Cognism vs Seamless.AI (2026): Data, Pricing and API Compared

Cognism is the pick for phone-verified mobiles and European outbound. Seamless.AI claims the larger database and ships a Chrome extension and calling tools. Neither publishes a price at 1M records, so you need a quote from both to compare cost.

Verdict

• Pick Cognism if your reps call Europe and want phone-verified mobiles, Do Not Call checks and Pro-plan intent data (Cognism Diamond Data, September 2026).
• Pick Seamless.AI if reps work in a Chrome extension with built-in calling, and you want the largest claimed pool of mobile numbers (Seamless.AI, September 2026).
• Pick neither if you pull people and company data by API at volume and want one flat monthly bill. LeadOcean is one option, covered below.

Side by side

All figures were checked in September 2026. Both vendors change plans often, so confirm on their pages before you buy.

Data and coverage

Seamless.AI claims far more records, and Cognism claims better phones. Seamless.AI lists 2.2B+ verified contacts and 448M+ mobile numbers. Cognism says "hundreds of millions" of profiles and gives no total (Cognism FAQ, September 2026).

The sizes are vendor claims, and neither explains how it counts. A bigger number can mean more stale rows as easily as more people. Test the same 100 people in both before you trust a total.

On phones, the two sell different things. Cognism claims 10M+ phone-verified contacts, on-demand verification in under 48 hours and Do Not Call checks in 15 territories (Cognism Diamond Data, September 2026). Seamless.AI claims 448M+ verified mobile numbers and gives no phone-verification method. If a rep dials the number, that difference matters.

On filtering, Cognism's people search schema has 13 person filter fields and 21 company filter fields (Cognism API reference, September 2026). Seamless.AI's contact search takes 39 filter and modifier parameters, and company search takes 23 (Seamless.AI docs, September 2026).

Cognism positions its data as compliance-first and sells intent data on Pro (Cognism pricing, September 2026). Seamless.AI sells buyer intent and job-change tracking inside its app (Seamless.AI, September 2026).

API and developer experience

Both APIs take real setup, in different ways. Cognism needs OAuth client credentials from the platform, then a bearer token that lasts 20 minutes (Cognism docs, September 2026). Seamless.AI takes a key in a header, but a result arrives later by poll or webhook. The requests below use placeholders.

Cognism: get a token, then search people with contact details.

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"]}}}}'

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

Seamless.AI: start a research job. It answers HTTP 202 with requestIds.

curl -X POST https://api.seamless.ai/api/client/v1/contacts/research \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Token: $SEAMLESS_API_KEY" \
  -d '{"contacts":[{"contactName":"Jane Doe","companyName":"Acme Corp","title":"CTO"}]}'

Next you call GET /contacts/research/poll with those IDs, or take the result by webhook. A poll ends in done, error, missing or duplicate (Seamless.AI docs, September 2026). The docs do not say whether a missing record is charged.

Throughput is closer than the headline limits suggest. Cognism returns up to 100 rows a call at 500 calls a minute, so 1M rows is 10,000 calls, about 20 minutes. Seamless.AI returns up to 500 records a call at 60 calls a minute. So 1M records is 2,000 search calls and 2,000 research calls, about 34 minutes each in separate windows, plus polling (Seamless.AI docs, September 2026).

Pricing

Neither tool publishes a dollar price, so the examples below count credits and calls instead of dollars. Cognism's pricing page lists Standard and Pro with 5 seats each and says pricing is tailored to product, team setup and usage (Cognism pricing, September 2026). Each seat includes a credit allocation, and extra credits can be bought, but no allocation or credit price is published.

Seamless.AI's pricing page is a quote form. Licenses carry credits: Free has 50 with no refill, Basic 250 a month and Pro 10,000 a month, refreshed on the contract date (Seamless.AI credit docs, September 2026). Subscriptions are annual, and cancelling needs 60 days' notice before renewal or it renews for 12 months (Seamless.AI terms, September 2026).

At 10,000 records a month

• Cognism: 10,000 people returned with contacts is 10,000 search tokens plus 10,000 credits. No public price for either (Cognism pricing, September 2026).
• Seamless.AI: 10,000 contacts x 1 credit = 10,000 credits, which is one Pro license for a month. Finding them first by search adds 10,000 / 10 = 1,000 credits, so 11,000 in all. No public price (Seamless.AI docs, September 2026).

At this size you can estimate usage on both, but not spend. You need two quotes to compare them.

At 1M records a month

• Cognism: no public 1M price. 1,000,000 revealed contacts is 1,000,000 credits, plus search tokens per row returned. There is no list price to multiply, so no dollar figure is possible (Cognism pricing, September 2026).
• Seamless.AI: no public 1M price. 1,000,000 contacts x 1 credit = 1,000,000 credits, or 1,100,000 with search first. At 10,000 credits a Pro license, that is 100 licenses (110 with search first), or a bulk pool. Both are quote only (Seamless.AI docs, September 2026).

One metering detail on Cognism is unsettled. Its own docs pages disagree on whether a count call costs a search token, so ask Cognism before you size audiences in bulk (Cognism docs, September 2026).

Where Cognism wins

• Phone-verified mobiles, with on-demand verification in under 48 hours (Cognism Diamond Data, September 2026).
• Do Not Call cross-referencing in 15 territories, which matters if reps cold-call in Europe.
• Intent data on Pro, built on Bombora Company Surge (Cognism pricing, September 2026).
• Search is faster per call: 500 requests a minute and 100 rows a page, with a single synchronous response.
• Seats include credits, so a rep team starts with an allocation instead of a meter.

Where Seamless.AI wins

• A larger claimed database: 2.2B+ contacts and 448M+ mobile numbers (Seamless.AI API page, September 2026).
• One credit covers a contact's email and phone together.
• Bigger batches: 500 records per research request, against 100 rows per Cognism search page.
• A Chrome extension and calling tools for reps (Seamless.AI, October 2026), plus an MCP server with 57 tools (Seamless.AI MCP docs, September 2026).
• A free license to try it, though it is only 50 credits with no refill.

If you need volume through an API

LeadOcean is a data API and MCP server with no credits and no seats. It is not a sales suite. Pro costs $499 a month flat, with unlimited searches, enrichments and lookups. The Free plan gives 1,000 records one-off with no card. Both plans get the same REST API and 12-tool MCP server, and POST /v1/exports returns up to 50,000 rows per request (LeadOcean exports docs, September 2026). Compare it on a list you already know, then read Cognism alternatives or the Cognism alternative page.

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