7 Best Company Search MCPs for B2B Prospecting in 2026

A company search MCP is a hosted server that lets an AI agent filter a company database by industry, size, location and technology, then return the matches. Revenue teams use it to build account lists from a chat. Engineers use it to give an agent a real source of accounts instead of a guess.

Most teams outgrow their first server for the same reasons. Credits run out mid-list. Rate limits sit at tens of requests a minute. On some servers a count may cost a search token, so an agent cannot size a list for free. We ranked seven servers on those limits, from first-party docs checked in September and October 2026. If you came from Apollo, ZoomInfo, Cognism, Crustdata, Coresignal or Hunter, each has a page on what changes if you switch. Also see our best company search engines for non-MCP tools.

TL;DR

The 1M column prices 1,000,000 work-email lookups for competitors, from their list prices (September 2026). For LeadOcean it is 1,000,000 records on the Agency plan.

What we evaluated

• Company filters. How many filters, and whether the agent can use them without guessing values.
• Free sizing. Can the agent count a list before it spends anything?
• Rate limits. Requests per second or minute on the plan you would actually buy.
• Sign-in. OAuth or a pasted key, and which plans include the MCP.
• Cost at volume. What 1M records a month costs at list price, with a public source.

We did not run the competitors' servers ourselves. Their numbers come from their own docs and pricing pages. The one live test is ours: a LeadOcean count on 21 October 2026, shown in section 1.

1. LeadOcean: best for agents and volume

LeadOcean is a people and company database you reach over REST or a hosted MCP server at https://api.leadocean.io/mcp. Sign-in is OAuth 2.1, so no key is pasted. There are 13 tools, and leadocean_count_companies is free. It takes the company-search filters and returns an exact total with breakdowns by industry, headcount band, HQ country, HQ state and NAICS.

Here is the test. On 21 October 2026 we asked for software development companies headquartered in the US with 51 to 200 employees and at least one mailable contact. The count came back as 6,143, exact, at zero records. California held 1,681 of them and New York 621. An agent can run that, read the breakdown and narrow the list before it pays for a single row. Only after that does leadocean_search_companies return rows, at one record per company.

The data is 67M companies and 693M people, with 34 company filters. One search pages to 10,000 rows, so you narrow the filters instead of walking the index. Rate limits are per plan: 5 requests a second on Free, 50 on Solo, 200 on Agency and 10,000 on Platform. See the company search API guide for the REST side.

Pros

• Free company counts with five breakdowns, over MCP and REST.
• Same data and every feature on every plan, including Free.
• No credits: paid plans have a fair-use pace, not a balance that hits zero.
• OAuth 2.1 sign-in with dynamic client registration.
• 200 requests a second on Agency.

Cons

• 67M companies is smaller than some competitors' claims.
• No live web data or change alerts.
• No rep workspace, sequencer, dialer or CRM. It is a data source.
• Bulk CSV export is not on Free.

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

Pricing: Free $0 (1,000 records for life, no card), Solo $97, Agency $497, Platform $1,997 a month (LeadOcean pricing, October 2026). Start free and run the same count: LeadOcean MCP docs, October 2026.

2. Apollo: best for sales teams already on Apollo

Apollo runs an official MCP server at https://mcp.apollo.io/mcp. It uses OAuth 2.0 or an API key for headless clients, and it is a built-in connector in Claude, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Replit and Cursor. Any plan qualifies, including Free (Apollo MCP docs, September 2026).

The catch is credits and seats. Enrichment through MCP spends the same credits as the app, and credits expire at the end of each billing cycle. Database search endpoints, which include organization search, allow 200 requests a minute on paid plans and 50,000 a day (Apollo rate limits, September 2026).

At volume, Apollo is priced per seat. 1,000,000 work-email lookups is 1,000,000 credits. At 4,000 credits per Professional seat that is 250 seats, or $24,750 a month at list on monthly billing. Billed yearly, 400 Basic seats come to $19,600 a month equivalent (Apollo pricing, September 2026).

Pros

• MCP on every plan, no extra cost.
• A built-in connector in Claude, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Replit and Cursor.
• Sequences and a dialer in the same product.

Cons

• Credits expire each cycle and do not roll over.
• Per-seat pricing makes 1M records expensive.
• Search limits are per minute, not per second.

Best for: sales teams that already work in Apollo and want an agent on top.

Pricing: Free $0 with 75 credits a month. Basic $65, Professional $99, Organization $149 per seat a month; billed yearly $49, $79 and $119 (Apollo pricing, September 2026).

3. ZoomInfo (GTM AI): best for pay-as-you-go credits

ZoomInfo's MCP server works with Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and Copilot. It needs a free GTM AI account or an existing ZoomInfo subscription with data credits. Accounts holding only recurring monthly credits cannot use it (ZoomInfo MCP docs, September 2026).

The credit model suits an agent. Search, lookup and find-similar are free. One data credit enriches or exports one record, charged once per 12 months (GTM AI credit docs, September 2026). The free tier gives 1,000 data credits and 5 requests a second. Paid packages run 5, 25 and 35 requests a second (GTM AI rate limits, September 2026).

Credits cost from $0.45 down to $0.25 at 100,000 for $25,000. The slider stops there, and larger volumes go to enterprise sales (GTM AI pricing, September 2026). No public 1M price.

Pros

• Search and find-similar are free.
• Pay as you go from $20, no contract.
• Credits do not expire while the account is active.

Cons

• No public price above 100,000 credits.
• Platform plan prices could not be read from ZoomInfo's own page.
• The MCP is blocked for accounts with only recurring monthly credits.

Best for: teams that want free search and pay only for records they enrich.

Pricing: from $20 pay as you go; $0.25 a credit at the 100,000 pack (GTM AI pricing, September 2026).

4. Cognism: best for company search with intent filters

Cognism's MCP server is at https://mcp.cognism.com/mcp with OAuth 2.0. It has 15 tools: company and people search and count, 8 dictionary lookups and 3 account settings tools. They map one to one onto the API and use the same tokens (Cognism MCP docs, September 2026).

The company search schema has 21 filter fields, including technology, intent, NAICS, SIC and headcount. Company searches never use credits. The API allows 500 requests a minute per account, per operation (Cognism rate limits, September 2026).

Its docs disagree on whether a count call costs a search token: the Credits page says yes, the MCP tool table says free. Cognism publishes no dollar price. API and MCP access need a package that includes it (Cognism pricing, September 2026). So you cannot forecast a month without a sales call.

Pros

• 21 company filters, including intent and technology.
• Company searches use no credits.
• MCP tools mirror the API one to one.

Cons

• No public prices at any tier.
• API and MCP need a package that includes them.
• 500 requests a minute is the ceiling per operation.

Best for: teams that want intent and technology filters and can buy through sales.

Pricing: quote only. Standard and Pro plans, 5 seats each (Cognism pricing, September 2026). No public 1M price.

5. Crustdata: best for live web and job signals

Crustdata has a hosted MCP server at https://install.crustdata.com/mcp. Interactive clients sign in with OAuth. Code uses an API key as a bearer token (Crustdata MCP docs, September 2026). Its edge is live data: job search, social posts and web endpoints, plus change watchers.

Limits are the issue. Default rate limits are 30 requests a minute on search and 15 on company enrich (Crustdata rate limits, September 2026). Search costs 0.03 credits per result and company enrich 2 to 4 credits (Crustdata pricing docs, September 2026).

The pricing page lists no plan names and no dollar price per credit. Dollar value depends on plan, and you confirm costs in the dashboard. No public 1M price. See Crustdata alternatives for the full breakdown.

Pros

• Live job and web data that a static database lacks.
• Change watchers for people and companies.
• Cheap search at 0.03 credits per result.

Cons

• No public dollar price per credit.
• 30 searches a minute by default.
• Purchased credits expire.

Best for: teams that need signals the day they happen.

Pricing: credits, no public dollar price (Crustdata pricing docs, September 2026).

6. Coresignal: best for raw company and job datasets

Coresignal's MCP server uses OAuth 2.1 at https://mcp.coresignal.com/mcp/v2. It has 5 tools. entity_search costs 20 credits a call, entity_fetch 20 credits per company or employee record, and entity_fields and artifact_read are free (Coresignal MCP docs, September 2026).

It is a data vendor first. The free trial gives 2,000 credits for 7 days. Paid plans run from Mini at $49 a month for 2,500 credits to Elite at $5,000 for 10,000,000 credits. Rate limits step with the plan: 5 requests a second on Free to Starter, 100 on Scale (Coresignal pricing and rate limits, September 2026).

The top public plan holds 10,000,000 credits. At 20 credits per record, that is 500,000 records, so 1M needs more than one Elite month. No public 1M price.

Pros

• Wide plan ladder from $49 to $5,000 a month.
• Free field listing, so an agent can discover the schema.
• Rate limits rise to 100 a second.

Cons

• 20 credits per record fetched makes volume costly.
• Free trial lasts 7 days and credits do not carry over.
• Five tools is a thin surface for list building.

Best for: data teams that want raw company and job records.

Pricing: Mini $49 to Elite $5,000 a month (Coresignal pricing, September 2026).

7. Hunter: best for company discovery plus emails

Hunter has an official remote MCP server at https://mcp.hunter.io/mcp, included in all plans at no extra cost. It authenticates with a Hunter API key in a header (Hunter MCP, September 2026). Behind it, the Discover endpoint returns companies matching a set of filters, or a plain-language query that an assistant turns into filters. The call is free.

Discover returns at most 100 companies a page and is limited to 5 requests a second and 50 a minute. The Data Platform plan does not include Discover access (Hunter API docs, October 2026). Hunter is strongest once you have a company list and want the email for each domain.

At volume, Hunter is the cheapest competitor with a public figure. 1,000,000 Search credits cost $6,900 once on Data Platform, valid 12 months (Hunter Data Platform, September 2026).

Pros

• Discover is free and takes plain-language queries.
• MCP included on every plan.
• A public 1M price, cheaper than Apollo.

Cons

• 50 Discover requests a minute.
• Email-focused: thinner company filters than the database vendors.
• Data Platform buyers cannot use Discover.

Best for: teams that find companies, then need verified emails by domain.

Pricing: Free $0 with 50 credits a month. Starter $49, Growth $149, Scale $299 a month billed monthly (Hunter pricing, September 2026).

Comparison table

How to choose

• You build an agent or pull data at volume: LeadOcean. Free counts, a flat price and 200 requests a second.
• Your team already lives in Apollo: Apollo's MCP costs nothing extra. Watch the credit expiry.
• You want free search and pay per enriched record: ZoomInfo's GTM AI.
• You want intent filters and can buy through sales: Cognism.
• You need live jobs, posts or change alerts: Crustdata.
• You need raw records for your own models: Coresignal.
• You have domains and need emails: Hunter. Pair Discover with Domain Search.

For lookalike lists, see the best lookalike company search tools.

Verdict

LeadOcean wins for anyone who pulls company data through an agent or an API at volume: the count is free, the price is flat and the rate limit is 200 a second. Apollo wins for sales teams that already use its sequencer. ZoomInfo's GTM AI wins for teams that want free search and a pay-as-you-go bill. Cognism wins for intent filters if you accept a sales call. Crustdata wins on live signals, Coresignal on raw datasets and Hunter on the step after the list, finding the email. Check the pricing page before you commit.

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