Advanced Match vs. Search Comparison

Feature	Advanced Match API	Search API
Required Fields	(5) legalName, address (street), locality (city), postalCode (zip), country (ISO 2 character)	(3) legalName, locality (city), country (ISO 2 character)
Returns Field Grade metadata	✅ - Optionally, the flag showGrades may be used to show how well the input payload values matched with the values in the Directory. Field Grade Definitions	✅ - always returned
Able to show non-matches (e.g. below the global match confidence threshold)	✅ - Optionally, the flag to showNonMatches may be set at runtime to also include entities falling below the Match Confidence Threshold.	N/A*- there is no scoring threshold / filter applied to thesearchresults. Changing theMatch Confidence Threshold has no effect on the results returned using Search.
Number of Business Entities Returned	Returns Best Match First, API parameter,matchCount(values 1 to max 10)	Returns Active First, Maximum of 10 - not an API parameter.
Pre-sorted	matchConfidenceScore_ descending	companyStatus (active first), searchConfidenceScore decending
Returns companyStatus(Active / Inactive)	🚫 (available via Firmographic API)	✅ (required for sorting, also available via Firmographic API)
Optional input fields if the data can be provided	epInternalId_, region (state), dba (doing business as), phoneNo, website, taxId, nationalId, names (primary contact)	dba (doing business as), address (street), region (state), postalCode, phoneNo, website, taxId, nationalId, names (primary contact)

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If only the required data elements are passed, Search will generally be less-precise than Advanced Match because there are fewer data points for comparison. If the optional data inputs are available, they should be passed when the API is called.

If only the required data elements are passed, Search will generally be less-precise than Advanced Match because there are fewer data points for comparison. If the optional data inputs are available, they should be passed when the API is called.