# ContactOut

> ContactOut is a B2B contact database and Chrome extension built primarily for recruiters, covering around 350 million professionals and 40 million companies with 150 million personal emails, 200 million work emails, and 100 million direct dial numbers; it reveals contact details from LinkedIn and other pages, meters email and phone credits separately with published fair-use caps, and sells per-seat plans whose advertised prices assume annual billing.

- Category: B2B Data Providers (https://saastracker.org/categories/b2b-data)
- Website: https://contactout.com
- Starting price: $0 (Free), then about $99 per month per seat on annual billing (email plan)
- Free plan: Five emails, five phone numbers, and five exports per day at no cost.
- Free trial: The free plan serves as the evaluation path rather than a time-limited trial
- Founded: 2015, HQ: San Francisco, California, United States, Ownership: Privately held, lightly funded
- Profile last reviewed: 2026-08-22
- Canonical profile: https://saastracker.org/products/contactout

## Overview

ContactOut was founded by Rob Liu and Peter Deng and grew up as a Chrome extension for recruiters. That origin still shapes everything about it. The core motion is a person looking at a LinkedIn profile who needs a way to reach that person outside LinkedIn, and the product's most valuable asset is its personal email coverage, roughly 150 million addresses, which is what actually gets a passive candidate to reply when a work address would be read at their desk and ignored.

It has since grown into a broader platform. There is a search portal over about 350 million professionals at 40 million companies, filterable by title, skills, location, department, company size, revenue, and technologies used. There are email campaigns with multi-stage automation, an AI personalizer, a cloud phone dialler, bulk enrichment through ContactSheets, Gmail enrichment, and an API the vendor says refreshes contact and company records hourly. The claim on data quality is triple verification with 99 percent confidence, which is a stated figure rather than a contractual one.

The pricing needs unpacking because two separate metering systems apply and neither is obvious from the plan names. Published plans run Free, then an email-only tier at 99 dollars a month, an email plus phone tier at 199, and a quoted Team or API tier. Those advertised numbers assume annual billing; month to month is noticeably higher. The pricing page also carries a toggle offering roughly 50 percent off if you exclude US and UK data, which is a candid admission that the expensive part of the dataset is the part most buyers want.

Underneath the plans sit two more limits. The terms of use set a fair-use ceiling of 2,000 email credits and 1,000 phone credits per account per month unless a separate written agreement says otherwise, and export quotas bind separately from lookup quotas at roughly 300 exports a month on the email plan and 600 on email plus phone. ContactOut is also the only vendor in this batch that states SOC 2 certification, which for a buyer with a security review process is worth real money.

## How it works

1. The primary workflow is the Chrome extension. You open a LinkedIn profile, a company site, or a search result, and ContactOut surfaces the work email, personal email, and direct dial it holds for that person. The vendor claims coverage for around 75 percent of people online.

2. Emails and phones draw on separate credit pools. Revealing an email consumes an email credit; revealing a phone number consumes a phone credit, and the phone pool is smaller and more tightly capped than the email pool.

3. Exports are a third counter. Moving revealed contacts out to a CSV, a CRM, or an ATS consumes from an export quota that is much smaller than the lookup quota, roughly 300 a month on the email plan and 600 on email plus phone, which is the limit most users hit first.

4. The search portal works the other way round, letting you filter around 350 million professionals by title, skills, seniority, location, department, company size, revenue, and technology stack, then reveal the people who match.

5. Beyond lookup, the platform runs multi-stage email campaigns with an AI personalizer, a cloud dialler, bulk enrichment through ContactSheets, Gmail enrichment, and an API that the vendor says refreshes contact and company records hourly.

## 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 per-seat annual pricing.

## Not the right fit for

- Small sales teams optimising cost per contact; per-seat annual pricing plus separate export quotas makes this several times more expensive than Hunter, Anymail Finder, or Datagma for the same volume.
- Anyone who wants the advertised price without an annual commitment; month-to-month billing is noticeably higher than the numbers on the pricing page.
- High-volume enrichment workloads; the terms of use cap fair use at 2,000 email and 1,000 phone credits a month per account unless you negotiate separately.
- Buyers who only need work emails; you would be paying for personal email and phone coverage that a cheaper email finder does not charge you for.
- Teams that want to feed a pipeline programmatically on a small budget, since API access sits in the quoted Team tier rather than on the published self-serve plans.

## Features

### Contact discovery

The extension and the database behind it.

- **Chrome extension**: Reveals work emails, personal emails, and direct dials from LinkedIn profiles, company sites, and search results, with the vendor claiming coverage for around 75 percent of people online.
- **150 million personal emails**: The asset that distinguishes ContactOut from sales-oriented vendors: personal addresses are what reach a passive candidate who ignores work mail.
- **100 million direct dial numbers**: Phone coverage drawn from a separate credit pool, gated to the email plus phone tier and above.
- **Search portal over 350 million professionals**: Filter by title, skills, seniority, location, department, company size, revenue, and technologies used across roughly 40 million companies.
- **Triple verification**: The vendor states records are triple-verified with 99 percent confidence and refreshed hourly, though as with every vendor here this is a claim rather than a contractual guarantee.
- **Bulk license to a larger profile set**: The Team tier advertises bulk licensing across a much larger profile base plus roughly 20 percent more data coverage than the self-serve plans.

### Outreach and workflow

More platform than most vendors in this category.

- **Email campaigns**: Multi-stage automated sequences run from inside the platform, so a sourcer can go from profile to outreach without a second tool.
- **AI personalizer**: Generates personalised message copy per recipient, positioned by the vendor as a response rate multiplier.
- **Cloud phone dialler**: Calling built into the platform rather than requiring a separate dialler subscription, which is unusual at this price point.
- **ContactSheets bulk enrichment**: Enrich a list in bulk rather than revealing profiles one at a time.
- **Gmail enrichment**: Surfaces contact and company context directly inside Gmail while you are writing.
- **One-click add to campaign**: The extension pushes a revealed contact straight into a sequence, which is the workflow that makes the per-seat price defensible for a full-time sourcer.

### Credits, quotas, and the fine print

Three separate meters, only one of which is advertised.

- **Separate email and phone credit pools**: Unlike RocketReach, where a phone reveal draws on the same allowance as an email, ContactOut meters them independently, so running out of phone credits does not stop email work and vice versa.
- **Fair-use caps in the terms of use**: 2,000 email credits and 1,000 phone credits per account per month unless a separate written agreement specifies otherwise, which is a ceiling most buyers never read before signing.
- **Export quotas bound separately**: Roughly 300 exports a month on the email plan and 600 on email plus phone, a much smaller number than the lookup allowance and the limit most users hit first.
- **Free plan with daily limits**: Five emails, five phone numbers, and five exports per day at no cost, which is a genuinely useful evaluation path and a workable trickle for a very occasional user.
- **Regional pricing toggle**: The pricing page offers roughly 50 percent off if you exclude US and UK data, which is a candid signal about which part of the dataset carries the cost.

### Integrations and API

Recruiting-shaped, with the API in the quoted tier.

- **ATS integrations**: Native connections into applicant tracking systems, which is the integration category that matters to the core recruiting buyer and that sales-oriented vendors ignore.
- **Salesforce integration**: Advertised on the Team tier alongside ATS connectors for organisations running both motions.
- **LinkedIn Recruiter compatibility**: Works alongside Recruiter Pro rather than only on public LinkedIn profiles, which matters for agencies with Recruiter seats.
- **API with hourly refresh**: Contact and company records are described as updated hourly through the API, which sits in the quoted Team tier rather than on the published self-serve plans.
- **Team management and reporting**: Seat administration and usage reporting on the Team tier, with a dedicated account manager.

### Compliance and company standing

The strongest certification story in this batch.

- **SOC 2 certification**: ContactOut states SOC 2 certification, which no other vendor in this batch of ten publishes and which is often the difference between passing and failing a corporate security review.
- **GDPR and CCPA with suppression support**: The vendor states GDPR and CCPA compliance with opt-out and suppression support, meaning objections can be applied as a list rather than handled one at a time.
- **Owned database**: ContactOut resolves against its own dataset rather than brokering to third parties, so provenance is a single-vendor question.
- **Around 92 employees**: Substantially larger than the four to fourteen person vendors elsewhere in this category, with a support organisation to match.
- **Personal data at scale**: Holding 150 million personal email addresses is exactly the profile that attracts regulatory attention, so the suppression and opt-out machinery is not optional decoration here.

## Use cases

- **Agency recruiter sourcing passive candidates**: Target engineers ignore InMail and never read work email, so the only reliable channel is a personal address or a mobile number. Outcome: ContactOut's 150 million personal emails and 100 million direct dials are revealed straight from the LinkedIn profile, pushed into a sequence in one click, and exported into the ATS.
- **In-house talent team needing a security review to pass**: IT has blocked three cheaper data tools because none of them holds a recognised certification and none can suppress an opt-out list. Outcome: SOC 2 certification plus GDPR and CCPA suppression support give the security team something to approve, which is worth more than the price difference against an uncertified vendor.
- **Sourcing lead working outside the US and UK**: Targets are in continental Europe and APAC, and paying full price for a dataset weighted toward US and UK coverage feels wasteful. Outcome: The pricing toggle takes roughly 50 percent off for excluding US and UK data, which materially changes the economics for a non-US desk.
- **Occasional user who needs a handful of contacts a week**: A founder needs to reach two or three specific people a week and cannot justify any subscription at all. Outcome: The free plan's five emails, five phone numbers, and five exports per day is a genuinely workable trickle, and it is one of the more generous free tiers in this category.

## Pricing

Per-seat subscription across published tiers with separate email and phone credit pools, separate export quotas, monthly fair-use caps set in the terms of use, and advertised prices that assume annual billing.

- **Free**: $0 per month. 5 emails per day; 5 phone numbers per day; 5 exports per day; Chrome extension. One of the more usable free tiers in this category, and enough to test coverage on real targets.
- **Email**: About $99 per seat per month on annual billing. Work and personal email reveals; Roughly 300 exports per month; Search portal access; Email campaigns and AI personalizer. No phone numbers on this tier; the export quota rather than the lookup quota is usually the binding limit.
- **Email plus Phone**: About $199 per seat per month on annual billing. Adds direct dial phone numbers; Separate phone credit pool; Roughly 600 exports per month; Cloud phone dialler. The tier most recruiters need, since phone coverage is the reason to choose ContactOut over a cheaper email finder.
- **Team and API**: Quoted annual. About 20 percent more data coverage; Bulk licensing across a much larger profile base; API with hourly record refresh; Salesforce and ATS integrations; Team management, reporting, and a dedicated account manager. Also compatible with LinkedIn Recruiter Pro, which is why agencies end up here.

Add-ons:

- Exclude US and UK data (About 50 percent off): A pricing toggle rather than an add-on, offering roughly half price if you do not need US and UK coverage.

Billing notes:

- The advertised prices assume annual billing. Month-to-month is noticeably higher, so the 99 and 199 dollar figures are commitment prices rather than list prices.
- Email and phone credits are metered separately, which is more flexible than a single pool: exhausting phone credits does not stop email work. It also means a plan's real capacity depends on your channel mix.
- The terms of use set a fair-use ceiling of 2,000 email credits and 1,000 phone credits per account per month unless a separate written agreement specifies otherwise. Read this before assuming a plan scales.
- Export quotas bind separately from lookup quotas, at roughly 300 exports a month on the email plan and 600 on email plus phone. For most users the export quota is the limit that actually bites.
- Pricing is per seat, so a five-person sourcing team on the email plus phone tier is paying five subscriptions.
- A toggle on the pricing page offers roughly 50 percent off for excluding US and UK data, which is worth taking for any team whose targets sit outside those two markets.
- ContactOut does not state plainly on its public pages whether a reveal that returns nothing consumes a credit. Given three separate meters and a fair-use ceiling, get this confirmed in writing before committing.

Value assessment: At the email plus phone tier, roughly 199 dollars a month per seat against 600 exports gives an effective cost near 33 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. 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.

## 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, which no other vendor in this batch publishes, is frequently the deciding factor in a corporate security review.
- GDPR and CCPA compliance with opt-out and suppression support means objections can be applied as a list rather than handled record by record.
- The Chrome extension is fast and covers LinkedIn, company sites, and search results, with claimed coverage of around 75 percent of people online.
- It is a platform rather than a lookup tool: campaigns, an AI personalizer, a cloud dialler, bulk enrichment, and Gmail enrichment are included rather than sold separately.
- The free plan at five emails, five phones, and five exports per day is genuinely usable and one of the better evaluation paths in this category.
- Around 92 employees and a decade of operation give it a support organisation most vendors here cannot match.

## 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.
- Advertised prices assume annual billing, so monthly buyers pay a premium the pricing page does not lead with.
- Per-seat licensing makes it expensive for teams, at several times the cost of unlimited-seat vendors for the same volume.
- API access sits in the quoted Team tier rather than on the published self-serve plans, so a developer cannot simply buy an endpoint.
- The 50 percent regional discount is a candid admission that US and UK coverage carries the cost, which also means non-discounted buyers are paying for the expensive part whether or not they use it.
- Holding 150 million personal email addresses is precisely the profile that attracts regulatory attention, so the compliance machinery needs to be exercised rather than assumed.
- Whether a failed reveal consumes a credit is not stated publicly, which is a notable omission for a vendor with this many meters.

## Comparisons

- **ContactOut vs 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.
- **ContactOut vs Datagma**: Datagma includes ten seats on every plan, publishes a thirty-credit mobile rate at roughly 33 to 49 cents, and charges 49 dollars a month with no commitment or export quota. ContactOut costs about 199 dollars per seat per month on annual terms but adds personal emails, a search portal, campaigns, a dialler, ATS integration, and SOC 2. Cost-led teams that already know their targets take Datagma; recruiting teams that need to pass a security review take ContactOut.
- **ContactOut vs FullEnrich**: FullEnrich aggregates twenty-five sources with verified-or-free billing, personal emails at three credits, mobiles at ten, an MCP server, and no seat charge. ContactOut owns its data, has a real interface and a recruiting workflow, and holds SOC 2. Engineering and GTM teams enriching records programmatically should take FullEnrich; sourcers working LinkedIn profiles by hand all day should take ContactOut.
- **ContactOut vs Wiza**: Wiza is built tightly around exporting and enriching LinkedIn and Sales Navigator searches, with verified-only billing and a much lower entry price. ContactOut goes further with personal emails, direct dials, a search portal independent of LinkedIn, campaigns, and a dialler. If your workflow is exporting Sales Navigator lists, Wiza is cheaper and more direct; if you need personal contact details for passive candidates, ContactOut has data Wiza does not.
- **ContactOut vs Lusha**: Lusha and ContactOut are close on shape: extension-driven reveals, per-seat pricing, phones on higher tiers, and a strong compliance posture. Lusha leans toward sales teams with intent data and a polished CRM story; ContactOut leans toward recruiting with personal emails and ATS integrations. Choose by which side of the house is buying, because both will pass a security review and both charge per seat.

## Implementation

- 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.
- 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.
- Onboarding: Self-serve on the free, email, and email plus phone tiers. The Team and API tier is quoted and includes a dedicated account manager, team management, and reporting.
- Migration: Nothing to migrate in; ContactOut is a source rather than a system of record, and exported contacts live in your ATS or CRM. On the way out, the practical constraint is the export quota: getting your revealed contacts out is itself metered, so plan an exit over several billing periods rather than expecting to bulk-export on the last day.

## Platform, API & security

- Platforms: Chrome extension, Web search portal, Gmail integration, ContactSheets bulk enrichment, REST API on the Team tier
- API: API access is part of the quoted Team tier rather than the published self-serve plans, with contact and company records described as refreshed hourly. Per-second and per-minute rate limits are not published publicly, so confirm throughput during the Team plan conversation.
- Compliance: SOC 2 certified, GDPR with opt-out and suppression support, CCPA
- Data residency: United States; no customer-selectable region is advertised, though a pricing toggle allows excluding US and UK data from the dataset you license.
- SSO: Available through the Team tier alongside team management and reporting.
- Security notes: ContactOut states SOC 2 certification, the only vendor in this batch of ten to do so, alongside GDPR and CCPA compliance with opt-out and suppression support. It resolves against its own database, including roughly 150 million personal email addresses, which is the data category that attracts the most regulatory attention and makes the suppression capability materially important rather than decorative.

## Support

- Channels: Email support, In-app chat, Dedicated account manager on the Team tier
- Documentation: Help centre covering the extension, credit and export quotas, integrations, and API usage on the Team tier.
- Community: No official forum; strong presence in recruiting and talent sourcing communities, which are the core customer base.

## Company

- Founded: 2015
- Founders: Rob Liu, Peter Deng
- Headquarters: San Francisco, California, United States
- Ownership: Privately held, lightly funded
- Employees: About 92 (2026)
- Funding: Roughly 168,000 dollars raised from 500 Global, Startmate, and Haymarket HQ. The company has grown to around 92 staff largely on revenue rather than on venture capital.

Funding history:

- Pre-seed and accelerator (2016): About $168K. Backed by 500 Global, Startmate, and Haymarket HQ; the company has grown mainly on revenue since.

Timeline:

- 2015: Founded by Rob Liu and Peter Deng as a Chrome extension for recruiters needing to reach candidates outside LinkedIn.
- 2016: Raises roughly 168,000 dollars from 500 Global, Startmate, and Haymarket HQ, then grows largely on revenue rather than further capital.
- 2020: Expands from an extension into a search portal over hundreds of millions of professional profiles with firmographic and skills filters.
- 2023: Adds email campaigns, an AI personalizer, and a cloud phone dialler, turning a lookup tool into an outreach platform for sourcers.
- 2025: Publishes SOC 2 certification alongside GDPR and CCPA suppression support, and introduces the regional pricing toggle for excluding US and UK data.
- 2026: Runs at around 92 employees with roughly 350 million profiles, 150 million personal emails, 200 million work emails, and 100 million direct dials.

## Integrations

Applicant tracking systems (native), Salesforce, LinkedIn and LinkedIn Recruiter Pro, Gmail, Google Sheets via ContactSheets, CSV export, Chrome extension, REST API on the Team tier with hourly record refresh

## FAQ

### What is ContactOut?

ContactOut is a contact database and Chrome extension built primarily for recruiters. It covers roughly 350 million professionals at 40 million companies, holding about 150 million personal emails, 200 million work emails, and 100 million direct dial numbers, and reveals them from LinkedIn profiles, company sites, and its own search portal.

### How much does ContactOut cost?

There is a free plan with five emails, five phone numbers, and five exports per day. The email plan is around 99 dollars a month per seat and the email plus phone plan around 199, both assuming annual billing; month to month is higher. The Team and API tier is quoted. A toggle on the pricing page offers roughly 50 percent off if you exclude US and UK data.

### Are phone numbers a separate credit type?

Yes. ContactOut meters email credits and phone credits in separate pools, so exhausting one does not block the other. That is more flexible than RocketReach, where phone reveals draw on the same lookup allowance, and simpler than Datagma at thirty credits per mobile or FullEnrich and BetterContact at ten. Phone numbers require the email plus phone tier or above.

### What are the real usage limits?

Three separate meters apply. Lookups, phone credits, and exports are counted independently, and the export quota is much smaller than most buyers expect, at roughly 300 a month on the email plan and 600 on email plus phone. On top of that, the terms of use set a fair-use ceiling of 2,000 email credits and 1,000 phone credits per account per month unless a separate written agreement says otherwise. Read that clause before assuming a plan scales.

### Does a failed lookup consume a credit?

ContactOut does not state the rule plainly on its public pages, which is a notable gap for a vendor running three separate meters. Competitors including Hunter, Anymail Finder, BetterContact, and FullEnrich state clearly that failures are free. Ask ContactOut for the answer in writing, and test it against the free plan's daily allowance before committing to an annual seat.

### Do I need an annual commitment for the advertised price?

Effectively yes. The published figures assume annual billing and month-to-month costs noticeably more. This is the same pattern as RocketReach and the opposite of Hunter, Anymail Finder, Icypeas, and Datagma, where the monthly price is a genuine price and annual billing is simply a discount on top.

### Is ContactOut SOC 2 certified?

Yes, and it is the only vendor among these ten that publishes SOC 2 certification. Combined with stated GDPR and CCPA compliance and opt-out and suppression support, that is often the difference between a corporate security team approving a data purchase and blocking it. For buyers with a formal review process, this is a large part of what the price premium buys.

### How does ContactOut handle GDPR for European contacts?

The vendor states GDPR compliance with opt-out and suppression support, meaning objections can be applied as a suppression list rather than handled record by record. That machinery matters here more than at most vendors, because holding roughly 150 million personal email addresses is precisely the profile regulators scrutinise. As always, the lawful basis for contacting someone is your own legitimate interest assessment, not your supplier's certification, and personal addresses are harder to justify under legitimate interest than work addresses.

### Why does personal email coverage matter?

Because passive candidates ignore work email. A senior engineer reads work mail at their desk with their manager's expectations in mind and deletes recruiting messages; a personal address arrives in a different context and gets read. ContactOut's roughly 150 million personal addresses are the single asset that most separates it from sales-oriented vendors like Hunter or Anymail Finder, which deliberately handle work email only.

### Is the API available on the self-serve plans?

No. API access sits in the quoted Team tier alongside bulk licensing, Salesforce and ATS integrations, roughly 20 percent more data coverage, team management, and a dedicated account manager. The vendor describes contact and company records as refreshed hourly through the API. A developer who simply wants an enrichment endpoint would be better served by Enrich, FullEnrich, Hunter, or Icypeas, all of which sell one without a sales conversation.

## Editorial verdict

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.

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Source: SaaSTracker (https://saastracker.org), an independent editorial project. This profile is compiled from public information, carries no peer reviews or paid placement, and was last reviewed 2026-08-22. Awards are judged on published criteria: https://saastracker.org/methodology