You can license company data by two routes: through a data marketplace, or directly from the provider under a written agreement. This comparison takes the four stages of a purchase in turn, discovery, procurement, terms and delivery, and shows what each route settles at each one. It uses three marketplaces as documented examples: Datarade, Snowflake Marketplace and AWS Data Exchange. By the end you can say which route fits the use you have in mind, and what to check on either.
Fokals is the worked example of the direct route. It is licensed by written agreement and delivered direct, by REST API and as bulk files, which you load into the platform you use with that platform's own loader.
What a marketplace does, and what it leaves to the provider
A marketplace can do up to four jobs for a buyer: help you find a dataset, take the order and the payment, present the contract, and deliver the data. The three examples below do different subsets, and the subset matters more than the word marketplace.
None of them replaces the provider's licence. On each of the three, the terms that say what you may do with the data are the provider's: written by it, chosen by it or agreed with it. A marketplace changes who bills you and how the data reaches you, not who grants the rights, so the question of whether your use is covered goes to the provider's terms on either route.
Three marketplaces, as their own pages describe them
Datarade presents itself as a place to find and compare data products from many providers. Its homepage says the service is free for the buyer and that Datarade is paid by the provider when a purchase is made. A buyer can preview samples, post a data request and message providers. Its terms of service state that the operator is not a party to contracts between its customers and acts solely as an intermediary, and that payment for a product follows the agreement between the customer and the seller. Under those terms, a purchase that starts on Datarade is a contract between you and the provider.
Snowflake Marketplace is open to Snowflake accounts hosted on Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure, with the exception of Microsoft Azure Government. A listing packages a share or a Snowflake Native App with a description and sample queries, and the page names three kinds: free, a limited trial of 1 to 90 days, or paid. The provider chooses the listing terms: Snowflake's standard agreement for marketplace products, its own terms at a public address, or, for a private listing only, terms supplied offline. Paid listings are invoiced in US dollars, apart from other Snowflake charges, to organisations whose billing address is in a supported country. Delivery of a share is by Secure Data Sharing: no data is copied into the consumer's account, the shared objects are read-only, the consumer pays for the compute its queries use, and access to a share can be revoked at any time.
AWS Data Exchange lists data products in the AWS Marketplace catalogue after review by AWS. A subscriber needs an AWS account, and for a public product submits a request stating its identity and intended use, which the provider reviews before approving. Every product is a subscription: you accept the offer's price, duration, payment schedule, refund policy and data subscription agreement, and that agreement sets out the provider's terms. A provider can make a private offer to one AWS account that differs from the public offer in any of those terms, and a Bring Your Own Subscription offer moves a subscription you already hold with a participating provider onto the service.
| Datarade | Snowflake Marketplace | AWS Data Exchange | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Main job | Finding and comparing providers | Listing, billing and delivery inside Snowflake | Listing, billing and delivery inside AWS |
| Whose terms | The agreement between customer and seller | Chosen by the provider: Snowflake's standard agreement, custom terms, or offline terms for a private listing | The provider's data subscription agreement |
| How you pay | As that agreement provides | On Snowflake Marketplace invoices, by card, bank transfer or eligible committed capacity | On the AWS bill, as AWS Marketplace charges |
| How data arrives | From the provider, as agreed | A share or a Native App in your Snowflake account | Files, an API, or access in Amazon Redshift, Amazon S3 or AWS Lake Formation (preview) |
Direct licensing, stage by stage
A direct licence puts the same four stages between you and the provider, with one counterparty for all of them. Fokals is the worked example.
Discovery. You find the provider by search, by referral or through a data scout, and you judge it from its own documents. Fokals publishes its data dictionary, its methodology and its sourcing statement, so the schema, the methods and the sourcing can be read before any conversation. The counterpart of a trial listing is a sample: sample data for the companies a buyer names is sent on request, with the data dictionary and the methodology.
Procurement. You contract with the provider as a supplier, and the order, the invoice and the agreement run between the two of you. Fokals licenses by written agreement.
Terms. The data licence names one of three uses: internal use, embedding in a product, or redistribution. The article on what a data licence covers goes through them, and the data licensing page describes embedding and redistribution.
Delivery. A REST API of 25 endpoints returns JSON under one bearer key per client, with scopes, rate limits per key by minute and by day, and cursor pagination. Bulk exports of any dataset for any period come as JSON, JSON Lines or CSV, page by page through the export endpoints or as a package of files with a manifest naming its period, label versions and licence. The data is delivered direct, and you load it where you need it, as the delivery page sets out.
The four stages side by side
| Stage | Through a marketplace | Directly from the provider |
|---|---|---|
| Discovery | A catalogue to search, with a sample preview, a trial listing or a data dictionary to judge by. On Datarade, a request that providers answer | Your own search, referrals and scouts, then the provider's public documents and a sample cut to the companies you track |
| Procurement | The venue's account, order and bill | One supplier and one agreement, settled between you and the provider |
| Terms | The provider's terms, standard or custom, accepted in the venue | One negotiated document, written for the use you name |
| Delivery | Inside the platform: a share, or files and APIs under the venue's entitlements | An API and bulk files, delivered direct, that you hold and load into any platform |
Procurement is where the routes differ most for the buyer's team: Snowflake's page for consumers describes paying for listings inside Snowflake instead of negotiating billing with each provider. Delivery is where the routes differ in kind. Data shared in place stays in the provider's account, current without a pipeline and inside one platform. Files delivered direct are a copy you govern: one load job, and the same data serves a warehouse, a research database and a product.
Test the data the same way on either route
A listing and a contract both describe a dataset in the provider's words. Coverage of the companies you track is something you measure. The test is the same whether the rows reach you as a trial share, a sample from a marketplace product or a sample sent directly: join them to your own list on an identifier and count. The query runs it on a sample of Hiring Activity.
-- Share of your accounts found in a sample of company_hiring_daily
select
count(*) as accounts,
count(s.company_id) as matched,
round(100.0 * count(s.company_id) / count(*), 1) as matched_pct
from accounts a
left join (
select distinct isin, company_id
from sample_company_hiring_daily
where isin is not null
) s on s.isin = a.isin;Every Fokals file carries a stable company ID and, where the company or its parent is listed, its ticker, MIC, ISIN, LEI and FIGI, so the join can use whichever identifier your list holds. Run the count for each dataset you intend to license, because a use case rests on the dataset it reads: Technology Stack for a technographic segment, Hiring Activity for a hiring signal, Intent Scores for a ranking.
Then open twenty matched rows and compare each with the public page it points to, such as the address of a posting. Illustrative: Acme Robotics holds 3,000 accounts keyed on ISIN. It counts the match for Technology Stack and for Hiring Activity separately, reports both, and takes the second figure into the decision on its hiring use case.
Which route fits
Choose by the use and by how your organisation buys.
- A marketplace fits when you do not yet know who sells what, which is what a discovery venue such as Datarade is for. It also fits when your organisation pays through an account it already holds, when the data should be queried in place, and when the terms attached to the listing cover your use.
- A direct licence fits when the use is embedding or redistribution, where the terms have to name your product, your customers and what they may see. It fits when the data must reach more than one platform, or a product database outside any warehouse, and when you want to hold the copy you license.
- The two combine when the provider is on the platform. A private listing with offline terms on Snowflake, or a private offer on AWS Data Exchange, lets a negotiated agreement be fulfilled through the platform.
Fokals is licensed on the direct route: a written agreement for internal use, embedding in a product or redistribution, and delivery by REST API and bulk file into whichever platform you run. The guide to Snowflake Marketplace for buyers explains how listings work, and the comparison of Datarade and Snowflake Marketplace sets the two kinds of venue side by side.
Running the direct route
On the direct route you run one load. The bulk files or the API output go into your warehouse through a job you schedule, and the copy is yours to govern: access control follows your own policies, and the agreement sets the terms for holding it.
Three properties of Fokals data keep that load small. Daily and weekly datasets are written once, after the period closes, and are never revised, so a load appends each period once. The feeds of signals, website changes and postings run oldest first from a time you set, so the last cursor is the bookmark for the next run. Labels and scores are produced under named, frozen versions, and a breaking change ships as a new version with at least 90 days' notice, which matters when the licence covers a product your customers see.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between a data marketplace and direct data licensing?
A data marketplace is a venue where providers list datasets. Some only introduce buyer and provider, and others also bill the buyer and deliver the data inside a cloud platform. Direct licensing means you contract with the provider itself and receive the data by its own delivery, usually an API or files. On both routes the terms that govern your use come from the provider. The practical differences are who bills you, how the data arrives and how much of the contract you can negotiate.
Who sets the licence terms when you buy data on a marketplace?
The provider does. On AWS Data Exchange each product carries a data subscription agreement that sets out the provider's terms. On Snowflake Marketplace the provider chooses between Snowflake's standard agreement for marketplace products and its own terms. Datarade's terms of service state that its operator is not a party to contracts between its customers. Read the terms attached to the product itself, because they decide whether your use is covered.
How do I get Fokals data into Snowflake or onto AWS?
Fokals is licensed by written agreement and delivered direct, by REST API and as bulk files in JSON, JSON Lines or CSV, which you load into your own account with the platform's own loader. A first load comes from a bulk export, and the API feeds keep the copy current from the last cursor. The guide to loading company data into Snowflake works through the stages, the file formats and the daily merge.
Can a cloud spending commitment pay for marketplace data?
Sometimes. Snowflake's documentation says eligible organisations can use a reserved portion of their committed Snowflake capacity for Marketplace purchases, alongside payment by credit card or bank transfer. On AWS Data Exchange a paid subscription appears on the AWS bill as part of AWS Marketplace charges. Whether a given purchase counts towards a commitment depends on your own agreement with the platform, so confirm it with your account team before you rely on it.
What happens to the data when a marketplace subscription ends?
It depends on how the data was delivered. Data shared in place, as on Snowflake, was never copied to you, and Snowflake's documentation says access to a share can be revoked at any time. Files exported from an AWS Data Exchange subscription stay with you, and AWS tells subscribers to check the data subscription agreement for any duty to delete them. Under a direct licence you hold the files, and the agreement says what happens to them.
How do you evaluate a dataset before buying it on a marketplace or directly?
Join a sample to your own list of companies and count the matches, dataset by dataset, then compare a handful of matched rows with the public source each one names. A marketplace may offer a sample preview, a trial listing or a data dictionary. A provider that licenses directly can send a sample for the companies you track. The listing and the contract describe the data, and only the test shows its coverage of the companies you care about.
The queries and code on this page are examples to adapt. Test them in your own environment before you rely on them.
What this page says about the products it names was checked against their public documentation on 4 October 2026. Product and company names are trademarks of their owners. Fokals is not affiliated with them or endorsed by them.