Vigil vs Creditsafe

What Creditsafe does

Creditsafe is a credit intelligence platform. You look up a company and get a credit score, a recommended credit limit, payment behaviour data, and a company report. It pulls from Companies House, court records, and trade payment data to produce a score you can use when deciding whether to extend credit.

It's useful at onboarding: when a new customer asks for a credit account, you run a Creditsafe check and make a decision. Many finance teams integrate it directly into their CRM or ERP.

What it doesn't do particularly well is watch a company over time and tell you when something changes. A Creditsafe report is a snapshot. If a director resigns three months after you ran the check, or a First Gazette Notice appears in the London Gazette, Creditsafe isn't going to email you.

What Vigil does

Vigil connects to the Companies House real-time data stream and monitors the London Gazette daily. When something significant happens to a company on your watchlist — a director appointment or resignation, a new charge, insolvency proceedings, or a Gazette dissolution notice — you get a plain English email the same day.

The Gazette coverage is the most important difference in practice. When a UK company applies to be voluntarily struck off, it must publish a First Gazette Notice. Creditors have two months from that date to object. Most companies that get burned by this simply never saw the notice. Vigil sends you the alert with the objection deadline and a link to file.

Vigil doesn't produce credit scores or recommended limits. If you need to make a credit decision at onboarding, a tool like Creditsafe is designed for that. Vigil is for what happens between credit decisions — the ongoing monitoring that tells you when a company you already deal with starts to change.

The honest answer on price

Creditsafe pricing is not publicly listed. You get it after a sales call, and it typically involves a 12-month contract. For a small team or a sole trader, the entry cost is significant.

Vigil is £27/mo on Starter, monthly billing, cancel in two clicks. There's no sales process. You sign up, add your watchlist, and you're monitoring.

When to use Creditsafe

• You need a credit score and recommended limit for a new customer at onboarding
• You're integrating credit data into a CRM or ERP workflow
• Your team runs formal credit checks on demand and needs a report to share with finance
• You're at a scale where an annual contract at enterprise pricing is justifiable

When to use Vigil

• You have an existing customer or supplier base you need to watch over time
• You want to know the same day a director leaves one of your accounts
• London Gazette dissolution notices are a risk for your business (any creditor with outstanding invoices)
• You need self-serve monthly pricing with no contract

Can you use both?

Yes, and some businesses do. Creditsafe at onboarding to make the initial credit decision; Vigil on the ongoing watchlist to catch changes after you've extended credit. They don't overlap much because they're solving different moments in the credit lifecycle.