DEV Community: Alessandro Binda

I built a complete developer ecosystem around 250M company records — here are all the free tools

Alessandro Binda — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:43:42 +0000

Every developer tool I ship follows one rule: make company data accessible to everyone, everywhere they already work.

After aggregating 250M+ company records from 40+ government registries, I didn't stop at the API. Here's the complete ecosystem — every tool is free and open source.

The API

score.get-scala.com — Free REST API. No signup, no API key for basic lookups.

curl "https://score.get-scala.com/api/search?q=Tesla&limit=3"

Returns: company name, country, revenue, employees, credit score (0-100), NACE codes, legal form, VAT, contacts.

CLI Tools

enrich-companies (npm + PyPI)

Enrich any CSV file with company data. Auto-detects the company name column.

# Node.js
npx enrich-companies input.csv -o enriched.csv

# Python (zero dependencies)
pip install enrich-companies
enrich-companies input.csv -o enriched.csv

company-lookup (npm)

Look up any company from the terminal:

npx company-lookup Ferrero

vat-lookup (npm)

Validate EU VAT numbers:

npx vat-lookup IT02727330014

SDKs in Every Language

Language	Package	Install
JavaScript	scala-score-js	npm install scala-score
Python	scala-score	pip install scala-score
Ruby	score_api	gem install score_api
Rust	score-api	cargo add score-api
Go	company-lookup-go	go install github.com/Alessandro114/company-lookup-go@latest
Deno	@scala/score	import from jsr:@scala/score

Integrations

MCP Server for AI agents (Claude, GPT):
GitHub Action for CI pipelines:
WordPress Plugin: score-company-lookup-wp
Slack App: score-slack-app
Telegram Bot: score-telegram-bot
Raycast Extension: score-raycast
VS Code Extension: company-data-vscode
Homebrew:

Live Demos

HuggingFace Spaces: score-company-lookup — Gradio web demo
API Docs: alessandro114.github.io/score-api-docs — Interactive Redoc docs
OpenAPI Spec: score-api-openapi + Postman collection

The Data

Metric	Value
Total companies	250M+
Countries	50+
Data points per company	16+
Update frequency	Daily
Free tier	50 lookups/month

Data sources: government business registries (Companies House, Handelsregister, Registro Imprese, KBO, etc.) + financial filings + public records.

What's Next

I'm building this in public. Every tool is MIT-licensed and open for contributions. If you want to help:

Good first issues
Star the repos if you find them useful
File issues for features you need

All tools: github.com/Alessandro114

I aggregated 250M+ company records from 40+ government registries — here are the tools I built

Alessandro Binda — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:43 +0000

Last year I started a project to build a unified database of company information from official government business registries.

After crawling 40+ sources across Europe and beyond, I now have 250 million company records with revenue, employees, credit scores, and financial data.

The whole thing is open source. Here's what I built and how you can use it.

The problem

If you've ever needed company data for a sales pipeline, due diligence, market research, or just curiosity — you know the options:

Paid APIs (Dun & Bradstreet, Clearbit, ZoomInfo): $15K-50K/year
Government registries: Free, but each country has its own format, its own API (or PDF-only portal), and its own quirks
Manual research: Copy-paste from company websites, LinkedIn, etc.

I wanted one API that covers everything.

What I built

1. enrich-companies (CLI)

The simplest tool: give it a CSV with company names, get back the same CSV with 16 extra columns.

# Node.js
npx enrich-companies companies.csv -o enriched.csv

# Python
pip install enrich-companies
enrich-companies companies.csv -o enriched.csv

Output:

  Enriching 3 companies from companies.csv...

  [1/3] Ferrero — Revenue: €17B | Employees: 41,000 | Score: 92
  [2/3] Siemens — Revenue: €72B | Employees: 311,000 | Score: 88
  [3/3] LVMH — Revenue: €86B | Employees: 213,000 | Score: 95

  Done! 3/3 companies enriched

It auto-detects the company name column (works with company, name, business_name, firma, empresa, azienda, etc.), and adds:

Column	Example
revenue	12500000
employees	340
health_score	78.5
nace_code	56.10
legal_form	S.r.l.
status	active
vat_number	IT12345678901
founded	2015-03-12
city, country, website, phone, email	...

No API key needed. Free tier: 50 lookups/month.

npm: enrich-companies
PyPI: enrich-companies
GitHub: Alessandro114/enrich-companies

2. MCP Server (for AI agents)

If you use Claude, ChatGPT, or any AI agent — this MCP server lets the AI search and look up company data directly.

npx scala-mcp-server

Add to your Claude Desktop config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "scala-score": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "scala-mcp-server"]
    }
  }
}

Then ask Claude: "Find all active restaurants in Milan with more than 50 employees" — and it queries the database directly.

npm: scala-mcp-server
GitHub: Alessandro114/scala-mcp-server

3. Python SDK

from scala_score import ScalaScore

score = ScalaScore("your-api-key")
results = score.search("Ferrero", country="IT")

for company in results.companies:
    print(f"{company.name} — Revenue: {company.revenue}")

PyPI: scala-score

4. Chrome Extension

Right-click any company name on a webpage → instant lookup with revenue, employees, credit score.

Score Company Lookup on Chrome Web Store

5. Bulk Dataset

The full dataset is available for download:

Kaggle: Global Company Data (994K sample)
HuggingFace: Global Company Database (1M)
GitHub: world-company-database

Data coverage

250M+ companies across 50+ countries
Strong coverage: Italy, Germany, France, Spain, UK, Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, US, and more
Sources: official business registries, financial filings, public records
Updated regularly from government open data portals

What's next

I'm actively adding more countries and improving data quality. Contributions are welcome — especially for countries where registry data is hard to access.

If you try any of these tools, I'd love to hear your feedback. And if you find them useful, a GitHub star helps more than you think.

All tools are MIT licensed. The API has a free tier (50 lookups/month) with no signup required.

Free Company Data API: Why We Made 272M Business Records Searchable

Alessandro Binda — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 09:20:55 +0000

Two years ago, I needed to verify whether a potential business partner's company actually existed. Simple question. Should be a simple answer.

Instead I found:

Government registries with no API and terrible search
Commercial providers charging €2–5 per lookup
Scraped datasets with stale, inaccurate data
"Free" APIs limited to a single country

So we built the S.C.A.L.A. Score API — a single endpoint to search 272 million companies across 265 countries, sourced from official government business registries.

What Data Is in the Score Database

Every record comes from an official government business registry. No LinkedIn scraping. No purchased lead lists. Just verified public records.

Data Point	Coverage
Company name & legal form	272M+ records
Registration/tax ID	Where available by jurisdiction
Company status (active/dissolved/liquidation)	All records
Incorporation date	Most jurisdictions
Registered address	Most jurisdictions
Officers & directors	Major jurisdictions (UK, DE, FR, IT, etc.)
Filing history	Where published by registry
Industry codes (NACE/SIC)	Where available

Country Coverage Highlights

Europe: All EU27 + UK, Norway, Switzerland, Iceland
North America: US (all 50 states), Canada
Latin America: Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Chile
Asia-Pacific: India, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan
Africa: South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Egypt
265 countries total

How the API Works

Search by Company Name

curl -s "https://score.get-scala.com/api/v1/search?q=BMW&country=DE" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"

Response:

{
  "total": 23,
  "companies": [
    {
      "name": "Bayerische Motoren Werke Aktiengesellschaft",
      "country": "DE",
      "registry_id": "HRB 42243",
      "status": "active",
      "incorporation_date": "1917-03-07",
      "address": "Petuelring 130, 80809 München"
    }
  ]
}

Get Company Details

curl -s "https://score.get-scala.com/api/v1/company/DE-HRB42243" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"

Search by Registration ID

curl -s "https://score.get-scala.com/api/v1/search?registry_id=HRB42243&country=DE" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"

Why It's Free (to Start)

The free tier gives you 50 lookups per month. That's enough to:

Evaluate data quality for your country/industry
Build a proof of concept
Run a small verification workflow

No credit card required. No trial that auto-converts. Just 50 free API calls every month, forever.

If you need more:

Plan	Lookups	Price	Per lookup
Free	50/mo	€0	Free
Starter	500/mo	€19/mo	€0.038
Growth	5,000/mo	€49/mo	€0.0098
Scale	50,000/mo	€149/mo	€0.00298

Use Cases We See

KYC / AML Compliance

Verify company existence and status before onboarding a business customer. Check officers against your watchlists.

CRM Enrichment

Your sales team enters "Acme Corp" — Score API fills in the registration number, address, status, and incorporation date automatically.

Market Research

How many active logistics companies are registered in Germany? Which ones were incorporated in the last 2 years? Score API makes these queries trivial.

Due Diligence

Before a partnership, investment, or acquisition — verify the entity is real, active, and where they say they are.

Developer Tools

Building a company autocomplete? A business directory? A compliance platform? Score API is the data layer.

Open Source SDK

The JavaScript SDK is fully open source:

npm install scala-score

GitHub: github.com/Alessandro114/scala-score-js

We also have community integrations:

n8n node: npm install n8n-nodes-scala
MCP server: npx scala-mcp-server

Start Building

API Docs | GitHub | Status Page

I Built a Free Database of 272M Companies — Here's How

Alessandro Binda — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 09:19:52 +0000

I'm a solo developer in Milan, and over the past year I built a free database of 272 million companies from 40+ countries. It's live at score.get-scala.com, with a free API, SDKs on npm and PyPI, and a sample dataset on Kaggle.

This is the story of how and why I built it.

The Problem

Business data is absurdly expensive. Want to look up a company's revenue, employee count, or credit rating?

Dun & Bradstreet: $20,000+/year
ZoomInfo: $15,000+/year
Clearbit: $12,000+/year
Bureau van Dijk (Orbis): $30,000+/year

These prices make sense for Fortune 500 companies. But for startups, indie developers, and small agencies? It's a non-starter.

I wanted to build something that makes business intelligence accessible to everyone.

The Data Sources

The secret is that most company data is public. Governments require businesses to register, and many publish this data openly. I built scrapers and parsers for:

France: SIRENE / INSEE (11M+ companies)
UK: Companies House (5M+)
US: SEC EDGAR + state registries
Germany: Handelsregister / Bundesanzeiger
Italy: Camera di Commercio open data
Spain: BORME (Boletin Oficial del Registro Mercantil)
Netherlands: KvK (Kamer van Koophandel)
Sweden: Bolagsverket
Norway: Bronnoysund Register Centre
Denmark: CVR (Central Business Register)
Finland: PRH + YTJ
Belgium: Crossroads Bank for Enterprises
Austria: Firmenbuch extracts
Poland: KRS + CEIDG
Czech Republic: ARES
Plus 25+ more countries...

Each source has its own format, encoding, update frequency, and quirks. French SIRENE gives you a 6GB CSV monthly. UK Companies House has a solid REST API. German Handelsregister requires parsing HTML. US state registries are all different.

The Tech Stack

I optimized for cost efficiency since I'm bootstrapping this solo:

DuckDB + Parquet: The entire 272M company dataset compresses to ~19GB in Parquet format. DuckDB can query it blazingly fast without loading it all into memory.
Fastify API: Node.js REST API serving search, autocomplete, and company detail endpoints.
PostgreSQL: For user accounts, API keys, usage tracking, and frequently-accessed company data.
Hetzner dedicated server: The whole thing runs on a single Hetzner box at €34/month. That's it. No AWS. No Kubernetes. No $10K/month cloud bill.

Total infrastructure cost: €34/month for 272 million companies.

The Scoring Algorithm

Raw data isn't very useful. You want to know: is this company healthy?

I built a proprietary scoring algorithm that rates every company from 0 to 100 with letter grades:

Grade	Score	Meaning
AA	80-100	Excellent financial health
A	60-79	Good, reliable
BB	40-59	Average, some risk
B	20-39	Below average
C	10-19	Poor, significant risk
D	5-9	Very poor, likely distressed
E	0-4	Critical / default risk

The score factors in: company age, legal status, industry risk, jurisdiction, available financial data, filing history, and more. It's not perfect (no public-data score can be), but it's a solid first-pass filter.

The Data Pipeline

Every company goes through this pipeline:

Scrape: Pull from government registries (automated, scheduled)
Parse: Normalize names, addresses, legal forms across 40+ formats
Deduplicate: Match entities across sources (fuzzy name matching + registration numbers)
Classify: Assign NACE/SIC industry codes where missing
Score: Run the credit scoring algorithm (0-100)
Grade: Convert score to letter grade (AA to E)
Index: Load into DuckDB/Parquet + PostgreSQL for API serving

The whole pipeline reruns monthly for most sources, weekly for some.

The AI Factor

I'll be honest: 95% of the code was written with Claude (Anthropic's AI assistant). I'm a solo developer and there's no way I could have built scrapers for 40+ countries, a scoring algorithm, an API, a dashboard, SDKs, and an MCP server without AI assistance.

This isn't a confession — it's the future of software. One developer with AI can build what used to require a team of 10.

What's Available Now

Free Dashboard

Search any company at score.get-scala.com. No signup required for basic searches.

API (from €19/month)

REST API with search, autocomplete, company details, credit scores, and bulk endpoints.

curl "https://score.get-scala.com/api/v1/companies/search?q=BMW&country=DE" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"

JavaScript SDK

npm install scala-score

import { ScalaScore } from "scala-score";
const client = new ScalaScore({ apiKey: "your-key" });
const results = await client.companies.search({ name: "BMW", country: "DE" });

Python SDK

pip install scala-score

from scala_score import ScalaScore
client = ScalaScore(api_key="your-key")
results = client.companies.search(name="BMW", country="DE")

MCP Server (for AI Agents)

npx scala-mcp-server

Let Claude, GPT, or any MCP-compatible AI agent search company data directly.

Kaggle Sample

994K companies on Kaggle — download and explore for free.

The Vision

Business intelligence shouldn't be locked behind $20K/year enterprise contracts. Every developer, every startup, every small business should be able to look up a potential partner, supplier, or client and get reliable data.

I'm building toward 500 million companies by 2027, covering every country that publishes business registry data.

If you're building something with company data, I'd love to hear about it. The API is free to start — 100 lookups/month, no credit card required.

Links

Built solo in Milan. Powered by public data and Claude. Democratizing business intelligence, one API call at a time.

How to Enrich Your CRM Data with 272M Company Records (Free API)

Alessandro Binda — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 09:19:38 +0000

Your CRM is full of company names. But how many have verified registration numbers? Up-to-date addresses? Confirmed active status?

Most CRM records are entered manually by sales reps — and they decay fast. Studies show that 30% of B2B data goes stale every year. Enrichment services from ZoomInfo or Clearbit cost thousands per month.

This tutorial shows you how to enrich your CRM data using the S.C.A.L.A. Score API — 272M companies across 265 countries, starting free.

What You'll Build

A pipeline that takes company names from your CRM and enriches them with:

Official registration number
Company status (active/dissolved)
Registered address
Incorporation date
Officers (where available)
Industry codes

Method 1: JavaScript Script (Direct API)

Install the SDK:

npm install scala-score

Create an enrichment script:

const ScalaScore = require('scala-score');
const fs = require('fs');

const client = new ScalaScore({ apiKey: process.env.SCORE_API_KEY });

// Your CRM export (CSV with company names and countries)
const companies = [
  { name: 'Bosch', country: 'DE' },
  { name: 'LVMH', country: 'FR' },
  { name: 'Ferrero', country: 'IT' },
  { name: 'Volvo', country: 'SE' },
  { name: 'Nestlé', country: 'CH' }
];

async function enrichCompany(name, country) {
  try {
    const result = await client.search({ name, country, limit: 1 });
    if (result.companies.length > 0) {
      const co = result.companies[0];
      return {
        input_name: name,
        matched_name: co.name,
        registry_id: co.registry_id,
        status: co.status,
        address: co.address,
        incorporation_date: co.incorporation_date,
        country: co.country
      };
    }
    return { input_name: name, matched_name: null, error: 'Not found' };
  } catch (err) {
    return { input_name: name, matched_name: null, error: err.message };
  }
}

async function main() {
  const results = [];
  for (const co of companies) {
    const enriched = await enrichCompany(co.name, co.country);
    results.push(enriched);
    console.log(`OK ${co.name} -> ${enriched.matched_name || 'NOT FOUND'}`);
  }

  // Write results to JSON
  fs.writeFileSync('enriched.json', JSON.stringify(results, null, 2));
  console.log(`\nEnriched ${results.length} companies -> enriched.json`);
}

main();

Output:

OK Bosch -> Robert Bosch GmbH
OK LVMH -> LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE
OK Ferrero -> Ferrero S.p.A.
OK Volvo -> AB Volvo
OK Nestle -> Nestle S.A.

Enriched 5 companies -> enriched.json

Method 2: n8n Workflow (No Code)

If you use n8n for automation, there's a dedicated Score API node:

npm install n8n-nodes-scala

Workflow Setup

Trigger: Schedule (daily/weekly) or webhook
CRM Node: Read contacts from HubSpot/Salesforce/Pipedrive
Score API Node: Enrich each company
CRM Node: Write enriched data back

In n8n, the workflow looks like this:

[Schedule Trigger]
      |
[HubSpot: Get Companies]
      |
[S.C.A.L.A. Score: Search Company]
      |
[IF: Match Found?]
   | Yes          | No
[HubSpot: Update]  [Flag for Review]

The Score API n8n node handles authentication, pagination, and error handling automatically. Just add your API key in the credentials and connect the nodes.

Method 3: MCP Server (AI-Powered Enrichment)

For AI-assisted workflows, use the Score MCP server:

npx scala-mcp-server

This exposes Score API data to any MCP-compatible AI client (Claude, custom agents, etc.). Your AI assistant can then:

Look up companies conversationally
Enrich data on the fly during chat
Cross-reference multiple sources

Claude Desktop Configuration

Add to your MCP settings:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "scala-score": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["scala-mcp-server"],
      "env": {
        "SCORE_API_KEY": "your-api-key-here"
      }
    }
  }
}

Then ask Claude: "Look up Siemens AG in the Score database and tell me their registration status and address."

Method 4: Python + CSV Export

import requests
import csv

API_KEY = "your-api-key"
BASE_URL = "https://score.get-scala.com/api/v1"

def enrich(name, country):
    response = requests.get(
        f"{BASE_URL}/search",
        params={"q": name, "country": country, "limit": 1},
        headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {API_KEY}"}
    )
    data = response.json()
    if data.get("companies"):
        return data["companies"][0]
    return None

# Read from CRM export
with open("crm_export.csv") as f:
    reader = csv.DictReader(f)
    companies = list(reader)

# Enrich and write output
with open("enriched.csv", "w", newline="") as f:
    writer = csv.writer(f)
    writer.writerow(["Input Name", "Matched Name", "Registry ID",
                     "Status", "Country", "Address"])

    for co in companies:
        result = enrich(co["name"], co["country"])
        if result:
            writer.writerow([
                co["name"], result["name"], result.get("registry_id", ""),
                result.get("status", ""), result["country"],
                result.get("address", "")
            ])
            print(f"OK {co['name']} -> {result['name']}")
        else:
            writer.writerow([co["name"], "NOT FOUND", "", "", "", ""])
            print(f"MISS {co['name']} -> not found")

How Much Does It Cost?

Enriching 500 CRM records per month: €19/month (Starter plan).

Enriching 5,000 records: €49/month (Growth plan).

Compare that to:

ZoomInfo: $15,000+/year
Clearbit: $12,000+/year for enrichment
D&B: €2-5 per lookup = €1,000-2,500 for 500 records

Score API is 25-130x cheaper for the same company verification data.

Get Started

Sign up free: score.get-scala.com
Get your API key (instant, no credit card)
Choose your integration method:
- JavaScript: npm install scala-score
- n8n: npm install n8n-nodes-scala
- MCP: npx scala-mcp-server
- REST API: Any language, any platform

50 free lookups/month — enough to prove the value before you spend anything.

Start enriching for free | GitHub SDK

The Best Free Business Intelligence APIs in 2026

Alessandro Binda — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 09:18:25 +0000

Finding reliable company data without signing a $15K enterprise contract is harder than it should be. I've spent months evaluating every free and affordable business data API available in 2026.

Here's my definitive ranking.

#1 — Score API (Best Overall)

272 million companies | 40+ countries | Free tier available

score.get-scala.com

The most comprehensive free-tier business intelligence API I've found. Built by a solo developer in Milan who aggregated government registries from across Europe, North America, and beyond.

What you get:

Company name, address, legal status
Revenue and employee estimates
NACE/SIC industry codes
Credit score (0–100) with letter grades (AA to E)
Legal form, incorporation date
40+ country coverage

Pricing:
| Plan | Lookups/month | Price |
|------|--------------|-------|
| Free | 100 | €0 |
| Starter | 1,000 | €19/mo |
| Pro | 5,000 | €49/mo |
| Enterprise | 25,000 | €149/mo |

Code example:

import { ScalaScore } from "scala-score";

const client = new ScalaScore({ apiKey: "your-key" });

const results = await client.companies.search({
  name: "Siemens",
  country: "DE"
});

console.log(results[0].credit_score);  // 91
console.log(results[0].credit_grade);  // "AA"
console.log(results[0].revenue);       // "€87.4B"

# Or via cURL
curl "https://score.get-scala.com/api/v1/companies/search?q=Siemens&country=DE" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"

SDKs: npm (scala-score), PyPI (scala-score), MCP Server (npx scala-mcp-server)

Why #1: Broadest coverage + credit scoring + free tier + affordable paid plans. No other API combines all four.

#2 — OpenCorporates

200M+ companies | 140+ jurisdictions | Open data

opencorporates.com

The OG of open company data. OpenCorporates aggregates company registry data from around the world and makes it available under open data licenses.

What you get:

Company name, registration number
Jurisdiction, incorporation date
Legal status (active/dissolved)
Officers and directors
Filing history

What's missing:

No financial data (revenue, employees)
No credit scoring
No industry classification
Rate-limited free API

Pricing: Free API with limits. Paid plans start around $1,000/month for serious usage.

Why #2: Excellent for legal entity verification and corporate structure research. But if you need financials or credit scores, you'll need to supplement with another source.

#3 — GLEIF (Global LEI Foundation)

2.4M+ LEIs | Global | Fully free

gleif.org

The authoritative source for Legal Entity Identifiers. If a company participates in financial markets, it has an LEI.

What you get:

LEI code
Legal name and address
Entity status
Parent/child relationships
Registration authority

What's missing:

Only 2.4M entities (financial sector focus)
No SME coverage
No financials, no credit score
No industry codes

Pricing: Completely free, no API key required.

Why #3: The gold standard for financial entity identification. Useless for SME prospecting, essential for compliance and KYC.

#4 — SEC EDGAR

~10M filings | US only | Fully free

efts.sec.gov

The US Securities and Exchange Commission's public filing database. Every publicly traded US company is here.

What you get:

10-K, 10-Q annual/quarterly reports
Financial statements (revenue, assets, liabilities)
Executive compensation
Insider trading data
Full-text search of filings

What's missing:

US only
Public companies only (no private/SME)
Raw filings, not structured data
No credit scoring
No simple company profile endpoint

Pricing: Completely free. Rate limit: 10 requests/second.

Why #4: Unbeatable depth for US public companies. But the data is unstructured (HTML/XBRL filings) and requires significant parsing effort.

#5 — Companies House (UK)

~5M companies | UK only | Fully free

developer.company-information.service.gov.uk

The UK's official company registry API. One of the best government APIs in the world.

What you get:

Company profile (name, address, SIC codes)
Officers and directors
Filing history
Accounts (for companies that file them)
Persons with significant control

What's missing:

UK only
Limited financial data (small companies often file abbreviated accounts)
No credit scoring
No revenue/employee estimates

Pricing: Free with API key. Rate limit: 600 requests per 5 minutes.

Why #5: Best single-country registry API. Clean data, good documentation. But strictly UK.

Comparison Table

Feature	Score API	OpenCorporates	GLEIF	SEC EDGAR	Companies House
Companies	272M	200M+	2.4M	~10K public	~5M
Countries	40+	140+	Global	US only	UK only
Financial Data	Yes	No	No	Yes (filings)	Limited
Credit Score	Yes (0–100)	No	No	No	No
Industry Codes	Yes	No	No	Yes (SIC)	Yes (SIC)
Free Tier	100/mo	Limited	Unlimited	Unlimited	600/5min
Paid Plans	From €19/mo	~$1,000/mo	Free	Free	Free
SDKs	JS, Python, MCP	Ruby gem	None	None	None

My Recommendation

For most developers building B2B applications:

Start with Score API for broad company search, enrichment, and credit scoring
Add GLEIF if you need LEI verification for financial compliance
Add SEC EDGAR if you need deep US public company financials
Use Companies House for UK-specific applications
Consider OpenCorporates for officer/director network analysis

The days of paying $15K+ per year for basic company data are over. These APIs — especially the free tiers — give indie developers and startups access to data that used to be gatekept behind enterprise contracts.

Open Source ZoomInfo Alternative for Developers

Alessandro Binda — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 09:17:45 +0000

ZoomInfo charges $15,000+ per year and requires a sales call just to see the product. For a developer who needs company data for a side project, a SaaS integration, or a startup MVP, that's absurd.

The S.C.A.L.A. Score API gives you access to 272 million company records across 265 countries — starting at free.

ZoomInfo vs Score API: Developer Experience

	ZoomInfo	S.C.A.L.A. Score API
Pricing	$15,000+/year	Free – €149/mo
Signup process	Sales call required	Self-service, instant API key
Free tier	No	50 lookups/month
Open source SDK	No	Yes (GitHub)
Data source	Proprietary scraping + user-contributed	Official government registries
Companies	~100M (US-focused)	272M+ (265 countries)
Rate limits	Opaque	Transparent, per-plan
Contract length	Annual minimum	Month-to-month

JavaScript SDK: 3 Lines to Your First Query

npm install scala-score

const ScalaScore = require('scala-score');
const client = new ScalaScore({ apiKey: process.env.SCORE_API_KEY });

// Search by company name
const results = await client.search({
  name: 'Spotify',
  country: 'SE'
});

console.log(results.companies[0]);
// {
//   name: "Spotify AB",
//   country: "SE",
//   registry_id: "556703-7485",
//   status: "active",
//   incorporation_date: "2006-04-18",
//   address: "Regeringsgatan 19, 111 53 Stockholm"
// }

Batch Enrichment Example

Need to enrich a list of companies? Here's how:

const ScalaScore = require('scala-score');
const client = new ScalaScore({ apiKey: process.env.SCORE_API_KEY });

const companies = ['Klarna', 'Revolut', 'N26', 'Wise'];

for (const name of companies) {
  const result = await client.search({ name, limit: 1 });
  if (result.companies.length > 0) {
    const co = result.companies[0];
    console.log(`${co.name} | ${co.country} | ${co.status} | ${co.registry_id}`);
  }
}

// Klarna Bank AB | SE | active | 556737-0431
// Revolut Ltd | GB | active | 08804411
// N26 Bank GmbH | DE | active | HRB 209049
// Wise Payments Limited | GB | active | 07209813

REST API for Any Language

Don't use JavaScript? The REST API works with anything:

curl -s "https://score.get-scala.com/api/v1/search?q=Siemens&country=DE" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" | python3 -m json.tool

import requests

response = requests.get(
    "https://score.get-scala.com/api/v1/search",
    params={"q": "Siemens", "country": "DE"},
    headers={"Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"}
)

companies = response.json()["companies"]
for co in companies:
    print(f"{co['name']} — {co['status']}")

Pricing Comparison

For a developer doing 5,000 lookups/month:

ZoomInfo: ~$15,000/year = $1,250/month
S.C.A.L.A. Score API Growth plan: €49/month

That's a 25x cost reduction. And you get global coverage instead of ZoomInfo's US-centric data.

Plan	Lookups/month	Price
Free	50	€0
Starter	500	€19/mo
Growth	5,000	€49/mo
Scale	50,000	€149/mo

What Score API Doesn't Do (Yet)

To be transparent — ZoomInfo has features Score API doesn't:

Intent data (who's researching your product category)
Direct dial phone numbers
Personal email addresses
Technographics (what tech stack a company uses)

Score API focuses on official registry data: company status, officers, addresses, filings, industry codes. If you need verified business entity data rather than sales prospecting data, Score is the better choice at a fraction of the cost.

Get Started

npm install scala-score

Sign up free at score.get-scala.com
Get your API key in seconds
Start building

GitHub Repository | API Documentation

Free Alternative to Dun & Bradstreet: 272M Companies, No Enterprise Contract

Alessandro Binda — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 09:09:21 +0000

If you've ever tried to get company data from Dun & Bradstreet, you know the drill: talk to sales, sign an enterprise contract, wait weeks for onboarding, then pay €2–5 per single lookup.

For startups and independent developers, that's not a pricing model — it's a gate.

We built the S.C.A.L.A. Score API as the alternative: 272 million companies across 265 countries, self-service signup, and lookups starting at €0.038 each.

No sales call. No enterprise contract. No minimum commitment.

The Price Comparison

Feature	Dun & Bradstreet	S.C.A.L.A. Score API
Companies covered	~500M (claimed)	272M+ (verified)
Cost per lookup	€2–5	€0.038
Free tier	❌	✅ 50 lookups/month
Self-service signup	❌	✅
Enterprise contract required	✅	❌
API access	Add-on pricing	Included in all plans
Onboarding time	Weeks	Minutes

At €19/month for 500 lookups, you get what D&B charges €1,000–2,500 for.

Quick Start with the JavaScript SDK

Install the SDK:

npm install scala-score

Search for companies by name:

const ScalaScore = require('scala-score');

const client = new ScalaScore({ apiKey: 'YOUR_API_KEY' });

// Search companies by name
const results = await client.search({
  name: 'Tesla',
  country: 'US'
});

console.log(results);
// {
//   total: 47,
//   companies: [
//     {
//       name: "Tesla, Inc.",
//       country: "US",
//       registry_id: "C0197800",
//       status: "active",
//       incorporation_date: "2003-07-01",
//       address: "3500 Deer Creek Road, Palo Alto, CA 94304"
//     },
//     ...
//   ]
// }

Look up a specific company by ID:

const company = await client.company.get('US-C0197800');

console.log(company);
// {
//   name: "Tesla, Inc.",
//   jurisdiction: "us_ca",
//   status: "active",
//   type: "Corporation",
//   officers: [...],
//   filings: [...],
//   registered_address: { ... }
// }

What Data Is Available

Every record in the Score database includes (where available from public registries):

Company name and legal form
Registration number and jurisdiction
Status (active, dissolved, liquidation, etc.)
Incorporation date
Registered address
Officers and directors
Filing history
Industry codes (NACE/SIC)

The data comes from official government business registries — not scraped LinkedIn profiles or purchased lead lists.

Pricing That Makes Sense

Plan	Lookups/month	Price	Per lookup
Free	50	€0	Free
Starter	500	€19/mo	€0.038
Growth	5,000	€49/mo	€0.0098
Scale	50,000	€149/mo	€0.00298

Compare that to D&B's €2–5 per lookup. At the Scale tier, Score API is 670–1,677x cheaper.

When D&B Still Makes Sense

Let's be honest: if you need D&B's proprietary credit scores, PAYDEX ratings, or deep financial risk assessments, Score API isn't a replacement for that specific data.

But if your use case is:

Company verification (is this business real and active?)
KYC/AML compliance checks
CRM data enrichment
Lead qualification
Market research across countries
Building company directories or search tools

...then you're paying enterprise prices for commodity data. The registry information is public. We just made it searchable.

Get Started

Sign up at score.get-scala.com
Get your API key instantly
Install the SDK: npm install scala-score
Start querying 272M+ companies

The free tier gives you 50 lookups/month — enough to evaluate the data quality before committing a cent.

Try the Score API free

Source code: github.com/Alessandro114/scala-score-js

Numbeo Data vs Reality: Real Cost of Living in 10 Cities

Alessandro Binda — Tue, 19 May 2026 09:30:33 +0000

Verified data from Numbeo, Expatistan, and official sources. Updated May 2026.

Everyone talks about "moving abroad to save money." But how much do you actually save? I built ReloMap — a free platform that compares verified cost-of-living data for 208 cities — and the numbers surprised me.

Here's what a comfortable lifestyle (1BR apartment, eating out twice a week, gym, transport) actually costs in Europe's most popular expat cities.

The Full Ranking

City	Monthly Budget	Rent 1BR	Meal Out	Safety
Tbilisi, Georgia	€1,100	€450	€5	65/100
Sofia, Bulgaria	€1,200	€468	€6	65/100
Bucharest, Romania	€1,300	€550	€7	55/100
Budapest, Hungary	€1,400	€650	€8	60/100
Prague, Czech Republic	€1,600	€900	€9	76/100
Lisbon, Portugal	€2,100	€1,345	€14	67/100
Valencia, Spain	€1,800	€522	€14	80/100
Malaga, Spain	€1,900	€1,300	€12	68/100
Berlin, Germany	€2,300	€1,314	€12	55/100
Barcelona, Spain	€2,400	€1,437	€15	48/100
Madrid, Spain	€2,200	€1,200	€14	52/100
Porto, Portugal	€1,900	€1,105	€12	66/100
Amsterdam, Netherlands	€3,100	€1,850	€18	52/100
Paris, France	€2,800	€1,339	€16	42/100

5 Things That Surprised Me

1. Valencia is criminally underrated. €522/month rent for a 1BR in a city with beaches, 300 sunny days, and a safety score of 80/100. It's cheaper than Lisbon but with better weather and higher safety.

2. Lisbon is no longer "cheap." At €1,345/month rent, Lisbon is approaching Barcelona prices. The NHR tax regime (20% flat rate) is still the main draw, but the cost advantage over Western Europe is shrinking fast.

3. Tbilisi is the best-kept secret. €450/month rent, 1-year visa-free for most nationalities, 1% flat tax for small businesses. The catch? Language barrier is real, winters are cold, and the food scene — while excellent — gets repetitive.

4. Safety scores vary wildly. Barcelona scores 48/100 on safety (pickpocketing is rampant), while Prague scores 76/100 and Valencia 80/100. For families, this matters more than rent.

5. The "frugal nomad" lifestyle is real. You can genuinely live on €800/month in Tbilisi or Sofia. Not luxuriously, but comfortably — cooking at home, public transport, local gym. In Amsterdam, that wouldn't cover rent.

The Tax Factor Nobody Talks About

A freelancer earning €60,000/year pays:

Italy: €23,400 in taxes (39%)
Spain (Beckham Law): €14,400 (24%)
Portugal (NHR): €12,000 (20%)
Georgia: €600 (1% for small business)
UAE: €0 (0%)

The tax savings alone can be worth €10,000-20,000/year — more than the difference in rent between most cities.

I built a free tax calculator that compares your tax burden between any two countries, including special regimes.

How I Built This

I scraped cost-of-living data from multiple sources (Numbeo, Expatistan, Livingcost.org), cross-referenced them, and built a platform that updates monthly. All data is verified — 0% AI-generated prices.

The platform is free: relomap.app. You can compare any cities side-by-side, read in-depth guides for each destination, and calculate your tax burden.

If you're considering a move, the full comparison of all 208 cities is the best starting point.

Data sources: ReloMap verified database (208 cities, May 2026), Numbeo, Expatistan. Full dataset available at relomap.app/llms-full.txt.

Self-Hosting Mistral 7B With Ollama on a Budget Server

Alessandro Binda — Tue, 19 May 2026 09:25:22 +0000

Next.js + Supabase + Ollama. Zero API costs. 3,000+ articles generated for free.

Six months ago, I wanted to move abroad but couldn't find a single platform that gave me real, verified cost-of-living data without a paywall. Numbeo has data but no guides. NomadList has rankings but costs $99/year. Expatistan has comparisons but limited cities.

So I built ReloMap. It's free, has 208 cities, 3,000+ articles, and costs me approximately €0/month to run.

The Tech Stack

Frontend: Next.js 15 (static export on Cloudflare Pages — free)
Database: Supabase PostgreSQL (free tier, 500MB)
AI: Mistral 7B via Ollama (self-hosted on a €8/month Hetzner server)
Translations: Google Translate API (free for our volume)
Search engines: IndexNow for instant indexing (free)
CDN: Cloudflare Pages (free, unlimited bandwidth)

Total monthly cost: €8 (just the server for Ollama)

The Data Pipeline

The hardest part wasn't building the app — it was getting reliable data. Here's what I learned:

Numbeo has the best data but rate-limits aggressively (429 after ~20 requests). Solution: I wrote a gentle scraper that processes 1 city every 30 minutes via cron. After 4 days, I had all 208 cities.

Expatistan has no rate limit but fewer cities (70). Good for cross-validation.

Livingcost.org required Playwright (headless browser) because the data loads via JavaScript. Added 90 more cities this way.

For every city, I merge data from all three sources. Numbeo data takes priority (quality score 95/100), with Expatistan and Livingcost.org filling gaps.

Generating 3,000+ Articles for Free

Each city gets 15 article types (cost-of-living, neighborhoods, digital nomad guide, tax guide, etc.). That's 3,120 articles.

I generate them using:

Groq API (free tier, Llama 3.3 70B) — primary
Mistral API (free tier, Mistral Large) — fallback
Ollama (self-hosted Mistral 7B) — emergency fallback

Each article injects real data from our Supabase database. The prompt includes verified prices, safety scores, and climate data — so the articles contain real numbers, not AI hallucinations.

Translation to Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese uses Google Translate (free for our volume). Not perfect, but good enough for SEO in non-English markets.

The Results

208 city profiles with verified data
3,000+ articles in 4 languages
432 static pages
~1 million words of content
Total cost: €8/month
Time to build: ~3 months

The site is live at relomap.app. Everything is free — no paywall on data.

What I'd Do Differently

Start with fewer cities — 50 cities well-researched > 208 cities with gaps
Build the audience first — I built the product before having users
Focus on one language first — Translating 3,000 articles is a maintenance nightmare

If you're building something similar, the ReloMap dataset is freely available as a machine-readable file.

Follow me for more on building products with zero budget. The full platform is at relomap.app.

How I Scrape Cost of Living Data From 3 Sources Without Getting Banned

Alessandro Binda — Tue, 19 May 2026 09:19:29 +0000

This is not tax advice. Consult a professional. But these are the actual structures people use.

I spent 6 months researching tax optimization for remote workers while building ReloMap, a free relocation comparison platform. What I found surprised me: the gap between what people pay and what they could legally pay is enormous.

A freelancer earning €60,000/year from remote clients can pay anywhere from €0 to €25,000 in income tax, depending entirely on where they establish tax residency.

The 183-Day Rule (And Why It's More Complex Than You Think)

Most countries use the 183-day rule: if you spend 183+ days in a country, you're a tax resident there. But it's not that simple:

Italy considers you a tax resident if your "center of vital interests" is there — even if you spend 180 days abroad
Spain looks at where your spouse and children live
Portugal only counts physical presence

The key insight: you need to establish tax residency somewhere favorable, not just avoid residency everywhere. Being a tax nomad with no fixed residence is a gray area that most tax authorities are cracking down on.

The 5 Best Legal Tax Structures for Remote Workers

1. UAE (Dubai) — 0% Income Tax

Cost of living: €2,500-4,000/month (full breakdown)
Virtual Working Programme: €275/month
No income tax, no capital gains tax
You need to actually live there (183+ days)
Catch: high rent (€1,991/month for 1BR center), alcohol is expensive

2. Georgia (Tbilisi) — 1% Small Business Tax

Cost of living: €1,100/month (full breakdown)
Small Business Status: 1% tax on revenue under ~€140K
1-year visa-free for most nationalities
Catch: banking can be complex, language barrier

3. Portugal — 20% NHR Flat Rate

Cost of living: €2,100/month in Lisbon (full breakdown)
Non-Habitual Resident regime: 20% flat tax
Foreign pension income: potentially 0% for 10 years
Catch: regime is being phased out for new applicants

4. Paraguay — 10% Territorial Tax

Only taxes income earned IN Paraguay
Remote work for foreign clients = 0% effectively
Residency is cheap and fast (~3 months)
Catch: infrastructure, internet quality, safety concerns

5. Spain — Beckham Law (24% Flat Rate)

Cost of living: €1,800-2,400/month (full breakdown)
24% flat rate for 6 years (vs 45% top marginal rate)
Best quality of life on this list
Catch: you must not have been a Spanish tax resident in the prior 5 years

Real Savings Calculation

I built a free tax calculator to compare these scenarios. For a €60K freelancer:

Structure	Annual Tax	Savings vs Italy
Italy (base)	€23,400	—
Spain Beckham	€14,400	€9,000/year
Portugal NHR	€12,000	€11,400/year
Georgia 1%	€600	€22,800/year
UAE 0%	€0	€23,400/year

Over 5 years, the Georgia structure saves you €114,000 compared to staying in Italy. That's a house deposit.

What You Need to Actually Do This

Hire a tax advisor in both your current country and target country (€500-1,500)
Establish genuine residency — rental contract, bank account, utility bills
Formally exit tax residency in your home country (AIRE registration for Italians)
Keep records — flight tickets, rental contracts, bank statements
Don't fake it — tax authorities exchange information automatically (CRS)

The Bottom Line

Tax residency is the single biggest financial lever you have as a remote worker. The difference between the wrong and right structure is €10,000-25,000/year.

Use ReloMap's tax calculator to compare your specific situation, and read the destination guides for detailed visa and tax information for each country.

Disclaimer: This is not tax advice. Consult a qualified tax professional before making any decisions. Data from ReloMap, updated May 2026.

I Built a Free Cost of Living Tool for 208 Cities — Here's the Stack

Alessandro Binda — Tue, 19 May 2026 09:18:43 +0000

Verified data from Numbeo, Expatistan, and official sources. Updated May 2026.

Here's what a comfortable lifestyle (1BR apartment, eating out twice a week, gym, transport) actually costs in Europe's most popular expat cities.

The Full Ranking

City	Monthly Budget	Rent 1BR	Meal Out	Safety
Tbilisi, Georgia	€1,100	€450	€5	65/100
Sofia, Bulgaria	€1,200	€468	€6	65/100
Bucharest, Romania	€1,300	€550	€7	55/100
Budapest, Hungary	€1,400	€650	€8	60/100
Prague, Czech Republic	€1,600	€900	€9	76/100
Lisbon, Portugal	€2,100	€1,345	€14	67/100
Valencia, Spain	€1,800	€522	€14	80/100
Malaga, Spain	€1,900	€1,300	€12	68/100
Berlin, Germany	€2,300	€1,314	€12	55/100
Barcelona, Spain	€2,400	€1,437	€15	48/100
Madrid, Spain	€2,200	€1,200	€14	52/100
Porto, Portugal	€1,900	€1,105	€12	66/100
Amsterdam, Netherlands	€3,100	€1,850	€18	52/100
Paris, France	€2,800	€1,339	€16	42/100

5 Things That Surprised Me

4. Safety scores vary wildly. Barcelona scores 48/100 on safety (pickpocketing is rampant), while Prague scores 76/100 and Valencia 80/100. For families, this matters more than rent.

The Tax Factor Nobody Talks About

A freelancer earning €60,000/year pays:

Italy: €23,400 in taxes (39%)
Spain (Beckham Law): €14,400 (24%)
Portugal (NHR): €12,000 (20%)
Georgia: €600 (1% for small business)
UAE: €0 (0%)

The tax savings alone can be worth €10,000-20,000/year — more than the difference in rent between most cities.

I built a free tax calculator that compares your tax burden between any two countries, including special regimes.

How I Built This

The platform is free: relomap.app. You can compare any cities side-by-side, read in-depth guides for each destination, and calculate your tax burden.

If you're considering a move, the full comparison of all 208 cities is the best starting point.

Data sources: ReloMap verified database (208 cities, May 2026), Numbeo, Expatistan. Full dataset available at relomap.app/llms-full.txt.