The ZoomInfo alternative for people who build their own lists
A raw public data API you build lists with, billed on results.
What ZoomInfo is, plainly
ZoomInfo is one of the biggest names in B2B contact data, and it earned that. You get a huge pre-built database of companies and contacts, org charts, intent data, and native integrations into the big CRMs.
For a sales team that lives in Salesforce all day, the whole package is built around their workflow. Those are real strengths and we are not going to pretend otherwise.
The catch is how it is sold. ZoomInfo does not publish its prices. You talk to a sales rep, you sign an annual contract, and the number is built from seat licenses, credit allowances, and add-ons.
For a funded sales org, that model can be fine. For a founder, a recruiter, an agency, or one growth engineer who just needs lists, the seat math and the year-long commitment are usually where the search for an alternative begins.
A database you rent vs an API you build with
CrustAPI sells raw public data by the query. You send a request, we return clean JSON, and the list you build is yours to keep. There is no seat, no contract, and no database subscription.
Two data sources do the ZoomInfo-style work. Google Maps business records give you every local business that matches a search: name, address, phone, website, rating, review count, categories, and hours.
LinkedIn public people data gives you the humans: people search (beta), profiles, companies, jobs, and posts, with verified emails on people results. Around those two sit 12 live Google search types, including reviews, news, shopping, and web search.
The trade-off is real: you write the queries and build the workflow yourself, or wire it into a tool like Clay or n8n. There is no pre-built database to browse, no intent data, and no org charts. What you get instead is fresh data, per-result pricing, and no lock-in.
What data do you get?
This is the account-list side. One maps query returns the businesses that match, about 1 second per search, billed the Maps rate per business returned.
Notice what is missing: an email. Maps records carry name, address, phone, website, rating, reviews, categories, and hours.
They do not carry email addresses, and any page telling you Google Maps returns emails is selling something. The emails come from the people side, below.
People data with verified emails
The contact-record job, the one you actually pay ZoomInfo for, runs through the LinkedIn public endpoints. Search people by keywords (beta), pull full public profiles, companies, jobs, and posts.
People results come with verified emails, so the row you export is one you can write to.
Pay only for results at the applicable endpoint rate. Google Search bills per successful request and Maps per business returned. LinkedIn reads bill per successful request, People and Jobs per successful search, Refresh per accessible profile, and enriched People per full profile. Empty and failed requests are free. The pricing page lists every rate.
The full parameter set lives in the docs, and you can run every endpoint from the playground without writing code. For the whole LinkedIn surface, see the LinkedIn scraper API page.
ZoomInfo vs CrustAPI, plainly
These are different animals, so the fair comparison is by job, whether you pay for a workflow platform or for the data itself.
| ZoomInfo | CrustAPI | |
|---|---|---|
| What you buy | A subscription to a pre-built contact database plus a sales platform | An API that pulls fresh public data on demand |
| Pricing model | Quote-based annual contract: seats, credit allowances, add-ons | Google Search costs $1.00 per 1,000 successful requests at standard prices, down to $0.20 for the largest deposit. Empty and failed searches are free. Every eligible account gets $6 of free usage monthly. Paid funds never expire. |
| Commitment | Annual contract is the norm | None. Paid funds never expire |
| Seats | Licensed per seat | No seats. One key, use it anywhere |
| Free tier | Talk to sales | $6 of free usage each month |
| Emails | Contact records with emails and phones | Verified emails on LinkedIn people results |
| Local business data | Company profiles and facts | Full Google Maps records: phone, website, rating, reviews, hours |
| Intent data + org charts | Yes, real strengths | No |
| Integrations | Native CRM integrations | MCP, n8n, LangChain, CrewAI, Clay, plain JSON everywhere else |
| Support | Enterprise sales and support org | One person. Email Dawson at support@crustapi.com |
ZoomInfo column describes their public pricing model and product in general terms as of July 2026. We put their strengths in the table on purpose. Check their site for current specifics.
When ZoomInfo is the better pick: you run a sales team that needs a shared platform, intent signals, org charts, and native Salesforce or HubSpot sync. You want to browse a pre-built database instead of writing queries, and procurement wants a big vendor behind the data. If that is your shape, ZoomInfo is good at that job.
How much does CrustAPI cost?
Pay only for results at the applicable endpoint rate. Google Search bills per successful request and Maps per business returned. LinkedIn reads bill per successful request, People and Jobs per successful search, Refresh per accessible profile, and enriched People per full profile. Empty and failed requests are free. The pricing page lists every rate.
| 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 a paused project keeps what you bought. The free tier resets every month with no card.
How do you build a list?
From zero to an exported lead 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 businesses land in a table.
- 3
Click export. Download the CSV, or copy your key and run the curl above.
Who switches from ZoomInfo?
- Founders. Build the first account list without an annual contract or a sales call.
- Recruiters. Pull public profiles and company data, with verified emails on people results.
- Agencies. Build a fresh lead list per client from Maps: phone, website, rating, city by city.
- Growth engineers. Wire fresh data into Clay or n8n and pay per result, not per seat.
Related: LinkedIn people search API · Google Maps scraper API · Bright Data LinkedIn alternative · Google Reviews API
Common questions
No, and we would rather say so up front. ZoomInfo is a sales platform with a pre-built database, intent data, and org charts. CrustAPI is a raw public data API. If your team lives inside ZoomInfo's workflow tools, we will not replace that. If you mainly pay ZoomInfo to build lists of businesses and people, an API plus your own workflow does that job for a lot less.
From the LinkedIn people endpoints. People results come with verified emails. Google Maps business records do not include emails (they carry name, address, phone, website, rating, reviews, categories, and hours), and we will not pretend otherwise. The usual flow is maps for the account list, then people search (beta) for the humans and their emails.
Google Search starts at $1.00 per 1,000 successful requests, Maps at $1.96 per 1,000 businesses, LinkedIn reads at $6.00 per 1,000 successful requests, and People, Jobs and Refresh at $1.96 per 1,000 billing units. Full profiles in People use the LinkedIn read rate per full profile. Each deposit saves its own prices until spent. Every eligible account gets $6 of free usage monthly; paid funds never expire.
It costs nothing. You are only charged when a query returns results, so a search that comes back empty or fails does not touch your funds.
12 Google search types (web, maps, places, news, shopping, images, videos, scholar, patents, autocomplete, webpage, reviews) plus the LinkedIn public endpoints: people search (beta), profiles, companies, jobs, and posts. Everything returns plain JSON and works with MCP, n8n, LangChain, CrewAI, and Clay.
One person. I'm Dawson, I build and run the whole thing, and support@crustapi.com lands in my inbox. That is a real trade-off next to an enterprise vendor with a support org, and you should weigh it. The upside is that the person answering your email is the person who wrote the code.
Clay
Run one real query first
The free plan covers a real test: pull a business list for your city, search the people you would actually contact, and look at the JSON before you spend a dollar.
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