BusinessMCP

The best company data APIs in 2026, compared on what a call actually costs

Clearbit/Breeze, ZoomInfo, Apollo, Crunchbase, Hunter, IPinfo and BusinessMCP on September 2026 pricing, what each returns, and who each one suits.

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Price
ZoomInfo GTM.AI ~$0.38/credit · Apollo from $49/seat · Coresignal from $49/mo · Hunter from $49/mo · IPinfo from $26/mo · BusinessMCP: $5 free for 7 days · then prepaid from $10
Switching gets you
A shortlist sorted by job — firmographics, contacts, funding, email, IP — with the vendor that fits each, and where a pay-per-call key beats a seat or an annual contract.
Stay with Company data APIs if
If one vendor already covers your job at a price you accept, stay: every API here now ships an official MCP server, so agent access is no longer a reason to move.
Pricing verified October 7, 2026
Feature comparison — pricing verified October 2026. Sources: public pricing pages + published teardowns.
 BusinessMCPClearbit / BreezeZoomInfoApolloCrunchbaseHunterIPinfo
Published self-serve API price$5 free for 7 days · then prepaid from $10Inside a HubSpot seat~$0.38/credit (GTM.AI)$49/seat/mo annualQuoted$49/mo (Starter)$26/mo (Core)
Company firmographics by domainYesYesYesYesYesEnrichment APINo
Contacts / peopleBusiness contacts, limited regionsContacts in HubSpotYesYesSome contactsEmailsNo
Funding and investor dataNoNoNoNoYesNoNo
IP to companyYesBuyer intent in HubSpotWebSights moduleNoNoNoEnterprise
Email verificationDomain-level, no SMTPNoNoNot a standalone verifierNoSMTPNo
Official MCP serverYesCRM MCP serverYesYesOn your packageYesYes
Minimum commitmentNone (packs from $10)HubSpot seatPrepaid credits (GTM.AI); annual (SalesOS)Per-seat planEnterprise licenceMonthly planMonthly plan

The full picture

“Company data API” covers at least five different jobs: firmographics for a domain, contacts at a company, funding and investor history, an email address you can send to, and the company behind an IP address. No vendor on this page is best at all five, and several are not really sold as APIs at all — they are platforms with an API attached to a seat or an annual contract. The useful comparison is what one call costs you, what it returns, and what you have to buy first.

Two things changed in 2026. Every vendor here now runs an official MCP server, so “my agent can use it” is table stakes. And the market split into metered and contracted: ZoomInfo started selling per-credit access through GTM.AI, while Crunchbase ended its free API tier and Clearbit stopped issuing new keys. Every price below is from the vendor’s own page, checked on 28 September or 7 October 2026, or a dated teardown where the vendor publishes none — including ours, which is on this list with its limits stated.

The tools, honestly assessed

Clearbit / HubSpot Breeze Intelligence — pick it if you live in HubSpot

Enrichment is included in paid HubSpot subscriptions and, per HubSpot, consumes no credits; records fill in place. No new standalone Clearbit API keys are issued, so outside HubSpot it is not an option.

ZoomInfo (GTM.AI) — pick it for contacts, direct dials and intent in one dataset

Since June 2026 ZoomInfo sells API and MCP access per credit: 1,000 data and 1,000 AI credits free, then data credits at about $0.38 each at the $1,000 spend tier, one credit per company, contact or intent record.

Apollo.io API — pick it if you already pay for Apollo seats

The API is available across Apollo’s plans with per-team rate limits by plan (600 calls a day per endpoint on Free, 6,000 on Organization), and enrichment draws on the seat’s credits — a 2026 teardown puts an email at 1 credit and a phone number at 8. Seats run $49–$119/user/month on annual billing.

Crunchbase API — pick it for funding and private-market data

The free API tier is gone; API access is an enterprise licence priced through a sales form, rate-limited to 200 calls a minute according to an August 2026 review. Its MCP server follows your Crunchbase package. Unmatched for funding rounds and investors; not a contact source.

Hunter.io — pick it for finding and SMTP-verifying email addresses

Free 50 credits a month, then $49–$299/month for 2,000–25,000 credits; a found email is 1 credit, a verification 0.5, an enrichment 0.2. Its verifier performs the SMTP check the others skip.

IPinfo — pick it for IP geolocation and network data

Free country-level Lite, Core $26/month and Max $163/month for city geolocation, privacy and carrier data; the company field is listed on Enterprise. The reference for “where and what network”.

Coresignal — pick it for bulk company, employee and job-posting records

Self-serve API plans run from $49/month for 2,500 credits to $5,000 for 10 million. A company or employee record costs 10–20 credits and a job posting 1, so a record is about $0.20–$0.39 on the entry plan and about half a cent to a cent on the largest.

Wappalyzer — pick it for technographics

Free 50 lookups a month, then Pro at $250/month for 5,000 lookups and 5,000 API credits (about $0.05 a lookup) and Business at $450 for 20,000. It answers what a site is built with — a field we do not return at all.

BusinessMCP Data API — pick it for pay-per-call company, IP and email checks on one key

$5 free for 7 days, then prepaid packs from $10: company lookup at $0.02 charged only when found, company search at $0.01 a result, IP to company, email formats, domain-level email checks and lead checks at $0.015 over REST and MCP. The trade: no SMTP verification, no funding data, a smaller store, and people data that excludes whole regions.

Company data API pricing, verified September 2026

PlanPriceNotes
Clearbit / HubSpot BreezeIncluded in paid HubSpot plansSales Hub Starter $20/seat/mo ($15 annual); no new standalone Clearbit API keys
ZoomInfo (GTM.AI)~$0.38 per data creditat the $1,000 spend tier; 1,000 data + 1,000 AI credits free; AI credits $0.05; credits expire after 12 months
Apollo.io$49–$119/seat/mo (annual)API rate limits by plan; enrichment uses seat credits (email 1, phone 8)
Crunchbase APIQuotedenterprise licence via sales; free API tier discontinued
Hunter.ioFree · $49–$299/mo50 to 25,000 credits/mo; ~30% less annual; Data Platform prepaid bundles
IPinfoFree · $26–$163/mo · Enterprisecompany field listed on Enterprise
Coresignal$49–$5,000/mo2,500 to 10 million credits; 10–20 credits per company or employee record, 1 per job posting
WappalyzerFree · $250–$850+/motechnographics: 50 free lookups/mo; Pro 5,000 lookups, Business 20,000; about 17% less annual
BusinessMCP Data API$5 free for 7 days · then prepaid from $10company_lookup $0.02 when found · company_search $0.01 per result · ip_lookup $0.02 per named company; no seat, no contract

ZoomInfo, Apollo, Crunchbase and Clearbit/HubSpot were checked on 2026-09-28; Hunter, IPinfo, Coresignal and Wappalyzer on 2026-10-07. ZoomInfo’s core SalesOS platform is still sold on annual contracts; the per-credit price above is GTM.AI’s. Crunchbase and Clearbit publish no API price. BusinessMCP is prepaid in dollars: a new account gets $5 free for 7 days on first-party tools, once; after that you buy a pack from $10 (larger packs add up to 30% bonus balance) and each call debits its listed price. Nothing is billed in arrears. Prices come from the same file the charge path reads.

Where BusinessMCP is NOT the right choice

An alternatives page you can trust has to cut both ways. Honestly:

  • Our email_verify never opens an SMTP session, so it cannot tell you a specific mailbox exists: its verdicts are undeliverable, risky, domain_ok or unknown — never “valid”. If you need a per-mailbox answer before a send, use a verifier that performs the SMTP check.
  • The people tools (people_search, email_finder, person_enrich) need a card and accepted people-data terms, are never paid from the free trial, default to 500 records a day, and never return people in the EU, the EEA, the UK or Switzerland, people we place in California, Texas, Vermont and Oregon, or people we cannot place at all. A European or Californian prospect list is not something this API will build.
  • No funding, investor, revenue, technographic or intent data. If those fields drive your scoring, Crunchbase or ZoomInfo carry them and we do not.
  • Our per-record price is not the lowest at volume. Hunter’s paid plans (0.2 credit per enrichment, about $0.005 on Starter) and Coresignal’s larger plans work out below the $0.02 we charge per company found; ours undercuts ZoomInfo’s ~$0.38 credit and Coresignal’s entry plan, and needs no plan at all.
  • Our company store (34M companies) is smaller than ZoomInfo’s or Apollo’s databases, and we do not crawl on demand: a domain we hold no row for returns found=false.
  • The Data API is a young product from a small company. You get published per-call prices and direct founder support, not an account team, a long track record or an integrations marketplace.

Frequently asked questions

Which company data API is cheapest?

For a handful of lookups, the free tiers: Hunter’s 50 credits, ZoomInfo GTM.AI’s 1,000 data credits, IPinfo Lite at country level, Wappalyzer’s 50 lookups, and our one-time $5 free for 7 days. Per company record, our company_lookup is $0.02, charged only when found — below ZoomInfo’s ~$0.38 credit and Coresignal’s entry plan (~$0.20–$0.39 a record), but above Hunter’s enrichment on a paid plan and Coresignal at volume. Per verified email, Hunter is the cheaper option, and we do not do SMTP verification at all.

Which one should I use for funding data?

Crunchbase. Funding rounds, investors and private-market predictions are what it is built on. Its API needs an enterprise licence priced through sales; none of the others, us included, is a substitute there.

Do these APIs work with AI agents?

All of them now ship an official MCP server: Hunter, Apollo, IPinfo, Crunchbase, ZoomInfo through GTM.AI, HubSpot for its CRM records, and BusinessMCP at /api/hub/mcp on the same key as REST. Check what each server exposes and which plan it needs — Apollo’s is for paid plans and Crunchbase’s follows your package.

What happened to the Clearbit API?

HubSpot acquired Clearbit and folded it into HubSpot as Breeze Intelligence. Free Clearbit tools ended on April 30, 2025, the Logo API on December 8, 2025, and new self-serve API keys are no longer issued. Enrichment now lives inside paid HubSpot subscriptions.

Where does BusinessMCP’s data come from?

Company data comes from a store we build and maintain ourselves from public sources and our own crawling; IP to company comes from an IP graph we rebuild every night from public registry, routing and DNS evidence. We do not resell another API vendor’s responses.

Other honest alternatives

Hunter.io alternative

Email finding and verification, head to head.

Compare

Clearbit API alternative

Company enrichment by domain outside HubSpot.

Compare

IPinfo alternative

IP to company versus IP geolocation.

Compare

Companies running MCP servers with us

Makers and companies publishing a server in the BusinessMCP directory.

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