CompanyStack – UK Company Search & Directory

CompanyStack connects your site to Companies House register data, kept up to date by CompanyStack, for the companies on the UK register. Customers type the first few letters of their company name, pick it from the list, and the registration number and registered office address are filled in for them. No more mistyped company numbers on B2B orders, account applications or quote requests.

What you get

• Company autocomplete with form auto-fill. Works with the Company Search block or [companystack_search], with Contact Form 7, WPForms and Gravity Forms (add a CSS class to your fields), and with any HTML form (data attributes).
• WooCommerce B2B checkout. The checkout Company field suggests UK companies and fills in the address. An optional “Company registration number” field is filled automatically, validated and saved with the order. Works with both the Checkout block and the classic checkout, and is compatible with High-Performance Order Storage.
• Company profile card. Status, company number, type, incorporation date, registered office, nature of business (SIC codes) and accounts and confirmation-statement due dates, with overdue warnings.
• “Active UK company” status badge. Show visitors that your business (or a supplier, member or client) is registered and active at Companies House, linked to the official record. The badge hides itself automatically if the company stops being active. It shows the register entry only: it does not verify who runs the website it appears on.
• UK business directory. List companies by SIC code, postcode area, town or name, with an optional visitor search form. Ideal for trade associations, local business listings and industry directories.

Each feature is available as a block and as a shortcode.

Built to be safe and light

• Your API key stays on your server. Browsers only talk to your own site’s REST API, which calls CompanyStack server-side.
• Visitor searches are protected by a nonce and a per-visitor rate limit, so nobody can burn through your allowance.
• Answers are cached (one day by default) to keep pages fast and API usage low.
• No jQuery, no tracking, no admin nags, no front-end credit link unless you switch it on.
• Blocks are built with core WordPress components; there is no heavy JavaScript bundle.

About the CompanyStack service

This plugin is an interface to the CompanyStack API (see “External services” below), which does the work of searching and serving Companies House records. You need a CompanyStack API key. The free plan needs no payment card and covers company search, autocomplete (up to 5 suggestions), company profiles, badges and directories of up to 10 results. Paid plans raise the daily request limits and allow larger, paginated directories. Every feature of the plugin works on the free plan; see companystack.co.uk/pricing for limits and prices.

External services

This plugin connects to the CompanyStack API at https://api.companystack.co.uk, operated by CompanyStack, to look up UK company information derived from the public Companies House register. It cannot work without this service.

When requests are made

• When a visitor types at least two characters into a CompanyStack company search field (including the WooCommerce checkout Company field when enabled) and pauses: the typed text is sent to find matching companies.
• When a visitor chooses a company from the suggestions: its company number is sent to fetch the full record used to fill the form.
• When a page containing a company card, status badge or directory block or shortcode is displayed and the answer is not already cached: the company number, or the directory filters (SIC code, postcode, town, name and status, including any search a visitor enters in the directory form), are sent.
• When an administrator clicks “Test connection” on the settings screen: a sample search is sent to check the key.

What is sent

Only the search text, company number or directory filters described above, together with your site’s CompanyStack API key (to identify your account) and a user-agent string naming this plugin and its version. Requests are made from your web server; visitors’ IP addresses, cookies and other form fields are not sent. Nothing is sent until an API key has been saved, and the plugin does not collect usage statistics.

• CompanyStack terms of service: https://companystack.co.uk/terms
• CompanyStack privacy policy: https://companystack.co.uk/privacy

Company data originates from Companies House and is provided under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Company pages link to the official Companies House service (find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk); those links are ordinary hyperlinks and send nothing unless a visitor clicks them.