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Cobalt Intelligence vs Formations Feed

Cobalt Intelligence looks up the live Secretary of State record for a business you name, in all 50 states and D.C.[1][2] Formations Feed emails a daily CSV of businesses that just formed, from $149 per state a month.[3][4] Pick Cobalt to verify a business you already know. Pick Formations Feed to find new businesses to sell to.

Vendor facts from each vendor's own public pages, read 2026-10-16. Sources are listed below.

Cobalt Intelligence vs Formations Feed, side by side
Cobalt IntelligenceFormations FeedRecordwire
ModelLive Secretary of State lookup API with a cache as fallback, CSV bulk runs, and scheduled monitoring of businesses you enroll.[1][2][5]Daily CSV of new business formations by email; S3 or SFTP by arrangement. Its REST API is planned, not live.[3][4][6]Change feed plus lookup. Each new state file is compared with the last, and every difference is stored as a dated event. REST API, MCP server, and webhooks.[7]
U.S. state coverageAll 50 states plus Washington, D.C.[2]All 50 states and D.C. listed; it confirms which feeds are available before activation.[8]12 states. Florida, New York, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Connecticut, and Oregon from official bulk files and open data. Massachusetts, Idaho, Wyoming, and Missouri from the state's public search, new formations only. Delaware from a licensed data partner, new formations only.[9]
FreshnessRead from the state site at request time by default; slow states can take up to 5 minutes.[1][10]Daily.[3]As often as each state publishes: daily in Florida, New York, Colorado, and Oregon, monthly in Pennsylvania, weekly in Virginia, nightly in Connecticut, every 3 hours in Massachusetts and Missouri, every 6 hours in Idaho, continuously in Wyoming, and several times a day in Delaware.[9]
Change events and historyFiling history in each lookup. Monitoring re-checks 44 state-record fields every 1 to 30 days and reports changes by severity.[2][5]New formations only.[3][4]Six event types: formed, renamed, status, address, registered agent, officers. Full change events in the seven file states; new formations only in the other five. Virginia and Florida include state-published history.[11][9]
WebhooksYes, through callbackUrl for async lookups and for monitoring results.[12][5]Planned.[4]Yes. Signed webhooks per subscription, filtered by state, event type, or up to 10,000 company IDs.[7]
MCP serverNone found on its site or in its API docs, and none in the official MCP Registry.[2][13][14]No registry-data MCP. Its llms.txt lists a website Q&A agent.[15]Yes. Remote server at api.recordwirehq.com/mcp: five read tools and three for webhook subscriptions, one bearer key.[16]
OfficersOfficers in 28 states; registered agent in 49.[2]In the sample record, not on every filing.[3]Where the state publishes them: Florida, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Wyoming; partly in New York, Virginia, Oregon. None in Colorado, Idaho, Missouri.[9]
Published pricingCredits, no dollar prices published. Most lookups cost 1 credit; tiers commonly include 1,000, 3,000, or 5,000 lookups a month. Free credits on signup.[2][17][18]$149 per state a month for the feed, $249 with API; all states $4,000 or $6,500 a month. 2-day free trial.[4]$100 a month for one state, $200 for any three, $500 for all. No free trial.[19]

Who Cobalt Intelligence fits

Lenders and onboarding teams that need the current state record at decision time. Cobalt reads the state site when you ask, includes a timestamped screenshot, and adds TIN checks and UCC data in 11 states.[1][2][20] It can also re-check enrolled businesses every 1 to 30 days and post changes to your webhook.[5]

Who Formations Feed fits

Sales and marketing teams that want a daily list of new businesses in their inbox. It appends phone and email where available and offers a 2-day free trial. There is no customer API yet.[3][4][6]

Where Recordwire fits

Cobalt answers for one business at a time. Formations Feed lists new formations only, by email. Recordwire sends every formation, and in its seven file states every later change, as dated events through REST, webhooks, and MCP. It covers twelve states, fewer than either vendor.[11][9][7]

Compare each with Recordwire: Cobalt Intelligence vs Recordwire and Formations Feed vs Recordwire.

Questions

Can Cobalt Intelligence list newly formed businesses?

Its pages describe lookups of businesses you name and monitoring of businesses you enroll. We found no list of new formations on them.[2][5] Formations Feed sells that list.[3]

Does Formations Feed have an API?

Not yet. Its docs page says customer API access is planned, with no launch date.[6] Cobalt has a REST API today.[13]

Which one publishes prices?

Formations Feed does: $149 per state a month for the feed, $249 with API, and $4,000 or $6,500 a month for all states.[4] Cobalt publishes credits and tiers but no dollar amounts.[17]

Which one sends webhooks?

Cobalt, for async lookups and for monitoring results.[12][5] Formations Feed lists webhooks as planned.[4]

Do they have MCP servers?

Neither, as of October 16, 2026. Cobalt has none on its site, in its API docs, or in the official MCP Registry.[13][14] Formations Feed’s llms.txt lists only a website Q&A agent.[15]

More comparisons

Sources

  1. Cobalt help: real-time vs cached data. https://help.cobaltintelligence.com/article/real-time-vs-cached-data. Accessed 2026-10-16.
  2. Cobalt Intelligence home page. https://cobaltintelligence.com/. Accessed 2026-10-16.
  3. Formations Feed home page. https://formationsfeed.com/. Accessed 2026-10-16.
  4. Formations Feed pricing. https://formationsfeed.com/pricing/. Accessed 2026-10-16.
  5. Cobalt blog: Business Monitoring. https://blog.cobaltintelligence.com/post/business-monitoring-secretary-of-state-change-detection. Accessed 2026-10-16.
  6. Formations Feed: customer API status. https://formationsfeed.com/docs/. Accessed 2026-10-16.
  7. Recordwire API docs. https://recordwirehq.com/docs. Accessed 2026-10-16.
  8. Formations Feed states. https://formationsfeed.com/states/. Accessed 2026-10-16.
  9. Recordwire coverage by state. https://recordwirehq.com/states. Accessed 2026-10-16.
  10. Cobalt help: live data in all states. https://help.cobaltintelligence.com/article/live-data-all-states. Accessed 2026-10-16.
  11. Recordwire change events. https://recordwirehq.com/change-events. Accessed 2026-10-16.
  12. Cobalt help: retryId and callbackUrl. https://help.cobaltintelligence.com/article/retryid-callbackurl-behavior. Accessed 2026-10-16.
  13. Cobalt Intelligence API documentation. https://documentation.cobaltintelligence.com/. Accessed 2026-10-16.
  14. Official MCP Registry. https://registry.modelcontextprotocol.io/. Accessed 2026-10-16.
  15. Formations Feed llms.txt. https://formationsfeed.com/llms.txt. Accessed 2026-10-16.
  16. Recordwire MCP server. https://recordwirehq.com/mcp. Accessed 2026-10-16.
  17. Cobalt help: pricing structure. https://help.cobaltintelligence.com/article/pricing-structure-overview. Accessed 2026-10-16.
  18. Cobalt help: trial and pilot options. https://help.cobaltintelligence.com/article/trial-and-pilot-options. Accessed 2026-10-16.
  19. Recordwire pricing. https://recordwirehq.com/#pricing. Accessed 2026-10-16.
  20. Cobalt help: court and UCC data. https://help.cobaltintelligence.com/article/court-ucc-data-availability. Accessed 2026-10-16.

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