Quick verdict: ContactOut sells unlimited reveals per user at $99 per month for email and $199 with phone numbers, capped by monthly exports of 300 and 600. That suits one heavy sourcer. It suits a team badly, because the cost multiplies by headcount. Every alternative below changes one of those two variables: it shares seats, or it meters credits at a lower price. The right choice depends on whether your constraint is people or volume.
The short list: SignalHire for unlimited seats, Prospeo for the cheapest credits, Wiza for simple per user plans, Tomba for metered API work, Clay for enrichment at scale.
How should you compare contact finders?
Ignore database sizes. Every vendor here states hundreds of millions of profiles, and none of those numbers tell you whether the mobile number of a warehouse manager in Ohio is in there. Compare on four things instead.
Seats first: are you buying per user or per team. Then credits: what one email costs against one mobile number, since phones usually cost several times more. Then exports, which is the limit list builders hit before they run out of reveals. Then the refund rule, because a vendor that charges for a failed lookup is more expensive than its price list suggests.
| Tool | Published entry price | Model | Free tier |
|---|---|---|---|
| ContactOut | $99 per month, $199 with phones | Per user, unlimited reveals, capped exports | 5 emails, 5 phones and 5 exports a day |
| Prospeo | $49 per month, or $37 on yearly billing | Credits, 1 per email and 10 per mobile | 100 credits a month, no time limit |
| Wiza | $49 per month per user | Per user allowances plus overage rates | Yes, 25 credits to start |
| SignalHire | $57 per month, annual | Credits, unlimited users on every paid plan | 5 credits, 10 with the extension |
| Tomba | $89 per month for 10,000 credits | Metered credits shared across every endpoint | Yes |
| Clay | From $185 per month on Launch | Data credits plus actions, many providers | Yes, 100 data credits and 500 actions |
Which is cheapest for a team?
SignalHire, because every paid plan includes unlimited users. Four recruiters share one $57 per month subscription billed annually and draw on the same credits, against $396 per month for four ContactOut email seats.
It also includes email sequences that send from your own connected mailbox, plus an MCP server and a REST API. The trade is the credit ceiling: allowances differ between the emails, phones, and emails plus phones plans, so count a real week of reveals before choosing a tier.
Which has the cheapest credits?
Prospeo. The Starter plan is $49 per month, or $37 per month on yearly billing with 24,000 credits delivered up front. Growth is $99 monthly or $74 yearly, and Pro is $249 monthly or $187 yearly with 180,000 credits a year.
The credit rules are the part to read. One credit returns one verified business email, a direct mobile number costs ten, and credits reset at renewal without rolling over. Browsing and searching are free, and an export that finds no email costs nothing, which is the refund rule you want. Add on packs start at 1,000 credits for $10.
Which is simplest to budget?
Wiza. It publishes plain monthly plans at $49, $99 and $199 per user with stated email and phone allowances and clear overage rates of $0.15 per extra email and $0.35 per phone number. Yearly plans run at $990 and $1,990 per user and include unlimited credits, which suits a recruiter who reveals all day and does not want to think about it.
There is a free plan with 25 credits to start and no card required, so the hit rate test costs nothing.
Which is best for API and automation work?
Tomba. It is priced purely as metered credits shared across every endpoint, at $89 per month for 10,000 credits, which works out at $8.90 per 1,000. One credit finds or verifies an email, one credit reveals up to 50 companies, and a phone lookup costs five. Verification credits come bundled rather than sold separately.
The vendor also states that a search returning no valid email is free. At the top, a self serve Scale plan is metered at 300,000 credits a month, and enterprise is an annual contract with uncapped API access, custom endpoints, single sign on and a named contact.
Which is best for enrichment at scale?
Clay, though it is a different category. Launch starts at $185 per month with 2,500 data credits and 15,000 actions, Growth at $495 with 6,000 credits and 40,000 actions, and Enterprise is custom with an annual commitment.
Clay is not a finder, it is an orchestration layer that waterfalls across more than 150 data partners, so it usually wins where one provider’s coverage is not enough. Data credits start at $0.05 and unused ones roll over up to twice your monthly allowance on Launch and Growth. You can also bring your own provider API keys and pay only actions, which changes the economics if you already hold contracts.
Which should you actually buy?
One heavy user who needs unlimited mobile numbers should stay on ContactOut at $199 and stop reading. A team of two or more should move to SignalHire and share the seat. A team watching cost per contact should price Prospeo against its real monthly volume. A developer piping contacts into a product should use Tomba. A growth team running multi provider waterfalls should use Clay.
Whatever the shortlist, run the same twenty profiles from your own niche through two free tiers and compare hit rates. Coverage differs enormously by industry, seniority and region, and it is the only test that predicts what you will actually pay per usable contact.
Quick answers
What is the cheapest ContactOut alternative?
Prospeo at $37 per month on yearly billing, or SignalHire at $57 per month if several people need access.
Do any of them include phone numbers?
Yes. Prospeo charges ten credits per mobile, Wiza charges $0.35 per phone number beyond the plan allowance, Tomba charges five credits per phone lookup, and SignalHire sells phone focused plans.
Which has a genuinely free plan?
Prospeo gives 100 credits a month with no time limit. Tomba, Wiza, Clay and SignalHire all offer free tiers, and ContactOut allows five emails, five phones and five exports a day.
Do unused credits roll over?
Usually not. Prospeo credits reset at renewal and do not roll over. Clay is the exception, where data credits accumulate up to twice the monthly amount on Launch and Growth.
Are failed lookups charged?
Prospeo and Tomba both state that a search returning no valid email costs nothing. Confirm this with any vendor before signing, because it changes the effective price.
Which one connects to my ATS?
SignalHire and ContactOut both list ATS and CRM integrations, and both offer MCP and an API. Prospeo connects to Clay, Zapier, Outreach and lemlist, with native HubSpot and Salesforce sync on its higher plans.
The bottom line
ContactOut is a good product priced for one person. The moment a second recruiter needs it, the model works against you, and that is what every alternative here is exploiting.
Share the cost with SignalHire, cut the cost per contact with Prospeo, keep budgeting simple with Wiza, automate with Tomba, or orchestrate many providers with Clay. Then read the direct comparison if your choice comes down to the first two.
Sources: ContactOut pricing, Prospeo pricing, Wiza pricing, SignalHire pricing, Tomba pricing, Clay pricing