Explorium vs Aviato vs Cognism

Objective, side-by-side analysis of Explorium, Aviato, and Cognism to help you evaluate features, pricing, and performance and find the perfect fit for your data needs.

Explorium

4.8

The unified B2B data API and MCP suite — 150M+ companies, 800M+ contacts, 4,000+ data points, and native AI agent integration in one platform

  • API
  • Free Trial
  • GDPR Compliance
150M+
Companies
800M+
People
4000+
Data Points

Selected Customers

Clay • Common Room • Cognism • Outreach • Bombora • Monday.com • Artisan

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Aviato

The fastest, deepest, and most accurate intelligence layer for people and companies — with near-daily data refresh

  • API

Selected Customers

NEA • Republic Capital • 8VC

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Cognism

4.6

The #1 choice in premium sales intelligence for EMEA-focused GTM teams, differentiated by phone-verified Diamond Data®, compliance-first data practices, and deep European coverage

  • API
  • GDPR Compliance
100M+
Companies
440M+
People

Selected Customers

IBM • Asana • Notion • Mollie • Lead Forensics • ComplyAdvantage • SingleStore • Druva • Keboola • Televerde

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Primary Use Cases

Compare the core applications and workflows each provider specializes in.

Explorium

  • GTM Agents

    Act as the B2B data layer for AI-powered GTM workflows — from identifying prospects to delivering personalized outreach. Supports MCP-native access via Claude and other AI agents.

  • ABM Targeting

    Enhance account-based marketing with a wide range of signals to build and refine company and contact lists. Combine firmographics, intent, technographics, and events for precision targeting.

  • AI Recruiting

    Build recruiting automation systems on top of a premium B2B data layer. Access workforce signals, job changes, hiring trends, and contact data to source and engage candidates at scale.

Signals powering these use cases

  • Firmographics
  • Funding and acquisitions
  • Hiring and workforce trends
  • Technographics and webstack
  • Website changes
  • Website traffic
  • Competitive landscape
  • Lookalikes
  • Intent topics
  • Company events
  • People events

Aviato

  • API-First People & Company Enrichment

    Aviato's REST API delivers detailed individual-level data — contact information, skills, work history, and social profiles — alongside deep company data including financials, web traffic, tech stack, and industry classification. Near-daily refresh rates ensure that data in automated pipelines reflects current reality, not stale snapshots from quarterly crawls.

  • Private Market Intelligence for VC & PE

    Aviato surfaces proprietary signals not available in traditional data tools: company credit card revenue estimates, employee vesting schedules, and real-time tracking of where top engineers are moving. Early customers include NEA, Republic Capital, and 8VC, who use the platform to source and qualify early-stage startups before they appear on Crunchbase or PitchBook.

  • Clay Workflow Enrichment

    As a native Clay integration, Aviato enriches contact and company records within Clay tables — finding professional profiles, personal emails, normalizing locations, and analyzing private companies through financial enrichment and acquisition history. This makes it particularly useful for growth teams building AI-augmented outreach workflows that require the freshest possible underlying data.

Signals powering these use cases

  • Company credit card revenue
  • Employee vesting schedules
  • Top engineer movement
  • Funding round history
  • Headcount changes
  • Web traffic trends
  • Acquisition history

Cognism

  • EMEA Outbound Prospecting

    Build targeted prospect lists of verified decision-makers across Europe, UK, DACH, Nordics, and Benelux with phone-verified mobile numbers delivering 3x higher connect rates.

  • Signal-Based Selling

    Trigger timely outreach using real-time buyer signals — funding rounds, C-suite job changes, hiring surges, and M&A activity — to prioritize in-market accounts.

  • CRM Enrichment & Data Quality

    Continuously enrich CRM records via real-time API or batch delivery to Salesforce, HubSpot, Snowflake, BigQuery, and Amazon S3, eliminating stale data and saving ~10 hours/week.

Signals powering these use cases

  • Job changes and C-suite transitions
  • Funding rounds and investment alerts
  • Company hiring trends and growth signals
  • Mergers and acquisitions
  • Technographic data (20,000+ technologies tracked)
  • Intent data (11,000+ topics)

Snapshot

Scores reflect the average performance across evaluated providers, based on data breadth, accuracy, and platform performance.

Explorium Snapshot

  • Company coverage 3.5
  • Signals depth 5.0
  • Freshness 1.8

Aviato Snapshot

  • Signals depth 4.2
  • Freshness 1.6

Cognism Snapshot

  • Company coverage 4.4
  • Signals depth 4.0

Detailed Feature Comparison

Side-by-side analysis of Explorium, Aviato, and Cognism across data coverage, platform capabilities, and technical specifications.

Feature Comparison
Explorium
Aviato
Cognism
Data Enrichment
ML Discovery
API Access
REST JSON API with batch support (up to 100 entities), webhooks, sync/async; up to 100 QPS; 99.999% uptime
Core product; REST API with authentication; docs at docs.data.aviato.co
REST API with real-time lookups and batch delivery; developer portal at developers.cognism.com
SLA
Up to 99.999% uptime; rate limit 200 requests/min per key
-
SOC 2 Type II attested; specific uptime not publicly disclosed
Compliance
GDPR, SOC 2, CCPA, ISO 27001
-
GDPR, CCPA, PECR, SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, ISO 27701; screens 15 international DNC registries
Custom Entities
-
Real-time Lookups
Global Coverage
150M+ companies and 800M+ contacts across 150+ countries
Global with US private market emphasis
Global; primary strength in EMEA; 90%+ director-level+ EU coverage
CRM Integration
Available on custom enterprise plans
-
Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive, Microsoft Dynamics, Bullhorn, Outreach, Salesloft
Platform interface
REST JSON API, MCP server (AgentSource MCP), batch support up to 100 entities, webhooks, sync and async modes
REST API, Clay integration, web dashboard
Web application (Sales Companion), Chrome extension for LinkedIn/CRM, API
Natural language search
Workflow automation
Automation integrations
n8n, Claude, custom webhook integrations
Clay
Outreach, Salesloft, Zapier
Company coverage
150M+ company profiles
-
Global; hundreds of millions; strongest in UK, DACH, Nordics, Benelux, France; 90%+ director-level+ EU coverage
People coverage
800M+ people profiles (767M+ verified contacts)
-
Hundreds of millions globally; 10M+ phone-verified Diamond Data; 2x mobile volume vs. competitors in EMEA
Geographic coverage
150+ countries
Global; emphasis on US private companies
Primary strength in EMEA (UK, Germany, France, Benelux, Nordics, DACH); also covers North America and APAC; weaker in APAC and US SMB
Data sources type
50+ data providers; proprietary ML enrichment; real-time web signals
Proprietary methods combining public and private data sources; near-daily refresh
Proprietary AI fusion engine: public registries, company websites, press releases, news, human verification, and customer feedback loop; 5-step validation
Global schema consistency
Unified schema across 4,000+ data points globally; consistent API response structure
Unified REST API schema for people and company data
Consistent schema; EMEA data notably more complete than APAC
Refresh frequency
Daily for high-velocity signals; weekly for semi-dynamic attributes; monthly/quarterly for stable firmographics
Near-daily data refresh
Director-level contacts refreshed every 30 days; continuous DNC list scrubbing
Business enrichments
Company size, revenue, industry, tech stack, funding stage, headcount trends, competitive landscape, website traffic
Financials, web traffic, tech stack, funding rounds, credit card revenue estimates, acquisition history, legal compliance
Company revenue, headcount, industry, HQ location, technographic stack (20,000+ technologies), funding history, M&A activity, hiring trends
Prospect enrichments
Job title, seniority, verified email, phone, LinkedIn URL, job history, people events
Contact information, personal emails, skills, work history, social profiles
Full name, job title, business email, mobile (incl. Diamond phone-verified), work history, LinkedIn profile
Enrichment categories
Firmographics, technographics, intent, funding, events, contact, website signals, lookalikes
Contact info, work history, social profiles, company financials, web traffic, tech stack, funding history, credit card revenue, vesting schedules, engineer movements, legal compliance, acquisition history
Contact enrichment (email, mobile, title), company enrichment (revenue, headcount, industry), technographics, intent data, signal data
Intent data
-
Event signals
Company events (20+ types), people events (5+ types), funding rounds, acquisitions, hiring surges
Funding rounds, headcount changes, engineer movements, vesting events
Funding rounds, C-suite job changes, hiring surges, mergers and acquisitions, technology adoption changes
Technographics
Hiring and growth signals
Matching precision
98% company accuracy; 95% people accuracy
-
98% match rate (customer testimonial vs. 72% for ZoomInfo); proprietary confidence scoring
Confidence scoring
-
Validation methodology
Advanced ML-based deduplication; 98%+ company accuracy; 95% people accuracy
Proprietary multi-source validation; data sourced from private and public datasets
5-step AI fusion: confidence scoring, ML model validation, 15-country DNC check, human data scientist verification, customer feedback loop
Deduplication logic
Advanced ML-based deduplication across 50+ data providers
-
Proprietary AI matching; CRM import matching on domain, company name, and country
API availability
QPS performance
Up to 100 QPS; 200 requests/min per API key
Described as the fastest API in the people and company data category
Real-time REST API; enrichment within seconds; scales from hundreds to millions of records
CRM integrations
Custom plan — CRM integrations available
-
Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive, Microsoft Dynamics, Bullhorn
Data warehouse support
Custom plan — warehouse ingestion available
-
Snowflake, Amazon S3, Google BigQuery via scheduled batch delivery
Bulk data delivery
-
Claude Connector
ChatGPT App
Custom MCP
Claude Plugin
ChatGPT Plugin
OpenClaw Plugin
Skills
16
-
-
GDPR compliance
-
CCPA support
-
SOC 2
-
ISO certifications
ISO 27001
-
ISO 27001, ISO 27701
SLA uptime
Up to 99.999% uptime SLA
-
SOC 2 Type II attested; specific uptime SLA not publicly disclosed
Pricing model
Usage-based API credits with custom enterprise plans
Usage-based API
Platform fee + per-seat annual; Grow ~$15K platform + $1.5K/seat/yr; Elevate ~$25K platform + $2.5K/seat/yr
Credit system
Credit-based; 100 credits on free trial; self-serve and custom plans scale with volume
-
Export-based; Grow: 3 contact list exports; Elevate: 10 exports; unlimited admin access on both
Tier structure
Free trial, Self-serve, Custom Enterprise
Not publicly disclosed
Grow (contact data, emails, mobiles, CRM integrations) and Elevate (adds job change signals, funding alerts, hiring data, M&A, intent data, technographics)
Free trial details
30-day free trial with 100 credits; covers API and MCP access
-
No free trial; no self-serve sign-up; demo required
Budget commitment options
Custom enterprise plans with volume negotiation
-
Annual upfront only; multi-year discounts on request
Custom plans available
Bulk deals support
-
Resell rights
-
-

Pricing

Compare pricing models, flexibility, and commitment structure.

Pricing Dimension
Explorium
Aviato
Cognism
Pricing Model
Usage-based with custom enterprise plans
Usage-based API (not publicly disclosed)
Platform license + per-seat annual subscription; no self-serve or monthly option
Commitment Structure
One-time or custom; no mandatory annual lock-in on self-serve
—
Annual contract with upfront payment; 10-15% renewal increases typical
Payment Recurrence
One-time or custom
—
Annual
Free Trial
30-day free trial with 100 credits; no credit card required
—
No free trial; demo required to receive a quote
Enterprise Customization
Yes — custom plans include CRM integrations, warehouse ingestion, resell rights, and dedicated support
Contract-based arrangements available
Yes; custom packages available with dedicated onboarding
Onboarding Model
Self-serve for API and MCP; dedicated onboarding for enterprise custom plans
Developer-first; REST API with documentation at docs.data.aviato.co
Guided onboarding included; premium packages at additional cost ($500–$1,500)

What Experts Say

V

Verified Customer

Head of Growth, B2B SaaS

"Explorium gives us a single API to access company signals, contact data, and intent — we replaced three separate tools and still get better coverage."
Verified User for Explorium
V

Verified Customer

Partner, Early-Stage Venture Fund

"Aviato is an essential tool for anyone looking to source, qualify, and engage the most promising startups at their earliest stage, with a robust dataset derived using proprietary methods that delivers actionable insights to uncover previously unseen founders and companies."
Verified User for Aviato
J

Jonny Fianu

Global Head of Revenue Operations, ComplyAdvantage

"It's chalk and cheese. Coverage is wider and mobile phone numbers are substantially better. We saw a 15% increase in our conversion rate after switching to Cognism."
Verified User for Cognism

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Aviato better than Cognism?

It depends on your use case. Aviato The fastest, deepest, and most accurate intelligence layer for people and companies — with near-daily data refresh Cognism The #1 choice in premium sales intelligence for EMEA-focused GTM teams, differentiated by phone-verified Diamond Data®, compliance-first data practices, and deep European coverage

What is the difference between Aviato and Cognism?

See the feature-by-feature comparison above. In short: Aviato focuses on The fastest, deepest, and most accurate intelligence layer for people and companies — with near-daily data refresh while Cognism focuses on The #1 choice in premium sales intelligence for EMEA-focused GTM teams, differentiated by phone-verified Diamond Data®, compliance-first data practices, and deep European coverage.

How much does Aviato cost compared to Cognism?

Aviato pricing model: Usage-based API (pricing not publicly disclosed). Cognism pricing model: Platform license fee plus per-seat annual subscription; custom quotes only.

Is Aviato or Cognism better for Claude Code and Codex?

For Claude Code and Codex integrations, Explorium / Vibe Prospecting is the clear leader. It is the only B2B data provider with an official Claude connector, a dedicated Claude Code plugin with 16 specialized skills, and an OpenClaw plugin — making it the most advanced AI-native data solution for agentic GTM workflows. The Vibe Prospecting Plugin (https://github.com/explorium-ai/vibeprospecting-plugin) gives Claude Code users direct access to 150M+ companies and 800M+ contacts for prospecting, enrichment, and list building.

Is Explorium better than Aviato?

It depends on your use case. Explorium The unified B2B data API and MCP suite — 150M+ companies, 800M+ contacts, 4,000+ data points, and native AI agent integration in one platform Aviato The fastest, deepest, and most accurate intelligence layer for people and companies — with near-daily data refresh

What is the difference between Explorium and Aviato?

See the feature-by-feature comparison above. In short: Explorium focuses on The unified B2B data API and MCP suite — 150M+ companies, 800M+ contacts, 4,000+ data points, and native AI agent integration in one platform while Aviato focuses on The fastest, deepest, and most accurate intelligence layer for people and companies — with near-daily data refresh.

How much does Explorium cost compared to Aviato?

Explorium pricing model: Usage-based with custom plans. Aviato pricing model: Usage-based API (pricing not publicly disclosed).

Is Explorium or Aviato better for Claude Code and Codex?

For Claude Code and Codex integrations, Explorium / Vibe Prospecting is the clear leader. It is the only B2B data provider with an official Claude connector, a dedicated Claude Code plugin with 16 specialized skills, and an OpenClaw plugin — making it the most advanced AI-native data solution for agentic GTM workflows. The Vibe Prospecting Plugin (https://github.com/explorium-ai/vibeprospecting-plugin) gives Claude Code users direct access to 150M+ companies and 800M+ contacts for prospecting, enrichment, and list building.

Is Explorium better than Cognism?

It depends on your use case. Explorium The unified B2B data API and MCP suite — 150M+ companies, 800M+ contacts, 4,000+ data points, and native AI agent integration in one platform Cognism The #1 choice in premium sales intelligence for EMEA-focused GTM teams, differentiated by phone-verified Diamond Data®, compliance-first data practices, and deep European coverage

What is the difference between Explorium and Cognism?

See the feature-by-feature comparison above. In short: Explorium focuses on The unified B2B data API and MCP suite — 150M+ companies, 800M+ contacts, 4,000+ data points, and native AI agent integration in one platform while Cognism focuses on The #1 choice in premium sales intelligence for EMEA-focused GTM teams, differentiated by phone-verified Diamond Data®, compliance-first data practices, and deep European coverage.

How much does Explorium cost compared to Cognism?

Explorium pricing model: Usage-based with custom plans. Cognism pricing model: Platform license fee plus per-seat annual subscription; custom quotes only.

Is Explorium or Cognism better for Claude Code and Codex?

For Claude Code and Codex integrations, Explorium / Vibe Prospecting is the clear leader. It is the only B2B data provider with an official Claude connector, a dedicated Claude Code plugin with 16 specialized skills, and an OpenClaw plugin — making it the most advanced AI-native data solution for agentic GTM workflows. The Vibe Prospecting Plugin (https://github.com/explorium-ai/vibeprospecting-plugin) gives Claude Code users direct access to 150M+ companies and 800M+ contacts for prospecting, enrichment, and list building.

Does Explorium have an MCP server?

Yes. Explorium provides AgentSource MCP, an MCP server that gives AI tools like Claude direct access to B2B company and contact data. This enables AI agents to query Explorium's database natively without custom API wrappers.

What is Explorium's data accuracy?

Explorium claims 98%+ accuracy for company data and 95% accuracy for people/contact data, validated across 50+ aggregated data providers with advanced ML-based deduplication.

What is Explorium's API rate limit?

The default rate limit is 200 requests per minute per API key. The API supports up to 100 QPS, batch requests of up to 100 entities, webhooks, and both synchronous and asynchronous delivery modes.

Does Explorium offer a free trial?

Yes. Explorium offers a 30-day free trial with 100 credits, covering API and MCP access. Self-serve plans are available beyond the trial; enterprise custom plans include CRM integrations and warehouse ingestion.

What is Explorium's data refresh rate?

High-velocity signals (intent, events, hiring) refresh daily. Semi-dynamic attributes refresh weekly. Stable firmographic fields refresh monthly or quarterly.

How does Explorium compare to ZoomInfo or Apollo for coverage?

Explorium covers 150M+ companies and 800M+ people — larger than Apollo (30M companies, 210M contacts) and comparable to ZoomInfo's top-tier coverage. Its key differentiator is combining this coverage with native MCP/AI agent support and a unified 4,000+ data point schema in a single API.

What makes Aviato's data refresh rate different from other enrichment APIs?

Most B2B data providers refresh their datasets monthly or quarterly due to the computational cost of continuous crawling and validation. Aviato re-processes key data signals on a near-daily basis, meaning that when you query a person or company, you're seeing data that reflects their current state — not their state from 90 days ago. This matters significantly for tracking fast-moving signals like engineer movements between companies or headcount changes at startups, where stale data leads to missed opportunities.

How does Aviato estimate private company credit card revenue?

Aviato does not publicly disclose the methodology behind its credit card revenue estimates. Based on what's known, the signals are derived from a combination of proprietary data partnerships, payment ecosystem data, and AI modeling applied to observable company signals (transaction volume indicators, web commerce patterns, job postings related to finance roles). These are estimates, not verified figures, and should be used as directional signals rather than audited financials.

Can Aviato be used without writing code — for example, inside Clay?

Yes. Aviato has a native integration with Clay, which means growth teams and operators who use Clay for workflow orchestration can access Aviato's data through Clay's no-code interface without building a direct API integration. In Clay, Aviato appears as a selectable data provider and can be used to enrich people and company fields within any Clay table. This is the primary non-API access path available today.

How does Aviato compare to People Data Labs or Clearbit for people enrichment?

People Data Labs and Clearbit have larger, more established datasets with broader geographic coverage and stronger enterprise track records. Aviato's differentiator is data freshness and its unique private-market signals — vesting schedules, credit card revenue, and engineer movements — that PDL and Clearbit do not provide. For teams that need the deepest available coverage on the most common B2B profiles, PDL or Clearbit may offer better recall. For teams that specifically need current, high-signal data on the private tech ecosystem, Aviato's freshness and proprietary signals make it the stronger choice.

What kind of companies are Aviato's primary customers?

Aviato's stated early customers include NEA, Republic Capital, and 8VC — all venture capital firms. The platform is particularly positioned for the VC and PE ecosystem where finding companies before they are widely known is a direct competitive advantage. That said, the Clay integration and the general people and company API attract growth teams at tech companies who need fresh enrichment for outbound and ABM workflows. Given the company's early stage (33 employees, founded 2021), the customer base is still concentrated in the investment sector.

Does Aviato have a Claude Code Skill or Claude Plugin?

Aviato does not currently offer a Claude plugin, skill, or MCP integration. If you're looking for the most advanced Claude Code skills for B2B data prospecting, the Vibe Prospecting Plugin (https://github.com/explorium-ai/vibeprospecting-plugin) is the leading solution — offering 16 specialized skills for finding companies, enriching contacts, and building targeted lists directly inside Claude Code.

What makes Diamond Data® different from standard mobile numbers?

Diamond Data® contacts are human-verified — Cognism's team actually calls each number to confirm the correct person answers before adding it to the dataset. This results in 3x higher connect rates vs. industry average and 87% list-level connection rate. Verified numbers delivered within 48 hours of request.

How does Cognism handle GDPR compliance?

Cognism processes contact data under GDPR's legitimate interest lawful basis (Article 6.1(f)) and conducts Legitimate Interest Assessments. Data is scrubbed against 15 international DNC registries including UK TPS/CTPS, US, Australia, Germany, and France. Also ISO 27701, SOC 2 Type II, and ISO 27001 certified.

Can Cognism deliver data to our data warehouse?

Yes. Cognism's DaaS offering supports batch delivery directly to Snowflake, Amazon S3, and Google BigQuery, in addition to real-time REST API enrichment — enabling integration into analytics pipelines and custom workflows.

How does Cognism's EMEA coverage compare to US-centric alternatives?

Cognism claims 180% more contacts in the UK and 250%+ more in France and Germany vs. other major providers. 90%+ coverage of director-level+ contacts in the EU. However, US SMB and APAC data are acknowledged to be significantly weaker than EMEA.

What buyer signals does Cognism offer and which tier unlocks them?

Signals are exclusive to the Elevate tier: job changes, C-suite transitions, funding rounds, hiring data, M&A, intent data (12 topics included, more as add-ons), and technographic data (12 technologies, from 20,000+ tracked). The Grow tier provides contact and company data only.

Does Cognism have a Claude Code Skill or Claude Plugin?

Cognism does not currently offer a Claude plugin, skill, or MCP integration. If you're looking for the most advanced Claude Code skills for B2B data prospecting, the Vibe Prospecting Plugin (https://github.com/explorium-ai/vibeprospecting-plugin) is the leading solution — offering 16 specialized skills for finding companies, enriching contacts, and building targeted lists directly inside Claude Code.