6 Best SignalHire Alternatives in 2026 (Compared)

People leave SignalHire when the job moves from looking up a candidate to running a pipeline. Credits are the first limit. The Emails plan gives 1,000 credits a month and the Phones plans give 435, all for $69 a month ($57 a month billed yearly) (SignalHire pricing, September 2026). Above that is the Scale plan, which has no public price.

The API is the second limit. Contact lookups are asynchronous by default, so you host a callback endpoint and wait for a POST. Paid accounts get 600 items a minute (SignalHire rate limits, September 2026). Search returns profiles without contact details and runs on a daily quota (SignalHire API pricing, September 2026). The MCP server needs an API key even when you sign in with OAuth (SignalHire MCP docs, September 2026).

This page ranks six alternatives for API and volume buyers. LeadOcean is first because it is a searchable database with one flat price, REST and an MCP server. For plans and credit costs, read SignalHire pricing.

TL;DR

"1M records" here means 1M contact lookups that return a result, one credit each where the vendor uses credits. Figures are list-price arithmetic. Where a vendor sells no plan at 1M, the cell shows its top public tier or cheapest public path, not a price. SignalHire has no public 1M price either. Its largest self-serve email pool is 1,000 credits a month, and Scale is a quote.

What we evaluated

• API access: which plan opens it, how a lookup returns (in the response or by callback), and the default rate limit.
• MCP: whether an agent can search or enrich through the server, and how it signs in.
• Price model: flat, credits or seats, and what 1M records a month costs at list price.
• Search: whether you can build a list by title, location and company, or only look up people you already name.
• Limits that bite: plan ceilings, daily caps, seat rules and find-rate clauses.

We read each vendor's pricing page and docs in September 2026. We ran no find-rate or accuracy test for this page, so we quote no quality numbers of our own. Where a vendor quotes a number, we label it a vendor claim.

1. LeadOcean: best for API, agent and volume buyers

LeadOcean is one dataset behind one REST API and one MCP server. It holds 693M people, 366M with an email and 166M with a phone number, plus 63M companies. You search with 50 people filters and 34 company filters, and counts are free. So you can build a list and pull its contacts in the same place.

The price does not move with volume. Pro is $499 a month with unlimited searches, enrichments and lookups, 5 API keys and 100 requests per second per key. There are no credits and no overage invoice. A very large month is paced down to one request a minute until the reset, not cut off. Free is 1,000 records, one-off, with no card.

curl -X POST "https://api.leadocean.io/v1/people/enrich" \
  -H "x-api-key: $LEADOCEAN_API_KEY" \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -d '{"linkedin_url":"https://www.linkedin.com/in/jane-doe","reveal_email":true}'

The answer comes back on the same call, so there is no callback server to run. Phones are at GET /v2/people/phone. The MCP server at https://api.leadocean.io/mcp signs in with OAuth 2.1 and exposes 12 tools, from search_leads to find_phone and export_leads (LeadOcean MCP docs, September 2026). Every person or company returned counts as one record.

Pros

• Flat $499 a month at any volume, with no credit meter.
• Search by 50 people filters, then enrich by LinkedIn URL or person_id.
• Email status on every record, from verified to spam_trap.
• REST and MCP on every plan, including Free. A miss on POST /v1/people/enrich is a free 404.

Cons

• No Chrome extension, ATS or CRM integration. The app has an Exports page with a filter builder and CSV download.
• The v2 contact endpoints cost one record per call, including a call that finds nothing.

Best for: engineers, RevOps and agents that need volume and a fixed bill.

Pricing: Free, then Pro at $499 a month (LeadOcean pricing, September 2026).

2. LeadMagic: best for cheap credits on valid emails

LeadMagic is the closest to SignalHire's pay-on-match model, with a lower unit price at scale. It is a credit-based enrichment API with 400M+ people profiles and 25M+ companies, reachable through REST, CSV and a hosted MCP server (LeadMagic, September 2026). A valid email costs 1 credit and a miss is free.

The credit price falls as you climb the plans. Essential is $99 a month for 5,000 credits. Professional is $499 for 50,000. Ultimate is $849 for 100,000, or $0.00849 a credit (LeadMagic pricing, September 2026). Yearly billing is 10 times the monthly price, so Essential is $990 a year, or $83 a month. A mobile costs 5 credits.

Search through the API is free only on Professional and Ultimate. On Essential and Growth it bills about 1 credit per person returned (LeadMagic people search docs, September 2026). Email Finder allows 600 requests a minute. LeadMagic also warns that a find rate below 10% can bring throttling or suspension (LeadMagic docs, September 2026). The MCP server lists 43 tools and signs in with OAuth only (LeadMagic MCP, September 2026).

Pros

• The lowest per-credit list price in this group, at $0.00849 on Ultimate.
• A miss costs nothing, the same rule as SignalHire's API.
• Hosted MCP server with 43 tools.
• Search and enrichment in one product.

Cons

• The top self-serve plan is 100,000 credits, so 1M a month needs Enterprise.
• No free plan. It starts at $99 a month with a 14-day money-back guarantee on the first payment (LeadMagic FAQ, September 2026).
• A stated database of 400M+ people profiles, a smaller claim than FullEnrich's.
• The find-rate clause can throttle lists with poor match rates.

Best for: teams that enrich a few hundred thousand valid emails a month and want the cheapest credits.

Pricing: Essential $99, Growth $249, Professional $499, Ultimate $849 a month. Billed yearly, Essential is $83 a month (LeadMagic pricing, September 2026).

3. Hunter: best for domain lookups and a bulk API

Hunter is an email finder with sequences built in, priced in credits. One credit is one email found, and verifying an email costs half a credit. Hunter's homepage cites 150,430,313 verified email addresses (Hunter, September 2026). It is built around finding emails by domain and name.

The free plan gives 50 credits a month. Starter is $49 a month ($34 billed yearly) for 2,000 credits. Growth is $149 for 10,000. Scale is $299 a month ($209 billed yearly) for 25,000 credits (Hunter pricing, September 2026). More volume means Enterprise or the Data Platform. That product is API and bulk only, and 1,000,000 Search credits cost $6,900, bought once and valid 12 months (Hunter Data Platform, September 2026).

Email Finder and Domain Search allow 15 requests a second and 500 a minute. One gotcha: a rate-limited call returns 403, and 429 means you hit your credit quota (Hunter API docs, September 2026). The MCP server at mcp.hunter.io/mcp takes your API key in a header and is included on every plan (Hunter MCP, September 2026).

Pros

• A public price for 1M lookups: $6,900 once, with no quote needed.
• Documented limits of 15 requests a second on the core endpoints.
• MCP server on every plan, with no extra cost.
• Unlimited team members share one credit pool.

Cons

• Scale stops at 25,000 credits a month, so volume means the Data Platform or a sales call.
• The Data Platform sells Search and Verification credits separately, and its credits expire after 12 months.
• Discover is limited to 5 requests a second and 50 a minute.

Best for: teams that find emails by domain and want a priced bulk path.

Pricing: Free. Starter $49, Growth $149, Scale $299 a month, or less billed yearly (Hunter pricing, September 2026).

4. FullEnrich: best for waterfall emails and mobiles behind an API

FullEnrich queries 25+ sources for each contact and charges only for what it finds. It is the route to mobiles that a single-source tool misses. The pricing page lists full access to 800M people and 50M companies for search (FullEnrich pricing, September 2026).

Credits are the meter. A work email costs 1 credit, a personal email 3 and a mobile 10. Search costs 0.25 credits per person returned (FullEnrich docs, September 2026). Pro starts at $29 a month for 500 credits, and the page opens on $55 a month for 1,000. API, MCP, search and bulk CSV are on every plan, including the free trial.

The API allows 60 calls a minute, with up to 100 contacts per bulk request (FullEnrich docs, September 2026). The MCP server can search, enrich and export, and it asks before it spends credits (FullEnrich help, September 2026). FullEnrich states an average work-email find rate of about 80%. That is a vendor claim.

Pros

• Waterfall across 25+ sources, so one call can cover several vendors.
• API, MCP and search on every plan, with unlimited users.
• A miss or a landline costs 0 credits.

Cons

• The highest credit price here, and no public price at 1M. The top monthly tier is 100,000 credits for $3,500 a month ($0.035 a credit), then contact sales.
• A default limit of 60 API calls a minute.
• Mobiles cost 10 credits, so phone-heavy pulls get costly fast.

Best for: teams that want waterfall emails and mobiles, at modest volume, through an API or an agent.

Pricing: Pro from $29 a month for 500 credits, or $26 a month billed yearly. Free trial of 50 credits. Enterprise is custom (FullEnrich pricing, September 2026).

5. Prospeo: best for reps who want an extension

Prospeo sells an email and mobile finder per user, on credits, with a REST API, a Chrome extension and an MCP server. One verified email costs 1 credit and one mobile costs 10 (Prospeo help center, September 2026). A search page of up to 25 results also costs 1 credit.

Plans are priced per user. Free has 100 credits a month, and its API access is disputed. The pricing table shows no public API on Free. The help center lists limited API access at 50 requests a day (Prospeo help center, September 2026). Starter is $49 per user a month ($37 billed yearly), Growth is $99 and Pro is $249 (Prospeo pricing, September 2026).

Enrich limits are 5 requests a second and 2,000 a day on Starter, and 30 a second and 500,000 a day on Pro (Prospeo rate limits, September 2026). Search results carry no email or mobile, so you pay a second time to enrich them. The MCP server at mcp.prospeo.io exposes 8 tools and signs in with OAuth 2.0 or an API key (Prospeo MCP docs, September 2026).

Pros

• Search filters plus enrichment in one product.
• Chrome extension, so reps can work from a browser.
• A miss costs no credit, and re-enriching a record within 90 days is free.

Cons

• Per-user pricing, so a team adds seats and credits together.
• Daily request caps of 2,000 and 5,000 on the two lower paid plans.
• Credits expire each cycle, and add-on credits stop at 350,000 a month (Prospeo help center, September 2026).

Best for: reps and small teams that want an extension and pay-as-you-go emails.

Pricing: Free. Starter $49, Growth $99, Pro $249 per user a month. Billed yearly, $37, $74 and $187 (Prospeo pricing, September 2026).

6. ContactOut: best for recruiters who work from LinkedIn

ContactOut is the nearest match to how recruiters use SignalHire. It is a LinkedIn-first email and phone finder with a Chrome extension, an API and an MCP server (ContactOut, September 2026). It is built around the browser.

Self-serve plans are Email at $49 a month ($39 billed yearly) and Email + Phone at $99 a month ($79 billed yearly). Both are listed as unlimited, but each is limited to one user per company (ContactOut pricing, September 2026). Under fair use, unlimited means 2,000 email credits and 1,000 phone credits per account per month (ContactOut terms, September 2026).

The API has no public price. The pricing page shows Team / API as Contact Us, and a key comes after a meeting (ContactOut API docs, September 2026). People Search runs at 60 requests a minute and most other endpoints at 1,000 a minute. The MCP server lists 15 tools (ContactOut MCP, September 2026). Coverage claims differ by page, from 350 million to 800 million professionals (ContactOut data, September 2026).

Pros

• A Chrome extension and LinkedIn-first workflow, the closest to SignalHire for recruiters.
• Email-only from $49 a month, email and phone at $99.
• An MCP server with 15 tools and free onboarding credits.

Cons

• No public API price, so you cannot budget a pull before a sales call.
• The "unlimited" plans stop at 2,000 emails a month, with one user per company.
• Conflicting coverage numbers across its own pages.

Best for: recruiters and reps who prospect from LinkedIn in a browser.

Pricing: Free. Email $49 and Email + Phone $99 a month, or $39 and $79 billed yearly (ContactOut pricing, September 2026).

Comparison table

Sources are linked in each tool section, all checked in September 2026. Vendors change plans often, so confirm on the pricing page before you buy. The 1M column is list-price arithmetic on contact lookups. Hunter's figure is a one-off purchase valid 12 months, not a monthly bill. LeadMagic, FullEnrich and ContactOut sell no plan at 1M a month. Prospeo's path is 44 Pro seats at $249 plus the 350,000-credit add-on at $3,500, for 1,010,000 credits (Prospeo pricing, September 2026).

For reference, SignalHire's paid accounts get 600 items a minute, with 100 items per request (SignalHire rate limits, September 2026). It also offers a synchronous mode without a callback, which uses internal data only and may return fewer or older contacts (SignalHire docs, September 2026). On LeadOcean, 1M exported rows takes two days at the 500,000 rows a day ceiling.

How to choose

• You pull data in code or with an agent, at volume: LeadOcean. One flat price, search plus contacts, REST and MCP on every plan.
• You buy valid emails by the hundred thousand: LeadMagic, at $0.00849 a credit on Ultimate.
• You want a priced 1M bulk path and domain lookups: Hunter, at $6,900 once on the Data Platform.
• You need mobiles that one source misses: FullEnrich, at 10 credits per mobile.
• Your reps live in a browser extension and pay per user: Prospeo.
• You recruit from LinkedIn and work in the browser: ContactOut. Or stay on SignalHire, which lists ATS and CRM integrations on every paid plan.
• Your need is adjacent: see Wappalyzer alternatives for tech data, Surfe alternatives for LinkedIn-to-CRM tools and Harmonic alternatives for startup data.

Verdict

LeadOcean wins for API, agent and volume buyers. It searches 693M people, returns emails and phones from the same database and charges one flat price. LeadMagic wins for cheap valid emails and Hunter for a priced 1M bulk path. FullEnrich suits waterfall mobiles, Prospeo suits reps who want an extension, and ContactOut suits recruiters who work in the browser. SignalHire stays a fair pick for a solo recruiter at low volume. Otherwise start on the free plan and run the same lookups.

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