6 Best B2B Databases for Kenya and East Africa in 2026

A B2B database for Kenya is a source of business contacts and companies located in Kenya, with enough email and phone depth to build a real list for Nairobi, Mombasa and the rest of the country. Sales teams, agencies and data engineers who sell into East Africa's digital economy need one. Most global vendors do not print a Kenya figure.

Only People Data Labs prints one. ZoomInfo prints an Africa total. Lusha prints worldwide totals only, and Apollo and Cognism print nothing. So we ran a free count on LeadOcean and give you a test to run on the rest.

This page ranks six databases on Kenya alone, with list prices checked in September 2026. For wider reading see best B2B data providers for Africa, best B2B databases for Nigeria and best phone number databases for the Middle East and Africa. Each rival has its own page: Lusha, ZoomInfo, Apollo, People Data Labs and Cognism.

TL;DR

"1M records" means 1M work-email lookups that return a result, at list price.

What we evaluated

• Published Kenya coverage: a figure for Kenya, or for Africa, with a source we can link.
• Free coverage test: whether you can size a Kenya audience, or test your own list, before you pay.
• Email and phone depth: whether a figure counts contacts with a usable email or only profiles.
• API and MCP: whether a script or an agent can pull Kenya records directly.
• Price at volume: flat, credits, seats or quote, and the cost of 1M records.

We ran our own count on LeadOcean on 2026-10-21. We ran no query on the rivals, so we print no hit rates for them. Vendor figures are vendor claims, and each vendor counts a "contact" its own way.

The test to run before you pay

Take 25 contacts you really sell to in Kenya: a bank in Nairobi, a logistics firm in Mombasa, a fintech in Westlands. Use your own list, not ours. Run them through each free tier below and count how many return a work email, then a phone.

Free tiers are enough: Lusha Free gives 40 credits a month, Apollo 75, ZoomInfo GTM AI 1,000 data credits and LeadOcean 1,000 records for life. Record the hit rate per tool before you read a single price.

1. LeadOcean: best for API and agent buyers

LeadOcean holds 693M people and 67M companies. We ran leadocean_count_leads and leadocean_count_companies on 2026-10-21, which spend no records. Kenya has 1,753,906 people across all email statuses. 105,140 of them are mailable, meaning verified, catch-all valid or catch-all. 16,237 people in Kenya have a phone number.

The seniority split is useful for outbound. 5,050 mailable people sit at jobLevel C-Team. They work at 3,106 distinct companies. On the company side, 53,568 companies are headquartered in Kenya, and 40,129 of them have 1 to 10 employees. Top industries by mailable people are Financial Services (8,305), Non-profit Organizations (7,979), Utilities (5,324), Telecommunications (5,253) and Banking (5,028).

The shape matters. Kenya is heavy in non-profits, development bodies and banks, and thin in phones: 16,237 is about 1% of the Kenya people count. Plan on email first. The REST call below sizes an audience for free, with count=true as a query parameter.

curl -X POST "https://api.leadocean.io/v1/people/search?count=true&limit=1" \
  -H "x-api-key: $LEADOCEAN_API_KEY" \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -d '{"country": ["KE"], "jobLevel": ["C-Team"], "emailStatus": ["verified", "catch_all_valid", "catch_all"]}'

GET /v1/companies/count sizes a Kenya company list the same way. The MCP server at https://api.leadocean.io/mcp exposes 13 tools, including the free leadocean_count_leads and leadocean_count_companies, and signs in with OAuth 2.1.

Pros

• A free, exact count for Kenya, with email status, seniority and industry breakdowns.
• Agency is $497 a month flat, with 200 requests a second, 5 keys and no credit meter.
• REST and MCP on every plan, including Free.
• Search by country, title, seniority and industry in one call.

Cons

• No rep workspace, sequencer, dialer or CRM.
• Phones are thin in Kenya (16,237 people), and v2 contact lookups cost a record even on a miss.
• Free is 1,000 records for life with no bulk CSV export, so a large pull needs Solo or Agency.

Best for: engineers, agencies and agents that sell into Kenya at volume and want 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. Lusha: best for small batches with email and phone

Lusha prints no Kenya figure. Its data page shows worldwide totals only: 515M+ contacts, 29M+ companies and 165M+ verified emails (Lusha data page, October 2026). Kenya is untested until you try it.

An email costs 1 credit and a phone 5 (Lusha API docs, September 2026). The MCP server has 50 tools and shares the API credit pool (Lusha MCP docs, September 2026).

Kenya test. Lusha Free gives 40 credits a month, so you can look up 25 Kenyan contacts and read the hit rate yourself. API search is capped at 100 requests a day on Free.

Pros

• Email, phone and company data in one lookup.
• Every plan includes an API key, Free included.
• MCP server with 50 tools.

Cons

• Credits stop at a small plan: Premium tops out at 10,000 a month, and 1M work emails by bulk API is 1,040,000 credits.
• No public 1M price, and Scale is custom.
• No Kenya figure on its data page.

Best for: small teams that look up Kenyan contacts in batches.

Pricing: Free $0 for 40 credits a month. Starter $49.90 a month ($37.45 billed yearly). Pro $69.90 ($52.45). Premium $399.90 ($299.95) (Lusha pricing, September 2026).

3. ZoomInfo: best for African mobile numbers

ZoomInfo prints no Kenya figure. It is the only provider here that lists African mobiles: 824K+ companies, 18.1M+ contacts and 2.8M+ mobiles for the continent (ZoomInfo data page, October 2026). Kenya sits somewhere inside that total.

Its pay-as-you-go product, GTM AI, sells data credits from $20. A credit costs $0.45 at 100 credits and $0.25 at 100,000. Search and lookup are free, and a record is charged once per 12 months (GTM AI pricing, September 2026; GTM AI docs, September 2026).

Kenya test. GTM AI Free includes 1,000 data credits, no card. Because search is free, run your Kenya filters first and spend credits only on the rows you keep. The official MCP server works with Claude, ChatGPT and Cursor (GTM AI docs, September 2026).

Pros

• Published African figures for companies, contacts and mobiles.
• Free search, with a record charged once a year.
• Official MCP server and a free tier with API access.

Cons

• No Kenya-only number, so your first Kenya figure comes from your own test.
• The public slider stops at 100,000 credits, so 1M is an Enterprise talk.
• Free and Builder API access is 5 requests a second (GTM AI rate limits, September 2026).

Best for: teams that need African mobile numbers and accept a sales call at volume.

Pricing: GTM AI pay as you go from $20, with 1,000 free data credits at signup (GTM AI pricing, September 2026).

4. Apollo: best for reps who also need sequences and a dialer

Apollo prints no Kenya figure that we could find. You can measure Kenya yourself, because Apollo's people search costs 0 credits and returns a total_entries count (Apollo API docs, September 2026). Filter with person_locations[] set to Kenya.

An email costs 1 credit and a phone 8, and credits are per seat (Apollo API pricing, September 2026). Paid plans allow 1,000 enrichment calls a minute (Apollo rate limits, September 2026).

Kenya test. Apollo Free gives 75 credits a month and an API key. Search Kenya, read total_entries, then spend credits on your own 25 contacts. The official MCP server is at mcp.apollo.io and works on any plan (Apollo MCP docs, September 2026).

Pros

• Free, countable search by location.
• Sequences, dialer and rep workspace in one product.
• Official MCP server on every plan, Free included.

Cons

• No published Kenya figure, so the first number comes from your own test.
• A phone costs 8 credits, and 1M emails needs about 250 seats.
• Credits expire each billing cycle and do not roll over.

Best for: sales reps who want Kenya search and outreach in one workspace.

Pricing: Basic $65 per seat a month ($49 billed yearly), Professional $99 ($79), Organization $149 ($119, three seats minimum) (Apollo pricing, September 2026).

5. People Data Labs: best for licensed profiles

People Data Labs (PDL) publishes records by country for its resume dataset. It lists 3,472,275 for Kenya, against 10,847,088 for South Africa and 6,970,731 for Nigeria (PDL country stats, October 2026). PDL says the dataset has a rate of duplication.

These are profiles, not mailable contacts. Globally, 592,376,573 of 2,466,510,427 profiles carry an email, about 24% (PDL dataset stats, September 2026). Expect the Kenya email share to be a fraction of 3,472,275.

Kenya test. PDL Free gives up to 100 credits a month, but contact data is obscured. Use it to test match rate on your 25 contacts, not emails. Person Search allows 10 requests a minute, and each record returned is one credit (PDL usage limits, September 2026).

Pros

• A published Kenya count, from a country table.
• Dataset licences for your own warehouse.
• Enrichment allows 1,000 calls a minute on paid plans.

Cons

• The Kenya count is profiles, with duplicates, not contacts with emails.
• No official MCP server in its docs index (PDL docs, September 2026).
• Above 100,000 records you go to an Enterprise quote.

Best for: teams that license Kenya profiles into a warehouse and find emails elsewhere.

Pricing: Free up to 100 credits a month. Pro from $98 a month for 350 credits, or $78 a month billed yearly (PDL pricing, September 2026).

6. Cognism: best for Europe-first teams with a small Kenya list

Cognism publishes no Kenya figure. Its EMEA page names the UK, DACH, Benelux, the Nordics, France and Spain, and no African country (Cognism EMEA data, September 2026). Treat Kenya as untested until you see a sample.

The pricing page lists Standard and Pro with tailored pricing and no dollar figure (Cognism pricing, September 2026). The API allows 500 requests a minute per operation (Cognism docs, September 2026).

Kenya test. Ask sales to run your 25 Kenyan contacts before you sign, and ask for the hit rate. The MCP server has 15 tools for search, count and dictionary lookups (Cognism docs, September 2026).

Pros

• Deep European coverage if Kenya is a small part of the plan.
• API and MCP server on the same credits.
• A sample run before you sign is a fair ask.

Cons

• No Kenya figure and no African country named.
• No public price at any volume, so 1M cannot be priced.
• API and MCP need a package that includes them.

Best for: EMEA sales teams that sell mostly in Europe and want a few Kenyan accounts.

Pricing: No public price. Standard and Pro are quote only (Cognism pricing, September 2026).

Comparison table

How to choose

• You pull Kenya through an API or an agent: pick LeadOcean. A free count, email status filters and Agency at $497 a month flat fit volume work.
• You look up email and phone in small batches: pick Lusha, then test your own 25 contacts for email hits.
• You need mobile numbers for African accounts: pick ZoomInfo, the only one here that prints an African mobile figure. Also read the phone number guide for the Middle East and Africa.
• Your reps need a workspace and Kenya is one market: pick Apollo, and read total_entries for Kenya first.
• You license profiles into a warehouse: pick People Data Labs and find emails with another source.
• Europe is the plan and Kenya is a side list: pick Cognism, and demand a sample before you sign.
• Kenya is one of several African markets: compare Nigeria and the Africa overview before you commit to one vendor.

Verdict

LeadOcean wins for API, agent and volume buyers, because it gives a free, exact Kenya count with email status and seniority filters, at $497 a month flat on Agency. Lusha wins for small batches, ZoomInfo on published African mobile numbers, and Apollo for reps who want search and outreach in one workspace. People Data Labs wins for licensed profiles and the only published Kenya count, and Cognism for Europe-first teams. Run the 25-contact test before you pay anyone, LeadOcean included, and see pricing for the plan that fits.

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