. When you hit those limits, you need an alternative that sits on top of the same official data. This guide covers the main options, free and paid, and when each makes sense.

What Companies House does — and doesn't — do

The official register gives you, free: company details, directors, people with significant control, and full filing history including accounts and charges. It also offers an Advanced Search that filters by SIC code, location, status and incorporation date — a genuinely useful upgrade many people miss.

Where it falls short:

No structured financials — you get the filed accounts as documents, not comparable figures.
No bulk export of large, filtered lists.
No credit scores, contact data or ownership mapping.
No proactive monitoring beyond the free "Follow this company" email alerts.

If those gaps do not affect you, the free register may be all you need.

Free alternatives

Companies House Advanced Search — still the register, but with filtering. The right first step before paying for anything.
OpenCorporates — the largest open database of companies, aggregating official registry data across many countries. Strong for cross-border and journalistic research; lighter on UK financials.

Paid alternatives, by job

Different paid tools optimise for different jobs:

Endole — presents Companies House data in a faster, more digestible form, with extras like competitor and trademark context.
Company Check — focused on financials and credit, popular for quick checks on net worth, liabilities and ratings.
Beauhurst — specialises in high-growth, ambitious and venture-backed companies, with funding and signal data. See our piece on high-growth companies.
Global, multi-jurisdiction providers — for international ownership mapping and coverage beyond the UK.

Where CompaniesIQ fits

CompaniesIQ is an intelligence layer with a specific stance: it is live-only, querying the Companies House API directly rather than reselling a stale snapshot, and it pairs company data with regional economic indicators pulled live from the free Nomis/ONS service. The provenance of every figure — live versus published reference data — is set out on the sources page. It is built for the jobs the free register cannot do: filtering new formations by sector and region, surfacing recent signals, and exporting tight, relevant lists.

How to choose

Work backwards from the job:

One-off lookup of a known company? Use Companies House. It is free and authoritative.
Cross-border or open-data research? OpenCorporates.
Credit and financial screening? A financials-first tool like Company Check.
High-growth and funding intelligence? Beauhurst.
New-formation feeds, sector/region filtering and live data for leads or research? An intelligence platform such as CompaniesIQ.

The honest answer is that most serious users combine two: Companies House as the source of truth, and one alternative for the filtering, financials or signals it lacks. Compare what you actually need against pricing before committing.