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

Icypeas is the tool you can price today: $19 a month to start and $3,992 a month for 1M found emails. Crustdata is the one to test if you want to search a large index by filter, or add job data and change alerts. It publishes credits per call but no dollars per credit, so its cost at 1M records is not public.

All figures were checked in September 2026, each with its source link. Where a vendor publishes nothing, the page says so.

Verdict

• Pick Crustdata if you search by filter, want jobs, posts or change watchers, and can get a quote. It claims 1B people, the largest index of the two (Crustdata, September 2026). Plan on a sales conversation for contact data.
• Pick Icypeas if you already hold names and company domains and want emails with a price you can read. Basic is $19 a month for 1,000 credits, and credits never expire (Icypeas pricing, September 2026).
• Pick neither if you want one flat plan with emails and phones, a high rate limit and a CSV export. LeadOcean covers that. It has no job data and no change watchers.

Side by side

Data and coverage

Crustdata is the larger index on paper. Its homepage claims 1B people, and Icypeas quotes 575M business professionals (Crustdata; Icypeas features, September 2026). Company counts do not settle it. Crustdata's homepage states two different company counts, one at 60M and one above 200 million, so we quote no single number. Icypeas lists 62M.

Contact coverage is where they differ. Icypeas quotes 1.8B emails and 280M phone numbers. Those count addresses and numbers, not people, so they overstate how many people you can reach. Its credit table also lists Phone Finder as coming soon (Icypeas docs, September 2026). Test phones before you plan a campaign around that figure.

Crustdata publishes no email or phone coverage figure. It prices them instead: +1 credit for a business email, +2 for a personal email, +2 for a phone (Crustdata pricing docs, September 2026). Its dedicated contact endpoint needs an enterprise plan, and self-serve keys get a 403. It returns four email statuses: deliverable, catch_all, invalid and unknown (Crustdata docs, September 2026).

The tools also do different jobs. Crustdata adds job search, social posts and change watchers on top of people and company search. Icypeas adds a standalone verifier at 0.1 credit a check and says it validates catch-all addresses. Icypeas also has Find People and Find Companies at 0.02 credits per result, but only 10+ people filters and 9 company filters (Icypeas features, September 2026).

API and developer experience

The input is the real difference. Crustdata enriches from a profile URL, so you search first and then enrich. Icypeas takes a first name, a last name and a domain, so you must know who you want (Icypeas docs, September 2026).

Crustdata, enrich a person by profile URL, from its docs, with a placeholder profile:

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/"]}'

It answers in one call with a matches array and a confidence score. Each request takes up to 25 profile URLs. At a zero balance every request returns a 402 (Crustdata credits, September 2026).

Icypeas, single email search, from its docs, with placeholders:

curl -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Authorization: $ICYPEAS_API_KEY" \
  https://app.icypeas.com/api/email-search \
  -d '{"firstname":"Jane","lastname":"Doe","domainOrCompany":"acme.com"}'

It returns an _id, not the email. You wait a few seconds, then read the result by id from a second route. The search is done when the status reads DEBITED. The docs point you to bulk search for many lookups.

Rate limits favor Icypeas for single calls. Crustdata defaults to 15 requests a minute on person enrich, so 1M one-URL requests take 1,000,000 / 15 = 66,667 minutes, about 46 days. At 25 URLs per request it is 40,000 requests, about 44 hours. Crustdata's other route is async batch jobs of up to 10,000 identifiers.

Icypeas allows 10 calls a second on email search. 1M lookups take 100,000 seconds, about 27.8 hours. Through bulk search at 5,000 rows a call, it is 200 calls at one a second. Icypeas says limits can change at any time (Icypeas docs, September 2026).

Both have a hosted MCP server. Crustdata's takes OAuth for interactive clients and an API key for code. Icypeas's has 21 tools and signs in with your API key.

Pricing

Both bill per call, but only one prints dollars. Prices below show the monthly list first, with the billed-yearly figure after it. Both examples assume every lookup finds a work email, which is the worst case for Icypeas.

At 10,000 records a month

• Icypeas Advanced: $89 a month for 10,000 credits. Billed yearly it is $74.17 a month: $890 for 120,000 credits, and $890 / 12 = $74.17 (Icypeas pricing, September 2026). Per email: $89 / 10,000 = $0.0089.
• Crustdata: 10,000 x 2 credits (1 base + 1 business email) = 20,000 credits on /person/enrich, or 10,000 credits on the enterprise-only contact endpoint (Crustdata pricing docs, September 2026). No public price per credit, so no dollar total.

At this size only Icypeas can be priced from public pages. A Crustdata blog post reports a lowest tier from $95 a month, but the pricing page does not list it and gives no credit allowance (Crustdata blog, September 2026).

At 1M records a month

• Icypeas: the 1,000,000-credit tier is $3,992 a month, $0.003992 a credit. Billed yearly, 12M credits cost $39,920, which is $39,920 / 12 = $3,326.67 a month for 1M credits. Prices are plus VAT (Icypeas pricing, September 2026).
• Crustdata: No public 1M price. 1,000,000 x (1 + 1) = 2,000,000 credits on /person/enrich, or 1,000,000 credits on the enterprise-only contact endpoint. Dollars equal credits times your quoted price per credit, which is not public.

We do not multiply a rate out to 1M for Crustdata, because no rate is published. Ask for a quote with your volume and endpoint. Icypeas pricing sits in a credit selector that the text view of the page hides, so check the live selector before you buy.

Two terms differ. Icypeas credits roll over and never expire, even after a downgrade or cancellation. Crustdata's docs say purchased credits expire 12 months after purchase, but a Crustdata blog post from 30 July 2026 says 6 months (Crustdata credits; Crustdata blog, September 2026). Confirm the term in your dashboard before you buy in bulk.

Misses are free on both when you use the right route. Icypeas charges 1 credit per found email, and a search that finds nothing costs nothing. Crustdata does not bill a miss on contact enrich (Crustdata docs, September 2026).

Where Crustdata wins

• A bigger people index. It claims 1B people, against 575M for Icypeas.
• Search before you spend. Search is 0.03 credits per result, and company identify and autocomplete are free. You narrow the list, then enrich the people you keep.
• Signals Icypeas does not have. Job search, social posts, live web fetch and entity watchers at 5 credits per changed person on the 30-day schedule.
• Wider filters. Search filters run across a large field set in nested and/or groups, against 10+ people filters on Icypeas (Crustdata search docs, September 2026).

Crustdata's weak points are no public dollar price, 15 requests a minute on person enrich and contact data behind enterprise.

Where Icypeas wins

• A price you can read. Every plan and volume tier is printed, from Basic at $19 to 10M credits at $34,930 a month.
• Name plus domain input. You do not need a profile URL for each person.
• Rollover. Unused credits never expire.
• Higher single-call limits. 10 calls a second on email search, against 15 a minute on Crustdata person enrich.
• Verification. A 0.1 credit verifier, and a hosted MCP server with 21 tools.

Icypeas's weak points are a credit meter that climbs with every email, polling instead of a direct answer and a smaller people count.

If you need volume through an API

LeadOcean is a third option if neither fits. Free 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. REST runs at 100 requests per second per key, and a hosted MCP server with 12 tools runs on every plan (LeadOcean MCP docs, September 2026).

For bulk pulls, 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). It has no job data or watchers. See pricing for the detail.

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