Explorium sells business and prospect data through AgentSource, an API and MCP server that run on prepaid credits. LeadOcean is one dataset you call over REST or MCP for one flat monthly price. If you pull people and emails in code or through an agent, LeadOcean is the cheaper and more predictable source. If you need Explorium's company breadth and event signals, keep Explorium and use LeadOcean for the volume.
Why teams switch from Explorium
Every call spends credits, at different rates
Explorium bills usage in credits: 1 for a Generate record, 1 to 5 for an enrichment, 1 for an event (Explorium pricing, September 2026). A contact lookup costs 2 credits for email only and 5 for phone or both (Explorium docs, September 2026). You budget per call type, not per month.
Credit packs expire and do not refund
Credits are valid for 12 months and cannot roll over once expired. Packages are non-refundable (Explorium pricing, September 2026). Unused credits are money lost.
200 queries a minute by default
The default limit is 200 queries per minute per API key, and each row in a bulk request counts as a query (Explorium docs, September 2026). A 1M-row job takes about 3.5 days at that pace. More QPM is an Enterprise add-on.
Three email statuses, professional emails only
The contact endpoint returns valid, invalid or catch-all, and lists professional email and phone numbers (Explorium docs, September 2026). Risky, role and spam-trap addresses are not split out.
LeadOcean vs Explorium
| LeadOcean | Explorium | |
|---|---|---|
| Price model | Flat monthly fee. No credits, no per-record price, no overage invoice. | Prepaid credit packages (Explorium pricing). |
| Entry price | Free plan, 1,000 records one-off, no card. | Free trial with 100 credits for 90 days. Lite is $29.99 for 500 credits (Explorium pricing). |
| What the money buys | Pro at $499 a month: unlimited searches, enrichments and lookups, whole database, 5 API keys. | Growth is $749.99 for 30K credits (Explorium pricing). That is 15,000 email lookups at 2 credits, or 6,000 with phone at 5 (Explorium docs). |
| Cost per credit | None. | $0.06 on Lite down to $0.015 on Scale (Explorium pricing). |
| Credit expiry | None. | 12 months, no rollover, non-refundable (Explorium pricing). |
| API access | REST on every plan, including Free. | AgentSource v2 at api.explorium.ai, API key in a header (Explorium docs). |
| MCP server | Yes, OAuth 2.1, on every plan. 12 tools. | Yes, API key auth, 11 tools (Explorium MCP docs). |
| Rate limit | 100 requests per second per key, every plan. | 200 queries per minute per key, each bulk row counts as one (Explorium docs). |
| Records | 693M people, 63M companies, one dataset. | Claims 767M+ professional profiles and 146M+ business entities (Explorium). |
| Email status on every record | Yes. 13 status values, from verified to spam_trap. | Three values: valid, invalid, catch-all (Explorium docs). |
| Personal emails | GET /v2/people/email/personal. | Output lists professional email only (Explorium docs). |
| Phone numbers | 166M people with a phone number. GET /v2/people/phone. | Mobile and other phones, 5 credits per lookup (Explorium docs). |
| Cost of an email lookup | One record. reveal_email costs nothing extra. | 2 credits for email only, 5 with phone (Explorium docs). |
| Bulk per request | POST /v1/exports, 50,000 rows per request. | Up to 50 IDs per sync call. Async jobs take up to 10,000 records (Explorium docs). |
| Search filters | 50 people filters, 34 company filters. | 25 prospect filters and 22 business filter parameters (Fetch Prospects docs, October 2026; Fetch Businesses docs, October 2026). |
| Free counts | count_leads and list_filters cost nothing. | Statistics tools on the MCP server are free (Explorium MCP docs). |
| Company data | POST /v1/companies/enrich, 63M companies. | 17 business enrichments, including firmographics, technographics and website traffic (Explorium docs). |
| Events and signals | No. Export and API. | Yes. 15+ event categories, enrollments and webhooks (Explorium docs). |
| Intent data | No. | Bombora intent filters on fetch tools, 2 credits per result (Explorium MCP docs). |
| List builder UI | No. API, MCP and CSV export. | Yes. The Generate tool builds and downloads lists (Explorium docs). |
| Miss on a lookup | A 404 on POST /v1/people/enrich costs nothing. | Not published. The docs return a MISS status when nothing matches but do not say whether it costs credits (Explorium docs, October 2026). |
| Cost of a very large month | Same $499. Paced down past the fair-usage line. | Enterprise, custom quote with volume discounts and more QPM (Explorium pricing). |
| Who it suits | Engineers, RevOps and agents that need volume and a fixed bill. | Teams that want company breadth, events and intent in one vendor. |
Explorium figures come from explorium.ai and developers.explorium.ai, checked in September 2026. Explorium changes packages and docs often, so check the pricing page before you buy.
What 1M, 5M and 25M records cost
Explorium prices per call in credits, so cost scales with volume. LeadOcean Pro stays at $499 a month. The Explorium columns are list price at the cheapest rate on the page, $0.015 per credit on the Scale package, so a volume quote could come in lower.
| Records | Explorium, email only (2 credits) | Explorium, email and phone (5 credits) | LeadOcean |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1M | $30,000 | $75,000 | $499 a month. |
| 5M | $150,000 | $375,000 | $499 a month. |
| 25M | $750,000 | $1,875,000 | $499 a month. Past fair use, one email raises the headroom. |
Explorium arithmetic: records x credits per record x $0.015 per credit, at list price and before any Enterprise discount (Explorium pricing, September 2026; Explorium docs, September 2026). For 1M email lookups that is 2M credits, or four Scale packages at $7,499.99.
Explorium packages are one-off purchases, and LeadOcean's $499 is monthly. A single 1M pull in one month still favors LeadOcean by a wide margin. Plain search-and-fetch at 1 credit per result halves the email-only column.
The rate limit matters as much as the price. At 200 queries a minute, 1M rows take 5,000 minutes and 25M rows take about 87 days, unless Enterprise adds QPM (Explorium docs, September 2026).
Your numbers
List rate times volume, if Explorium sold that volume at that rate. Change the inputs to your own quote.
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 to watch, no pack that expires and no overage invoice. A very large month is paced down to one request a minute until the reset, not cut off, and one email to support gets you more headroom.
Rate limits built for volume
100 requests per second per key is 6,000 a minute, on every plan, including Free. Explorium's default is 200 queries a minute, with every bulk row counted. A loop over a large list finishes in minutes, not days.
One schema with 13 email statuses
Every record carries an email status with 13 values, from verified and catch_all_valid to risky, role and spam_trap. You can mail the safe ones and drop the rest. Personal emails and 166M phone numbers sit in the same dataset.
Free counts and a free plan that shows the data
Sizing an audience costs nothing. The search below returns meta.total, capped at 100,000, for no records when limit is 1. The Free plan gives you 1,000 records, one-off, with no card, on the same API and MCP server as Pro.
curl "https://api.leadocean.io/v1/people/search?jobLevel=VP&country=CA&limit=1&count=true" \
-H "x-api-key: $LEADOCEAN_API_KEY"For Claude or Cursor, add the MCP URL https://api.leadocean.io/mcp and sign in with OAuth. No key gets pasted into a chat. The server has 12 tools, and count_leads sizes an audience for free before you pull a row.
Where Explorium wins
More companies and a larger profile count
Explorium claims 146M+ business entities and 767M+ professional profiles (Explorium, September 2026). LeadOcean holds 63M companies and 693M people. On company count Explorium is more than twice the size, and on profiles it is ahead. If you work long-tail or international accounts, test match rates on your own list in both.
Events, signals and intent
Explorium tracks 15+ event categories such as funding rounds, hiring, mergers and product launches. You can enroll a business or prospect and receive webhooks (Explorium docs, September 2026). It also offers Bombora intent filters. LeadOcean has no event stream, so a signal-driven workflow belongs in Explorium.
Business enrichments and a list UI
Explorium offers 17 business enrichments, including technographics, financial indicators, website traffic and company hierarchies. The Generate tool lets a non-coder build and download a list. LeadOcean is an API, MCP and CSV export, with no builder screen.
Use both: LeadOcean for volume, Explorium for signals
You do not have to choose. Pull the bulk list from LeadOcean at a flat price, and spend Explorium credits only on the accounts where you need events, intent or a company enrichment. That 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.
- Size your audience with
count_leads, which is free. Then pull it withPOST /v1/people/searchandPOST /v1/exports, 50,000 rows per request. - Take the top accounts from the export, match them in Explorium by domain, and enroll them for events. Only those rows spend credits.
FAQ
Is LeadOcean a full Explorium replacement?
No. It replaces Explorium as a people and company data source, not as a signals platform. If you need events, intent data or the Generate list builder, keep Explorium. If you only need people, companies and emails in code or an agent, LeadOcean is enough.
How much does Explorium cost?
Explorium sells credit packages. Lite is $29.99 for 500 credits, Starter $149.99 for 5K, Growth $749.99 for 30K and Scale $7,499.99 for 500K. Enterprise is custom (Explorium pricing, September 2026). Credits are valid for 12 months.
Does Explorium have an API and an MCP server?
Yes to both. The AgentSource v2 API lives at api.explorium.ai, and the MCP server has 11 tools and uses an API key (Explorium MCP docs, September 2026). LeadOcean's MCP server has 12 tools and signs in with OAuth 2.1.
What is Explorium's API rate limit?
The default is 200 queries per minute per API key, counted per row in bulk calls. Going over returns a 429 with a 60-second retry (Explorium docs, September 2026). LeadOcean allows 100 requests per second per key on every plan.
Which has more records, LeadOcean or Explorium?
Explorium claims 146M+ businesses and 767M+ professional profiles (Explorium, September 2026). LeadOcean has 63M companies and 693M people. Explorium is bigger on both. Run your own list through each before you decide.
What does LeadOcean cost, and do I need a card?
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, and support can raise the headroom.
Related: Swordfish alternative, SalesIntel alternative, Ocean.io alternative, pricing. Back to all alternatives.
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