Explorium vs Cognism vs LeadMagic

Objective, side-by-side analysis of Explorium, Cognism, and LeadMagic 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

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

LeadMagic

5.0

The B2B data API built for AI agents and GTM engineers — pay only for valid results, no seats, no contracts, accessible via API, CLI, and MCP

  • API
  • Free Trial
  • GDPR Compliance

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

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)

LeadMagic

  • AI Agent & GTM Engineering Stack

    LeadMagic provides 20+ enrichment endpoints accessible via REST API, CLI, and MCP — including native support for Claude Desktop, Claude Code, and Claude.ai. This makes it the data layer of choice for teams building AI prospecting agents, automated enrichment workflows, and conversational data lookups without leaving their development environment.

  • Website Visitor Identification

    LeadMagic's visitor identification product reveals the companies behind anonymous website traffic, enabling revenue teams to prioritize accounts showing active buying intent. It surfaces company name, industry, headcount, and contact data for visitors — turning website analytics into an actionable outbound signal.

  • Pay-Per-Result Data Enrichment

    With credits starting at $0.008 and charges only when valid data is returned, LeadMagic is purpose-built for teams running high-volume enrichment workflows where cost predictability matters. Credits never expire on paid plans and no failed lookup is ever charged — making it a transparent alternative to subscription-based enrichment tools.

Signals powering these use cases

  • Website visitor identification — reveals companies visiting your site in real time
  • Job change detection endpoint for monitoring contact movement
  • Catch-all email verification with risk scoring
  • MCP integration for conversational enrichment via Claude and other AI tools
  • Real-time SMTP + risk-score verification on every email (under 2% bounce rate)

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

Cognism Snapshot

  • Company coverage 4.4
  • Signals depth 4.0

LeadMagic Snapshot

  • Signals depth 2.8
  • Freshness 4.9

Detailed Feature Comparison

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

Feature Comparison
Explorium
Cognism
LeadMagic
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
REST API with real-time lookups and batch delivery; developer portal at developers.cognism.com
Full REST API with 20+ endpoints; also accessible via CLI and MCP
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
GDPR compliant
Custom Entities
Real-time Lookups
Global Coverage
150M+ companies and 800M+ contacts across 150+ countries
Global; primary strength in EMEA; 90%+ director-level+ EU coverage
Global; strongest in US and Europe
CRM Integration
Available on custom enterprise plans
Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive, Microsoft Dynamics, Bullhorn, Outreach, Salesloft
Clay (top-rated); API-based integration with any CRM or automation tool
Platform interface
REST JSON API, MCP server (AgentSource MCP), batch support up to 100 entities, webhooks, sync and async modes
Web application (Sales Companion), Chrome extension for LinkedIn/CRM, API
REST API, CLI, MCP (Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Claude.ai), web app dashboard
Natural language search
Workflow automation
Automation integrations
n8n, Claude, custom webhook integrations
Outreach, Salesloft, Zapier
Clay, Zapier, n8n, Make; integrates into any stack via REST API
Company coverage
150M+ company profiles
Global; hundreds of millions; strongest in UK, DACH, Nordics, Benelux, France; 90%+ director-level+ EU coverage
Global company data including headcount, competitor intelligence, and firmographic enrichment
People coverage
800M+ people profiles (767M+ verified contacts)
Hundreds of millions globally; 10M+ phone-verified Diamond Data; 2x mobile volume vs. competitors in EMEA
Real-time email finding and mobile phone enrichment; 97% stated email accuracy with SMTP verification
Geographic coverage
150+ countries
Primary strength in EMEA (UK, Germany, France, Benelux, Nordics, DACH); also covers North America and APAC; weaker in APAC and US SMB
Global; 75–85% accuracy stated for US and European contacts
Data sources type
50+ data providers; proprietary ML enrichment; real-time web signals
Proprietary AI fusion engine: public registries, company websites, press releases, news, human verification, and customer feedback loop; 5-step validation
Proprietary real-time verification infrastructure; REST API aggregation; no single static database disclosed
Global schema consistency
Unified schema across 4,000+ data points globally; consistent API response structure
Consistent schema; EMEA data notably more complete than APAC
Consistent schema across 20+ endpoints: email, phone, company, jobs, ads data
Refresh frequency
Daily for high-velocity signals; weekly for semi-dynamic attributes; monthly/quarterly for stable firmographics
Director-level contacts refreshed every 30 days; continuous DNC list scrubbing
Real-time on each API call
Business enrichments
Company size, revenue, industry, tech stack, funding stage, headcount trends, competitive landscape, website traffic
Company revenue, headcount, industry, HQ location, technographic stack (20,000+ technologies), funding history, M&A activity, hiring trends
Company name, website, headcount, competitor intelligence, industry, LinkedIn company page
Prospect enrichments
Job title, seniority, verified email, phone, LinkedIn URL, job history, people events
Full name, job title, business email, mobile (incl. Diamond phone-verified), work history, LinkedIn profile
Verified email, mobile phone, job title, LinkedIn profile, job change signal
Enrichment categories
Firmographics, technographics, intent, funding, events, contact, website signals, lookalikes
Contact enrichment (email, mobile, title), company enrichment (revenue, headcount, industry), technographics, intent data, signal data
Email finding, email verification, mobile phone, company enrichment, website visitor identification, job change detection, catch-all verification, competitor data, headcount
Intent data
Event signals
Company events (20+ types), people events (5+ types), funding rounds, acquisitions, hiring surges
Funding rounds, C-suite job changes, hiring surges, mergers and acquisitions, technology adoption changes
Job change detection endpoint; website visitor identification (company-level intent signal)
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
97% stated email accuracy; 75–85% for US and European contacts in independent assessments
Confidence scoring
Validation methodology
Advanced ML-based deduplication; 98%+ company accuracy; 95% people accuracy
5-step AI fusion: confidence scoring, ML model validation, 15-country DNC check, human data scientist verification, customer feedback loop
Syntax, DNS, SMTP, mailbox validation, and risk scoring on every email; bounce rate under 2%
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
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
Clay (top-rated provider in Clay marketplace), Apollo; no native direct CRM integrations
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
Platform fee + per-seat annual; Grow ~$15K platform + $1.5K/seat/yr; Elevate ~$25K platform + $2.5K/seat/yr
Credit-based subscription, pay per valid result
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
Credits start at $0.008; email finding = 1 credit; email validation = 0.25 credits; mobile phone = 5 credits; not-found results always free; credits never expire on Essential+ plans
Tier structure
Free trial, Self-serve, Custom Enterprise
Grow (contact data, emails, mobiles, CRM integrations) and Elevate (adds job change signals, funding alerts, hiring data, M&A, intent data, technographics)
Basic ($59.99/mo, 2,500 credits), Essential ($99.99/mo, 10,000 credits + rollover), Growth ($179.99/mo, 20,000 credits), Pro ($399.99/mo, 50,000 credits), Ultimate ($799.99/mo, 100,000 credits)
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
100 free credits on signup; no credit card required; usable across all 20+ API endpoints
Budget commitment options
Custom enterprise plans with volume negotiation
Annual upfront only; multi-year discounts on request
Monthly billing only; no annual lock-in; credit rollover on Essential+ plans; no per-seat fees
Custom plans available
Bulk deals support
Resell rights
-
-

Pricing

Compare pricing models, flexibility, and commitment structure.

Pricing Dimension
Explorium
Cognism
LeadMagic
Pricing Model
Usage-based with custom enterprise plans
Platform license + per-seat annual subscription; no self-serve or monthly option
Credit-based subscription, pay only for valid results — no per-seat fees
Commitment Structure
One-time or custom; no mandatory annual lock-in on self-serve
Annual contract with upfront payment; 10-15% renewal increases typical
Monthly billing; no annual commitment required on any plan
Payment Recurrence
One-time or custom
Annual
Monthly
Free Trial
30-day free trial with 100 credits; no credit card required
No free trial; demo required to receive a quote
100 free credits on signup; no credit card required; works across all enrichment endpoints
Enterprise Customization
Yes — custom plans include CRM integrations, warehouse ingestion, resell rights, and dedicated support
Yes; custom packages available with dedicated onboarding
Custom volume arrangements available for high-throughput teams
Onboarding Model
Self-serve for API and MCP; dedicated onboarding for enterprise custom plans
Guided onboarding included; premium packages at additional cost ($500–$1,500)
Developer-first self-serve; comprehensive API documentation; MCP and CLI setup guides available

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
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
V

Verified G2 Reviewer

Sales Director, B2B Technology Company

"LeadMagic has the best price of the market and the quality is very good. The most accurate contact data I have found — and we have used them all: Leadfeeder, Lusha, ZoomInfo, Slintel to mention a few. Quality of data is amazing; within minutes I can find and call people and it's exactly what I need."
Verified User for LeadMagic

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Cognism better than LeadMagic?

It depends on your use case. 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 LeadMagic The B2B data API built for AI agents and GTM engineers — pay only for valid results, no seats, no contracts, accessible via API, CLI, and MCP

What is the difference between Cognism and LeadMagic?

See the feature-by-feature comparison above. In short: 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 while LeadMagic focuses on The B2B data API built for AI agents and GTM engineers — pay only for valid results, no seats, no contracts, accessible via API, CLI, and MCP.

How much does Cognism cost compared to LeadMagic?

Cognism pricing model: Platform license fee plus per-seat annual subscription; custom quotes only. LeadMagic pricing model: Credit-based subscription, pay only for valid results.

Is Cognism or LeadMagic 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.

Is Explorium better than LeadMagic?

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 LeadMagic The B2B data API built for AI agents and GTM engineers — pay only for valid results, no seats, no contracts, accessible via API, CLI, and MCP

What is the difference between Explorium and LeadMagic?

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 LeadMagic focuses on The B2B data API built for AI agents and GTM engineers — pay only for valid results, no seats, no contracts, accessible via API, CLI, and MCP.

How much does Explorium cost compared to LeadMagic?

Explorium pricing model: Usage-based with custom plans. LeadMagic pricing model: Credit-based subscription, pay only for valid results.

Is Explorium or LeadMagic 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 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.

How does LeadMagic's MCP integration work with Claude and other AI tools?

LeadMagic provides 16 MCP (Model Context Protocol) tools that connect its enrichment endpoints directly to AI environments including Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Claude.ai, and Cursor. Once configured with your LeadMagic API key, you can ask the AI assistant to look up a contact's email, enrich a company record, or identify website visitors in natural language — and the AI will call the appropriate LeadMagic API endpoint, return the result, and incorporate it into the conversation. This enables conversational B2B data enrichment without writing code or switching to a separate interface.

What is the difference between LeadMagic's Basic and Essential plans regarding credit rollover?

On the Basic plan ($59.99/month, 2,500 credits), unused credits expire at the end of each billing cycle. On the Essential plan ($99.99/month, 10,000 credits) and all higher tiers, unused credits roll over indefinitely with no expiration date. For teams with variable enrichment volume — such as those running large campaigns in some months and minimal enrichment in others — the Essential plan's rollover policy can provide significantly better value despite its higher nominal price.

How does LeadMagic's Clay integration work, and why is it the top-rated provider in Clay's marketplace?

LeadMagic is accessible as a native data provider within Clay, where it powers email finding, phone enrichment, company data, and visitor identification directly within Clay table workflows. When accessed via Clay's managed integration, enrichment costs 6 credits per enriched cell (reflecting Clay's coordination layer). LeadMagic is rated as the top enrichment provider in Clay's marketplace based on community reviews, primarily due to its accuracy-to-cost ratio — teams using LeadMagic via Clay report finding valid data at a significantly lower cost per result compared to other providers in the same marketplace.

How accurate is LeadMagic's email verification, and what validation steps does it perform?

LeadMagic states 97% email accuracy and a under-2% bounce rate, achieved through a five-step verification pipeline: syntax check (format validation), DNS validation (domain exists and has valid MX records), SMTP handshake (mailserver accepts the email), mailbox validation (address-level existence check), and risk scoring (spam trap and disposable email detection). Every email that passes this pipeline is returned as verified; any email that fails any step is returned as invalid and no credit is charged. The stated 75–85% accuracy range for US and European contacts in independent assessments reflects the real-world find rate, not the accuracy of emails that are returned.

What does LeadMagic's website visitor identification product actually reveal?

LeadMagic's visitor identification product de-anonymizes company-level website traffic — it reveals which companies are visiting your website, not individual visitor identities. For each identified visit, it surfaces company name, industry, headcount, company website, and a link to matching contacts in LeadMagic's enrichment database so you can identify decision-makers to contact. It does not identify individual visitors by name or personal data. The signal is most useful for account-based sales and marketing teams that want to prioritize outreach to companies already showing active interest in their product.

Does LeadMagic have a Claude Code Skill or Claude Plugin?

Not officially — LeadMagic has a custom MCP server that can be used with Claude, but no dedicated Claude Code plugin or skill. 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.