Build a live B2B database from public data
Built live from public data, and you pay only for results.
A bought database ages from day one
The classic B2B database is an export, and the clock started the moment it was collected: people change jobs, agencies rebrand, companies close. Every month a slice of the file quietly goes wrong, and you find out when the emails bounce.
The billing model matches: an annual contract, priced per seat, usually reached through a sales call. You pay for the whole index whether you touch 2% of it or all of it.
CrustAPI works the other way around. You send a query, we fetch the public record right then, and you pay one charge per result that comes back.
A query that returns nothing costs nothing. The rows land as plain JSON, drop straight into Sheets, Clay, or your CRM, and there is no seat, no term, and no renewal date.
Three data sources in one workflow
A useful B2B list has a company layer and a people layer. Both run through the same key.
Companies
Name, address, phone, website, category, rating, review count, and hours for any business type in any city. Up to 100 per search, ~1 second. Full detail on the Google Maps scraper API page.
Firmographics
Point type=company at a public LinkedIn company page for the firmographic record. See the LinkedIn Company API and a dated Microsoft company profile. Browse more examples in the company directory.
People + emails
Search people by keyword (search is beta), pull full public profiles, and get verified emails on people results. See the LinkedIn people search API.
What data do you get?
Here is the exact request I ran while writing this page, and the first row it came back with, about a second later. You get it as CSV or as JSON.
One thing to flag on this layer: company records from Maps do not include email addresses. They carry name, address, phone, website, rating, reviews, categories, and hours. Emails live in the people layer below.
Find the humans, get verified emails
A company list becomes an outbound list when you know who to write to. The LinkedIn endpoints search public profiles by keyword, so you can go from "marketing agencies in Denver" to the founders and owners behind them.
A plain search returns fast discovery rows: name, headline, and profile URL. Add enrich=true and each match comes back as a full public profile, with a verified email where one is found.
People search is billed per successful search request. If you request full profile enrichment, it is billed per full profile returned at the LinkedIn read rate. Empty or failed results cost nothing. The same endpoint also covers companies, jobs, and posts; the LinkedIn scraper API page has the whole set.
How do you get started?
No code needed. From zero to a company list in about two minutes:
- 1
Create a free account. Try it free, no card needed.
- 2
Type a search in the playground. Something like marketing agencies in Denver. The companies land in a table.
- 3
Click export. Download the CSV, or copy your key and run the curl above for JSON.
Agencies: a fresh prospect list per client vertical, built the day the campaign starts.
SaaS teams: map your market city by city, then find the buyer at each company.
Ops builders: wire it into Clay, n8n, or LangChain as the enrichment step that only bills on hits.
vs a seat-license database
Tools like ZoomInfo and Apollo sell a prebuilt index with workflow features on top. That is a different product with real strengths. Here is where the models actually differ.
| Seat-license database | CrustAPI | |
|---|---|---|
| How you pay | Annual contract per seat, usually after a sales call | Deposits from $10; lower prices from $149 |
| When a row is collected | Ahead of time, refreshed on the vendor's schedule | At the moment you query |
| Empty lookups | Varies by vendor and plan | Free. No result, no charge |
| Unused volume | Typically resets or expires with the term | Paid funds never expire |
| Getting started | A demo and a quote | Free to try, no card |
| What you get | A big prebuilt index plus filters, intent data, and CRM sync | Raw JSON you shape into exactly the list you need |
If you want the deeper head-to-head, the ZoomInfo alternative page walks through it. And if your starting point is local businesses rather than a B2B motion, the business database page covers the same data from that angle.
How much does a B2B database cost?
You pay one charge per result that comes back. A Maps search returning 40 agencies costs $0.0784 at standard prices. Enriched People bills per full profile at the LinkedIn read rate. Empty queries are free.
| Deposit | Google Search / 1,000 requests | Maps / 1,000 businesses | LinkedIn reads / 1,000 requests | People, Jobs, Refresh / 1,000 units |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $10+ | $1.00 | $1.96 | $6.00 | $1.96 |
| $149+ | $0.76 | $1.49 | $4.50 | $1.49 |
| $549+ | $0.56 | $1.10 | $3.30 | $1.10 |
| $1,999+ | $0.41 | $0.80 | $2.45 | $0.80 |
| $6,500+ | $0.33 | $0.65 | $1.95 | $0.65 |
| $27,500+ | $0.28 | $0.55 | $1.65 | $0.55 |
| $50,000+ | $0.26 | $0.50 | $1.50 | $0.50 |
| $100,000+ | $0.20 | $0.40 | $1.50 | $0.40 |
Every eligible account gets $6 of free usage monthly. Each deposit keeps its prices until spent; paid funds never expire. People and Jobs bill per successful search, Refresh per accessible profile. Full profiles in People use the read rate per full profile. See all billing details.
Larger deposits unlock lower endpoint prices. Each deposit keeps its prices until spent. See the full deposit table on the pricing page. Prices in USD, ex-tax.
Paid funds never expire, so whatever you do not use this quarter is still there next year.
When a seat-license database is the better pick: your sales team wants a managed workflow with intent signals, org charts, and native CRM sync, and someone else keeps the index current. That is genuinely useful at enterprise scale, and it is not what we sell. We sell the raw material, fresh, priced per row.
Common questions
It's an API. You send queries and keep whatever comes back, as plain JSON, with no storage limits from us. The rows drop into Sheets, Clay, a CRM, or a database. If you'd rather not write code, the playground at /app runs the same queries from a form.
Public, logged-out pages that we scrape ourselves: 12 Google search types (Maps, web, news, reviews, and more) plus LinkedIn public profiles, companies, jobs, and posts. No accounts are used and no third-party data is resold.
No. Maps company records carry name, address, phone, website, rating, review count, categories, and hours. Verified emails come from the LinkedIn people endpoints, which is the layer built for finding the humans.
It's fetched when you ask. A maps query runs in about 1 second and reads the public record at that moment, so there's no export sitting in a warehouse going stale.
Maps costs $1.96 per 1,000 businesses at standard prices, down to $0.40 for the largest deposit. Empty and failed searches are free. Every eligible account gets $6 of free usage monthly. Paid funds never expire.
When your sales team wants a managed product: intent data, org charts, and native CRM sync, with someone else maintaining the index. Those are real strengths. If what you need is fresh raw rows priced per result, that's us. The ZoomInfo alternative page has the longer comparison.
Related: Business database · ZoomInfo alternative · LinkedIn people search API · Google Maps scraper API
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