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Saniya Sood
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Published June 18, 2025 · Updated October 7, 2026
The short answer: a sales intelligence tool tells you who to contact and why, before anyone writes a message. The ten below split into three kinds. Contact databases (ZoomInfo, Cognism, Apollo, Lusha, UpLead, Instantly's lead database) sell emails, phones and firmographics by the credit. Account intent platforms (6sense) score which companies are researching your category. Workflow layers (Clay, Sales Navigator, Valley) sit on top of data and turn it into lists, research or sent messages. Prices run from free tiers to Vendr-reported medians above $60,000 a year, so the first question is which kind you are buying, not which logo.
Disclosure: Valley makes one of the tools below and competes for part of this budget. Our entry is marked. Every price was read from the vendor's own pricing page on October 6 or 7, 2026; where a vendor publishes no price, the figure is Vendr's contract median and says so.
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What an automated sales intelligence tool does
Four jobs, and most products do one or two of them well: find the right companies and people (search, filters, a database), enrich a record with verified contact details and firmographics, signal that an account or person is in market (intent topics, hiring, funding, website visits, LinkedIn activity), and act on it (research, a message, a sequence). When a vendor says "all in one", check which of the four it actually does without a second tool.
How we checked
Prices and plan details were read from each vendor's pricing page on October 6 or 7, 2026. ZoomInfo and 6sense publish no prices, so their figures come from Vendr's marketplace medians, read the same day. We have not run all ten side by side; feature descriptions are the vendors' own, and we say where that is the case.
Keep exploring: every buying signal, ranked · the intent-data tools compared.
Give your sales team
an unfair advantage.
Tool | Kind | Starting price | Trial | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Valley (our tool) | Workflow: signals, research, messages | $149/seat/mo billed quarterly ($199 monthly) | 7 days | Teams that want signals turned into sent, personalized outreach |
Cognism | Contact database + intent | Not published; Standard and Pro, 5 seats included | Not stated | Teams that phone first and need verified mobiles |
ZoomInfo | Contact database + intent | Not published; Vendr median $33,500/yr | Not stated | Enterprise teams with a data budget |
Apollo | Contact database + sequencer | Free; Basic $49/user/mo annual | 14 days | Small teams that want data and sending in one place |
LinkedIn Sales Navigator | Search and signals inside LinkedIn | Core $119.99/mo | Free trial for eligible members | Anyone whose buyers live on LinkedIn |
6sense | Account intent platform | Not published; Vendr median $62,440/yr | Not stated | Large account-based teams |
Clay | Enrichment workflow builder | Free; Launch $185/mo ($167 annual) | Free plan | GTM engineers building custom data flows |
Lusha | Contact database | Free (40 credits/mo); Starter $49.90/mo | Free plan | Individual reps who need a few verified numbers a day |
UpLead | Contact database | Essentials $99/mo ($74 annual) | 7 days, 5 credits | Teams that value a stated accuracy guarantee |
Instantly (Lead Database) | Contact database + email sender | Growth Credits $47/mo ($37.60 annual) | No card to sign up; length not stated | Cold-email teams that want leads and sending together |
1. Valley: signals, research and the message, in one flow (our tool)
Valley starts from people already showing intent (profile views, post engagement, website visits, job changes, funding) or from a list you give it, qualifies each person against your ICP, researches them on the open web and drafts a personalized LinkedIn or email message that you approve before it sends. It is the only tool on this list that ends in a sent message rather than a row of data.
Pricing: Starter $199 per seat a month, or $149 billed quarterly, LinkedIn only with email as an add-on; Plus $299 ($249 quarterly) adds 1,000 email messages a month and onboarding; Growth $499 with $300 of credits a month. 7-day trial, payment method required.
Honest cons: it is not a contact database. If your problem is finding phone numbers for a known list, start with Cognism or Apollo and bring the list here.
Read next: Valley pricing explained.
2. Cognism: verified mobiles and Bombora intent, priced by quote
Cognism sells B2B contact and company data with the compliance work done on the data side: emails, phone-verified mobiles, firmographics, technographics and, on the Pro package, intent data from Bombora. The pricing page lists two Sales Prospecting packages, Standard and Pro, each with 5 seats included, and ends both in "Talk to sales".
Pricing: not published. One credit reveals one contact; viewing an already-revealed contact is free; a credit is spent again only if the person changes jobs. CRM Enrichment is an add-on or a standalone product.
Honest cons: no price list means no budgeting without a call, and no self-serve trial is mentioned on the pricing page.
Read next: Cognism pricing explained.
3. ZoomInfo: the largest database, at enterprise prices
ZoomInfo is the reference database for enterprise sales teams: contacts, org charts, technographics, intent and a growing Copilot layer. It publishes no prices. Vendr's marketplace, read October 6, 2026, reports a median contract of $33,500 a year across 1,574 purchases, with a range from $7,220 to $155,730 and an average saving of 22% against the first quote.
Pricing: quote only; current plans are Professional, Copilot Advanced and Copilot Enterprise. Vendr's guide prices run from about $14,995 for the entry tier to $35,995 to $39,995 for enterprise, with extra seats around $1,500 to $2,500 and top-up credits from $0.20 to $1.50.
Honest cons: seat minimums and annual contracts; small teams pay enterprise overhead for data they will not exhaust.
Read next: ZoomInfo pricing explained.
4. Apollo: database and sequencer with a public price list
Apollo bundles a contact database, email sequencing, a dialer and basic intent into one product with prices on the page. Credits are pooled per team: an email costs 1 credit, a phone number 8, and unused credits do not roll over.
Pricing: Free; Basic $49, Professional $79 and Organization $119 per user a month on annual billing ($65 and $99 monthly for the first two; Organization is annual only with a 3-seat minimum). 14-day trial with 75 credits.
Honest cons: data accuracy varies by region, and the sequencer sends from your own mailboxes, so deliverability is your problem.
Read next: Apollo pricing and credits explained.
5. LinkedIn Sales Navigator: the search layer inside LinkedIn
Sales Navigator is less a database than a lens on LinkedIn's own graph: advanced people and account search, saved lists, alerts on job changes and posts, and InMail. Its intelligence is first-party, which is why most other tools on this list export from it.
Pricing: Core $119.99 a month per seat ($1,079.88 a year), Advanced $159.99 a month ($1,799.88 a year), Advanced Plus by quote. All three include 50 InMail credits a month. Free trials are offered to members not on another paid LinkedIn plan; the length is not stated on the plans page.
Honest cons: no emails or phones, no sending beyond InMail, and exports are against LinkedIn's terms unless you use a sanctioned integration.
Read next: is Sales Navigator worth it in 2026.
6. 6sense: account intent for large ABM teams
6sense predicts which accounts are in market from anonymous research behaviour and coordinates ads, email and sales around them. It is sold as a core platform plus modules (Sales Intelligence, Advertising, Conversational Email, Revenue AI) and publishes no prices.
Pricing: quote only. Vendr's median contract is $62,440 a year across 385 purchases, with small deployments (2,000 to 5,000 accounts, one or two modules) at $50,000 to $120,000. Budget 15 to 25% more for implementation.
Honest cons: account-level signals name companies, not people; a team under about ten sellers usually cannot act on what it buys.
Read next: 6sense pricing explained.
7. Clay: build your own enrichment waterfall
Clay is a spreadsheet-shaped workflow builder that chains dozens of data providers (waterfall enrichment), scrapes the web with an AI agent and pushes results to your CRM or sequencer. It is the tool GTM engineers reach for when no single database is good enough.
Pricing: Free plan; Launch from $185 a month ($167 annual) with 2,500 data credits and 15,000 actions; Growth from $495 ($446 annual). Data credits roll over up to twice the monthly allowance; actions reset monthly.
Honest cons: somebody has to build and maintain the tables, and the provider credits inside Clay are a second bill on top of the plan.
Read next: Clay pricing and credits explained.
8. Lusha: a free tier and cheap verified numbers
Lusha is a contact database with a browser extension, aimed at individual reps who need a verified email or mobile while they are on a LinkedIn profile. Its free plan is the lowest entry point on this list.
Pricing: Free with 40 credits a month; Starter $49.90 a month for 400 credits ($37.45 a month annual); Professional $69.90 for 600 ($52.45 annual); Premium $399.90 for 3,400 ($299.95 annual). An email costs 1 credit, a phone number 5.
Honest cons: coverage is thinner outside North America and Western Europe, and there is no intent layer.
9. UpLead: a stated accuracy guarantee
UpLead is a contact database that leads with a 95% email accuracy claim and verifies in real time at export. It is simpler than Apollo and smaller than ZoomInfo, which is the point for teams that want a clean list without a platform.
Pricing: Essentials $99 a month for 170 credits ($74 a month annual, 2,040 credits a year); Plus $199 for 400 credits ($149 annual); Professional by quote with intent data and API access. 7-day trial with 5 credits; extra credits $0.60 each.
Honest cons: monthly credit counts are small; a team that exports hundreds of contacts a week will be on Professional quickly.
10. Instantly: a lead database bolted to a cold-email sender
Instantly started as an email sending and warm-up tool and added a 450M-contact lead database sold on credits. For a cold-email team it removes the handoff between finding and sending; for everyone else it is a sending tool first.
Pricing: Lead Database plans: Growth Credits $47 a month ($37.60 annual) for 1,500 credits; Supersonic $97 ($87.30 annual) for 5,000 to 7,500; Hyper from $197 ($177.30 annual) for 10,000 and up. Outreach plans are separate, from $47 a month ($37.60 annual) for 1,000 contacts and 5,000 emails. No card needed to sign up.
Honest cons: no LinkedIn channel, no intent signals, and the two plan families are billed separately.
Read next: Instantly pricing explained.
► Want the Valley side shown on your own accounts? Book a demo
Give your sales team
an unfair advantage.
Buy by the job, not the category. If reps are waiting on phone numbers, you need a database (Cognism, Apollo, Lusha, UpLead). If marketing wants to know which accounts are researching you, that is intent (6sense, or Cognism Pro and ZoomInfo as add-ons). If the problem is that good data arrives and nobody acts on it, that is a workflow layer (Clay to build it, Valley to run it).
Five questions before you sign
How many credits are included per seat, and what does one credit buy: an email, a phone number, or an enrichment?
Do unused credits roll over, and for how long?
Is the price per seat or per account, and what is the seat minimum?
Which signals are first-party (LinkedIn activity, your website) and which are bought from a third party such as Bombora?
Where does the tool stop: a list, a researched record, or a sent message? Everything after that line is a second tool and a second bill.
Where Valley fits
Valley (our tool) is the last step in the chain: it takes people who are already warm, from signals or from a list the tools above produced, and turns them into researched, personalized conversations across LinkedIn and email. Plans start at $149 per seat a month billed quarterly. If you are deciding between a database and an outbound layer, how we compare outbound tools explains the method behind our comparison pages.
► Start with your warm pool: 7 days free, every feature on
FAQ
What is automated sales intelligence? Software that finds, enriches and prioritises prospects without a rep doing the research by hand: databases for contact details, intent platforms for in-market signals, and workflow tools that act on both.
What is the cheapest sales intelligence tool? Lusha and Apollo both have free plans; Instantly's lead database and Apollo's Basic plan start under $50 a month. Free tiers are capped by credits, so they suit individual reps, not teams.
How much does ZoomInfo cost compared with Apollo? ZoomInfo publishes no prices and Vendr's median contract is $33,500 a year; Apollo publishes prices from $49 per user a month on annual billing.
Do I need intent data? Only if someone will act on it within hours. Account-level intent tells you a company is researching; it does not tell you who. Person-level signals (profile views, post engagement, website visits) are cheaper to act on.
Can one tool do all of it? Not well. Databases, intent platforms and workflow tools are different products with different pricing models; the realistic stack is one database plus one layer that sends.
How this page was made: the facts were read from the sources named in the text on October 7, 2026; drafted with AI assistance; fact-checked, reviewed and edited by Saniya Sood.
