Prospeo vs Dropcontact (2026): Data, Pricing and API Compared

Prospeo and Dropcontact both charge a credit only when they return an email, but they start from different places. Prospeo has a searchable database and sells mobile numbers. Dropcontact has no database and cleans contacts you already hold. Every fact below comes from each vendor's own pages, checked in September 2026.

Verdict

• Pick Prospeo if you need to search for people by title or company, or you need mobile numbers. A verified email costs 1 credit, a mobile costs 10, and a lookup that finds nothing costs nothing (Prospeo help center, September 2026).
• Pick Dropcontact if you have a list to clean, your contacts are mostly European, and you want processing on EU servers. It refunds the credit when no email is found (Dropcontact API docs, September 2026).
• Pick neither if you start from an audience and want a flat bill at volume. Both meter every email and neither prints a price at 1M. LeadOcean fits that case and is covered below.

Side by side

Every cell links to its source. "Not published" means the vendor prints no figure on the pages we checked.

Data and coverage

Prospeo owns a database and sells access to it. Its homepage claims 280M leads and companies and 143M verified emails (Prospeo, September 2026). Search returns 25 results a page with no contact data, so you pay again to enrich the people you pick (Prospeo search docs, September 2026).

Dropcontact has no database. It states that it works only with algorithms and verification (Dropcontact pricing, September 2026). That is its privacy pitch. It also means you cannot ask it how many VPs of Sales exist in Canada.

Input differs too. Dropcontact needs first name, last name and a company, or a LinkedIn URL, or an email. If you send only contact fields with no company identifier, it returns an error (Dropcontact API docs, September 2026). Prospeo takes the same inputs plus a person_id from its own search (Prospeo enrich docs, September 2026).

On hit rate, the only public test is Dropcontact's own. Its 2025 benchmark used 20,000 contacts with only a name and a company. Dropcontact reports a 54.9% effective enrichment rate and ranks itself first of 15 tools (Dropcontact benchmark, September 2026). The vendor ran the test, and Prospeo was not one of the 15 tools. Run the same 500 rows through both before you commit.

Phones are a gap on both sides. Prospeo sells a mobile finder at a published price. Dropcontact lists phone fields in its response and no coverage figure or price.

API and developer experience

Both are REST with a hosted MCP server. Prospeo answers in one call. Dropcontact takes a batch, then makes you poll for the result or wait for a webhook.

Prospeo, enrich a person from a name and a company website. Placeholders stand in for real people.

curl -X POST "https://api.prospeo.io/enrich-person" \
  -H "X-KEY: $PROSPEO_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"only_verified_email": true, "data": {"first_name": "Jane", "last_name": "Doe", "company_website": "acme.com"}}'

The response is synchronous. only_verified_email and enrich_mobile control when credits are spent, and re-enriching a record inside 90 days is free (Prospeo enrich docs, September 2026).

Dropcontact, POST a batch, then GET the result with the request_id.

curl -X POST "https://api.dropcontact.com/v1/people/enrich/all" \
  -H "X-Access-Token: $DROPCONTACT_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"data": [{"first_name": "Jane", "last_name": "Doe", "website": "acme.com"}], "language": "en"}'

curl "https://api.dropcontact.com/v1/people/enrich/all/$REQUEST_ID" \
  -H "X-Access-Token: $DROPCONTACT_API_KEY"

The first call returns a request_id. The second returns "Request not ready yet, try again in 30 seconds" until processing ends. Add custom_callback_url to skip the polling (Dropcontact API docs, September 2026). A batch holds up to 250 contacts.

Limits decide more than syntax at volume. Dropcontact allows 60 requests a second with no published daily cap. Prospeo's Starter plan stops at 5 enrich requests a second and 2,000 a day. Its Pro plan reaches 30 a second and 500,000 a day (Prospeo rate limits, September 2026).

One point is unsettled. Prospeo's pricing table shows no public API on Free. Its help center lists limited API access with 50 requests a day (Prospeo help center, September 2026). The API docs intro says free API access for all users (Prospeo API docs, September 2026). Test a free key before you plan around it.

Both MCP servers are narrow. Prospeo's has 8 tools (Prospeo MCP docs, September 2026). Dropcontact's enriches a contact or validates an email, and nothing else.

Pricing

Both tools sell credits, so cost scales with volume. The worked example assumes work emails only, one credit each, and a hit on every lookup. A hit rate below 100% lowers both bills, because neither charges for a miss. Prospeo prices in dollars and Dropcontact in euros, so the totals are not converted. Prices are monthly list first, billed-yearly after.

10,000 records a month

• Prospeo: one Growth seat gives 5,000 credits for $99. The 5,000-credit add-on is $90. That is 10,000 credits for $99 + $90 = $189 a month. Billed yearly, 2 Growth seats at $74 a month ($888 a year each) give 120,000 credits a year for $1,776, or $148 a month (Prospeo pricing, September 2026).
• Dropcontact: the 11,000-credit step on Starter is €199 a month. Growth is €303 at the same step. The yearly toggle shows -20%, so Starter is about €159 a month, which is arithmetic and not a printed price (Dropcontact pricing, September 2026). Prices are shown excluding VAT.

At 10,000 a month the two are in the same range. Dropcontact's Starter step covers 11,000 emails for one flat step price, and Prospeo's $189 covers exactly 10,000.

1M records a month

• Prospeo: no single tier reaches 1M. On monthly billing, (1,000,000 - 350,000 add-on credits) / 15,000 = 43.3. Round up to 44 Pro seats at $249 = $10,956, then add the 350,000-credit add-on at $3,500. That is 1,010,000 credits for $14,456 a month. Billed yearly, 3 Pro seats at $2,241 plus the 500,000-credit yearly add-on at $4,500 is $11,223 once, with 1,040,000 credits upfront (Prospeo pricing, September 2026).
• Dropcontact: no public 1M price. The slider tops out at 150,000 credits a month, at €2,245 on Starter and €3,652 on Growth. Enterprise starts at 200,000 credits and is a custom quote (Dropcontact pricing, September 2026). We do not multiply a per-credit rate out to 1M, because Dropcontact does not say it sells that volume at list.

Neither tool prints a price above this. Prospeo publishes nothing past 350,000 add-on credits a month or 500,000 a year, and support enables extended pricing on request (Prospeo help center, September 2026). For a steady 1M every month, ask both for a quote.

Rollover. Prospeo credits never roll over (Prospeo help center, September 2026). Dropcontact carries unused credits over on Growth only (Dropcontact pricing, September 2026).

Where Prospeo wins

Search. Prospeo lets you find people by filters, then enrich the ones you want. Dropcontact cannot build a list.

Mobile numbers. Prospeo has a priced mobile finder and a verified-mobile option. Dropcontact publishes neither a phone price nor phone coverage.

A higher published ceiling. Pro allows 30 enrich requests a second and 500,000 a day, and Prospeo prints a 1M path. Dropcontact stops at 150,000 credits on the slider.

Chrome extension and CRM sync. Prospeo lists a Chrome extension on every plan, and HubSpot and Salesforce sync on Growth and Pro (Prospeo pricing, September 2026).

Where Dropcontact wins

A list you already own. It fixes names, finds a business email from a name and a company, and qualifies each address, such as nominative@pro. It adds company data and French identifiers such as SIREN and NAF codes in the same pass.

EU processing. Its pricing page states EU-based servers and an audit against CNIL standards (Dropcontact pricing, September 2026). Some European buyers need that in writing.

A faster API on small plans. 60 requests a second against Prospeo's 5 on Starter, with a webhook option for large batches.

Connectors and file work. HubSpot, Pipedrive, Salesforce, Zapier, Make, n8n and Google Sheets, plus CSV file drops (Dropcontact, September 2026).

If you need volume through an API

LeadOcean is a people and company data API with a hosted MCP server, and it is a different shape from both tools. It holds 693M people and 63M companies. Free gives 1,000 records one-off with no card, and Pro is $499 a month, flat, with no credits and no seats over REST and MCP. Export up to 50,000 rows per request with POST /v1/exports, so a 1M-row pull is 20 requests over two days (LeadOcean exports docs, September 2026). It does not take a name and a company as input, and it has no CRM connector, so keep Dropcontact for list cleaning. See LeadOcean pricing and the Prospeo alternative.

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