FilingPulse vs sec-api.io
Facts last verified 2026-08-19.
Who is writing this: we build FilingPulse, so we have an obvious interest. To keep this useful anyway, every factual claim about another provider below was read from that provider's own public pages on the date shown, each section links its source, and we say plainly where a competitor is the better choice. If you find something out of date, email keys@filingpulse.io and we will fix it.
Side by side
| FilingPulse | sec-api.io | |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | 2,500 requests/month, 10/min, email only — no card | First 100 API calls — one-time, not monthly |
| Cheapest paid | $19/mo (Growth $49, Scale $99; same data on every tier) | $49/mo billed annually ($55 monthly) — licensed only for startups under 5 employees, individual developers, and university researchers; business use starts at $199/mo billed annually ($239 monthly) |
| Coverage | Three verticals: Form 4 insider trades, 8-K events by item code, S-1/F-1 registration lifecycle | Dozens of form types: full-text search, XBRL, 13F, Form ADV, Form D, and more |
| Insider (Form 4) data | Yes — complete normalized Form 4 objects: owners, non-derivative and derivative transactions, holdings, footnotes, remarks | Yes — Form 3/4/5 Insider Trading API with transaction detail |
| Push delivery | HMAC-signed webhooks on new filings, plus a hosted MCP server for AI agents | Real-time WebSocket filing stream on paid plans |
| Schema | Frozen v1: strings as filed, null-never-missing, additive evolution only; public at /v1/schema | Per-API response formats |
| History | Form 4 backfill growing continuously (live window at /v1/health); S-1 tracking live since Aug 2026 | Back to the 1990s on core datasets |
| License restrictions | None — every tier is licensed the same | Entry plan restricted to startups under 5 employees, individual developers, and university researchers |
sec-api.io column: https://sec-api.io/pricing and sec-api.io/docs, read 2026-08-19. FilingPulse column: the limits our API enforces, rendered from the same configuration the server runs.
Pick sec-api.io if
- You need full-text search across all EDGAR filings (their Business tier and up).
- You need XBRL financials, 13F holdings, Form ADV/D, or other form types we don't cover.
- You need deep history today — their core datasets reach back to the 1990s.
Pick FilingPulse if
- You want a free tier with a monthly quota (2,500 requests/month, no card) instead of a one-time 100-call allowance.
- You want complete normalized Form 4 objects — footnotes, derivative legs, holdings — under a frozen, publicly served schema contract.
- You want HMAC-signed webhooks on new filings, or an MCP server your AI tooling can query without an install.
- Your budget is closer to $19/mo than $199/mo, and your use is commercial (we don't restrict licenses by company size).
Both products poll the same public EDGAR feeds; you are paying for normalization, delivery, and operations, not the data itself. If you're unsure, run both free tiers against your workload — ours is self-serve.
Sources
Competitor facts were read from these pages on the dates shown. Pricing and limits change; the linked page always wins over this one.
- sec-api.io — verified 2026-08-19
- SEC EDGAR (official APIs) — verified 2026-08-19
- Financial Modeling Prep — verified 2026-08-19
- Finnhub — verified 2026-08-19
- edgartools (open source) — verified 2026-08-19
- Massive (formerly Polygon.io) — verified 2026-08-19
More comparisons: Best SEC EDGAR API in 2026 · sec-api.io alternatives · Free SEC EDGAR API options