The 6 Best AI-Powered Lead Scrapers That Deliver Quality Data

An AI-powered lead scraper finds people and company contact data for you and returns it as a list, a table or an API response. The label covers very different tools. Some read LinkedIn profiles live, some query a stored database, and one runs an AI agent per row.

Quality depends on what sits behind the tool. We checked each vendor's published price, limits and MCP support in September 2026. Where a vendor gives no price at 1M records a month, we wrote "No public 1M price" and did not multiply a small-tier rate.

We did not run a head-to-head scrape of all six. The one test we ran was a free LeadOcean count, shown below. If you already use one of these, read our Apollo, Clay, Wiza, Prospeo and ContactOut alternative pages.

TL;DR

What we evaluated

• Data source. Does the tool read live pages, query a stored index, or call other vendors? This decides freshness and how often a record is missing.
• Quality signals. Does every email carry a status you can filter on before you send?
• Access. REST API, hosted MCP server and published rate limit, on which plans.
• Cost at volume. Published list price for 1M records a month, monthly price first and billed-yearly price after it.
• Limits that bite. Seat rules, credit expiry, search caps and what a miss costs.

1. LeadOcean: best for API, agent and volume pulls

LeadOcean is a stored database, not a live scraper. It holds 693M people (366M with an email, 166M with a phone) and 67M companies behind one REST API and a hosted MCP server. There are 50 people filters and 34 company filters.

Every email carries one of 13 status values, from verified to spam_trap, so you filter quality before you send. We ran one count on 21 October 2026 with leadocean_count_leads: Director-level people in Advertising & Marketing in the US. It returned 245,637 people with a verified, catch_all_valid or catch_all email. Without an email condition the same filters match 683,895. The count cost nothing.

Plans are Free ($0, 1,000 records for life, no card), Solo $97 a month, Agency $497 a month and Platform $1,997 a month. Paid plans have a fair-use pace, not credits, so nothing expires. The app at app.leadocean.io has an Exports page with a filter builder, a column picker, a price preview and CSV download.

Pros

• One flat price: Agency is $497 a month, with 200 requests a second and 5 keys.
• Counts are free: GET /v1/companies/count and leadocean_count_leads size a list before you spend a record.
• Hosted MCP with 13 tools on every plan, Free included, with OAuth sign-in.
• Email status on every record, so you filter before sending.
• A search pages to 10,000 rows, and POST /v1/exports returns CSV for larger pulls.

Cons

• No rep workspace, sequences, dialer, CRM or Chrome extension. You bring your own sender.
• It reads a stored dataset, refreshed monthly, not a live page.
• Bulk CSV export is not on the Free plan.
• POST /v1/people/enrich takes a LinkedIn URL, email, phone or person_id, not a name plus domain.

Best for: engineers, agencies and agent builders who pull people and companies at volume.

Pricing: Free, Solo $97, Agency $497, Platform $1,997 a month (LeadOcean pricing, October 2026).

2. Apollo: best for reps who want data and outreach in one seat

Apollo pairs a large contact database with sequencing. A rep finds a person and emails them from one tool. Every plan includes API access, and Apollo runs an official MCP server at mcp.apollo.io on any plan, Free included (Apollo MCP docs, September 2026).

Credits are the catch. An email costs 1 credit and a phone number costs 8, and credits expire at the end of each billing cycle (Apollo API pricing, September 2026). Plans are per seat, so volume means more seats. See our Apollo alternative.

Pros

• Data, sequencer and dialer in one product.
• API and MCP on every plan, including Free.
• Enrichment endpoints reach 1,000 requests a minute on paid plans (Apollo rate limits, September 2026).
• Free plan with 75 credits a month to test a list (Apollo pricing, September 2026).

Cons

• Per-seat pricing makes 1M records expensive: 250 Professional seats for 1M credits.
• Credits expire each cycle and do not roll over.
• The price of an extra credit is not public.
• A phone number is 8 credits, so phone-heavy lists burn the pool fast.

Best for: sales reps who prospect and send from the same screen.

Pricing: Free; Basic $65, Professional $99 and Organization $149 per seat a month, or $49, $79 and $119 billed yearly. 1M credits is $24,750 a month on monthly billing, or $19,600 a month equivalent billed yearly (Apollo pricing, September 2026).

3. Clay: best for AI research per row

Clay is the only tool here that runs an AI agent over the open web for each row. Claygent does the research inside a table, and it is on every plan, Free included (Clay pricing, September 2026). Clay also resells many data providers on credits.

That flexibility has a cost. Clay's own doc says a fully enriched record typically costs 6 to 20 Data Credits, plus one Action per enrichment (Clay docs, September 2026). The largest self-serve tiers stop at 200,000 Actions and 50,000 Data Credits a month, so 1M lookups needs an Enterprise quote. See our Clay alternative.

Pros

• Claygent researches a company or person from the web, per row.
• Public API on every plan, with a table UI for non-engineers.
• An enrichment that returns nothing is charged no credits.
• Waterfalls across many providers in one table.

Cons

• Two meters, Actions and Data Credits, make the bill hard to predict.
• Self-serve stops at 200,000 Actions a month.
• Rate limit is per workspace and no number is published (Clay docs, September 2026).
• Free allows 100 Data Credits and 200 rows per table.

Best for: operators who want AI research and a no-code table.

Pricing: Free; Launch $185 a month ($167 billed yearly); Growth $495 a month ($446 billed yearly) (Clay pricing, September 2026). No public 1M price.

4. Wiza: best for LinkedIn and Sales Navigator lists

Wiza is a LinkedIn-first scraper. It builds lists from Sales Navigator, Recruiter or a CSV, and it says it verifies contact data at the moment of the request (Wiza homepage, October 2026). That live check is its edge on freshness.

It is sold by the seat. An API reveal deducts 2 credits for a valid email, 5 for a phone and 1 for a matched profile (Wiza docs, September 2026). The API price is not published: the API page says to book a call (Wiza API, September 2026). See our Wiza alternative.

Pros

• Live verification at request time.
• Works from LinkedIn Sales Navigator and Recruiter lists.
• Credits are charged only for emails marked valid.
• Hosted MCP server with 5 tools (Wiza MCP guide, September 2026).

Cons

• API pricing sits behind a sales call.
• The MCP server needs API access and API credits.
• API concurrency is 5 on Starter (Wiza docs, September 2026).
• Prices are per user, so a pipeline still buys a seat.

Best for: reps who build lists inside LinkedIn.

Pricing: Free; paid plans $49, $99 and $199 per user a month, or $83 and $166 billed yearly (Wiza pricing, September 2026). No public 1M price.

5. Prospeo: best for verified emails by API on a budget

Prospeo sells verified emails and mobiles with a credit price you can read. A verified email is 1 credit and a mobile is 10 credits, and a lookup with no result costs nothing (Prospeo help center, September 2026). Its hosted MCP server has 8 tools (Prospeo MCP docs, September 2026).

Credits are per seat and do not roll over. Add-ons need a paid plan and renew monthly. No single tier reaches 1M, so the cheapest public path stacks seats and the largest add-on. See our Prospeo alternative.

Pros

• Public credit prices down to $0.0166 on Pro.
• Re-enriching the same record within 90 days is free.
• Bulk enrich takes up to 50 records over REST.
• Hosted MCP server with OAuth.

Cons

• Credits expire each cycle.
• Enrich API is 5 requests a second on Starter and Growth (Prospeo rate limits, September 2026).
• A mobile costs 10 credits.
• Free-plan API access is stated differently across Prospeo's own pages.

Best for: small teams that want a readable per-email price.

Pricing: Free; Starter $49, Growth $99 and Pro $249 per user a month, or $37, $74 and $187 billed yearly. 1M credits is $14,456 a month on monthly billing (44 Pro seats plus the 350,000-credit add-on) (Prospeo pricing, September 2026).

6. ContactOut: best for LinkedIn lookups from the browser

ContactOut is a LinkedIn-first email and phone finder. It has a Chrome extension, an API and an MCP server with 15 tools (ContactOut MCP, September 2026). A rep clicks a profile and gets the contact.

Self-serve plans are one user per company, and the "unlimited" plans follow a fair-use cap of 2,000 emails and 1,000 phones per account a month (ContactOut terms, September 2026). The API has no public price and needs a meeting. Coverage claims differ by page: 350M, 600M+ and 800M profiles. See our ContactOut alternative.

Pros

• Chrome extension for one-profile lookups.
• Cheap entry: $49 a month for email on monthly billing.
• MCP server with 15 tools.
• Regional plans from $25 a month outside the US.

Cons

• One user per company on self-serve plans.
• Fair-use cap of 2,000 emails a month per account.
• API price and key need a sales meeting.
• Its own pages give three different coverage numbers.

Best for: individual reps and recruiters who work from LinkedIn.

Pricing: Email plan $49 a month ($39 billed yearly); Email + Phone $99 a month ($79 billed yearly) (ContactOut pricing, September 2026). No public 1M price.

Comparison table

How to choose

• You pull data in code or through an agent: LeadOcean. A flat price, a free count and a status on every email.
• A rep prospects and sends from one screen: Apollo.
• You want an AI agent researching each row in a table: Clay, and budget for the credits.
• You live in LinkedIn Sales Navigator: Wiza.
• You want a readable per-email credit price: Prospeo.
• You prospect one profile at a time from Chrome: ContactOut.

Size the list before you buy anything. A count call is free on LeadOcean, so you know the audience before you pay a record.

curl -X POST "https://api.leadocean.io/v1/people/search?count=true" \
  -H "x-api-key: $LEADOCEAN_API_KEY" \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -d '{"jobLevel":["Director"],"jobFunction":["Advertising & Marketing"],"country":["US"],"limit":1}'

Verdict

Pick LeadOcean if you pull people at volume through an API or an agent: it is the only one of the six with a published flat price at 1M. Pick Apollo if your reps need outreach in the same seat. Pick Clay for AI research per row, Wiza for live LinkedIn lists, Prospeo for a readable per-email price and ContactOut for one-profile lookups in Chrome. Test any of them on your own list before you commit, because coverage varies by market.

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