Cognism vs LeadIQ (2026): Data, Pricing and API Compared

Cognism and LeadIQ both sell contact data to sales teams, but they sell it to different reps. Cognism is a quote-only platform for teams that dial mobiles. LeadIQ is a credit slider for reps who prospect from LinkedIn.

Verdict

• Pick Cognism if your reps phone Europe and want phone-verified mobiles, Do Not Call checks and a documented API with published rate limits (Cognism Diamond Data, September 2026).
• Pick LeadIQ if reps prospect from a Chrome extension, track job changes and push to Salesforce, and you want a price you can read at small volume (LeadIQ pricing, October 2026).
• Pick neither if you need volume through an API at a price you can read. Cognism and LeadIQ both have no public 1M price. LeadOcean is one option: Pro is $499 a month, flat.

Side by side

Data and coverage

LeadIQ claims the larger database, and Cognism claims the better phones. LeadIQ says 750M+ professional profiles, refreshed every month, with up to 200M records re-verified as people change jobs (LeadIQ pricing FAQ, October 2026). Cognism says "hundreds of millions" and gives no total.

Both sizes are vendor claims, and neither says what counts as a contact. A bigger number can mean more stale rows as easily as more people.

On phones, the two print different things. LeadIQ states an 85% global mobile match rate, 70% in EMEA, and over 90% accuracy on verified numbers (LeadIQ pricing FAQ, October 2026). Cognism states 10M+ phone-verified contacts, on-demand verification in under 48 hours, and Do Not Call cross-referencing in 15 territories (Cognism Diamond Data, September 2026). A match rate and a count of verified numbers are not the same measure.

Neither publishes an email count. Cognism does not publish a phone count beyond the verified figure, and LeadIQ does not say what its match rate is measured against.

Filters differ in shape. The Cognism people search schema has 13 person filter fields and 21 company filter fields (Cognism API reference, September 2026). LeadIQ has 12 people filter fields (ContactFilter) and 13 company filter fields (CompanyFilter) (LeadIQ developer docs, October 2026).

The products differ beyond the data. Cognism adds intent data on Pro, built on Bombora Company Surge (Cognism pricing, September 2026). LeadIQ adds job-change tracking, an AI message writer and a Chrome extension on every plan (LeadIQ pricing, October 2026).

Test on your own list before you buy. Run the same 100 people through both and compare the match rate, the email status and whether the phone connects.

API and developer experience

Both have an API and a hosted MCP server, built differently. Cognism is REST with OAuth client credentials and a token that lasts 20 minutes (Cognism docs, September 2026). LeadIQ is one GraphQL endpoint, with search and enrichment as queries.

Cognism: get a token, then search people with contact details. The requests below use placeholders.

curl --request POST \
  --url https://cognism-production.eu.auth0.com/oauth/token \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data '{"grant_type":"client_credentials","client_id":"YOUR_CLIENT_ID","client_secret":"YOUR_CLIENT_SECRET","audience":"https://api.cognism.com"}'

curl --request POST \
  --url "https://api.cognism.com/persons/filter?limit=25&view=contacts" \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer $COGNISM_TOKEN" \
  --header 'content-type: application/json' \
  --data '{"person":{"jobTitle":{"include":["VP Sales"]},"location":{"country":{"include":["United Kingdom"]}}}}'

The contacts view returns emails and phones, and each person returned is one credit. Search without it first, then reveal contacts only for the people you will reach (Cognism docs, September 2026).

LeadIQ: one POST to https://api.leadiq.com/graphql. Its docs show this paged people search.

query {
  flatAdvancedSearch(input: {
    companyFilter: {
      locations: [
        { country: "United States", areaLevel1: "California" }
      ]
    }
    limit: 50
  }) {
    totalPeople
    people { id name title }
    after { key value }
  }
}

The reference sends you to its Public API Guide for authentication, so read that before you build. Offset paging stops at 10,000 results. Past that you pass the after cursor back unchanged (LeadIQ developer docs, October 2026).

Rate limits are the clearest gap. Cognism allows 500 requests a minute per account for each of search, count and dictionary calls, in a fixed 60-second window (Cognism rate limits, September 2026). LeadIQ does not publish one in its developer reference (LeadIQ developer docs, October 2026). Ask before you plan a bulk job.

On MCP, both use OAuth, and both bill the same credits as the API. LeadIQ's 23 tools include list management and Salesforce export, and a free account can connect. Cognism's 15 tools cover search, count, dictionary lookups and account settings (Cognism MCP docs, September 2026; LeadIQ developer docs, October 2026).

Pricing

Neither tool prints a price at volume, so the examples below count credits and, where a price exists, show it. Cognism publishes no dollar price and sells Standard and Pro with 5 seats each (Cognism pricing, September 2026). LeadIQ publishes a slider up to 6,750 credits a month, then says Enterprise. Monthly list price comes first, then the billed-yearly figure.

At 10,000 records a month

Take 10,000 people with a work email.

• Cognism: 10,000 credits to reveal, plus 10,000 search tokens for the rows returned. Each seat carries an allocation, but its size and the price of extra credits are not published (Cognism pricing, September 2026). So there is no public price at 10,000.
• LeadIQ: 10,000 emails x 1 credit = 10,000 credits, which is above the slider. The largest step is 6,750 credits for $290.25 a month on monthly billing, and 25% off on yearly billing (LeadIQ pricing, October 2026). So there is no public price at 10,000.

LeadIQ's published step shows its rate: $290.25 / 6,750 = $0.043 a credit. That buys 6,750 work emails. At the MCP rates, a person with a phone too is 11 credits, so 6,750 / 11 = 613 people. The GraphQL API bills on its own ratesheet (LeadIQ developer docs, October 2026). Cognism has no rate to compare.

At 1M records a month

• Cognism: no public 1M price. 1,000,000 revealed contacts is 1,000,000 credits plus a search token per row returned. There is no list price to multiply, so no dollar figure is possible (Cognism pricing, September 2026).
• LeadIQ: no public 1M price. The same pull is 1,000,000 credits against a slider that stops at 6,750 a month. Enterprise is annual and a quote (LeadIQ pricing, October 2026). We do not multiply the slider rate out to 1M and call it a price.

Throughput is knowable for Cognism only. At 100 rows a call and 500 calls a minute, 1M rows is 10,000 calls, about 20 minutes. One cursor journey stops at 100,000 records, so a 1M pull is at least 10 separate searches (Cognism pagination, September 2026).

For both, ask for a written quote at your volume. Ask Cognism for the credit allocation and the price of extra credits. Ask LeadIQ for the Enterprise credit rate and the API ratesheet.

Where Cognism wins

• Phone-verified mobiles. It publishes a verified-phone figure and a verification turnaround of under 48 hours. For a dialing team, that is the reason to pay.
• Do Not Call checks. It says it cross-references Do Not Call lists in 15 territories, which matters when you cold-call in Europe.
• A published API contract. 500 requests a minute, page sizes, cursor limits and token lifetimes are all in the docs.
• Intent data. Pro adds Bombora Company Surge topics and account prioritisation.
• Company filters. 21 company filter fields against LeadIQ's 13.

Where LeadIQ wins

• A price you can read at small volume. Pro starts at $20 a month for 200 credits, with up to 5 users, and Free costs nothing (LeadIQ pricing, October 2026).
• The LinkedIn workflow. A Chrome extension, job-change tracking and CRM sync, aimed at reps who prospect one person at a time.
• A bigger claimed database. 750M+ profiles against "hundreds of millions".
• A fuller MCP server. 23 tools, including list management and Salesforce export, open to a free account.
• A published mobile claim. An 85% global match rate, though it does not say what it is measured against.

If you need volume through an API

We build LeadOcean, so weigh this section accordingly. LeadOcean holds 693M people and 63M companies, reachable over REST and an MCP server with 12 tools. Free is 1,000 records, one-off, with no card. Pro is $499 a month, flat, with no credits and a limit of 100 requests per second per key (LeadOcean pricing, September 2026).

For bulk work, POST /v1/exports returns up to 50,000 rows per request. The app has an Exports page with a filter builder and CSV download (LeadOcean exports docs, September 2026). There is no sequencer, dialer or Chrome extension. If your reps live in Cognism or LeadIQ, keep it for that.

FAQ