6 Best Places to Buy Business Leads in 2022
Jess served on the founding team of a successful B2B startup and has used a wide range of sales and marketing tools over the course of her 15-year career. She uses her industry knowledge to deliver the best answers to your questions about sales tools and sales management.
This article is part of a larger series on Sales Management.
Buying business leads is the fastest way to generate the leads needed to keep your sales pipeline full of new opportunities. Lead sellers have large-scale databases full of business profiles, including verified contact information for key decision-makers. The best lead sources enable you to filter and buy accurate lead lists based on your buyer personas and client types to ensure prospects are qualified and maximize your return on investment.
Based on our evaluation of the most popular sites, here are the six best places to buy business leads:
- LinkedIn Sales Navigator: Best overall lead provider for businesses looking to connect one-on-one with key decision-makers
- Lusha: Great place to buy business leads for small companies needing a free source for basic lead generation
- UpLead: Excellent lead list database for businesses that desire high-end intelligence on business-to-business (B2B) leads
- FindEmails.com: Ideal for sales teams exclusively seeking to buy business lead lists with prospect email addresses
- Salesfully: Great lead-buying option for small businesses engaged in business-to-consumer (B2C) selling
- D&B Hoovers: Best place to obtain qualified B2B leads based on buying intent
LinkedIn Sales Navigator is the best overall place to buy business leads online. One-on-one online prospect networking features set this platform apart for businesses trying to make direct connections with key decision-makers. Connect personally with acquired leads using InMail and interact with their LinkedIn posts on the platform, and all plan tiers include unlimited, advanced lead searches.
Visit LinkedIn Sales Navigator
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Best Places to Buy Business Leads Compared
Provider | Starting Price | Free Trial | CRM integration available | Mobile App | Help & Support |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | $79.99 per user, per month | 30 days | Only in Enterprise plan | ✔ | Live chat & online knowledge base |
 | Free (for five credits/month) | 14 days | Yes, on Premium & Enterprise plans | ✕ | Live chat & online knowledge base |
 | $74 for 2,040 credits | Five trial credits | Yes, on all plans | ✕ | Live chat & online knowledge base |
 | $29 for 1,000 credits | 50 trial credits | ✕ | ✕ | Phone & email support |
 | $29 per month for unlimited credits | 5 days or 30-day money-back guarantee | ✕ | ✕ | Phone, email, and online knowledge base |
 | Contact for quote | Yes, but no details on website | Yes, but only with more expensive Enterprise-level CRMs | ✕ | Phone, live chat, & digital service center |
LinkedIn Sales Navigator: Best Overall for Making Direct Contact With Decision-makers
LinkedIn Sales Navigator
Overall Score: 4.11
OUT OF 5
What We Like
- Users can directly contact leads through the InMail feature
- Built-in social media tools for engaging with a LinkedIn lead’s posts
- Unlimited network searches are included, even in the lowest-tiered plan
What's Missing
- No CRM integration options on the lowest-priced plan
- Lacks free and inexpensive subscription options
- Monthly caps on InMails with no ability to purchase additional messages
LinkedIn Sales Navigator Pricing at a Glance*
- Core: $79.99 per user, per month
- Advanced $125 per user, per month
- Advanced Plus: Request a quote
- Free trial: 30 days
*Pricing based on annual billing; monthly billing is also available for a higher cost
LinkedIn Sales Navigator is a supplemental tool accessible to LinkedIn members for direct sales activities like lead generation and nurturing. Although it doesn’t allow you to download contact lists as CSV files like some of the other services on this list, it does have unique features for directly contacting business managers and executives through InMail and post engagement for commenting, liking, or sharing their posts.
LinkedIn Sales Navigator users can perform advanced searches to find prospects among LinkedIn accounts based on seniority level, job function, location, and industry. There’s also the option for lead recommendations based on current contact connections, where the system uses a predictive search to find similar prospects you might be interested in.
Unfortunately, LinkedIn Sales Navigator doesn’t offer a free solution for acquiring leads. For businesses that strongly desire a free plan to try out, we recommend Lusha as a free lead generation option.
LinkedIn Sales Navigator Plan Summary
Core | Advanced | Advanced Plus | |
|---|---|---|---|
Reach-outs Through InMail | 50 per month | 50 per month | 50 per month |
Custom Lead and Account Contact Lists | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Advanced Contact Search | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Advanced Features for Tracking Content Engagement | N/A | ✔ | ✔ |
Advanced CRM Integrations With Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics 365 | N/A | N/A | ✔ |
LinkedIn Sales Navigator Features
LinkedIn Sales Navigator’s standout features include its advanced search and outreach capabilities. The platform also saves and organizes contact information for leads you’ve approached or saved to a list.
Below are some of the top LinkedIn Sales Navigator features:
- InMail features for directly messaging leads regardless of connection status with them
- Unlimited lead searches, saved searches, and insights on who viewed your LinkedIn profile
- Lead and account prioritizing features offer recommendations on the highest-quality leads based on sales preferences and current connections
- Data syncs with LinkedIn Sales Navigator’s mobile app
- Smart Links features for sending files and attachments on LinkedIn posts and InMail, and the ability to track engagement with those attachments
Sales Navigator Lead Search. (Source: Top Dog Social Media)
Sales Navigator Mobile Interfaces. (Source: LinkedIn)
Sales Navigator Smart Links File Download Tracker. (Source: GZ Consulting)
Visit LinkedIn Sales Navigator
Lusha: Best Free Lead Generation Platform
Lusha
Overall Score: 4.04
OUT OF 5
What We Like
What's Missing
- No contact list export on the free plan
- Lacks data enrichment features on lower-tiered plans
- Integration with Salesforce requires Enterprise level plan
Lusha Pricing at a Glance*
- Starter: Free
- Professional: $29 per user, per month
- Premium: $44 per user, per month
- Enterprise: Request a quote
*Pricing based on annual billing; monthly billing is also available for a higher cost
Lusha is a lead seller that uses a credit-based system for distributing lead information. It’s also the only one on this list with a free-forever option. Lusha’s free plan users get five credits per month to use to unlock profiles for emails and phone numbers.
The Lusha lead generation service works as a Chrome, Firefox, or Edge browser extension on social networks and supported websites. It instantly gives users access to data-enriched contact information from LinkedIn and Gmail, as well as certain business websites to ensure the information is complete and accurate. It does this by pulling contact information from LinkedIn and Gmail profiles as well as data found on the text of websites.
Top-tier plans offer the ability to download data acquired from the extensions as CSV files or import them as leads to supported CRM software, including HubSpot, Zoho, and Pipedrive on the Premium plan and Salesforce on the Enterprise plan. The combination of the free plan, competitively priced paid plans, and integrations with small business-friendly CRMs makes it a terrific option for smaller businesses seeking lead generation and contact data enrichment.
Lusha Plan Summary
Starter | Professional | Premium | Enterprise | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Number of Users | One | Two | Five | Unlimited |
Credits | Five per month | 1,200 per year | 3,600 per year | Built to scale |
Provides Contact Email Addresses | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Provides Contact Phone Numbers | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Mass Contact Exports | N/A | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
CRM Integrations With HubSpot, Zoho, and Pipedrive | N/A | N/A | ✔ | ✔ |
LinkedIn Sales Navigator Data Enrichment | N/A | N/A | ✔ | ✔ |
24/7 Customer Success Manager | N/A | N/A | N/A | ✔ |
Lusha Features
The attributes that stand out the most for the Lusha lead purchasing service are features associated with data enrichment of leads and its ability to manage contact information. For example, except for free plan users, all plans enable CSV contact list exports, and the Premium and Enterprise plans allow for integration with several popular CRMs.
Here are a few of the primary features Lusha offers:
- Data exportation as CSV file list or into a supported CRM system
- Browser plug-in automatically opens and operates to acquire contact information if the user is navigating on a social media or web page that supports the service
- Enrichment features with LinkedIn Sales Navigator data
- Built-in lead and contact search tools
UpLead: Best for Businesses Looking for High-level Intelligence on B2B Leads
UpLead
Overall Score: 3.79
OUT OF 5
What We Like
- Data collected goes through an extensive collection and verification to ensure accuracy
- Advanced features like technographics and data enrichment are included in the free trial
- Relatively inexpensive from a per-user standpoint
What's Missing
- No mobile application
- Low-tier plans only allow one user to log in at a time
- Lacks phone customer service support
UpLead Pricing at a Glance*
- Essentials: $74 per month for 2,040 credits
- Plus: $149 per month for 4,800 credits
- Professional: $299 per month for 12,000 credits
- Enterprise: Request a quote
- Free trial: Five credits
*Pricing based on annual billing; monthly billing is also available for a higher cost
UpLead offers the ability to find B2B leads with more than 50 search filters, including phone numbers, verified email addresses, industry, and job titles. It uses a credit-based system for buying leads and allows users to roll over unused credits to the next billing cycle. Compared to other lead purchasing platforms, UpLead’s Essentials and Plus plans are reasonable.
The most unique attribute of UpLead is its technographics feature, which pulls data about the current technology a company is using. This is incredibly valuable intelligence for software as a service (SaaS) sales reps. For example, if a business is looking for prospects to sell a voice-over-internet-protocol (VoIP) phone system to, they can find information from UpLead on which CRM the prospect is currently using and narrow in on ones that integrate with the VoIP service.
One of the flaws of UpLead is that on the low-tiered plans, only one user can be logged in at a time. LinkedIn Sales Navigator is an excellent alternative as it uses a per-user pricing model, so as many users that you pay for can access the lead generation tools simultaneously.
UpLead Plan Summary
Free Trial | Essentials | Plus | Professional | Enterprise | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Users | Single user | Single user | Single user | Up to five plus $60 per month per additional | Scalable |
Credits | 5 | 2,040 per year | 4,800 per year | 12,000 per year | Scalable |
Verified Emails and Phone Numbers | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Mobile Direct Dials | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
CRM Integrations | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Data Enrichment Functionality | ✔ | N/A | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Technographics Filtering | ✔ | N/A | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Competitor Intelligence | ✔ | N/A | N/A | ✔ | ✔ |
UpLead Features
UpLead’s platform offers advanced business-to-business (B2B) prospecting capabilities such as in-depth intelligence in addition to supplying the contact information of leads. There are also plenty of integration options including Salesforce, HubSpot, and Pipedrive, as well as full API available on the highest tier.
Here are some of the prime features of UpLead:
- Chrome extension features for acquiring leads from your web browser by visiting a LinkedIn profile or supported website
- Integrates with popular CRM software including Salesforce, HubSpot, and Pipedrive
- Technographics tool targets companies based on the technology they use, including payment systems, coding languages, social media accounts, collaboration tools, and CRMs
- Data enrichment for updating or adding information to contact profiles
- Real-time email verification
FindEmails.com: Best for Attaining Email Lists
FindEmails.com
Overall Score: 3.53
OUT OF 5
What We Like
- Confidence scores are given for contact emails found
- All features included on every plan
- Scalable, with an affordable entry-level plan
What's Missing
- No annual billing option
- Credits require spending for email verifications
- Lacks additional features for engaging or nurturing leads
FindEmails.com Pricing at a Glance*
- Basic: $29 per month for 1,000 credits
- Better: $49 per month for 2,500 credits
- Best: $99 per month for 10,000 credits
- Free trial: 50 free leads
*Pricing based on monthly billing
FindEmails.com is a highly scalable email list generation website in which the number of available credits is the only differentiating factor for each plan. This service is strictly for prospect email address acquisition and verification, as it does not have any features for communicating with leads.
Like Lusha and UpLead, FindEmails.com also uses a Chrome extension to pull contact information from supported websites. There’s also a search tool for finding prospects based on filterable data such as job role, company, and geographic location.
Compared to the other providers on this list, the most unique feature of FindEmails.com is the confidence scoring for each email. The platform uses multiple factors to determine a confidence score for each lead, including a mail server test, pattern score for each domain, and a uniqueness score that takes into account how generic or unique the email address is.
FindEmails.com Plan Summary
Basic | Better | Best | |
|---|---|---|---|
Credits per Month | 1,000 | 2,500 | 10,000 |
Email Search Tool | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Website Data Scraping With Chrome Extension | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Export Contacts via CSV | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
FindEmails.com Features
This lead purchasing service is simple in the type of information it generates being mostly emails, as well as that information can be only directly downloaded as a CSV. Below are some of the main features of FindEmails.com:
- Built-in email search tool with assigned confidence scores for each lead
- Email lists downloadable as CSV file
- Chrome extension for scraping web pages to verify email addresses
- Prospect finder based on company and job role for more filtered lead lists
FindEmails.com Email List. (Source: FindEmails.com)
FindEmails.com Email Search Tool. (Source: Linkio)
Salesfully: Best for Buying B2C Lead Lists
Salesfully
Overall Score: 2.98
OUT OF 5
What We Like
- Pulls lead data for consumers based on attributes such as location, ethnicity, age, home value, and occupation
- Unlimited access to leads for download at a low monthly cost
- Large database of B2B and B2C leads
What's Missing
- No customer support via phone
- Many consumer leads don’t have an email address
- No annual billing option
Salesfully Pricing at a Glance*
- Salesfully Plan: $29 per month
- Free trial: 5 days or 30-day money-back guarantee
*Pricing based on monthly billing
Salesfully is an excellent place for a business to buy consumer leads, boasting a database with more than 140 million U.S. consumers and households (as well as 14 million businesses). For a relatively low cost, users can search and download (via CSV files) an unlimited number of business-to-consumer (B2C) or B2B leads. The B2C leads offer high-level filtering based on homeownership, credit score, type of house, marital status, and even net worth and political involvement.
This detailed filtering of B2C leads is invaluable for any organization that targets leads based on demographics, interests, or behaviors. For example, a mortgage broker may want to target high net worth individuals who own large homes to promote a refinancing solution suited for wealthy individuals. Likewise, a political campaign might want to source a list of potential campaign donors based on those who donated to other candidates in the past.
Salesfully Plan Summary
Features | Salesfully Plan |
|---|---|
Free Trial | 5 days free trial or 30-day money-back guarantee |
Data Export Into CSV File | ✔ |
B2C Lead Search Tools | ✔ |
B2B Lead Search Tools | ✔ |
Salesfully Features
Where Salesfully sets itself apart from the other places to buy leads on this list is the depth at which it can filter leads, specifically its B2C leads. It’s also one of the most affordable B2C and B2B lead list sellers, with access to unlimited searches for $29 per month.
Below are some feature highlights of Salesfully:
- Unlimited lead searches and downloads
- Consumer lead searches based on demographic information such as age and ethnicity, as well as descriptive information like marital status, occupation, homeownership, credit rating, and political donations
- B2B lead search tool based on industry, employee count, job positions, and annual revenue
- Lead list downloadable as CSV file
- Platform uses public and proprietary databases for information verification
Salesfully Home Page. (Source: Salesfully)
Consumer Lead Search. (Source: Salesfully)
D&B Hoovers: Best for B2B Leads Based on Buying Intent
D&B Hoovers
Overall Score: 2.65
OUT OF 5
What We Like
- Highly customizable lead list building
- Bombora integration for evaluating potential buyer intent
- Pulls data from over 170 million business records
What's Missing
- Lacks transparent pricing
- No mobile application
- No integrations with popular small business CRMs like HubSpot CRM and Pipedrive
D&B Hoovers Pricing at a Glance
- D&B Hoovers Plan: Contact for quotes
- Free trial: Yes, but doesn’t provide details about trial duration or how many leads can be downloaded
Supplemental Tools:
- Business listing in directory: Free to list and $119 per month for detailed company descriptions taglines
D&B Hoovers, a subsidiary of Dun & Bradstreet, can pull the contact information of B2B leads for you from a variety of sources such as public business records, credit score databases, and third-party service providers they have partnerships with.
Where they are unique is in some of the capabilities for generating qualified leads for businesses. Through integration with Bombora, a B2B data provider for buyer intent and high-level system insights of over 170 million business records, D&B Hoovers can not only pull lead data information, but leads for accounts that represent current selling opportunities.
The Bombora integration allows users to see buyer intent of the lead data they generate as intent dashboards with scores and badges to indicate qualified leads. The data is sourced from a variety of consent-based websites and analyzed using machine learning to organize the intent into usable information.
Unfortunately, popular small business CRM systems like HubSpot and Pipedrive don’t integrate with D&B Hoovers. For a lead-buying platform that also integrates with these CRMs, allowing you to import lead data into the CRM database, consider UpLead as a solid option.
D&B Hoovers Plan Summary
Features | D&B Hoovers Plan |
|---|---|
CRM Integrations With Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics 365 | ✔ |
Direct Download to CSV File | ✔ |
Over 5 Million real-time Information Updates per Day | ✔ |
D&B Hoovers Features
The D&B Hoovers system is robust in the information it can compile for your business due to the number of sources it pulls from and integrations it has with other data providers like Bombora. In addition to the lead generation service, there are also additional capabilities within the platform for verifying data and posting your business as a listing.
Here are a few feature highlights of D&B Hoovers:
- Advanced search features for B2B leads including industry codes, location, initial public offering (IPO) status
- Optional business listing feature allows you to post your company profile in the database and across over 60 online platforms including Apple Maps, Bing, and Yahoo
- Lead lists can be downloaded as CSV files
- Integrates with Bombora for intent files, which display badges next to the lead profile about their lead qualifications
D&B Hoovers List Building Page. (Source: Salesforce)
D&B Hoovers Individual Company Profile Page. (Source: TrustRadius)
D&B Hoovers Bombora Intent Topics. (Source: GZ Consulting)
Benefits of Buying Business Leads
Buying leads for your business is a common sales management practice that offers unique benefits compared to lead generation methods like referrals, collecting information through online webforms, or creating content to attract inbound prospects. While it tends to be a more expensive option, some of its advantages include:
- Leads are acquired quickly: Depending on the service, buying leads can be a short process that’s as easy as setting parameters and then downloading your contact list.
- Ability to generate a high number of leads: Using the large databases, scraping, tools, and web data sources these providers access, the contact information and profiles of hundreds to thousands (or even millions) of prospects can be attained at one time.
- Leads can be descriptively filtered: Filter leads to your organization’s exact target market based on a wide variety of B2B or B2C search and filtering capabilities.
How We Evaluated the Best Places to Buy Business Leads
To determine the best sources to buy leads, we evaluated the unique features offered by lead sellers. In addition, we compared common product and service attributes, such as scalability through subscription plan options or credits-based currency, ability to export contact lists, plugin capabilities for Chrome web browsing, and integrations with customer relationship management (CRM) software.
Click on the tabs below to get insight into our evaluation process for choosing the best places to source and buy business leads:
40%
Pricing
20%
General Features
15%
Ease of Use
15%
Help & Support
10%
Expert Score
40% of Overall Score
Cost is typically among the most important criteria for a small business, especially when evaluating pricing for something with a measurable objective such as generating leads. We weighted cost most heavily when reviewing lead sellers in terms of free plan availability, scalable pricing options, and the option to pay monthly or annually.
20% of Overall Score
We looked at overall features we feel are must-haves in a lead generation business, including downloadable lead lists, browser extensions to scrape contact information, and data enrichment to ensure accurate information is being obtained. We also evaluated each service’s ability to integrate with third-party applications that work in tandem with generating leads, such as your customer relationship management (CRM) software.
15% of Overall Score
Lead buying platforms were also evaluated on the usability of their service. This was analyzed in terms of the expertise needed to set up an account, the skill required to operate lead filtering and purchasing features, and the intuitiveness of navigating the system’s interface.
15% of Overall Score
Extensive support and service can prevent issues a user may encounter while using any one of these lead purchasing services. Help and support were evaluated in terms of customer service hours and the availability of support via phone, live chat, and email.
10% of Overall Score
In addition to firsthand experiences with online lead sellers, we evaluated what other users are saying about each option. These criteria consider how customers feel, based on their reviews, to gain insight on service popularity, ease of use, and overall value for the price.
*Percentages of overall score
Bottom Line
Buying leads saves time your sales team would spend researching prospect information and inputting lead contact information into a database, making it a valuable investment sales managers should consider. These services used to purchase leads offer value to your business by generating a large number of verified leads for your pipeline and providing intelligence that can be used to ramp up sales conversions.
