Same ONS Census and IMD data at the core. API-native. No annual licence. £0.025/call instead of thousands per year.
CACI Acorn and Experian Mosaic are the UK's dominant geodemographic segmentation systems — used by retailers, local authorities, and marketers to classify neighbourhoods by consumer behaviour, affluence, and lifestyle. An Acorn or Mosaic licence costs thousands of pounds per year, with additional fees for data integration and postcode-level lookups. UKDataAPI's Demographics endpoint delivers the same underlying Census 2021 data, IMD deprivation indices, and labour market statistics — plus a proprietary Spending Power Index — for £0.025 per API call. You don't get CACI or Experian's proprietary segment labels, but you get the raw data those labels are built from, in structured JSON, with no annual contract.
| Feature | UKDataAPI | CACI Acorn & Experian Mosaic |
|---|---|---|
| Census 2021 population data | Full ONS Census data at LSOA level | Derived from Census (proprietary segments) |
| IMD deprivation indices | ✓Full IMD rank, decile, and 7 domain scores | Incorporated into segments (not raw) |
| Labour market statistics | ✓Employment rate, claimant count, median earnings | Incorporated into affluence segments |
| Spending Power Index | ✓0-100 composite score with factor breakdown | No equivalent — segment-level only |
| Consumer segmentation labels | Not included — raw data, not segments | ✓56 Acorn types / 66 Mosaic types |
| Lifestyle and behavioural data | Census-derived only | ✓Proprietary consumer surveys and panels |
| Output format | ✓Structured JSON API | Flat file / batch delivery / web portal |
| Postcode-level lookups | ✓Real-time per-call | Batch file or annual licence |
| Batch processing | ✓Up to 500 req/min | Batch file delivery (weekly/monthly) |
| Housing tenure data | ✓Census 2021 tenure breakdown | Incorporated into segments |
| Integration support | Self-serve API docs + MCP | Professional services and onboarding |
| AI agent access (MCP/x402) | ✓Native support | Not available |
UKDataAPI
From £0.005/call (summary) to £0.025/call (full). Pay-as-you-go. Free tier: 200 credits/month.
CACI Acorn & Experian Mosaic
Annual licence from ~£5,000/year (Acorn) or ~£8,000/year (Mosaic). Volume pricing for postcode-level data.
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \ "https://www.ukdatapi.com/api/v1/demographics/SW1A%201AA?depth=standard" # Returns: Census 2021 data, IMD deprivation indices, # labour market stats, Spending Power Index (0-100) # Cost: 12 credits (£0.025)
200 free credits. No contract. No credit card.