Lusha vs Lead411 (2026): Data, Pricing and API Compared

Lusha is the better pick for developers. It publishes its prices, credit costs, API limits and data counts, and every plan gets an API key. Lead411 is the better pick for a US sales team that wants an app with intent data. Neither publishes a price at 1M records. This page compares them on data, API, MCP and cost, with the arithmetic shown.

Verdict

• Pick Lusha if you want to read the price before you buy, or call an API on any plan, Free included. Credits cost 1 for an email and 5 for a phone, and limits are published per plan (Lusha pricing, September 2026).
• Pick Lead411 if reps work in an app and you want Bombora buyer intent and sync to 25+ CRMs. Spark starts at $49 a month for 1,000 exports (Lead411 pricing, September 2026).
• Pick neither if the job is bulk volume through an API at a fixed bill. Both cap volume by plan, and neither publishes a 1M price. LeadOcean is built for that case. See the last section.

Side by side

Data and coverage

Lusha publishes more about its data than Lead411 does. It states 525M+ contacts, 165M+ emails, 117M+ direct dials and 29M+ companies. Lead411 says "millions" and gives no count of contacts, emails or direct dials.

Both numbers are vendor claims, and neither vendor publishes a find rate. Size is also not fit. Lead411 lists 13 countries: the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand and Sweden (Lead411 FAQ, September 2026). If you sell in Germany, France or Asia, check that against your list first.

On quality, Lead411 makes the only number claim. It cites 97% verified emails and notes the figure applies only to optimized, verified emails (Lead411, October 2026). Lusha calls its contacts verified but prints no accuracy percentage on its homepage (Lusha, October 2026).

Run your own test. Pull 500 contacts you already know are good, across regions and seniority levels. Count how many return an email, how many bounce, and how many return a phone. Then check the credit or export meter to get the real cost per match.

Signals differ. Lusha tracks 26 buying signals refreshed weekly, such as job changes, funding and hiring surges. Lead411 licenses Bombora buyer intent, available on annual plans only: not on annual Spark, an add-on on annual Ignite and optional on Blaze (Lead411 pricing, September 2026).

API and developer experience

Lusha is the easier API to start with. You get a key on any plan, send it in an api_key header and read published limits. Lead411 puts the API on Ignite and above, so the plan decides whether you can build at all.

Lusha's search-and-enrich call, from its docs (Lusha docs, September 2026):

curl -X POST "https://api.lusha.com/v3/contacts/search-and-enrich" \
  -H "api_key: $LUSHA_API_KEY" \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -d '{"contacts":[{"linkedinUrl":"https://www.linkedin.com/in/jane-doe"}],"reveal":["emails"]}'

It takes up to 100 contacts and bills the search plus each revealed field. An email is 1 credit and a phone is 5. One contact with both costs 7 through one API request: 5 for the phone, 1 for the email and 1 for the request (Lusha API guide, September 2026).

Lead411's V3 API takes an X-API-KEY header, or a Bearer token from email and password login or OAuth. Its reveal call, from its docs (Lead411 API docs, September 2026):

curl -X POST "https://api.lead411.com/v3/employee/unlock_employee_record" \
  -H "X-API-KEY: $LEAD411_API_KEY" \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -d '{"employee_id":"12345"}'

The response confirms the reveal and returns your remaining quota. Lead411 meters these reveals against an unlock_quota. Its docs publish an OpenAPI 3.1 spec and a Postman collection.

Both sell an MCP server, with different gates. Lusha's has 50 tools, including workspace tables and CRM export, and spends the same credits as the REST API. Lead411's is for approved customers only, and requests return 401 until support enables it. Its docs do not list the tools.

Pricing

Lusha prices credits inside plans. Lead411 prices exports inside plans. The examples below count one work-email lookup as one record.

Lusha list prices, monthly billing first and billed-yearly after (Lusha pricing, September 2026):

• Starter: $49.90 a month for 400 credits. $37.45 a month billed yearly.
• Pro: $69.90 a month for 600 credits. $52.45 a month billed yearly.
• Premium: $399.90 a month for 3,400 credits. $299.95 a month billed yearly.
• Scale: custom, through sales.

Lead411 list prices, monthly billing first and billed-yearly after (Lead411 pricing, September 2026):

• Spark: $49 a month for 1,000 exports. $490 a year billed yearly, about $40.83 a month, for 12,000 exports.
• Ignite: from $150 a month for "1000+" exports. From $1,500 a year billed yearly, $125 a month. Price varies by team size.
• Blaze: unlimited exports, annual only, "Let's Chat". No public price.

Lusha at 10,000 records a month

Credits needed through the bulk API: 10,000 emails at 1 credit, plus 10,000 / 25 = 400 request credits. That is 10,400 credits.

The top published step is 10,000 credits a month. It costs $977.40 on monthly billing, or $9,539.10 a year billed yearly, about $794.93 a month. It covers 10,000 / 1.04 = 9,615 emails. A full 10,000-email month sits just above the largest public step, so it needs Scale, which is a custom quote.

Lusha at 1M records a month

No public 1M price. A million work emails by bulk API need 1,000,000 + 1,000,000 / 25 = 1,040,000 credits. The top public step holds 10,000 credits a month, so 1M is 104 times the largest listed plan. Scale is custom, with 50%+ off price per credit and no published rate.

Lead411 at 10,000 records a month

Spark is $49 for 1,000 exports, so $0.049 an export at list. Spark stops at 1,000 a month and has no API, so 10,000 exports is not a Spark price. Ignite is the plan with API access. Its "1000+" cap is not defined, so there is no public price for 10,000 exports. Ask for an Ignite quote.

For comparison, the same arithmetic on Lusha Starter is $49.90 / 400 = $0.1248 a credit on monthly billing. That is a rate, not a Lusha price at 10,000.

Lead411 at 1M records a month

No public 1M price. Spark stops at 1,000 exports a month. Ignite has no stated cap, and unlimited exports sit on Blaze, priced by quote. The pricing page sells exports. The API meters reveals. Lead411 does not document how one maps to the other (Lead411 API docs, September 2026).

What a miss costs

Lusha's docs disagree. The API guide says a request costs at least 1 credit even with no result (Lusha API guide, September 2026). The V3 billing FAQ says nothing is deducted for no match (Lusha billing FAQ, September 2026). Budget for the 1 credit until Lusha settles it. Lead411 does not publish a miss rule.

Where Lusha wins

• A price you can read. Plan prices, credit steps and credit cost per action are published, so you can do the arithmetic yourself.
• API and MCP on the Free plan. You can test both before paying (Lusha API guide, September 2026).
• Published limits. Premium allows 300 requests a minute and 18,000 a day. Lead411 publishes no number.
• Counted data. 165M+ emails and 117M+ direct dials are stated, so you can size the phone coverage before you buy.
• Signals and CRM apps. 26 buying signals refreshed weekly, plus a Chrome extension and Salesforce, HubSpot and Pipedrive apps (Lusha, September 2026).

Where Lead411 wins

• Bombora buyer intent. If outbound runs on who is in market this week, Lead411 sells that feed. It is annual only (Lead411 pricing, September 2026).
• A cheap email-only start. Spark is $0.049 an export at list, against $0.1248 a credit on Starter. Spark has no phone numbers and no API.
• Unlimited exports on offer. Blaze is unlimited exports a year, by quote. Lusha lists no unlimited plan, and Scale is custom credits.
• Wider CRM sync. One-click integration with more than 25 CRMs (Lead411 FAQ, September 2026).
• Company endpoints. The API has company info, employees, news, jobs and technology stack routes (Lead411 API docs, September 2026).

If you need volume through an API

Both tools cap volume by plan, and neither publishes a price at 1M records a month. LeadOcean is a data API with one flat price. Pro is $499 a month with no credits, and the Free plan gives 1,000 records, one-off, with no card. You get 693M people and 63M companies over REST and a 12-tool MCP server on every plan, at 100 requests per second per key. Bulk export is POST /v1/exports, 50,000 rows per request and up to 500,000 rows a day, so a 1M-row pull takes two days (LeadOcean docs, September 2026). Past the fair-usage line a very large month is paced down, not cut off. See pricing.

If you are weighing other tools, we compared Lead411 against Seamless.AI and RocketReach, and Lusha against SalesIntel. If Lusha is your current tool, read the Lusha alternative page and Lusha alternatives compared.

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