Lusha vs AI-Ark (2026): Data, Pricing and API Compared

Lusha is a contact data platform with a Chrome extension, an API and an MCP server, sold on credits. AI-Ark is a B2B database for building lists, also sold on credits. Pick Lusha for reps who work in a browser and a CRM. Pick AI-Ark for list building and lookalike search. Neither prints a price at 1M records.

Verdict

• Pick Lusha if your reps reveal contacts in a browser extension or your CRM, you want direct dials, and a published 117M+ phone count matters to you.
• Pick AI-Ark if you build outbound lists, want lookalike company search, and want emails checked at export at a rate you can read before talking to sales.
• Pick neither if you pull millions of records in code and want one flat bill. Both bill by the credit. LeadOcean is $499 a month flat for REST and MCP, with no extension and no rep app.

Side by side

Data and coverage

Lusha publishes more coverage numbers. It claims 525M+ contacts, 165M+ emails and 117M+ direct dials (Lusha, September 2026). It also lists 26 buying signals refreshed weekly. AI-Ark claims 400M+ people and 70M+ companies, a 30-day refresh cycle and 98% accuracy (AI-Ark docs, September 2026). All of these are vendor claims.

AI-Ark has the larger company file, 70M+ against 29M+. Lusha has the larger contact file and the only published phone count. AI-Ark publishes no email or phone count at all.

Verification differs in kind. AI-Ark checks every email in real time at export, SMTP and catch-all, and strips invalid, unknown and risky addresses before you download (AI-Ark pricing, September 2026). Lusha calls its contacts verified on its homepage, but describes no per-address check at export.

Search differs too. AI-Ark offers lookalike company search from up to 5 seeds and SMART text matching, where "creative director" also finds "art director" (AI-Ark docs, September 2026). Lusha has a Prospecting API with job title, seniority and location filters, plus its own lookalikes (Lusha API guide, September 2026).

The honest test is your own persona. Pull 500 records from each and count the usable emails and phones.

API and developer experience

Both give every plan an API key, Free included. Lusha sends the key in an api_key header to api.lusha.com/v3. AI-Ark sends it in an X-TOKEN header to api.ai-ark.com.

The workflows differ. Lusha searches and enriches in separate steps. A search returns matches, and an Enrich call with the returned contact id reveals the email and phone, which is where credits are spent (Lusha API overview, September 2026). Here is the docs example for a batch contact search, with placeholder values.

curl --request POST \
  --url https://api.lusha.com/v3/contacts/search \
  --header 'api_key: YOUR_API_KEY' \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data '{
    "contacts": [
      { "clientReferenceId": "my-ref-1", "firstName": "Jane", "lastName": "Doe", "companyDomain": "acme.com" }
    ],
    "options": { "includePartialProfiles": true }
  }'

AI-Ark's first request is a company search. It costs 0.1 credit per company returned, so 10 results is 1 credit (AI-Ark docs, September 2026).

curl --request POST \
  --url 'https://api.ai-ark.com/api/developer-portal/v1/companies' \
  --header 'X-TOKEN: YOUR_API_KEY' \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data '{
    "account": {
      "industries": { "any": { "include": { "mode": "SMART", "content": ["software development"] } } },
      "location": { "any": { "include": ["Germany"] } },
      "employeeSize": { "type": "RANGE", "range": [{ "start": 51, "end": 200 }] }
    },
    "page": 0,
    "size": 10
  }'

Limits shape any bulk job. Lusha takes 100 contacts per request, so 1M records is at least 10,000 calls. Its daily request cap is 18,000 on Premium and 1,500 on Pro (Lusha API guide, September 2026). Its docs also state a default ceiling of 25 requests a second per account (Lusha rate limits, September 2026).

AI-Ark runs at 5 requests a second by default. One search retrieves at most 10,000 records, and an export job holds 10,000 people. Past that you re-run with exclusion lists, which expire after 24 hours (AI-Ark docs, September 2026).

On MCP, Lusha uses OAuth for chat clients and an API key header elsewhere. AI-Ark's MCP setup puts the key in the server URL (AI-Ark MCP docs, September 2026).

Pricing

Lusha leads with the monthly price. Free is 40 credits a month. Starter is $49.90 a month ($37.45 billed yearly) for 400 credits. Pro is $69.90 ($52.45 billed yearly) for 600 credits. Premium is $399.90 ($299.95 billed yearly) for 3,400 credits. Scale is custom (Lusha pricing, September 2026). Credits can be raised in steps. The top public step is Premium at 10,000 credits a month, $977.40 billed monthly.

AI-Ark publishes less of its ladder. Free is 100 credits a month. The Usage-based plan is $49 a month for 5,000 credits, and annual billing takes 20% off. Plans above 30,000 credits list $2 to $4 per 1,000 credits. Scale (450K+ credits) and Enterprise carry no price (AI-Ark pricing, September 2026).

Here is the worked example, each record with a work email.

Lusha arithmetic: an email is 1 credit, and a bulk request adds 1 credit per 25 results. So 10,000 emails is 10,000 + 400 = 10,400 credits, and 1M is 1,000,000 + 40,000 = 1,040,000. The top public tier is 104 times smaller than that (Lusha API guide, September 2026). Adding a phone is 5 more credits per record.

AI-Ark arithmetic: 0.5 credit for the profile plus 0.5 for a found email is 1 credit per person (AI-Ark pricing, September 2026). A mobile adds 5, so 1M people with a phone is 6,000,000 credits. Neither page gives a rate for these volumes, so we do not multiply one out. Ask both for a quote.

Misses and repeats differ. AI-Ark charges nothing for a phone lookup that finds nothing, and re-exporting a contact you own is free. Lusha charges each data point once per contact. Whether a Lusha request that finds nothing costs a credit is unsettled. The API guide says a request costs at least 1 credit even with no data (Lusha API guide, September 2026). The V3 billing FAQ says no credit is deducted for no match (Lusha billing FAQ, September 2026).

Seats matter if your team is large. Lusha includes 1 seat on Starter, 2 on Pro and 5 on Premium (Lusha pricing, September 2026). AI-Ark lists up to 3 seats on Starter, 5 on Builder and 10 on Scale (AI-Ark pricing, September 2026). A pipeline with no human users still sits inside a seat-based plan on both.

Rollover also differs. Lusha Pro and Premium monthly plans roll credits over up to 2x, and yearly credits reset at the end of the cycle (Lusha pricing, September 2026). AI-Ark rolls unused credits up to 2x the monthly allowance (AI-Ark pricing, September 2026).

Where Lusha wins

Lusha wins for reps. It has a Chrome extension, native CRM apps, and a published 117M+ direct dial count (Lusha, September 2026). A seller can reveal a contact in a browser tab and see it in Salesforce.

It also wins on breadth of product. The MCP server has 50 tools, and the platform adds buying signals, a signal score and buying groups (Lusha MCP docs, September 2026). Its price steps start at $49.90, so a small team can begin cheaply.

Where AI-Ark wins

AI-Ark wins on list building. Lookalike search, SMART text matching and a company export at 0.1 credit make account lists cheap (AI-Ark docs, September 2026). Emails are checked at export, so the file is ready for a sending tool.

It also wins on bulk and visible pricing. An export job holds 10,000 people against 100 per Lusha request. You can read $49 for 5,000 credits and $2 to $4 per 1,000 above 30,000 credits before you sign up (AI-Ark pricing, September 2026).

If you need volume through an API

Neither tool fits a pipeline that pulls millions of records, because both bill by the credit and neither prints a 1M price. LeadOcean is a data API with a hosted MCP server and a flat price. Free gives 1,000 records one-off with no card. Pro is $499 a month flat, with 100 requests per second per key and POST /v1/exports returning up to 50,000 rows per request. It holds 693M people and 63M companies behind REST and MCP (pricing).

LeadOcean has no extension, no CRM app and no lookalike search. It is the data layer only. Keep Lusha for rep workflows or AI-Ark for lookalikes if you need them.

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