Shared Usage Query

[andrew.williams]

I work on a product which is used by multiple customers and we are looking to integrate with the rest api to access the company house data. We’d like to host the integration with companies house once and then each client would connect to companies house via this central integration i.e.

client 1 → integration → companies house
client 2 → integration → companies house

The impact of this approach would be that all of the requests would come through a single API key (not an API key per client) and therefore there would be a risk that we’d breach the 600 request limit.

Is is acceptable for us to use the api in this way (i.e shared API key)? how would we go about monitoring and increasing the 600 request limit.

[voracityemail]

Welcome - there is some documentation on the rate limiting system including “contact us” for discussing rate increase. Although I think they just suggest you post a new request here e.g. “Increasing API Rate Limit”.

Unfortunately the more complete documentation (which I think used to be here) no longer seems to describe the http response headers which give you detailed information on your usage / the next period.

For that - see also this thread:

API usage and website beta 403 Forbidden

In your “simple application” (and your main one) you should be handling this using the rate limit headers CH send (on the http responses) rather than just counting up to 600. You may well be doing this already of course! Some info in and linked from this thread: Not from Companies House myself but if I recall they certainly do take IP address into consideration (including requests to both the API and website access). I can’t find the specific item on this that I remember but from a couple of …

Further details from MArkWilliams of Companies House in this thread:

API rate limiting and Streaming API endpoints - clarification

Hi! I want to get some clarification regarding the Public Data API rate limitatitons. Initially I found Rate Limiting Clarification, and it is clear to me that the 600 rate limit applies per API key. However, I can’t seem to find the number of API keys that can be (allowed to be) generated to an application (or, being bold - how many applications can be created by a registrated user). If there are existing docs on this question, please, link them. Also, I am trying to get a similar picture to …

[andrew.williams]

Thanks for the information about the rate volume.
Did you have a view on our usage?

[voracityemail]

I’m not from Companies House, just another forum user.

What were you concerned about with the usage?

Companies House make data public via the API. I’m not aware of any particular restrictions on what you do with data you obtain from them - it’s the public register / a public record. (If you’re after details of e.g. data protection search this forum; this was debated at length a few years ago I think. I am not a lawyer but it seems the essence is “this is information in the public domain”).

You (your business / organisation) have to register and abide by the rate limits / conditions of usage. I presume that from the Companies House perspective they’re just dealing with you (whoever has registered with them), not your customers. So you are responsible for any “usage” (and breaches of rate limits etc).

[andrew.williams]

What I was after was a definitive response from Companies House that our use case was acceptable to them, as when we emailed them directly we were asked to post here for a response.
The concern is that we contract our customers to provide this integration - thus we want a explicit response.