The best B2B prospecting tools in 2026 depend on the job: Scalelist, Apollo.io, Lusha and Cognism for contact data; Instantly, lemlist and Outreach for email sequences; Orum, Aircall and PhoneBurner for dialing; Clay and Crunchbase for research.
Most teams need one tool per job, not twelve. Below, the 12 sales prospecting tools are compared on price, mobile numbers and fit, using each vendor’s pricing page as of September 2026.
The 12 best sales prospecting tools at a glance
Here are all 12 tools side by side, with the same five fields for each. Entry prices are the cheapest paid plan on monthly billing, from each vendor’s pricing page on 27 September 2026.
| Tool | Job | Entry price (monthly billing) | Mobile numbers | Free option |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scalelist | Contact data | 29 USD / mo | Yes, 20 credits per mobile found | 20 free credits |
| Apollo.io | Data, sequences, dialer | 65 USD / seat / mo | Yes, 8 credits per number | Free plan |
| Lusha | Contact data | 49.90 USD / mo | Yes, 5 credits per number | Free plan |
| Cognism | Contact data | Not published | Yes, phone-verified | Data sample only |
| Instantly | Email sequencing | 47 USD / mo | Not published | Trial |
| lemlist | Email and multichannel sequencing | 69 USD / mo | Yes, 20 credits per number (add-on) | Trial |
| Outreach | Sequencing (enterprise) | Not published | Not sold | None published |
| Orum | Parallel dialer | Not published | Enrichment included | Trial (500 dials) |
| Aircall | Phone system and power dialer | 40 USD / user / mo | Not sold | Trial terms not published |
| PhoneBurner | Power dialer | 165 USD / user / mo | Not sold | Trial |
| Clay | Research and enrichment | 185 USD / mo | Via marketplace providers | Free plan |
| Crunchbase | Company research | 99 USD / mo | Not specified | Free version |
What is the best B2B prospecting tool?
There is no single best B2B prospecting tool, because prospecting is four jobs. The best one for you fixes the job that is blocking meetings: contact data if you have no one to call, a sequencer if leads go unfollowed, a dialer if calling is slow, research if replies say your message missed.
For a small B2B team that calls and emails, start with a contact data tool that returns mobile numbers, such as Scalelist or Apollo.io, then add a sequencer such as Instantly or lemlist. Add a dedicated dialer once calling is a daily block, not an occasional task.
How we picked these sales prospecting tools
We picked the best prospecting tools a small or mid-sized B2B sales team actually buys for each job, and compared them on published facts only.
- One job each. Every tool is judged on the job it does in a prospecting stack. Apollo.io is the only all-in-one on the list.
- Published pricing. Prices come from each vendor’s pricing page, rendered in a browser on 27 September 2026. When a vendor sells only on quote, we say “not published”.
- Mobile numbers. Whether the tool supplies mobile numbers, dials them, or needs you to bring them.
- The cost of a miss. Whether you pay when the tool finds nothing.
- Fit for small teams. Seat minimums, annual-only plans and free options.
- Real data where we have it. For contact data, we used our own provider benchmark across four regions.
Contact databases sold mainly for list volume, and intent or website-visitor tools, are compared separately in our guide to the best lead generation software.
Contact data tools: who to call and how to reach them
Contact data tools find the people who fit your buyer profile and return a way to reach them: a verified work email and, ideally, a mobile number.
1. Scalelist
What it is: Scalelist, an AI lead finder. You describe the people you want in one plain-English sentence; it shows what it understood and how many people match before you spend a credit, then returns them with verified work emails and mobile numbers.
Pricing: From 29 USD a month for 500 credits to 649 USD for 20,000 credits, with custom plans above that; yearly billing gives 2 months free. 1 credit per lead found, 1 per email found, 20 per mobile found, and 0 when nothing is found. New accounts get 20 free credits, no credit card required. See Scalelist plans and credits.
Mobile numbers: Yes, 20 credits per mobile found. In our benchmark it found a phone number for 87% of the North American test list.
Best for: SDRs and founders who call and email, want mobile numbers, and do not want to pay for misses or per seat.
Where it falls short: It is not a sequencer or a dialer. HubSpot is the only native CRM (Salesforce and Pipedrive connect through Zapier or the API). On email-only volume it is not the cheapest: Hunter charges about half as much per email credit.
2. Apollo.io
What it is: An all-in-one sales platform: a B2B contact database plus email sequences, a dialer and deal tools, sold per seat with a credit allowance.
Pricing: A free plan with 75 credits per seat per month. Basic is 65 USD per seat per month on monthly billing (2,500 credits) or 49 USD billed annually; Professional is 99 or 79 USD. Organization is 119 USD per seat, annual only, 3 seats minimum. An email costs 1 credit, a phone number 8 (Apollo pricing).
Mobile numbers: Yes, 8 credits per number, and Apollo does not refund credits for mobile numbers. In our benchmark it found a phone number for 50% of the North American list, 63% in EMEA and 8% in APAC.
Best for: SMB and mid-market teams that want data, sequences and a dialer in one per-seat tool and mostly buy emails.
Where it falls short: Cost grows with every seat. Its multi-source enrichment option can bill for unverified results before it finds a verified one, and phone coverage drops sharply outside North America and EMEA.
3. Lusha
What it is: A self-serve contact data platform (web app, browser extension and API) that sells verified emails and phone numbers on credit plans.
Pricing: A free plan with 40 credits a month. Starter is 49.90 USD a month billed monthly (400 credits) or 37.45 USD billed yearly; Pro is 69.90 USD with 2 seats; Premium is 399.90 USD with 5 seats. An email costs 1 credit, a phone number 5 (Lusha pricing).
Mobile numbers: Yes, 5 credits per phone number. Lusha claims 117M+ direct dials.
Best for: Individual reps and small teams who want month-to-month access from a browser extension.
Where it falls short: API requests cost at least 1 credit even when nothing comes back, and CSV export costs 1 credit per 25 rows, even for contacts already revealed. Teams above 5 users must go through sales.
4. Cognism
What it is: A B2B sales intelligence platform that sells contact data, including phone-verified mobile numbers, in quote-only packages with 5 seats included.
Pricing: Not published. Standard and Pro packages go through sales, and one credit reveals one contact, email and mobile together (Cognism pricing). Whether you pay when nothing is found is not published.
Mobile numbers: Yes. Phone-verified mobiles are its premium records, and on-demand mobile verification is a Pro feature. Cognism screens numbers against Do Not Call lists in the US, UK, Germany, France and Australia.
Best for: Teams calling into Europe and other regulated markets that want Do Not Call screening and can buy a multi-seat package.
Where it falls short: No public prices and no single-seat plan. Intent data sits on Pro, and a revealed contact costs a credit again after a job change.
Email sequencing tools: send and follow up
Sequencing tools send multi-step emails from your mailboxes, stop when someone replies, and track what happened. They do not decide who is on the list.
5. Instantly
What it is: A cold email platform with unlimited sending accounts and warmup on every plan. Its lead database, SuperSearch, is billed as a separate credit subscription.
Pricing: Outreach Growth is 47 USD a month (37.60 USD on yearly billing) for 1,000 uploaded contacts and 5,000 emails a month; Hypergrowth is 97 USD. Lead data starts at 9 USD a month for 150 credits. There is no free plan, only a two-week trial with 250 contacts and 1,000 emails (Instantly pricing).
Mobile numbers: Not published. No per-phone credit rate is listed, and phone lookup is not among SuperSearch enrichment options.
Best for: Teams sending high-volume cold email across many mailboxes who want flat pricing that is not tied to seats.
Where it falls short: Lead data is a second subscription. Growth caps you at 1,000 uploaded contacts, and webhooks start on Hypergrowth.
6. lemlist
What it is: A sales engagement platform for email plus calls, SMS and WhatsApp steps, with a built-in lead database and pay-per-success email and phone finding.
Pricing: The Email plan starts at 69 USD a month (55 USD yearly) for 50,000 emails and unlimited users. Multichannel is 109 USD per user a month. Contact data is a Data add-on from 20 USD a month for 2,000 credits, which buys 400 emails or 100 phone numbers. There is a two-week trial and no free plan (lemlist pricing).
Mobile numbers: Yes, 20 credits per phone number found, and nothing is charged when no valid number is found.
Best for: Teams that want email, calls and messaging in one sequence, with contact data from the same tool.
Where it falls short: The built-in dialer and SMS steps need the per-user Multichannel plan, WhatsApp is an add-on, and contact data is a separate subscription.
7. Outreach
What it is: An enterprise sales execution platform: sequencing, a click-to-call dialer, conversation intelligence, deal management and forecasting, sold as seat-based packages plus AI credits.
Pricing: Not published. All four Amplify packages say “Request pricing”, with 10,000 to 100,000 AI credits depending on the package (Outreach pricing).
Mobile numbers: Not sold. Contact data comes from marketplace apps such as ZoomInfo, LeadIQ and SalesIntel.
Best for: Mid-market and enterprise revenue teams that want sequencing, calling, coaching and forecasting under one contract.
Where it falls short: No public prices, a separate data provider to buy, and paid add-ons for data sharing and connectors.
For more options in this category, see the best sales engagement platforms.
Dialers: call more people per hour
Dialers place the calls, skip the dead rings and log every outcome to your CRM. Only one of the three here supplies numbers, so you still need a data tool.
8. Orum
What it is: An AI parallel and power dialer that runs up to 5 lines at once, with live-answer detection and AI coaching as an add-on.
Pricing: Not published. Orum prices by package and number of users, with a 9-seat minimum; the free trial is limited to 500 dials (Orum pricing).
Mobile numbers: Partly. The plan lists data enrichment as included, and its Scout agents look for “the number that answers”. No database size is published.
Best for: SDR teams of 9 or more doing high-volume cold calling inside Salesforce, HubSpot, Outreach or Salesloft.
Where it falls short: The 9-seat minimum rules out small teams, and AI Coaching costs extra.
9. Aircall
What it is: A cloud business phone system for sales and support teams, with CRM integrations and a Power Dialer on the Professional plan.
Pricing: Essentials is 40 USD per license a month on monthly billing (30 USD annually), minimum 3 users. Professional, which adds the Power Dialer and voicemail drop, is 70 USD (50 USD annually). Enterprise is custom, 25 users minimum (Aircall pricing).
Mobile numbers: Not sold. You bring the numbers.
Best for: Teams that need a full phone system with CRM sync, where power dialing is one feature among many.
Where it falls short: No Power Dialer on Essentials, a 3-user minimum, and international outbound rates on request.
10. PhoneBurner
What it is: A single-line power dialer with a built-in CRM, local presence dialing and number-reputation add-ons.
Pricing: Standard is 165 USD per user a month on monthly billing (140 USD annually); Professional is 195 USD and Premium 215 USD. A free trial is offered (PhoneBurner pricing).
Mobile numbers: Not sold. A paid add-on screens out disconnected numbers before you dial.
Best for: Reps who want one-at-a-time power dialing with no connection delay, often from inside their CRM.
Where it falls short: No parallel dialing by design, the highest published per-user price of the dialers here, and add-on prices that are not listed.
Our comparison of parallel dialers goes deeper on multi-line calling.
Research tools: find the reason to reach out
Research tools tell you why this account, and why now: funding, growth, the tools they use, what changed last month.
11. Clay
What it is: A GTM data and workflow platform that runs 150+ data providers, AI research agents and signals inside spreadsheet-like tables, billed in Actions and Data Credits.
Pricing: A free plan with 500 actions and 100 data credits a month, without phone enrichment. Launch starts at 185 USD a month (167 USD annually) for 15,000 actions and 2,500 data credits; Growth starts at 495 USD. You are not charged when an enrichment returns nothing (Clay pricing).
Mobile numbers: Yes, through third-party providers in its marketplace or your own API keys, from the Launch plan. Cost per number depends on the provider.
Best for: GTM engineers building multi-provider enrichment and research workflows.
Where it falls short: Two meters to budget, a per-contact cost that depends on the providers you choose, and CRM integrations only from Growth.
12. Crunchbase
What it is: A private-company data platform with funding, growth and M&A signals, used to prospect by company events.
Pricing: A free version. Pro is 99 USD a month on monthly billing, or 49 USD a month billed annually as a first-year price; Business starts at 199 USD a month billed annually (Crunchbase pricing). Contact packages start at 100 contacts for 29 USD a month.
Mobile numbers: Not specified. Contact data includes “phone numbers” for decision makers, without saying whether they are mobiles.
Best for: Teams that prospect on company signals such as a new funding round and need firmographics more than contact data.
Where it falls short: Pro exports cap at 2,000 rows a month, the 49 USD price is a first-year offer, and API access is sold separately.
Also worth a look for research: Crustdata offers company and people data through an API or an MCP connector, with live signals such as hiring, funding and job changes. It is built for AI SDRs and agent-driven prospecting rather than a dashboard. Crustdata does not publish its prices.
Why Scalelist fits teams that call and email
Scalelist fits teams that call and email because it returns mobile numbers as well as verified emails, and charges only for what it finds. That is the part of the stack a sequencer or dialer cannot fix.
- Mobile coverage. In our benchmark, run on the same list of founders per region, Scalelist found a phone number for 87% of contacts in North America, 73% in EMEA, 75% in APAC and 85% in Latin America. Apollo.io found 50%, 63% and 8% (Latin America was not tested).
- No charge for a miss. 20 credits per mobile found, 1 per email or lead found, 0 when nothing is found. Sizing a search is free.
- One sentence, not a form. You describe the buyer in plain English and check what the Lead Finder understood before you pay.
- Clear email statuses. Every email is verified before it is returned and labelled Valid or Risky. About 20 to 30% of Risky emails are deliverable; send them from a secondary domain.
Scalelist is not the best choice in four cases:
- You want one vendor for data, sequences and dialing. Apollo.io bundles all three per seat.
- You only need emails, at the lowest price per email. Hunter is cheaper per email credit.
- Your CRM is Salesforce and you want a built-in connector. Scalelist reaches Salesforce only through Zapier or the API.
- You need account-level intent data. Look at the intent tools in our lead generation guide.
Our benchmark is our own test, published with the raw data. Run your own before you buy: take 50 to 100 accounts you know, put them through two or three tools, and compare how much usable data each one returns.
Describe your buyer in one sentence, see how many people match at no cost, then pay only for the emails and mobiles that are found.
Get 20 credits to test itHow to build your prospecting stack
A working prospecting stack is one tool per job, sized to your team. Start with contact data, add a sequencer, and add a dialer only when calling becomes a daily block.
- Solo founder, about 96 USD a month. Scalelist Scaler 1K (49 USD: up to 250 people with emails plus 25 mobiles), Instantly Growth (47 USD) and HubSpot’s free CRM. Calls go from your own phone.
- Three SDRs, assembled, about 508 USD a month. Scalelist Scaler 5K (199 USD: up to 1,000 people with emails plus 150 mobiles), lemlist Email (69 USD), Aircall Professional for 3 users (210 USD) and HubSpot Sales Hub Starter for 3 seats (30 USD).
- Three SDRs, all-in-one, about 297 USD a month. Apollo.io Professional for 3 seats covers data, sequences and a dialer. It costs less; the trade-off is 8 credits per phone number and lower phone coverage outside North America.
- Ten or more reps calling all day: quote only. Cognism, Outreach and Orum all sell on quote; Cognism packages include 5 seats and Orum starts at 9.
My own calling setup is three tools: Scalelist AI lead finder pulls the list with direct mobiles, Claude preps every call, Flunter dials and logs everything. Across 894 dials in 8 recorded sessions from July to September 2026, 23% connected and 18 meetings were booked, about one meeting per 50 dials.
Most sessions called direct mobiles of Australian mid-market tech prospects; the one US session connected at 10% with no meetings.
Whatever you pick, every tool should feed one CRM record per account. The B2B prospecting process shows where each tool fits, step by step, and the full guide to sales prospecting covers the channels and cadence around them.
How to choose a prospecting tool
Choose by the bottleneck you can see in your pipeline today, not by the longest feature list.
Before you sign anything, check these six points:
- Who is it for? A 3-seat or 9-seat minimum rules a tool out for a two-person team.
- What does a mobile cost? Compare the price per mobile found, not the price per credit.
- What happens on a miss? Prefer tools that charge only when they find something.
- Where do you sell? Coverage outside North America varies more than any other number.
- Where does the data go? Check the native CRM and sequencer connections you need, not the logo wall.
- Monthly or annual? Several tools here sell annual-only plans or first-year prices.
If calls and emails are your main channels, read how to run phone and email prospecting together before you add tools.
FAQ
What is a B2B prospecting tool?
A B2B prospecting tool is software that helps a sales team find, reach or research potential business buyers. Most tools do one job: contact data tools return people with emails and mobile numbers, sequencers send and track emails, dialers place and log calls, and research tools surface reasons to reach out. A few, like Apollo.io, bundle several jobs.
What are the best sales prospecting tools for a small team?
For a small team, a contact data tool with mobile numbers plus an email sequencer covers most of the work. For example, Scalelist (from 29 USD a month) with Instantly (47 USD a month) and HubSpot’s free CRM. Apollo.io is the main all-in-one alternative at 65 USD per seat a month on monthly billing.
Which prospecting tools include mobile numbers?
Scalelist (20 credits per mobile found), Apollo.io (8 credits), Lusha (5 credits), Cognism (phone-verified mobiles in quoted packages) and lemlist (20 credits through its Data add-on) sell phone numbers. Clay offers them through marketplace providers. Aircall, PhoneBurner and Outreach do not sell numbers; you bring them.
Is Apollo.io enough on its own?
Yes, for many small teams selling in North America: it combines data, sequences and a dialer per seat. It is weaker when you call a lot outside North America (in our benchmark it found phone numbers for 8% of an APAC list) and when phone numbers are most of your spend, since each costs 8 credits.
How much does a sales prospecting stack cost?
A lean stack costs about 96 USD a month for a solo founder (Scalelist Scaler 1K, Instantly Growth and HubSpot’s free CRM) and about 500 USD a month for three SDRs with a dialer, on monthly list prices from September 2026. Stacks for ten or more reps are usually quote-only.
How do I test a prospecting tool before buying?
Run the same 50 to 100 accounts you already know through two or three tools during their free credits or trials. Compare the share of contacts with a Valid email, the share with a mobile number, and what you paid for contacts that were not found. Test on your own market, not on a demo list.
Does Scalelist replace a sequencer or dialer?
No. Scalelist is an AI lead finder: it finds people and returns verified emails and mobile numbers. You then export a CSV or send the list to HubSpot, lemlist, Instantly, Smartlead, Woodpecker or Saleshandy, and call from your dialer of choice.
Sources
- Apollo.io pricing and Apollo data requests help article
- Lusha pricing and Lusha credits guide
- Cognism pricing and Cognism compliance
- Instantly pricing
- lemlist pricing
- Outreach pricing
- Orum pricing
- Aircall pricing
- PhoneBurner pricing
- Clay pricing
- Crunchbase pricing
- HubSpot Sales Hub pricing
- Hunter pricing
- All vendor prices retrieved in a browser on 27 September 2026. Scalelist provider benchmark, September 2026 (/b2b-data-providers-comparison/).
