A data provider for an AI SDR is a people and company database that an autonomous sales agent queries through an API or an MCP server to find prospects and get a verified email or phone number. Teams that build or run an AI SDR need one, because the agent has no rep to look people up for it.
An agent runs loops, so the price model, the rate limit and the cost of a miss matter more than the interface. It also sends mail without review, so email status matters.
This page ranks six providers on those points, with list prices checked in September 2026. Five have a LeadOcean comparison page: Apollo, Clay, FullEnrich, Prospeo and Crustdata. For a wider list, see best B2B data providers and what an AI SDR is.
TL;DR
| Tool | Best for | Starting price | Cost at 1M records a month |
|---|---|---|---|
| LeadOcean | AI SDRs that pull people and emails at volume | Free (1,000 records, one-off). Solo $97 a month | $497 a month on Agency (1M enrichments a day pace, fair use) |
| Clay | Research columns and many data sources in one table | Free. Launch $185 a month ($167 billed yearly) | No public 1M price. Top public tier is $2,975 a month for 50,000 credits |
| Apollo | An AI SDR that also sequences inside a sales workspace | Free. Basic $65 per seat a month ($49 billed yearly) | $24,750 a month billed monthly, $19,600 billed yearly. Seat arithmetic, not a quote |
| FullEnrich | Mobile numbers through a waterfall | Pro from $29 a month for 500 credits ($26 billed yearly) | No public 1M price. Top monthly tier is 100,000 credits for $3,500 |
| Prospeo | Pay-as-you-go emails and mobiles for small agents | Free. Starter $49 per user a month ($37 billed yearly) | $14,456 a month. Cheapest public mix of seats and an add-on |
| Crustdata | Live data and change signals | No public price list | No public 1M price. 1M work-email lookups is 2,000,000 credits |
"1M records" means 1M work-email lookups that return a result, at list price. Where no plan reaches 1M, we show the credits or the highest public tier and do not multiply a rate out to dollars.
What we evaluated
- Agent access: whether an agent can search and enrich through a hosted MCP server, and what sign-in it uses.
- Cost of a loop: the price model, what a miss costs and what happens when an agent retries or widens a search.
- Rate limit: requests per second or minute, because an AI SDR works through lists in bulk.
- Contact data for outreach: work email, mobile number and an email status the agent can gate sends on.
- Volume and seats: how many records a month the plan supports, and whether you pay per human seat for a caller that is not a human.
We ran no accuracy test, so we quote no find rates or bounce rates. We ranked on first-party docs and pricing pages. Run the same 100 contacts through your shortlist before you commit.
1. LeadOcean: best for AI SDRs that pull people and emails at volume
LeadOcean is a people and company database you call over REST or MCP. It holds 693M people, 366M with an email and 166M with a phone number, plus 67M companies. You search with 50 people filters and 34 company filters.
Agency is $497 a month, with 1M enrichments a day, 25M search records a month, 200 requests a second and 5 API keys. Solo is $97 a month for one person at 50 requests a second. There are no credits: past the fair-use pace, the key is served at a reduced rate until the window resets, and nothing stops.
The MCP server at https://api.leadocean.io/mcp signs in with OAuth 2.1, so no key is pasted into a prompt. It exposes 13 tools. count_leads and count_companies are free, so an agent can size an audience before it spends a record. A miss on POST /v1/people/enrich is a 404 and costs nothing.
Every record carries one of 13 email status values, from verified to spam_trap. An AI SDR should read email_status before it sends, because LeadOcean gives no credit back for bounced emails.
Pros
- Agency is $497 a month with no credit meter and no seat fee.
- REST and MCP on every plan, Free included, with the same 13 tools.
- Free counts, free filter lookups and a free miss on person enrich.
- 200 requests a second per account on Agency, so an agent loop over a large list finishes fast.
- Person enrich returns career history (past roles, education), which an agent can use for context.
Cons
- No live web fetch, no job-change watchers and no AI research columns. It is a database you query, refreshed monthly.
- A v2 contact lookup that finds nothing still costs one record.
- No sequencer, dialer, CRM or Chrome extension. Your AI SDR needs its own sending stack.
- No waterfall across other vendors. You get one dataset.
Best for: engineers and agent builders who need volume and a fixed bill.
Pricing: Free is 1,000 records, one-off, no card. Solo $97, Agency $497 and Platform $1,997 a month (LeadOcean pricing, October 2026).
2. Clay: best for research columns and many data sources in one table
Clay is a workflow spreadsheet that resells data from 150+ providers. It adds Claygent, an AI research agent that runs per row (Clay pricing, September 2026). You can use it as the place where lists get built and enriched before a sender takes over.
The meter is two-part: Actions and Data Credits. Credits start at $0.05 each. Clay's own docs put a fully enriched record at 6 to 20 credits, plus one Action per enrichment (Clay docs, September 2026). An enrichment that finds nothing is not charged.
The Public API and CLI are on every plan, Free included. Search volume is capped by plan, and the API has a per-workspace rate limit with no published number (Clay docs, September 2026; Clay developer docs, September 2026). The Clay MCP server works in Claude and ChatGPT, and new accounts get 500 free credits on first connect (Clay MCP guide, September 2026).
Pros
- 150+ data providers behind one table, so a miss at one source can fall through to the next.
- Claygent runs web research per row, on every plan.
- API and CLI on every plan, and no charge for an enrichment that returns nothing.
Cons
- Two meters. The largest self-serve tier is 200,000 Actions and 50,000 Data Credits a month, and Actions cannot be topped up (Clay pricing, September 2026).
- The HTTP API column needs Growth. Free has no phone enrichment.
- Tables cap at 50,000 rows on Launch and Growth, and the API rate limit is not published.
- Extra credits on Launch and Growth cost a 30 percent premium.
Best for: GTM teams that want research and many sources in one table, with the agent downstream.
Pricing: Free with 100 Data Credits a month. Launch from $185 a month, or $167 billed yearly. Growth from $495 a month, or $446 billed yearly (Clay pricing, September 2026).
3. Apollo: best for an AI SDR that also sequences inside a sales workspace
Apollo is an all-in-one sales platform with 240 million contacts and 30 million companies. It adds sequences, a dialer and a Chrome extension, sold per seat with a credit allowance (Apollo pricing, September 2026). That makes it the one tool here where the agent can find a prospect and enroll them in a sequence in one place.
Apollo runs an official MCP server at mcp.apollo.io/mcp, with OAuth 2.0 or an API key for headless clients. It is also a built-in connector in Claude, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Replit and Cursor, and any plan qualifies, Free included (Apollo MCP docs, September 2026).
The meter is seats plus credits. An email costs 1 credit and a phone number 8. Credits are pooled across the team and expire at the end of each billing cycle (Apollo API pricing, September 2026). Enrichment allows 1,000 requests a minute on paid plans, and search 200 a minute (Apollo rate limits, September 2026).
Pros
- Official MCP server on every plan, with sign-in and no pasted key.
- Sequences, a dialer and a rep workspace sit next to the data.
- High enrichment limit: 1,000 requests a minute on paid plans.
- Every plan includes API access (Apollo developer FAQ, September 2026).
Cons
- Seats and credits both scale, and unused credits do not roll over.
- A phone number costs 8 credits, 8 times an email.
- At volume the seat model bites. Professional gives 4,000 credits per seat a month, so 1M email lookups needs 250 seats.
- The price of extra credits is not public, so a cheaper path to 1M cannot be priced.
Best for: teams whose AI SDR works inside a sales workspace and sends from it.
Pricing: Free. Basic $65, Professional $99, Organization $149 per seat a month billed monthly. Billed yearly they are $49, $79 and $119 (Apollo pricing, September 2026).
4. FullEnrich: best for mobile numbers through a waterfall
FullEnrich is a waterfall enrichment tool. It asks 25+ data sources for each email and phone number and bills credits only for what it finds (FullEnrich pricing, September 2026). Its pricing page lists 800M people and 50M companies for search.
A work email costs 1 credit, a personal email 3 and a mobile 10. A contact that is not found, or a landline, costs 0 (FullEnrich docs, September 2026). API, MCP, search and bulk CSV are on every plan, including the free trial, and users are unlimited (FullEnrich pricing, September 2026).
The MCP server uses OAuth sign-in and covers search, enrich and export (FullEnrich help, September 2026). The limit is 60 API calls a minute across Enrich, Reverse Email and Search, with up to 100 contacts per bulk request (FullEnrich docs, September 2026).
Pros
- A waterfall over 25+ sources gives each contact more than one chance to return a mobile number.
- No charge when nothing is found.
- MCP, API and search on every plan, with unlimited users.
- Unused credits roll over: 3 months on monthly plans, 12 on annual.
Cons
- 60 calls a minute is low for an agent loop, even with 100 contacts per bulk call.
- No public price above 100,000 credits a month. Above that, contact sales.
- A mobile costs 10 credits, so phone-heavy outreach gets expensive fast.
Best for: AI SDRs that call or text and need mobile numbers on a few thousand contacts.
Pricing: Free trial with 50 credits. Pro from $29 a month for 500 credits, or $26 a month billed yearly. The tier the page opens on is $55 a month for 1,000 credits (FullEnrich pricing, September 2026).
5. Prospeo: best for pay-as-you-go emails and mobiles for small agents
Prospeo is an email and mobile finder with a REST API and a hosted MCP server. A verified email costs 1 credit, a mobile 10 (email included), and a request with no result costs 0 (Prospeo help, September 2026). Re-enriching the same record within 90 days is free.
The MCP server at mcp.prospeo.io has 8 tools and takes OAuth 2.0 or an API key (Prospeo MCP docs, September 2026). Rate limits rise with the plan. Enrich allows 5 requests a second on Starter and Growth and 30 on Pro (Prospeo rate limits, September 2026).
Pricing is per user, with credits pooled across the team. Add-on credits start at $20 for 1,000 and are a recurring subscription, not a one-time top-up (Prospeo help, September 2026).
Pros
- Low entry price per credit: $0.0245 on Starter, falling to $0.0166 on Pro at monthly billing.
- A hosted MCP server with an OAuth path and a key path for code.
- No charge for a miss, and re-enrichment inside 90 days is free.
Cons
- Unused credits expire at the end of each cycle, and add-ons do not roll over.
- Per-user pricing, so a headless agent still pays for seats.
- Nothing public above a 350,000-credit add-on at $3,500 a month. Beyond that, support has to enable extended pricing.
Best for: small AI SDRs and single-rep setups that want to pay per verified email.
Pricing: Free with 100 credits a month. Starter $49, Growth $99, Pro $249 per user a month. Billed yearly they are $37, $74 and $187 (Prospeo pricing, September 2026).
6. Crustdata: best for live data and change signals
Crustdata sells people, company, job and social data through APIs, plus live web endpoints and change watchers. A person watcher costs 5 credits per changed person at the 30-day SLA, and up to 150 at 1 day (Crustdata docs, September 2026). That suits an AI SDR that reacts to a job change or a funding event.
Its hosted MCP server at install.crustdata.com/mcp takes OAuth for interactive clients and an API key as a bearer token for code (Crustdata MCP docs, September 2026). That second path suits a headless agent.
The weak points are the meter and the limits. The pricing page lists no plans and no dollar prices (Crustdata pricing, September 2026). Person enrich runs 1 to 7 credits and search is 0.03 credits per result. Default limits are 15 requests a minute on enrich and 30 on search (Crustdata rate limits, September 2026).
Pros
- Live data, job search and change watchers that a static database lacks.
- Hosted MCP server with a bearer-key path for code.
- A lookup with no match on contact enrich is not billed.
Cons
- No public dollar price per credit, so you cannot price 1M from the site.
- The dedicated contact endpoint needs an enterprise plan. Self-serve keys get a 403 (Crustdata contact docs, September 2026).
- Low default rate limits slow a large loop.
Best for: signal-driven AI SDRs that need fresh data more than raw volume.
Pricing: Credit based. No public plan list or price per credit (Crustdata pricing, September 2026).
Comparison table
| Tool | Best for | Starting price | Cost at 1M records a month | API | MCP | Rate limit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LeadOcean | Volume through an agent | Free. Solo $97 a month | $497 on Agency, fair use | REST on every plan | Yes. OAuth 2.1, 13 tools | 5, 50, 200 or 10,000 a second by plan |
| Clay | Research columns | Free. Launch $185 a month | No public 1M price | Public API on every plan | Yes. Claude and ChatGPT | Per workspace, no published number |
| Apollo | Sequencing in one workspace | Free. Basic $65 per seat a month | $24,750 monthly billing, $19,600 yearly | REST on every plan | Yes. Any plan, OAuth or key | 1,000 a minute enrichment, 200 search |
| FullEnrich | Mobile waterfall | Pro from $29 a month | No public 1M price | REST, bulk, search | Yes. OAuth | 60 calls a minute |
| Prospeo | Pay-as-you-go finder | Free. Starter $49 per user a month | $14,456 a month, cheapest public mix | REST | Yes. OAuth or key, 8 tools | 5 to 30 per second by plan |
| Crustdata | Live signals | No public price list | No public 1M price | REST. Contact endpoint needs enterprise | Yes. OAuth or bearer key | 15 to 30 a minute by default |
How to choose
- An AI SDR that pulls people and emails at volume: LeadOcean. Agency at $497 a month with no credits, free counts, REST and MCP on every plan.
- Research per row and many sources in one table: Clay, and budget for two meters.
- An agent that finds and sequences in one workspace: Apollo, and count the seats before you scale.
- Mobile numbers for a call or text motion: FullEnrich, at 10 credits a mobile.
- A small agent that pays per verified email: Prospeo.
- Signals the day they happen: Crustdata, if you can get a quote and live with low default limits.
Verdict
LeadOcean wins for AI SDRs that pull data through an API or an agent at volume. Agency costs $497 a month with no credits and 200 requests a second, and it has free counts and an MCP server that returns records on every plan. Clay wins for research and many sources in one table. Apollo wins when the agent also sequences inside a sales workspace. FullEnrich wins for mobile numbers, Prospeo for small pay-per-email agents and Crustdata for live signals. Start on the free plan and run the same lookups on your shortlist. For other angles, see best B2B databases and best B2B data providers in the UK.
FAQ
What data does an AI SDR need?
A list of prospects, a work email with a status the agent can check, and often a mobile number. It also needs context, such as job title, company size and a recent signal. Pick the provider that returns the fields your agent uses, not the longest field list.
Which providers have an MCP server that returns records?
All six have an MCP server. LeadOcean, Apollo, Prospeo, FullEnrich and Crustdata run their own, and Clay offers one that works in Claude and ChatGPT. Check the sign-in method: OAuth is easier for a desktop client, and a bearer key suits code.
What is the cheapest provider at 1M records a month?
On list price, LeadOcean at $497 a month on Agency, within its fair-use pace. Prospeo's cheapest public mix is $14,456 a month, and Apollo's seat arithmetic is $19,600 to $24,750 a month. Clay, FullEnrich and Crustdata publish no plan at 1M, so ask each for a quote.
Do AI SDRs need per-seat pricing?
No. An agent calls an API with a key. Per-seat pricing, as at Apollo and Prospeo, makes sense for reps and gets expensive for a loop. LeadOcean has no seats, and Agency gives you 5 API keys.
Should an AI SDR trust the email status?
Read it, and send only to the statuses you accept. LeadOcean gives no credit back for a bounced email, so gate sends on verified and decide your rule for catch-all addresses.
Do I need a credit card to try LeadOcean?
No. The free plan needs a work email and no card. It gives you 1,000 records, one-off, with the same API and MCP server as the paid plans.
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