Chimnie and GetAddress both offer APIs that return UK address data, but the scope of what each platform does beyond that is fundamentally different. GetAddress is a specialist postcode and address lookup service. Chimnie is a property data platform that happens to include address lookups as part of a much broader dataset.
This comparison is based on publicly available product information and published pricing. It's written for developers and product teams evaluating address lookup options for UK applications.
Who is GetAddress?
GetAddress is a US-registered company (based in Dover, Delaware) that provides UK address lookup APIs. The core product does one thing well: given a postcode, it returns a list of formatted addresses with geographic coordinates. The service also offers autocomplete (as-you-type address completion), typeahead for postcodes and place names, location lookups, and distance calculations.
GetAddress sources its data from Royal Mail's Postcode Address File (PAF) and Ordnance Survey, cross-referencing multiple sources. Addresses are updated daily, which is important for new-build properties and address changes.
The platform provides pre-built JavaScript libraries for autocomplete, postcode lookup, and typeahead, making integration into web forms straightforward. It's a developer-friendly service with clear documentation and simple REST endpoints.
Pricing is transparent and tiered by daily lookup volume. A free plan allows 20 lookups per day. Paid plans range from £3 per month (50 lookups per day) to £240 per month (30,000 lookups per day), with annual billing offering roughly 9% savings. At the top tier of 30,000 lookups per day, the effective cost is roughly 0.03p per lookup when all daily lookups are used.
GetAddress reports 99.9% uptime with independent monitoring. The service is widely used in e-commerce checkout forms, CRM systems, and any application where users need to enter a UK address quickly and accurately.
GetAddress UK address lookup API website screenshot
Who is Chimnie?
Chimnie was founded by Jon Francis, a former data scientist from Google's innovation team, with the goal of making UK property data more transparent and accessible. The platform covers 35 million-plus UK residential properties and returns over 500 attributes per property through a documented REST API.
Chimnie offers free address autocomplete as part of its API suite, alongside property data lookups, AVM (automated valuation model), and other property enrichment endpoints. Its commercial API starts at £0.45 per property on a pay-as-you-go basis, with ratecard volume discounts. Residential lookups are priced from £0.05 to £0.15 per property.
The consumer platform at chimnie.co.uk serves over 150,000 users researching their own properties.
Feature comparison
Address lookup and autocomplete
GetAddress returns formatted address lines, thoroughfare, building name and number, locality, town, county, district, country, and geographic coordinates for every address in a postcode. The autocomplete and typeahead features provide real-time suggestions as users type.
Chimnie offers free address autocomplete that returns similar address data. The question is whether you need just the address or the address plus everything else about the property.
For a checkout form where the goal is simply to capture a customer's address quickly and accurately, both platforms do the job. GetAddress is purpose-built for this and has polished client-side libraries to prove it.
Property data beyond the address
This is where the comparison diverges sharply. Once you have an address, GetAddress stops. Chimnie starts.
Chimnie returns 500-plus attributes per property - EPC data, flood risk, subsidence, pollution, crime, listed building status, conservation areas, roof condition, outbuilding mapping, rebuild costs, AVM valuations, planning permissions, and structural characteristics. If your application needs to know anything about the property at that address, Chimnie provides it in the same API ecosystem.
GetAddress returns the address and coordinates. Nothing about the building, its risks, its value, or its characteristics.
Automated valuation model (AVM)
Chimnie provides a free AVM with UPRN-based lookups. GetAddress doesn't offer valuations.
Planning data
Chimnie is completing two years of national planning permission ingestion from every UK local authority. GetAddress doesn't cover planning data.
Risk and environmental data
Chimnie covers flood, subsidence, pollution, crime, energy performance, and other environmental risk data. GetAddress doesn't cover any of this.
Rebuild cost estimates
Chimnie provides rebuild cost estimates with confidence intervals. GetAddress doesn't offer this.
Pricing and access
GetAddress pricing is clear and competitive for pure address lookups. The free tier (20 lookups per day) is useful for testing. Paid plans start at £3 per month for 50 daily lookups, scaling to £240 per month for 30,000 daily lookups. Annual billing saves roughly 9%.
At the 500-per-day tier (£12 per month), the effective cost works out to around 0.08p per lookup if you use your full daily allowance. That's very cheap for a pure address lookup.
Chimnie's address autocomplete is free. The property data lookups behind it cost £0.05 to £0.45 per property depending on the tier and use case. If you only need the address, Chimnie's free autocomplete may cover you entirely.
The comparison gets interesting when you need more than just the address. If your application captures an address via autocomplete and then needs to know the property's EPC rating, flood risk, or estimated value, GetAddress requires you to find and integrate a second (and third, and fourth) data provider. Chimnie returns it all from one platform.
The total cost of running separate address lookup, EPC, flood, and valuation services from different providers will almost certainly exceed Chimnie's per-property pricing, and the integration overhead is significantly higher.
Where GetAddress is stronger
GetAddress wins on simplicity and polish for pure address capture. The pre-built JavaScript libraries for autocomplete, postcode lookup, and typeahead are ready to drop into a web form with minimal development. The documentation is clean and the integration path is well-trodden.
The daily lookup pricing model suits applications with predictable, moderate address capture volumes - e-commerce checkouts, contact forms, CRM data entry. You know what you'll spend each month.
GetAddress also handles edge cases well. Private addresses, daily updates for new builds, and the ability for users to submit missing addresses show a focus on address data quality that comes from specialisation.
The 99.9% uptime guarantee with independent monitoring gives confidence for production applications where address capture is on the critical path.
For international teams building UK-facing applications, GetAddress's simplicity is attractive. The learning curve is minimal and there's no need to understand property data concepts to integrate a postcode lookup.
Where Chimnie is stronger
Chimnie is stronger whenever the application needs to do more with an address than just capture it.
The most common scenario: a user enters their address, and the application needs to show them something about their property. An insurance quote that needs flood risk and rebuild costs. A mortgage application that needs a valuation. A conveyancing workflow that needs planning history. A property management system that needs EPC data and structural characteristics.
In all of these cases, using GetAddress for the initial lookup and then stitching together data from multiple other providers creates complexity, cost, and maintenance burden. Chimnie provides the address capture and the property enrichment from one API.
Chimnie's free address autocomplete means you don't pay anything for the address capture step. The cost only starts when you pull property data, and at £0.05 to £0.45 per property, it's cheaper than running three or four separate integrations.
For property-focused applications - insurance platforms, mortgage systems, conveyancing tools, property management software - Chimnie's address lookup is the starting point for a much deeper data journey. GetAddress is the whole journey.
The AVM, planning data, rebuild costs, and risk scoring add value that no address lookup provider can match. If your business model depends on property data, starting with Chimnie means one integration point rather than half a dozen.
Chimnie website homepage screenshot
Who should choose which
E-commerce businesses needing checkout address capture should use GetAddress. The integration is simpler, the pricing model fits, and you don't need property data.
CRM and contact management systems where the goal is clean address entry will find GetAddress more than sufficient.
SaaS platforms that serve multiple verticals might prefer GetAddress for its simplicity, adding specialist property data only where specific features require it.
Insurance platforms should choose Chimnie. The address autocomplete gets you started at no cost, and the property risk data, rebuild estimates, and AVM are all available from the same integration.
Mortgage platforms and lenders need Chimnie. Address capture followed by automated valuation and property risk assessment from one provider reduces both cost and integration complexity.
Conveyancing and legal tech platforms benefit from Chimnie's combined address lookup, planning data, and environmental risk data.
Property portals and proptech applications building property-focused user experiences will find more value in Chimnie's breadth. Why integrate an address API and then bolt on separate EPC, flood, and valuation providers when one platform covers all of it?
Conclusion
GetAddress and Chimnie serve different needs despite both returning UK addresses from an API call. GetAddress is a specialist that does address capture exceptionally well. Chimnie is a property data platform where address capture is the first step in a much larger data pipeline.
For pure address lookup, GetAddress is a solid choice with transparent pricing and polished developer tools. For any application where the address is the starting point for property-level data - valuations, risk assessment, enrichment, compliance - Chimnie provides more value from a single integration.
The decision usually comes down to one question: does your application need to know anything about the property at that address? If the answer is no, GetAddress is simpler and cheaper. If the answer is yes, Chimnie saves you from building and maintaining multiple integrations to get the same result.
