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

People Data Labs (PDL) and Wiza look similar on a pricing page and work very differently in practice. PDL is a data API with a huge stored dataset, billed per match. Wiza is a LinkedIn-first email and phone finder, billed per seat, with an API you have to ask for. Pick PDL for code, and Wiza for reps.

Verdict

• Pick People Data Labs if you are building a product or pipeline and need person and company records by API, in volume, with a documented schema. It also licenses dataset files for your warehouse.
• Pick Wiza if a rep or a small team prospects from LinkedIn and wants emails and phones verified at the moment of the request. One seat is cheap.
• Pick neither if you need millions of records a month through an API and want the bill fixed in advance. PDL quotes Enterprise at that volume and Wiza sells its API on a sales call. See the LeadOcean section below.

Side by side

Data and coverage

PDL is the bigger dataset by a wide margin. It holds 2.47 billion person profiles, of which 592M carry an email and 764M carry some phone number (PDL datasets, September 2026). The company dataset has 76.6M records (PDL company stats, September 2026). Those figures are PDL's own.

Wiza claims 850M+ contacts and publishes no split by email or phone (Wiza homepage, September 2026). It also publishes no company count. The two numbers are not like for like, because PDL counts stored profiles and Wiza counts contacts it can reach.

The bigger difference is how each tool treats freshness. Wiza says it verifies contact data "the moment you request it" and charges only for emails it marks valid (Wiza homepage, September 2026). PDL serves stored profiles and bills per match, and it publishes no request-time verification step. Check the contact data you get back before you send.

Match rate depends on your list, not on either headline number. Run 1,000 of your own records through both before you commit.

API and developer experience

PDL is one synchronous call. You send what you know and get the profile back, or a 404 that is not billed. The key goes in the X-Api-Key header (PDL docs, September 2026).

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

Wiza is two calls. The POST starts a real-time reveal and returns a queued job with an id. You then read the result with GET /api/individual_reveals/{id}, or wait for a webhook (Wiza docs, September 2026).

curl -X POST "https://wiza.co/api/individual_reveals" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $WIZA_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"individual_reveal":{"profile_url":"https://www.linkedin.com/in/jane-doe"},"enrichment_level":"partial"}'

Rate limits shape what you can build. PDL gives paying plans 1,000 Person Enrichment requests a minute, but only 10 a minute on Person Search (PDL docs, September 2026). Wiza limits concurrency to 5 on Starter API and 15+ on Enterprise, and queues the rest (Wiza docs, September 2026). Wiza's help center words the same limit as 15 requests a second (Wiza help, September 2026). The two pages measure different things, so plan around the lower docs figure.

On MCP, Wiza has the edge. It runs a hosted server with 5 tools, including enrich_contact and search_prospects, and signs in with OAuth 2.1 or a bearer token (Wiza MCP guide, September 2026). PDL lists no official server, only community wrappers you host with your own key (PDL llms.txt, September 2026).

Pricing

PDL bills a credit per successful match or profile returned. Wiza bills a seat, plus credits for API use. They are hard to compare, so here are both at 10,000 records a month and what is known at 1M.

PDL at 10,000 records. Pro starts at $98 a month for 350 credits, which is $0.28 a credit (PDL pricing, September 2026). PDL says Pro person profiles cost about $0.20 to $0.28 each, depending on volume (PDL blog, September 2026). So 10,000 x $0.20 = $2,000 and 10,000 x $0.28 = $2,800 a month. The exact ladder sits behind PDL's login. At 10,000 a month you are also near the roughly 100,000 profiles a year where PDL sends buyers to Enterprise (PDL blog, September 2026).

Wiza at 10,000 records. The monthly Email plan is $99 per user and includes 500 valid emails. Extra emails cost $0.15 each (Wiza pricing, September 2026). So $99 + (9,500 x $0.15) = $99 + $1,425 = $1,524 a month for one seat. On annual plans, a seat is $83 a month with unlimited email reveals but 2,500 exports a month, so 10,000 exports needs 4 seats. Teams of 3 or more are on custom Team pricing, so that route has no public price. Wiza's API credits (2 per valid email) have no public dollar price either (Wiza docs, September 2026).

Wiza with phones. The monthly Email + Phone plan is $199 per user with 500 valid emails and 500 phone numbers. Extra phones cost $0.35 each (Wiza pricing, October 2026). So 10,000 phones on one seat is $199 + (9,500 x $0.35) = $199 + $3,325 = $3,524 a month, before any extra emails. PDL returns phones inside the same profile credit, so its range stays $2,000 to $2,800.

At 1M records. Neither vendor publishes a price. PDL's self-serve ceiling is far below 1M, and Enterprise is by quote (PDL blog, September 2026). Wiza's API page says "Book a call to discuss API pricing" (Wiza API, September 2026). We do not multiply entry rates out to 1M, because neither vendor sells it at that rate.

Where People Data Labs wins

• Scale and schema. A 2.47 billion profile dataset, 76.6M companies and a documented API beat anything Wiza publishes.
• Warehouse files. PDL licenses person data as files for your own cloud storage (PDL docs, September 2026). Wiza publishes no dataset licence.
• Built for code. One synchronous call, bulk enrichment of 100 persons per request, and a 404 that costs nothing.
• No seat to buy. An engineer can start on the free tier without a LinkedIn workflow.

Where Wiza wins

• Live verification. Wiza checks contact data when you ask and bills only valid emails (Wiza docs, September 2026).
• LinkedIn workflow. A rep can build lists from Sales Navigator, export to CSV or sync to a CRM without writing code (Wiza pricing, September 2026).
• Cheap for one person. Starter is $49 a month, and the annual Email plan is $83 a month with unlimited email reveals (Wiza pricing, September 2026). PDL Pro costs more per month and gives 350 credits.
• An MCP server. Wiza ships one. PDL does not.

If you need volume through an API

LeadOcean is a third option when the question is "how do I pull millions of records a month with a fixed bill?" The Free plan gives you 1,000 records, one-off, with no card. Pro is $499 a month, flat, with no credits and no per-record price, and it runs at 100 requests per second per key. You get REST and a hosted MCP server with 12 tools on every plan, and POST /v1/exports returns up to 50,000 rows a request. LeadOcean holds 693M people, which is smaller than PDL's dataset, so test match rate on your own list first. See pricing.

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