Every sales intelligence tool says it has the best data.
They can't all be right. And honestly, most of them are good at one thing and fine at the rest.
I build Adamlead, which is one of these tools, so take my opinion with that in mind. I'll tell you where the others are better, because for a lot of teams they are.
Here are nine of them, what each is actually for, and what it costs right now.
First, what "sales intelligence" means
It's a loose label. Under it you'll find four different jobs:
- Contact data. Names, titles, emails and phone numbers of people at companies.
- Company data. Size, industry, funding, tech stack, who invested.
- Signals. Something changed: a company raised, started hiring, visited your site.
- Workflow. Sequences, enrichment of your CRM, sending the emails.
Most tools do one or two of these well. The expensive ones try to do all four. Knowing which job you're hiring a tool for is most of the decision.
The prices, side by side
These are list or reported prices from September and October 2026, on annual billing. ZoomInfo and Cognism don't publish prices, so those figures come from buyer data that third-party sites report. Check each vendor before you buy, because these change often.
| Tool | Starts at | Free plan | Best at |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apollo | $49 per user a month | Yes | Contact data plus sequences, in one tool |
| ZoomInfo | about $33,500 a year (median contract) | No | Enterprise coverage of large companies |
| Cognism | about $15,000 a year platform fee, plus seats | No | Phone numbers and European data |
| Lusha | $37.45 a month (Starter) | Yes, 40 credits | Quick lookups from a browser extension |
| Clay | $167 a month (Launch) | Yes | Building custom enrichment workflows |
| LinkedIn Sales Navigator | $89.99 a month (Core) | No | Finding people and following accounts on LinkedIn |
| Crunchbase | $49 a month (Pro) | Yes | Funding and investor research |
| Hunter | $104 a month (Growth) | Yes | Finding and verifying emails by domain |
| Adamlead | one payment, no subscription | 7-day trial | Contacts at startups that just raised |
The nine, one by one
Apollo
The default for small teams, and for good reason. A big contact database, a Chrome extension, and sequences built in, so you can find someone and email them without leaving the tool.
The catch is cost creep. The seat price is the start: credits, phone numbers and add-ons push it up. Reported prices are $49, $79 and $119 per user a month on annual billing, more if you pay monthly.
Pick it if you want data and sending in one place, and your buyers are spread across every kind of company.
ZoomInfo
The biggest name, with the biggest price. It doesn't publish pricing. Buyer data reported by third parties puts the median contract around $33,500 a year, with a three-seat minimum on every tier.
Coverage of large US companies is very strong, and the intent data is real. For a two-person startup it's a lot of money for features you won't touch.
Pick it if you sell to enterprises, have a sales ops person, and the budget is approved already.
Cognism
Known for phone numbers that connect and for good European coverage, with GDPR handled properly. Also quote-only. Reported pricing is a platform fee around $15,000 a year plus a few thousand per seat, on annual contracts paid upfront.
Pick it if you cold call, especially into the UK and Europe.
Lusha
The quick one. You're on a LinkedIn profile, you click the extension, you get an email or a phone number. Starter is reported at $37.45 a month on annual billing with 400 credits. An email costs 1 credit and a phone number 5, so phone-heavy users burn through it fast.
Pick it if you look up a few people a day by hand and don't need lists.
Clay
Clay is less a database and more a spreadsheet that can call other databases. You chain providers together: find the company, find the person, find the email, write a first line with AI. Very powerful, and it changed its plans in March 2026. Launch is reported at $185 a month, or $167 a month on annual billing.
The honest downside is that it takes real time to set up, and credits go quickly once you start chaining things.
Pick it if someone on the team enjoys building workflows, and your targeting is unusual enough that no single database covers it.
LinkedIn Sales Navigator
Not a contact database. You don't get emails. What you get is the best search over who works where, alerts when people change jobs, and InMail. Core is $119.99 a month, or $89.99 a month billed yearly.
A lot of teams use it next to one of the tools above: find the person in Sales Navigator, get their email elsewhere.
Pick it if your outreach starts on LinkedIn.
Crunchbase
The reference for funding rounds, investors and acquisitions. Pro is $49 a month on annual billing. Great for research and market maps. For prospecting, the gap is the last step: you learn that a company raised, then you still need to find the right person and their email somewhere else.
Pick it if you need investor and funding research, not just a contact list.
Hunter
Hunter does one thing very well: give it a domain, it finds the email addresses at that company and verifies them. Growth is $104 a month on annual billing, and there's a free plan with a small monthly allowance.
It won't tell you which companies to go after. You bring the list.
Pick it if you already know your target accounts and just need emails for them.
Adamlead
This is mine, so here's the honest version.
Adamlead only covers startups that just raised money. As of October 26, it has 691 companies with a known funding date, and 587 of them have at least one verified email on file. That's small next to Apollo or ZoomInfo, on purpose. The idea is that a company that raised last month is about to spend, so the list is short but the timing is right.
Each company comes with its round, ranked decision-makers and their emails with a status and a confidence score, and open roles read off its own careers page. It doesn't send emails for you.
It's also a one-time payment right now, not a subscription, and the price goes up as more people buy. Current price here.
Pick it if your buyers are funded startups. If they're local businesses or big enterprises, pick something else on this list.
How to choose without trying all nine
Answer three questions:
- Who are you selling to? Enterprises: ZoomInfo or Cognism. Everyone: Apollo. Funded startups: Adamlead. You already have the list: Hunter.
- How do you reach out? Email: anything here. Phone: Cognism or Lusha. LinkedIn: Sales Navigator first.
- What can you spend a year? Under $1,000: Apollo Basic, Lusha, Hunter, Crunchbase or Adamlead. Over $15,000: the quote-only tools start to make sense.
Then run the same test on your top two: take 20 companies you know well, look them up, and count how many of the right people have an email that doesn't bounce. That number tells you more than any comparison page, including this one.
What are you using right now, and what's the one thing it gets wrong?