Clearbit (Breeze Intelligence) vs Explorium (2026): Data, Pricing and API Compared

Clearbit (Breeze Intelligence) and Explorium both fill in B2B contacts and companies, but you buy them in opposite ways. Clearbit is data enrichment inside HubSpot, with no price of its own. Explorium is a standalone API and MCP server that bills in prepaid credits.

Verdict

• Pick Clearbit (Breeze Intelligence) if your contacts and companies already live in HubSpot and you want them filled in without code. Enrichment uses no HubSpot Credits (HubSpot docs, October 2026).
• Pick Explorium if you want an API and MCP server you can read, test and price before you sign up. Lite is $29.99 for 500 credits, and its docs are public (Explorium pricing, October 2026).
• Pick neither if you need to build a list by filter and pull it at 1M records without a quote or a credit bill. Clearbit has no public 1M price, and Explorium's list price is about $30,000 for 1M work emails. LeadOcean is one flat $499 a month.

Side by side

All prices are USD list prices. Monthly list price first. Neither vendor shows a billed-yearly figure for enrichment on the pages we read.

Data and coverage

Explorium publishes more numbers than Clearbit, but the numbers are not comparable. Explorium claims 767M+ professional profiles and 146M+ business entities. Its homepage also says 150M+ companies and 800M+ people in other copy, so treat the figures as rounded marketing counts (Explorium, October 2026).

Clearbit's own site publishes no count. HubSpot's enrichment page says 100M+ company domains and 380M email addresses are indexed in its database (HubSpot, October 2026). HubSpot's docs add that enrichment draws on its commercial dataset, third-party providers and public web data (HubSpot docs, October 2026). Treat that as HubSpot's database, not a Clearbit match rate.

The two tools start from different inputs. HubSpot enriches a contact from first name, last name and a work email, and a company from its domain. Personal addresses such as Gmail are skipped (HubSpot docs, October 2026). Explorium matches a person by LinkedIn URL, email, phone, or full name plus company, then enriches the returned ID.

Clearbit's company data is its edge. Its homepage lists 6-digit NAICS, GICS and SIC codes, parent and subsidiary mapping, and normalized role and seniority (Clearbit, October 2026). Explorium's edge is breadth: events such as funding rounds, hiring and M&A, plus prospect and business fetch filters (Explorium MCP docs, October 2026).

Contact data is thin on both sides. Neither vendor publishes an email or phone count for its own data. Explorium returns three email statuses and no split of risky, role or spam-trap addresses. Run the same 500 people through each before you commit, and compare the fill rate and email status.

API and developer experience

Explorium has a public API you can read today. Clearbit's API docs sit behind a sign-in, so you cannot size the integration before you commit (Clearbit docs, October 2026).

For Clearbit, the documented route is HubSpot's enrichment settings. A Super Admin turns on automatic enrichment for contacts and companies, and it is off by default (HubSpot docs, October 2026). Clearbit's own sign-up has needed a HubSpot account since December 5, 2023 (Clearbit release notes, October 2026).

We show no Clearbit request, because its docs sit behind a sign-in. Clearbit does not publish whether a new customer can get the API outside a HubSpot subscription, so ask HubSpot before you plan code around it.

Explorium works in two steps. You first match the person to a prospect_id. A name alone never matches, so it needs a company beside it (Explorium docs, October 2026).

curl -X POST "https://api.explorium.ai/v2/prospects/match" \
  -H "API_KEY: $EXPLORIUM_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"request_context": {}, "prospects_to_match": [{"linkedin": "https://www.linkedin.com/in/jane-doe"}]}'

Then you enrich the ID. Email only costs 2 credits, and phone or both cost 5 (Explorium docs, October 2026).

curl -X POST "https://api.explorium.ai/v2/prospects/contact_information/enrich" \
  -H "API_KEY: $EXPLORIUM_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"prospect_id": "PROSPECT_ID_FROM_MATCH", "parameters": {"contact_types": ["email"]}}'

Rate limits shape how each one scales. Explorium allows 200 queries a minute per key in a 60-second sliding window. A bulk request of 50 IDs counts as 50 queries, and going over returns a 429 with a Retry-After header (Explorium docs, October 2026). Clearbit publishes no limit.

On MCP, only Explorium has a server for data. AgentSource MCP has 11 tools at https://mcp.explorium.ai/mcp, signs in with an API key, and its statistics tools are free. Fetch tools cost 1 credit per returned result. HubSpot's remote MCP server gives agents read and write access to CRM records such as contacts and deals, not to enrichment data (HubSpot MCP, October 2026).

What a miss costs is open on the Explorium side. An unmatched record returns prospect_id: null, but the docs do not say whether that spends a credit (Explorium docs, October 2026). Ask before you budget a messy list.

Pricing

Clearbit has no per-record price to multiply. Explorium charges credits per action, so cost scales with volume. The two examples below show the arithmetic.

At 10,000 records a month

Clearbit on HubSpot Starter is one seat at $10 a month, or $7 billed yearly on a new-customer offer, if the volume is allowed (HubSpot Starter, October 2026). An index page enrolls at most 100 records at a time, so 10,000 records is 100 batches. HubSpot publishes no monthly enrichment cap, so confirm the ceiling.

Explorium needs 2 credits per work email. 10,000 x 2 = 20,000 credits. Four Starter packs give exactly that: 4 x $149.99 = $599.96. With phones at 5 credits, 10,000 x 5 = 50,000 credits. One Growth pack (30K, $749.99) plus four Starter packs (20K, $599.96) comes to $1,349.95 (Explorium pricing, October 2026).

At this size Clearbit is the cheaper line, provided you already run HubSpot and the volume is allowed. The Explorium figures are a floor, because the match step has no published price.

At 1M records a month

Clearbit (Breeze Intelligence): No public 1M price. HubSpot lists no per-record rate and no monthly enrichment cap. At 100 records an index page, 1,000,000 is 10,000 batches, so a run this size is a workflow or import job (HubSpot docs, October 2026). The plan is the visible cost. Marketing Hub Professional includes 3 core seats and a required one-time onboarding fee (HubSpot pricing, October 2026). The page showed local currency to our fetch, so check the USD price there.

Explorium: 1M work emails is 1,000,000 x 2 = 2,000,000 credits. The cheapest published pack is Scale, 500K credits at $7,499.99, or $0.015 a credit. So 4 x $7,499.99 = $29,999.96 at list. With phones, 1,000,000 x 5 = 5,000,000 credits, which is 10 packs and $74,999.90 (Explorium pricing, October 2026).

Enterprise is a custom quote with volume discounts and more query capacity, so a negotiated price could be lower. Packs are one-off purchases valid for 12 months, not a monthly bill.

The rate limit is the other cost. At 200 queries a minute, 1M rows take 5,000 minutes, about 3.5 days, unless you buy more capacity (Explorium docs, October 2026).

Where Clearbit (Breeze Intelligence) wins

• Enrichment where your records live. Automatic enrichment fills new HubSpot contacts and companies with no code, and automatic enrichment does not overwrite a value a user set (HubSpot docs, October 2026). Explorium needs you to build the sync.
• Standardized company data. NAICS, GICS and SIC codes, corporate hierarchy and normalized role and seniority (Clearbit, October 2026). Explorium filters by NAICS category, but the pages we read list no GICS codes or parent and subsidiary mapping.
• Visitor identification. Clearbit advertises turning anonymous web traffic into company-level intent signals (Clearbit, October 2026). The Explorium pages we read list no visitor identification.
• Low cost for a HubSpot team. If the plan is already paid for, plain enrichment adds nothing per record.

Where Explorium wins

• A public API and MCP server. You can read the docs, get a key and run a request in minutes. Clearbit's docs need a sign-in.
• A price you can read. Packs run from $29.99 to $7,499.99, and the per-credit rate is on the page. Clearbit gives you a CRM plan and no volume ceiling.
• No CRM required. Explorium works on its own. You do not need a HubSpot account to call it.
• Events and signals. Funding rounds, hiring changes, M&A and role changes are available as events (Explorium MCP docs, October 2026). The Clearbit pages we read show no equivalent stream.

If you need volume through an API

LeadOcean fits when the job is building a list and pulling it at volume. We build it, so weigh this section accordingly. It holds 693M people, 366M with an email and 166M with a phone number, plus 63M companies, behind REST and a 12-tool MCP server with OAuth sign-in. Pro is $499 a month flat with no credits, and Free gives 1,000 records one-off with no card.

POST /v1/exports returns up to 50,000 rows per request, so 1M rows is 20 requests over two days. The rate limit is 100 requests per second per key. LeadOcean has no CRM, no event stream and no visitor identification, and it does not credit back bounced emails, so read email_status before you send. See the Clearbit alternative page or LeadOcean pricing.

Related matchups: Prospeo vs Explorium, LeadMagic vs Explorium and Hunter vs Explorium. Back to all comparisons.

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