AutonoMath vs. other Japanese subsidy search services
A neutral side-by-side of AutonoMath against the main consumer-discoverable Japanese subsidy / 助成金 search services, across 13 axes. Built from each provider's published information only; anything we could not verify is left as "Not publicly disclosed" rather than guessed. Reviewed monthly.
Six services compared: AutonoMath (this site) / noukaweb (agricultural subsidy DB) / hojyokin-portal.jp (補助金ポータル) / biz.stayway.jp (Stayway Biz) / J-Net21 (operated by SMRJ, the SME support agency) / ミラサポplus (operated by the SME Agency, METI).
Feature comparison
| Axis | AutonoMath | noukaweb | hojyokin-portal | biz.stayway | J-Net21 | ミラサポplus |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Program count (public-sector) | 10,790 searchable (tier S/A/B/C) + 13,578 total (incl. tier X quarantine) | Not publicly disclosed (agriculture-focused) | Not publicly disclosed | Not publicly disclosed (article-led) | Not publicly disclosed (active programs surfaced as feed) | Not publicly disclosed (major + related programs) |
| 2. Primary-source URL on each row (direct gov links) | Yes — 99%+ of rows carry source_url + fetched_at (12 small-municipality rows lack URL because the issuing body has no CMS) |
Not publicly disclosed (needs verification) | Not publicly disclosed (needs verification) | Not publicly disclosed (needs verification) | Yes (links out to ministry / prefecture pages) | Yes (.go.jp official portal) |
| 3. Public API | Yes — REST /v1/* with OpenAPI 3.1 |
None publicly listed | None publicly listed | None publicly listed | None publicly listed | None publicly listed |
| 4. MCP (Model Context Protocol) server | Yes — 72 tools, protocol 2025-06-18, distributed via stdio + Smithery + DXT | None publicly listed | None publicly listed | None publicly listed | None publicly listed | None publicly listed |
| 5. Designed for LLM-agent consumption | Yes (primary use case) — callable directly from Claude / ChatGPT / Cursor via MCP; responses pre-normalized for AI | Designed for human web browsing | Designed for human web browsing | Designed for human web browsing | Designed for human web browsing | Designed for human web browsing |
| 6. Pricing model | Fully metered ¥3/req (¥3.30 incl. tax). No tier SKUs, no seats, no minimums | Free | Not publicly disclosed (signup required) | Not publicly disclosed (article reading is free) | Free (public-sector service) | Free (public-sector service) |
| 7. Free tier | No signup; 50 req/month per IP (resets at JST month-start 00:00) | Fully free | Not publicly disclosed | Not publicly disclosed | Fully free | Fully free |
| 8. Full-text search (FTS5 / Japanese tokenization) | Yes — SQLite FTS5 trigram + sqlite-vec semantic search | In-site search (implementation details not disclosed) | In-site search (implementation details not disclosed) | In-site search (implementation details not disclosed) | In-site search (implementation details not disclosed) | In-site search (implementation details not disclosed) |
| 9. Per-row source license disclosure | Yes — every row carries a license field (e-Gov=CC-BY-4.0, NTA invoice=PDL v1.0, gov_standard, proprietary, etc.) | Not publicly disclosed | Not publicly disclosed | Not publicly disclosed | Governed by site Terms (no per-row license metadata) | Governed by site Terms (no per-row license metadata) |
| 10. Statute-text navigation (e-Gov links) | Yes — 9,484 laws ingested (continuously loading); per-article cross-link via program_law_refs | Out of scope (subsidy search only) | Out of scope (subsidy search only) | Out of scope | Out of scope (subsidy listings only) | Out of scope (subsidy listings only) |
| 11. Adoption / case-study data | Yes — 2,286 case_studies (filterable by industry / amount / round) | Not publicly disclosed | Not publicly disclosed | Some examples surfaced editorially | Has a 事例 (case studies) section (no API) | Has 事例ナビ (Web UI only) |
| 12. Enforcement-action data | Yes — 1,185 enforcement_cases (cross-searchable by ministry / law / sanction type) | Out of scope | Out of scope | Out of scope | Out of scope | Out of scope |
| 13. Corporate lookup (法人番号 / gBiz) | Yes — 166,969 corporate_entity records (gBiz INFO ingest) + 13,801 qualified-invoice registrants (PDL v1.0 delta; full monthly bulk pending) | Out of scope | Out of scope | Out of scope | Out of scope (NTA / gBiz are separate services) | Out of scope (NTA / gBiz are separate services) |
Legend — green: confirmed from public sources / amber: partially present / grey ("None publicly listed"): nothing on the official site / grey italic ("Not publicly disclosed"): could not verify. "None publicly listed" / "Not publicly disclosed" does not assert the feature is absent — providers may add or undocument features at any time. Spot an error? Email [email protected] with a source URL and we'll fix it within 48 hours.
Which one should you pick?
Honest recommendations by use case. AutonoMath is not always the right answer.
SMB / Business owner
Start with the free public portals
If you only need to find one or a few subsidies for your own company, the SMRJ-operated portals — ミラサポplus and J-Net21 — are free, official, and a perfectly fine starting point.
If you want an LLM to read the public-call PDF and check eligibility against your business, filter case studies by industry, or pre-screen before handing things to a tax accountant, then AutonoMath's API (¥3/req, 50 req/month free without signup) is worth a try.
Tax / legal / consulting professionals
Across many clients, primary-source linkage is mandatory
If you serve 10+ client companies, citing stale amounts or already-ended programs from secondary aggregators creates real liability (景表法 / 善管注意義務 risk). You need primary-source URLs and fetch timestamps on every row.
AutonoMath ships source_url + fetched_at on every row, direct e-Gov statute links, and 1,185 enforcement cases (vendor due diligence) — all callable from Claude / ChatGPT via MCP.
Developers / LLM-agent builders
If you need API/MCP, your shortlist is short
noukaweb, hojyokin-portal, biz.stayway, J-Net21, and ミラサポplus do not publish open APIs or MCP servers as of 2026-04-26. Calling them from an AI agent means HTML scraping plus per-site Terms review.
AutonoMath ships REST + MCP (protocol 2025-06-18) + OpenAPI 3.1 + 72 tools at launch. Evaluate with 50 free req/month, then pay strictly per request — no SDK, no seats.
Update policy
- Cadence: monthly review. Each provider's public pages are re-fetched and changes reflected immediately.
- Coverage: services beyond this list will be added incrementally if they appear in user search intent (e.g., jGrants, J-LIS, J-Startup).
- Corrections: providers and users are welcome to submit corrections — [email protected] goes straight to the operator. Include a source URL and we will judge within 48 hours.
- No exaggeration: AutonoMath does not claim "industry's largest" or "No.1". Our numbers are verifiable on about.html and via SQL against
autonomath.db.
Related pages
- About AutonoMath — why we don't use aggregators, who runs it
- Pricing — five interfaces (API / MCP / LINE / Widget / advisor affiliate)
- 5-minute Quickstart — first REST + MCP call