Crustdata is a data API with its own index of people, companies, jobs and posts, sold on credits. LeadOcean is a people and company database you call over REST or MCP at $499 a month flat. If you mostly search, enrich and export people in volume, LeadOcean is the simpler bill. If you need live web data or change alerts, Crustdata does things LeadOcean does not.
Why teams switch from Crustdata
Credits with no public dollar price
Crustdata prices every call in credits: 0.03 per search result, 1 to 7 per person enrich. The docs list credit costs but no dollar price per credit, and say to confirm it in your dashboard (Crustdata pricing docs, September 2026). You cannot forecast a month before you talk to sales.
Low default rate limits
Person enrich is capped at 15 requests a minute and person search at 30 by default (Crustdata rate limits, September 2026). Raising live-endpoint limits is "constrained", and needs an email to Crustdata.
Contact data sits behind enterprise
/person/contact/enrich needs an enterprise or higher plan. Self-serve keys get a 403 (Crustdata docs, September 2026). LeadOcean returns emails and phones on the Free plan.
Credits can run out mid-job
At a zero balance every request returns a 402. Purchased credits expire 12 months after purchase (Crustdata credits, September 2026). A flat plan has no balance to watch.
LeadOcean vs Crustdata
| LeadOcean | Crustdata | |
|---|---|---|
| Price model | Flat monthly fee. No credits, no per-record price, no overage invoice. | Credits per call. Dollar price set by plan (Crustdata pricing docs). |
| Entry price | Free plan, 1,000 records one-off, no card. | Lowest tier starts at $95 a month (Crustdata blog, September 2026). |
| What $499 a month buys | Pro: unlimited searches, enrichments and lookups, whole database, 5 API keys. | No public plan at that price. Credits come from the dashboard package (Crustdata pricing docs). |
| Price per credit | None. | no public dollar price per credit (Crustdata pricing, September 2026) |
| Credit expiry | No credits. | Purchased credits last 12 months (Crustdata credits). |
| API access | REST on every plan, including Free. Header x-api-key. | REST with a Bearer key and an x-api-version header (Crustdata docs). |
| MCP server | Yes, OAuth 2.1, on every plan. 12 tools. | Yes, OAuth or API key, at install.crustdata.com/mcp. Tool list is published as MCP resources (Crustdata MCP docs). |
| Rate limit | 100 requests per second per key, every plan. | 15 to 30 requests a minute on person enrich and search by default (Crustdata rate limits). |
| People records | 693M. | 1B, per its homepage (crustdata.com). |
| Company records | 63M. | 60M, per its homepage (crustdata.com). Crustdata's homepage states both 60M companies and 200M+ companies, so we quote no single company count (Crustdata, September 2026). |
| People with an email | 366M. | No coverage figure published. Business email is +1 credit on enrich (Crustdata pricing docs). |
| People with a phone | 166M. | No coverage figure published. Phone is +2 credits on enrich (Crustdata pricing docs). |
| Email status values | 13, from verified to spam_trap. | 4: deliverable, catch_all, invalid, unknown (Crustdata contact docs). |
| Contact endpoints by plan | Every plan, including Free. | /person/contact/enrich needs an enterprise plan. Self-serve keys get a 403 (Crustdata contact docs). |
| Cost of a search | 1 record per person returned, inside the flat fee. | 0.03 credits per result, more for premium fields (Crustdata pricing docs). |
| Search filters | 50 people filters, 34 company filters. Counts are free. | Filters across hundreds of fields, in nested and/or groups (Crustdata search docs). |
| Bulk export | POST /v1/exports, 50,000 rows per request. | Async batch jobs, up to 10,000 people per job (Crustdata batch docs). |
| Company lookup | POST /v1/companies/enrich. | /company/enrich at 2 to 4 credits. /company/identify is free (Crustdata pricing docs). |
| Miss on a lookup | POST /v1/people/enrich returns a 404 that costs nothing. | No credits charged for an identifier with no match on contact enrich (Crustdata contact docs). |
| Live web and jobs data | No. | Yes. Job search, social posts and live web endpoints (Crustdata pricing docs). |
| Change watchers | No. | Yes. 5 credits per changed person, up to 150 for a 1-day SLA (Crustdata pricing docs). |
| Cost of a very large month | Same $499. Paced down past the fair-usage line. | Custom, through sales (Crustdata pricing page). |
| Who it suits | Engineers, RevOps and agents that need volume and a fixed bill. | Teams that want live data, signals and a wider web graph. |
Crustdata figures come from the pages linked in each cell, checked in September 2026. Credit costs are standard list prices and change by plan, so check your dashboard.
What 1M, 5M and 25M records cost
Crustdata sells credits, so cost scales with records. LeadOcean Pro stays at $499 a month. Crustdata publishes credits per call but not dollars per credit, so this table counts credits and does not convert them to dollars.
| Records a month | Crustdata, search only | Crustdata, enrich with business email | LeadOcean |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1M | 30,000 credits | 2,000,000 credits | $499 a month. |
| 5M | 150,000 credits | 10,000,000 credits | $499 a month. |
| 25M | 750,000 credits | 50,000,000 credits | $499 a month. Past fair use, one email raises the headroom. |
Arithmetic at Crustdata's list credit costs (Crustdata pricing docs, September 2026): search is 0.03 credits per result. Enrich is 1 base credit plus 1 for a business email, so 2 per person. Add 2 for a phone or 2 for a personal email and a full record is 6.
no public dollar price per credit (Crustdata pricing, September 2026). Multiply your quoted price by these credit counts to get your real Crustdata number.
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, no 402 at zero 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 more headroom.
Contact data on every plan
Emails and phones are on the Free plan, same API as Pro. Crustdata gates its dedicated contact endpoint behind enterprise. With LeadOcean you send one request and get the profile, email status and, with reveal_email, every email and phone 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}'Rate limits built for volume
100 requests per second per key is 6,000 a minute, on every plan. Crustdata's defaults are 15 and 30 a minute on enrich and search. A loop over a large list finishes in minutes, not days.
Sign-in for agents, no key pasted
Add https://api.leadocean.io/mcp to Claude or Cursor and sign in with OAuth 2.1. 12 tools cover search, counts, lookups, phone and export. Counts are free, so an agent can size an audience before it spends a record.
Where Crustdata wins
A larger people index
Crustdata claims 1B people on its homepage. LeadOcean holds 693M. If your target is a long-tail profile that only a bigger index holds, Crustdata may find it and we may not.
Live data and change alerts
Crustdata can fetch web pages and live profiles, search jobs and social posts, and watch a person or company for changes (Crustdata pricing docs, September 2026). LeadOcean is a database you query, with no watchers. If you need a signal the day it happens, use Crustdata.
Pay only for what you request
Search is 0.03 credits per result, and a lookup with no match is free. For a small team doing light, selective enrichment, that can cost less than $499 a month. Get your dollar price per credit first, then compare.
Use both: LeadOcean for volume, Crustdata for signals
You do not have to choose. Pull the bulk list from LeadOcean at a flat price, and spend Crustdata credits only on the few accounts where you need live signals or a fresher profile. This keeps your credit burn small and your volume bill fixed.
- Create a free LeadOcean key at app.leadocean.io/register. The free plan needs no card.
- Search and export your audience with
POST /v1/exports, 50,000 rows per request. Usecount_leadsfirst to size it for free. - Take the top accounts from the export and add them to a Crustdata watcher or live enrich for job changes and fresh posts.
FAQ
Is LeadOcean a full Crustdata replacement?
No. It replaces Crustdata as a people and company data source. It does not replace live web fetch, job and post search, or change watchers. If you use those, keep Crustdata.
How much does Crustdata cost?
Crustdata lists credit costs but not a dollar price per credit. A blog post from Crustdata says the lowest tier starts at $95 a month (Crustdata blog, September 2026). Confirm the credit price in your dashboard.
Does Crustdata have an MCP server?
Yes, at install.crustdata.com/mcp, with OAuth for interactive clients and an API key for code (Crustdata MCP docs, September 2026). LeadOcean's MCP server is at api.leadocean.io/mcp, OAuth 2.1, with 12 tools.
Are Crustdata's rate limits a problem?
For bulk work, yes. Defaults are 15 requests a minute on person enrich and 30 on search, and raising live limits is constrained (Crustdata rate limits, September 2026). Batch jobs of up to 10,000 people get around it, at the cost of async waits.
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: Crustdata alternatives compared, Wappalyzer alternatives, pricing.
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