What is B2B marketing data?
B2B marketing data is any information that tells you which companies and people to sell to and how to reach them. It comes in five kinds, and each answers a different question.
| Kind | What it tells you | Example sources | How it is usually priced |
|---|---|---|---|
| First-party | Who already knows you: customers, sign-ups, replies, form fills | Your CRM, site forms, email list | Free; you collect it |
| Contact data | A named person's work email, phone and title | Apollo, ZoomInfo, Cognism, UpLead, Lusha, Hunter | Credits per contact revealed or exported |
| Firmographic | Company size, industry, location, filings | Companies House, US Census, the contact databases | Free from official registers; bundled in paid tools |
| Technographic | Which software a company's website runs | BuiltWith | Monthly or yearly plan |
| Intent | Which companies are researching a topic | Bombora, 6sense, G2 | Yearly contracts, usually quoted |
Match the kind to the job. To size a market, firmographic data from an official register is enough. To write to someone, you need contact data. To decide who to write to first, you need a reason, which is what first-party data and intent try to supply. Intent data has its own costs and limits, set out in our post on whether buyer intent data is worth it, so this post covers the other four.
What does B2B marketing data cost?
Anywhere from nothing to tens of thousands of dollars a year, and the pricing basis matters as much as the price. Here is what each vendor's own page shows, checked 5 November 2026, in US dollars:
| Vendor | Plans and prices shown | What you pay for |
|---|---|---|
| UpLead | Free trial: 5 credits for 7 days. Essentials: $99 a month for 170 credits, or $74 a month billed annually for 2,040 credits. Plus: $199 a month for 400 credits, or $149 a month billed annually for 4,800 credits. Professional: annual billing only, price on request | One credit buys one contact, with email and mobile direct dial |
| BuiltWith | Basic $295 a month ($2,950 a year), Pro $495 ($4,950), Team $995 ($9,950). Single site lookups are free | Lists of websites by technology; Basic allows 2 technologies and 2 keywords |
| ZoomInfo | No prices; "Contact sales". Plans include Professional, Copilot Advanced and Copilot Enterprise for sales, and Demand (75K included credits) for marketing | One credit per contact or company profile exported to a file, CRM or other app |
| Cognism | No prices; quote only. Standard and Pro packages, each with 5 seats included | One credit per revealed contact; a credit is used again only if that contact changes jobs |
Two of these are worth reading closely. ZoomInfo's pricing page says a credit is used only when someone exports a profile, so viewing profiles without exporting them uses no credits. Cognism's page says a revealed contact stays usable for the contract, which matters if your team reaches the same accounts over months. UpLead's page also states a 95% data accuracy rate for verified emails; that is the vendor's own figure.
For quoted prices, the closest public guide is buyers' reports. Vendr's ZoomInfo page says the median buyer pays $33,500 a year, based on 1,579 purchases, with a low of $7,253 and a high of $156,021. Those are contract totals reported through Vendr, and a contract can cover more than contact data. For the credit maths of the cheaper self-serve tools, see our Lusha, Apollo and Hunter price comparison.
What does a contact really cost? A worked example
Work it out per contact you will actually use. Sample case: a three-person team (call it Northwind Ltd) wants 400 new contacts a month. That is 400 / 22 working days = about 18 a day.
| Option | Yearly cost | Contacts a year | Cost per contact |
|---|---|---|---|
| UpLead Plus, monthly | $199 x 12 = $2,388 | 400 x 12 = 4,800 | $2,388 / 4,800 = $0.50 |
| UpLead Plus, billed annually | $149 x 12 = $1,788 | 4,800 | $1,788 / 4,800 = $0.37 |
| A contract at Vendr's ZoomInfo median | $33,500 | 4,800 used | $33,500 / 4,800 = $6.98 |
| Add BuiltWith Basic for tech data, billed yearly | $2,950 | n/a | Adds $2,950 / 4,800 = $0.61 |
The ZoomInfo row isn't a like-for-like comparison: a median contract buys seats and features beyond contacts, and a team exporting far more than 4,800 contacts would pay less per contact. The point is narrower. At 18 contacts a day, a self-serve plan covers the volume, and a large contract only pays off if you use what else it includes.
Then subtract the contacts that are out of date. A record that was right when the vendor last checked it may not be right today; our post on why B2B contact data goes stale and how fast puts numbers on it. Budget for verifying every address before you send, and price your cost per contact on the ones that pass.
Where can you get B2B data for free?
From official registers, your own records and free lookups. They won't give you work emails, but they answer the questions that come before buying a list: how many companies fit, and which ones.
- UK companies. The Companies House API returns information about limited companies, and its overview says the data is live and real-time. The rate-limit guide allows up to 600 requests in a five-minute period, which is up to 7,200 an hour (600 x 12), plenty for checking a list of a few thousand companies. The get-started guide says you first register a Companies House user account, and each request must carry an API key.
- US market size. The Census Bureau's County Business Patterns is an annual series giving the number of establishments, employment and payroll by industry and employment size; the latest data is for 2023. Use it to count how many establishments (locations with paid employees) of your target size exist in your industry before you pay for a list of them.
- Technology used by a single site. BuiltWith's plans page says individual site lookups are free, so you can check a shortlist by hand before paying for a technology list.
- Your own data. Past customers, lost deals, people who replied and people who signed up are the cheapest data you have, and these people already know you. Export them, tag them by industry and size, and see which segment bought most.
Worked example: if County Business Patterns showed 3,000 establishments in your industry and size band (a sample figure), at 18 contacts a day a full pass takes 3,000 / 18 = about 167 working days, or 167 / 22 = about 7.6 months. That tells you whether to buy a list at all, or start with the hundred companies that show a reason to buy now.
Where does a data vendor get its data, and why ask?
Ask, because it decides both quality and your legal duties. ZoomInfo's data sources page is one of the more detailed: machine learning views public information on over 28 million sites and domains every day, including corporate websites, press releases, news, SEC filings and job postings; more than 200,000 professionals share contact data in return for free access through ZoomInfo Lite; data partners and an in-house research team add the rest. Its personal information notice adds that because several sources may be combined into one record, it may be difficult to identify the exact source of one piece of information.
That matters under GDPR. Article 14 covers personal data not obtained from the person, which is what a bought contact is. It says the controller must tell the person, among other things, which source the data came from, and that if you use the data to communicate with them, you must do so at the latest at the first communication. There are exceptions, such as where it would involve disproportionate effort, but you shouldn't assume one applies. In practice, a first email to an EU contact from a bought list should be able to say where you got their details.
In California, the privacy agency's data broker page says that from 1 August 2026 data brokers must access its Delete Request and Opt-out Platform at least once every 45 days and process consumers' deletion requests. Brokers must register each year, and the 2026 fee was $6,000. Its registry is public, so you can check whether a vendor is on it. This is a summary, not legal advice; check with a lawyer for your markets. If you are weighing a one-off list purchase, our post on whether buying a B2B lead list is worth it covers what happened when one founder tried.
What should you ask a B2B data vendor before paying?
Send these before you sign anything, and keep the answers in writing:
A vendor that can't answer 1, 5 and 6 is asking you to pay before you can judge the data. Score the sample yourself: count invalid emails, people no longer in the role, and people with no reason to hear from you this month.
An alternative is to start from people who have shown a reason, such as asking for a tool or hiring for the work you do, and look up contact details only for them. Siela's Lead Finder starts from that reason: it looks for a reason to reach out now, scores each lead hot, warm or cold with a one-line reason, and saves every lead to the built-in CRM with the reason it was picked. Whichever route you choose, track cost per reply by source for a month, and if email is one of your channels, our sibling post on email marketing for lead generation covers what to measure.
Frequently asked questions
What is a B2B marketing database?
A B2B marketing database is a collection of company and contact records, such as names, job titles, work emails, phone numbers, company size and industry, that you search to find people to market or sell to. You can rent one from a vendor, usually paying in credits per contact, or build your own from customers, sign-ups and public registers.
How much does ZoomInfo cost?
ZoomInfo doesn't publish prices; its pricing page asks you to contact sales. Vendr, which reports what buyers paid, gave a median of $33,500 a year from 1,579 purchases, with a low of $7,253 and a high of $156,021, checked 5 November 2026. Contracts vary with seats, credits and modules, so ask for a quote on your exact volume.
Is it legal to buy B2B contact data?
Often yes, but the rules depend on where the people are. Under GDPR Article 14, when you hold personal data you didn't collect from the person, you must tell them where it came from, at the latest when you first contact them, with limited exceptions. California requires data brokers to register. This isn't legal advice; check your markets.
What is the cheapest way to get B2B data?
Start with what costs nothing: your own customers and leads, official company registers such as Companies House in the UK, and US Census business counts for market size. Pay for contact data only for the companies you've already picked, and choose a self-serve plan priced per contact before committing to a yearly contract.
How do I check the quality of B2B data before buying?
Ask the vendor for a sample of about 50 contacts built on your own filters after you send them, then verify every email, check each person is still in the role, and count how many have a recent reason to hear from you. Ask too whether credits are refunded when a verified email bounces.
Sources
- UpLead: Plans and pricing (checked 5 Nov 2026)
- BuiltWith: Plans and pricing (checked 5 Nov 2026)
- ZoomInfo: Pricing and plans (checked 5 Nov 2026)
- Cognism: Pricing (checked 5 Nov 2026)
- Vendr: ZoomInfo pricing (buyer-reported) (checked 5 Nov 2026)
- Companies House: API overview (checked 5 Nov 2026)
- Companies House: Rate limiting (checked 5 Nov 2026)
- US Census Bureau: County Business Patterns (checked 5 Nov 2026)
- ZoomInfo: Data sources (checked 5 Nov 2026)
- ZoomInfo: Personal information notice (checked 5 Nov 2026)
- EUR-Lex: Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR), Article 14 (checked 5 Nov 2026)
- California Privacy Protection Agency: Information for data brokers (checked 5 Nov 2026)
- Companies House: Get started with the API (checked 5 Nov 2026)