Crustdata vs Datagma (2026): Data, Pricing and API Compared

Crustdata is a data API with its own index of people and companies, priced in credits. Datagma is a mobile and email finder sold in monthly bundles. Crustdata wins on index size, search, live signals and MCP. Datagma wins on entry price, a published plan list and lookups from a name and a company.

Every figure below was checked in September 2026 and carries its source link. Where a vendor publishes nothing, the page says so.

Verdict

• Pick Crustdata if you build a product or an agent on people and company data and need search, change watchers and a hosted MCP server. Budget for a sales call, because it publishes credits and no dollar price per credit.
• Pick Datagma if you enrich a known list of a few thousand contacts a month, want direct mobiles (including Europe) and want a price you can read today. Regular is $49 a month, $39 billed yearly.
• Pick neither if you want one flat price at volume, emails and phones on the same plan, and an MCP server that searches and returns records. LeadOcean is one option.

Side by side

All figures checked September 2026.

Data and coverage

Crustdata publishes an index size and Datagma does not. Crustdata's homepage claims 1B people. It gives two different company counts, so we quote no company figure (Crustdata, September 2026). Datagma gives no figure for either, so you cannot size its database before you test it.

Neither vendor publishes how many people carry an email or a phone. Crustdata prices them as add-ons to a profile: 1 credit for a business email and 2 for a phone (Crustdata docs, September 2026). Datagma verifies the emails it returns. A catch-all address it cannot verify comes back as "most probable" and is not billed (Datagma API, September 2026).

Phones are Datagma's pitch. It claims top 3 EU phone coverage and a WhatsApp check on each number (Datagma pricing, September 2026). That is its own claim and it publishes no count.

Crustdata goes wider than contacts. It adds job search, social posts and watchers that flag a changed person or company (Crustdata docs, September 2026). Datagma has a job change detection endpoint for contacts you already hold (Datagma API docs, September 2026).

Run the same 500 people through each before you buy. Match rate depends on the input you send.

API and developer experience

Crustdata is a JSON API with search and enrich as separate calls. Datagma is a small GET surface where lookups run on a name and a company. The bigger difference is what each takes as input.

Crustdata's person enrich takes profile URLs and returns a profile, up to 25 per request (Crustdata docs, September 2026). A business email is a premium field on the same call. The request, with a placeholder person:

curl --request POST \
  --url https://api.crustdata.com/person/enrich \
  --header "authorization: Bearer $CRUSTDATA_API_KEY" \
  --header 'content-type: application/json' \
  --header 'x-api-version: 2025-11-01' \
  --data '{"professional_network_profile_urls":["https://www.linkedin.com/in/jane-doe"],"fields":["basic_profile.name","contact.business_emails"]}'

Datagma's Find Work Verified Email takes a name plus a company name or domain. It returns a verified result or nothing, and costs no credit on a miss (Datagma docs, Datagma API, September 2026).

curl "https://gateway.datagma.net/api/ingress/v8/findEmail?apiId=$DATAGMA_API_ID&fullName=Jane%20Doe&company=acme.com"

If you hold names and companies, Datagma fits with no prior step. If you hold profile URLs, or want to search first and enrich after, Crustdata is the better shape. Crustdata's search costs 0.03 credits a result, and the same filter syntax carries into batch jobs.

Rate limits shape how each scales. Crustdata's defaults are 15 requests a minute on person enrich and 30 on search. Raising a live limit means writing to Crustdata (Crustdata rate limits, September 2026). Datagma lists no limit in its API docs, so ask before you plan a batch job.

For agents, only Crustdata ships its own server. Connect install.crustdata.com/mcp with OAuth, or pass an API key as a bearer token from code (Crustdata MCP docs, September 2026). Datagma's only listed server is run by Zapier and exposes five actions (Zapier, September 2026).

Pricing

Crustdata charges per call in credits. Datagma charges per find, inside a monthly bundle of email and phone allowances. To compare them, count the work emails you would buy.

At 10,000 records a month. Take 10,000 work emails. On a self-serve key, Crustdata's /person/enrich costs 2 credits for one (1 base plus 1 business email), so 10,000 x 2 = 20,000 credits. The dedicated contact endpoint is 1 credit per match, 10,000 credits, but it needs an enterprise plan (Crustdata docs, September 2026). Crustdata publishes no dollar price per credit, so there is no dollar total to show. A Crustdata blog post reports a lowest tier of $95 a month, which the pricing page does not list (Crustdata blog, September 2026).

Datagma Popular covers 7,500 emails a month, so 10,000 needs Expert at 22,500. Expert is $249 a month, or $209 a month billed yearly (Datagma pricing, October 2026). Phones change the sum. Expert includes 750 phones, and 10,000 phones is about 13 times that, which becomes an Enterprise quote.

At this size Datagma is the one with a price you can read. Crustdata may still be cheaper per record, but only its quote can say.

At 1M records a month. Neither vendor publishes a price here.

• Crustdata: 1,000,000 x 2 = 2,000,000 credits on /person/enrich, or 1,000,000 x 1 = 1,000,000 credits on the enterprise-only contact endpoint. Dollars equal credits times your quoted price per credit, which is not public. No public 1M price.
• Datagma: Expert is the largest self-serve plan, and 1,000,000 / 22,500 is about 44 times its monthly email allowance. Enterprise is custom through sales. No public 1M price.

Two terms matter once you buy in bulk. Crustdata's docs say purchased credits expire 12 months after purchase (Crustdata credits, September 2026). A Crustdata blog post from 30 July 2026 says 6 months (Crustdata blog, September 2026), so confirm the term in your dashboard. Datagma's unused credits roll over for up to 12 months on paid plans (Datagma API, September 2026).

For more Datagma matchups, see Prospeo vs Datagma, LeadMagic vs Datagma and Hunter vs Datagma. For Crustdata alone, see the Crustdata alternative page and Crustdata alternatives.

Where Crustdata wins

• Index and search. 1B people claimed, with filters across many fields. Datagma's Find People lists up to 10 people at a company for 10 credits (Datagma API docs, September 2026).
• Live data and signals. Job search, social posts and watchers on people and companies. Datagma has none of these beyond job change detection.
• A first-party MCP server. Hosted, with OAuth sign-in for interactive clients.
• Cheap discovery. Search is 0.03 credits per result, and a contact lookup with no match is not billed.

Crustdata's weak points are no public dollar price, low default rate limits, and contact endpoints gated to enterprise plans (Crustdata docs, September 2026).

Where Datagma wins

• A price you can read. Plans from $49 a month, or $39 billed yearly, for 3,000 emails and 100 phones (Datagma pricing, September 2026).
• A real free plan. 90 emails and 3 phones a month, with API access and no card.
• Lookups from a name and a company. No profile URL needed, and no charge on a miss.
• Mobiles outside the US. Datagma claims strong EU coverage and a WhatsApp check, though it publishes no count (Datagma, September 2026).
• File upload. Up to 50,000 rows per batch, and a Chrome extension (Datagma, September 2026).

Datagma's weak points are the 22,500-email ceiling on self-serve, no published rate limit or dataset size, and no first-party MCP server.

If you need volume through an API

We build LeadOcean, so weigh this section accordingly. It has a free plan with 1,000 records, one-off, no card. Pro is $499 a month, flat, with no credits and no 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, or you can use the Exports page in the app (LeadOcean exports docs, September 2026). See pricing for the detail.

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