Blog · 11 September 2026

The public catalogue and the index

Titles and counts are public. Full text, people, money, land and flags need a seat. Researcher and Practice start with a 14-day trial. A card is required.

The catalogue is public. The index needs a seat. Click to enlarge.

The catalogue is public. The index needs a seat.

Two paper trays on a paper-coloured plate. The left tray is labelled Catalogue and lists Vale Civic titles. The right tray is labelled Index with a green rule through aligned files. A card between them reads 14 days, card on file.

Institrace has two layers. The public catalogue lists bodies, titles, and counts. The index is the searchable corpus: full text, people, companies already attached, money, land, and flags. Google can see the first. A signed-in seat opens the second.

That split is deliberate. The catalogue should be crawlable. The corpus should not be scraped as a dump. If a source page shows fifteen titles and a count of thousands, the count is real. The sample is what a logged-out reader gets.

What is public

Home, Coverage, Capabilities, Methodology, About, the FAQ, Resources, this blog, Pricing, and each body page with titles and counts. Those pages describe the product and the holdings. They are not the full index. How a body enters the list is on Methodology. How two rows attach is on How records attach.

What a seat opens

Full-text search, Ask, and the People, Money, Land and Flags indexes. Source pages behind the sample also need a seat if you want the whole title list and the text. Watchlists and the network map are not live. Those pages describe the method. They are not a product you can click today.

We do not charge per paper view. We do not sell a World-Check replacement. We only index public bodies. A supplier Ltd appears when a public file or a published identifier attaches it.

The 14-day trial

Researcher and Practice start with a 14-day trial. A card is required. The trial does not start until the card is on file. Inside that window you get 15 Asks and 2 exports, whichever ends first. Browsing the index is open until the calendar clock ends. The seat converts unless you cancel in the billing portal.

One trial per email, organisation, and card. Cancelling, swapping a card, or opening a new email at the same firm does not start a second trial. No shared seats on a Researcher trial. Newsroom and firm seats are quoted. Pricing states the figures. What the trial includes is the short answer.

How to start

Create a Researcher or Practice seat on Start trial. Verify the email, then add the card. Existing seats sign in with a password and a 6-digit email code. A quote for a named admin stays on Request a quote.

Read next

A name in a paper is not a join is the accuracy rule. Published is not the same as findable is the problem the catalogue exists to state.