7 Best B2B Data Providers for Recruiters (2026)

A B2B data provider for recruiters is a source of verified work emails, personal emails and phone numbers for people you want to reach, by browser extension, API or agent. Recruiters buy one to contact candidates, and staffing agencies buy one to reach hiring managers.

Most recruiter tools bill per seat and cap lookups per person. That works for one sourcer on LinkedIn. It breaks when a team pulls thousands of contacts a week or wires data into an ATS.

This page ranks seven providers on volume, price model, API and seats. Each has its own comparison: ContactOut, RocketReach, Kaspr, Lusha, Apollo and People Data Labs. See also best B2B data providers, best B2B databases and best B2B data providers in the UK.

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

• Volume: how many lookups a month a plan allows, and whether "unlimited" has a ceiling.
• Price model: seats, credits, flat or quote, and what 1M records a month costs.
• API: whether a team can pull contacts into an ATS or a script, and which plans include it.
• Seats: whether the price grows with each recruiter, or the whole team shares one plan.
• MCP and rate limit: whether an agent can search and enrich through a hosted server, and the default throughput.

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. ContactOut: best for recruiters who source on LinkedIn in a browser

ContactOut is a LinkedIn-first email and phone finder with a Chrome extension, an API and an MCP server. It is the default tool for individual recruiters. A free account gives 5 emails, 5 phones and 5 exports a day (ContactOut pricing, September 2026).

Email is $49 a month ($39 billed yearly) for unlimited emails and 300 exports a month. Email + Phone is $99 a month ($79 billed yearly) with 600 exports. Outside the US, regional plans start at $25 a month (ContactOut pricing, September 2026). Every self-serve plan lists a one-user-per-company limit.

"Unlimited" has a ceiling. Paid plans follow a fair use policy of 2,000 email credits and 1,000 phone credits per account a month (ContactOut terms, September 2026). The Team / API plan shows Contact Us with no price, and API keys come from booking a meeting (ContactOut API docs, September 2026).

Pros

• Built for the recruiter workflow: LinkedIn profile in, email and phone out.
• A free tier a recruiter can test in a day, and cheap regional plans outside the US.
• API and a 15-tool MCP server with 600+ free credits at onboarding (ContactOut MCP, September 2026).
• A Team plan with Salesforce and ATS integrations, per its pricing page.

Cons

• One user per company on self-serve, so a team cannot add accounts to go faster.
• No public API price, and People Search runs at 60 requests a minute.
• Coverage claims disagree: 350 million, 600 million or more and 800 million profiles on different pages (ContactOut data, September 2026).

Best for: individual recruiters and small teams that work in LinkedIn and want one extension.

Pricing: Free, then Email $49 and Email + Phone $99 a month, or $39 and $79 billed yearly (ContactOut pricing, September 2026).

2. LeadOcean: best for staffing teams that pull contacts by API, agent or export

LeadOcean has no per-seat price. Solo is $97 a month for one person. Agency is $497 a month flat, with 1M enrichments a day, 25M search records a month, 200 requests a second per account and 5 API keys. A month with a hiring surge costs what a quiet month costs. Past the fair-use pace a key is slowed, not cut off.

The data is 693M people, 366M with an email and 166M with a phone number, plus 67M companies. You search with 50 people filters, including title, job level and country. Enrichment is POST /v1/people/enrich from a LinkedIn URL, email, phone or person_id. Personal email is GET /v2/people/email/personal and phones are GET /v2/people/phone. Person enrich also returns career history: past roles with dates, education and certifications, when held.

For a recruiting ops team, the app has an Exports page with a filter builder, a column picker, the record price before you start and a Download button. POST /v1/exports returns up to 50,000 rows a request. For agents, the MCP server at https://api.leadocean.io/mcp signs in with OAuth 2.1 and exposes 13 tools.

Pros

• Flat $497 a month on Agency, with no credit meter and no seat count.
• REST and MCP on every plan, including Free.
• Free counts, so you can size a talent pool before you spend a record.
• An email_status on every record, with 13 values from verified to spam_trap.

Cons

• No LinkedIn extension, ATS integration, sequencer, dialer or CRM. It returns contacts, and matching stays in your ATS or your code.
• No name plus domain lookup. Search by domain first, then enrich by person_id.
• A v2 contact call that finds nothing still costs one record, so check has_phone in search first.
• No refund for bounced emails, so read email_status before you send.

Best for: staffing and recruiting teams that build lists in code, in an agent or through exports and want a fixed bill.

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

3. RocketReach: best for small teams that want an extension plus an API

RocketReach is a contact finder with a Chrome extension, an API and outreach tools. G2 reports monthly prices of $69 for Essentials (email only), $119 for Pro (email and phone) and $209 for Ultimate (G2, September 2026). RocketReach's own pricing page was blocked by a bot check, so those are reported figures.

Monthly billing gives 100, 250 and 1,000 exports a month on the three plans, and Free gives 5 lookups. API access sits on the paid plans and is set up through the API team (RocketReach rate limits, September 2026). The docs set credit costs but no dollar price per credit.

An API lookup costs 2 credits for a professional email, 3 for a personal email and 6 for a phone (RocketReach credits, September 2026). Person lookups cap at 5,000, 20,000 and 50,000 a month on the three plans, with a global limit of 10 requests per second. The MCP server has 9 tools (RocketReach MCP docs, September 2026).

Pros

• An extension and an API on the same account.
• No credit charged when no data is found, and re-lookups of the same profile are free while the plan is active (RocketReach FAQ, September 2026).
• A 9-tool MCP server with OAuth 2.1.

Cons

• No public dollar price for API credits or for an API plan.
• 10 requests per second globally, and a highest published cap of 200,000 person lookups a month.
• Lookups can return a progress status, so you poll or register a webhook.

Best for: small recruiting teams that want an extension for daily work and an API for the rest.

Pricing: Free, then $69, $119 and $209 a month on monthly billing, reported by G2 (G2, September 2026). Annual prices could not be read, because rocketreach.co/pricing shows a bot check.

4. Kaspr: best for European recruiters on LinkedIn Recruiter Lite

Kaspr is a LinkedIn-first contact finder sold per user. Starter works on Sales Navigator, and Business adds LinkedIn Recruiter Lite (Kaspr pricing, September 2026). That is a direct fit for recruiters who already pay for LinkedIn seats.

Starter is $65 per user a month (EUR 59) and Business is $99 (EUR 99), billed monthly. Both include unlimited B2B email credits under fair use. Starter adds 100 phone credits a month and Business adds 200, plus 200 direct email credits. The page shows no annual option, and credits are pooled across the account.

Exports cap at 12,000 a year on Starter and 30,000 a year on Business. API access is on request on paid plans, not on Free. It allows 20 requests an hour and 250 a day on Starter, and 250 an hour and 500 a day on Business (Kaspr pricing, September 2026). Each API call also spends an export credit (Kaspr help center, September 2026).

Pros

• Recruiter Lite and Sales Navigator support, so recruiters search where they already work.
• Unlimited B2B email credits on paid plans, with phone and direct email on top.
• Credits roll over and are shared across the account on paid plans.

Cons

• Priced per user, so a bigger team costs more.
• The API is on request and capped at 500 requests a day on Business.
• No MCP server is listed on Kaspr's pricing page, API page or help center.
• Phone credits are 100 or 200 a month per plan, and add-on phone credits run $0.21 to $0.36 each.

Best for: European recruiters who live in LinkedIn and want phone numbers on short lists.

Pricing: Free, then $65 and $99 per user a month, billed monthly (Kaspr pricing, September 2026).

5. Lusha: best for self-serve teams that add seats as they grow

Lusha sells contact data on self-serve credit plans, with a browser extension and an API. Free and Starter include 1 seat. Pro includes 2 seats and can grow to 10, and Premium includes 5 and can grow to 25 (Lusha docs, September 2026).

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

An email costs 1 credit and a phone 5, and email plus phone through one API request is 7. Free and Starter allow 40 requests a minute and 100 a day, and Premium allows 300 a minute (Lusha API guide, September 2026). The MCP server has 50 tools on the REST credit pool (Lusha MCP docs, September 2026).

Pros

• Seats are explicit, with room to add more as the team grows.
• Every plan, Free included, gets an API key.
• A 50-tool MCP server on the same credit pool.

Cons

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

Best for: small recruiting teams that want a self-serve extension and a light API, and will add seats over time.

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. Apollo: best for agency business development with sequences

Apollo is a prospecting app with a database behind it, and sequences on the same login. It suits the business development side of a staffing agency, where reps search hiring managers and send outreach in one place. Its pricing page claims 240 million contacts and 30 million companies (Apollo pricing, September 2026).

Plans bill per seat. 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. Credits are pooled across the team and expire at the end of each cycle.

An email costs 1 credit and a phone number 8 (Apollo API pricing, September 2026). Every plan includes API access, and paid plans allow 1,000 enrichment requests a minute (Apollo developer FAQ, September 2026; Apollo rate limits, September 2026). Apollo runs an official MCP server on any plan (Apollo MCP docs, September 2026).

Pros

• Data and sequences in one app, so one login covers search and outreach.
• API and an official MCP server on the free plan.
• Enrichment limit of 1,000 requests a minute on paid plans.

Cons

• Every new person on the team is another seat, and seats cap the credits.
• 1M work emails is 250 Professional seats, which is $24,750 a month at list.
• A phone costs 8 credits, and Apollo prints no price per extra credit on the pages we could read.

Best for: staffing agencies whose business development reps prospect and sequence inside one app.

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

7. People Data Labs: best for recruiting-tech teams building on person records

People Data Labs (PDL) is a person and company data API, with no app for end users. It reports about 2.47 billion person profiles in its full dataset, 592 million with an email and 470 million with a mobile number (PDL datasets, September 2026). It fits a team building a recruiting product, not a recruiter doing daily sourcing.

Person data starts free with up to 100 credits a month and contact data obscured. The first paid plan is $98 a month for 350 credits, which is $0.28 a credit, or $78 a month billed yearly (PDL pricing, September 2026). One credit is used per profile returned, and a 404 is not billed (PDL docs, September 2026).

Person Enrichment allows 1,000 requests a minute on paid plans, but Person Search allows 10 a minute by default (PDL usage limits, September 2026). PDL's docs index lists no official MCP server (PDL llms.txt, September 2026). Self-serve is meant for volumes under about 100,000 profiles a year, and above that PDL sells through Enterprise (PDL, September 2026).

Pros

• The largest person dataset on this list by its own count.
• A clean credit rule: pay per profile returned, nothing on a miss.
• Enrichment at 1,000 requests a minute on paid plans.

Cons

• No app, extension or ATS integration. It is an API for developers.
• Person Search is 10 requests a minute by default.
• No official MCP server, and no public price at 1M.
• Contact data is obscured on the free plan.

Best for: recruiting-tech teams that build candidate search or enrichment into their own product.

Pricing: Free, then from $98 a month for 350 credits, or $78 a month billed yearly (PDL pricing, September 2026).

Comparison table

How to choose

• One recruiter sourcing on LinkedIn: ContactOut, for the extension and the free tier.
• Contacts in an ATS, a script or an agent, with a flat bill: LeadOcean.
• An extension now and an API later: RocketReach.
• LinkedIn Recruiter Lite seats in Europe: Kaspr.
• A small team that adds seats over time: Lusha.
• Staffing business development with sequences: Apollo.
• A recruiting product that needs raw person records: People Data Labs.

Verdict

ContactOut wins for recruiters who source on LinkedIn in a browser, and Kaspr for European recruiters on Recruiter Lite. LeadOcean wins for staffing teams that pull contacts through an API, an agent or exports, because Agency is a flat $497 and nothing counts per seat. Apollo wins for agency business development with sequences, Lusha for a small team that adds seats, and RocketReach for an extension with an API. People Data Labs wins for teams building their own recruiting product. Start on the free plan and run one candidate list through two of them.

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