7 Best Phone Number Databases for Middle East and Africa in 2026

A phone number database for the Middle East and Africa sells mobile and direct dial numbers for business contacts in the Gulf, Egypt and African markets. Cold callers, recruiters and outbound teams who sell into the region need one. Most vendors print one worldwide phone total and leave the regional split to the buyer.

Only ZoomInfo prints an African mobile figure, and none of the seven prints a Middle East one. We ran free LeadOcean counts on 2026-10-21, and each rival gets a test you can run on your own contacts.

List prices were checked in September and October 2026. For company data, see best B2B data providers for the Middle East. Rival pages: ZoomInfo, Lusha, Apollo, Cognism, Kaspr and ContactOut.

TL;DR

What we evaluated

• Regional phone coverage: a mobile or direct dial figure for the region or its countries, with a source we can link. Most vendors print none.
• Free phone test: whether you can count phones for a country, or test your own list, before you pay.
• Cost of a phone: credits per number, and what 1M numbers cost at list price. Phones cost more than emails at most vendors.
• Country filters: whether you can cut by country and role across Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Egypt, South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya.
• API and MCP: whether an agent or script can pull numbers directly.

How to run the phone test. Take 30 contacts you really call: ten in the Gulf, ten in Sub-Saharan Africa and ten in Egypt, Qatar and Jordan. Run them through each free tier, count the mobiles returned, then dial 20.

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

LeadOcean is the only tool here with an exact, free phone count per country. It holds 166M people with a phone number out of 693M. On 2026-10-21 we ran leadocean_count_leads with hasPhone: true for seven countries and for Africa. These are people with any phone on file, at any email status, not a promise that a number connects.

The UAE and South Africa are the deep markets. Qatar and Kenya are thin, so narrow roles can run dry there.

Pull numbers with GET /v2/people/phone, which costs one record per call, including a call that finds nothing. The MCP server at https://api.leadocean.io/mcp has 13 tools with OAuth 2.1 sign-in, including leadocean_find_phone.

Phone test. Sign up free and run leadocean_count_leads with country: SA, hasPhone: true and your own titles.

Pros

• A free, exact phone count by country, city, title and industry.
• Flat paid plans with no credits: Solo $97, Agency $497 a month, fair-use pace, phones and bulk CSV export included.
• REST and a 13-tool MCP server on every plan, Free included.

Cons

• Thin in Qatar and Kenya, and Africa has 737,225 phone numbers against a much larger people count.
• A phone lookup that finds nothing still costs a record on /v2/people/phone.
• No dialer, sequencer, CRM or Chrome extension. The app has an Exports page only.
• Free is 5 requests a second and 1,000 records for life.

Best for: engineers, agencies and agents that pull phones for the region at volume and want a fixed bill.

Pricing: Free $0. Solo $97 a month. Agency $497 a month (200 requests a second, 5 keys). Platform $1,997 a month. No credits (LeadOcean pricing, October 2026).

2. ZoomInfo: best for a published African mobile figure

ZoomInfo is the only vendor here that prints African mobiles. Its Africa row shows 824K+ companies, 18.1M+ contacts and 2.8M+ mobile numbers (ZoomInfo data page, October 2026). The same page shows no Middle East row. It lists North America, Europe, Asia, South America, Africa and Australia & NZ, so Gulf coverage is unstated.

Its pay-as-you-go product, GTM AI, sells data credits from $20, at $0.45 a credit for 100 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).

Phone test. GTM AI Free includes 1,000 data credits. Filter to your countries and spend credits only on rows you keep. ZoomInfo has an official MCP server for Claude, ChatGPT and Cursor (GTM AI docs, September 2026).

Pros

• Published African mobile figure, 2.8M+.
• Free search, with a record charged once a year.
• Official MCP server and a free tier with API access.

Cons

• No Middle East figure, so Gulf coverage rests on the free search.
• 2.8M mobiles is a small share of 18.1M African contacts.
• The public slider stops at 100,000 credits, so 1M is an Enterprise conversation.

Best for: teams that need African mobiles, accept a sales call at volume and will judge the Gulf from the free search.

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

3. Lusha: best for small, phone-first batches

Lusha prints no Middle East or Africa figure. Its data page shows 515M+ verified contacts and 29M+ companies worldwide, with no regional split (Lusha data page, October 2026).

A phone costs 5 credits and an email 1, so Lusha is built around reveals, not lists (Lusha API docs, September 2026). A phone and an email together are up to 7 credits through one API request. Every plan includes an API key, and the MCP server has 50 tools that share the API credit pool (Lusha MCP docs, September 2026).

Phone test. Lusha Free gives 40 credits a month, which is 8 mobiles. Run your 8 hardest contacts first.

Pros

• Phones are a core product, not an add-on.
• Every plan, Free included, comes with an API key.
• MCP server with 50 tools.

Cons

• No published Middle East or Africa phone figure.
• 1M phones is 5,000,000 credits, and the public ladder tops out at 10,000 credits a month.
• Free and Starter API limits are 40 requests a minute and 100 a day.

Best for: teams that work in small batches and care about mobiles.

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). Scale is custom, with no public price.

4. Apollo: best for a free count by location plus a dialer

Apollo prints no Middle East or Africa figure. Its phone database page lists 240M contacts and 30M companies worldwide, with a country filter and no regional split (Apollo phone database, October 2026). You can size a country in the app, because people search is free to run.

A mobile number costs 8 credits and an email 1. Credits are per seat, pooled across the team and expire each billing cycle (Apollo API pricing, September 2026). 1,000,000 mobiles is 8,000,000 credits. Professional gives 4,000 credits per seat at $99, so that is 2,000 seats, or $198,000 a month. That is our seat arithmetic, not an Apollo quote.

Phone test. Apollo Free gives 75 credits, enough for 9 mobiles. The MCP server is at mcp.apollo.io and works on any plan (Apollo MCP docs, September 2026).

Pros

• A free way to count people by country before you spend a credit.
• Dialer, sequences and extension on the same plan.
• Official MCP server on every plan.

Cons

• A phone costs 8 credits, the most of any tool here per number.
• Credits are per seat and do not roll over.
• 1M mobiles needs about 2,000 seats at list.

Best for: reps who want a free regional count and a dialer in one app.

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

5. Cognism: best for phone-verified mobiles and a sample

Cognism prints no Middle East or Africa figure and no price. Its Diamond Data page claims over 10M phone-verified contacts globally, with on-demand verification of a mobile in under 48 hours (Cognism Diamond Data, October 2026). It also cross-checks Do Not Call lists in a set of territories. The page does not say which Gulf or African countries are covered.

Cognism says it returns a free sample with verified mobiles and emails in about 72 hours (Cognism data sample, September 2026). One credit is one revealed contact, and the API allows 500 requests a minute per operation (Cognism docs, September 2026). The MCP server has 15 tools (Cognism docs, September 2026).

Phone test. Ask for a sample built from Gulf and African accounts, and ask which countries Diamond verification covers.

Pros

• Phone-verified data is a product line, with on-demand checks on Pro.
• A free sample built on your own profile.
• API and MCP on the same credits.

Cons

• No public price and no regional figure.
• The sample takes about 72 hours, not minutes.
• API and MCP need a package that includes them.

Best for: sales-led teams that dial a lot and will judge regional coverage from a sample.

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

6. Kaspr: best for per-seat LinkedIn phone lookups

Kaspr is Europe-first. Its data page claims 200 million European B2B decision makers and names no Middle East or African market (Kaspr data page, October 2026). Treat the region as untested until you run your own list.

It sells per user, with phone, direct email and export credits on top. Starter is 100 phone credits a month and Business 200. A phone lookup through the API is a phone credit plus an export credit (Kaspr help center, September 2026). Add-on phone credits run from $0.36 down to $0.21, and export credits from $0.10 down to $0.03 (Kaspr pricing, September 2026). API access is on request on paid plans, and we found no MCP server listed.

Phone test. Kaspr Free gives 5 phone credits a month. Spend them on five Gulf and African contacts and note the hit rate.

Pros

• Phone credits on every plan, Free included.
• Published add-on prices down to $0.21 a phone credit.
• Unlimited B2B email credits on paid plans, under fair use.

Cons

• Europe-first, with no regional figure for the Middle East or Africa.
• API access is on request, and the Starter limit is 20 requests an hour.
• No public 1M price. Business caps the API at 500 requests a day.

Best for: reps who look up LinkedIn profiles one at a time and want a phone credit.

Pricing: Free $0. Starter $65 and Business $99 per user a month, billed monthly. Enterprise is custom (Kaspr pricing, September 2026).

7. ContactOut: best for cheap lookups outside the US

ContactOut prints no Middle East or Africa figure. Its global totals disagree by page: 350 million professionals on the homepage, 800 million on the data page (ContactOut, September 2026). It sells a regional plan for contacts outside the US. Regional Email + Phone is $49 a month ($39 billed yearly), against $99 ($79) for global coverage (ContactOut pricing, September 2026).

For a small team that dials the region one contact at a time, it is the cheapest paid phone plan here. It is not a bulk source: fair use is 1,000 phones per account a month, with one user per company (ContactOut terms, September 2026).

Phone test. ContactOut Free gives 5 phones a day, marked limited time. API keys come from a sales meeting, with no public price (ContactOut API, September 2026). The MCP page shows 15 tools (ContactOut MCP, September 2026).

Pros

• Regional Email + Phone from $49 a month ($39 billed yearly).
• Profile-led lookups for people outside the US.
• MCP server with 15 tools.

Cons

• No regional figure, and the global profile total differs by page.
• 1,000 phones per account a month under fair use.
• No public API price. People Search allows 60 requests a minute.

Best for: recruiters and small sales teams that look up contacts in the region one by one.

Pricing: Regional Email + Phone $49 a month ($39 billed yearly). Global Email + Phone $99 ($79). Email-only plans have no phones (ContactOut pricing, September 2026).

Comparison table

How to choose

• Code, agents or volume: LeadOcean. Flat price, a free phone count per country, REST and MCP on every plan.
• African mobiles from a published figure: ZoomInfo, then run its free search for your countries.
• Small batches with mobiles: Lusha, tested on your own 30 contacts first.
• A free count plus a dialer: Apollo, and budget 8 credits a phone.
• Phone-verified data and a sales call: Cognism, with a sample built from Gulf and African accounts.
• Cheap one-by-one lookups outside the US: ContactOut Regional.

Verdict

LeadOcean wins for API, agent and volume buyers: a free, exact phone count per country and Agency at a flat $497 a month with phones included. ZoomInfo wins for a published African mobile figure, Apollo for a free count and a dialer, and Lusha for small batches. Cognism suits buyers who want verified mobiles and a sample, Kaspr per-seat lookups, and ContactOut cheap regional lookups. No vendor prints Middle East phone coverage, so run the same 30 contacts through each free tier and pay the one that connects.

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