9 B2B Contact Databases Tested on 500 Records [2026]

The best B2B contact database in 2026 depends on whether you are buying coverage or accuracy. Cleanlist is the accuracy pick in this test: 98% verified email and 85% direct dial across 500 stratified B2B leads, from $79/mo, with search at 0 credits and enrichment billed only when a record comes back. Apollo.io is the free-coverage pick at 275M+ contacts and 900 free credits per seat per year. ZoomInfo is the enterprise pick at 600M+ profiles, at a buyer-reported $15K/yr floor. Cognism is the EU pick. Single-source providers returned 70-80% email and 30-60% phone on the same input Cleanlist ran.

Every email sequence, cold call, and LinkedIn touch starts with a contact record, and the quality of that record decides whether the outreach reaches a real person. B2B contact data decays at about 2.1% per month, which compounds to roughly 22.5% a year (Cognism, 2025). A database with 600 million profiles sounds impressive until you price the share of it that has gone stale since the last refresh pass. Cleanlist has no refresh cycle to age against because it resolves each record at request time, which is how it returned 98% verified email and 85% direct dial on 500 stratified B2B leads at $79/mo.

This guide compares 9 B2B contact database platforms across five dimensions: database size, data accuracy, freshness methodology, pricing, and integration capabilities. Cleanlist ran the test and Cleanlist is one of the 9 platforms in it, so every Cleanlist number below carries its sample size. We focus on platforms that B2B sales teams under 300 employees actually evaluate, not legacy enterprise systems with 12-month implementation cycles.

Filtering a B2B contact database by title, company headcount, and location to build a targeted list

What is a B2B contact database, and which one is best in 2026?

A B2B contact database is a searchable store of business contacts, emails, direct dials, job titles and company firmographics that sales teams use to build prospect lists and enrich records. Cleanlist is the accuracy pick among the 9 platforms tested here, returning 98% verified email and 85% direct dial on 500 stratified B2B leads at $79/mo, while Apollo covers the free case at 900 credits per seat per year, ZoomInfo the enterprise case at a buyer-reported $15K/yr, and Cognism the EU case. Two architectures compete in this category. Apollo, ZoomInfo, RocketReach and Cognism sell access to an index they own and refresh on a schedule. Cleanlist queries 15+ providers at request time and charges only when a verified record returns.

How did Cleanlist test these 9 B2B contact databases?

Cleanlist scored 9 platforms across five weighted dimensions, and ran the accuracy dimension against 500 stratified B2B leads in the Cleanlist 500-Lead Enrichment Benchmark 2026, where Cleanlist returned 98% verified email and 85% direct dial and single-source providers returned 70-80% email and 30-60% phone on identical input. Accuracy carries 35% of the score because a large index with bad records costs more per delivered email than a small verified one. The remaining weights are database size and coverage 20%, data freshness 20%, pricing and value 15%, integrations 10%. Competitor figures below come from published documentation, public pricing pages and each vendor's own stated verification method, not from a Cleanlist measurement of their product. Every competitor price on this page was read first-hand from the vendor's own pricing page on August 7, 2026 and is restated with that date, per the Cleanlist B2B contact data pricing index. ZoomInfo, Cognism and Seamless.AI publish no purchasable dollar price at any tier, so any figure quoted for them here is buyer-reported rather than published. Vendor accuracy percentages carry no published methodology and should be read as marketing claims.

• Data accuracy (35%): Stated email deliverability and phone connect rates, and how each vendor verifies a record before returning it. Cleanlist's own figure on this dimension is 98% verified email and 85% direct dial on 500 stratified leads.
• Database size and coverage (20%): Total contact count, geographic coverage, industry coverage, and depth of company information. Cleanlist holds no owned index, so it is scored on what its 15+ providers resolve per request.
• Data freshness (20%): How frequently data is updated, what methodology is used for validation, and whether the platform catches changes as they happen or relies on periodic batch refreshes.
• Pricing and value (15%): Starting price, free tier availability, pricing model (per-seat vs credits vs platform fee), and effective cost per usable contact. Cleanlist starts at $79/mo with 30 free credits and no card.
• Integrations (10%): CRM compatibility (Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive), engagement tool connections, API availability, and data export flexibility.

Which B2B contact database is best for each job?

Cleanlist wins the accuracy job at 98% verified email on 500 stratified B2B leads for $79/mo, Apollo.io wins the free job at 900 credits per seat per year, ZoomInfo wins the enterprise job at a buyer-reported $15K/yr, and Cognism wins the EU phone job. Read the Database Size column carefully: Cleanlist reports no owned index because it resolves each record live across 15+ providers, so its coverage is the union of those providers rather than a number it can print on a homepage. The competitor counts in that column are vendor-published figures. Every Cleanlist row in this table is priced: 1 credit for a verified email, 10 for a phone, 11 for both, 0 for search.

Which 9 B2B contact database platforms did we review?

1. Cleanlist, Best for Data Accuracy

Cleanlist holds no proprietary contact index. It queries 9 external data providers in a waterfall sequence every time you enrich a contact, each provider filling gaps the previous one missed, and every email returned goes through syntax, DNS and SMTP verification with catch-all detection. That architecture produced 98% verified email and 85% direct dial on 500 stratified B2B leads in the Cleanlist 500-Lead Enrichment Benchmark 2026, against 70-80% email and 30-60% phone for single-source providers on the same records. Pricing is per result: 1 credit for a verified email with LinkedIn, title and company, 10 credits for a phone, 11 for both, 0 credits for search, from $79/mo.

Because there is no fixed index, there is nothing to decay between refresh cycles. Cleanlist re-validates against live sources on every query, and it does not charge when no data comes back.

Key features:

• Waterfall enrichment across 15+ providers (Wiza, Findymail, Prospeo, LeadMagic, Hunter, and more)
• Triple email verification: syntax, DNS, and SMTP handshake with catch-all detection
• 85% direct dial phone coverage through multi-provider validation
• People Search with 20+ filter dimensions and Company Search with 9, both at 0 credits
• Firmographic data enrichment (company size, industry, HQ location, domain)
• Chrome extension on every plan, plus CRM sync with HubSpot, Salesforce and Outreach from Pro

Pricing: Free tier includes 30 credits per month with no card. Starter at $79/mo for 1,500 credits and 2 seats, Pro at $229/mo for 5,000 credits and 5 seats, Scale at $599/mo for 15,000 credits and 10 seats, extra seats $20, 25% off on annual billing. Credits are pooled across the workspace, so the bill tracks how much data you pull rather than how many people pull it. See current pricing or read how waterfall enrichment works under the hood.

Best for: B2B sales and marketing teams that need verified, fresh contact data without managing multiple data vendor relationships. Especially strong for teams enriching existing CRM records or cleaning imported lists before outbound campaigns.

Limitation: Cleanlist carries no intent data, no technographic filters and no revenue filters, so account prioritization by buying signal has to come from elsewhere. Company Search exposes 9 filter dimensions against Apollo's much wider set, and funding stage is not a usable filter. If your motion depends on browsing a fixed index offline and quoting a record count in a board deck, an owned-database vendor fits that habit better.

Compare Cleanlist vs Apollo | Try the free contact finder

2. Apollo.io, Best Free Database Access

Apollo offers the largest free tier in this comparison. With 275M+ contacts and 900 free credits per seat per year (apollo.io/pricing, checked August 7, 2026), a small team can test outbound without spending anything on data. The platform also bundles email sequencing, a dialer, and buying intent signals. Apollo publishes the credit count but not the credits-per-action ladder on the plan table, so the cost of one exported email is not derivable from the plan cards alone.

Key features:

• 275M+ contact database with advanced search filters (industry, title, tech stack, funding, revenue)
• 900 free credits per seat per year, the largest free tier of the nine platforms here
• Built-in email sequences with A/B testing and automated follow-ups
• Chrome extension for LinkedIn prospecting and contact capture
• CRM sync with Salesforce and HubSpot

Pricing: Free tier with 900 credits per seat per year. Billed annually, Basic is $49/mo per seat, Professional $79 and Organization $119. Billed monthly they are $65, $99 and $149. Organization carries a 3-seat minimum. Credits are 30,000 / 48,000 / 72,000 per seat per year (apollo.io/pricing, checked August 7, 2026).

Best for: Startups and small B2B teams that need a searchable contact database with built-in outreach tools and are willing to accept lower accuracy in exchange for free access.

Limitation: Single-source databases returned 70-80% email on the same records Cleanlist ran in the Cleanlist 500-Lead Enrichment Benchmark 2026, meaning 20-30% of emails may bounce. Per-seat pricing makes it expensive for growing teams (10 users on Professional billed monthly equals $990/mo, or $790/mo billed annually). Data quality is notably weaker for manufacturing, healthcare, and international contacts. If accuracy is the deciding factor, weigh the wider field of Apollo alternatives.

3. ZoomInfo, Best for Enterprise Intelligence

ZoomInfo is the incumbent leader in B2B data with the largest contact database at 600M+ profiles. Beyond raw contact data, ZoomInfo offers buyer intent signals, org chart visualization, technographic data, and conversation intelligence through Chorus, making it a full sales intelligence platform rather than just a database.

Key features:

• 600M+ professional profiles with company hierarchies and reporting structures
• Buyer intent data powered by Bombora plus first-party website visitor identification
• Org charts showing decision-maker relationships across target accounts
• Technographic and firmographic data covering technology stack, funding, and hiring signals
• Conversation intelligence via Chorus for call recording and coaching

Pricing: No free tier, and no price on any tier of zoominfo.com/pricing as of August 7, 2026. The commonly cited $15K/year floor and the $25K-$40K/year mid-market band are buyer-reported figures, not ZoomInfo-published ones, so treat them as a starting point for a quote rather than a rate card. Annual contracts required.

Best for: Enterprise and upper mid-market sales teams selling deals above $25K ACV where buyer intent, org charts, and account intelligence materially improve win rates and justify the investment.

Limitation: Price prohibitive for SMBs, and the buyer-reported $15K/yr floor makes it impractical for teams spending less than $100K/yr on sales tooling. Annual contracts reduce flexibility, and the absence of a published rate card means you cannot compare cost before a sales call. Cleanlist reached 98% verified email on 500 stratified B2B leads for $79/mo with no annual commitment, against the 85% figure commonly quoted for ZoomInfo, so the accuracy premium runs opposite to the price premium.

ZoomInfo's own filings are worth reading before signing a multi-year contract. In its Q2 2026 results, filed August 5, 2026, ZoomInfo reported GAAP revenue of $310.4M, up 1.2% year over year, a goodwill impairment of $650.5M, a GAAP operating loss of $622.0M, a GAAP net loss of $(643.7)M, net revenue retention of 89%, and 1,891 customers at $100K+ annual contract value, down 9 quarter over quarter. The company now trades as NASDAQ: GTM. Net revenue retention below 100% means the existing customer base is shrinking in spend. Cleanlist's counter-position is the opposite commercial shape: $79/mo self-serve, monthly billing, 30 free credits with no card, and enrichment charged only when a record is found.

See ZoomInfo alternatives

4. Lusha, Best for Simple Lookups

Lusha is built for speed and simplicity. Its Chrome extension lets reps grab verified emails and direct dial phone numbers from LinkedIn profiles in two clicks, no workflow building, no waterfall configuration, no spreadsheet-style data operations. For reps who need contact data mid-session, Lusha is the fastest path from profile to email.

Key features:

• Chrome extension for instant contact data from LinkedIn and company websites
• Direct dial phone numbers with above-average coverage for the price point
• Salesforce, HubSpot, and Outreach integrations with automatic CRM enrichment
• Team management with usage tracking and credit allocation
• Bulk enrichment via CSV upload for list-based workflows

Pricing: Free tier with 40 credits per month. Starter $49.90/mo per user for 400 credits, Pro $69.90/mo for 600, Premium $399.90/mo for 3,400. A phone number costs 5 credits, and the page was running a sale on annual billing (lusha.com/pricing, checked August 7, 2026).

Best for: Individual SDRs and AEs who prospect through LinkedIn and need a fast, lightweight way to get contact data without switching tools or building workflows.

Limitation: Single database source, no waterfall enrichment. Email accuracy (82%) is adequate but not best-in-class. No data enrichment beyond basic contact fields (no firmographic depth, no technographic data, no intent signals). Per-seat pricing adds up for teams above 5 reps.

How it compares to Cleanlist: Cleanlist ran the same class of lookup across 15+ providers and returned 98% verified email and 85% direct dial on 500 stratified B2B leads in its 2026 benchmark, where single-source tools returned 70-80% email on identical input. The pricing shapes differ more than the feature lists. Lusha bills per seat above the seats each plan includes (Starter 1, Pro 2, Premium 5), so a 10-rep team on Starter pays for 10 seats at $49.90 each. Cleanlist bills per credit against one shared workspace wallet: $79/mo Starter with 2 seats, $229/mo Pro with 5, $599/mo Scale with 10, extra seats $20 each, 25% off annual, 1 credit for a verified email with LinkedIn, title and company, 10 for a phone, 11 for both, and 0 credits for search. Both ship a Chrome extension.

Compare Cleanlist vs Lusha

5. Cognism, Best for EU/UK Data

Cognism has built the strongest European B2B contact database in the market. Its Diamond Data feature provides human-verified mobile numbers, and Cognism states a 98% connect rate on them, which is a significant differentiator for teams that rely on cold calling. That figure is Cognism's own claim and carries no published methodology, so treat it the same way you would treat any vendor accuracy number on this page. Cognism collects and delivers data under a documented GDPR process that includes DNC list screening.

Key features:

• Diamond Data: human phone-verified mobile numbers, with a 98% connect rate claimed by Cognism
• Strong coverage across UK, DACH, Nordics, and Benelux markets
• GDPR-compliant data collection and delivery with DNC list integration
• Intent data through Bombora partnership for account prioritization
• Chrome extension and native integrations with Salesforce, HubSpot, and Outreach

Pricing: Custom pricing only. Cognism publishes no dollar figure on any tier of cognism.com/pricing as of August 7, 2026. What it does publish is the credit definition ("1 credit = 1 revealed contact") and a 5-seat minimum on the Standard tier, with no credit quantity attached, so the cost per contact cannot be computed before a sales call. Annual contracts are standard.

Best for: B2B teams selling into European markets where GDPR compliance is mandatory and phone-verified direct dials are critical to the outbound motion.

Limitation: Weaker US coverage compared to Apollo, ZoomInfo, or RocketReach, particularly for mid-market and SMB contacts. No transparent pricing means you cannot evaluate cost before talking to sales. Higher cost than alternatives for equivalent North American coverage. See how the two stack up in Cleanlist vs Cognism.

How it compares to Cleanlist: The split is a published price against a quote. Cognism puts no dollar figure on any tier and runs annual contracts, so cost per contact cannot be computed before a sales call. Cleanlist prints its rate card: $79/mo Starter for 1,500 credits, $229/mo Pro for 5,000, $599/mo Scale for 15,000, 25% off on annual billing, 1 credit for a verified email with LinkedIn, title and company, 10 for a phone, 11 for both, 0 for search. On data, Cognism's edge is human-verified European mobiles, and Cleanlist returned 98% verified email and 85% direct dial on 500 stratified B2B leads in the Cleanlist 500-Lead Enrichment Benchmark 2026 without a regional index of its own. A team selling into the EU can run 30 free Cleanlist credits against a Cognism sample on the same records.

6. RocketReach, Best for Email Lookup

RocketReach maintains a 700M+ professional profile database focused on email discovery. The tool is straightforward, search by name, company, or title and get back email addresses and phone numbers. No workflow builder, no sequence engine, no intent data. It does one thing and does it at scale.

Key features:

• 700M+ professional profiles across industries and geographies, one of the largest databases by raw count
• Email and phone discovery with individual lookup, bulk CSV, and API access
• Chrome extension for LinkedIn and company website prospecting
• Integrations with Salesforce, HubSpot, Outreach, and Zapier
• Simple, transparent pricing tiers

Pricing: Free tier with 5 lookups. Billed annually, Essentials is $27/mo ($329/yr, 1,200 exports, email only), Pro $69/mo ($829/yr, 3,600 exports) and Ultimate $142/mo ($1,699/yr, 20,000 exports). Monthly billing exists at a higher rate (rocketreach.co/pricing, checked August 7, 2026).

Best for: Individual contributors and small teams that need a reliable, no-frills email finder at a reasonable price without the complexity of a full prospecting platform.

Limitation: Phone data reliability is inconsistent compared to Cognism or Lusha. Email accuracy (83%) is mid-range. Minimal firmographic enrichment, you get contact data, not company intelligence. The 700M+ profile count includes many thin records with just an email.

How it compares to Cleanlist: RocketReach's 700M+ profile count is the largest raw number in this comparison, and it is the clearest example of why record count is a weak buying signal. At a stated 83% email accuracy, 700 million profiles yield about 581 million deliverable ones. Cleanlist prints no index size at all because it resolves each record live across 15+ providers, and it returned 98% verified email and 85% direct dial on 500 stratified B2B leads in 2026. On phone specifically, RocketReach coverage is inconsistent while Cleanlist charges 10 credits for a phone and 11 for email plus phone, billed only when the number comes back.

Compare Cleanlist vs RocketReach

7. UpLead, Best for SMB Budgets

UpLead positions itself as the accuracy-first alternative to Apollo and ZoomInfo for budget-conscious teams. They claim a 95% accuracy guarantee with real-time email verification on every lookup, meaning they verify the email at the moment you export it, rather than relying on a cached validation result.

Key features:

• 160M+ contacts with real-time email verification on export
• 95% data accuracy guarantee, UpLead replaces credits for bounced emails
• Advanced search filters including technographic data covering 16,000+ technologies
• Chrome extension for LinkedIn prospecting
• CRM integrations with Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive, Zoho, and Outreach

Pricing: Free trial with 5 credits over 7 days, one time. Billed annually, Essentials is $74/mo (2,040 credits a year, 170 a month) and Plus is $149/mo (4,800 a year, 400 a month). Essentials billed monthly is $99/mo for 170 credits. Professional is annual-only (uplead.com/pricing, checked August 7, 2026).

Best for: SMB and mid-market teams that want better accuracy than Apollo at a lower price than ZoomInfo, with a credit-refund guarantee providing downside protection against bad data.

Limitation: Smaller database (160M+) means lower match rates for niche industries, non-US contacts, and non-executive titles. The accuracy guarantee applies only to emails, not phone numbers. Per-credit pricing makes it expensive at high volumes compared to unlimited platforms.

How it compares to Cleanlist: Both bill per credit, and the difference is what a credit costs and where the accuracy number comes from. UpLead Essentials is $74/mo billed annually for 170 credits a month, about 44 cents a credit. Cleanlist Starter is $79/mo for 1,500 credits, about 5 cents a credit, at 1 credit for a verified email with LinkedIn, title and company, 10 for a phone, 11 for both and 0 for search. UpLead's 95% is a published guarantee backed by credit refunds on bounces, with no methodology attached. Cleanlist's 98% verified email and 85% direct dial is a measured result on 500 stratified B2B leads in the Cleanlist 500-Lead Enrichment Benchmark 2026, and Cleanlist charges nothing when a record comes back empty.

8. LeadIQ, Best for Salesforce Users

LeadIQ is designed for SDRs who live in LinkedIn and Salesforce. Its Chrome extension captures contacts from LinkedIn directly into Salesforce with one click, enriching the record, checking for duplicates, and routing it to the right owner automatically. The workflow is purpose-built for reps who do not want to switch between tabs.

Key features:

• One-click capture from LinkedIn to Salesforce with automatic deduplication
• Real-time enrichment during capture, verified email and phone data populated instantly
• Job change tracking for previous customers and champions who moved companies
• Scribe AI for drafting personalized outreach emails based on prospect data
• HubSpot and Outreach integrations alongside Salesforce

Pricing: Free tier with 1 user and 50 credits. Pro from $15.00/mo billed annually (2,400 credits a year) or $20.00/mo billed monthly (200 credits a month), then Enterprise on custom pricing. LeadIQ's credit ladder is the same shape as Cleanlist's: email 1 credit, phone 10, email plus phone 11, account enrichment 3 (leadiq.com/pricing, checked August 7, 2026).

Best for: SDR teams that prospect through LinkedIn and use Salesforce as their CRM. The one-click capture eliminates manual data entry and ensures every contact enters the CRM enriched and deduplicated.

Limitation: Not a standalone database, you cannot browse or search LeadIQ's data independently. It is a capture and enrichment layer on top of LinkedIn. Phone numbers cost 10 credits against 1 for an email, so phone-heavy prospecting multiplies the bill fast. Smaller underlying database than Apollo or RocketReach.

How it compares to Cleanlist: Both tools sit closer to the enrichment end of this category than the index end, and both bill by credit rather than by seat. LeadIQ Pro starts at $15.00/mo billed annually for 2,400 credits a year and covers up to 5 users (leadiq.com/pricing, checked August 7, 2026). Cleanlist prices per credit on a shared workspace wallet at $79/mo Starter with 2 seats, $229/mo Pro with 5 seats and $599/mo Scale with 10 seats, extra seats $20 each, so a 10-rep team on Cleanlist Pro pays $329/mo in total. On data, LeadIQ enriches what a rep captures from LinkedIn, while Cleanlist runs each record through 15+ providers and returned 98% verified email and 85% direct dial on 500 stratified B2B leads. Cleanlist also ships People Search with 20+ filter dimensions at 0 credits, so discovery does not have to start in a browser tab.

9. Kaspr, Best for LinkedIn-Native Prospecting

Kaspr focuses on European B2B contacts accessed through LinkedIn. Its Chrome extension and LinkedIn integration provide email addresses and phone numbers directly on prospect profiles. The free tier is genuinely usable, and the platform is particularly strong for European contacts, especially in France, Benelux, and DACH markets.

Key features:

• Chrome extension with LinkedIn profile enrichment and Sales Navigator integration
• European-focused contact data with GDPR compliance
• Workflow automation for automated enrichment of LinkedIn searches
• CRM integrations with Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive, and Zapier
• Team management with shared credits and usage analytics

Pricing: Free tier with 15 B2B email credits, 5 phone credits and 5 direct email credits per month. Starter at $49/mo per user and Business at $79/mo per user on annual billing, Organization on custom pricing. Kaspr's "unlimited" email credits sit behind an annual export cap, so read the cap rather than the word (kaspr.io/pricing, checked August 7, 2026).

Best for: European B2B teams that prospect primarily through LinkedIn and want a lightweight, affordable tool for contact discovery without the cost of Cognism or complexity of Clay.

Limitation: Heavily dependent on LinkedIn, limited functionality outside the LinkedIn ecosystem. Email accuracy (80%) is below average for the category. Smaller and less reliable US database compared to Apollo, ZoomInfo, or RocketReach. Phone coverage is inconsistent outside Europe.

How it compares to Cleanlist: Kaspr is the cheaper European entry point and Cleanlist is the accuracy pick, at 98% verified email and 85% direct dial on 500 stratified B2B leads in its 2026 benchmark against Kaspr's stated 80% email. Kaspr's coverage is strongest in France, Benelux and DACH and thins out in North America, while Cleanlist resolves each record across 15+ providers without a regional index of its own. On price, Kaspr bills per seat and Cleanlist bills per credit from a shared wallet at $79/mo, with a free tier of 30 credits a month and no card, so a European team can run both on the same 100 records and compare the returned emails directly.

Does database size matter more than email accuracy?

Accuracy is worth more per dollar than size, and the arithmetic is easy to run. A database with 700 million profiles at 80% email accuracy leaves 560 million deliverable records, but you only pay for the ones you export, so the 20% failure rate lands on your sender reputation rather than the vendor's. Cleanlist returned 98% verified email and 85% direct dial on 500 stratified B2B leads in the Cleanlist 500-Lead Enrichment Benchmark 2026, where single-source providers returned 70-80% email on identical records. For a team sending 1,000 emails a week, moving from 80% to 98% is 180 fewer bounces a week. Test both on your own ICP before signing an annual contract.

Should I pay per seat or per credit for B2B contact data?

Per-seat databases (Apollo, Lusha, Kaspr) get disproportionately expensive between 5 and 20 reps because the bill tracks headcount instead of data consumption. Cleanlist prices per credit against one shared workspace wallet: $79/mo Starter with 1,500 credits and 2 seats, $229/mo Pro with 5,000 credits and 5 seats, $599/mo Scale with 15,000 credits and 10 seats, extra seats $20 each, 25% off on annual billing. A 10-person team on Apollo Professional billed monthly at $99 per seat pays $990/mo, or $790/mo on annual billing at $79 per seat, against $329/mo on Cleanlist Pro (5 included seats plus 5 at $20) with the credit pool shared across all of them. Then run the number that actually decides it: total annual spend divided by contacts that produced a delivered email.

How do I evaluate data freshness rather than refresh schedule?

Ask one question of every vendor: when was this specific record last verified against a live source? "Updated quarterly" means a record can carry a full quarter of decay at the moment you export it, and B2B contact data decays at about 2.1% a month, roughly 22.5% a year (Cognism, 2025). Cleanlist has no refresh schedule to quote because it holds no index. Each request runs the waterfall across 15+ providers and verifies the email with a syntax, DNS and SMTP check before returning it, which is where the 98% verified email figure on 500 stratified leads comes from. For B2B data providers, verification timing beats record count on every campaign that actually sends.

What is the difference between a contact database and a data enrichment tool?

A contact database is a searchable index you query by criteria (industry, title, geography, headcount) and export from, so its job is discovery. A data enrichment tool takes records you already hold and fills in verified emails, phone numbers and firmographics, so its job is completeness. Cleanlist does both without owning an index: People Search covers discovery with 20+ filter dimensions and Company Search with 9, both at 0 credits, and the waterfall covers completeness across 15+ providers at 1 credit for a verified email, 10 for a phone and 11 for both. Apollo and ZoomInfo bundle both against their own index. RocketReach is a database first.

What is the difference between a B2B contact database and a CRM?

A CRM stores the accounts and people your company already has a relationship with, and its record count is a function of your pipeline. A B2B contact database stores people you have never met, and its record count is a function of the vendor's collection. The two connect at the enrichment layer, which is where Cleanlist sits: you push a HubSpot, Salesforce or Outreach segment in, Cleanlist runs it through 15+ providers, and verified emails, direct dials and firmographics come back into the same records at 1 credit for an email and 11 for email plus phone. A CRM will not find you a new contact and a contact database will not track your deal stages. Sync costs 0.2 credits per lead.

Can I build a net-new list inside Cleanlist, or only enrich a list I already have?

Both. Cleanlist People Search builds net-new lists from 20+ filter dimensions (job title with contains, exact and similar matching, seniority, years in role, country, state and city with include and exclude, skills, years of experience, degree, school, past titles, past companies, industry, headcount band), and Company Search adds 9 more. Search costs 0 credits, so you can size a segment before spending anything, then enrich only the rows you keep at 1 credit for a verified email with LinkedIn, title and company, 10 credits for a phone and 11 for both. People Search is available from Starter at $79/mo. You can also bring rows in by CSV, CRM segment or API. Technographic and revenue filters do not exist, and funding stage is not a usable filter.

How many contacts are in the Cleanlist database?

Cleanlist does not publish a database size because Cleanlist does not own a database. There is no proprietary index sitting behind the product. Every request runs a live waterfall across 15+ providers, so the reachable population is the union of those providers at the moment you ask rather than a snapshot count from a past crawl. That is why the Database Size column above reads "no owned index" for Cleanlist where Apollo reads 275M+ and RocketReach reads 700M+. The number that replaces record count is the tested one: 98% verified email and 85% direct dial on 500 stratified B2B leads in the Cleanlist 500-Lead Enrichment Benchmark 2026, priced at 1 credit per email and 11 for email plus phone.

Is there a free B2B contact database, and what do I get for free?

Cleanlist's free tier is 30 credits a month with no card, which covers 30 verified emails with LinkedIn, title and company at 1 credit each, or 2 full contacts with email and phone at 11 credits each. Free includes the Chrome extension, manual entry, CSV export, credit rollover, 1 seat and 100 leads per list. CSV upload and People Search start at Starter, $79/mo. Apollo.io has the largest free tier in this comparison at 900 credits per seat per year against a 275M+ index, with 70-80% email accuracy as the trade. Lusha gives 40 credits a month, Kaspr 15 email plus 5 phone credits a month, LeadIQ 50 credits, RocketReach 5 lookups, UpLead 5 credits on a one-time 7-day trial. ZoomInfo and Cognism have no free tier. Those figures were read from each vendor's pricing page on August 7, 2026.

What does B2B contact data cost per record?

Divide the plan price by its credits and you get the real per-record cost. Cleanlist Starter is $79/mo for 1,500 credits, which is $0.053 per credit: about 5 cents for a verified email with LinkedIn, title and company (1 credit), 53 cents for a phone (10 credits) and 58 cents for email and phone together (11 credits). Pro at $229/mo for 5,000 credits takes that to 4.6 cents per email and 50 cents per full contact. Scale at $599/mo for 15,000 credits takes it to 4 cents and 44 cents. Annual billing is 25% off all three. Search costs 0 credits, and enrichment is pay-for-results, so a record that comes back empty is not charged.

Where do B2B contact databases get their data, and how is a record verified?

Three collection models dominate this category: crawling the public web at scale (RocketReach, ZoomInfo), community contribution where users pool address books in exchange for credits (Lusha), and human phone verification (Cognism's Diamond Data). Cleanlist collects none of it first-party. It licenses through 15+ providers (Wiza, Findymail, Prospeo, LeadMagic, Hunter and others), and its job is choosing the right provider per record, then proving the result. Every email Cleanlist returns passes a syntax check, a DNS and MX check, and an SMTP handshake with catch-all detection before it leaves the system. That verification step is what produced 98% verified email on 500 stratified B2B leads. Ask any vendor which of the three models their record came from.

Is it legal to use a B2B contact list under GDPR and CCPA?

Buying a static list and mailing it is the risky pattern. Under GDPR, B2B outreach in the EU and UK usually rests on legitimate interest rather than consent, which means a documented balancing test, clear identity and purpose at first contact, and a working opt-out, and several member states layer stricter electronic-marketing rules on top. Under California's CCPA and CPRA, business contacts are in scope, so individuals can ask you to delete their data or stop its sale. Cleanlist does not sell downloadable lists of strangers. You enrich records you already hold or search live, and each record resolves at request time, which makes suppression and deletion a per-record operation rather than a recall of a file already shipped. Confirm your own legal basis with counsel.

How do I get contacts into HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive?

Cleanlist writes enriched records straight into the CRM at 0.2 credits per lead, with documented API-level sync for HubSpot, Salesforce and Outreach, plus Lemlist for sequencing, and Pipedrive and Salesloft covered as integrations. CRM sync and API access start on the Pro plan, $229/mo. You can also pull a CRM segment in as the input list, enrich it, and write the verified email, direct dial and firmographics back onto the same records instead of creating duplicates. Everything else leaves as CSV or JSON, or moves through the public API v2 and the MCP server. Integrations carry 10% of the score here because every platform in this comparison connects to Salesforce and HubSpot, so the real difference is whether the write-back updates or duplicates.

How do I run a test before I buy a B2B contact database?

Take 100 records from your own ICP, never a vendor sample, and hold back the emails you already have so you can score the answers. Run the same 100 through each finalist on the same day. Measure four things: match rate (how many records got any email), verified rate (how many passed a real SMTP check), phone fill rate, and bounce rate on a live send to 50 of them. On Cleanlist that test costs $79 for one month of Starter, since CSV upload begins there, and consumes 100 of 1,500 credits at 1 credit per verified email. Cleanlist's own benchmark is this protocol at five times the sample size: 500 stratified B2B leads, 98% verified email, 85% direct dial.

How do I build my own B2B contact database from scratch?

Four steps, and the third is where most attempts die. First, define the ICP as filters you can actually query: title, seniority, headcount band, industry, country. Second, source the rows, either by exporting from an index like Apollo or ZoomInfo, or by running a filtered search. Cleanlist People Search covers 20+ filter dimensions and Company Search 9, both at 0 credits, so assembling the row set costs nothing beyond the $79/mo plan. Third, enrich and verify, which decides whether the file is worth anything: 1 credit per verified email in Cleanlist, 11 for email plus phone. Fourth, re-verify on a schedule, because contact data decays at about 2.1% a month (Cognism, 2025) and a file built once is roughly 22.5% wrong a year later.

Which B2B contact database is best for a startup or a 20-person team?

For a solo founder with no budget, Apollo.io's free tier at 900 credits per seat per year is the cheapest way to get rows, with 70-80% email accuracy as the trade. For a team of five that sends every day, Cleanlist Starter is the accuracy pick at 98% verified email and 85% direct dial on 500 stratified B2B leads, and it costs $139/mo at that headcount: $79/mo for 1,500 credits and 2 seats, plus 3 extra seats at $20 each. For 20 reps, seat pricing decides it: 20 seats on Apollo Professional billed monthly at $99 each is $1,980/mo ($1,580/mo on annual billing at $79), against $799/mo for Cleanlist Scale (15,000 credits, 10 seats included, 10 more at $20). For enterprises that need intent data and org charts, ZoomInfo remains the answer at a buyer-reported $15K/yr, and Cleanlist carries no intent data at all.

Does Cleanlist have a Chrome extension?

Yes. The Cleanlist Chrome extension is included on every plan including the free tier, which is 30 credits a month with no card, so you can capture and enrich a contact while you browse without opening the app. Credits cost the same wherever you spend them: 1 for a verified email with LinkedIn, title and company, 10 for a phone, 11 for both, 0 for search. All nine platforms in this comparison ship an extension, so it is table stakes rather than a reason to choose one. The reasons to choose Cleanlist are the tested numbers and the billing model: 98% verified email and 85% direct dial on 500 stratified B2B leads, from $79/mo, charged only when a record comes back.

“Teams evaluate B2B databases on the wrong metric. They compare database size, 275 million vs 600 million contacts, when the number that actually matters is accuracy on their specific ICP. A 150 million contact database with 98% accuracy on tech companies under 500 employees will outperform a 600 million profile database with 85% accuracy on that same segment every time.”

Last updated: August 10, 2026. Competitor prices were read first-hand from each vendor's own pricing page on August 7, 2026 and re-checked against this page on August 10. Vendor accuracy percentages are the vendors' own claims and carry no published methodology. The Cleanlist figures come from the Cleanlist 500-Lead Enrichment Benchmark 2026.

FAQ: B2B Contact Database Software

What is the best B2B contact database?

Cleanlist is the accuracy pick, at 98% verified email and 85% direct dial on 500 stratified B2B leads, from $79/mo with 30 free credits and no card. Apollo.io is the free-access pick at 275M+ contacts and 900 free credits per seat per year, with 70-80% email accuracy as the trade. ZoomInfo is the enterprise pick at 600M+ profiles with intent data and org charts, at a buyer-reported $15K/yr floor since ZoomInfo publishes no price. Cognism is the EU pick and publishes no price either. The right answer depends on team size, budget and how much a bounce costs you, and it should be decided on accuracy against your own ICP rather than total record count.

How much does B2B contact data cost?

Cleanlist costs $79/mo for 1,500 credits on Starter, which works out to about 5 cents per verified email (1 credit) and 58 cents per contact with email and phone (11 credits), with search at 0 credits and 25% off on annual billing. Pro is $229/mo for 5,000 credits and Scale is $599/mo for 15,000. Across the category, published prices run from free (Apollo's free tier) up to $399.90/mo per seat at the top of the self-serve tiers (Lusha Premium), and ZoomInfo and Cognism publish no price at all, with buyers reporting ZoomInfo contracts in the $15K to $40K/yr range. Per-seat tools compound as teams grow: 10 people on Apollo Professional billed monthly at $99 per seat is $990/mo, against $329/mo on Cleanlist Pro with 5 included seats plus 5 at $20.

How accurate are B2B databases?

Cleanlist returned 98% verified email and 85% direct dial on 500 stratified B2B leads in the Cleanlist 500-Lead Enrichment Benchmark 2026, by cross-validating across 15+ providers and running a syntax, DNS and SMTP check on every email before returning it. Single-source providers returned 70-80% email and 30-60% phone on identical input. The figures commonly cited for the rest of the field sit between 80% and 87%: Lusha 82%, RocketReach 83%, ZoomInfo 85%, Cognism 87%, and UpLead publishes a 95% accuracy guarantee. None of those five carries a published methodology, sample size or date, so they are marketing claims rather than measurements. Request a test enrichment on your own records before committing, since self-reported accuracy is rarely measured on your ICP.

How often should I update my B2B contact database?

Cleanlist re-validates on every query, so there is no refresh schedule to run: each request rebuilds the record across 15+ providers and verifies the email before returning it, at 1 credit each. If you hold a static file instead, re-verify the active pipeline quarterly and always validate immediately before a campaign, because B2B contact data decays at about 2.1% a month, which compounds to roughly 22.5% a year (Cognism, 2025). A list exported six months ago is around 12% wrong today, and those bounces land on your sending domain rather than the vendor's.

Can I use multiple B2B contact databases together?

Yes, and many teams do. The common pattern is a large index (Apollo or ZoomInfo) for discovery, then Cleanlist as the verification layer on the export, which is where the 98% verified email and 85% direct dial on 500 stratified leads comes in, at 1 credit per verified email and 11 for email plus phone. Cleanlist can also run both halves: People Search covers discovery with 20+ filter dimensions at 0 credits from $79/mo, and the waterfall covers verification. Running an index plus a verification layer usually costs less than a single enterprise contract at the buyer-reported $15K/yr ZoomInfo floor, and it removes the single-source failure mode.

Related reading

• 11 best data enrichment tools, compared
• Best B2B data providers for 2026
• Best sales intelligence platforms
• Spot-check any list with the free email verifier
• Browse the best ZoomInfo alternatives