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

People Data Labs (PDL) and Findymail both sell B2B contact data over an API, but they are different products. PDL is a profile database billed per match. Findymail is an email finder that verifies each address when you ask.

Verdict

• Pick People Data Labs if you are a developer who needs raw profiles, phone coverage or licensed bulk files. PDL lists 2.47B person profiles and bills per match, with no seats.
• Pick Findymail if you run outbound and want verified emails from names and domains. It has an official MCP server and advertises a bounce guarantee on its pricing page.
• Pick neither if you need volume through an API at a price you can read. PDL has no public 1M price, and Findymail's plan prices could not be read for this page. LeadOcean is one option: Pro is $499 a month, flat.

Side by side

Data and coverage

PDL is a database. Findymail is a lookup service. That is the main difference, and the counts follow from it.

PDL lists 2.47B person profiles and 76.6M companies. Only part of the person dataset carries contact data: 592M profiles have an email and 470M have a mobile number (PDL datasets, September 2026). A PDL email is data PDL already holds, not a fresh check.

Findymail publishes no dataset size. It finds an email when you ask and verifies it, and it only returns the address if it passes (Findymail API docs, September 2026). You cannot browse or count anything first.

Phones are narrow on both sides. PDL counts 764M profiles with any phone. Findymail's phone finder takes a LinkedIn URL, costs 10 credits per number and returns US numbers only (Findymail API docs, September 2026).

Search differs too. Findymail's lead search is a plain-language query that returns up to 5,000 companies per export. PDL has structured search, but its default limit is 10 requests a minute.

Match rate depends on what you feed in. Findymail wants a name plus a company domain, or a business profile URL. PDL's enrichment call in the example below takes a LinkedIn profile URL. A name alone is weak input for any matching tool, so feed both the strongest identifier you have.

Test on your own list before you buy. Take 500 people and run them through both. Count how many emails come back, and how many of those bounce.

API and developer experience

Both are REST APIs with one-person lookups that bill only on a hit. The real differences are the input, the output and the limits.

Findymail authenticates with a Bearer token and finds an email from a name plus a domain. POST /api/search/name costs 1 finder credit if a verified email comes back (Findymail API docs, September 2026):

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

You can add a webhook_url to run the search in the background. PDL sends a key in the X-Api-Key header to GET /v5/person/enrich. A match returns 200 and is billed. A miss returns 404 and is not (PDL docs, September 2026):

curl -G "https://api.peopledatalabs.com/v5/person/enrich" \
  -H "X-Api-Key: $PDL_API_KEY" \
  --data-urlencode "profile=https://linkedin.com/in/seanthorne"

The output differs. Findymail returns a name, a domain and one email. PDL returns a full profile, with job history, location and whatever contact data it holds.

Limits are built differently. Findymail caps simultaneous requests at 300 by default, and a few endpoints are lower (Findymail API docs, September 2026). PDL counts requests per key in a fixed one-minute window. Enrichment gets 1,000 a minute on paid plans and Person Search gets 10 a minute (PDL usage limits, September 2026).

On MCP, Findymail has an official server with 14 tools. Sign in with a browser or a bearer token, and lookups that find nothing are free (Findymail Cursor plugin, September 2026). PDL lists no MCP server in its docs, and only community servers exist (PDL llms.txt, September 2026).

Pricing

PDL charges per credit, and one credit is one matched profile. Findymail sells monthly plans sized in credits, and one credit is one verified email. Convert both to cost per record, and keep the unit difference in mind.

At 10,000 records a month

For PDL, 10,000 profiles is 10,000 credits. PDL says Pro profiles cost about $0.20 to $0.28 each, depending on volume. So 10,000 x $0.20 = $2,000 and 10,000 x $0.28 = $2,800 (PDL blog, February 2026). PDL does not publish the exact price per credit at 10,000 credits a month. Treat this as a range. The credit selector in your PDL dashboard shows the price for your volume.

For Findymail, 10,000 emails is 10,000 credits, if every lookup finds one. Findymail's pricing page blocks automated reading, so we cannot quote the plan that covers 10,000 credits. See its pricing page for current plans, then divide the monthly price by the credits.

Phones change the math. A phone costs 10 credits, so 10,000 phones is 100,000 credits. That is a large plan on any schedule, and the numbers are US only. Misses cost nothing on either side, so your real total tracks your hit rate.

At 1M records a month

For Findymail: the API docs carry no price, and its pricing page blocks automated reading, so we cannot quote its largest plan or a 1M price. See its pricing page and ask sales for a quote at your volume.

For PDL: No public 1M price. Self-serve Pro stops near 100,000 profiles, and above that PDL quotes Enterprise only (PDL blog, September 2026). Its docs and blog disagree on whether the 100,000 is per month or per year.

Do not multiply either rate out to 1M and call it a quote. Ask both for a price at your volume, and get the unit in writing: a profile, or a verified email.

Where People Data Labs wins

• Scale of data. 2.47B profiles, 592M with an email and 764M with any phone, by PDL's own stats.
• Bulk files. An annual Data License delivers person data to S3, GCP or Azure (PDL docs, September 2026).
• Full profiles. One credit returns job history, location and contact data, not a single email.
• Bigger batches. Bulk enrichment takes 100 people per request.

Where Findymail wins

• Verified at the moment you ask. Only a verified email is returned, and Findymail advertises a bounce guarantee on its pricing page (Findymail pricing).
• An official MCP server. It has 14 tools and a browser sign-in, so an agent can find and verify an email with no setup code.
• Email-only billing. A credit buys one verified email, and a lookup that finds nothing costs no credit, while a PDL credit buys a whole profile. Compare plan prices on Findymail's pricing page.
• Outbound tooling. It has a separate verifier endpoint, a lead-search query and signals for job changes (Findymail API docs, September 2026).

If you need volume through an API

We build LeadOcean, so weigh this section accordingly. LeadOcean holds 693M people and 63M companies, and you reach them over REST and MCP. Free is 1,000 records, one-off, with no card. Pro is $499 a month, flat, with unlimited searches and lookups (LeadOcean pricing, September 2026).

For bulk work, POST /v1/exports returns up to 50,000 rows per request. The app also has an Exports page with a filter builder and CSV download (LeadOcean exports docs, September 2026). There is no sequencer, dialer or CRM. Compare the data source, and see the PDL alternative page for a line-by-line version.

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