The cheapest ContactOut plan is Free at $0, with 5 emails, 5 phones and 5 exports a day. The cheapest paid plan is Email at $49 a month on monthly billing, or $39 a month billed yearly. Email + Phone is $99 a month monthly or $79 a month billed yearly (ContactOut pricing, September 2026).
ContactOut does not mark a most popular plan. Email is the one to buy if you only need addresses, and Email + Phone is the one to buy if you need mobile numbers.
A million emails a month does not fit on any self-serve plan. "Unlimited" is capped at 2,000 emails and 1,000 phones per account a month, and each company gets one user. The API price is not published, so 1M records means a sales call.
Plans
ContactOut sells three self-serve plans and one sales-led plan. The prices below are the global prices on the pricing page, which has a yearly and a monthly toggle.
| Plan | Price a month | Credits | Seats | API access | Limits |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 5 emails, 5 phones, 5 exports a day | 1 user per company | Not listed | Browser extension and search portal. "Limited time only." |
| $49 a month on monthly billing, $39 a month billed yearly ($468 a year) | "Unlimited" emails, no phones | 1 user per company | Not listed | 300 exports a month (3,600 a year). Email campaigns and list builder. | |
| Email + Phone | $99 a month on monthly billing, $79 a month billed yearly ($948 a year) | "Unlimited" emails and phones | 1 user per company | Not listed | 600 exports a month (7,200 a year). Adds data enrichment and AI email writer. |
| Team / API | Contact Us | Custom | Team management | Yes, by quote | Salesforce and ATS integrations, dedicated account manager. |
Source: ContactOut pricing and ContactOut terms, both checked September 2026. The page also carries a regional price list for coverage outside the US. Email is $25 a month monthly or $19 a month billed yearly. Email + Phone is $49 monthly or $39 yearly. The page shows struck-through "original" prices of $99 and $199 for the monthly plans, so treat the current prices as promotional and check before you buy.
The "unlimited" label carries a footnote. Paid unlimited plans follow a fair use policy. The limit is "2,000 email credits per account per month and 1,000 phone credits per account per month" unless you sign a separate agreement (ContactOut terms, September 2026).
Vendr reports a median annual spend of $32,050 on ContactOut, with a range of $10,200 to $102,340 (Vendr, September 2026). That page is titled 2025, and it reports contract spend, not the self-serve prices above.
What a credit buys
A credit is ContactOut's unit for the API and the MCP server. It is charged only when the thing you asked for is found. There are three kinds: email, phone and search (ContactOut API docs, September 2026).
| Action | Credit cost |
|---|---|
| People Enrich | 1 search credit if a profile is found, plus 1 email credit if an email is found, plus 1 phone credit if a phone is found |
| LinkedIn Profile API, from URL | 1 email credit if found, 1 phone credit if found, 1 search credit if profile_only=true or no contact info exists |
| Contact Info API, single or bulk | 1 email credit per profile if found, plus 1 phone credit per profile if include_phone=true and found |
| People Search | 1 search credit per profile returned, plus 1 email or phone credit if found with reveal_info=true |
| Decision Makers | 1 search credit per profile returned, plus 1 email or phone credit if found with reveal_info=true |
| Company Search | 1 search credit per company returned |
| Company info from domains | 1 search credit per company found |
| Email to LinkedIn | 1 email credit if a profile is found |
| People Count | No credits |
| Email Verifier | Cost not stated in the docs |
Source: ContactOut API docs, checked September 2026. The docs give credit counts but no dollar price per credit. ContactOut publishes no API price. The pricing page shows Contact Us for Team / API and the API docs say to book a meeting to get a key (ContactOut pricing; ContactOut API docs).
A full enrichment with email and phone can cost 3 credits for one person. The MCP server offers 600+ free credits at onboarding (ContactOut MCP, September 2026).
Hidden costs
The sticker price is per account. The real bill depends on caps, exports and what the API quote includes.
- Fair use caps "unlimited." 2,000 emails and 1,000 phones per account a month is the ceiling on every paid self-serve plan (ContactOut terms, September 2026).
- One user per company. Every self-serve plan lists "1 user per company limit." You cannot add accounts to add credits (ContactOut pricing, September 2026).
- Exports are a second meter. Email allows 300 exports a month and Email + Phone allows 600. Check what counts as an export before you plan a bulk pull.
- The API has no public price. The pricing page shows "Contact Us" for Team / API. You cannot model a pipeline cost before the call.
- Monthly billing costs more. Email is $49 against $39 billed yearly, which is 26% more. Email + Phone is $99 against $79, also 25% more.
- Phone needs the higher plan. Email has no phone credits at all. Phones start at $99 a month, or $79 a month billed yearly.
- The $299 headline is not a rate card. ContactOut's sales page says a team can start for "less than $299 monthly," paying for credits and not seats. The page adds an asterisk: "work emails only. Conditions apply" (ContactOut for Sales, September 2026).
- Terms are in a separate agreement. Refund, renewal and expiry terms sit in the Subscription Agreement, not on the pricing page. That agreement and its order form are not public, so the terms cannot be checked on the site (ContactOut terms).
Worked examples
All three examples assume one email per record, every record found. The self-serve arithmetic uses the 2,000-email ceiling per account. One user per company means you cannot buy this many accounts, so read the numbers as a scale, not a quote.
10k records a month
- Accounts needed: 10,000 / 2,000 = 5.
- Email, monthly billing: 5 x $49 = $245 a month ($195 billed yearly at $39).
- With phones for every record: 10,000 / 1,000 = 10 accounts x $99 = $990 a month, or $790 billed yearly at $79.
- LeadOcean Pro: $499 flat. At this volume ContactOut is cheaper for emails, if the accounts were allowed.
1M records a month
- No public price at 1M. Self-serve allows one user per company and 2,000 emails per account, so 500 accounts is not a public path. The highest public tier is Email + Phone at $99 a month.
- Arithmetic only: 1,000,000 / 2,000 = 500 accounts.
- Email, monthly billing: 500 x $49 = $24,500 a month ($19,500 billed yearly at $39).
- With phones: 1,000 accounts x $99 = $99,000 a month ($79,000 billed yearly). Arithmetic only, because the one-user-per-company limit does not allow 1,000 accounts.
- In practice: the API, priced on request. One enrichment call per record at 1,000 calls a minute is 1,000 minutes, about 17 hours.
- LeadOcean Pro: $499 flat.
25M records a month
- No public price at 25M. Arithmetic only, not a public path.
- Accounts needed: 25,000,000 / 2,000 = 12,500.
- Email, monthly billing: 12,500 x $49 = $612,500 a month ($487,500 billed yearly at $39).
- With phones: 25,000 accounts x $99 = $2,475,000 a month ($1,975,000 billed yearly).
- Rate limit: 25M calls at 1,000 a minute is 25,000 minutes, about 17 days, so this volume needs bulk endpoints.
- LeadOcean Pro: $499 flat. A very large month is paced down to one request a minute past the fair-usage line rather than cut off. One email to support gets more headroom.
Break-even against a $499 flat fee is about 20,000 emails a month on monthly billing. Ten Email accounts give 20,000 emails for $490 and eleven give 22,000 for $539. On yearly billing it is about 25,000: twelve accounts give 24,000 emails for $468 and thirteen give 26,000 for $507. Above that line the flat fee wins, and self-serve accounts cannot reach it anyway.
Is it worth it
ContactOut is worth it if a person works from LinkedIn all day. The price buys a browser tool, not a pipeline feed.
- Recruiter or solo rep: Email at $49 a month ($39 billed yearly) covers a steady stream of addresses. Go to Email + Phone only if you call candidates. Stay on the free 5 a day to test.
- Small sales team: One user per company is the catch. Ask about the Team plan before you split a seat across people.
- RevOps or data engineer feeding a pipeline: You need an API price before you start, and ContactOut gives none. A published flat fee is easier to forecast.
- Agent builder: The MCP server has 15 tools and 600+ free credits. Past that, credits and fair use apply.
- Agency or high-volume buyer: The 2,000-email ceiling rules out self-serve. Ask for Team / API or price a flat-fee tool.
For a wider comparison, see the ContactOut alternative page and ContactOut alternatives.
Alternatives with a different price model
These three charge by found record or by flat fee, not by account caps.
FullEnrich: pay per found contact. Pro starts at $29 a month for 500 credits ($0.058 a credit), and the 1,000-credit tier is $55 a month ($0.055 a credit), with unlimited users and rollover (FullEnrich pricing, September 2026). A work email is 1 credit and a mobile number is 10. Volume brackets lower the per-credit price.
People Data Labs: pay per record retrieved. Free gives up to 100 credits a month with contact data obfuscated. Pro starts at $98 a month for 350 credits, with volume pricing above that and custom Enterprise terms (People Data Labs pricing, September 2026). It is an API product with no seats.
LeadOcean: flat fee. Free is 1,000 records one-off with no card. Pro is $499 a month with unlimited searches, enrichments and lookups, 100 requests per second per key and 5 API keys. There are no seats, no credits and no overage invoice. It covers 693M people and 63M companies over REST and MCP. It has no browser extension, sequencer or dialer, so pair it with your own sending tool. See pricing.
FAQ
How much does ContactOut cost per month?
Free is $0. Email is $49 a month on monthly billing or $39 a month billed yearly. Email + Phone is $99 monthly or $79 yearly. Team / API is Contact Us (ContactOut pricing, September 2026).
Is ContactOut really unlimited?
Not on volume. Paid plans are capped at 2,000 email credits and 1,000 phone credits per account a month under the fair use policy (ContactOut terms, September 2026).
How much does the ContactOut API cost?
ContactOut does not publish it. The pricing page says Contact Us for Team / API, and the API docs list credit counts without a dollar price (ContactOut API docs, September 2026).
How much does one ContactOut email cost?
At the 2,000-email ceiling, Email costs $49 / 2,000 = about $0.0245 an email on monthly billing, or $39 / 2,000 = about $0.0195 billed yearly. That is a floor, not a guarantee of 2,000 found emails.
Is the ContactOut free plan enough?
It is enough to test. You get 5 emails, 5 phones and 5 exports a day. The page marks the free plan "Limited time only" (ContactOut pricing, September 2026).
Can I add team members to a ContactOut plan?
Not on self-serve. Every plan lists one user per company. Team management is part of the Team / API plan, which is priced by sales.
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