When you need to search The Gazette's record for more than its public one-query-at-a-time search comfortably handles, The Gazette itself offers a manual option: the Research Service. You submit a request form, their team searches the archive on your behalf, and the results come back to you.
This guide sets out the published rates, what the service is genuinely good at, and how to decide when a staffed, per-name search is the right purchase — and when it is the expensive way to answer a question you could answer yourself in seconds.
The published rates
The Gazette's Research Service prices per name, on a sliding scale (as published on The Gazette's Research Service page, checked August 2026):
One name: £30. Two to five names: £24 per name. Six to ten names: £20 per name.
Requests are submitted on the official form by email or post. There is no published rate card beyond ten names — larger requests mean contacting the team.
The per-name maths compounds quickly. Ten names is £200. A hundred-name creditor schedule, even if the £20 rate held, is £2,000. A five-hundred-name debtor book is the kind of figure that goes to a budget holder for sign-off — for a search you may want to repeat next quarter.
What you are paying for
It is worth being fair about what the Research Service is, because for some jobs it is exactly right.
You are paying for a human search of the official archive, performed by the organisation that holds the record, with a result you can put in front of a court, a regulator or an underwriter as the product of the official channel. For a single high-stakes question — verifying a decades-old notice, a probate query where completeness matters more than speed, an evidential search where provenance is the point — a staffed search of the official archive is a defensible spend at £30.
The service's constraints are the flip side of its nature. It is manual, so it takes as long as the queue takes. It is form-based, so it does not fit an operational workflow. And it is priced per name regardless of the answer — a name with no notices costs the same as a name with ten.
Where the maths tips
The decision is not really about price per name. It is about what kind of question you are asking.
Ask the Research Service when the question is singular, archival or evidential: one name, deep history, official provenance required.
Do it yourself in bulk when the question is operational and plural: is anyone on this list — creditor schedule, debtor book, client base, supplier panel — subject to insolvency notices, and which ones? That question recurs, it is time-sensitive, and the per-name manual pricing punishes exactly the behaviour — checking everyone, regularly — that good risk practice requires.
Gazette Search is built for the second question. Upload a CSV or Excel of names or company numbers; every entry is searched in one pass; results come back in seconds, split into matched — with the notices found — and not found. Pricing is pay-as-you-go credits rather than a per-name fee, volume brings the per-search cost down to a small fraction of a manual request, and a search that finds nothing costs nothing. Current rates are on the pricing page.
The comparison at ten names: £200 and a wait for the manual service, versus a self-serve search that finishes before you have written the file note — charged only on the names that actually return a notice.
The re-run problem
One more difference matters more than any single price: repetition. A search is a snapshot. Insolvency positions move — in July 2026 alone, 1,931 companies entered insolvency in England and Wales — and the list you cleared in January is not cleared in June.
A per-name manual service makes re-screening a recurring invoice, which in practice means it does not happen. A self-serve bulk search makes it another upload. Teams that screen monthly — collections books, live caseloads, supplier panels — are the ones for whom the manual channel was never really an option. That workflow is covered in Screening Your Debtor Book for Insolvency.
Try the alternative on a real list
The Gazette Search homepage has a demo panel that runs a real search on a pasted list — no account, no card. Paste in names you already know the answer for and compare the result against what you would have paid to ask the same question by form.
Frequently asked questions
How much does The Gazette's Research Service cost?
Per its published rates (checked August 2026): £30 for a single name, £24 per name for two to five names, and £20 per name for six to ten names. Requests go in on the official form by email or post.
How long does the Research Service take?
The Gazette does not publish a standard turnaround time — requests are handled manually by its team.
Is there a cheaper way to search many names at once?
Yes. Gazette Search accepts a CSV or Excel upload of names or company numbers and searches every entry against the UK insolvency notice record in one pass, on pay-as-you-go pricing where a search that finds nothing costs nothing.
When is the Research Service the better choice?
When the question is singular and evidential — deep archival searches or results that need the provenance of the official channel — a staffed search by the record holder is worth the per-name fee.
Do I need a subscription to use Gazette Search?
No. Credits are pay-as-you-go: buy what you need, use it when you need it.