People Data Labs (PDL) is a bigger dataset with a developer-first API. ContactOut is a cheaper way for a person to get emails and phones from LinkedIn. They overlap on enrichment, but they are built for different buyers. Neither publishes a price at 1M records a month.
Verdict
- Pick People Data Labs if you build a product or pipeline on structured person and company data, need the widest dataset, or want to license files into your own warehouse. It costs more per record and its API is self-serve only up to about 100,000 person profiles.
- Pick ContactOut if recruiters or reps look people up one by one from LinkedIn and want emails and phones on a flat seat plan. Its API has no public price, so it is a poor fit for a pipeline.
- Pick neither if you need millions of records through an API or an MCP server on a fixed bill. That is the gap LeadOcean fills, at $499 a month flat (see the section near the end).
Side by side
| People Data Labs | ContactOut | |
|---|---|---|
| Data size | 2.47 billion person profiles, 76.6M companies (PDL datasets; PDL company stats) | 800M people profiles, 40M companies on its data page. The homepage headline says 350M, the MCP page 600M+ (ContactOut data; ContactOut MCP) |
| Email coverage | 592M profiles with at least one email (PDL datasets) | 150M personal and 200M work emails (ContactOut data) |
| Phone coverage | 470M mobile, 764M any phone (PDL datasets) | 100M direct dials (ContactOut data) |
| API | REST, self-serve signup, SDKs (PDL docs) | REST, but keys come from booking a meeting (ContactOut API docs) |
| MCP | No official server. Community servers only (PDL llms.txt) | Yes, 15 tools, 600+ free credits at onboarding (ContactOut MCP) |
| Rate limit | Enrichment 1,000 a minute on paid plans, 100 on Free. Search 10 a minute (PDL usage limits) | People Search 60 a minute, checkers 150, other APIs 1,000 (ContactOut API docs) |
| Bulk export | Bulk enrichment, 100 people per request. Dataset files by annual licence (PDL bulk docs; PDL data licence) | Batch lookup of 100 profiles, async batch of 1,000. Self-serve plans cap exports at 300 or 600 a month (ContactOut API docs; ContactOut pricing) |
| Price model | Credits. One per matched person or per profile returned (PDL docs) | Seat plans for people. API credits, no published dollar price (ContactOut pricing; API docs) |
| Entry price | Free: 100 credits a month, contact data hidden. Pro: $98 a month for 350 credits ($78 a month billed yearly) (PDL pricing) | Free: 5 emails, 5 phones a day. Email: $49 a month ($39 billed yearly). Email + Phone: $99 a month ($79 billed yearly) (ContactOut pricing) |
| Cost at 1M records | No public 1M price (PDL blog) | No public 1M price (ContactOut terms) |
Data and coverage
PDL has far more profiles, but ContactOut sells a narrower thing. PDL lists 2.47 billion person records, of which 592M carry at least one email. ContactOut claims 800M profiles, with 150M personal emails, 200M work emails and 100M direct dials. Both sets of figures come from each vendor's own pages (PDL datasets, September 2026; ContactOut data, September 2026).
The two counts are not measured the same way. PDL counts profiles with a field filled. ContactOut counts emails and dials it says it holds, and it does not say how the personal and work figures overlap. Treat both as vendor claims and test on your own list.
ContactOut also contradicts itself on size. Its homepage says contact data for 350M professionals, its data page says 800M profiles and its MCP page says 600M+ (ContactOut homepage, September 2026). Ask which number your plan reaches before you buy.
On phones PDL lists 470M mobile numbers and 764M profiles with any phone. That is a larger stated base than ContactOut's 100M direct dials. On the free plan PDL hides emails, phones and addresses, so you cannot test the contact data before you pay (PDL pricing, September 2026).
On compliance, PDL lists ISO and SOC 2 Type 2. ContactOut lists SOC 2, GDPR and CCPA on its data page (PDL pricing; ContactOut data). Both are vendor statements, so ask for the report in procurement.
API and developer experience
PDL is easier to start with as a developer. You sign up, get a key and call the API. ContactOut keeps the API behind a meeting: its docs say to book one to request a key (ContactOut API docs, September 2026).
PDL enrichment is a GET to /v5/person/enrich with a key in the X-Api-Key header. A match returns 200 and costs a credit. No match returns 404 and is not billed (PDL docs, September 2026).
curl -X GET \
'https://api.peopledatalabs.com/v5/person/enrich?profile=linkedin.com/in/seanthorne' \
-H "X-Api-Key: $PDL_API_KEY"PDL search takes an Elasticsearch query or SQL and bills one credit per person returned. Its default rate limit is 10 requests a minute (PDL search docs, September 2026). Use the size parameter to cap spend.
ContactOut starts from a LinkedIn URL. One call returns emails, and phones if you set include_phone. It uses a token header. A miss returns 404. Each email found costs one email credit and each phone found costs one phone credit (ContactOut API docs, September 2026).
curl "https://api.contactout.com/v1/people/linkedin?profile=https://www.linkedin.com/in/example-person&include_phone=true" \
-H "token: $CONTACTOUT_API_TOKEN"For agents, ContactOut is ahead. It ships an MCP server with 15 tools, including people search and contact lookup. PDL's docs and llms.txt list no official MCP server, only community wrappers you host yourself (ContactOut MCP, September 2026; PDL llms.txt, September 2026).
Pricing
PDL charges per record, ContactOut charges per seat. PDL Pro starts at $98 a month for 350 credits, which is $0.28 a credit. Billed yearly it is $940 a year, or $78 a month. PDL says Pro person profiles cost about $0.20 to $0.28 each depending on volume (PDL pricing, September 2026; PDL blog, February 2026).
ContactOut Email is $49 a month, or $39 a month billed yearly, with 300 exports a month. Email + Phone is $99 a month, or $79 billed yearly, with 600 exports. Every self-serve plan is one user per company (ContactOut pricing, September 2026). Paid "unlimited" plans follow a fair use policy of 2,000 email and 1,000 phone credits per account a month (ContactOut terms, September 2026).
Worked example: 10,000 records a month
- PDL: 10,000 credits x $0.28 = $2,800 at the entry rate. At the low end of PDL's range, 10,000 x $0.20 = $2,000. This is arithmetic on published rates, not a quote. At 120,000 a year you are also past the roughly 100,000 a year self-serve guidance, so PDL may steer you to Enterprise (PDL blog, September 2026).
- ContactOut: Not reachable on self-serve. 10,000 emails is five times the 2,000 email fair-use cap, and exports stop at 300 or 600 a month. The API route has no public price.
Worked example: 1M records a month
- PDL: No public 1M price. Self-serve stops near 100,000 person profiles and PDL quotes Enterprise above that. The pricing page shows only the entry tier.
- ContactOut: No public 1M price. At 2,000 emails per account a month, 1M is 500 account-months, and one user per company rules out adding accounts. Volume means Team / API, priced on request.
The honest answer for both is to ask for a quote. Budget a sales cycle before a 1M-record project starts.
Where People Data Labs wins
The bigger dataset and the wider menu
PDL lists 2.47 billion person profiles and 76.6M companies, both larger than ContactOut's claims (PDL datasets, September 2026). It also sells job postings and IP data. If you need breadth, PDL is ahead.
A self-serve API you can read and test
Docs, SDKs, a clear credit rule and no billing for 404s make PDL easy to cost out for small volumes. Search accepts a full Elasticsearch query or SQL, which gives far more control than a form of filters (PDL search docs, September 2026).
Files for your warehouse
PDL licenses bulk person data annually, delivered to S3, GCP or Azure, with delta files for changes (PDL data licence, September 2026). ContactOut's Team plan mentions a 700M+ profile bulk license but gives no detail.
Where ContactOut wins
Contact details from a LinkedIn URL, for a person
ContactOut is built around emails and phones for people found on LinkedIn, with a Chrome extension and a search portal in every plan, including Free (ContactOut pricing, September 2026). A recruiter gets value on day one without writing code.
A low seat price
Email at $49 a month and Email + Phone at $99 a month are far below PDL's per-record math for a single user who looks up a few hundred people a month. Annual billing brings them to $39 and $79.
MCP and campaigns
ContactOut has an official MCP server with 15 tools and sells email campaigns and a list builder on its plans (ContactOut MCP, September 2026; ContactOut pricing). PDL has neither.
If you need volume through an API
Both tools stall at volume for different reasons. PDL sends you to a sales quote above about 100,000 profiles a year. ContactOut's unlimited plans cap at 2,000 emails per account a month. LeadOcean is a REST API and a hosted MCP server with 12 tools, priced at Free (1,000 records, one-off, no card) and Pro at $499 a month flat.
Pro allows 100 requests per second per key and exports up to 50,000 rows per request, from the app's Exports page or POST /v1/exports (LeadOcean docs, September 2026). It holds 693M people, a smaller set than PDL's, and it has no dataset file licence or Chrome extension. See the pricing page for what Pro includes and how fair use works.
FAQ
Which has more data, People Data Labs or ContactOut?
PDL, by stated size. It lists 2.47 billion person profiles against ContactOut's 800M claim. ContactOut's own pages also say 350M and 600M+, so test match rates on your own list.
Does ContactOut have an API I can use without talking to sales?
No. ContactOut's API docs say to book a meeting to request a key, and the pricing page shows Team / API as Contact Us. Only the seat plans are self-serve (ContactOut API docs, September 2026).
Does People Data Labs have an MCP server?
Not officially. PDL's docs and llms.txt list none, and the community wrappers are not from PDL. You would host one yourself with your own PDL key (PDL llms.txt, September 2026).
Which is cheaper per record?
At small volume PDL's entry rate is $0.28 a person profile. ContactOut's seat plans are cheaper for one person looking up a few hundred contacts. Neither publishes a price at 1M records.
Can either tool give me phone numbers?
Yes. PDL lists 470M mobile numbers, but its free plan hides contact data. ContactOut returns phones with include_phone, on the Email + Phone plan or through the API, one phone credit per number found.
Which one is better for recruiters?
ContactOut. The Chrome extension and seat pricing suit people who work from LinkedIn. PDL is a data API for engineers, and it needs code before it returns anything useful.
Related: People Data Labs vs Wiza, People Data Labs vs Snov.io, People Data Labs vs Kaspr, People Data Labs alternatives and ContactOut alternatives. Back to the blog.
Need people data through an API at a flat price? Start free.
Free to start. No credit card. 1,000 records to spend whenever you like.
Get your free API key →