ContactOut is a LinkedIn-first email and phone finder with a Chrome extension, an API and an MCP server. LeadOcean is a data API with a hosted MCP server and a flat price. If you pull data in code or through an agent, LeadOcean is cheaper to start and easier to scale. If your team works in the browser, ContactOut fits better.
Why teams switch from ContactOut
The API has no public price
The pricing page lists Free, Email and Email + Phone, then "Team / API: Contact Us" (ContactOut pricing, September 2026). You cannot budget an API pull before a sales call.
"Unlimited" plans have a ceiling
Paid unlimited plans cap at 2,000 email credits and 1,000 phone credits per account per month (ContactOut terms, September 2026). Self-serve plans are one user per company and cap exports at 300 or 600 a month (ContactOut pricing, September 2026).
Rate limits that fit a person, not a pipeline
People Search runs at 60 requests a minute. Most other endpoints allow 1,000 a minute (ContactOut API docs, September 2026). That is a person clicking, not a worker queue.
The data claims disagree with each other
The homepage says 800 million people profiles, the API block says 350 million contact details, and the MCP page says 600 million or more (ContactOut homepage, September 2026; ContactOut MCP, September 2026). Ask which number your plan reaches.
LeadOcean vs ContactOut
| LeadOcean | ContactOut | |
|---|---|---|
| Price model | Flat monthly fee. No credits, no per-record price, no overage invoice. | Monthly seat plans, credits in the API (ContactOut pricing; API docs). |
| Entry price | Free plan, 1,000 records one-off, no card. | Free plan: 5 emails, 5 phones and 5 exports a day (ContactOut pricing). |
| Paid self-serve | Pro: $499 a month, unlimited searches, enrichments and lookups. | Email $49 a month ($39 a month billed yearly). Email + Phone $99 a month ($79 a month billed yearly). Global coverage, monthly billing (ContactOut pricing). |
| API price | Same $499. REST on every plan, including Free. | Not published. Team / API is Contact Us (ContactOut pricing). ContactOut publishes no API price. The pricing page shows Contact Us for Team / API and the API docs say to book a meeting to get a key (ContactOut pricing; ContactOut API docs). |
| MCP server | Yes, OAuth 2.1, on every plan. 12 tools. | Yes, https://contactout.com/mcp, 15 tools, OAuth (ContactOut MCP). |
| MCP free allowance | The full 1,000 free records. | 600+ free MCP credits at onboarding (ContactOut MCP). |
| Rate limit | 100 requests per second per key, every plan. | People Search 60 a minute, checkers 150, others 1,000 (ContactOut API docs). |
| People records | 693M. | 800 million profiles (ContactOut data). |
| Company records | 63M. | 40M (ContactOut data). |
| Email coverage | 366M people with an email. | 150M personal and 200M work emails (ContactOut data). |
| Phone coverage | 166M people with a phone number. | 100M direct dials (ContactOut data). |
| Email status on every record | Yes. 13 status values, from verified to spam_trap. | "Triple-verified with 99% confidence" is a claim. Verifier endpoints are separate (ContactOut data; API docs). |
| Bulk export | POST /v1/exports, 50,000 rows per request. | 300 or 600 exports a month on self-serve. Bulk contact info takes 1,000 profiles per request (ContactOut pricing; API docs). |
| Search filters | 50 people filters, 34 company filters. | 20+ searchable fields (ContactOut homepage). |
| Count before you pull | count_leads, free. | People Count, no credits (API docs). |
| Company lookup | POST /v1/companies/enrich, 63M companies. | POST /v1/domain/enrich, 30 domains per request (API docs). |
| Users and keys | 5 API keys on Pro. | One user per company on self-serve plans (ContactOut pricing). |
| Fair use | Pro is paced down past the fair-usage line, not cut off. | 2,000 email and 1,000 phone credits per account per month on unlimited plans (ContactOut terms). |
| Miss on a lookup | A 404 that costs nothing. | Credits charged when an email or phone is found (API docs). |
| Chrome extension | No. | Yes. Core product (ContactOut homepage). |
| Email campaigns | No. Export and send elsewhere. | Yes, multi-stage campaigns (ContactOut homepage). |
| Who it suits | Engineers, RevOps and agents that need volume and a fixed bill. | Recruiters and reps who work from LinkedIn in a browser. |
ContactOut figures come from the pages linked in each cell, checked in September 2026. ContactOut changes plans and promotional prices often, so check before you buy.
What 1M, 5M and 25M records cost
ContactOut publishes no API price, so there is no list-price maths to do. We compare what each plan can deliver instead. The table shows months of ContactOut self-serve capacity needed, not a price.
| Records | ContactOut self-serve | ContactOut API | LeadOcean |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1M | 500 account-months at the 2,000-email ceiling. | Quote only. | $499 a month. |
| 5M | 2,500 account-months. | Quote only. | $499 a month. |
| 25M | 12,500 account-months. | Quote only. | $499 a month. Past fair use, one email raises the headroom. |
Arithmetic: 1M records / 2,000 emails a month = 500 months, before phone credits (ContactOut terms, September 2026). Self-serve plans are one user per company, so you cannot add accounts to go faster. Volume means the Team / API plan, priced on request.
Where LeadOcean wins
A flat bill at any volume
Pro is $499 a month. Every person or company returned counts as a record, but there is no credit balance and no overage invoice. A very large month is paced down to one request a minute until the reset, not cut off. One email to support gets you more headroom.
A price you can read before you talk to anyone
Both plans are on the pricing page: Free and Pro. The free plan has the same API and MCP server as Pro, so you can test a full pull before you pay.
Built for code and agents
Rate limits are 100 requests per second per key on every plan. 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.
More companies, bigger exports
LeadOcean holds 63M companies against ContactOut's 40M, and 50 people filters plus 34 company filters 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.
Where ContactOut wins
A bigger people dataset
ContactOut claims 800 million people profiles. LeadOcean holds 693M. If raw profile count is your test, ContactOut is ahead (ContactOut data, September 2026). Its personal email count is also a line LeadOcean does not publish.
The Chrome extension and search portal
ContactOut works where recruiters and reps already are: LinkedIn, in a browser, with a free tier of 5 emails a day. LeadOcean has no extension and no portal. A non-technical team should start in ContactOut (ContactOut homepage, September 2026).
Campaigns, dialer and ATS links
ContactOut ships email campaigns, a cloud phone dialer and a Salesforce and ATS integration on its Team plan (ContactOut pricing, September 2026). LeadOcean is data only.
Use both: ContactOut in the browser, LeadOcean in the pipeline
Keep ContactOut for one-off lookups by reps and recruiters. Send every bulk or automated pull to LeadOcean, and only fall back to ContactOut for rows LeadOcean cannot fill.
- Create a free LeadOcean key at app.leadocean.io/register. The free plan needs no card.
- Point your pipeline or agent at
POST /v1/people/enrichor the MCP URL, and size each audience with the freecount_leadsfirst. - Route rows with no email or a status other than
verifiedto ContactOut by hand, in the extension, and keep the rest in code.
FAQ
What is the best ContactOut API alternative?
For volume in code or an agent, LeadOcean: one flat price, REST and MCP on every plan, and a free plan to test. For a browser extension workflow, ContactOut is still the better tool.
Does ContactOut have an API and an MCP server?
Yes to both. The API has rate limits of 60 requests a minute on People Search and 1,000 a minute on most other endpoints (API docs, September 2026). The MCP server has 15 tools (ContactOut MCP, September 2026).
How much does the ContactOut API cost?
ContactOut does not publish it. The pricing page says Contact Us for Team / API (ContactOut pricing, September 2026). Self-serve plans start at $49 a month ($39 billed yearly) but carry export and credit ceilings.
Is ContactOut really unlimited?
Not on volume. Unlimited plans are capped at 2,000 email and 1,000 phone credits per account per month (ContactOut terms, September 2026).
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 instead of cut off.
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: ContactOut alternatives compared, ContactOut API alternatives, Wappalyzer alternatives, pricing. Back to all alternatives.
Stop asking for an API quote. Start free.
Free to start. No credit card. 1,000 records to spend whenever you like.
Get your free API key →