What B2B data providers cost: a 2026 price guide

B2B data providers charge in four ways: per seat, per credit, a platform fee plus usage, or a custom contract agreed with sales. Most mix two or more. Apollo, Lusha, Clay and RocketReach publish list prices. ZoomInfo and Cognism quote every deal. This guide sets out what each one publishes, how the billing works underneath, and how to work out what a usable contact really costs your team.

Prices as of October 2026. Every figure below comes from the vendor’s own pricing page, or from Vendr where we say so, read on October 16, 2026. Vendors change their pricing often, so check the source before you budget.

Four pricing models, and who uses which

Most bills combine the first two. A seat decides who can use the data. Credits decide how much of it each person can use.

Published prices at a glance

“Entry price” is the lowest paid plan. Free plans are covered further down.

What each provider publishes, and what it leaves to sales

Apollo, Lusha, Clay and RocketReach: list prices you can read

Apollo prices each seat. On annual billing, Basic is $49 and Professional is $79 per seat per month. Organization is $119 per seat per month, billed annually, with a minimum of three seats; it has no monthly option. On monthly billing, Basic is $65 and Professional is $99 per seat per month. Each plan grants credits per seat: 30,000, 48,000 and 72,000 a year on the three annual plans. Apollo labels this “Introductory pricing — features and pricing may change” and notes that “Prices exclude any applicable taxes” (apollo.io/pricing, October 2026). Our Apollo pricing guide goes plan by plan.

Lusha ties its price to a credit slider, so the figure you see depends on how many credits you pick. At the default position on yearly billing, Starter is $37.45 a month with 4,800 credits a year, Pro is $52.45 a month with 7,200 credits, and Premium is $299.95 a month with 40,800 credits. Yearly billing is marked “25% off” against monthly. Scale is custom (lusha.com/pricing, October 2026). See the Lusha pricing guide.

Clay charges a plan fee and then meters two things: actions, for the work Clay does, and data credits, for data bought through Clay. Launch is $167 a month billed annually or $185 billed monthly; Growth is $446 a month billed annually or $495 billed monthly; Enterprise is custom (clay.com/pricing, October 2026). Every plan has unlimited seats. The Clay pricing guide covers actions and credits in detail.

RocketReach sells three plans, each with a monthly lookup allowance, and lets you add seats one at a time. On annual billing:

• Essentials (email only) is $33 a month, or $399 billed annually.

• Pro (email and phone) is $75 a month, or $899 billed annually.

• Ultimate (email and phone) is $142 a month, or $1,699 billed annually.

(rocketreach.co/pricing, October 2026.)

ZoomInfo and Cognism: prices behind a quote

ZoomInfo names its sales plans (Professional, Copilot Advanced and Copilot Enterprise) and three marketing plans, but lists no dollar figure. It says pricing is based on “Features and functionality,” “Number of licenses” and “Credit usage” (zoominfo.com/pricing, October 2026). The only named buyer dataset we found is Vendr’s: a median of $33,500 a year across 1,577 purchases, last updated February 2026. More in the ZoomInfo pricing guide.

Cognism sells Standard and Pro packages, each with “5 seats included,” and says its pricing “is tailored based on the product you need, your team setup and how you plan to use the platform” (cognism.com/pricing, October 2026). It publishes no price, and Vendr has no Cognism page. See the Cognism pricing guide.

Free plans, side by side

• Apollo: $0, with 900 credits per seat per year, granted monthly.

• Lusha: $0, with 40 credits a month and one seat.

• Clay: $0, with unlimited seats and tables, and 6,000 actions and 1,200 data credits a year.

• RocketReach: “5 free lookups with no credit card required.”

• ZoomInfo: a “Start free trial” button on each sales plan; the length isn’t stated on the pricing page.

• Cognism: no free plan on the pricing page.

How the billing works underneath

What spends a credit

The word “credit” means something different at each vendor, so the same budget buys different things.

• ZoomInfo: “Each export costs one credit.” That covers exports from the platform, the ReachOut Chrome extension and API calls from integrations. Viewing a profile doesn’t spend one.

• Cognism: “1 credit = 1 revealed contact.” Viewing a contact you’ve already revealed is free, and a credit is spent again only “if that contact changes jobs.” The same credits work across the platform, Enrich and the API.

• Lusha: an email reveal costs 1 credit and a phone reveal costs 5. A budget of 4,800 credits is 4,800 emails or 960 phone numbers, or any mix in between.

• Apollo: credits are granted per seat and spent across the platform on emails, phone numbers and other actions.

• Clay: data credits pay for data bought through Clay, and actions pay for the work itself. If you bring your own provider API key, you pay that provider directly and Clay still counts an action.

When unused credits disappear

Rollover rules decide how much of what you paid for you can actually use. Apollo resets unused credits at the end of each billing cycle. Lusha’s monthly plans carry some unused credits forward, while its annual plans reset at the end of the year. Clay lets unused data credits build up on Launch and Growth. ZoomInfo and Cognism set credit terms in the contract, so ask for them in writing.

What per-seat pricing assumes

Per-seat pricing is simple to budget, which is why most sales software uses it. But it rests on three assumptions: every rep needs the tool, every rep gets the same value from it, and the bill should grow with headcount.

Data use rarely works that way. SDRs reveal contacts all day; AEs working a short list of named accounts reveal far fewer. Both cost one seat. Teams that notice this start rationing seats, and the reps without one go without the data. Every new hire then adds a seat to every per-seat tool in the stack, so software spend climbs with headcount rather than with pipeline.

Seat rules also vary by vendor. Apollo puts every seat on an account on the same plan. Lusha’s Starter includes one seat and Pro adds two free seats. Cognism includes five seats per package. Clay doesn’t charge by seat at all, but meters the work instead.

Costs outside the sticker price

The plan price is rarely the whole bill. Vendors list these extras on their own pricing pages:

• Add-ons. ZoomInfo sells Streaming Intent as an add-on, priced on “expected usage.” Apollo sells an Inbound add-on and an Advanced Dialer at $119 per team per month, billed annually. Cognism sells CRM Enrichment as an add-on or on its own.

• Integrations. ZoomInfo says its pre-packaged integrations “typically have a base cost to use and install and require a minimum purchase of bulk credits.”

• Extra credits. Every vendor here sells more credits when you run out. Only some publish the price.

• Features gated by tier. Lusha’s API, CSV enrichment and webhooks start on Pro. Cognism keeps intent data and on-demand mobile verification for Pro. RocketReach’s Essentials plan covers email only; phone starts on Pro.

• Renewal terms. None of the six publishes renewal increases or notice periods. Ask for both before you sign.

Cost per usable contact: how to work it out

The sticker price tells you little until you divide it by what your reps actually use. Here’s a simple way to compare providers on your own numbers:

1. Add up the annual cost. Plan or contract, plus add-ons, integrations and expected top-ups.

2. Count the contacts you’ll reveal. Use credit rules, not contact counts: at Lusha, a phone reveal costs five times an email.

3. Count the contacts you can use. Of those reveals, how many had an email or number your reps could act on? Track this for a month on your own accounts.

4. Divide the first figure by the third. That’s your cost per usable contact.

Run the same sums for two providers on the same accounts and you’ll see what each one adds. To compare license spend with what the data itself costs, work out your numbers.

One provider or several?

How a second and third provider creep in

No single database has everyone, so the stack tends to grow one gap at a time. A common shape: one broad provider for every rep, a second bought only for the team selling into Europe, and a third so SDRs get more mobile numbers. Each comes with its own seats, its own app and its own renewal date.

The pattern repeats: reps hit missing contacts, they ask for another tool, and another contract arrives. Spend rises with each layer, and because every provider sits in its own app, nobody can see where two of them return the same data.

What changes when you connect providers by API key

Several providers sell API access: ZoomInfo, Cognism (“MCP & API access”), Lusha (from Pro) and Apollo all list it. Connecting their keys to one place changes three things.

• You see overlap. When every provider runs on the same contacts, you can see where two of them return the same email or phone, and drop the one you don’t need without losing coverage.

• Data reaches every rep. The data is no longer limited to whoever holds a seat in each provider’s app.

• You still pay each provider. API calls use the provider’s own credits. ZoomInfo counts an API export as a credit, and Cognism draws API use from the same credit pool. Check what your plan includes before you plan around it.

How teams bring the bill down

• Audit seats. List who holds a seat in each data tool and how often they use it.

• Find the overlap. Run your providers on the same accounts and see which ones return the same data.

• Match spend to use. Heavy users may justify a provider’s own app; light users may need only the data.

• Consolidate where it adds nothing. Drop a provider when another already covers what it returns.

Where upcell fits

upcell isn’t another data provider. Prospector is where reps work their accounts. Each account shows who is already there, who owns them and which sequence they’re in. AI-Sourced contacts suggest the people still missing, based on your ICP, with an AI summary of why each one is worth reaching. Reps can see who to contact next and who to leave alone.

Underneath, multi-vendor enrichment runs every provider you connect on every contact. When two return the same email or phone, it appears once with each provider’s icon, so the overlap is in plain view. Data from each provider’s key reaches every rep in Prospector. upcell’s own data is one of the providers you can plug in.

upcell has one Enterprise contract with custom pricing, unlimited users and no meters. Compare upcell with each provider, or book a demo.

Questions to ask on a pricing call

• How many seats are included, and what does each extra seat cost?

• How many credits come with each seat, and what spends one?

• Do unused credits roll over, and for how long?

• What do extra credits cost mid-term?

• Which features, integrations and API access come with this tier, and which are add-ons?

• Is there a minimum credit purchase for integrations?

• How much can the price rise at renewal, and what notice do you need to cancel or change?

Provider pricing guides

• ZoomInfo pricing

• Apollo pricing

• Lusha pricing

• Cognism pricing

• Clay pricing