To bring clarity and understanding before you make contact, we have compiled a short list of FAQs that span: Benefits, Pricing, Data Quality, Security & Delivery, Terms & Conditions. More questions? By all means contact us for a prompt response.
API Seer delivers clean, enriched data with 30 days warranty — regardless of how messy or inconsistent the sources are. You get the data your way and delivered securely.
Our job is to deliver the data as agreed. We are super confident that we can, and if we can't, then we fail, and your deposit is returned in full. It's that simple.
Upstream APIs often rate-limit, throttle, change schemas without notice, and return inconsistent data formats. API Seer stabilises all of this, cleans the data, enriches it, and ensures that data is delivered consistently, even when the APIs data responses change.
Of course IT can call the APIs themselves, but there in lies the fundamental problem. If your IT service is not the bottleneck, then go ahead and use them. If they are then, that's why you would reach out to us directly.
We significantly speed up data delivery directly to you. We get ready-to-use data to your desktop - lightning-fast!
That means your team is able to work, deliver and add the value that this data brings. It means that we simplify the complex IT bit, remove the bottlenecks, and help you Advance to Go!
Yes. API Seer removes the need for in-house ETL pipelines, monitoring scripts, schema-adaptation code, retry logic, deduping, and quality assurance — saving both engineering and operational spend.
It also pushes your asks right to the top of the backlog. If you're reading this, you're already on your way to jumping over the IT hurdle.
We continuously monitor all upstream sources, automatically retry unstable API services, and we smooth out inconsistencies by adapting your data products - so that you don't have to care about it.
Through our approach to data delivery, we proactively manage API service fluctuations, deal with performance issues, technical specification changes and in return, you get consistent, reliable data that meets your requirements.
Yes — business and commercial teams outsource the data supply meaning no technical overhead or debt is being created. If IT can achieve the same goals, the time and cost of delivery is often far greater than when compared to engaging with API Seer.
API Seer offers simple, cost effective pricing. Any API usage costs are paid for by your company directly to the API provider. In many cases, there are no API costs. We act as the data processor, so no double-paying or marking up.
You only pay for the cost of setup and data delivery by us. Depending on complexity of setup, we typically charge between £2,000-£4,000. This generally covers the full data extract, any agreed curated data items and data delivery to a secure, compliant, UK based platform.
This works well for ad hoc extracts, and can be augmented with entirely optional periodic re-supply, with your choice of update frequency e.g., weekly, monthly, quarterly etc. at a fixed price of £250 per extract, for any period of time you choose e.g., 6wks, 2mths, 2yrs. More favourable pricing may be available for 12 or more annual extracts.
Our pricing model is simply: a) pay for setup, then b) pay as you go - on a per delivery basis. If 12 or more deliveries are required over any 12mth period then a regular payment method is recommended.
Termination of data supply is as simple as turning of the tap, no contractual penalty, no exit clauses, no advance notice required.
No it's as easy as it comes. We want to focus on doing a good job, and that isn't helped if we have to navigate legal terms and conditions. Our entire contract with terms and conditions are short, clear, and concise.
As an organisation, we would expect you to be aware of what you are asking us to do on your behalf. However, we also recognise that this can be a minefield, so we will work with you to ascertain any likely cost and time implications to consider prior to us running full or repeat extracts.
Ultimately, our position on this is Buyer Beware. If the supplier charges for usage and we are being asked to extract everything, then of course it would be wise to expect usage costs charged directly from the supplier. If required, we can help you model and budget for this in advance.
That's understandable, this does happen from time-to-time. In short, if we've just started and we need to pivot from the work, then we may do this without cost, or we may need to charge for the work done to that point. In any case, this will be covered by your upfront deposit of £1,000.
During our initial discussion we typically establish whether our services are right for you. If they are, then we confirm requirements, establish API connection/s and provide proof that we can extract the data required and curate it as discussed.
Up until that point, it is free of charge. That is not exactly a free trial. In some cases, by prior agreement, we may agree to provide you with a limited sample set of data from your chosen APIs - this will help refine your data requirements.
Assuming this does not take much time, we could offer a small, limited free trial extract. Note: mature API suppliers have complete specifications with example data responses included. In these cases, a free trial would be unnecessary. When multiple APIs are involved, the key value is about bringing all the data together.
This can be a problem, since source data can contain quality issues that the API supplier has not addressed. As part of the requirements, we can address the offending fields or can supply the data in 'as is' format. Your choice.
This is part of the requirements phase. Following a data review, you can specify any derivations that you would like us to make. Of course, we supply the original low level data as well, we simply enhance it for you.
Lots of things can go wrong with APIs, and that includes the quality of the data that they return. We act as your data processor, and therefore remediate a lot of this upfront, and some by post-processing. Our objective is to enable our clients to reap the rewards of jumping straight into data, so we do as much as required.
Our aim is to constantly overcome the following typical issues -
1. Inconsistent or evolving schemas
2. Missing or null values
3. Type mismatches
4. Poor or inconsistent timestamp formats
5. Incomplete or partial payloads
6. Duplicate records
7. Out-of-order data
8. Dirty or semi-structured fields
9. Unreliable status codes
10. Rate limit throttling / silent failures
11. Inconsistent identifiers
12. Lack of referential integrity
13. Multi-source conflicts
14. Version drift
15. Transient upstream bugs
We supply a simple diagnostic document that provides useful information about the data being supplied. Useful for periodic data extracts so that clients are never left unsure which data they are looking at. The diagnostics provide high-level statistics about the extract and its contents, which will be easy to verify once load into the target systems for analysis, whether they be Excel, Power BI or any other tool.
The documentation provides clients with immediate confidence in the extract by clearly describing where the data came from, how complete and reliable it is, and what to expect when ingesting it.
It typically includes the extract’s provenance (API endpoints, parameters, timestamps), a concise schema summary, and key integrity checks such as row counts, file size. It includes validity metrics for each field—null rates, distinct counts, pattern checks, and logical consistency — which help clients understand data shape and identify any limitations inherent in the source systems.
It also details any changes since previous extracts, such as schema drift or shifts in value distributions. Together, this creates a clear, auditable snapshot of data quality that reduces onboarding effort, minimises queries, and establishes trust from the very first delivery.
We use an independent UK based 3rd party supplier that does not rely on any cloud services provided by Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Apple or Meta. It is a fully compliant platform for secure file transfers and storage.
The platform allows us to exchange large files or sensitive data securely. ISO27001 Certified and GDPR compliant, with high grade encryption in transit and at rest
All files are stored on secure, private, dedicated, servers with transfers using 256bit SSL/TLS 1.2 encryption. Files are stored using AES 256bit encryption.
Only your web browser is required for use.
The data delivery platform is to be used for the secure transfer of data from API Seer to its clients. It is not to be used for storage. All data will be removed as per the terms of the engagement.
Our data platform is purpose designed to enforce client data separation. When it comes to data delivery, we use client specific virtual data cabinets. All access to these cabinets is private and secure.
We only send data to named and verified client email addresses. A notification link is sent, and this allows the receiver to download the data extracts securely for up to 7 days, and a maximum of 10 downloads.
Without being the owner of that particular email address, it will be impossible to download files.
A cryptographic hash of the file is created before sending, this is based on SHA-256 (or SHA-512) — which is a strong, collision-resistant, widely supported approach to verify that every byte was sent and received correctly.
This is only applicable to customers requiring repeat extracts. All minor service changes made by API suppliers that subsequently require us to adapt our extract mechanism, will be accommodated free of charge. Usually these changes do not require a major change on our side.
If the supplier changes the entire API specification or break their supply contract, then are unlikely to be able to accommodate this evolutionary change without new development and therefore passing the costs onto our clients. An example of this is when an API supplier delivers a major update and asks data consumers to from from a v2.0 to a v3.0 specification.
If the API stops functioning, then we may be unable to complete our work for you. This may be a temporary issue or could be an unknown downtime. You can decide what to do here; i) instruct us to pause for up to 90 days immediately, or ii) instruct us to stop.
In both cases, we charge £1,000 to cover the work done to date but this is covered by your upfront deposit. The amount simply depends on how much work has already been done. Should the API start functioning again, and our work is restarted before the 90 days is up, then this payment will not apply. If it doesn't, the amount will simply cover our costs.
The only caveat is that if you request us to use an alternate API with a very similar specification, then we may adapt without additional costs being incurred. This way, your investment in API Seer is protected. Note: this is not always possible. Good practice is think in advance about whether a backup API service could be used.
In practice, this does not happen with the more established mainstream API providers. Smaller providers carry a higher risk.
We test and demonstrate API access on your behalf before starting to work on your data supply. This confirmation is essential and provides proof that we can achieve success for your project needs.
We are UK based data processors acting on your behalf. We expect your organisation to provide us with the right to act on your behalf in respect of API usage. The simple contractual agreement that we sign provides clarity of responsibility.
If you have received API credentials then we can work for you to achieve your goals. What we cannot do is break usage rules enforced by the API provider. In some cases, we can potentially find workarounds that better work with some constraints.
In other words, we do not break the providers Terms & Conditions of usage for their API/s. Please do not ask or expect us to do this on your behalf.
Since we are acting on your behalf and just following instruction, we expect to be paid fairly for the work we do for you.
If we fail to deliver what was agreed, then we will refund all of your deposit in full. However, if you request us to stop working due to a change in approach before we have delivered, then we will be entitled to retain your deposit.
In practice, if we have done nominal work, we may, at our discretion, provide a full or partial refund depending on the circumstances.
Since we only work as per your instruction, any repeat extract can be cancelled at any time up to the day before the extract is due to start. You stay in control.
If we are part way through setup and you change your mind, then we may retain the £1,000 deposit to cover the time spent. We encourage our clients to think of the deposit as non-refundable.