The 7 Best Lead Databases in 2026 (Compared on Cost at 1M)

A lead database is a searchable store of people and companies that you query by filter or API. The best one depends on how you pull data. Reps who work in a UI want one thing. Engineers, RevOps teams and agents that pull records in bulk want another.

Most "best lead database" lists skip the question that decides the bill: what do 1M records a month cost? Seat-based tools multiply fast. Credit-based tools hide the rate behind a sales call. We checked each vendor's published price and limits in September 2026 and wrote "No public 1M price" where the vendor gives none.

Already on one of these and hitting limits? Read our alternative pages for Apollo, ZoomInfo, People Data Labs, Crustdata, Lusha and Cognism.

TL;DR

What we evaluated

• Data size and filters. How many people and companies are held, and how finely you can filter them.
• API and rate limit. Whether the API is on every plan and how many requests a key may send.
• MCP. Whether an official hosted MCP server exists, so an agent can search without custom code.
• Price model. Seats, credits or flat fee, and whether unused allowance expires.
• Cost at 1M records a month. The cheapest published path, on monthly list price first, with the billed-yearly figure after it. If no public path exists, we say so.

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

LeadOcean is a data layer only. It holds 693M people (366M with an email, 166M with a phone) and 67M companies behind one REST API and a hosted MCP server. There are 50 people filters and 34 company filters. It has no sequencer, dialer, CRM or Chrome extension. The app at app.leadocean.io has an Exports page with a filter builder, a column picker, a price preview and CSV download.

Plans are Free ($0, 1,000 records for life, no card), Solo $97 a month, Agency $497 a month and Platform $1,997 a month. Every plan gets the same data and features. The price buys pace, keys and rights. Paid plans have a fair-use pace, not credits, so nothing expires and there is no overage invoice.

We ran one real count on 21 October 2026 with leadocean_count_leads: VP-level people in Sales & Business Development in the US. It returned 129,494 people with a verified, catch_all_valid or catch_all email. Without any email condition the same filters match 350,517. The count cost nothing. We did not run the competitors' searches, so this shows LeadOcean's sizing, not a head-to-head result.

Pros

• One flat price: Agency is $497 a month for 1M records a month, 200 requests a second and 5 keys.
• Counts are free: GET /v1/companies/count and leadocean_count_leads size a list before you spend a record.
• Hosted MCP with 13 tools on every plan, including Free, with OAuth sign-in.
• Email status on every record, with 13 values from verified to spam_trap.
• A search pages to 10,000 rows, and POST /v1/exports returns CSV for bigger pulls.

Cons

• No rep workspace, sequences, dialer or intent data. You bring your own sequencer.
• Bulk CSV export is not on the Free plan.
• No refund or credit-back for bounced emails. Read email_status before you send.
• POST /v1/people/enrich takes a LinkedIn URL, email, phone or person_id, not a name plus domain.

Best for: engineers, RevOps teams and agent builders who need volume at a fixed bill.

Pricing: Free $0, Solo $97, Agency $497, Platform $1,997 a month (LeadOcean pricing, October 2026).

2. Apollo: best for reps who want data and outreach in one tool

Apollo is a sales platform: a database, sequences, a dialer and a Chrome extension, priced per seat. It reports 240M contacts and 30M companies (Apollo pricing, October 2026). Every plan includes API access, Free included.

Credits are the catch. An email costs 1 credit, a phone number 8, and people enrichment by API is 1 to 9. Credits are pooled across the team, expire each billing cycle and do not roll over. Apollo prints no price per extra credit, so a seats-plus-add-ons path cannot be priced.

Pros

• One workspace for finding, emailing and calling.
• Official MCP server at mcp.apollo.io/mcp on any plan, Free included.
• Enrichment endpoints allow 1,000 requests a minute on paid plans.
• A real free plan for an individual seller.

Cons

• Per-seat pricing: 1M email lookups need about 250 Professional seats.
• Credits expire every cycle, including purchased add-ons.
• General endpoints are capped at 200 requests a minute on Basic and Professional.
• Add-on credit price is not public.

Best for: sales teams whose reps live in the tool all day.

Pricing: Basic $65, Professional $99 and Organization $149 per seat a month on monthly billing, from $49, $79 and $119 billed yearly (Apollo pricing, September 2026). At 1M email lookups, Professional seats cost $24,750 a month on monthly billing, or $19,600 a month equivalent on Basic seats billed yearly. See the Apollo API credit docs.

3. ZoomInfo: best for enterprise sales teams

ZoomInfo is the incumbent enterprise platform. It claims 500M+ contacts and 100M+ companies for its MCP server. Its newer GTM.AI product sells data credits by API, with 1,000 data credits free and no card.

Prices fall as you buy more. Data credits run from $0.45 down to $0.25 by purchase size, and the public slider stops at 100,000 credits for $25,000. Above that you go to Enterprise sales. Platform plans are quoted.

Pros

• Large dataset and a long track record with enterprise sales teams.
• Official MCP server that works with Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and Copilot.
• API limits are published by package: Builder 5 a second, Standard 25, Scaling 35.
• Credits on GTM.AI do not expire while the account is active (GTM.AI docs, September 2026).

Cons

• No public price at 1M. Repeating the 100,000 pack would be a guess, not a quote.
• MCP needs a GTM AI account or a subscription with data credits.
• Platform pricing is by sales quote.

Best for: large sales organizations that want the biggest brand and will negotiate a contract.

Pricing: GTM.AI credits at $0.25 to $0.45 each; platform plans by quote (GTM.AI pricing, September 2026).

4. People Data Labs: best for data licensing and raw profiles

People Data Labs sells person and company data as an API and as licensed files. It is built for products that need profiles, not for reps. Person enrichment allows 1,000 requests a minute on paid plans.

The self-serve ceiling is low. Free gives 100 credits a month with contact data obscured. Pro starts at $98 a month for 350 credits ($0.28 a credit), or $940 a year ($78 a month) billed yearly. Above about 100,000 profiles, PDL quotes Enterprise only.

Pros

• Strong fit for embedding profiles in a product or training a model.
• Annual data licence delivered to S3, GCP or Azure (PDL docs, September 2026).
• Clear published self-serve pricing at the low end.
• 1,000 enrichment requests a minute on paying plans.

Cons

• No official MCP server. Only community ones exist.
• Person Search is limited to 10 requests a minute by default.
• No public price at 1M. Multiplying $0.28 out is an extrapolation.
• Free hides contact data.

Best for: teams that want raw profile data or a licensed dataset.

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

5. Crustdata: best for fresh people data and signals by API

Crustdata is an API-first provider of people and company data with search, enrichment and live endpoints. It runs a hosted MCP server at install.crustdata.com/mcp with OAuth for interactive clients and an API key for code.

Its pricing page lists no dollar prices, no credit allowances and no price per credit. It describes credit-based usage tiers and a contact-sales route. A lookup of a business email costs 2 credits on /person/enrich, so 1M lookups is 2,000,000 credits at a price you must get quoted.

Pros

• Official hosted MCP server with OAuth or API key.
• Batch person enrichment takes up to 10,000 identifiers per job.
• Built for programmatic use, with live endpoints.

Cons

• No public dollar price, so you cannot budget from the website.
• Default limits are low: 15 requests a minute on enrichment, 30 on search.
• Contact enrichment at 1 credit is enterprise only.
• No public price at 1M.

Best for: engineering teams that will get a quote and want fresh data by API.

Pricing: No public dollar price (Crustdata pricing, September 2026).

6. Lusha: best for individual reps and small teams

Lusha is a browser-first prospecting tool with an API and an MCP server. An API key comes on every plan, Free included. The MCP server has 50 tools at mcp.lusha.com and shares the REST API credit pool.

Starter is $49.90 a month billed monthly (400 credits) or $37.45 a month billed yearly. Pro is $69.90 monthly for 600 credits. Premium is $399.90 monthly for 3,400 credits. The highest public tier is 10,000 credits a month, and 1M work emails by bulk API need about 1,040,000 credits, so there is no public 1M price.

Pros

• Low entry price and a free plan.
• API key on every plan.
• Large MCP toolset with 50 tools.
• Simple credit model: email 1, phone 5.

Cons

• Low per-key rate limits: Pro 50 a minute, Premium 300 a minute.
• The top public tier holds 10,000 credits a month, about 1% of a 1M pull.
• No public price at 1M.

Best for: one rep or a small team that prospects by hand and wants an API on the side.

Pricing: Starter $49.90, Pro $69.90, Premium $399.90 a month on monthly billing (Lusha pricing, September 2026).

7. Cognism: best for EMEA outbound with verified phones

Cognism sells phone-verified B2B contacts, strong in EMEA, mostly through sales-led packages. Current plans are Standard and Pro, with no published price per plan, seat or credit.

The API allows 500 requests a minute per account, per operation, with search pages up to 100 records. The MCP server at mcp.cognism.com/mcp has 15 tools and uses OAuth 2.0. API and MCP access need a package that includes them.

Pros

• Official MCP server that maps one to one onto the API.
• 500 requests a minute per operation, higher than most seat-based tools.
• Cursor pagination up to 100,000 records per journey.
• Phone-verified contacts for outbound calling.

Cons

• No published price, so you cannot compare before a sales call.
• API and MCP need a package with access.
• No public price at 1M.

Best for: outbound teams that call into Europe and will buy on a quote.

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

Comparison table

How to choose

• Pulling data through code or an agent at volume: LeadOcean. A flat Agency price and 200 requests a second beat per-seat and per-credit models.
• Reps who need sequences and a dialer: Apollo, or LeadOcean for the list plus your own sequencer.
• Enterprise procurement with a budget: ZoomInfo or Cognism, on a quote.
• A product that embeds profiles or licensed files: People Data Labs.
• One person, a few hundred contacts a month: Lusha Starter, or the free tiers.
• Fresh signals through an API with a quote: Crustdata.

Verdict

LeadOcean wins for API, agent and volume buyers. Its price is fixed at $497 a month for 1M records, while the others multiply by seats or hide the rate. Apollo wins for reps who want data and outreach in one place. ZoomInfo and Cognism win where a sales-led contract is normal. People Data Labs wins for licensed profiles. Lusha wins for a single rep. Crustdata fits teams that will negotiate for fresh data. Start with a free count on your own filters before you pay anyone.

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