BlitzAPI is a data API sold as one flat monthly fee. ContactOut is a LinkedIn email and phone finder with a browser extension, and its API is priced on request. BlitzAPI is for engineers who pull verified work emails from code. ContactOut is for recruiters and reps who work from LinkedIn.
All prices and limits below were checked in September 2026, each with its source link. Where a vendor publishes nothing, the page says so.
Verdict
- Pick BlitzAPI if you want verified work emails for LinkedIn profiles from code, at a bill you can predict. It sells a self-serve key and one flat fee, with no credits on paid plans. Plus is $499 a month. New accounts run at 5 requests per second; accounts opened by September 30, 2026 keep 50.
- Pick ContactOut if your team works in the browser, or you need personal emails, phones outside the US, or a cheap plan under 2,000 lookups a month. Email starts at $49 a month, and its MCP server returns records.
- Pick neither if you want volume through an API, a hosted MCP server that returns records and a CSV export on one flat plan. BlitzAPI's MCP server only reads its docs, and ContactOut's API has no public price. LeadOcean is one option.
Side by side
| BlitzAPI | ContactOut | |
|---|---|---|
| Data size | 550M+ profiles, 65M+ companies (BlitzAPI docs) | 800 million profiles, 40M companies on its data page. 600M+ on its MCP page (ContactOut data, MCP) |
| Email coverage | 65M+ verified work emails, re-tested at least every 30 days. Plus plan and above (BlitzAPI docs) | 200M work emails and 150M personal emails (ContactOut data) |
| Phone coverage | 45M+ US numbers, US only, Full plan only (BlitzAPI docs, pricing) | 100M direct dials. Email + Phone plan (ContactOut data, pricing) |
| API | REST v2, x-api-key header, 19 JSON endpoints, self-serve key (BlitzAPI docs) | REST, token header. Keys come from booking a meeting (ContactOut API docs) |
| MCP | Documentation search only, no records (BlitzAPI docs) | 15 tools that search people and return contact info, 600+ free credits (ContactOut MCP) |
| Rate limit | 50 per second per endpoint for accounts opened by September 30, standard 5 (BlitzAPI pricing) | People Search 60 a minute, checkers 150, other APIs 1,000 (ContactOut API docs) |
| Bulk export | None documented in the public docs (BlitzAPI docs) | 300 or 600 exports a month on self-serve. The v1 bulk contact info call takes 100 LinkedIn profiles (ContactOut pricing, API docs) |
| Price model | Flat monthly fee, no per-request fees on paid plans (BlitzAPI docs) | Monthly seat plans, one user per company. API credits, no public price (ContactOut pricing, API docs) |
| Entry price | 1,000 free credits, no card. Core $399, Plus $499, Full $599 a month. No billed-yearly figure (BlitzAPI pricing) | Free: 5 emails, 5 phones, 5 exports a day. Email $49 a month, $39 billed yearly. Email + Phone $99 a month, $79 billed yearly (ContactOut pricing) |
| Cost at 1M records | $499 a month (Plus) for accounts opened by September 30, 2026, under a 15M results fair use line. No volume is published for later accounts (BlitzAPI pricing) | No public 1M price (ContactOut terms, pricing) |
All figures checked September 2026. The vendors change plans and promotional prices often, so check before you buy.
Data and coverage
The counts are not like for like, so test both on your own list. BlitzAPI lists 550M+ profiles and 65M+ companies (BlitzAPI docs, September 2026). ContactOut lists 800 million people profiles and 40M companies (ContactOut data, September 2026).
ContactOut disagrees with itself on size. Its MCP page says 600M+ profiles, and its homepage headline says 350M professionals (ContactOut MCP, September 2026; ContactOut, September 2026). Ask which number your plan reaches.
Email is where the units differ. BlitzAPI counts 65M+ verified work emails, proven against live mail servers. An address it cannot prove comes back as not found (BlitzAPI pricing, September 2026). ContactOut lists 200M work emails and 150M personal emails, and claims 99% confidence. It publishes no test method (ContactOut data, September 2026).
Phones split the two more clearly. BlitzAPI holds 45M+ phone numbers, all in the US, and only on the $599 Full plan. Its trial excludes phone endpoints (BlitzAPI docs, September 2026). ContactOut lists 100M direct dials, sold on the Email + Phone plan with global coverage (ContactOut pricing, September 2026).
BlitzAPI also lists 100M+ job postings, which ContactOut does not mention. If your trigger is a company hiring for a role, that is BlitzAPI's edge.
API and developer experience
Both are plain REST. BlitzAPI's work email lookup takes a LinkedIn URL. It returns found, the verified email and an all_emails array, and it counts one record on the trial (BlitzAPI docs, September 2026).
curl -X POST "https://api.blitz-api.ai/v2/enrichment/email" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-H "x-api-key: $BLITZAPI_API_KEY" \
-d '{"person_linkedin_url":"https://www.linkedin.com/in/jane-doe"}'ContactOut's profile call takes the same input and passes the key in a token header. It returns work_email, personal_email and phone arrays plus profile fields. It charges a credit when an email or phone is found (ContactOut API docs, September 2026).
curl "https://api.contactout.com/v1/linkedin/enrich?profile=https://www.linkedin.com/in/jane-doe" \
--header "Content-Type: application/json" \
--header "Accept: application/json" \
--header "token: $CONTACTOUT_API_TOKEN"The difference is access. You can open a BlitzAPI account and send that request today. ContactOut asks you to book a meeting to get a key, so you cannot test the API before a sales conversation.
Rate limits shape how each one scales. BlitzAPI limits are per endpoint and per second. At 1M lookups, 1,000,000 / 50 per second is 20,000 seconds, about 5.6 hours. At the standard 5 per second it is 200,000 seconds, about 2.3 days (BlitzAPI pricing, September 2026).
ContactOut limits are per minute: 1,000 on most endpoints and 60 on People Search (ContactOut API docs, September 2026). At 1,000 a minute, 1M single lookups is 1,000 minutes, about 17 hours. The credit ceilings below bind first.
For agents, only ContactOut helps. Its MCP server searches people and returns contact info, and 600+ free credits come at onboarding (ContactOut MCP, September 2026). BlitzAPI's MCP server answers questions about its docs and cannot return people (BlitzAPI docs, September 2026).
Pricing
BlitzAPI charges one fee a month, whatever you pull. ContactOut charges per account, with a monthly credit ceiling. To compare them, use work emails found, because both sell that.
At 2,000 records a month. ContactOut Email at $49 a month is the cheaper plan. $49 / 2,000 is about $0.02 per email. BlitzAPI needs Plus because Core has no emails: $499 / 2,000 is about $0.25 per email (ContactOut pricing, BlitzAPI pricing, September 2026).
At 10,000 records a month. BlitzAPI Plus is still $499 a month, about $0.05 per email. Only emails it finds count as results, so 10,000 lookups return at most 10,000 (BlitzAPI pricing, September 2026).
ContactOut has no public price at 10,000. Its paid "unlimited" plans cap at 2,000 email credits and 1,000 phone credits per account per month (ContactOut terms, September 2026). So 10,000 / 2,000 = 5 accounts, and every self-serve plan lists a one-user-per-company limit (ContactOut pricing, September 2026). Volume means the Team / API plan, priced on request.
At 1M records a month. BlitzAPI is $499 a month for an account opened by September 30, 2026. 1,000,000 results sit under that account's 15,000,000 a month fair use line, so one Plus plan covers it: $499 x 1 month = $499 (BlitzAPI pricing, September 2026).
ContactOut has no public 1M price. 1,000,000 / 2,000 = 500 account-months of capacity, and the one-user limit blocks that route. The API has no published price per credit (ContactOut API docs, September 2026). We will not multiply a seat price out to a number nobody can buy. Get a quote.
One caution on BlitzAPI. The 50 requests per second and the 15,000,000 fair use line belong to accounts opened by September 30, 2026. The offer closed to new accounts after that day. The pricing page still lists $399, $499 and $599 but no fair use volume for later accounts (BlitzAPI pricing, October 2026). The standard rate is 5 requests per second (BlitzAPI Terms, September 2026).
Where BlitzAPI wins
- A key you can test today. Self-serve, 1,000 free credits and a public price. ContactOut's API starts with a meeting.
- Predictable cost. One flat fee, no credits and no overage line on paid plans.
- Verified work emails. Tested against mail servers and re-tested at least every 30 days.
- Speed and signals. 5 requests per second per endpoint on standard accounts, 50 on the offer terms, and 100M+ job postings.
BlitzAPI's weak points are US-only phones, no documented bulk export and an MCP server that only reads docs. Core, Plus and Full carry no SLA (BlitzAPI docs, September 2026).
Where ContactOut wins
- Browser workflow. A Chrome extension, a search portal and a free tier of 5 emails a day, where reps and recruiters already work (ContactOut pricing, September 2026).
- Personal emails and phones. 150M personal emails, and 100M direct dials with global coverage on Email + Phone.
- MCP that returns data. 15 tools and 600+ free credits at onboarding.
- Small volumes. $49 a month covers up to 2,000 emails, about a tenth of BlitzAPI's entry for emails.
ContactOut's weak points are the API and the ceilings. There is no public API price. "Unlimited" stops at 2,000 emails per account. Refund and renewal terms sit in a Subscription Agreement that is not public (ContactOut terms, September 2026).
If you need volume through an API
We build LeadOcean, so weigh this section accordingly. It has a free plan with 1,000 records, one-off, no card. Pro is $499 a month, flat, with unlimited searches, enrichments and lookups, and no credits or per-record price (LeadOcean pricing, September 2026).
It holds 693M people, 366M with an email and 166M with a phone number, plus 63M companies. The same REST API and a hosted MCP server with 12 tools run on every plan, and the MCP server searches, enriches and exports records (LeadOcean MCP docs, September 2026).
For bulk pulls, POST /v1/exports returns up to 50,000 rows per request, or you can use the Exports page in the app. 1M rows is 20 requests over two days (LeadOcean exports docs, September 2026). See pricing for the detail, or BlitzAPI alternatives and the BlitzAPI alternative page.
FAQ
Is BlitzAPI cheaper than ContactOut?
At volume, yes. At 10,000 emails a month BlitzAPI Plus lists at $499 flat, and ContactOut has no public price. At 2,000 emails or fewer, ContactOut Email at $49 a month is cheaper.
Does ContactOut publish an API price?
No. The pricing page says Contact Us for Team / API, and the API docs say to book a meeting for a key (ContactOut pricing, September 2026). The docs list credit counts without a dollar price.
Do BlitzAPI and ContactOut have MCP servers?
Both do. ContactOut's has 15 tools and returns contact info. BlitzAPI's gives an AI tool access to the API documentation only, not to records (BlitzAPI docs, September 2026).
Does BlitzAPI cover phone numbers outside the US?
No. BlitzAPI lists 45M+ phone numbers and its docs say coverage is US only. You also need the $599 Full plan to get them (BlitzAPI pricing, September 2026).
Which database is bigger, BlitzAPI or ContactOut?
ContactOut claims more: 800 million profiles against BlitzAPI's 550M+. The units differ, ContactOut quotes 350M, 600M+ and 800 million on different pages, and neither publishes a match rate. Run both on your own list.
What happens to BlitzAPI pricing after September 30, 2026?
The offer closed to new accounts. The pricing page still lists $399, $499 and $599 a month but no fair use volume for later accounts (BlitzAPI pricing, October 2026). The standard limit is 5 requests per second (BlitzAPI Terms, September 2026). Check the pricing page on the day you sign up.
Related: ContactOut vs Wiza, ContactOut vs Snov.io and ContactOut vs Kaspr. Back to all blog posts.
Skip the API quote and the plan tiers. Pull people data at a flat $499, through REST or MCP.
Free to start. No credit card. 1,000 records to spend whenever you like.
Get your free API key →