ContactOut vs RocketReach
An independent, review-free comparison compiled by the SaaSTracker editorial team. Both products are profiled in full, and neither can pay for placement here.
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The short answer
Both sides assessedContactOut compared with RocketReach
The closest comparison available: both sell large owned people databases through browser extensions on per-seat annual plans. RocketReach claims the larger database and draws phone reveals from the same allowance as emails, so phones carry no multiplier. ContactOut meters email and phone separately, holds stronger personal email coverage, integrates with ATS platforms and Recruiter Pro, and publishes SOC 2. Recruiters should take ContactOut; generalists who mainly need search breadth should take RocketReach.
RocketReach compared with ContactOut
The closest comparison in this batch: both sell large owned people databases with browser extensions, per-seat annual pricing, and separate treatment of email and phone. ContactOut is more recruiter-shaped, with ATS integrations, Recruiter Pro compatibility, and separate email and phone credit pools plus fair-use caps. RocketReach has the larger claimed database and does not multiply the cost of a phone lookup. Recruiters embedded in an ATS lean ContactOut; generalists who need search breadth lean RocketReach.
Choose ContactOut if
Recruiters and talent sourcing teams who work inside LinkedIn all day, need personal email addresses and mobile numbers to reach passive candidates, and value SOC 2 certification and ATS integration enough to accept a premium over email finders.
Choose RocketReach if
Recruiters and individual sales professionals who need to search a very large people database rather than enrich a list they already have, who need phone numbers alongside emails, and who can justify a per-seat annual subscription.
Side by side
13 attributes| Attribute | ContactOut | RocketReach |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Data | Data |
| Starting price | $0 (Free), then $49 per month (Email, global data), or $39 per month billed annually | $229 per seat per year (Essentials, about $19 a month), or $39 a month billed monthly (free plan available) |
| Pricing model | One-user subscription tiers with separate email and phone credit pools, separate export quotas, monthly fair-use caps set in the terms of use, monthly or annual billing, and a toggle that halves the price if you exclude US and UK data. | Per-seat subscription across three published tiers, with lookup and export volume caps, phone numbers gated to Pro and above, and API access on every tier; advertised low prices assume annual billing. |
| Free plan | Five emails, five phone numbers, and five exports per day at no cost. | A small monthly lookup allowance for evaluation; not workable for production use. |
| Free trial | The free plan serves as the evaluation path rather than a time-limited trial | A free account with 5 lookups is available for evaluation |
| Best for | Recruiters and talent sourcing teams who work inside LinkedIn all day, need personal email addresses and mobile numbers to reach passive candidates, and value SOC 2 certification and ATS integration enough to accept a premium over email finders. | Recruiters and individual sales professionals who need to search a very large people database rather than enrich a list they already have, who need phone numbers alongside emails, and who can justify a per-seat annual subscription. |
| Setup time | Ten minutes: install the extension, sign in, open a LinkedIn profile. ATS or CRM integration takes an hour or two and is where the value of the paid tiers actually lands. | Fifteen minutes: create the account, install the browser extension, run a search. CRM integration takes another hour, and the API is available from Essentials. |
| Learning curve | Low on the extension, but the metering deserves an hour of attention before anyone starts working. Teams that do not understand that exports are a separate and much smaller quota than lookups will hit a wall in the first fortnight and conclude the product is broken. | Low for the extension, moderate for the search filters, which reward learning. The genuinely confusing part is the metering: lookups and exports are separate counters with different caps depending on whether you chose monthly or annual billing, and most new users do not realise this until they hit a limit. |
| Platforms | Chrome extension, Web search portal, Gmail integration, ContactSheets bulk enrichment, REST API on the Team tier | Web application, Browser extension, Bulk lookup, REST API |
| Compliance | SOC 2 certified, GDPR with opt-out and suppression support, CCPA | GDPR, CCPA, Published individual opt-out process |
| Founded | 2015 | 2015 |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, California, United States | Bellevue, Washington, United States |
| Ownership | Privately held, lightly funded | Venture and growth-equity backed after nearly a decade bootstrapped |
Strengths and limitations
ContactOut
Strengths
- Personal email coverage at roughly 150 million addresses is the standout asset and the reason recruiters choose it over sales-oriented vendors.
- Separate email and phone credit pools are more flexible than a single shared allowance, since running out of one does not block the other.
- SOC 2 certification is frequently the deciding factor in a corporate security review, and ContactOut is one of the few data providers here that states it.
- GDPR and CCPA compliance with opt-out and suppression support means objections can be applied as a list rather than handled record by record.
Limitations
- Three separate meters, lookups, phone credits, and exports, with only one of them prominent on the pricing page; the export quota is usually the binding limit and it is much smaller than buyers expect.
- The terms of use cap fair use at 2,000 email and 1,000 phone credits per account per month unless separately agreed, which is a real ceiling on any high-volume plan.
- The live prices sit under struck-through list prices of 99 and 199 dollars with no stated end date, so the cost could rise at renewal.
- Per-seat licensing makes it expensive for teams, at several times the cost of unlimited-seat vendors for the same volume.
RocketReach
Strengths
- One of the largest owned contact databases available self-serve, at roughly 700 million professionals and 60 million companies, with real-time coverage on 430 million.
- It is a genuine search tool, not only an enrichment tool, so it answers who to contact rather than only how to reach them.
- Phone numbers are drawn from the same lookup allowance rather than costing a ten or thirty credit multiplier, which is unusually favourable at volume once you are on Pro.
- Personal emails alongside work emails on Pro and Ultimate make it genuinely useful for recruiting, which is a large share of its user base.
Limitations
- Per-seat pricing is the dominant cost factor for any team, and it compounds: five people on Pro is over 4,000 dollars a year before anyone looks anything up.
- The advertised prices assume an annual commitment; monthly billing costs 45 to 80 percent more for the same plan.
- Essentials is email-only, so the cheapest tier is a non-starter for anyone who needs to call, and there is no add-on to fix it.
- API rate limits are not published on the pricing page, and API use draws on the same modest per-seat export and lookup caps, so a pipeline outgrows the published plans quickly.
Pricing compared
ContactOut
One-user subscription tiers with separate email and phone credit pools, separate export quotas, monthly fair-use caps set in the terms of use, monthly or annual billing, and a toggle that halves the price if you exclude US and UK data.
- Free$0
- Email$49
- Email plus Phone$99
- Team and APIQuoted
At the email plus phone tier, 99 dollars a month against 600 exports gives an effective cost near 16.5 cents per exported contact, and considerably more if you never approach the quota. That is an order of magnitude above Hunter, Anymail Finder, or Icypeas. The premium buys three things those vendors cannot supply: personal email addresses at scale, direct dial numbers, and a SOC 2 certification that lets a security team say yes (Enrich and FullEnrich also state SOC 2). For a full-time recruiter whose placements depend on reaching passive candidates, the arithmetic works easily. For a sales team enriching known accounts, it does not, and the per-seat structure plus the export quota make it worse as the team grows.
RocketReach
Per-seat subscription across three published tiers, with lookup and export volume caps, phone numbers gated to Pro and above, and API access on every tier; advertised low prices assume annual billing.
- Essentials$229 per year
- Pro$619 per year
- Ultimate$1,379 per year
- Team and customQuoted
At the published caps, Essentials works out at about 19 cents per export annually and 39 cents per lookup monthly, Pro at about 17 cents and 32 cents, and Ultimate at about 7 cents annually and 17 cents monthly. Those are several times the per-contact cost of Hunter, Anymail Finder, or Icypeas. What you are buying for the difference is a searchable owned database of around 700 million people, phone numbers at no extra credit multiplier, and a ten-year-old vendor with a support organisation. For a recruiter who lives in the product all day and needs to find people rather than enrich them, that is defensible. For a small team enriching known lists, it is poor value, and the per-seat structure makes it worse with every person you add.
Editorial verdict on each
ContactOut
ContactOut is a recruiting tool that happens to sell contact data, and it should be judged on that basis. Personal emails at scale, direct dials in a separate credit pool, an extension that works everywhere a sourcer works, campaigns and a dialler included, ATS and Recruiter Pro compatibility, and a SOC 2 certification no other vendor here publishes make it a straightforward purchase for a full-time sourcing desk. The pricing is where care is required: three separate meters, an export quota far smaller than the lookup allowance, a fair-use ceiling buried in the terms of use, advertised prices that assume an annual commitment, and per-seat licensing that compounds with every hire. Buy it for recruiting, buy the phone tier because the email tier misses the point, and read the quota clauses before you sign. For sales teams enriching known accounts, this is several times the market rate for capabilities you will not use.
Read the full ContactOut profileRocketReach
RocketReach is a proper database business rather than a lookup utility, and it should be evaluated as one. Roughly 700 million people, real search filters, personal emails, and phone numbers that do not carry a credit multiplier make it genuinely valuable to recruiters and to individual sellers building a territory from nothing. It is also the most expensive way to buy contact data in this batch: prices are per seat, the advertised numbers assume an annual commitment, the cheapest tier has no phone numbers, the API rate limits are unpublished, and the volume caps are small enough that any real enrichment workload needs a quote. Buy it if finding people is the job. If you already know who you want and simply need their details, almost everything else in this category will do that job for a fraction of the money.
Read the full RocketReach profileContactOut profile last reviewed 2026-09-26; RocketReach last reviewed 2026-09-27. Pricing is compiled from public sources and can change without notice. See our methodology.
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Frequently asked questions
6 questionsWhat is the difference between ContactOut and RocketReach?
The closest comparison available: both sell large owned people databases through browser extensions on per-seat annual plans. RocketReach claims the larger database and draws phone reveals from the same allowance as emails, so phones carry no multiplier. ContactOut meters email and phone separately, holds stronger personal email coverage, integrates with ATS platforms and Recruiter Pro, and publishes SOC 2. Recruiters should take ContactOut; generalists who mainly need search breadth should take RocketReach.
Is ContactOut or RocketReach cheaper?
ContactOut starts at $0 (Free), then $49 per month (Email, global data), or $39 per month billed annually. RocketReach starts at $229 per seat per year (Essentials, about $19 a month), or $39 a month billed monthly (free plan available). The billing models differ, so the entry price is rarely the whole cost. ContactOut pricing model: One-user subscription tiers with separate email and phone credit pools, separate export quotas, monthly fair-use caps set in the terms of use, monthly or annual billing, and a toggle that halves the price if you exclude US and UK data. RocketReach pricing model: Per-seat subscription across three published tiers, with lookup and export volume caps, phone numbers gated to Pro and above, and API access on every tier; advertised low prices assume annual billing.
Does ContactOut or RocketReach have a free plan?
ContactOut has a free plan. Five emails, five phone numbers, and five exports per day at no cost. Trial terms: The free plan serves as the evaluation path rather than a time-limited trial. RocketReach has a free plan. A small monthly lookup allowance for evaluation; not workable for production use. Trial terms: A free account with 5 lookups is available for evaluation.
Who should choose ContactOut?
Recruiters and talent sourcing teams who work inside LinkedIn all day, need personal email addresses and mobile numbers to reach passive candidates, and value SOC 2 certification and ATS integration enough to accept a premium over email finders.
Who should choose RocketReach?
Recruiters and individual sales professionals who need to search a very large people database rather than enrich a list they already have, who need phone numbers alongside emails, and who can justify a per-seat annual subscription.
What are the best alternatives to ContactOut and RocketReach?
SaaSTracker profiles 26 products in B2B Data Providers. The Summer 2026 awards in the category went to Apollo.io (Category Leader), Lusha (Best Value), Prospeo (Momentum). Every profile is compiled from primary sources, so a shortlist can be built from pricing, limitations, and fit rather than from star ratings.
