7 Best Places to Buy Business Leads in 2023
This article is part of a larger series on Sales Management.
Leads are the lifeblood of a successful sales operation. Without a large pool of potential buyers filling your pipeline, you won’t be able to consistently close new deals and generate revenue. While small businesses can conduct their own online research to find contact information for ideal customer profiles, they can save time by purchasing data from lead generation websites. Based on pricing and data capabilities, the best providers to buy business leads from include:
- Simplest database to buy business-to-business (B2B) leads: UpLead
- Best business leads database with engagement tools: Lead411
- Great sales leads lists for business-to-consumer (B2C) businesses: Salesfully
- Best Chrome extension: Lusha
- Excellent for supplemental lead insights: Dealfront (formerly LeadFeeder)
- Best low-cost email database: FindEmails.com
- Most advanced prospecting tools: D&B Hoovers
Best Places to Buy Business Leads Compared
Provider | Starting Monthly Price* | Free Plan/Trial? | CRM Integration |
|---|---|---|---|
 | $74 for 2,040 annual credits | Five credits | ✓ |
 | $900 for 2,400 annual credits | 7-day trial | ✓ |
 | $29 for unlimited contact downloads | 14-day trial | ✓ |
 | $29 per user for 480 annual credits | Five total credits | ✓ |
 | $199 for 2,500 annual credits | Free-forever for one seat and five credits | ✓ |
 | $29 for 1,000 annual credits | 50 free leads | Requires Zapier connection |
 | $49 for 1,800 company and 1,800 contact downloads | First month free | ✓ |
*Based on annual billing; monthly billing is also available for slightly higher rates.
Pro tip: Regardless of the channel used, whether in-person networking, referral marketing, or cold calling outreach, generating new leads requires a repeatable process of knowing your target audience and properly executing a messaging strategy. Use our guide on how to generate leads for insights on planning, delivering, and measuring your next sales campaign.
UpLead: Best Simple Database for B2B Leads
Overall Score:
4.97 / 5
Pros
- Super easy to filter and purchase business-to-business (B2B) leads based on company and contact data
- Unused credits roll over to the next pay period
- Offers advanced prospecting tools like purchase intent, technographics, and company news or updates tracking
Cons
- Purchase intent insights requires Professional plan
- Bare-bones free plan that only allows five total credits
- Relatively expensive for the starting paid plans
UpLead is a robust business-to-business (B2B) database of contacts and companies that uses a credit-based system to unlock emails and phone numbers. Depending on the plan you’re subscribed to, you can use a certain number of annual credits and filter contacts based on company profiles, technographics, and activity found in news updates and social media posts.
What really puts UpLead on the map as a lead generation database is the platform’s simplicity. Despite the advanced criteria in which you can search for contacts, the interface is modern, clean, and intuitive enough that anyone, regardless of technical knowledge or experience with sales leads list generation, can log in, filter out their criteria, and create their own contact list to start running their campaigns.
Pricing and value are ultimately the main downsides of UpLead. Its free plan is a trial that gives users five credits to test out the filtering tools. Additionally, it has a high starting price beginning at $74 per month, which only gives basic search and filter criteria like industry, role, location, and company size.
- Better alternative: If emails are all you need, we recommend FindEmails.com, which is only $29 per month and gives the first 50 contacts for free. Salesfully is another good value pick that’s also $29 per month with unlimited contacts.
UpLead Key Features
- Verified contact data lists: Users can search and filter for business-to-business (B2B) contacts and businesses based on industry, role, company size, location, and other attributes, then purchase email and phone data using a credit-based system.
- Company news and alerts: Company data records include real-time feeds of their social media accounts and news. Users can also set up the system to receive automatic reminders for updates and posts.
- Technographics data: The database provides information on the current software, tools infrastructure, and other systems a specific company is currently using and allows users to search and filter based on technographics.
- Advanced purchase intent data: Contact and company data records provide intelligence on consumption patterns, current product or service interests, and buying signals to help identify the purchase intent of a buyer.
UpLead Pricing Summary*
*Pricing based on annual billing on a per month breakdown; monthly billing is also available for a higher cost. Pricing reflects pricing info available at the time of publishing. While we update pricing information regularly, we encourage our readers to check current pricing here.
UpLead contact search by technographics (Source: UpLead)
Lead411: Best for Engagement Add-ons
Overall Score:
4.80 / 5
Pros
- Offers optional advanced data features like enrichment, technographic intelligence, and ability to get notified of companies hiring
- Users can purchase buy lead lists, score leads, and run outreach campaigns through phone, email, and text, all in the same platform
- Comes with direct integration with over 25 customer relationship management (CRM) systems, like HubSpot, Salesforce, and Pipedrive
Cons
- Expensive solution all around
- Lead scoring requires higher-tiered plans
- Purchase intent data isn’t available until Enterprise plan
Lead411 is an advanced database to purchase a business sales leads list. It offers a large volume of credits to buy leads by the thousands based on industry, role, and location, as well as more advanced criteria like technographics, purchase intent behaviors, and positions they are currently hiring for.
What stands out for Lead411 are the supplemental tools. For example, it’s one of the only lead generation business providers with lead scoring in addition to its database. It also has optional add-ons to engage with contacts after buying leads. Users can integrate with voice-over-internet-protocol (VoIP) phone systems for cold call outreach, send personal or mass email communications, and create text campaigns, all in the same system.
Cost is a detriment for Lead411. Its free plan is limited to a seven-day free trial, and paid plans start at $900 per month. Additionally, the paid add-ons for running outreach campaigns require a paid add-on for either $75, $100, or $125 per user, per month, depending on the tier, which isn’t ideal for new businesses on a tight budget.
- Better alternative: Salesfully is the most cost-friendly software that lets you buy leads in both the B2B and business-to-consumer (B2C) space—starting at $29 per month with a 14-day free trial. If freemium options are your priority, we recommend Dealfront, which has a free-forever plan for website visitor tracking and ads management.
Lead411 Key Features
- Verified lead data: Users can search and filter the lead database based on industry, role, company size, and other attributes to purchase email and phone data.
- Advanced data add-ons: Offers tools for additional intelligence like data append for auto-enriching missing or outdated information and international searches for obtaining global lead data. There’s also the currently hiring tool for finding companies recruiting for certain positions, a suppression option that excludes specific records from searches, and a technology stack search that filters based on technographics.
- CRM integration: Users can mass import data, automatically enter new records, or enrich profiles directly in their customer relationship management (CRM) system.
- Lead scoring: Teams can create custom criteria to score contacts or companies based on profile, technology stack, news updates, and purchase intent behaviors.
- Bombora integration: On the second-tiered Pro with the Bombora Intent plan, users can get intelligence from the Bombora platform, which tracks online searches and digital marketing journeys to help identify buyer intent for B2B decision-makers.
Lead411 Pricing Summary*
*Pricing based on annual billing on a per user, per month breakdown; monthly billing is also available for a higher cost. Provider offers a seven-day free trial for paid plans. Pricing reflects pricing info available at the time of publishing. While we update pricing information regularly, we encourage our readers to check current pricing here.
**Prospecting and lead data plans include optional engagement add-ons for $75, $100, or $125 per user, per month for email and text marketing credits and access to voice-over-internet-protocol (VoIP) phone systems.
Lead411 creating automated email sequences (Source: Lead411)
Salesfully: Best Place to Buy B2C Sales Leads
Overall Score:
4.77 / 5
Pros
- Users can search and download unlimited B2C and B2B lead lists
- Relatively cost-friendly pricing with pay-as-you-go monthly subscriptions
- Easy-to-navigate interface with a simple lead filtering process
Cons
- Doesn’t have advanced prospecting tools like buyer intent or technographic data
- Lacks pricing flexibility as it only has one paid subscription option
- No supplement features like data enrichment, engagement, or Chrome extension tools
Salesfully is the best place to buy leads if you’re looking for price value. It’s the most cost-effective option that starts at just $29 per month and gives unlimited contact data downloads. Users can also use the platform as a contact management system that acts as a CRM and digital Rolex for storing purchased lead data.
The unique aspect of this business leads resource is the type of prospects you can obtain. It’s the only provider that lets you search and find both B2B and B2C contacts. Organizations that sell to individuals, such as real estate agents, insurance brokers, or home renovators, can filter the data pool based on location, demographic information, occupation, income, and home value.
While it has a wider data set than other providers, the depth of Salesfully is limited in that you can only download leads based on surface-level information. Data enrichment and advanced filtering based on buying signals and the current technology stack are not available on this platform.
- Better alternative: D&B Hoovers has the most advanced prospecting capabilities for filtering contact lists on a granular level based on purchase intent, company updates, financials, and technographic information.
Salesfully Key Features
- Searchable lead database: Users can search and download lists for B2B and consumer leads to find contact data using criteria like location, demographics, role, and much more.
- CRM integration: It has mass data import options into CRM systems; plus, you can automatically sync downloaded contact data to the CRM.
- Built-in contact management tool: Platform includes a contact management module to store and access obtained lead information after downloading.
Salesfully Pricing Summary*
Salesfully Plan
Cost:
- $29 per month on a pay-as-you-go, cancel-anytime basis
Key Features:
- Unlimited contact data downloads
- Searchable consumer lead lists based on geography, home value, demographics, occupation, and other attributes
- Searchable business lead lists based on organization type, industry, company size, employees, role, revenue, and other attributes
- Data export onto spreadsheets or into CRM systems
- Contact management system to store and access lead data from the database platform
*Pricing is based on a pay-as-you-go per month breakdown. Provider offers a 14-day free trial. Pricing reflects pricing info available at the time of publishing. While we update pricing information regularly, we encourage our readers to check current pricing here.
Salesfully home page (Source: Salesfully)
Lusha: Best Chrome Extension Capabilities
Overall Score:
4.70 / 5
Pros
- Excellent Chrome extension tools for finding and purchasing contact data from LinkedIn profiles and company websites
- Comes with credit-usage analytics tools with an overview on the leads purchased and recommendations on potential prospects
- Simple interface to navigate and search for leads
Cons
- Technographic and buyer intent data require highest-tiered plan
- No CRM integrations until the Scale plan
- Relatively low number of credits on the Pro plan; users are limited to just 480 annually
Lusha is one of the more modern databases to buy leads from and a particularly useful platform for sales managers supplying their teams with prospects. In addition to a credit-based system for users to search and download business contact data, it has a unique credit overview module that shows the top-collected leads and makes recommendations on other good prospects based on those purchases.
Lusha’s largest value-add that makes it a cutting-edge lead database is the extension tools. While other providers offer a Chrome extension that lets you access the platform while browsing the web, Lusha’s is more advanced. For example, users can go to LinkedIn and instantly obtain or enrich data from individual profiles on a mass scale. They can also scrape data from any company website, where it will identify decision-makers and pull contact data. All these can be done using the Chrome extension.
One of the downsides of Lusha is that integrating with a CRM system to mass import and auto-enrich leads in products like Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics requires the Scale plan, which has custom pricing and gets expensive.
- Better alternative: Salesfully is the best value in terms of CRM integrations. For $29 per user, monthly, on a pay-as-you-go system, you get unlimited contact downloads that can directly import into your CRM system.
Lusha Key Features
- Lusha extension tools: Chrome extension lets you search and save contact data on LinkedIn and company websites while enriching records in your CRM.
- Business lead data: Users can search and download using credits for business contacts to obtain phone numbers, email addresses, and company data based on preset criteria.
- Credit usage overview: Analytics tools include team credit usage tracking, saved contacts, and top collect data types with recommendations automatically derived from ideal customer profiles based on searches.
- Advanced prospecting add-ons: Optional add-ons on the high-tiered plans to include search and filter for technographics, buying intent signals, and job changes.
Lusha Pricing Summary*
*Pricing based on annual billing on a per user, per month breakdown; monthly billing is also available for a higher cost. Pricing reflects pricing info available at the time of publishing. While we update pricing information regularly, we encourage our readers to check current pricing here.
Lusha Chrome extension on LinkedIn (Source: Lusha)
Dealfront: Best Supplemental Tools
Overall Score:
4.31 / 5
Pros
- Provides deep data filtering capabilities based on financials, news updates, and technology stack information
- Users can track web visitors and manage ads targeting B2B contacts from the platform
- Platform includes artificial intelligence (AI) prospecting tools to help enrich lead data and recommend other prospects
Cons
- Plans are expensive all around
- Free plan limits you to five credits
- Users report difficulty in integrating with CRMs and other third-party tools
Dealfront, which was formerly LeadFeeder, is a cluster of various software products included on a subscription depending on the tier. The platform, all around, is advanced in that users can filter and buy leads based on granular data such as technographics, buying intent signals, news or company updates, and financials. Users can either buy leads lists or get individual insights on company or contact profiles.
In addition to the sophisticated lead database, Dealfront has an array of supplemental tools stemming from its modules. First is the Web Visitors tool that lets you identify companies visiting your website. Users can also manage B2B online ads using the Dealfront Promote product. Account managers can use the Connect tool for detailed information on their clients or targeted accounts, and the Datacare module lets you cleanse, enrich, and track the quality of your data.
Dealfront is great for advanced prospecting and providing more than basic lead data that comes with extra costs. That said, it’s not ideal for finding leads for sales while on a tight budget. The paid plans get really expensive—starting at $199 per month and then shooting up to $999 per month for many of the supplemental products.
- Better alternative: Salesfully is a great alternative for the cost. It’s only $29 per user, monthly on a pay-as-you-go basis and allows you to download both B2B and B2C leads lists.
Dealfront Key Features
- Business lead database: Users can search, filter, and download business lead lists based on firmographic information as well as deeper profile data like financials and news for higher-tiered plans.
- Web Visitors and Promote tools: It has provider tools for tracking B2B website visitors and managing ads that can target B2B contacts based on internet protocol (IP) addresses.
- Connect platform: Account-based research tool offers detailed profiles of companies to help with prospecting and outreach.
- Datacare tool: Data management tool cleanses, auto-enriches, and tracks quality for contact and company data records.
Dealfront Pricing Summary*
*Pricing based on annual billing on a per month breakdown; monthly billing is also available for a higher cost. Pricing reflects pricing info available at the time of publishing. While we update pricing information regularly, we encourage our readers to check current pricing here.
Dealfront website visitor tracking (Source: LinkedIn)
FindEmails.com: Best for Low-cost Email Addresses
Overall Score:
3.87 / 5
Pros
- Users get the first 50 emails addresses for free
- Low-priced paid plans that provides email address data and verifies accuracy
- Includes a Chrome extension for pulling email data from a company website
Cons
- Contact data limitations to just email addresses using basic filters
- CRM lead list imports require third-party connector tools; users must get a Zapier account to create dataflows
- Doesn’t come with additional tools for engaging leads or getting deep prospecting insights
FindEmails.com is a great place to buy leads if you are simply putting together email lists for mass or individual email campaigns. Users can search for B2B leads based on role, industry, location, and company attributes and download a bulk list or individual record. They can also pull addresses from company websites using the Chrome extension tool.
Because you’re only getting surface-level information and email addresses, FindEmails.com is much more affordable than other providers on this list. It has the best free plan, which includes the first 50 email addresses at no cost. Additionally, the paid plans start at just $29 per month, covering 1,000 annual credits, bulk import into a CRM using Zapier, and email verification that shows analytics on email deliverability and confidence in address accuracy.
While there certainly is a place for FindEmails.com for those wanting to cut costs, certain businesses may want to look elsewhere if they have particular data needs. For example, sales teams who primarily generate leads through cold calling can’t get phone numbers using FindEmails.com. Additionally, those who need deeper insights into target accounts, such as their technographic data and buyer intent signals, cannot do so with this platform.
FindEmails.com Key Features
- Email database with verification: Users can search contacts based on role, industry, location, company type, and other criteria, then purchase their email data while getting confidence level and deliverability insights on email addresses.
- Chrome extension: Tools that allow users to find and verify email addresses while browsing company websites using Google Chrome.
- Mass import and CRM integration: Users can mass purchase and create email lists via a spreadsheet file as well as import contact data from FindEmails.com into a CRM system using Zapier dataflows.
FindEmails.com Pricing Summary*
*Pricing is based on a per month breakdown. Provider offers the first 50 email credits for free. While we update pricing information regularly, we encourage our readers to check current pricing here.
FindEmails.com email list with verification confidence (Source: FindEmails.com)
D&B Hoovers: Best for Advanced Prospecting
Overall Score:
3.73 / 5
Pros
- Unique competitive insights data that provides competitor lists of targeted accounts to expand a lead list
- Users can search for company prospects based on company website keywords
- News and updates alerts features with user notifications on company events like funding, product launches, or leadership changes
Cons
- Higher tiers don’t have transparent pricing
- Only has direct CRM integrations with Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics
- Technographic and buying intent data not included on Essentials plan
D&B Hoovers takes the spot as the most advanced prospecting tool and lead database. If you’re willing to spend the money, you can create detailed lead lists based on customer profiles for your ideal company buyers. Teams, for example, can filter based on the technology stack used by a company, financial statements, industry profiles, competitors, and buyer intent signals per its integration with Bombora.
D&B Hoovers goes a step further, allowing users to search and purchase leads based on keywords on an organization’s website. It also has a robust alerts system where reps can get notifications for a target company based on news and articles posted online. It can show things like new product launches, changes in leadership or personnel, job openings, and financial milestones like new funding or company acquisitions.
D&B Hoovers is clearly sophisticated in its lead generation capabilities and prospecting tools. However, it can only integrate directly with two CRM systems, Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics, which focus more on larger sales teams and enterprise businesses.
- Better alternative: Lead411 has a broader range of CRM integration options—offering over 25 options, including some of the best small business CRMs like HubSpot, Pipedrive, Insightly, Less Annoying CRM, Zoho CRM, and Capsule CRM.
D&B Hoovers Key Features
- Lead list building: Through a credit-based system, users can search, filter, and purchase lead information and contact data like email addresses and phone numbers.
- Advanced prospect searching: Its granular search capabilities allow for finding contacts and companies based on financial information, technographics, company news, competitors, and keywords on the prospect’s website.
- Sales and marketing integrations: Mass data import can be done through CRM integrations with Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics, as well as marketing integrations with HubSpot and Marketo.
- Buyer intent monitoring: Integrates with the Bombora tool to spot behaviors and interests so you can identify the purchase intent of a lead.
D&B Hoovers Pricing Summary*
*Pricing based on annual billing on a per year breakdown; monthly billing is also available for a higher cost. Provider offers the first month of the paid plan for free. While we update pricing information regularly, we encourage our readers to check current pricing here.
How We Evaluated the Best Places to Buy Leads
To determine the best place to buy leads, we evaluated cost-friendliness and various features for obtaining data on prospective buyers, such as robust data pool, as well as search and filter tools. We also looked at whether the provider allows users to import data directly into a CRM system and if it comes with advanced prospecting capabilities, like engagement tools or deep-level data on purchase intent and the current technology stack used by a lead.
The tabs below offer insight into our evaluation process of the best places to buy leads:
40%
General Features
25%
Help & Support
20%
Expert Score
15%
Pricing
40% of Overall Score
Features of the lead providers held the highest criteria during our evaluation. We wanted each provider to have a large contact database of decision-makers with search and filter options to generate robust lead lists. We also looked at whether you could integrate the system with a CRM and the number of CRM providers with that capability. Finally, we evaluated advanced prospecting tools, such as searching based on technology stack used or buying intent data.
25% of Overall Score
Help and support by the provider allow users to get the best experience while searching and downloading leads. We evaluated this criteria in terms of hours of availability, such as offering 24/7 customer service. Additionally, we looked at the number of channels you could use to get support like phone, email, live chat, and self-service resources like tutorials and user forums.
20% of Overall Score
In addition to firsthand experience with these lead database systems, we evaluated what actual users say about each product according to online reviews. These criteria helped us better understand how users felt about the features and whether the products are worth the cost. It also enabled us to evaluate the product’s ease of use while searching, downloading, and importing leads.
15% of Overall Score
Pricing looked at the cost and plan flexibility of each lead database. For example, we wanted to see each provider offer some type of freemium plan either through a trial, providing a certain number of free credits, or a free-forever subscription option. We also looked at the total costs of the paid plans, whether certain features require add-on costs, and billing flexibility by offering monthly, annual, or pay-as-you-go subscription options.
*Percentages of overall score
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
A business lead is a person or organization that would be an ideal customer for your business. It can be either someone you have connected with or have never met before but meets the customer profile criteria you desire in a buyer, such as belonging to a specific industry, company size, job position, or demographic.
Depending on your experience and preferences, there are numerous ways to get leads for your business. You can attend in-person or virtual networking events to meet with prospective buyers and referral partners, conduct cold calling or email outreach to contacts you found online, or use an inbound marketing approach where you run ads or post content to bring in leads. You can also buy lead lists from online database providers based on ideal customer profile traits.
The cost of each lead will vary depending on the provider, the type of data acquired, and other tools included in the service. Most providers use a credit system where one credit equals one lead record of contact information. While some databases offer free trials or the first few credits for free, a direct cost per lead can be anywhere from a few cents to hundreds of dollars.
Bottom Line
A constant lead flow is necessary to generate new business revenue. Rather than manually conducting online prospect research, teams can use databases to buy leads based on filters like location, industry, and role. Depending on your budget and data needs, various providers could be better suited for you. For example, while FindEmails.com is a cost-friendly place to get emails, users would need a provider like UpLead for deeper insights like technographic data.
