7 Best Sales Data Providers Your Team Should Consider in 2026

A sales data provider sells contact and company records, through an app, an API or both, so your team does not build prospect lists by hand. Reps need one to find the next call. RevOps and engineers need one to fill the CRM and feed agents.

We ranked seven by how they price data at volume, because that is where the bills diverge. We put LeadOcean first for teams that pull data through an API, an agent or in bulk. If your reps live in a browser, read the Apollo entry first.

Teams leave Apollo over seats and expiring credits. They leave ZoomInfo and Cognism over quote-only pricing. People Data Labs, Crustdata and Lusha lose people on credit ladders and API gates. Prices are list prices checked in September 2026.

TL;DR

What we evaluated

• Price at volume. The list price, and what 1M records a month costs when a public price lets us work it out.
• Price model. Per seat, per credit or flat, and whether unused credits expire.
• API. Whether the plan includes it, the endpoints that matter, and the rate limit.
• Agents. Whether there is an official MCP server, how many tools it has and what it needs.
• Fit. Whether the product is a rep workspace, a data layer or both.

1. LeadOcean: best for pulling data by API, agent or bulk export

LeadOcean is only the data layer. It holds 693M people and 67M companies, with 366M people carrying an email and 166M a phone number. You reach it over REST, over MCP and from an Exports page in the app. There is no rep workspace, sequencer, dialer, CRM or Chrome extension.

Paid plans run on a fair-use pace, not a credit meter. Every plan has the whole database and every feature, so the price buys speed, keys and rights. Solo is $97 a month for one person, with phones and bulk CSV export included. Agency is $497 a month with 200 requests a second, 5 keys and 1M enrichments a day (LeadOcean pricing, October 2026).

Counts are free, so you can size a list before you spend a record. Our test: on 2026-10-21 leadocean_count_leads for VPs in Sales & Business Development in Canada returned 5,574 mailable people out of 18,800. Mailable there means verified, catch_all_valid and catch_all. The MCP server has 13 tools and signs in with OAuth (LeadOcean MCP docs, October 2026).

curl -X POST "https://api.leadocean.io/v1/people/enrich" \
  -H "x-api-key: $LEADOCEAN_API_KEY" \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -d '{"linkedin_url":"https://www.linkedin.com/in/jane-doe","reveal_email":true}'

Pros

• Flat pricing: no seats, no credits, no per-record price, no overage invoice.
• 200 requests a second on Agency, 5 on Free.
• Free plan includes REST and MCP, with 1,000 records for life and no card.
• Bulk export of 50,000 rows a file on Agency, and POST /v1/exports for code.
• A miss on POST /v1/people/enrich is a 404 and costs nothing.

Cons

• No workspace for reps, no sequences, no dialer, no CRM.
• No intent data or buying signals.
• Bulk CSV export is not on Free.
• The Free allowance is a one-off 1,000 records, not monthly.

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

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

2. Apollo: best for reps who want data and sequencing in one app

Apollo is a contact database with sequences, a dialer and a rep workspace on top. It suits a team that finds a lead, emails it and tracks replies in one login. The Free plan gives 75 credits a month.

Apollo bills per seat. An email costs 1 credit and a phone number 8 credits. Credits are pooled across the team and expire at the end of each billing cycle (Apollo API pricing, September 2026). Apollo prints no price for extra credits.

Every plan includes API access, and enrichment endpoints reach 1,000 requests a minute on paid plans (Apollo rate limits, September 2026). The official MCP server works on any plan, Free included (Apollo MCP docs, September 2026).

Pros

• Data, sequences and dialer in one app.
• Free plan with API access and MCP.
• Credits are pooled across the team.
• Low seat price for a small team.

Cons

• Per-seat pricing makes volume expensive: 1M emails a month is 250 Professional seats.
• Credits expire each cycle and do not roll over.
• The price of extra credits is not public.

Best for: a sales team of one to twenty that prospects in a browser and wants the sequencer included.

Pricing: Free; Basic $65 a seat a month, $49 billed yearly; Professional $99, $79 billed yearly; Organization $149, $119 billed yearly, minimum 3 seats (Apollo pricing, September 2026).

3. ZoomInfo: best for enterprise teams, and for pay-as-you-go through GTM AI

ZoomInfo is the enterprise incumbent. Its platform plans are sold through sales, and zoominfo.com/pricing blocked our automated read, so we print no platform price.

The part with public prices is GTM AI. It sells data credits pay as you go from $20, with no contract and no seat fee. A credit costs $0.45 at 100 credits and $0.29 at the 30,000 to 50,000 tier. One credit enriches or exports one company, contact or intent record, and search is free (GTM AI pricing, September 2026).

The public slider stops at 100,000 credits for $25,000. Above that you talk to sales, which is why we show no 1M price. GTM AI includes an MCP server and API access, and the free tier gives 1,000 data credits at 5 requests a second (GTM AI rate limits, September 2026).

Pros

• Credits do not expire while the account is active.
• Search is free; a record is charged once per 12 months.
• Official MCP server for Claude, ChatGPT and Cursor.
• Free tier of 1,000 data credits, no card.

Cons

• Platform plan prices are not public.
• No public price at 1M records.
• Self-serve rate limits start at 5 requests a second on Builder.
• Batch enrichment takes at most 25 records per call.

Best for: enterprise sales teams that already run ZoomInfo, and small pay-as-you-go buyers on GTM AI.

Pricing: GTM AI credits from $0.45 down to $0.29 by tier (GTM AI pricing, September 2026). Platform plans: quote only.

4. Cognism: best for verified mobile numbers

Cognism sells to sales teams that cold call, and it leads with phone-verified mobiles. Its Diamond Data page claims over 10m phone-verified contacts and Do Not Call checks in 15 territories (Cognism Diamond Data, September 2026). That is the claim to test on a sample before you sign.

Cognism publishes no dollar price. The pricing page lists Standard and Pro with 5 seats each, and Pro adds mobile verification and intent data. One credit reveals one contact, and the same credits work across the app, enrichment and the API (Cognism pricing, September 2026).

The API allows 500 requests a minute per operation, and the MCP server has 15 tools with OAuth sign-in. Both need a package that includes them (Cognism rate limits, September 2026; Cognism MCP docs, September 2026).

Pros

• Strong focus on verified mobiles and Do Not Call screening.
• Official MCP server with 15 tools.

Cons

• No public price for any plan, seat or credit.
• API and MCP need a package that includes them.
• 500 requests a minute is slow for bulk work.
• Coverage is described only as hundreds of millions of profiles.

Best for: outbound teams that call mobiles and can sign a quoted contract.

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

5. People Data Labs: best for developers building products on person profiles

People Data Labs (PDL) is an API company first. Its person dataset holds 2,466,510,427 profiles, with 592,376,573 carrying at least one email (PDL datasets, September 2026). It sells profiles to products, not seats to reps.

Pro starts at $98 a month for 350 credits, which is $0.28 a credit. One credit is one successful match, and a miss is not billed (PDL person pricing, September 2026). Self-serve is meant for under about 100,000 profiles, then PDL sends you to Enterprise (PDL plan guide, September 2026).

Person enrichment runs at 1,000 requests a minute on paid plans, but person search runs at 10 a minute by default (PDL usage limits, September 2026). We found no official PDL MCP server in its docs, llms.txt or GitHub organization (PDL llms.txt, September 2026).

Pros

• Dataset of 2,466,510,427 person profiles.
• Misses are not billed.
• Bulk enrichment of up to 100 persons per request.
• Free plan of 100 credits a month.

Cons

• Person search is limited to 10 requests a minute by default.
• No official MCP server that we could find.
• Contact data is obscured on the Free plan.
• No public price above the entry Pro tier.

Best for: engineering teams that build a product on person data and can budget for Enterprise.

Pricing: Free; Pro from $98 a month ($78 a month billed yearly) for 350 credits; Enterprise custom (PDL person pricing, September 2026).

6. Crustdata: best for change watchers feeding agents

Crustdata sells people and company data with an emphasis on change. Its watchers charge per changed record, for example 5 credits per changed person at a 30-day SLA (Crustdata pricing docs, September 2026).

It prices in credits, not dollars. The pricing page lists no plan names and no dollar prices, and the docs say the dollar value depends on your plan (Crustdata pricing, September 2026). A work-email lookup is 2 credits through /person/enrich, or 1 credit on the contact endpoint, which needs an enterprise plan.

Default rate limits are 15 requests a minute on enrichment and 30 on search (Crustdata rate limits, September 2026). The hosted MCP server uses OAuth for interactive clients and a bearer key for code (Crustdata MCP docs, September 2026).

Pros

• Watchers for changed people, changed companies and new records.
• Hosted MCP server with OAuth and API-key options.
• Search costs only 0.03 credits a result.
• Batch person enrichment takes up to 10,000 identifiers a job.

Cons

• No public dollar price for any plan or credit.
• Contact enrich is enterprise only; self-serve keys get a 403.
• Default rate limits are low at 15 requests a minute on enrichment.
• No public price at 1M records.

Best for: teams building signal-driven agents that can negotiate a contract.

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

7. Lusha: best for small teams that want phones and a browser extension

Lusha is a lookup tool for a few reps. The Free plan gives 40 credits a month. Pro is $69.90 a month for 600 credits, and Premium is $399.90 a month for 3,400 credits with 5 seats (Lusha pricing, September 2026).

An email costs 1 credit and a phone number 5 credits. Through the API, email plus phone is 7 credits per request (Lusha API guide, September 2026).

Every plan includes an API key. Premium allows 300 requests a minute, and Pro only 50. The MCP server has 50 tools and shares the REST credit pool (Lusha MCP docs, September 2026). The top public tier holds 10,000 credits a month.

Pros

• API key on every plan, Free included.
• Official MCP server with 50 tools.
• Credits roll over up to 2x on monthly Pro and Premium.

Cons

• Phone numbers cost 5 credits, so a phone pull is five times an email pull.
• Pro is limited to 50 API requests a minute.
• The largest public plan is 10,000 credits a month.
• Scale pricing is custom, with no per-credit figure.

Best for: two to five reps who want contact details from a browser extension.

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

Comparison table

The Apollo figure is 1,000,000 emails at 1 credit each, on Professional seats of 4,000 credits at $99 (Apollo pricing, September 2026). We do not multiply a per-credit rate out to 1M for vendors with no public 1M price.

How to choose

• Reps who work in a browser: Apollo for data plus sequencing, or Lusha for a small team that wants a quick extension.
• Reps who cold call mobiles: Cognism, and test its phone data on a sample first.
• Enterprise with a procurement process: ZoomInfo, and use GTM AI to start with public credit prices.
• Engineers building a product on person data: People Data Labs, if you accept Enterprise pricing at scale.
• Agents that react to changes: Crustdata, with a contract in hand.
• RevOps, agencies and agents at volume: LeadOcean. Call the free count first, then export.

Verdict

LeadOcean wins when code, an agent or a bulk export pulls the data, because Agency is $497 a month flat at 200 requests a second. Apollo wins for reps who want data and sequencing in one login, until seat counts climb. ZoomInfo and Cognism win where an enterprise contract and mobile numbers matter more than a public price. People Data Labs fits developers building products, Crustdata fits signal-driven agents, and Lusha fits a small team that wants an extension.

FAQ