ZoomInfo vs Lusha (2026): Data, Pricing and API Compared

ZoomInfo and Lusha both sell B2B contact data, but they charge for it in different ways. ZoomInfo sells platform contracts and a pay-as-you-go API called GTM AI. Lusha sells monthly or yearly credit plans, with a Chrome extension for reps.

Verdict

• Pick ZoomInfo if you want the larger company database, intent signals and org charts, or a pay-as-you-go API with no seats. You pay per data credit, and search is free.
• Pick Lusha if you want prices you can read, a rep-friendly Chrome extension, and published email and phone counts. Credits are cheap at small scale, and phones cost 5 each.
• Pick neither if you need millions of records through an API at a price you can read. Neither publishes a 1M price. LeadOcean is one option: Pro is $499 a month, flat.

Side by side

Data and coverage

ZoomInfo claims 500M+ contacts and 100M+ companies. Lusha claims 525M+ contacts and 29M+ companies. Both are the vendors' own numbers. On contacts they are close. On companies, ZoomInfo claims about three and a half times as many.

Only Lusha publishes how many contacts carry an email or a phone. It claims 165M+ emails and 117M+ direct dials (Lusha homepage, September 2026). That is about 31% and 22% of its contacts. ZoomInfo lists emails, direct dials and mobile numbers as data types and gives no count for any of them.

The products differ beyond contacts. ZoomInfo's API has endpoints for intent signals, scoops, news, org charts, technologies and corporate hierarchy. Intent needs a package that includes it (ZoomInfo API docs, September 2026). Lusha offers 26 buying signals refreshed weekly, plus lookalike and buying-group search (Lusha homepage, September 2026).

Phones are priced differently. Lusha charges 5 credits for a phone against 1 for an email. ZoomInfo charges one data credit per enriched contact, and which fields come back depends on your package (ZoomInfo docs, September 2026).

Test on your own list before you buy. Run the same 500 people through each free plan and compare match rates. ZoomInfo's free start is 1,000 data credits. Lusha's is 40 credits a month.

API and developer experience

Both are REST APIs with an official MCP server. The difference is setup. Lusha uses one header. ZoomInfo uses OAuth 2.0.

Lusha's V3 API passes the key in an api_key header. Search takes a batch of contacts by name and domain, LinkedIn URL or email (Lusha API overview, September 2026):

curl --request POST \
  --url https://api.lusha.com/v3/contacts/search \
  --header "api_key: $LUSHA_API_KEY" \
  --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
  --data '{
    "contacts": [
      { "clientReferenceId": "my-ref-1", "firstName": "Jane", "lastName": "Doe", "companyDomain": "acme.com" }
    ],
    "options": { "includePartialProfiles": true }
  }'

Search returns matches. You then pass the returned contact id to the enrich endpoint, and that reveal is the step that spends credits.

ZoomInfo needs an app with a client ID and secret. For server-to-server work you swap them for a token, then call the Data API with the application/vnd.api+json content type (ZoomInfo docs, September 2026).

curl -X POST "https://api.zoominfo.com/gtm/oauth/v1/token" \
  -u "$ZI_CLIENT_ID:$ZI_CLIENT_SECRET" \
  -d "grant_type=client_credentials"

curl -X POST "https://api.zoominfo.com/gtm/data/v1/contacts/enrich" \
  -H "authorization: Bearer $ZI_TOKEN" \
  -H "content-type: application/vnd.api+json" \
  -d '{"data":{"type":"ContactEnrich","attributes":{"matchPersonInput":[{"personId":1234567890}],"outputFields":["id","email","companyName"],"requiredFields":["id","companyName"]}}}'

One enrich call takes up to 25 contacts. A record that returns no match, or an error, is not charged (ZoomInfo docs, September 2026).

Misses are unclear at Lusha. Its API guide says a request costs at least 1 credit even with no data (Lusha API guide, September 2026). Its V3 billing FAQ says no credit is deducted for a no-match request (Lusha billing FAQ, September 2026). The two pages disagree, so budget 1 credit per miss until Lusha settles it.

Rate limits scale differently. ZoomInfo's are per second by package: Builder 5, Standard 25, Scaling 35 (ZoomInfo rate limits, September 2026). Lusha's are per key by plan, and Free and Starter also stop at 100 requests a day. Pro stops at 1,500 and Premium at 18,000 (Lusha API guide, September 2026).

On MCP, both have official servers. ZoomInfo's needs a free GTM AI account or a subscription with data credits. Accounts that hold only recurring monthly credits cannot use it. Lusha's has 50 tools and spends the same credits as the REST API (ZoomInfo MCP docs; Lusha MCP docs, September 2026).

Pricing

ZoomInfo's API charges per data credit, and one credit is one new record. Lusha charges per credit by field, and its plans bundle credits with seats. Convert both to cost per record to compare them.

At 10,000 records a month

For ZoomInfo's API, 10,000 records is 10,000 data credits. The list rate is $0.38 a credit for purchases of 2,500 to 10,000 credits. So 10,000 x $0.38 = $3,800 (GTM AI pricing, September 2026).

A ZoomInfo credit is charged once per record per 12 months, credits do not expire while the account is active, and search is free (ZoomInfo docs, September 2026). The platform plans are a separate route. zoominfo.com/pricing blocks automated reading, so this page quotes no platform price.

For Lusha, take 10,000 work emails by bulk API. That is 10,000 email credits plus 10,000 / 25 = 400 request credits, so 10,400 credits (Lusha API guide, September 2026).

The largest public plan is Premium at 10,000 credits a month. It costs $977.40 billed monthly, or $794.93 a month billed yearly ($9,539.10 a year for 120,000 credits). So 10,400 credits sits just above the biggest listed plan (Lusha pricing, September 2026).

For scale: that plan's rate is $977.40 / 10,000 = $0.0977 a credit, so 10,400 x $0.0977 is about $1,016. This is an illustration, not a quote. Add a phone number to each contact and the same job takes about 60,400 credits, about six times the biggest plan.

At 1M records a month

For ZoomInfo: no public 1M price. The GTM AI slider stops at 100,000 credits for $25,000, which is $0.25 a credit and the lowest published rate. Above that, ZoomInfo sends you to Enterprise (GTM AI pricing, September 2026). We do not multiply that rate out to 1M and call it a quote.

For Lusha: no public 1M price. 1,000,000 work emails by bulk API is 1,000,000 + 1,000,000 / 25 = 1,040,000 credits. The biggest public plan holds 10,000 credits a month, so 1M is about 104 times larger. Scale is a custom quote, and Lusha says only that it is 50%+ off the per-credit price (Lusha pricing, September 2026).

Ask both for a quote at your volume, and ask what happens to credits you do not use. Lusha's yearly credits reset at the end of the cycle.

Where ZoomInfo wins

• A larger company database. 100M+ companies claimed against Lusha's 29M+.
• Signals and structure. Intent, scoops, news, org charts and corporate hierarchy are API endpoints.
• No seats and no contract on GTM AI. Pay as you go from $20, with search free and re-enrichment inside 12 months at no cost.
• Faster limits and bigger batches. Up to 35 requests a second and 25 records per enrich call.

Where Lusha wins

• Prices you can read. Every plan from Free to Premium has a published price, and the platform has no sales call before you start.
• Published coverage. It states its email and phone counts, so you can size them against your list.
• A rep tool. A Chrome extension and CRM apps sit next to the API (Lusha homepage, September 2026). ZoomInfo's API is for code, not for reps.
• A bigger MCP toolset. 50 tools, including signals and lookalikes.

If you need volume through an API

We build LeadOcean, so weigh this section accordingly. LeadOcean holds 693M people, 366M of them with an email and 166M with a phone number, plus 63M companies. You reach them over REST and MCP. Free is 1,000 records, one-off, with no card. Pro is $499 a month, flat, with no credits and a limit of 100 requests per second per key (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 Chrome extension. See the ZoomInfo alternative page for a line-by-line version.

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