AddressBrain vs Ideal Postcodes
Ideal Postcodes alternative with predictable monthly pricing for UK postcode lookup
Ideal Postcodes is a well-regarded UK address API on Royal Mail PAF and Ordnance Survey data, sold as pay-as-you-go credits. AddressBrain does the same core job, Royal Mail-licensed UK postcode lookup, autocomplete and validation, on monthly plans built for production checkouts and onboarding flows.
Free trial: 30 lookups a day for 30 days. No card required.
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Sub-50ms response times
Free tier, no card required
The honest comparison
Same data, different way to pay for it
Both services are built on Royal Mail PAF. Ideal Postcodes also offers a wide set of add-on datasets, including Multiple Residence, Not Yet Built and AddressBase, for teams that need them.
The practical difference is the commercial model. Ideal Postcodes sells credit packs valid for 12 months, from 200 credits for £9 to 32,100 for £900 (October 2026). AddressBrain sells monthly allowances. Which is better depends on how steady your volume is.
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When pay-as-you-go
makes sense
If you run a few hundred lookups a month, or your volume is lumpy, a credit pack you draw down over a year is hard to beat. Ideal Postcodes is strong there, and we would rather say so than pretend otherwise.
When a monthly plan makes sense
If address lookup runs in a live checkout or onboarding flow every day, you want a fixed allowance that scales, a known monthly bill and a plan you can move up or down. That is what AddressBrain's plans are for.
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Included on every AddressBrain plan
Postcode lookup, autocomplete, validation, latitude and longitude, new-build coverage and 1.4m UK business names, on the free plan and every paid one. Nothing is a bolt-on.
Pricing side by side
Nine plans, one page, no credit maths.
AddressBrain plans run from £49 a month for 1,000 lookups (4.9p) to £999 for 33,000 (3.0p), with volume pricing above that. Ideal Postcodes credits run from 4.5p (200 credits) to 2.8p (32,100 credits), valid for 12 months. At steady volume the per-lookup rates are close; the difference is whether you would rather prepay or subscribe.
Monthly plans, change or cancel any month.
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Overage charged per lookup, or we recommend a better plan.
Free trial: 30 lookups a day for 30 days, no card required.
Volume pricing and annual terms when you need an SLA.
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Data and response
Royal Mail PAF, structured, in under 50ms.
Every AddressBrain result is a full PAF-formatted address returned as separate fields, with sub-building and building name handled properly, latitude and longitude attached, and typical UK response times under 50ms.
Search on a postcode, a partial address or a business name.
Sub-building, building name, thoroughfare, post town and postcode as separate fields.
New-build addresses and 1.4m UK business names included.
Batch and single-lookup validation on the same key.
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Getting started
Create an account, copy the key, make the first call.
Both services let you start without a card. AddressBrain's trial is 30 lookups a day for 30 days with a test environment, full docs and support, and your developer can have it live in an afternoon.
Authenticate with a single API bearer token, no OAuth handshake.
Free trial includes 30 lookups a day for 30 days. No card required.
Live usage dashboard, so you can watch spend as it happens.
Distributed, auto-scaling architecture, so peak trading traffic does not queue behind one database.
On every plan, including free
What you get out of the box
Sub-50ms UK response times.
Full PAF-formatted address data, including new-build coverage.
Batch and single-lookup validation on the same key.
Start building in minutes
Create a free account and start returning validated UK addresses in minutes.Start with 30 free lookups a day for 30 days. Test environment, full API docs, and support included.
No credit card required. Officially licensed by Royal Mail.
No credit card required. Officially licensed by Royal Mail.