Anymail Finder is the better pick if you hold names and company domains and want a public price you can test today. ContactOut is the better pick if your team works from LinkedIn in a browser and needs personal emails or phone numbers. Their APIs are built for different jobs.
All figures below were checked in September 2026, each with its source link. Where a vendor publishes nothing, the page says so.
Verdict
- Pick ContactOut if your reps or recruiters work from LinkedIn in a Chrome extension, you need personal emails or direct dials, and you buy fewer than 2,000 emails a month. Email is $49 a month, and Email + Phone is $99 (ContactOut pricing, September 2026).
- Pick Anymail Finder if you already have names and domains, want to pay only for emails it verifies, and want a self-serve API key. Plans start at $29 a month, and a verified email that bounces can be reported for a credit back (Anymail Finder pricing, September 2026).
- Pick neither if you need to search a database, or pull phones and emails through an API at volume on one fixed bill. ContactOut's API has no public price, and Anymail Finder has no search and no phone lookup. LeadOcean is one option.
Side by side
| ContactOut | Anymail Finder | |
|---|---|---|
| Data size | 800 million profiles and 40M companies on its data page. 350M on its homepage headline, 600M+ on its MCP page (data, MCP, homepage) | No stored database count. Says it finds 50M+ safe-to-send emails a month, a vendor claim (Anymail Finder) |
| Email coverage | 200M work emails and 150M personal emails (data) | Live check against the mail server. Says 86.4% of 5,000 contacts found, in its own 14-tool benchmark (Anymail Finder) |
| Phone coverage | 100M direct dials, on the Email + Phone plan (data, pricing) | None. No phone endpoint in the API docs (Anymail Finder docs) |
| API | REST, token header. Keys come from booking a meeting (API docs) | REST v5.1, Authorization header, self-serve key (find person docs) |
| MCP | 15 tools, OAuth, 600+ free credits at onboarding (ContactOut MCP) | Five actions: find person, find decision maker, company emails, verify, account check. No bulk files (Anymail Finder MCP) |
| Rate limit | People Search 60 a minute, checkers 150, other APIs 1,000 (API docs) | "No Rate Limits", no daily caps (Anymail Finder docs) |
| Bulk export | 300 or 600 exports a month on self-serve. Async bulk contact info takes up to 1,000 profiles per request, 100 on v1 (pricing, API docs) | Up to 100,000 rows per bulk job, JSON or CSV and Excel upload (bulk docs) |
| Price model | Monthly seat plans, one user per company. API credits, no public price (pricing, API docs) | Credits: monthly plans, yearly plans or one-time packs. One credit only on a valid email (pricing) |
| Entry price | Free: 5 emails, 5 phones, 5 exports a day. Email $49 a month, $39 billed yearly (pricing) | 100 free credits, card verified not charged. Paid from $29 a month for 400 credits (pricing) |
| Cost at 1M records | No public 1M price (terms, pricing) | $4,990 one-time, the 1,000,000-credit pack, valid 12 months (pricing) |
Anymail Finder prices are USD list prices from the USD view of its pricing page. The page shows Canadian dollars to visitors in Canada. ContactOut changes plans and promotional prices often, so check before you buy.
Data and coverage
ContactOut sells a stored database. Anymail Finder sells a live lookup. ContactOut's data page lists 800 million people profiles and 40M companies (ContactOut data, September 2026). It counts 200M work emails, 150M personal emails and 100M direct dials.
ContactOut disagrees with itself on size. Its homepage headline says 350M professionals and its MCP page says 600M+ (ContactOut homepage, September 2026; ContactOut MCP, September 2026). Ask which number your plan reaches. It also claims 99% confidence on emails and phones, and publishes no test method.
Anymail Finder publishes no database size. It says it checks each address against the recipient's mail server at the moment you ask (Anymail Finder, September 2026). It also quotes an 86.4% find rate from its own benchmark of 5,000 contacts. That is a vendor claim, so test both tools on 500 of your own contacts.
Two things only one tool has. ContactOut holds personal emails and phones, and sells a regional plan for coverage outside the US (ContactOut pricing, September 2026). Anymail Finder finds work emails only and has no phone lookup.
API and developer experience
Both APIs are plain REST. The difference is access and input. ContactOut's docs say to book a meeting to get a key (ContactOut API docs, September 2026). Anymail Finder lets you create a key and send a request today.
This is ContactOut's single contact request from its docs, with a placeholder profile. It takes a LinkedIn URL and returns work_email, personal_email and phone arrays.
curl "https://api.contactout.com/v1/people/linkedin?profile=https://www.linkedin.com/in/jane-doe&include_phone=true" \
--header "Content-Type: application/json" \
--header "Accept: application/json" \
--header "token: $CONTACTOUT_API_TOKEN"It uses 1 email credit if an email is found and 1 phone credit if a phone is found. Pass email_type=work to get a real-time work email check, which can slow the response (ContactOut API docs, September 2026).
This is Anymail Finder's find-person request from its docs, with a placeholder person. It takes a name plus a domain, or a LinkedIn URL.
curl -X POST "https://api.anymailfinder.com/v5.1/find-email/person" \
-H "Authorization: $ANYMAILFINDER_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"domain":"acme.com","full_name":"Jane Doe"}'It returns email_status: valid, risky, not_found or blacklisted, and charges 1 credit only on a valid hit. The docs say that from 5 October 2026 a search that would have returned a risky email returns not_found instead. The docs recommend a 180 second timeout (Anymail Finder docs, September 2026).
Rate limits differ in kind. Anymail Finder states none. ContactOut allows 1,000 requests a minute on most endpoints and 60 on People Search. At 1,000 a minute, 10,000 lookups take 10 minutes and 1M lookups take about 17 hours, though ContactOut's credit ceilings bind first.
For agents, both ship an MCP server. ContactOut's has 15 tools and 600+ free credits at onboarding (ContactOut MCP, September 2026). Anymail Finder's lives at https://api.anymailfinder.com/mcp and signs in through a browser window. It finds and verifies emails (Anymail Finder MCP, September 2026).
Pricing
ContactOut charges per account with a monthly credit ceiling. Anymail Finder charges per valid email from a credit pool. Prices below show the monthly list first, with the billed-yearly figure after it. The Anymail Finder maths assume every lookup finds an email, which is its worst case.
At 10,000 records a month. Anymail Finder's 10,000-credit plan is $199 a month. Billed yearly, 120,000 credits cost $1,596, which is $1,596 / 12 = $133 a month. A one-time 10,000 pack is $399. A miss costs no credit (Anymail Finder pricing, September 2026).
ContactOut has no public price at 10,000. 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 is 5 accounts of capacity, and every self-serve plan lists a one-user-per-company limit. Volume means the Team / API plan, priced on request.
At 1M records a month. Anymail Finder's biggest monthly plan is 100,000 credits at $799, so 1M means a pack. The 1,000,000-credit pack is $4,990, which is 1,000,000 x $0.00499 (Anymail Finder pricing, September 2026). It is a one-time buy valid for 12 months, not a monthly bill.
ContactOut has no public 1M price. 1,000,000 / 2,000 is 500 account-months of self-serve capacity, and the one-user limit blocks that route. The API docs state credit use but give no dollar 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.
Fine print. ContactOut's struck-through "original" prices ($99 and $199 a month) show no end date, and its free plan says "Limited time only". Refund, renewal and expiry terms sit in a Subscription Agreement that is not public (ContactOut terms, September 2026).
For other Anymail Finder matchups, see Clearbit vs Anymail Finder, LeadMagic vs Anymail Finder and FullEnrich vs Anymail Finder.
Where ContactOut wins
- Browser workflow. A Chrome extension, a search portal and a free tier of 5 emails a day, where recruiters and reps already work (ContactOut pricing, September 2026).
- Personal emails and phones. 150M personal emails and 100M direct dials. Anymail Finder has neither.
- A bigger stated database. 800 million profiles and 40M companies, against no published size.
- Cheap at small volume. Email at $49 a month covers up to 2,000 emails, and 600+ free MCP credits help agents get started.
ContactOut's weak points are the API and the ceilings. There is no public API price and no self-serve key. "Unlimited" stops at 2,000 emails per account.
Where Anymail Finder wins
- A key you can test today. A public price ladder, 100 free credits and a self-serve API key.
- Pay on success. One credit per valid email, free on a miss, and a bounce credit-back (Anymail Finder pricing, September 2026).
- Volume with no rate limit. A 1M pack is $4,990 and bulk jobs take 100,000 rows. Team members are unlimited with no per-seat price.
- Name plus domain input. You do not need a LinkedIn URL for every person.
Anymail Finder's weak points are no search across a database, no phones and no firmographics. Nothing above the 1M pack is listed. Its pricing page offers volume pricing on request.
If you need volume through an API
We build LeadOcean, so weigh this section accordingly. The Free plan gives you 1,000 records, one-off, with 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, at 100 requests per second per key (LeadOcean MCP docs, September 2026).
For bulk pulls, POST /v1/exports returns up to 50,000 rows per request, and the app has an Exports page with a filter builder and CSV download. 1M rows is 20 requests over two days (LeadOcean exports docs, September 2026). LeadOcean returns an email_status with each record from a dataset refreshed monthly, so keep Anymail Finder if live mail-server checks are the whole job. See pricing, the ContactOut alternative page or ContactOut alternatives.
FAQ
Is ContactOut or Anymail Finder cheaper?
Anymail Finder, for API work. At 10,000 emails a month it is $199 on the monthly plan. ContactOut has no public API price, and its $49 Email plan is capped at 2,000 emails under fair use (ContactOut terms, September 2026).
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 use without a dollar price.
Do ContactOut and Anymail Finder have MCP servers?
Both do. ContactOut's has 15 tools and 600+ free credits at onboarding (ContactOut MCP, September 2026). Anymail Finder's has five actions and signs in through a browser window, with no API key in Claude, Cursor or ChatGPT (Anymail Finder MCP, September 2026).
Can Anymail Finder find phone numbers?
No. Its API docs list person, decision-maker, company, LinkedIn and verify endpoints, with no phone lookup (Anymail Finder docs, September 2026). ContactOut returns phones on its Email + Phone plan and through include_phone=true in the API.
Does Anymail Finder charge for emails it cannot find?
No. It charges 1 credit only when a valid email is found. Risky, blacklisted and not-found results are free, and repeating a search within 30 days is free (Anymail Finder docs, September 2026).
Which one has the bigger database?
ContactOut states more: 800 million profiles, though its homepage says 350M and its MCP page says 600M+. Anymail Finder publishes no size. Neither publishes a match rate you can audit, so run both on 500 of your own contacts.
Related: Clearbit vs Anymail Finder, LeadMagic vs Anymail Finder, FullEnrich vs Anymail Finder, ContactOut API alternative, ContactOut alternatives. Back to the blog.
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