7 Leading Cognism Alternatives That Don't Break the Bank

Software budgets are tightening. The sales cycle is shortening. And sales teams don't have the budget or the time to settle for a sales tool that does half a job.

If you're looking at Cognism as a potential addition to your sales stack, you're doing so for its data. Which is of decent quality — especially for prospecting outside of the US. 

But that's where the buck stops.

No engagement features, no task management, very little automation — complete with a hefty price tag.

There's solutions out there that give you more and:

• Help with not just lead generation but the full sales process 
• Provide up-to-date, verified contact and company information across the globe
• Offers the top value for your dollar

So where do you start? We’ve got the answers for you in this guide where we’ve put together the top 7 alternatives — all based on what real users say are powerful alternatives to Cognism.

Each tool recommendation also packs in breakdowns of the feature set and pricing with real stories of real people using them so you can decide based on — not our opinion — but on what actual users are saying.

Keep on reading.

Cognism is a sales intelligence platform. But, really, what does that mean?

Sellers, marketers, and business people across go-to-market look to Cognism to give them data. Business emails, verified mobile numbers, contact profiles — all stored in a tidy database primed for searches and list building.

In tandem to data, they offer:

• Third-party intent data via Bombora
• On-demand CSV and CRM data enrichment 
• A Chrome extension that layers contact information on top of LinkedIn (and LinkedIn Sales Navigator), company websites, and your CRM

If we want to talk specific numbers, Cognism boasts 50 million mobile numbers (note that only 14% of them are verified) and 120 million contacts. Its data is heavily Europe-based, with some support of the Middle East and Asia regions, too. If you’re focused on these areas, you’ll get the most out of Cognism.

Yes, Cognism is great for finding close-to-accurate email addresses and phone numbers in the EMEA region.

But getting that data isn’t cheap. 

The specific pricing is locked (you have to contact Cognism’s team to get an exact quote), but our insights tell us that this pricing report is very close to accurate.

You can expect to pay around $5,500 per license for their “Diamond” plan (which gives you phone-verified mobile numbers and intent data) and $3,600 per license for their “Platinum” plan. Access fees can also amount to $2,500 per user annually — not something very many organizations, regardless of size, can afford in the current economy.

Given the cost, you’d expect full data coverage. But, as we dug through reviews, we found that many share that its data isn’t always accurate or current. “We get more wrong numbers in the UK than what I would expect," shares one user. 

But more than price — even more than data accuracy — there’s one major reason why growing teams don’t opt for Cognism: they don't offer any built-in tools to support the rest of the sales process.

To activate all of your new data, to nurture leads and put internal workflows into play, you’ll have to funnel it into (and pay for) a separate engagement tool. 

Cognism is helpful for lead generation — but not at the expense of your wallet, data quality, and a streamlined workflow.

In a nutshell, you’ll likely want to look for a Cognism alternative if you: 

• Don’t have a blank-check-sized budget
• Want access to compliant, accurate, and up-to-date global data
• Want to invest in a solution that gives you tools to manage the complete sales cycle

Apollo.io is that all-in-one go-to-market solution.

It’s built for revenue teams of all sizes with a constantly updated, vast database of 275 million global contacts and 73 million global companies. And you can be sure it’s accurate.

• A 7-step email verification ensures a 98% email accuracy rate
• Real-time phone number verification results in less than 1% invalid phone numbers 

Dean Seddon — who targets people in the EMEA region — confirms the high quality of Apollo’s data is unparalleled:

“Apollo is great. We use it in our business for the commercial and enterprise side of MAVERRIK. The data quality is pretty good. Personally, I’ve found the accuracy of data is better than others when it comes to UK/EU," he says.

To boot, Apollo’s feature set isn’t limited to helping you build prospecting lists only. Instead, it gives you built-in tools to:

• Identify and prioritize prospects that are likely to buy from you with AI-powered lead scoring
• Create, track, and automate outreach campaigns to reach out to prospects across various channels
• Analyze your performance — even coach your reps on closing more deals with conversation intelligence

As one user, Kamila Utegenova, puts it: 

Key features

• A Living Data Network of consistently updated contact and company information with 65+ filters for searching against your ICPs
• GDPR compliant and ISO 27001 and SOC 2 certified with a defined AI policy that centers around always protecting user privacy
• Free Apollo Chrome Extension to layer prospecting data on top of LinkedIn, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, your CRM, and company websites you browse
• Data enrichment features to clean, update, and append prospect data in your CRM
• Sales engagement tools to build and automate your outreach campaigns including generative AI to write emails
• A central hub to see all prospects in your pipeline across different sales stages in one place (including notifications to alert you of stalling deals so you can save them)
• Conversation intelligence to transcribe and analyze your call recordings so you can use them to find ways to turn prospects into paying customers (and train your team to do the same)

Pricing

Apollo offers three, customizable premium plans:

• Basic for $59 per user per month + a 14-day free trial
• Professional for $99 per user per month + a 14-day free trial
• Organization for $149 per user per month

All plans include essential features like unlimited email credits, AI writer, lead scoring, basic and advanced filters, data enrichment, CSV export — even buyer intent data which many tools reserve for enterprise-level plans.

The Professional plan and above also include pre-built dashboards and reporting templates as well as a dialer that you can use to call folks directly from the platform.

Free plan: Yes (14-day trials for premium plans also available). Apollo's free plan gives you access to the full database, filters for granular searches, and integrations with HubSpot and Salesforce. You can also build a library of sequences and activate up to two of them at a time. Try it here!

Why are folks choosing Apollo over Cognism?

We’re uniquely close to the Apollo vs. Cognism debate.

Stemming from conversations with countless salespeople who have had experience with both tools, we’ve found that Apollo wins in three key areas.

#1: Apollo gives you unparalleled data accuracy and breadth

Apollo partners with carefully vetted third-party providers and has a large, consistently growing network of over 2 million data contributors, which gives you unique data that’s hard to find anywhere else. 

Plus, with a thorough verification process and 30-day average contact record refresh, you always get fresh and accurate data — across all regions.

“I've previously used both Lusha & Cognism — Apollo tops them both easily…Apollo is better because it usually gathers a lot more info.” — Verified User in Network Security, SMB, G2 reviewer

#2: Apollo gives you a suite of tools for the complete sales cycle

Data, sequences, a dialer, deal management, and AI — it’s all in there. And the benefits of consolidating work in one place is real and quantifiable.

To teams like Aligned, 40% of all their cold calls book meetings since consolidating their outreach efforts into Apollo’s platform. It's powered by the suite of sales functions they've built alongside their cold outreach like customized dashboards, A/B tested their messaging, and built personalized outreach sequences.

“I love the fact that everything is in there together. I don’t have to go evaluate other tools. I don’t have to talk to multiple CSMs and stakeholders. It’s all streamlined and connected.” — Saad Khan, Director of Sales at Aligned

All these in-built tools (at no additional cost) give you the best value for your investment. There’s less tool juggling, less time waste, and no disjointed workflows.

#3: Apollo is budget-friendly and doesn’t bind you to long-term contracts 

It’s affordable, plain and simple.

Companies of all sizes (one-person teams, SMBs, and enterprises) use Apollo. One user on Reddit shares just how affordable it is by breaking down the cost per lead. 

Who is Apollo best suited for?

We’ve seen hundreds of reviews of enterprise, mid-market, SMBs, start-ups and founder-led organizations — across all industries — that have had success with Apollo.

But its functionality for the price makes it especially ideal for small- and medium-sized businesses looking for a budget-friendly, end-to-end contact database with built-in engagement features to streamline their prospecting workflows. 

If this sounds like you try the free plan to access the full contact database and start building targeted lists today.  

Another Cognism alternative, and leader in the sales intelligence space is UpLead, which differs from Cognism mainly on account of its data sources and pricing. 

Where Cognism sources data from both first- and third-party sources including strategic partnerships, UpLead only scraps public documents to give you prospecting data.  But where Cognism costs a fortune, UpLead is reasonably priced to align with small teams’ budgets. 

Now, what they lack, they have in common: they don’t have comprehensive tools for sending emails and converting buyers. Make sure you consider this as you give this overview a skim.

Key features

• Contact database of 160M individuals and 50+ search filters
• Data enrichment
• Free email verification tool 
• Chrome extension available
• Data verification badges showing information is valid, invalid, or accept all

Pricing

UpLead offers three premium plans:

• Essentials for $99 per month, offering 170 monthly credits
• Plus for individuals for $199 per month, offering 400 monthly credits
• Professional plans for organizations, custom pricing, and credits

Its lower-tier plans are for individual users, whereas the Professional plan caters to teams.  

Free plan: No, but their 7-day free trial gives you five credits to test drive the platform.  

Who is UpLead best suited for?

UpLead is best for individuals without a high volume demand for prospecting data, looking for basic contact information.

Beyond that, if you’re looking for features like data enrichment and advanced filters, UpLead gets expensive (it’s $199 per month for these features).

What are other users saying about UpLead?

Over at G2, UpLead has 780 reviews with a 4.7 out of 5-star rating. Users appreciate its clean UX but note that it can be challenging to get accurate data from Latin America using UpLead. 

Here’s more of what folks around the web say about the tool:

“UpLead has many similar solutions to ZoomInfo but not quite as extensive and expensive. I find sourcing contact info on UpLead more accurate with the email validation feature provided and if an email gets bounced, I am not charged.”  — Small business user, TrustRadius review

“The only downside I have noticed upon using UpLead has been the accuracy of the position or employment of a contact. For example, it may say a contact works for a certain company, upon further research of their LinkedIn profile they might be working for another company or retiring. It is a very subtle issue and it is something that can be worked around with a little extra research.” — Small business user, G2 review

ZoomInfo. If you’re here, you’ve heard of them.

They have one of the biggest databases on the market. But, depending on how directly you want a platform to mirror Cognism, it’s worth it to note that they are not the platform for international sellers.

They only have 39.5 million European contacts compared to Cognism’s whopping 200 million. Data accuracy in the EMEA region is also not ZoomInfo’s strong suit.

ZoomInfo also requires you to buy a Global Data Passport to access data outside the US. This isn’t the case with Cognism or Apollo, both of which offer unrestricted access to data across the globe.

BUT, ZoomInfo does have an edge over Cognism in that it offers sales engagement tools. Although ZoomInof sells them as a separate product, adding to the overall costs — it’s one of the most important offerings of a sales tool.

Key features

• Contact database of 235M individuals
• Real-time data verification
• Built-in outreach and workflow automation tools
• AI recommendation for leads/accounts to prioritize and steps to take
• Premium add-ons like ZoomInfo Chorus to record and analyze customer calls
• SOC II, ISO 27701, and ISO 27001 certified

Pricing

Like Cognism, ZoomInfo’s pricing is custom and is dependent on the features you need, your credit usage, and the number of licenses you want to buy.

RevPilot reports on the pricing available from 2022 (keep in mind that it’s likely lower than what it is today in 2024).

• Professional: $14,995 annually
• Advanced: $24,995 annually
• Elite: $39,995 annually

And they will in fact nickel and dime you.

In reading ZoomInfo reviews, high cost and shady billing practices come up — a lot.

“Their legal practices and policies seem more predatory than customer-centric. The auto-renewal process, for instance, is enforced without genuine, clear communication, placing the onus solely on the customer.” — Michal K. Co-Founder and CEO at SMB, G2 review

Who is ZoomInfo best suited for?

If you’re prospecting in the US and have a budget upwards of $10,000, you’ll find ZoomInfo helpful.

But if you’re looking for a reliable contact database that consolidates the tools you need to turn prospects into customers in one platform, you’ll find Apollo an ideal choice.

The Census team that replaced ZoomInfo with Apollo for prospecting in North America confirms 50% increased data quality and 64% cost savings. Hear it from their team:

“We were paying Outreach $18,000. ZoomInfo must have been another $15,000. When we did the migration Apollo was $12,000. We paid less for one tool than two tools together. We basically went from paying $35,000 for two tools to $12,000 for one. We cut our costs in half.” — Sylvain Giuliani, Head of Growth & Operations, Census 

Still undecided between Apollo and ZoomInfo in place of Cognism? Here’s a full Apollo vs ZoomInfo breakdown.

What are other users saying about ZoomInfo?

ZoomInfo has a 4.4-star rating for its 8,593 reviews on G2. Mostly, users say it’s easy to use but there are a few complaints against its Chrome extension.

On other review platforms, users share:

“It’s a good product, the UI is very intuitive and there are a lot of filters to choose from. If you have a large team though it gets very expensive very quickly.” — Gartner review

“We have had ZoomInfo for two years now. At first, it was great, as it was our first exposure to data on a large scale. However, after two years the market has matured considerably, data has gotten much cheaper, and ZoomInfo's services have not scaled up to match. Their data is now quite limited, their intent data is difficult to extract any value from, and their price point is one of the highest in the market, if not THE highest. Also, beware auto-renewals of contracts and long contract terms.” — Gartner review

Clearbit (now called Breeze Intelligence after their HubSpot acquisition) is a viable Cognism alternative especially for the HubSpot user. 

Like Cognism, Clearbit is a sizable data provider with a database of 200M+ contacts and companies to prospect from. And, also like Cognism, it is just that — a data provider.

With Clearbit, you won’t get features that help you move your prospects through the funnel, like outreach sequences, a built-in dialer, or automated workflows.

The HubSpot platform can help you with outreach since it’s closely integrated with Clearbit. But bringing on HubSpot is no small decision (and certainly shouldn’t be bought just for the sake of Clearbit). 

This is why we only recommend it if you currently operate out of HubSpot.

Key features 

• A prospecting database of 200M contacts and companies with filters to search
• Data enrichment tools (Clearbit shines here)
• Website form enrichment feature
• Lead scoring to identify folks to prioritize 
• Its Trust Center states they are GDPR “aligned”

Pricing

Breeze Intelligence is only available with one of HubSpot’s (department-based) subscription plans. For example, their starter plan (Starter Customer Platform) — available for $50 per month (when paid monthly) — gives you 100 Breeze Intelligence credits.

You can also purchase more Breeze Intelligence credits with one estimate reporting: 

• 1,000 credits start at $100 per month 
• 10,000 credits start at $700 per month 
• Bulk or Backfall Enrichment for $5,000 (one-time purchase)

Free plan: No information available at the time of writing this. 

Who is Clearbit best suited for?

Breeze Intelligence is best for people already using HubSpot. You’re already operating out of the tool. If you have the cash to add on Breeze Intelligence – why not?

Keep in mind though: Breeze Intelligence sources its data from information that’s publicly available around the web, their proprietary data, and machine learning models. It doesn’t have its own data contributor network to give you unique data. And there are tools that do, that also offer HubSpot integrations.

“We benchmarked ZoomInfo versus Apollo, Clearbit, Lusha, and Seamless, and ultimately Apollo won on all fronts, especially in enrichment. Higher quality than ZoomInfo, greater breadth than Clearbit.” — Sylvain Giuliani, Head of Growth & Operations at Census 

What are other users saying about Clearbit/Breeze Intelligence?

Breeze Intelligence has 625 reviews with a 4.4 out of 5 stars rating on G2. Several users find it easy to use while others note there’s a learning curve.

Folks using Breeze Intelligence also say:

“Easy integration into CRM, Fairly robust dataset [but] lots of inaccuracies and duplicative data.” — Enterprise user, G2 review.

“Clearbit has really great firmographic information, especially for larger or medium size orgs. Primarily limited to the US, though. Has been very easy to implement […] Match rate on the people's size is much lower, but I understand that they are working on tightening things up.” —Mid-market user, G2 review.

G2 has some handy comparison charts. Here's how Clearbit looks next to Apollo.

Lusha is another sales intelligence platform providing prospects’ email addresses and phone numbers. Like other tools on this list, it also gives you their company information such as recent news and technology they use.

Lusha’s B2B database of 135 million is considerably smaller than other tools’ databases like Apollo (275M) and ZoomInfo (235M). But, the main, most important difference compared to Cognism is that Lusha gives you built-in tools to create email sequences and email prospects from its platform.

Key features 

• A contact and company database of 135M with 16 search filters
• Bulk data enrichment for your CRM
• Job change alerts
• In-built email outreach tools
• AI email writing tool for drafting messages
• Offers a free Chrome extension to prospect on LinkedIn
• CCPA and GDPR compliant and ISO 27701 certified 

Pricing

We love that Lusha is clear about pricing from the jump.

They offer three pricing plans. Two of them are for small teams (under five people), offering different email and phone number ranges to choose from, and the third is a custom plan for bigger teams:

• Pro plan starts at $36 per month per user 
• Premium plan starts at $59 per month per user
• Scale plan, custom pricing for unlimited credits 

While the lower-priced plans get you contact information, only the higher-priced plans give you intent and buyer data, CRM enrichment, and a higher number of CSV rows to enrich. 

Free plan: Yes. 50 emails and 5 phone numbers in the freemium plan. 

Who is Lusha best suited for?

Lusha is great for founders and small teams that prioritize ease of use. It takes only a few clicks to pull up direct emails and mobile numbers and it has all of the essential search filters like job title, industry, and employee headcount.

But Lusha is basic. For those that have tried the tool, they can't help but notice for smaller, niche markets, coverage is lacking.

"That said, the inconsistency in data accuracy—particularly when targeting smaller, niche markets—did cause some setbacks," said Adam Robinson, who tested the tool.

So, if you’re looking to scale prospecting or need more buyer insights such as signals to identify who is likely to buy from you, you’ll need a cost-effective alternative. 

What are other users saying about Lusha?

At the time of writing this, Lusha has 1,472 reviews and a 4.3-star rating on G2. While users are mostly satisfied, some say its CSV and credit limits on lower plans and a smaller database can be somewhat discouraging:

“Cognism, Zoominfo and Lusha are all quite similar. However, Lusha’s database of orgs and contact details is significantly larger and more accurate in the EU.” — Reddit user.

“Overall, the platform is easy to use and has a lot of cool features. I would say the data enrichment piece seems to be at least 75% accurate if not more. I do wish that on our plan I am able to upload a CSV of names and companies and have it automatically enrich all of that data instead of having to go one-by-one.” — Small business user, Capterra review.

LeadIQ is another viable prospecting tool that offers contact and company information but unlike Cognism’s accurate phone number data in the EU, users note LeadIQ’s phone number data is lacking. 

It does, however, earn brownie points over Cognism for its cost-effective pricing and AI-features.

Like its generative AI writing tool, Scribe, that helps you write personalized emails and messages to prospects. In many ways, that’s where LeadIQ’s additional built-in capabilities end — since it doesn’t offer any tools to engage, track, and manage leads — but it's worth taking a dive into what they offer to determine if it's a good fit for you.

Key features 

• A contact and company database with filtering capabilities
• Contact tracking for deal management
• One-click CRM enrichment feature
• Chrome extension for LinkedIn and LinkedIn Sales Navigator
• Generative AI tool, called Scribe, for writing outreach messages

Pricing

LeadIQ comes in three premium plans:

• Essential plan for $36 per user per month
• Pro plan for $79 per user per month
• A custom-priced Enterprise plan

Each plan caps the number of accounts you can track, email addresses you can find, and emails you can generate with their AI tool. For example, the basic plan gives you 1,000 verified emails and 50 mobile phone numbers per month — and you can track 50 accounts with it.

Additionally, certain advanced features such as Salesforce duplication detection and one-click contact information update are only reserved for higher-tier plans.

Free plan: Yes, 50 email addresses and 5 mobile numbers per month in the free plan.

Who is LeadIQ best suited for?

If you know roughly how many email addresses and phone numbers you need to search for monthly, you’ll find LeadIQ an economical solution.

But if you’re looking to track past buyers and/or regularly enrich your CRM, the pricing plans don’t remain as budget-friendly since these features aren’t built-in but available as add-ons.

What are other users saying about LeadIQ?

Rated 4.2 out of 5 stars on a total of 933 G2 reviews, users generally appreciate LeadIQ’s seamless CRM integration and ease of use. But there’s a general consensus among them regarding LeadIQ’s phone data accuracy.

Here’s more: 

“While it generally provides reliable information, there are times when contact details or other information might be outdated or incorrect. This can lead to extra effort in verifying and cleaning up data before using it for sales outreach, which can be a bit frustrating for users looking for highly accurate and up-to-date information right off the bat.” — Mid-market user, G2 review.

“The downside is that LeadIQ seems to be more of a LinkedIn plugin. Compared to other prospecting methods, I felt as if I was solely stuck to prospects that were on LinkedIn. I also feel as if the data could be better. Some, not all, numbers would be dead, a spouse, or a wrong number. It is the most important aspect for me as I am call heavy.” — Mid-market user, G2 review. 

6sense offers a sizable prospecting database of over 119 million email addresses and 65 million company profiles across 200 countries. 

Cognism does win when it comes to prospecting data in the EMEA as a handful of users note 6sense’s data outside the North American region is limited. But both tools are data-functional for what they do have, giving you a lot of filtering capabilities and third-party buyer intent signals.

But here’s where one of the biggest differences between Cognism and 6sense lies: Cognism gives you only third-party data via Bombora, whereas, 6sense gives you first-party intent data as well. In fact, Apollo and 6sense are among the only few intent data providers offering both first- and third-party intent data. 

Another major difference between Cognism is that 6sense offers tools to engage prospects across multiple channels. (Which Apollo data shows can increase your chances of booking a meeting by 24%).

Key features 

• A contact database of 415M individuals and 65M companies with 80+ search filters
• AI-email assistant to write emails and automate follow-ups
• AI-powered recommendations for next steps to take to nurture leads
• Predictive analysis to show where buyers are in their purchase journey
• Prioritization dashboards showing likely-to-convert buyers to focus on
• Offers a Chrome extension
• Complaint with GDPR, CCPA/CPRA, UK-US and Swiss-US Data Privacy Framework (DPF) 

Pricing

6sense's pricing is custom. But broadly, they offer Team, Growth, and Enterprise plans that you can request demos for, depending on the features you need.

Keep in mind: 6sense typically requires you to commit to a long-term contract. Users also share that they offer several features/new products as add-ons which “are a bit nickel-and-dime-y in ways that hurt adoption.”

Free plan: Yes, the free plan offers 50 monthly credits. 

Who is 6sense best suited for?

Big teams with mature outreach campaigns and a budget they can dedicate to buying and setting up the software will likely find 6sense useful. 

If you’re looking to drive a quick return on investment though, 6sense is not an ideal fit since success with the platform is very much dependent on fully leveraging all its features.

What are other users saying about 6sense?

On G2, 6sense has 874 reviews and a rating of 4.3 out of 5 stars.

Most users — across not only G2 but also Reddit — point out that 6sense is a hard-to-navigate platform that “can be a little daunting for the average Joe/Jane.” More importantly, a handful of users note the platform’s intent data is often inaccurate.

Here’s more of what users say:

“The vast amount of data 6Sense provides is impressive, but it can also be a bit overwhelming, especially for team members who aren’t as comfortable interpreting complex datasets or reports. Although the predictive analytics are strong, we did notice some variation in the accuracy of the predictions. In our experience, these predictions sometimes needed further refinement to align more closely with actual conversion rates.” — Mid-market user, G2 review.

“The 6sense lead data is absolutely terrible. Their Chrome extension logs you out every 15 minutes making prospecting impossible. We found their intent data not useful since it was just telling us the name of the company and no way to find the actual person. It’s like telling me that Amazon viewed our website… okay great that leaves me with like 5,000 ICP contacts I can cold email” — Reddit user.

Takeaways: Which sales intelligence platform is right for you?

Ultimately, the correct software choice for you is a decision only you can make. However, the ones that will make the most impact will naturally depend on 1) your budget and 2) the gaps in your current tech stack, and 3) the primary region your target audience is in.

Keep this in mind as you think about the above alternatives: 

• 6sense and ZoomInfo are reliable solutions for prospecting in the US but their pricing and learning curve make them accessible for enterprise teams only
• LeadIQ and Lusha are more accessible to small/founder-led teams but you may run into data quality issues with them
• Clearbit also offers a big database but it’s only feasible for HubSpot users
• And Apollo’s budget-friendly pricing makes it ideal for SMBs and mid-market teams looking for an all-in-one solution to help throughout the sales cycle

You have to start somewhere.

You can use the top Cognism alternative — Apollo — for free. Get used to sales intelligence software, learn how to build outreach sequences, and start your journey of converting new prospects with a free Apollo account.