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

Lusha is the better pick for most teams. It publishes its prices, its credit costs and its API limits. RocketReach claims a bigger index but publishes no dollar price for its API credits. Neither is built for a 1M-record month. This page compares them on data, API, MCP and cost, with the arithmetic shown.

Verdict

• Pick Lusha if reps work in a browser and a CRM, or if you want a price you can read. It publishes plan prices, a credit ladder and per-plan API limits, and every plan gets an API key, Free included (Lusha pricing, September 2026).
• Pick RocketReach if you look people up one at a time and want the larger claimed index. It charges only for emails graded A or A-, and a lookup that finds nothing is free (RocketReach FAQ, September 2026).
• Pick neither if the job is bulk volume through an API at a fixed bill. Both meter by credit, and neither publishes a price at 1M records. LeadOcean is built for that case. See the last section.

Side by side

Data and coverage

RocketReach claims 700M+ professionals. Lusha claims 525M+ contacts. Both are vendor numbers, and only Lusha splits its count into 165M+ emails and 117M+ direct dials.

Size is not reach. A larger index can hold more stale profiles, and neither vendor publishes a find rate. Only a test on your own list shows the real match rate.

A fair test takes an afternoon. Pull 500 contacts you already know are good, across regions, seniority levels and company sizes. Run the same list through both and count how many return an email, how many of those bounce, and how many return a phone. Check the credit meter after each run to get the real cost per match.

Email quality works differently. RocketReach grades each email A, A-, B or F. It charges only for A and A-, and nothing for B or F (RocketReach FAQ, September 2026). Lusha publishes a 98% email accuracy claim on its homepage, not a grade on each record (Lusha, September 2026).

Lusha adds 26 buying signals refreshed weekly, such as job changes and funding. RocketReach adds a standalone email verify endpoint and a personal email lookup at 3 credits. Pick on the data you will use.

API and developer experience

Lusha is the easier one to start with. You get a key on any plan, send it in an api_key header, and read published limits. RocketReach's docs tell you to email the API team to set up an API plan.

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 a batch of 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. That is 5 for the phone, 1 for the email and 1 for the request (Lusha API guide, September 2026).

RocketReach's person lookup, from its docs (RocketReach docs, September 2026):

curl "https://api.rocketreach.co/api/v2/person/lookup?linkedin_url=https://www.linkedin.com/in/jane-doe" \
  -H "Api-Key: $ROCKETREACH_API_KEY"

This is a GET, and the lookup can answer with a status of progress. You then poll the status endpoint or register a webhook to get the fully verified emails.

Both sell an MCP server. Lusha's has 50 tools, including workspace tables and CRM export, and spends the same credits as the REST API. RocketReach's has 9 tools, including person_lookup and email_verify.

Pricing

Lusha prices credits inside plans. RocketReach prices plans, then spends Universal Credits with no dollar figure. 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.

RocketReach lists Essentials at $69, Pro at $119 and Ultimate at $209 a month on monthly billing. G2 reports these because rocketreach.co/pricing blocks automated reads (G2, September 2026). We could not read annual prices, so none are shown here. Confirm current prices on rocketreach.co before you buy.

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 (Lusha pricing, September 2026). That 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 + 40,000 = 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 (Lusha pricing, September 2026).

RocketReach at 10,000 records a month

Seat route, our own arithmetic and not a published price: Ultimate carries 1,000 exports a month, so 10,000 / 1,000 = 10 seats x $209 = $2,090 a month (reported by G2). G2 shows 500 in one paragraph, so 1,000 is the working figure.

API route: a professional email is 2 credits, so 10,000 emails is 20,000 Universal Credits. RocketReach publishes no dollar price per credit, and its docs say to email api@rocketreach.co for an API plan (RocketReach rate limits, September 2026). Ultimate allows 3,000 person lookups a day, so 10,000 takes four days.

RocketReach at 1M records a month

No public 1M price. The highest published person-lookup cap is 200,000 a month on the Custom tier. That makes 1M lookups five months of allowance (RocketReach rate limits, September 2026). In credits, 1M professional emails is 2,000,000 Universal Credits (RocketReach credits, September 2026). Ask the API team for a quote.

What a miss costs

RocketReach charges no credit when no data is found or the email grade is B or F. Lusha's docs disagree with each other. 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). Ask Lusha before you budget for misses.

Where Lusha wins

• A price you can read. Plan prices, credit steps and credit costs per action are published, so you can do the arithmetic yourself. With RocketReach you cannot.
• API and MCP on the Free plan. You can test both before paying (Lusha API guide, September 2026).
• Cheaper to start. Starter is $49.90 a month on monthly billing, against $69 reported for RocketReach Essentials.
• Higher per-key limits. Premium allows 300 requests a minute and 18,000 a day. RocketReach caps the whole API at 10 a second and Ultimate lookups at 100 a minute.
• Buying signals and CRM apps. 26 signals refreshed weekly, plus a Chrome extension and Salesforce, HubSpot, Monday and Zoho integrations (Lusha, September 2026).

Where RocketReach wins

• Pay only for good emails. No credit is charged for a B or F grade, or when no data is found. Re-lookups of the same profile are free while the plan is active (RocketReach FAQ, September 2026).
• A larger claimed index. 700M+ professionals against 525M+ contacts. Test it on your own list before you trust it.
• Personal emails and verification. A personal email is 3 credits, and a standalone email_verify endpoint checks addresses you already hold (RocketReach docs, September 2026).
• Phone on a mid-priced plan. RocketReach lists email-only Essentials at $69 and email-plus-phone Pro at $119 a month, reported by G2 (G2, September 2026).

If you need volume through an API

Both tools meter by credit 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 no seats, 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. A 1M-row pull takes two days (LeadOcean docs, September 2026). See pricing.

If you are also weighing other contact finders, we compared RocketReach against UpLead, SalesIntel and LeadIQ. If Lusha is your current tool, read the Lusha alternative page and Lusha alternatives compared.

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