Most ZoomInfo alternatives here publish prices and bill monthly. OXYGEN suits teams that want data from several providers, outreach and a CRM to track deals on one plan. It starts at $49 a month, with no seat per user. Apollo.io suits reps who want a database with email outreach. Cognism fits calling teams in Europe and the US. Lusha suits a free test, UpLead a monthly plan, and Clay an operator who chains data providers.
By Tim Scheuer, Co-founder of Oxygen · Checked October 27, 2026
Price and lock-in: ZoomInfo's sales packages are priced by quote, and contracts typically run one to three years. Its license terms say a contract cannot be canceled. Ending auto-renewal takes at least 60 days' notice, so run the switch test below before then. Added users can be billed to the term's end, and monthly credits do not roll over. OXYGEN's plan is public: from $49 a month per workspace, no seat per user, cancel any time.
| Tool | Where the data comes from | Mobile numbers | How you pay | CRM sync | Outreach included | API, MCP (AI assistants) or CLI | Starts at |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 OXYGENData, outreach and CRM in one workspace | No database of its own; waterfalls across email and phone providers | Phone waterfall across 13 providers; managed lanes charge only when they return a value | One plan from $49 a month per workspace, billed monthly; no seat per user | Built-in CRM; two-way HubSpot sync; no Salesforce sync | Email, LinkedIn and WhatsApp sequences; calls in beta | API, MCP server and CLI | Free plan; paid from $49 a month per workspace |
 Apollo.ioContact database with email outreach | Own database of 240M+ contacts; its waterfall adds partner providers | Phone numbers at 8 credits each | Per seat, monthly or yearly; Basic $49 billed yearly | Salesforce, HubSpot and Pipedrive on every plan | Email sequences on every plan; US dialer from Basic | MCP on any plan; API access | Free; Basic $49 a seat a month billed yearly, $65 monthly |
 CognismContact data for phone-led sales | Own database, covering Europe and the US | Phone-verified mobiles; verification on demand on Pro | Tailored quote; five seats in each package | Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive and Dynamics | Sends contacts to Outreach and Salesloft | MCP server and API on Standard and Pro | Standard and Pro by quote; five seats in each |
 LushaContact data with a free plan | Own database of 515M+ contacts; Data Waterfall from Pro | Direct dials and mobiles at 5 credits per phone | Free plan; paid plans monthly or yearly | HubSpot and Salesforce on every plan, Free included | Email sequences with Lusha Engage | API and MCP on every plan; full API from Pro | Free: 40 credits a month; paid plans sized by credits |
 UpLeadVerified contact data on monthly plans | Own database of 200M+ leads; emails checked at export | Mobile direct dials; 1 credit covers email and phone | Monthly from $99, or $74 a month billed yearly | Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive and more; two-way on Professional | Exports to Outreach, Salesloft, Reply.io and lemlist from Plus | Enrichment API from Plus; full API on Professional | Essentials $99 a month, or $74 a month billed yearly |
 ClayWaterfalls across many data providers | 150+ data providers in waterfalls; your own keys too | Phone enrichment from Launch, through its providers | Free plan; Launch $185 monthly or $167 billed yearly | CRM auto-sync from Growth | Clay Sequencer for email, or a sequencing integration | MCP for Claude, ChatGPT and Codex; a CLI for coding agents; Clay API on Enterprise | Free; Launch $185 a month, or $167 billed yearly |
OXYGEN Data, outreach and CRM in one workspaceBest for: Small B2B sales teams that want data from several providers, outreach and a CRM on one plan, with no seat per user.
OXYGEN has no contact database of its own. It tries up to 17 email and 13 phone providers until one finds the value. Not all of them run on OXYGEN's credits. Its managed work-email and phone finder lanes charge only when they return a value; verification can still cost credits. The same workspace runs sequences: timed steps of email, LinkedIn and WhatsApp messages. Replies land in a built-in CRM, the shared record of contacts and deals.
Apollo.io Contact database with email outreachBest for: Reps who want a large contact database, email sequences and a dialer in one tool, at a public price per seat.
Apollo.io pairs its own database of 240M+ contacts and 30M+ accounts with email sequences and CRM integrations on every plan. A US dialer starts on Basic. Its waterfall checks Apollo first, then the partner providers you add, paid in Apollo credits or on your own keys. An email costs 1 credit and a phone number 8. You can pay monthly and cancel any time, or save 24% on a yearly plan.
Cognism Contact data for phone-led salesBest for: Calling teams that need phone-verified mobile numbers for buyers in Europe and the US, and already run a CRM and a sequencer.
Cognism sells contact and company data in two packages, Standard and Pro, each with five seats. Pro adds on-demand mobile verification and Bombora intent data. One credit reveals one contact, and revealing it again costs nothing unless the person changes jobs. Prices are by quote. Contacts go to Outreach, Salesloft and CRMs such as Salesforce, HubSpot and Pipedrive.
Lusha Contact data with a free planBest for: One rep or a small team that wants to test emails and mobile numbers on a free plan before paying.
Lusha holds 515M+ contacts and 29M+ companies, with 132M+ of the contacts in the US. Its free plan gives one seat 40 credits a month: an email costs 1 credit and a phone number 5. Paid plans bill monthly or yearly, and Pro adds Data Waterfall, which checks outside providers when Lusha has no match. Lusha Engage sends email sequences, and its MCP connector works on every plan.
UpLead Verified contact data on monthly plansBest for: Small teams that want verified emails and mobile numbers on a monthly plan with a public price.
UpLead sells access to 200M+ leads and checks each email when you export it. It backs its data with a 95%+ accuracy guarantee and says it refunds bounces and poor data. One credit buys one contact, with both the email and the mobile direct dial. Essentials costs $99 a month for 170 credits, or $74 a month billed yearly.
Clay Waterfalls across many data providersBest for: Teams with an operator who wants to chain many data providers and build custom enrichment workflows.
Clay is a data workspace where an operator chains 150+ data providers into a waterfall. A waterfall tries one source after another until one finds the value, and a lookup that finds nothing uses no credits. Phone enrichment starts on Launch, at $185 a month or $167 billed yearly, and CRM auto-sync on Growth. Clay's own sequencer sends email, and its MCP lets reps search Clay's own company and people database from Claude and ChatGPT.
| If you need | Pick |
|---|---|
| Data from several providers, outreach and a CRM on one plan, with no seat per user | OXYGEN |
| A contact database with email sequences at a public price per seat | Apollo.io |
| Phone-verified mobiles for calling buyers in Europe and the US | Cognism |
| A free test of emails and phone numbers on your own buyers | Lusha |
| Verified emails and mobiles on a monthly plan | UpLead |
| Custom waterfalls that an operator builds across many providers | Clay |
Run the same 100 target contacts through two alternatives before ZoomInfo's opt-out date. An admin must turn off auto-renewal at least 60 days before the renewal date, and it cannot be turned back on. Count verified, wrong and missing work emails and mobiles apart. Then divide what each test cost by the verified values it found, and let a rule you wrote first make the call.
In August 2026, OXYGEN co-founder Tim Scheuer shared what he saw after studying more than 80 sales and marketing (GTM) tools. Data is a commodity: many vendors sell the same facts. Data companies are becoming waterfall companies that call those vendors in turn. Seat pricing is giving way to usage-based or flat fees. That is a dated view, not a measured result. Only a test on your own contacts shows which kind finds your buyers for less.
The table at the end uses made-up numbers for two unnamed tools, to show how to count. It says nothing about how any real tool performs. Say both tools beat your ZoomInfo baseline. Then the rule in the last step sends an email-first team to Tool B and a calling team to Tool A.
The Contract Renewal box in ZoomInfo's Admin Portal shows the deadline to cancel auto-renewal, at least 60 days before the renewal date. Start the test at least a month before that deadline, so a close result leaves time for a second round.
Take 100 people from accounts your reps plan to call or email, with each person's name, company domain and LinkedIn URL. Mix countries, roles and company sizes the way your team sells, since the result holds only for buyers like these.
Pick one tool that sells from its own database, such as UpLead or Apollo.io. Then pick one that runs a waterfall across providers, such as OXYGEN or Clay. Give both the same rows on the same day. Pull the same rows from ZoomInfo too, while your contract runs, as the baseline.
Run both tools' emails through the same verifier. OXYGEN's own cold email playbook verifies every email right after the waterfall and calls that step non-negotiable. Bad emails hurt deliverability: how much of your mail reaches the inbox. Call every returned mobile, or a random sample and scale the counts.
Sort each work email into verified, wrong (it fails the check or belongs to someone else) or missing (none returned). Do the same for mobiles. A wrong value costs more than a missing one: it bounces, or a rep calls the wrong person.
Add up what each tool's email lookups cost, plus verification, and divide by its verified emails. Do the same for mobiles, and count seat fees if a tool charges per user. Price ZoomInfo's baseline at what your contract pays per credit. On OXYGEN, managed work-email and phone finder lanes charge only when they return a value; verification can still cost credits.
Write the rule before you see the numbers. For example: switch to the tool with the lower cost per verified value on your reps' main channel. It must also beat ZoomInfo's cost per verified value on the same rows and return no more wrong values. If no tool clears your rule, run a second round before the deadline, or renew.
| Per 100 contacts | Tool A | Tool B |
|---|---|---|
| Verified work emails Illustrative | 64 | 72 |
| Wrong work emails Illustrative | 8 | 5 |
| Missing work emails Illustrative | 28 | 23 |
| Verified mobiles Illustrative | 41 | 30 |
| Wrong mobiles Illustrative | 4 | 5 |
| Missing mobiles Illustrative | 55 | 65 |
| Cost per verified email Illustrative | $30 ÷ 64 = $0.47 | $25 ÷ 72 = $0.35 |
| Cost per verified mobile Illustrative | $60 ÷ 41 = $1.46 | $50 ÷ 30 = $1.67 |
For contact data, Apollo.io, Cognism, Lusha and UpLead compete most directly: each sells from its own database. Clay competes in a different way: an operator chains many data providers in tables. OXYGEN also draws on many providers and adds outreach and a CRM. Pick by the job: phone data, a free test, a monthly plan, or data and outreach in one tool.
It depends on what you use ZoomInfo for. For data, outreach and a CRM on one plan with no seat per user, try OXYGEN, from $49 a month. For a contact database with email sequences, Apollo.io is the closest match. For a calling team that sells into Europe, test Cognism. Stay with ZoomInfo if you want its own database with org charts and buyer intent, on a quoted one- to three-year contract.
Yes. ZoomInfo's sales packages have no public price, while most tools here do. Apollo.io starts free, with Basic at $49 a seat a month billed yearly. UpLead starts at $99 a month, and Lusha and Clay have free plans. OXYGEN starts at $49 a month per workspace and charges about $0.085 per email found. ZoomInfo also sells data through GTM AI: pay as you go from $20, with no contract and no seat fees.
For a small team, Apollo.io is often the better fit on price. It publishes its plans, sells monthly and starts free, while ZoomInfo sells its sales packages by quote, on a contract that cannot be canceled. ZoomInfo's larger packages add account data such as org charts, technographics (the software a company uses) and buyer intent. Apollo's plans include intent topics and website visitors too. The Apollo pricing guide and the OXYGEN vs Apollo comparison go deeper.
Yes. ZoomInfo Lite is free for anyone with a business email who has never paid for its premium services. It gives monthly credits, and each one reveals a contact's business email and direct or office phone. Credits do not roll over, and sharing contacts from your email or CRM earns more of them. The main platform has a free trial with no credit card.
Usually not. ZoomInfo's license terms say a contract cannot be canceled. You can end it early in only three cases. ZoomInfo breaks it and fails to fix that within 21 days, both sides agree, or ZoomInfo misses its 99.9% uptime or 95% accuracy guarantee. The guarantee exits need written notice, and the problem has to continue after it. To stop the renewal, an admin must opt out at least 60 days before it, and that step cannot be undone.
No tool wins everywhere: accuracy changes by country, role and company size. Pick two tools and run the switch test above on 100 of your own target contacts. Count wrong emails and wrong numbers apart from missing ones. UpLead backs its data with a 95%+ accuracy guarantee, and Lusha publishes its own accuracy figures to compare against.
Yes. A waterfall tries one provider after another until one finds the email or phone. OXYGEN runs waterfalls across 17 email and 13 phone providers, and Clay lets an operator chain 150+. Apollo.io and Lusha check their own database first, then outside providers. Compare the cost of each value found, not the length of the provider list.
We make OXYGEN, so it comes first and you should read this as an interested list. The other tools are the ones ZoomInfo buyers compare most often for the same job. Each one is described from its own website, pricing page and docs, checked on the dates below; OXYGEN's facts and prices come from the product and its live price list. Prices are the cheapest self-serve plan each vendor lists.
ZoomInfo and the other products named here are trademarks of their owners and are not affiliated with OXYGEN. Something out of date? Tell us.