How to build a rep prospecting list (territory to first call)

A rep needs three things: a sized territory, a ranked list of people, and one enriched contact before each call. You can get all three from four API requests, and sizing costs nothing.

Clay pitches this as waterfall enrichment across many providers, a Chrome extension partner (Exportly) and pushes to a CRM or sequencer (Clay rep prospecting page, October 2026). LeadOcean has none of those tools. It is the data layer, so this guide is for the rep or RevOps engineer who wants the list as JSON or CSV.

TL;DR

• Total time: about 20 minutes. The example territory is IT directors and VPs at German companies with 201-500 employees.
• Records spent: about 101. The count is free, one search page of 100 is 100 records, and one enrichment is 1 record.
• The Free plan (1,000 records for life, no card) covers it with 899 records to spare.

Prerequisites

• A LeadOcean API key from app.leadocean.io/register, exported as $LEADOCEAN_API_KEY.
• curl and jq.
• A territory written as filters: country, job level, job function, company size.

Step 1: Size the territory (free)

Send count=true as a query parameter with limit=1. The call returns a total and spends no records. The body is flat JSON and every filter is an array.

curl -s -X POST "https://api.leadocean.io/v1/people/search?count=true&limit=1" \
  -H "x-api-key: $LEADOCEAN_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "country": ["DE"],
    "jobLevel": ["VP", "Director"],
    "jobFunction": ["Information Technology"],
    "employeeRange": ["201-500"]
  }' | jq '.meta'

meta.total is capped at 100,000. If the number is too big for one rep, add a filter. If it is zero, check the enum spelling (see Troubleshooting).

You can run the same count from an AI client with the leadocean_count_leads MCP tool. For the account side, leadocean_count_companies sizes the company list for free.

Step 2: Pull the first page of people

Now spend records. limit runs 1 to 100, so one page of 100 costs 100 records.

curl -s -X POST "https://api.leadocean.io/v1/people/search" \
  -H "x-api-key: $LEADOCEAN_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "country": ["DE"],
    "jobLevel": ["VP", "Director"],
    "jobFunction": ["Information Technology"],
    "employeeRange": ["201-500"],
    "limit": 100
  }' > page1.json

jq '.meta, (.data | length)' page1.json
jq -r '.data[].meta.source_ids.person_id' page1.json > ids.txt

Check the length before you read rows. Only people you receive count. This body has no email condition, so it returns people with and without a mailable address. Add "emailStatus": ["verified", "catch_all_valid", "catch_all"] to pull only the mailable ones.

Step 3: Page through with a cursor

Take the cursor from the last response and send it back with the same filters.

CURSOR=$(jq -r '.meta.nextCursor // empty' page1.json)

curl -s -X POST "https://api.leadocean.io/v1/people/search" \
  -H "x-api-key: $LEADOCEAN_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d "{
    \"country\": [\"DE\"],
    \"jobLevel\": [\"VP\", \"Director\"],
    \"jobFunction\": [\"Information Technology\"],
    \"employeeRange\": [\"201-500\"],
    \"limit\": 100,
    \"cursor\": \"$CURSOR\"
  }" > page2.json

One search pages to 10,000 rows. The last page sets meta.depthCapped to true and has no cursor. Narrow the filters instead of walking the index. For a CSV of the whole list, use the Exports page in app.leadocean.io (filter builder, column picker, price preview, download). Bulk CSV export is not on Free.

Step 4: Enrich one contact before the call

Enrich takes exactly one of linkedin_url, email, phone or person_id. Take a person_id from ids.txt (each search row carries it at meta.source_ids.person_id). Set reveal_email to get the address back.

curl -s -X POST "https://api.leadocean.io/v1/people/enrich" \
  -H "x-api-key: $LEADOCEAN_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"person_id": "PERSON_ID_FROM_STEP_2", "reveal_email": true}' \
  | jq '{role: .data.contact_data.contact_current_experiences, history: .data.resume_data, status: .data.contact_data.email_status}'

Since 2026-10-17 the response includes career history: past roles, education, certifications and awards. Past employers carry no company_id yet. An enrichment that finds nobody is a 404 and costs nothing. A phone number is a separate call to GET /v2/people/phone, and v2 contact calls cost one record each, including a miss.

What you get

The territory count, run with the free leadocean_count_leads MCP tool on 2026-10-21 (mailable people only, the tool default of verified, catch_all_valid and catch_all):

{
  "filters": "country DE, jobLevel VP or Director, jobFunction Information Technology, employeeRange 201-500",
  "total": 208,
  "totalIsExact": true,
  "totalAll": 679,
  "distinctCompanies": 189
}

So 208 people with a mailable address across 189 employers. totalAll (679) is the same filters with no email condition.

The company side, from the free leadocean_count_companies tool on 2026-10-21: companies headquartered in Germany with 201-500 employees and at least one person with a mailable address number 3,221. The top industry is IT Services and IT Consulting at 193, then Software Development at 115.

A search response has this shape (response shape from the API reference, placeholder values):

{
  "success": true,
  "data": [
    {
      "profile_data": { "profile_full_name": "Jane Doe" },
      "contact_data": {
        "has_email": true,
        "email_status": "verified",
        "contact_current_experiences": [{ "company_name": "Acme" }]
      },
      "resume_data": {},
      "meta": { "source_ids": { "person_id": "1234567890" } }
    }
  ],
  "meta": { "count": 1, "limit": 100, "nextCursor": "...", "depthCapped": false }
}

Troubleshooting

FAQ