CTO Email List: Build One by Industry, Company Size and Country
Cleanlist People Search returned 43,335 profiles in the United States with the title Chief Technology Officer or CTO on September 22, 2026, and 174,308 worldwide. Search is free, so you can filter to your market before you pay for any email.
Each record holds the person's name, title, employer, employer domain and location. A work email is verified when you enrich the record, through a waterfall of 25+ data providers that stops at the first verified hit, for 1 credit; a direct dial is 10 credits, and a lookup that finds nothing costs nothing. Starter is $79 a month for 1,500 credits, so 1,000 verified emails fit in one month of Starter.
By Victor Paraschiv, CMO at Cleanlist. Counted in Cleanlist People Search on September 22, 2026.
What is a CTO email list?
A CTO email list is a set of chief technology officer contacts with verified work emails, filtered to the industries, company sizes and countries you sell to.
The filter behind every count on this page: Job title is Chief Technology Officer or CTO. Search is free and unlimited on every plan, so you can reproduce any number below in the app at no cost.
CTOs by company size, United States
| Company headcount | Profiles | Share |
|---|---|---|
| 1-10 | 9,010 | 27% |
| 11-50 | 10,682 | 32% |
| 51-200 | 6,503 | 19% |
| 201-500 | 2,591 | 8% |
| 501-1,000 | 1,449 | 4% |
| 1,001-5,000 | 1,795 | 5% |
| 5,001-10,000 | 433 | 1% |
| 10,001+ | 1,094 | 3% |
9,778 of the 43,335 US profiles have no headcount band on the employer, so they drop out as soon as you filter by size.
By industry, United States
| Company industry | Profiles |
|---|---|
| Software Development | 8,393 |
| IT Services and IT Consulting | 4,374 |
| Financial Services | 2,123 |
| Hospitals and Health Care | 1,323 |
| Advertising Services | 1,039 |
| Telecommunications | 648 |
| Business Consulting and Services | 589 |
| Computer and Network Security | 522 |
These industries account for 19,011 of the 43,335 US profiles (44%). Many employers carry a narrower industry label or none, so the rows do not add up to the total.
The engineering team around the CTO (US)
| Who | Profiles |
|---|---|
| Chief Technology Officer or CTO, by title | 43,335 |
| VP of Engineering, by title | 11,178 |
| VP level, Engineering department | 17,670 |
| Director level, Engineering department | 31,646 |
| Manager level, Engineering department | 116,970 |
By country
| Country | Profiles |
|---|---|
| United States | 43,335 |
| United Kingdom | 8,821 |
| Canada | 4,833 |
| Australia | 3,134 |
| Germany | 5,137 |
| India | 12,576 |
All countries: 174,308 profiles. The United States holds 25% of them.
How to read these numbers
Software companies hold the most US CTOs among the industries counted: 8,393 in Software Development, almost twice the 4,374 in IT Services and IT Consulting. Financial Services is third with 2,123.
CTO is mostly a small-company title. 19,692 of the 33,557 US CTO profiles with a headcount band (59%) are at companies with 50 or fewer employees. At larger companies the engineering organization runs through VPs and directors: 17,670 US profiles at VP level in engineering, 31,646 at director level, and 11,178 with the title VP of Engineering.
The US holds about a quarter of the CTO profiles in this search (43,335 of 174,308). Among the countries counted, India is next with 12,576, then the United Kingdom with 8,821.
What a record contains
A People Search result carries the person's name, current title, employer and employer domain, location, and the employer's headcount band and industry where they are known. Enrichment adds a verified work email for 1 credit and a direct dial for 10 credits, and each is charged only when it is found.
The waterfall behind enrichment queries 25+ data providers in sequence and stops at the first verified hit. It returns 98% verified work email and 85% direct dial on the Cleanlist 500-Lead Enrichment Benchmark, which is our own test run on a 500-lead sample. Results on your own list will differ.
Cleanlist does not own a database. People Search and enrichment query our data partners at request time, so the counts on this page move as their records change.
Build this list in Cleanlist
- Open People Search and set Job title, any of: Chief Technology Officer, CTO; Person's country: United States.
- Narrow it with the company headcount, industry and country rows above.
- Save the results to a list. Search is free.
- Enrich the list: 1 credit per verified work email, 10 per direct dial, nothing for a lookup that finds nothing.
- Export it, or sync it to HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive.
New workspaces start on a 14-day Scale trial with 250 credits and 3 seats. Paid plans start at $79 a month with 2 seats included; the pricing page has the rest.
The same search over the Cleanlist API (Pro plan and above), as the request body:
{
"filters": {
"titles": [
"Chief Technology Officer",
"CTO"
],
"location_country": [
"United States"
]
},
"limit": 25
}How these counts were made
- Each figure is the total that Cleanlist People Search (Company Search for the funding table) reported for one filter set on September 22, 2026. Searching costs nothing, and no records were saved or enriched to make this page.
- They are counts of matching profiles. A work email or phone number is found, and verified, only when a record is enriched.
- Title filters are a near-exact string match, case-insensitive, and the titles in one filter are combined with OR. A variant we did not list is a person the count misses, so treat every title-based figure as a floor. Department and management level are the search's own classification of each title.
- Titles and employers are self-reported, so some profiles are out of date. Check a sample of any segment before you send to it.
Compliance
In the United States, CAN-SPAM allows B2B cold email when it has accurate headers, a valid physical postal address and an opt-out you honor within 10 business days. In the UK and the EU, B2B outreach generally rests on legitimate interest under the GDPR, and UK rules treat sole traders and some partnerships like individuals. Canada's CASL requires consent before commercial email in most cases, so keep Canadian contacts in their own segment. This summary is general information and does not replace legal advice for your own campaigns.
Frequently asked questions
How many CTOs are there in the United States?
People Search returned 43,335 US profiles titled Chief Technology Officer or CTO on September 22, 2026, and 174,308 worldwide. The title filter is a near-exact string match, so the count is a floor: a variant it does not list is a person it misses. Titles are self-reported, and more than half of the banded US profiles are at companies of 50 or fewer people.
Should I email the CTO or the VP of Engineering?
At a startup, the CTO usually owns engineering tools and hiring. At a larger company the VP of Engineering often runs the team day to day. People Search returns 11,178 US profiles titled VP of Engineering, and many teams send to both with a different angle for each.
Can I find CTOs at SaaS companies only?
Filter by the employer's industry. Software Development returns 8,393 US CTO profiles. The eight industries counted here cover about 44% of US CTO profiles, so a company list of your own, searched by domain, is the tighter way to do it.
How much does a CTO email list cost to build?
Search is free. A verified work email costs 1 credit when found, a direct dial 10 credits when found, and a lookup that finds nothing costs nothing.
Is it legal to email CTOs cold?
In the US, yes, under CAN-SPAM with accurate headers, a physical address and an opt-out honored within 10 business days. The UK, EU and Canada set stricter rules, summarized in the compliance section on this page.
Is it legal to buy an email list?
In the United States, buying a B2B email list is legal, and CAN-SPAM governs how you use it: accurate headers, a valid physical postal address and an opt-out you honor within 10 business days. In the UK and the EU the GDPR covers the personal data in the list, so you need a lawful basis such as legitimate interest, and you must tell each person where you got their data, at the latest in your first email. Many bought lists cannot show where their data came from. Canada's CASL requires consent for most commercial email, which a bought list rarely gives you. Many email platforms also ban purchased lists in their terms. Cleanlist does not sell lists: you build one from search and verify each email when you enrich it. This is general information, not legal advice.