Lusha vs Findymail (2026): Data, Pricing and API Compared

Lusha is a database with phones, signals and a Chrome extension. It wins for reps who reveal contacts as they browse. Findymail is a finder, so it wins when you already hold names or profile URLs and want a verified email with no charge for a miss. Neither publishes a price at 1M records.

Verdict

• Pick Lusha if reps work in a browser or CRM, you need direct dials outside the US, or you want buying signals and lookalikes next to the contact (Lusha homepage, September 2026).
• Pick Findymail if you hold names and domains, or LinkedIn URLs, and you want verified emails billed only when one is found (Findymail API docs, September 2026).
• Pick neither if you pull people and company data by API at volume. Both bill per credit, and neither lists a 1M price. LeadOcean is one option, covered below.

Side by side

Data and coverage

Lusha is a database you search. Findymail is a finder you feed. That difference settles most of this comparison.

Lusha states more than 525 million contacts, 29 million companies, 165 million emails and 117 million direct dials (Lusha homepage, September 2026). It adds 26 buying signals refreshed weekly, plus lookalikes and buying-group search through its API and MCP server (Lusha MCP tools, September 2026). You can start from an audience, such as VPs of Sales in fintech, and then reveal the contacts you want.

Findymail publishes no record count. It resolves an email from a name and domain, or from a profile URL, and returns it only when it can verify the address (Findymail API docs, September 2026). It does have lead search. Intellimatch takes a plain-language query and exports up to 5,000 companies per search, but it is a text query, not a filter set.

Phones are the sharpest gap. Findymail returns US numbers only, and returns nothing for EU citizens "for legal reasons" (Findymail API docs, September 2026). Lusha sells 5-credit phone numbers with no stated country limit. For a global list, Lusha is the only one of the two likely to return phones. Run 200 contacts you know through each tool before you commit.

API and developer experience

Both tools have a REST API and an official MCP server. The calls differ in shape. Lusha searches for contacts first, and a second enrich call reveals emails and phones, which is the step that spends credits (Lusha API overview, September 2026). Findymail returns the email in one call. Placeholders below stand in for real people.

Lusha, search a contact by name and company domain.

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

Findymail, find an email from a name and domain.

curl --request POST "https://app.findymail.com/api/search/name" \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer $FINDYMAIL_API_KEY" \
  --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
  --data '{"name": "Jane Doe", "domain": "acme.com"}'

Findymail uses one finder credit only if a verified email comes back. Add a webhook_url and it runs in the background (Findymail API docs, September 2026).

Rate limits measure different things. Lusha caps requests per key by plan (Lusha API guide, September 2026). Free and Starter get 40 a minute and 100 a day. Pro gets 50 a minute and 1,500 a day. Premium gets 300 a minute and 18,000 a day. Its V3 page adds a default ceiling of 25 requests a second per account (Lusha rate limits, September 2026). Findymail caps concurrency, not volume: 300 simultaneous requests by default (Findymail API docs, September 2026).

On MCP, Lusha exposes 50 tools and charges the same credits as the REST API. Findymail exposes 14, and its lookups that find nothing are free (Findymail Cursor plugin, September 2026). Lusha's own docs disagree on whether a no-match API request costs a credit. The API guide says at least 1 credit, and the billing FAQ says none (Lusha billing FAQ, September 2026). Ask Lusha before you plan around misses.

Pricing

Lusha publishes plans up to Premium and a custom Scale plan. Findymail's plan prices sit behind a bot check we could not pass. Lusha figures use the monthly list price first, with the billed-yearly price after it.

At 10,000 work emails a month

• Lusha: a bulk request costs 1 credit per 1 to 25 results on top of the data credits (Lusha credit docs, September 2026). So 10,000 emails is 10,000 + 400 = 10,400 credits.
• The largest public Premium step is 10,000 credits a month for $977.40 billed monthly. Billed yearly it is 120,000 credits for $9,539.10, or about $794.93 a month (Lusha pricing, September 2026).
• That step covers about 9,615 emails by bulk API (10,000 / 1.04). Lusha lists no step above 10,000, so the last 400 credits have no public price.
• Findymail: 10,000 finder credits if every lookup finds a verified email. Misses cost nothing, so real use is lower (Findymail API docs, September 2026). Read the plan step that covers 10,000 on Findymail's pricing page.

At 1M work emails a month

• Lusha: 1,000,000 email credits + 1,000,000 / 25 = 40,000 request credits, so 1,040,000 credits. That is 104 times the largest listed monthly step. No public 1M price. Scale is custom (Lusha pricing, September 2026).
• Findymail: 1,000,000 finder credits. No public 1M price. Expect a quote.

Phones multiply the bill on both tools. A phone costs 5 credits on Lusha and 10 on Findymail, against 1 for an email. Lusha also charges 7 credits for an email plus phone in a single API request. That is 5 for the phone, 1 for the email and 1 for the request (Lusha API guide, September 2026).

Misses are metered differently. On Findymail a lookup that finds nothing costs nothing, so cost tracks your hit rate. On Lusha, yearly plans grant all credits upfront and reset unused credits at the end of the cycle (Lusha pricing, September 2026).

Where Lusha wins

• A database you search, with 525M+ contacts and 29M+ companies, not only a finder.
• Phone numbers with no stated country limit, where Findymail is US only.
• A Chrome extension and native CRM apps, so reps work without code (Lusha homepage, September 2026).
• Signals, lookalikes and buying groups in the same API.
• A free plan and a published price for every plan up to Premium.

Where Findymail wins

• You pay only when a verified email is found. A miss costs nothing.
• Every email is verified when you ask for it, and only verified emails come back.
• A standalone verifier at POST /api/verify, 1 verifier credit per check (Findymail API docs, September 2026).
• A concurrency cap of 300 instead of daily request quotas that start at 100 a day on Free and Starter.
• A much smaller MCP surface (14 tools against 50), which is easier for an agent to pick from.

If you need volume through an API

LeadOcean is a data API and MCP server with no credits and no seats. Pro costs $499 a month flat, with unlimited searches, enrichments and lookups, and 100 requests per second per key. The Free plan gives 1,000 records one-off with no card, and both plans get the same REST API and 12-tool MCP server. POST /v1/exports returns up to 50,000 rows per request (LeadOcean exports docs, September 2026). It has no extension, sequencer or CRM, so reps would still need a sending tool. Read Lusha alternatives and pricing.

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