7 Best B2B Data Providers in 2026 (Compared)

A B2B data provider sells people and company records, such as titles, work emails, phones and firmographics, through a database, an API or both. Sales teams use one to build lists. Engineers and agent builders use one to enrich records in code.

The hard parts are price and access. ZoomInfo and Cognism sell by quote. Apollo and Lusha sell credits and seats. Default rate limits run from 10 requests a minute to 200 a second. Only some providers have an MCP server that returns records.

This page ranks seven providers on those points. LeadOcean is first for readers who pull data through an API, an agent or at volume. Each rival has its own comparison: Apollo, ZoomInfo, Cognism, Lusha, People Data Labs and Crustdata. Also read best B2B databases, best B2B data providers in the UK and what enriching data means.

TL;DR

"1M records" means 1M work-email lookups that return a result, at list price. Where a vendor publishes no price at that size, we say so and do not multiply a small-plan rate.

What we evaluated

• API access: which endpoints return people and companies, and whether the free tier includes them.
• MCP: whether an agent can search and enrich, or only read docs.
• Rate limit: the default per second or minute, and what raises it.
• Price at volume: flat, credits, seats or quote, and the cost of 1M records.
• Data: stated coverage and the email and phone fields.

We ran no accuracy test, so we quote no match rates. Every figure comes from a vendor page or doc linked in its section.

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

LeadOcean holds 693M people, 366M with an email and 166M with a phone number, plus 67M companies. The data is refreshed monthly, and each record carries its own fetched_at date. You search with 50 people filters and 34 company filters. Enrichment is POST /v1/people/enrich, phones are GET /v2/people/phone, and POST /v1/exports returns up to 50,000 rows a request.

There are no credits. Solo is $97 a month for one person at 50 requests a second. Agency is $497 a month with 1M enrichments a day, 25M search records a month, 200 requests a second and 5 API keys. Reaching the fair-use pace slows the key until the window resets. Nothing stops and nothing expires.

The MCP server at https://api.leadocean.io/mcp signs in with OAuth 2.1 and exposes 13 tools, so an agent can pull records directly. Person enrich also returns career history: past roles, education and certifications.

Pros

• Agency is $497 a month flat for 1M enrichments a day, with no credit meter.
• REST and MCP on every plan, including Free.
• Free counts, and a miss on POST /v1/people/enrich is a free 404.
• An email_status on every record, with 13 values from verified to spam_trap.

Cons

• Bulk CSV export is not on Free.
• No rep workspace, sequencer, dialer, CRM or Chrome extension. The app has an Exports page, nothing more.
• No name plus domain lookup. Search by domain first, then enrich by person_id.
• No refund for bounced emails, so read email_status before you send.

Best for: engineers, RevOps teams and agents that need volume and a fixed bill.

Pricing: Free is 1,000 records for life, no card. Solo is $97 a month, Agency $497 and Platform $1,997 (LeadOcean pricing, October 2026).

2. Apollo: best for sales teams that want an app plus an API

Apollo is a prospecting app with a database behind it. Its pricing page claims 240 million contacts and 30 million companies (Apollo pricing, September 2026). The same database is reachable by API on every plan, Free included.

Plans bill per seat. Free is $0 with 75 credits a month. Basic is $65 a seat a month with 2,500 credits, Professional is $99 with 4,000 and Organization is $149 with 6,000 and a three-seat minimum. Billed yearly they are $49, $79 and $119 (Apollo pricing, September 2026). An email costs 1 credit, a phone 8 and an organization lookup 1 (Apollo API pricing, September 2026).

Credits are pooled across the team and expire at the end of each billing cycle. Paid plans allow 1,000 enrichment requests a minute and 200 search requests a minute (Apollo rate limits, September 2026). Apollo runs an official MCP server on any plan (Apollo MCP docs, September 2026).

Pros

• A full sales app, with sequences on every plan (Apollo pricing, September 2026), on the same login as the data.
• API and an official MCP server on the free plan.
• Enrichment limit of 1,000 requests a minute on paid plans.

Cons

• Seats cap the credits. 1M work emails is 250 Professional seats, which is $24,750 a month at list.
• Credits do not roll over, and the price of add-on credits is not public.
• A phone number costs 8 credits.

Best for: sales teams that want prospecting and sequencing in one app, with an API on the side.

Pricing: Free, then $65, $99 and $149 per seat a month, or $49, $79 and $119 billed yearly (Apollo pricing, September 2026).

3. ZoomInfo: best for enterprise teams that want intent data and one suite

ZoomInfo is an enterprise sales intelligence suite. Its platform plans are quoted by sales, and the vendor says most paid plans bill annually upfront (ZoomInfo, July 2026).

For code, ZoomInfo now sells GTM AI, an API, MCP server and CLI on pay-as-you-go credits. A data credit enriches or exports one company or contact. List price falls from $0.45 each to $0.25 at 100,000 credits, which is $25,000 (GTM AI pricing, September 2026). Search and lookup are free.

A record is charged once per 12 months (ZoomInfo API docs, September 2026). Rate limits are 5 requests a second on Builder, 25 on Standard and 35 on Scaling (ZoomInfo API docs, September 2026). The MCP server needs a GTM AI account or a ZoomInfo subscription with data credits (GTM AI docs, September 2026).

Pros

• Free tier of 1,000 data credits and 1,000 AI credits, with API and MCP, no card.
• A record is charged once a year, so repeat enrichment costs nothing.
• Buyer intent signals in the same suite (ZoomInfo Sales, October 2026).

Cons

• The credit slider stops at 100,000 credits. Beyond that is a quote.
• Platform prices are not public, and terms are annual.
• Free tier is limited to 5 requests a second.

Best for: enterprise sales teams that want intent signals and one login.

Pricing: GTM AI credits from $20, $0.45 down to $0.25 each. Platform plans by quote (GTM AI pricing, September 2026).

4. Cognism: best for EU outbound teams that call mobiles

Cognism sells sales prospecting with a focus on phone-verified mobiles and European data. It publishes no dollar price. The pricing page lists Standard and Pro, five seats each, and says pricing is tailored to product, team setup and usage (Cognism pricing, September 2026).

One credit reveals one contact. Each seat includes credits, more can be bought, and the same credits work in the platform, Enrich and the API. Cognism claims more than 10M phone-verified contacts and Do Not Call checks in 15 territories (Cognism Diamond Data, September 2026). It gives no total profile count, only "hundreds of millions" (Cognism FAQ, September 2026).

The API allows 500 requests a minute per account, per operation (Cognism rate limits, September 2026). The search schema has 13 person and 21 company filter fields (Cognism API reference, September 2026). The MCP server has 15 tools and OAuth 2.0 sign-in (Cognism MCP docs, September 2026).

Pros

• Phone-verified mobiles with Do Not Call checks, which suits cold calling.
• API and MCP use the same credits as the app.
• Revealing a contact twice does not cost twice.

Cons

• No public price at any size, so 1M needs a sales call.
• No published coverage count and no credit allocation per seat.
• API and MCP need a package that includes them.

Best for: EU outbound teams that call mobiles and can buy through sales.

Pricing: Quote only. Standard and Pro (Cognism pricing, September 2026).

5. Lusha: best for small sales teams on self-serve credits

Lusha sells contact data on self-serve credit plans, with a browser extension and an API. Its homepage claims more than 525 million contacts and more than 29 million companies (Lusha, September 2026). Every plan, Free included, gets an API key.

Free is $0 for 40 credits a month. Starter is $49.90 a month for 400 credits, or $37.45 billed yearly. Pro is $69.90 for 600, or $52.45 yearly. Premium is $399.90 for 3,400, or $299.95 yearly (Lusha pricing, September 2026). Scale is custom.

An email costs 1 credit and a phone 5. Email plus phone through one API request is 7 credits. Bulk calls cost 1 credit per 25 results and take up to 100 contacts a request (Lusha API guide, September 2026). Free and Starter allow 40 requests a minute and 100 a day, and Premium allows 300 a minute. The MCP server has 50 tools on the REST credit pool (Lusha MCP docs, September 2026).

Pros

• Low entry price, with a free plan and no card.
• API key and a 50-tool MCP server on the same credits.
• Data Waterfall, 2 credits per work email, on paid plans.

Cons

• The top public tier is 10,000 credits a month. 1M is about 104 times that.
• Starter and Free cap API use at 100 requests a day.
• Credits expire at the end of a yearly cycle.

Best for: small sales teams that want a self-serve extension and a light API.

Pricing: Free, then $49.90, $69.90 and $399.90 a month, or $37.45, $52.45 and $299.95 billed yearly (Lusha pricing, September 2026).

6. People Data Labs: best for licensed datasets and per-match enrichment

People Data Labs (PDL) is a long-running person and company data API with bulk licences. Its person dataset holds about 2.47 billion profiles, and 592 million of them have an email (PDL docs, September 2026).

Pro starts at $98 a month for 350 credits, which is $0.28 each. Billed yearly it is $940, or $78 a month. Free gives 100 credits a month with contact data obscured (PDL pricing, September 2026). One credit buys one match, and a 404 is free (PDL docs, September 2026).

Self-serve is meant for about 100,000 profiles, and above that PDL quotes Enterprise (PDL blog, February 2026). Enrichment allows 1,000 requests a minute on paid plans, and Person Search allows 10 (PDL docs, September 2026). PDL's docs list no official MCP server (PDL docs, September 2026).

Pros

• The largest stated dataset on this list, with licences for your own warehouse.
• Pay per match, and no charge for a 404.
• Enrichment at 1,000 requests a minute.

Cons

• $0.28 a record at the entry rate, with no public price at 1M.
• No official MCP server.
• Search defaults to 10 requests a minute.

Best for: teams that license data into a warehouse or enrich one match at a time.

Pricing: Free up to 100 credits a month. Pro from $98 a month for 350 credits (PDL pricing, September 2026).

7. Crustdata: best for live company and people data in agents

Crustdata sells real-time company and people data through APIs for search, enrichment, jobs and change watchers. Its homepage claims 1B people (Crustdata, September 2026).

The pricing page lists no plans, dollar prices or price per credit (Crustdata pricing, September 2026). The docs give credits per call (Crustdata docs, September 2026). Search is 0.03 credits a result and a work email through /person/enrich is 2 credits. A person watcher is 5 credits per changed person at the 30-day SLA.

Defaults are 15 requests a minute on enrich and 30 on search (Crustdata docs, September 2026). The hosted MCP server uses OAuth for clients and an API key for code (Crustdata docs, September 2026). The docs say credits expire 12 months after purchase, but a July 2026 Crustdata blog post says 6 (Crustdata blog, September 2026), so confirm in your dashboard.

Pros

• Live data and change watchers for signal workflows.
• Hosted MCP server with OAuth.
• Free search lookups for company identify and autocomplete.

Cons

• No public price per credit, so you cannot price 1M from the site.
• Low default rate limits.
• The contact endpoint needs an enterprise plan.

Best for: AI SDR and signal workflows that need fresh data more than raw volume.

Pricing: Credit based, no public price list (Crustdata pricing, September 2026).

Comparison table

How to choose

• Code, agents or volume: LeadOcean. Flat price, REST and MCP on every plan.
• A sales app with sequences: Apollo, if you can live with seat-based credits.
• Intent data: ZoomInfo, through sales.
• Cold calling in the EU: Cognism, for phone-verified mobiles.
• A self-serve extension on a small budget: Lusha.
• A licence into your warehouse: PDL.
• Fresh signals and change watchers: Crustdata.

Verdict

LeadOcean wins for API, agent and volume buyers. Agency is $497 a month flat, emails and phones are in every plan, and an MCP server that returns records. Apollo wins for a sales team that wants an app and sequences, at a price that scales by seat. ZoomInfo wins for enterprise signals, Cognism for EU mobiles and Lusha for a cheap self-serve start. PDL wins for licensed datasets and Crustdata for live signals. Start on the free plan and run the same lookups on any two of them.

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