Company Lookup API — Best Options Compared for 2026

A company lookup API does something that sounds simple: you pass it a domain name, it returns information about that company. Logo files, brand colors, industry classification, employee count, founding year, social links. The kind of data that SaaS products, CRM platforms, and developer tools need to display company records properly.

In practice the market for this is more fragmented than it looks. Different providers make very different trade-offs on coverage, data freshness, format support, and pricing. Some are built for high-volume logo delivery only. Some cover the full company data set. Some were enterprise products before they became APIs. Picking the wrong one means rebuilding the integration later.

This comparison covers the company lookup APIs worth evaluating in 2026 — what each one returns, where each one falls short, and which use cases each fits best.

What a Company Lookup API Should Return

Before comparing providers, it helps to be specific about what the category actually covers. Not every product calling itself a company lookup API returns the same data.

At the minimum, a useful company lookup API should return:

• Logo files in SVG, PNG, and JPG. SVG is required for anything that needs to scale cleanly across screen sizes and resolutions.
• Multiple logo variants. A light version for dark backgrounds, a dark version for light backgrounds, and an icon-only version. Products that support both light and dark mode need both variants reliably.
• Brand colors as hex values. Ideally with contrast metadata that tells you which background type the logo reads well against so you can make that decision programmatically.
• Basic firmographics. Industry, employee count range, founding year, headquarters location, and a current company description.
• Social links and domain metadata.

That is the full payload a product needs to represent a company accurately in its interface without falling back to manual data entry. Some providers cover all of it. Some cover only part. The distinction matters when you are deciding what to integrate.

BrandsAPI — Best Overall for Full Company Data

BrandsAPI is the most complete option in this category for teams that need the full data set rather than just logos.

Coverage spans 44 million indexed brands. A single API call returns logos in SVG, PNG, and JPG with separate variants for light, dark, icon-only, and full horizontal lockup where available. Brand colors come back as hex values with contrast metadata included. Firmographics cover industry, employee count, founding year, headquarters, and company description. Social links, domain metadata, and typography data complete the response.

Data accuracy sits at 99.97%. Response time averages 94ms at P99, which is within the range that user-facing applications require to avoid noticeable latency in the UI. The platform is SOC 2 Type II certified, which covers the security requirements that enterprise procurement processes typically check before vendor approval.

Pricing is transparent and requires no sales conversation. The Pro plan runs at $50 per month for 10,000 API calls. The free tier gives 100 calls per month with no credit card required, which is enough to test real coverage against a sample of the domains your product actually handles before committing to any integration work.

Two products are available depending on the use case. The full Brand API returns the complete company data payload. A dedicated Logo API endpoint handles high-volume logo delivery with CDN optimization for teams that only need logos at scale without the additional overhead.

Brandfetch — Solid Coverage, Higher Price

Brandfetch covers similar ground to BrandsAPI. Logo files in SVG and PNG, brand colors, typography hints, and some firmographic fields are all included in the response. For teams that integrated Brandfetch early, the experience has generally been positive for major consumer brands and Fortune 500 companies where coverage is strong.

The pricing is where it becomes harder to justify. At $99 per month for the Pro plan, Brandfetch charges nearly double what BrandsAPI charges for comparable access. The free tier is limited enough that meaningful evaluation requires a paid commitment before you can properly test coverage against your actual domain sample.

Coverage for smaller companies, regional businesses, and recently founded startups is less consistent than for major brands. Teams building products that handle a wide range of company sizes should test their specific domain sample rather than relying on overall coverage statistics.

For teams that have been on Brandfetch and are actively considering switching, the Brandfetch alternatives comparison covers the migration case in more detail including what the schema differences look like and how long the transition typically takes.

Clearbit — Enterprise Only in Practice

Clearbit was the original company data API that most of this market grew up around. Before the Salesforce acquisition in late 2023, it covered company enrichment, contact data, technographics, and CRM integration in a single product suite. For teams that needed deep enrichment across multiple data categories, it was the default recommendation.

Post-acquisition, the access model changed substantially. Self-serve access at startup-friendly pricing is no longer available. Teams now go through a sales process with custom pricing and annual minimums that independent developers and early-stage products cannot easily justify.

For teams at enterprise scale already inside the Salesforce ecosystem, Clearbit integration may still make sense as part of a broader CRM strategy. For everyone else, it is not a realistic starting point for a company lookup API in 2026. The Clearbit alternatives overview covers what the market looks like for teams that have been evaluating Clearbit or migrating away from it.

Logo.dev — Logo Delivery Without the Company Context

Logo.dev handles one specific requirement very well. It delivers brand logos via CDN quickly and at scale. The integration surface is small, the performance is consistent, and the infrastructure handles high request volumes without the complexity of a full brand data integration.

The scope is the trade-off. Logo.dev returns logos. It does not return brand colors, firmographics, company descriptions, social links, or typography. Any feature in a product that needs company context beyond the logo requires a second API call to a different provider.

Teams whose requirement is genuinely and permanently logo-only will find Logo.dev a clean solution. Teams that might need brand colors for background handling, or company information for CRM records, or industry data for filtering — and most SaaS products do need at least some of those things — are better served by a provider that covers the full payload from the start.

Diffbot — Comprehensive Data at Enterprise Pricing

Diffbot sits at a different scale from the other providers on this list. It extracts structured data from across the public web, covering company information, product data, article content, and knowledge graph relationships. The depth and breadth of what it returns exceeds what any specialized brand API offers.

The pricing reflects that scope. Diffbot starts at $299 per month and increases significantly from there. For teams whose requirement is company logos, brand colors, and basic firmographic data, Diffbot is substantial overkill. The cost per unit of data you actually use is far higher than a focused company lookup API.

For enterprise teams with complex structured data extraction requirements that extend well beyond brand assets — competitive intelligence, market research, large-scale company database construction — Diffbot is worth evaluating on its own terms.

How the Options Compare Side by Side

The key differences across providers come down to five categories:

Full brand data in one call

BrandsAPI and Brandfetch both return the complete set. Logo.dev returns logos only. Clearbit covered the full set but access is now restricted. Diffbot has company data as part of a much broader extraction product.

Logo variants

BrandsAPI returns light, dark, icon-only, and full lockup variants in SVG, PNG, and JPG. Brandfetch covers similar variants but with less consistency for smaller brands. Logo.dev handles logo delivery well but with fewer format options. Clearbit and Diffbot have limited variant coverage.

Brand colors with contrast data

BrandsAPI includes hex values and contrast metadata. Brandfetch includes hex values without contrast information. Logo.dev, Clearbit, and Diffbot do not include this.

Self-serve access and transparent pricing

BrandsAPI, Brandfetch, Logo.dev, and Diffbot all offer self-serve access. Clearbit does not. BrandsAPI's Pro plan at $50 per month is the most competitive pricing for the full data set. Brandfetch charges $99 for comparable access.

Free tier for evaluation

BrandsAPI offers 100 calls per month with no credit card required. That is enough to test real coverage against the specific domains your product handles before any integration decision. Brandfetch's free tier is more limited. Logo.dev has a free tier. Clearbit does not. Diffbot offers a trial.

How to Run a Useful Evaluation

Published coverage numbers from any provider are averages across their entire indexed database. The average does not tell you how the API performs on the specific domains your product handles.

The most useful evaluation takes about 30 minutes. Pull 50 to 100 domains from your actual user base or the industry vertical your product serves. Run them through the free tier of whichever APIs you are considering. Check three things for each result:

• Was the logo returned, and is it the current version of the brand? Not a version from three years ago.
• Is the SVG format available and does it render cleanly at multiple sizes?
• Are the firmographic fields populated accurately, including industry classification and employee count?

That test tells you what the API actually does with your data rather than what it does with a benchmark sample. BrandsAPI's free tier gives 100 calls per month with no credit card required, which covers this evaluation properly.

Choosing Based on What Your Product Needs

The right company lookup API depends on what the product actually needs and how that is likely to change.

If the requirement is logos only, at high volume, with minimal integration complexity, Logo.dev is worth evaluating first. It is built specifically for that use case and does it cleanly.

If the requirement is the full company data set — logos, brand colors, firmographics — with self-serve access and transparent pricing, BrandsAPI is the strongest option currently available. The pricing and immediate account access are available without a sales conversation.

If the product is already integrated with Brandfetch and switching cost is a concern, the comparison is about whether the pricing difference and coverage improvements justify the migration work. For most teams, the answer depends on usage volume.

For teams that have been evaluating Clearbit or building on it before access changed, the alternatives now available cover the same data at a fraction of the cost with self-serve access and no annual commitment required.

The fastest way to find out which option is right for your specific domain set is to run the evaluation using BrandsAPI's free tier before writing any integration code.