Use this when the user asks CREHQ for data that is NOT included in the free sandbox: CREHQ Credit Signals / credit-intelligence profiles, ownership/sponsor/capital-structure/rating-history data, site-selection criteria, real-estate requirements, tenant requirements, franchise/FDD data, Item 19 financials, real-estate contacts, source provenance, event/change history, bulk dataset downloads, whitespace analysis, co-tenancy, site timeline, point-in-time occupancy, or higher limits. This returns a clear upgrade prompt and, for free sandbox keys, records the requested topic as a CREHQ paywall/upgrade-intent signal for follow-up. Do NOT tell the user CREHQ lacks credit signals, franchise/FDD, or site-selection data merely because the free footprint endpoint omits them.

Resolve a public venue or business identity across hotels, restaurants, retail, healthcare, banks, auto dealers, EV charging, and other location categories. Use this when the user asks which chain or brand a venue belongs to, who operates or owns a location, or whether a venue is independent. Provide at least one of url, venue_name, or address; additional identity hints improve disambiguation. Returns affiliation_status (branded, independent, not_a_commercial_venue, or unresolved), canonical name, entity type, brand, operator, parent company, confidence, evidence, and checked time. Treat independent, not_a_commercial_venue, and unresolved as valid outcomes; never invent an affiliation beyond the returned evidence. If paid access is required, preserve the exact purchase_url and CREHQ intent_id for user-approved checkout, then install the newly emailed Pro key and reconnect before retrying.

List franchise & multi-unit brands (companies) tracked in CREHQ's canonical, multi-source government-verified location database — restaurants, retail, banks, auto dealers, healthcare, hotels, EV charging and more. Filter by category or expansion status to discover brands actively opening or closing units. Each record links to verified store counts, FDD financials, real-estate criteria, and decision-maker contacts. Paginated.

Full-text search CREHQ's brand universe by name to resolve a company to its canonical CREHQ id. Handles messy/alias names (e.g. 'mcdonald-s' → McDonald's Corporation). ALWAYS use this first to get a company_id before calling company detail, credit signals, franchise/FDD, real-estate, contacts, occupancy, whitespace, or co-tenancy tools.

Get a single brand's canonical CREHQ profile: verified current location count, vertical/category, parent/ownership (incl. private-equity backing where known), geographic footprint summary, and verification trace. The authoritative, de-duplicated source-of-truth record for a brand.

PREMIUM CREDIT INTELLIGENCE — get CREHQ Credit Signals for a brand: ownership and parent/issuer context, PE sponsor data, rating history, capital structure, debt/maturity/covenant facts, unit-count trajectory, footprint status counts, and material events. Use this when the user asks about tenant credit, creditworthiness, lender diligence, leverage, ratings, sponsor ownership, or distress/health signals for a brand. Requires credit-intel access; if unavailable or scope-gated, use crehq_request_upgrade with requested_data='credit_signals' instead of saying CREHQ lacks the data.

Retrieve FDD (Franchise Disclosure Document)-derived financials for a brand: franchise fees, royalty rates, total initial investment ranges, and Item 19 financial performance representations where disclosed. Sourced and multi-source-verified from state franchise registries — the hard numbers an analyst, investor, or prospective franchisee needs to underwrite a concept.

PREMIUM SITE-SELECTION DATA — get a brand's site-selection criteria and target real-estate profile: preferred site types, building/lot size, target geographies and trade areas, and expansion markets. Essential for landlords, brokers, and site-selectors who want to know what a tenant is looking for before pitching them space. If unavailable or scope-gated, use crehq_request_upgrade with requested_data='site_selection_criteria' instead of saying CREHQ lacks site requirements.

Get real-estate decision-maker contacts for a brand (development, site-selection, and franchising roles) compiled from public records and the brand's own disclosures. The shortcut from 'which brand is expanding' to 'who do I email'.

List individual store/branch/site records, filterable by brand, US state, and category. Each location carries a stable entity_uid, geocoded address, open/closed status, and a multi-source verification trace. The raw, government-cross-checked footprint behind any brand. Free sandbox keys can use this as a bounded brand lookup. This footprint output does NOT include credit signals, ownership/rating history, capital structure, site-selection criteria, FDD/Item 19, or tenant-credit diligence; for those requests use the relevant premium tool if available, otherwise call crehq_request_upgrade with the matching requested_data value.

List dataset snapshots purchased by the owner of the connected CREHQ self-serve key. Use this before querying a buyer-owned dataset through MCP. It shows snapshot_as_of, hosted_access_until, whether hosted MCP querying is active, and whether the buyer still owns the file snapshot after hosted access expires.

For CREHQ Pro self-serve keys, spend the key's one monthly controlled intelligence preview credit. Returns a bounded evidence frame for a tenant-credit, site-selection, co-tenancy, franchise, or monitoring question without exposing raw premium tables or redistribution rights. Free keys receive a 402 upgrade prompt; full enterprise keys should use the dedicated premium tools directly.

Query rows from a dataset snapshot the connected key owner has purchased. This is for buyer-owned point-in-time snapshots, not live CREHQ refresh. The response includes snapshot_as_of, hosted_access_until, artifact basis, and row results. If hosted access expired, it returns an upgrade/update-plan message while acknowledging that the buyer still owns the original file snapshot.

Get one location's full record by id: geocoded address, brand, lifecycle status, attributes (e.g. drive-thru, square footage, fuel/EV ports where applicable), and the sources that verify it exists.

Search locations across multiple fields at once — name, brand, street address, city/state/geography. Use when you have a fuzzy description of a physical place rather than an id.

Radius search: find all tracked locations within N miles of a lat/lng point. Powers trade-area analysis, competitor mapping, and 'what's near this address' questions. Returns distance-sorted, government-verified storefronts across every vertical CREHQ covers.

Bulk location retrieval for ETL/pipeline use: fetch many locations in one call by a list of ids, a list of brands, or a GeoJSON polygon (e.g. a custom market boundary). Use this instead of looping single-location calls when hydrating a dataset.

Pull the cross-brand location LIFECYCLE STREAM — openings, closings, relocations, ownership/brand changes — since a timestamp. The real-time expansion/contraction signal that drives prospecting, market-monitoring, and 'who's moving right now' alerts. Returns a next-since cursor for incremental polling.

Full append-only event log for ONE physical store/site (by entity_uid): every open/close/rebrand/attribute change CREHQ has recorded, with dates and sources. Time-series provenance for a single location.

Date-bounded feed of everything that changed for ONE brand's footprint — openings, closings, relocations, attribute edits — between two timestamps and optionally filtered by event type. The brand-scoped version of the lifecycle stream, ideal for monitoring a target account.

POINT-IN-TIME roster: reconstruct exactly which locations a brand operated on a given historical date. Answers 'how many units did this chain have on 2022-01-01 and where' — true historical footprint, not just today's count. Powers growth-curve and same-store analysis.

FLAGSHIP DIFFERENTIATOR — given a physical site (site_uid), return the full chronological tenancy history: every brand that has EVER occupied that address and when. Answers 'this was a Blockbuster, then a Sprint store, now a Chipotle.' Unmatched for backfill/teardown analysis, second-generation space, and landlord due diligence. No other location dataset reconstructs address-level succession like this.

PREMIUM INTELLIGENCE — whitespace analysis: postal codes/markets where a brand's competitors are present and performing but the brand itself is ABSENT. The ranked, data-driven shortlist of where a chain should expand next. Built on CREHQ's full multi-vertical, government-verified footprint. (Intel & Enterprise tiers.)

PREMIUM INTELLIGENCE — co-tenancy analysis: which brands most often co-locate within a given radius of this brand's stores (the chains that cluster together: e.g. who anchors near Chipotle). Drives site-selection, anchor-tenant matching, and trade-area benchmarking. (Intel & Enterprise tiers.)

CREHQ Modeled Site Profile for one physical location: traffic/AADT, route class, trade-area demographics, radius demographics, drive-time context, nearby tenants, format signals, lifecycle timing, and provenance/coverage flags. This is CREHQ-modeled from observed location/context data, not a brand-stated requirement sheet.

CREHQ Modeled Site Pattern for a brand: empirical medians, ranges, percentiles, road-type mix, co-tenant mix, trade-area density, recent-opening context, and layer coverage/confidence. Use this to infer revealed-preference site patterns from where the brand actually operates. Do not present it as company-stated requirements unless the response includes stated-requirement provenance.

Context for a brand's most recently observed locations: event timing, address/market, traffic counts when backfilled, route class, trade-area demographics, radius demographics, drive-time context, and coverage flags. Useful for questions like 'traffic counts for the last 50 Starbucks locations CREHQ observed.' Event rows distinguish verified openings from first-observed/reconciliation events.

Browse CREHQ's catalog of packaged, ready-to-license datasets (whole-brand footprints, vertical rollups, FDD financials, etc.), filterable by category, country, and freshness. Each entry exposes row counts, schema, and refresh date — the menu of bulk data products.

Get full metadata for one dataset by slug: row count, column schema, coverage, verification methodology, last-refresh date, and licensing notes — everything needed to evaluate it before download.

Download a licensed dataset by slug in your chosen format (CSV, JSON, GeoJSON, or XLSX). Requires a tier/contract that includes the dataset. Returns the raw payload (or a signed link) for direct ingestion.

List all dataset categories with counts — a quick map of how CREHQ's data products are organized across verticals.

Time-series trends for ONE brand: outlet-count history, fee/royalty trends, and FDD financial trajectory over time. The growth/health curve of a concept in a single call.

Geographic trend analysis: metro/state concentration and opening/closing velocity across CREHQ's footprint. Surfaces which markets are heating up or cooling down across brands and verticals.