Spaw vs Postcode.eu
Postcode.eu, from Postcode.nl B.V., sells address autocomplete and validation APIs for fourteen European countries, each answered from the official sources its pages name (government address registers for most, the postal operator's file for others), priced per validation inside an annual tier.
The table uses Postcode.eu's public pricing and documentation pages as checked on 2026-09-22, and Spaw's own pricing page. A row those pages carry no value for is marked "not on the pages read" rather than guessed at, and that is a statement about the reading and not about what Postcode.eu publishes.
| spaw | postcode.eu | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Pay-as-you-go credit packs whose credits never expire, or optional plans, billed monthly or yearly, that deposit the same credits every month for less and roll unused plan credits over up to three months' allowance; both through Stripe Checkout | Annual tiers that include validations: Tier 1 €50, Tier 2 €100, Tier 3 €250, Tier 4 €500 and Tier 5 €1,000 a year, each with a per-validation rate by country group. "Up to the Tier amount you can perform a mix of validations", subscriptions "are automatically upgraded when the maximum of the Tier is reached", and past the highest Tier usage "will be invoiced in blocks of 10% and the rates of this Tier apply". A validation is "a bundle of related requests that were used to validate an address". An SLA (€1,000 + 2% a year) and a DORA addendum (€2,500 a year) are extra. |
| Free tier | 100 free credits every month, no card required | A trial rather than a standing tier: "After registering an account it is possible to try the APIs for free", and "Testing the API is without obligations" |
| Price per 1,000 at about 10k | $7.80 (Growth pack: 5,000 credits for $39), or $5.80 on the Growth monthly plan (5,000 credits for $29 a month) | €17.64 per 1,000 validations on Tier 3 (€250 a year, "€0.01764 each") for Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Luxembourg, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the Netherlands. Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom cost more a validation, so 10,000 of them fall in Tier 4 (€500 a year): €34.17 per 1,000 for Germany (€0.03417 each) and €43.30 for Italy and the United Kingdom (€0.0433 each). "Tier prices are including validations" and "Prices and quantities are per year", so the tier amount is paid in full: 10,000 validations cost €250 a year for the eleven countries (€25 per 1,000) and €500 for Germany, Italy or the United Kingdom (€50 per 1,000). |
| Price per 1,000 at about 100k | $4.49 (Volume pack: 100,000 credits for $449), or $3.49 on the Volume monthly plan (100,000 credits for $349 a month) | Tier 5 rates (€1,000 a year), which also apply to usage past it: €11.76 per 1,000 ("€0.01176 each") for the same eleven countries, €31.29 for Germany (€0.03129 each) and €39.64 for Italy and the United Kingdom (€0.03964 each). |
| Addresses no register covered billed | An address that stands as written costs 1 credit whether or not a register carried the building; where no register covers the country, exists answers null rather than a verdict | not on the pages read |
| Addresses that cannot stand billed | No: an address that cannot stand as written is free whatever the reason, and so are repeats within 7 days and rows repeating an address already in the same job | not on the pages read |
| Registers held | Open address registers for 23 countries and territories, each named in the answer with its declared coverage, complete or partial. Complete, building by building: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Czechia, Latvia, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway and Switzerland. Partial, building by building: Brazil, Denmark, France (with French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Mayotte, Réunion, St. Barthélemy, St. Martin and St. Pierre & Miquelon), Germany and United States. Partial, streets only: Great Britain. House-number ranges as well: United States. Absence from a partial register is never read as evidence that an address does not exist. | Named per country, "only official sources": the Dutch government's Basisregistraties Adressen en Gebouwen (BAG); for Belgium the Flemish CRAB, the Brussels UrbIS and the Walloon ICAR; Luxembourg's Administration du cadastre et de la topographie; Austria's federal Adressregister; the Swiss Gebäude- und Wohnungsregister; France's Base Adresse Nationale; Royal Mail's Postcode Address File for the United Kingdom; Spain's Catastro in CartoCiudad; Denmark's Adresseregister (DAR); GeoNorge for Norway; DVV and Posti for Finland; Lantmäteriet for Sweden; Poste Italiane for Italy; and Deutsche Post, with OpenStreetMap for locations, for Germany. |
| Country coverage | Postal formats for 207 countries and territories: the line layout for 199 of them, and the required fields and postcode pattern wherever the table records them; 52 postal operators' rules for naming a delivery point that is not a street; open address registers for 23 countries and territories; postcode directories for Great Britain from the ONS Postcode Directory, with Northern Ireland excluded because reusing BT postcodes needs a separate licence, and for 108 more countries and territories from GeoNames' postal codes. | Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom; "We are constantly working to further expand the number of countries." |
| Claims post is delivered | No, and every answer says so: is_deliverable, is_cmra, is_vacant and is_residential answer null because that check is licensed and not enabled here. exists is a match in an open address register, never a statement that post arrives. | Not claimed. The Validate API grades each match from A ("A perfect match") to F and reports the element it validated to (Building, BuildingPartial, Street, Locality or None), with a flag when several matches are equally close; the pages read say nothing about whether post is delivered. |
| Bulk limit | 100,000 addresses per bulk job, with an HMAC-signed completion webhook | No limit is stated; the Validate API page offers file validation as a service ("let us validate a file!"). |
| Batch API | 100 addresses per synchronous request | not on the pages read |
| Rate limit | 50 requests per second per key on the address endpoints | The prices page lists "Speed 35 requests per second" for the Autocomplete and Validate APIs on every tier and 150 for the Dutch Postcode API; the developer FAQ's defaults are 35 requests per second for Autocomplete, 15 for Validate and 150 for the Dutch Postcode API, higher on request. |
| Official SDKs | Python, Node.js, PHP | PHP, Python |
| Data retention | No history row and no log line carrying the address. What a lookup leaves is the 7-day marker that makes a repeat free and the count behind seen_by_you, both kept under a digest, never the address. The address itself is kept only on the account's own suppression list and in its monitors. Bulk input lists and result files are deleted with the job after 30 days. | not on the pages read |
checked 2026-09-22 · sources: Postcode.eu API prices, Postcode.eu Address Validate API, Postcode.eu implementation and modules, Postcode.eu developer FAQ, Postcode.eu Validate API documentation
When Postcode.eu fits better
European checkouts and CRMs that want autocomplete and validation answered from each country's official address source under one annual subscription.
- Each country is answered from the official sources the page names, most of them government address registers
- One subscription covers every country, and the tier upgrades itself as usage grows
- A separate Dutch Postcode API for postcode and house-number lookups at €0.005 to €0.00155 each
- Free Magento and WooCommerce plugins and PHP and Python modules from Postcode.nl
- Validation matches are graded A to F with the level validated to and an ambiguity flag
When Spaw fits better
Developers who want a written address parsed against its own country's rules and checked against open registers, where a field nobody could evaluate answers null instead of a guess.
- Postcode.eu names the official sources behind each country on its pages; every Spaw answer names the register that answered it and whether that register's coverage is complete or partial, and absence from a partial register answers null rather than a verdict
- Postcode.eu prices a validation by country group inside an annual tier; a Spaw credit costs the same for every country and a pack credit never expires, and an address that cannot stand as written costs nothing
- Postcode.eu's United Kingdom answers come from the Royal Mail Postcode Address File; Spaw holds no licensed British file, so an address in Great Britain is checked against the postcode directory and the streets Ordnance Survey lists, and a listed street never means a building exists
- Spaw reads an address against its own country's postal format and adds the kind of delivery point it names, the postcode's status in the national directory and how many companies are registered at the address
Questions
Does Spaw charge for addresses no register covers?
An address that stands as written costs 1 credit, whether or not a register carried the building. An address that cannot stand costs nothing, whatever the reason, and a repeat within seven days is free. Where no register covers the country, or where the register that answered is one whose coverage is partial and does not carry the address, exists answers null — not evaluated — rather than a verdict, and the not_in_register weight cannot fire. Postcode.eu does not publish how it bills them.
Can I move an address list from Postcode.eu to Spaw?
Yes. Upload the CSV in the dashboard or POST it to the bulk endpoint, up to 100,000 addresses a job; Spaw keeps your columns and adds 64 result columns after them (the address as submitted, the answer, the datasets behind it, what the row cost and whether your suppression list answered it), and a country column gives each row its own country. Rows repeating an address already in the list are answered once, cost nothing, and are counted as duplicates.
Is there a free tier?
Every Spaw account receives 100 free credits at the start of each month with no card on file, and unused free credits accumulate. Postcode.eu offers: A trial rather than a standing tier: "After registering an account it is possible to try the APIs for free", and "Testing the API is without obligations".
Try Spaw on your own list
Free credits every month, no card. Upload a list, keep your columns, and download only the rows you want. See the pricing page for every rule, or the Postcode.eu alternatives.
Postcode.eu is a trademark of its owner. Spaw is not affiliated with it. Markdown version: /compare/postcode-eu.md