What are sales prospecting tools, and which ones do you need?
Sales prospecting tools do four jobs: find people who fit your customer profile, get a working email or phone number for them, give you a reason to write now, and send and track the outreach. Most small teams need one tool for the first two jobs and can do the rest with a mailbox and a CRM. Buy for the job that is slowing you down, not for the longest feature list.
| Job | The question it answers | Typical tool |
|---|---|---|
| Find people | Who matches my customer profile? | A contact database or LinkedIn search (Apollo, Sales Navigator, Snov.io database search) |
| Get contact data | What is their work email or phone number? | An email finder or contact-data extension (Hunter, Lusha, Kaspr, Snov.io) |
| Find a reason now | Why would they reply this week? | Signals: posts, hiring, role changes, funding. Some data tools sell intent topics |
| Reach out and track | Who did I contact, and who replied? | Sequences in the same tool, a dedicated sender, or a CRM |
If you are still deciding who to target and how, start with our guide to the steps of sales prospecting and how many people to contact. This post compares the tools by what they cost and what a credit buys.
What do sales prospecting tools cost? Prices checked 5 November 2026
Entry plans for contact-data tools cost $39 to $65 a month on monthly billing at Snov.io, Hunter, Apollo and Kaspr; Lusha's page showed only yearly billing. Each of those five tools has a free tier. All prices are in US dollars from each vendor's own pricing page, checked on 5 Nov 2026, before tax.
| Tool and plan | Monthly billing | Annual billing | What you get | Free tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apollo Basic | $65 a seat | $49 a seat a month | 2,500 credits a seat a month (monthly billing) | 75 credits a seat a month |
| Hunter Starter | $49 | $34 a month ($408 a year) | 2,000 credits a month; a found email costs 1 credit, a verification 0.5 | 50 credits a month |
| Snov.io Starter | $39 | $29.25 a month | 1,000 credits; each prospect and each verification costs 1 credit; unlimited team seats | Trial plan: 50 credits, renewed every 30 days |
| Lusha Starter | Not shown on the page | $37.45 a month, billed yearly | 4,800 credits a year, granted upfront; an email costs 1 credit, a phone number 5 | 40 credits a month |
| Kaspr Starter | $65 a user | Not shown on the page | Unlimited B2B email credits under a fair use policy, 100 phone credits a month | 15 B2B email, 5 phone and 5 direct email credits a month |
| Sales Navigator Core | US$119.99 | US$1,079.88 a year | 50+ search filters and 50 InMails a month; the plan comparison doesn't list email addresses among its features | No free plan listed; a trial for members not on a paid LinkedIn plan who haven't had a LinkedIn trial in the past 365 days |
| Siela (Lead Finder) | No plans or seats: prepaid credit, $50 to $2,000 at a time | Same credit; no fixed price per lead | Finds people with a reason to reach out, scores them hot, warm or cold, and contacts them on LinkedIn, X and email | $10 of credit once, after onboarding |
One more vendor doesn't show a comparable price: RocketReach's pricing page showed its self-serve plans in Indian rupees from our location, so check it from your own country; for larger teams it says plans start at $6K annually, and its FAQ says free accounts get 3 lookups with no credit card.
LinkedIn labels its Sales Navigator prices as estimates that may exclude VAT or GST. For what a full outbound setup costs once you add a sender, mailboxes and booking, see our line-by-line outbound stack costs.
What does one contact cost on each tool? A worked example
The cheapest tool depends on whether you need emails only or phone numbers too. Here is the arithmetic for two sample needs, using monthly billing where the page shows it (Lusha's only shown price is billed yearly) and the plan credits above. The needs are examples; put in your own numbers.
Need 1: 500 verified work emails a month, one user.
| Tool | Smallest plan that covers it | Credits used | Cost per email |
|---|---|---|---|
| Snov.io | Starter, $39 | 500 email searches = 500 of 1,000 (the page says Email Search finds verified emails) | $39 ÷ 500 = 7.8 cents |
| Hunter | Starter, $49 | 500 found emails = 500 of 2,000 | $49 ÷ 500 = 9.8 cents |
| Lusha | Pro, $52.45 a month billed yearly (Starter's 4,800 credits a year fall short of 6,000) | 6,000 of 7,200 a year | $52.45 ÷ 500 = 10.5 cents |
| Kaspr | Starter, $65 | Unlimited B2B emails (fair use) | $65 ÷ 500 = 13 cents |
Snov.io comes out cheapest here because its plan costs least, and 500 searches leave 500 credits spare, enough to re-verify every address or find 500 more ($39 ÷ 1,000 = 3.9 cents an email). Hunter has 1,500 credits left over, so at 2,000 found emails a month its cost falls to $49 ÷ 2,000 = 2.45 cents. Hunter's page says credits reset monthly and don't roll over, so unused credits are lost.
Need 2: 100 contacts a month with an email and a phone number.
| Tool | Plan | Credits used | Cost per contact |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kaspr | Starter, $65 monthly | 100 phone credits of 100; emails unlimited (fair use) | $65 ÷ 100 = 65 cents |
| Lusha | Pro, $52.45 a month billed yearly | 100 emails × 1 + 100 phones × 5 = 600 a month, 7,200 of 7,200 a year | $52.45 ÷ 100 = 52.45 cents, with a 12-month commitment |
We left three tools out of Need 2. Hunter's pricing page lists credit costs only for finding and verifying emails. Snov.io prices phone lookups in enrichment tokens, and its page says each enrichment operation costs a varying number of tokens. Apollo's pricing page says credits buy emails, phone numbers and more, but points to its knowledge base for the cost of each action. Check those in a free account before you compare.
A credit buys a lookup, not a correct address, so test accuracy before you pay (the checklist below shows how).
Which sales prospecting tool fits your team?
Match the tool to how you reach buyers and how many people share the account. This table uses the facts above.
| If you | Start with | The deciding fact |
|---|---|---|
| Send cold email and need a few hundred addresses a month | Hunter or Snov.io Starter | Lowest cost per email in the example above; both include email sequences |
| Call prospects | Kaspr or Lusha | Kaspr Starter includes 100 phone credits; Lusha charges 5 credits a phone number |
| Need under 50 lookups a month | Free tiers | Apollo 75 credits, Hunter 50, Snov.io 50, Lusha 40 a month |
| Are three to five people sharing one budget | Hunter or Snov.io, or check seat rules first | Hunter lists unlimited users on all plans and Snov.io unlimited team seats; Apollo puts every seat on the same plan; Lusha asks teams over 5 users to contact sales |
| Research a short list of accounts on LinkedIn by hand | Sales Navigator Core | An estimated US$119.99 a month, for search filters and InMail |
| Want people found and contacted for you | An AI SDR such as Siela's Lead Finder | Pay-as-you-go credit; it sends within daily goals once you press start |
If the last row fits, read how Lead Finder picks and reaches leads. If you're weighing the Sales Navigator row, our guide to whether Sales Navigator pays for itself for a solo founder does the sums. The seat rules come from the vendors' own pages. Apollo's pricing FAQ says all seats on an account are on the same plan. Lusha's FAQ says you add seats by upgrading to a higher tier.
What do the pricing pages say in the small print?
Unused credits are lost on some of these tools and carried forward on others. Read these five lines before you pick monthly or annual billing.
- Apollo: credits reset at the start of each billing cycle and don't roll over, including purchased add-on credits. Add-on credits renew automatically until you move the slider back to zero.
- Hunter: credits reset monthly and don't roll over; switching to yearly billing gives you all credits upfront.
- Lusha: its FAQ says that on monthly plans, unused credits roll over up to twice your plan's limit while you stay subscribed. On annual plans you get all credits upfront, and unused ones reset at the end of the year.
- Snov.io: unused credits expire every 30 days, but its FAQ says they can roll over to the next month on an annual plan or with plan renewal enabled.
- Kaspr: its plan comparison has a row saying unused monthly credits roll over to the next month. Its unlimited B2B emails sit under a fair use policy, and its FAQ says subscriptions renew monthly automatically.
The practical rule: stay on monthly billing until you know your real monthly volume, then pick the plan whose allowance you will actually use. On Apollo and Hunter, a quiet month's credits are simply lost; on Kaspr's paid plans they carry forward. Lusha's FAQ says the same of its monthly plans, but its pricing page showed only yearly prices on 5 Nov 2026.
How do you test a prospecting tool in one week?
Run the same 25 known contacts through two free tiers before you pay for anything. You already know the right answers for these people, so you measure accuracy instead of guessing. The 35 email lookups below fit inside the monthly free credits at Hunter (50, at 1 credit a found email), Snov.io (50) and Lusha (40, at 1 credit an email); Apollo gives 75 free credits a month, but its pricing page doesn't say what an email costs, so check that in your account first; Kaspr's free plan has 15 B2B email credits, so test 15 known contacts there.
Write down the cost per correct email too: a cheap credit that returns wrong addresses costs more per usable contact than a dearer one that's right. If free tiers are all you need for now, our guide to free B2B leads shows where else to find people at $0.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best free sales prospecting tool?
There isn't one winner; each free tier is small. As of 5 November 2026, Apollo gives 75 credits a seat a month, Hunter 50, Snov.io's renewable trial 50 and Lusha 40. Kaspr's free plan gives 15 B2B email and 5 phone credits a month. Run the same known contacts through two of them and keep the more accurate one.
What is a sales prospecting platform?
A sales prospecting platform combines several prospecting jobs in one account: searching a contact database, revealing emails and phone numbers, and often sending sequences and tracking replies. Apollo and Snov.io are examples. Single-job tools, such as an email finder or a Chrome extension for contact data, do one part and usually cost less.
Is Sales Navigator a prospecting tool?
Yes, for finding people. Sales Navigator Core gives 50+ advanced search filters and 50 InMails a month, at an estimated US$119.99 a month or US$1,079.88 a year per licence on LinkedIn's page. LinkedIn's plan comparison lists search filters and InMail but not email addresses, so teams that email or call add a contact-data tool.
How many credits do I need each month?
Count the contacts you will actually reach, then multiply by the credit cost of what you need for each. On Lusha, 100 people with an email and phone number use 600 credits (100 plus 500). On Hunter, 500 found emails use 500 credits. We'd add a margin, say a fifth, for misses and duplicates, then pick the smallest plan that covers it.
Should I pay monthly or annually for a prospecting tool?
Pay monthly for the first two or three months. Annual billing is cheaper, for example Hunter Starter at $34 a month against $49, but you commit for 12 months: Apollo says mid-cycle downgrades on annual plans aren't permitted, and Hunter's yearly credits come upfront for the whole year. Switch once your volume is steady.
Sources
- Apollo.io pricing (checked 5 Nov 2026)
- Hunter pricing (checked 5 Nov 2026)
- Snov.io pricing (checked 5 Nov 2026)
- Lusha pricing (checked 5 Nov 2026)
- Kaspr pricing (checked 5 Nov 2026)
- LinkedIn Sales Navigator: compare plans (checked 5 Nov 2026)
- RocketReach pricing (checked 5 Nov 2026)