Cognism is a sales intelligence platform built around phone-verified mobiles and European compliance. LeadOcean is a data API and MCP server with one flat public price. If you pull records in code or through an agent, LeadOcean is the simpler buy. If your reps live in a dialer and call Europe, Cognism is built for that.
Why teams switch from Cognism
The price is a quote, not a number
Cognism says its pricing is tailored to product, team setup and usage, and the pricing page shows no dollar amounts (Cognism pricing, September 2026). You cannot size a 1M-record job before a sales call.
Credits and seats gate every reveal
A credit reveals, enriches or exports one contact, and each seat comes with an allocation (Cognism pricing, September 2026). Volume jobs are a credit-planning exercise, not a request loop.
API access depends on your package
Cognism's docs say you need an account on a package that includes API access. Existing customers ask their account team to upgrade (Cognism docs, September 2026).
A seat-based product for a code-based job
Cognism is sold to revenue teams that work in its app, with five seats on each plan (Cognism pricing, September 2026). A pipeline or an agent has no seat. It needs a key.
LeadOcean vs Cognism
| LeadOcean | Cognism | |
|---|---|---|
| Price model | Flat monthly fee. No credits, no per-record price, no overage invoice. | Custom quote. Credits allocated per seat (Cognism pricing). |
| Public price | $499 a month for Pro. | None published. Standard and Pro plans are listed without prices (Cognism pricing). |
| Free plan | 1,000 records, one-off, no card. | Not listed on the pricing page (Cognism pricing). |
| Seats | Not seat-based. 5 API keys on Pro. | 5 seats included on Standard and on Pro (Cognism pricing). |
| Credits | None. | One credit reveals, enriches or exports a contact. Re-viewing a revealed contact is free (Cognism pricing). |
| API access | REST on every plan, including Free. | Listed under Standard. Needs a package with API access (Cognism pricing; docs). |
| API auth | x-api-key header. | OAuth 2.0 client credentials, created under Settings, M2M Connect (Cognism docs). |
| MCP server | Yes, OAuth 2.1, on every plan. 12 tools. | Yes. Same capabilities as the API, for Claude, ChatGPT and Cursor (Cognism docs). |
| Rate limit | 100 requests per second per key, every plan. | Cognism allows 500 requests a minute per account, per operation (search, count and dictionary), in a 60-second window, and sets higher limits per package (Cognism rate limits, September 2026). |
| Search page size | Up to 100 per page. | Cognism search returns 1 to 100 records a page, default 50, with cursor pagination up to 100,000 records per journey (Cognism pagination, September 2026). The current docs describe no preview limit. |
| People records | 693M people, one dataset. | "Hundreds of millions" of company and contact profiles. No exact count (Cognism FAQ). |
| Company records | 63M companies. | No company count published (Cognism FAQ). |
| Email coverage | 366M people with an email. | No email count published (Cognism FAQ). |
| Phone coverage | 166M people with a phone number. | 10M+ phone-verified contacts (Cognism Diamond Data). |
| Phone verification | No phone-call verification. | Yes. Staff call the number to confirm the right person answers (Cognism Diamond Data). |
| Search filters | 50 people filters, 34 company filters. | The Cognism people search schema has 13 person filter fields and 21 company filter fields, 34 in all (Cognism API reference, September 2026). |
| Technology filters | Yes. 105 tech categories. | Yes, on Standard (Cognism pricing). |
| Intent data | No. | Yes, on Pro (Cognism pricing). |
| Do-Not-Call checks | No. | Says it cross-references Do Not Call lists in 15 territories (Cognism Diamond Data). |
| Bulk export | POST /v1/exports, 50,000 rows per request. | CSV enrichment on Standard. An export uses a credit per contact (Cognism pricing). |
| CRM integrations | Export and API. | Salesforce, HubSpot and Pipedrive (Cognism). |
| Miss on a lookup | A 404 that costs nothing. | Not stated on the pages checked. |
| Cost of a very large month | Same $499. Paced down past the fair-usage line. | Custom quote (Cognism pricing). |
| Who it suits | Engineers, RevOps and agents that need volume and a fixed bill. | Sales teams that dial mobiles, especially in Europe (Cognism). |
Cognism figures come from the pages linked in each cell, checked in September 2026. Cognism changes packages often, so check before you buy.
What 1M, 5M and 25M records cost
Cognism publishes no price per credit or per plan, so there is no list-price number to multiply. We will not invent one. LeadOcean Pro is $499 a month at any volume.
| Records a month | Cognism | LeadOcean |
|---|---|---|
| 1M | Custom quote. No public price. | $499 a month. About $0.0005 a record. |
| 5M | Custom quote. No public price. | $499 a month. About $0.0001 a record. |
| 25M | Custom quote. No public price. | $499 a month. About $0.00002 a record. Past fair use, one email raises the headroom. |
LeadOcean arithmetic: $499 divided by records in the month, before fair-usage pacing. A very large month is paced down to one request a minute until the reset, not cut off.
Cognism publishes no price at any volume, so 1M, 5M and 25M credits are a quote only (Cognism pricing, September 2026). Ask for a quote at your volume and compare it with $499.
Where LeadOcean wins
A price you can read
Pro is $499 a month. Every person or company returned counts as a record, but there is no credit balance and no overage invoice. You can budget a 25M-record job before you talk to anyone.
Built for code and agents
Every plan, including Free, gets the REST API and the MCP server. One request returns a profile, email status and, with reveal_email, every email and phone number we hold, for one record.
curl -X POST "https://api.leadocean.io/v1/people/enrich" \
-H "x-api-key: $LEADOCEAN_API_KEY" \
-H "content-type: application/json" \
-d '{"linkedin_url":"https://www.linkedin.com/in/jane-doe","reveal_email":true}'For Claude or Cursor, add https://api.leadocean.io/mcp and sign in with OAuth. No key gets pasted into a chat. Cognism also has an MCP server, so this is a pricing and access difference, not a feature gap.
Volume, counts and export
Search people with 50 filters and companies with 34, across 254 countries and 534 industries. Counts are free. Export up to 50,000 rows per request with POST /v1/exports, so a 1M-row pull is 20 calls over two days.
Self-serve from minute one
Sign up with a work email, copy a key and send a request. No quote, no package check, no account team. The free plan has 1,000 records and needs no card.
Where Cognism wins
Phone-verified mobiles
Cognism calls numbers and confirms the right person picks up, and it claims 10M+ phone-verified contacts (Cognism Diamond Data, September 2026). LeadOcean holds 166M people with a phone number, but we do not verify them by phone. For a dialing team, Cognism's verified mobiles are the reason to pay.
European focus and compliance
Cognism positions itself as Europe's most trusted B2B data, states GDPR and CCPA compliance, and says it cross-references Do Not Call lists in 15 territories (Cognism, September 2026; Diamond Data). LeadOcean has no DNC scrubbing. If you cold-call in the EU, that matters.
Sales workflow and intent
Cognism ships an app with intent data on Pro, AI company research, an AI persona builder and native Salesforce, HubSpot and Pipedrive integrations (Cognism pricing, September 2026). LeadOcean is data only. Reps who want a prospecting UI should stay.
Use both: LeadOcean for volume, Cognism for the dial list
You do not have to choose. Use LeadOcean to find and enrich accounts and people at volume in code. Spend Cognism credits only on the short list your reps will phone.
- Create a free LeadOcean key at app.leadocean.io/register. The free plan needs no card.
- Pull your target accounts and titles with
GET /v1/people/searchorPOST /v1/exports, and keep the mailable records. Email them or load them into your sequencer. - Send only the contacts that reply or score high to Cognism to reveal verified mobiles, so credits go to people worth a call.
FAQ
Is LeadOcean a full Cognism replacement?
No. It replaces Cognism as a data source for code and agents. If your team needs phone-verified mobiles, DNC checks or a prospecting app, keep Cognism. If you need people, companies and emails at volume, LeadOcean is enough.
How much does Cognism cost?
Cognism does not publish a price. Its pricing page lists Standard and Pro, each with 5 seats, and asks you to speak to an expert (Cognism pricing, September 2026). Get a written quote before you compare.
Does Cognism have an API or an MCP server?
Yes to both. API access needs a package that includes it, and the MCP server exposes the same capabilities to Claude, ChatGPT and Cursor (Cognism docs, September 2026). Auth is OAuth 2.0 client credentials.
Is LeadOcean's database bigger than Cognism's?
Cognism says "hundreds of millions" of profiles and gives no total (Cognism FAQ, September 2026). LeadOcean has 693M people and 63M companies. Cognism leads on phone-verified mobiles.
What does LeadOcean cost, and is there a limit?
Free gives you 1,000 records, one-off, with no card. Pro is $499 a month, flat, with no credits and no per-record price. Past the fair-usage line a very large month is paced down, and support can raise the headroom.
Do I need a credit card to try it?
No. The free plan needs a work email and no card, and it has the same API and MCP server as Pro. Your 1,000 records last until you spend them.
Related: Cognism alternatives compared, Cognism API alternatives, Wappalyzer alternatives, pricing. Back to all alternatives.
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