ZoomInfo costs $15,000/year. Apollo just raised prices again. Clearbit killed the free tier.
Meanwhile, the US government publishes more company data than any of these vendors -- for free. The trick is knowing where to look and how to query it.
Here are 7 free APIs that return real, structured company data you can pipe into your CRM, enrichment tool, or lead scoring model.
1. Secretary of State Business Registrations
Every company incorporated in the US is registered with its state Secretary of State office. This data includes entity name, status (active/dissolved), filing date, registered agent, and officer names.
Why sales teams care: Verify a company is real before you pitch them. Check if they are active. Find the registered agent (often the decision-maker at small companies).
Pre-built scrapers for the biggest states:
- California -- 4M+ entities
- Texas -- 3M+ entities
- New York -- 5M+ entities
- Multi-state search -- CA, TX, NY in one query
2. SEC EDGAR Full-Text Search
If your target is a public company, EDGAR has everything: annual reports, quarterly financials, insider trades, executive compensation, and material event disclosures.
Why sales teams care: Know exactly how much revenue a prospect does before your call. Find which companies are hiring, expanding, or cutting costs -- from their own filings.
SEC EDGAR Search -- search by company name, ticker, or CIK.
3. IRS 990 Nonprofit Filings
Every US tax-exempt organization files a Form 990 that reveals revenue, assets, program expenses, and executive compensation.
Why sales teams care: Nonprofits are a massive vertical. The 990 tells you their budget before you pitch. Organizations with $5M+ revenue and growing are your ICPs.
IRS 990 Search -- full-text search across e-filed 990s.
4. FEC Campaign Finance Data
Political donors are high-net-worth individuals. The FEC publishes every donation over $200 with the donor's name, employer, and occupation.
Why sales teams care: Build prospect lists of executives and business owners by filtering donors by employer and contribution amount. A VP who donates $5,000 to a campaign has budget authority.
FEC Campaign Finance -- search donors by name, employer, state.
5. NPPES NPI Registry
The National Provider Identifier registry has data on 7M+ healthcare providers: name, specialty, practice address, and phone number.
Why sales teams care: If you sell to healthcare, this is the most complete free directory of providers. Filter by specialty and geography to build targeted lists.
NPI Registry Search -- search by name, specialty, city, state.
6. CMS Open Payments
Pharmaceutical and device companies report every payment they make to physicians. This data reveals which doctors are key opinion leaders, consultants, and high-value targets.
Why sales teams care: Know which physicians already have relationships with your competitors. Find KOLs in specific therapeutic areas.
Open Payments Search -- search by physician, company, or payment type.
7. FDIC BankFind
The FDIC publishes data on every FDIC-insured institution: assets, deposits, branches, and financial health indicators.
Why sales teams care: If you sell to banks or credit unions, this tells you their size, growth, and branch count. Filter by asset size and geography.
FDIC BankFind Search -- search institutions by name, state, or FDIC certificate.
The Pattern
All of these data sources are:
- Free -- funded by taxpayers, no API keys needed for most
- Legal -- public records, no scraping gray areas
- Structured -- real APIs with JSON responses (not HTML scraping)
- Stable -- government APIs change slowly, unlike commercial sites
The hard part is not getting the data. It is knowing these sources exist and stitching them into your workflow. Most sales teams are paying $500-15,000/month for enrichment tools that are just reselling this data with a nicer UI.
Build your own enrichment pipeline from the source and keep the margin.
Building automation tools for lead gen and compliance. More free data source guides coming.
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