Match vs. Search Comparison

Feature	Standard Match API	Advanced Match API	Search API
Required Fields	(5) legalName, address (street), locality (city), postalCode (zip), country (ISO 2 character)	(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)	🚫 If a match is found, where the score is above the Match Confidence Threshold, only the 1st, best match is returned.	✅ - 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, Maximum of 1 - not an API parameter.	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	matchConfidenceScore_ descending	companyStatus (active first), searchConfidenceScore decending
Returns companyStatus(Active / Inactive)	🚫 (available via Firmographic API)	🚫 (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)	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)

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