> SpecStream is the live web data engine for teams and agents. This is the Markdown copy of https://specstream.ai/alternatives/contactout. Every page, with what SpecStream does and costs: https://specstream.ai/llms.txt

# Best ContactOut alternatives in 2026 | SpecStream

Compared on Nov 9, 2026.

# ContactOut alternatives in 2026

**People and accounts by any trait, from 5¢.**

ContactOut's pricing page sells unlimited sales users for $299 and takes 50% off without US and UK data, and its terms cap unlimited plans at 2,000 email and 1,000 phone credits a month. Vendr reports a median buyer pays $32,050 a year.

SpecStream is the live web data engine for teams and agents. Describe the accounts or people you want by any trait, and each one reaches your CRM as a row at 5¢, 15¢ or $1, plus 5¢ an email and 15¢ a phone.

[Describe your data](https://specstream.ai/signup?src=alternatives-contactout&utm_source=alternatives&utm_campaign=contactout&returnTo=%2Fworkspace%2Fask%3Fq%3DFintech%2520companies%2520in%2520New%2520York%2520with%252050%2520to%2520500%2520employees%2520that%2520are%2520hiring%2520backend%2520engineers%252C%2520with%2520the%2520CTO%252C%2520the%2520head%2520of%2520talent%2520and%2520a%2520work%2520email%2520for%2520each)

New accounts get $10 of credit, no card.

## SpecStream and ContactOut side by side

|  | SpecStream | ContactOut |
| --- | --- | --- |
| What you get back | Structured rows, one record per company or person, with facts from many sites joined. Source URL and read time on every value | Contact details for profiles in every country, or in every country but the USA, Canada and UK at 50% off |
| The unit you pay for | A delivered row: 5¢, 15¢ or $1 by how much the row needs, plus 5¢ for an email and 15¢ for a phone. The same rate on every plan | Email credits and phone credits. Unlimited plans run under a fair use limit of 2,000 email and 1,000 phone credits per account a month |
| Plans | $10 of credit, no card. Pro $19, Scale $99 and Team $499 a month, all spent as credit at the same row rates. A yearly plan adds 20% more credit | Unlimited sales users for $299, and Team and API by quote. Saleshandy reports Email at $49 a month and Email + Phone at $99, or $25 and $49 without US and UK data. Vendr reports a median buyer pays $32,050 a year |
| Seats | No seats. People and agents spend from one balance | Overloop reports every self-serve plan is 1 user per company |
| Exports | Every delivered row lands in your CRM, your sheet or your agent, and stays yours | Overloop reports exports stop at 600 a month |
| API and delivery | MCP server, REST API, Python and TypeScript SDKs, a CLI and A2A. Rows go to Google Sheets, Excel, Airtable, Notion, monday.com, HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Attio, Slack, Teams, Zapier, Make, n8n and signed webhooks | API access on the Team and API plan, by quote. Its terms ban scraping and crawling of the service |

## Why ContactOut buyers move to SpecStream

### Accounts by a trait no filter lists

Your best accounts share a trait no filter lists. Describe it, and every account that has it reaches your CRM with its buying committee and a link to where the trait shows.

The trait can be the tools a company runs, the roles it hires for or the markets it entered. SpecStream reads the request back as parts you can edit before anything runs, then checks each account against each condition on the live web. An account that fails one is not delivered and not billed.

### The committee and its contacts come on the row

1,000 accounts with the buying committee cost $150 on SpecStream, plus 5¢ for each email and 15¢ for each phone. ContactOut's unlimited plans stop at 1,000 phone credits a month, and Overloop reports exports stop at 600 a month.

Each email says whether a page printed it, and a likely one is labeled. Source URL and read time on every value.

### The price is set before the run

Every request gets a quote of the most it can cost, good for 30 minutes. Nothing runs until you approve it, the charge never goes past that amount, and whatever the run does not use goes back to your balance. Vendr reports ContactOut contracts from $10,200 to $102,340 a year.

### Signals that say who to call this week

SpecStream reads public databases every morning. In the week of November 2, 2026, 494 operating companies filed a Form D reporting $29.51 billion sold, and each one is a row on [specstream.ai/data/form-d](https://specstream.ai/data/form-d?utm_source=alternatives&utm_campaign=contactout). Funding rounds, new executives and layoffs are at [specstream.ai/signals](https://specstream.ai/signals?utm_source=alternatives&utm_campaign=contactout). Ask for your own cut of any of them.

The same account runs the Search API, the most accurate web search API in the world: 97.9 F-score on all 1,000 official SimpleQA Verified questions (978 correct), and 64.0 item F1 and 43.4 row F1 on all 200 official WideSearch tasks. The scores and method are on [benchmarks](https://specstream.ai/benchmarks?utm_source=alternatives&utm_campaign=contactout).

### The accounts stay up to date in your CRM

Save the request and it reruns hourly to yearly. Each row comes back labeled changed, unchanged or no longer matching, a changed or new row costs half its rate and an unchanged row costs 1¢. New matches and changes land in HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Attio, Sheets, Slack or Teams with no code, or in your agent through the MCP server. Rows you already own are never charged again.

## Other ContactOut alternatives

### SpecStream

The live web data engine for teams and agents. One request in plain words returns the accounts that meet every condition, with the buying committee, at 5¢, 15¢ or $1 a delivered row, plus 5¢ for an email and 15¢ for a phone, under a maximum you approve before the run. The Search API costs $5 per 1,000 searches and the Extract API $0.80 per 1,000 pages.

### Lusha

A contact database sold in credits. The Free plan gives 40 credits a month, an email takes 1 credit and a phone number takes 5. On SpecStream an email adds 5¢ to a row and a phone adds 15¢, on every plan.

### Kaspr

A contact tool priced per user, with up to 12,000 exports a year on Starter and 30,000 on Business. On SpecStream every delivered row lands in your CRM, your sheet or your agent, at 5¢, 15¢ or $1 a row.

### Apollo

A sales platform billed in credits. One click exports up to 10,000 leads, and credits reset at the start of each billing cycle with no rollover. A SpecStream top-up never expires, and a row costs the same on every plan.

## How SpecStream scores

The same numbers as the benchmarks page, from the official tasks and scorers.

ResultsWideSearchCostSimpleQA Verified

|  | SpecStream | ![](https://specstream.ai/images/benchmarks/parallel.svg)Parallel | ![](https://specstream.ai/images/benchmarks/exa.svg)Exa | ![](https://specstream.ai/images/benchmarks/tavily.svg)Tavily | ![](https://specstream.ai/images/benchmarks/perplexity.svg)Perplexity |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| **Web research**WideSearch, GPT-5.6 Luna | 60.9 | 45.5 | 53.0 | 47.9 | 47.0 |
| **Factual accuracy**SimpleQA Verified, GPT-5.6 Luna | 96 | 94 | 91 | 94 | 94 |
| **Factual accuracy**SimpleQA Verified, GPT-5.6 Sol | 99 | 97 | 91 | 92 | 95 |

## How to switch from ContactOut

Write the accounts you want in plain words, or import the contacts you exported from ContactOut, up to 20,000 rows, and SpecStream fills in or checks each row. Sign up and you get $10 of credit, no card. At 5¢ a row, that is up to 200 rows.

Or send the request from code. This call spends nothing: the `402` reply shows how SpecStream read the request, the columns and the most it can cost.

```
curl -i https://api.specstream.ai/v1/agent/lists \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"request": "Fintech companies in New York with 50 to 500 employees that are hiring backend engineers, with the CTO, the head of talent and a work email for each", "count": 25}'
```

Approve that maximum by card through Stripe's Link agent wallet, or in USDC on Base, Arbitrum or Polygon, and you pay for the rows found. On an account, your agent uses the MCP server at `https://api.specstream.ai/mcp` and your team uses the workspace, from the same balance.

[Describe your data](https://specstream.ai/signup?src=alternatives-contactout&utm_source=alternatives&utm_campaign=contactout&returnTo=%2Fworkspace%2Fask%3Fq%3DFintech%2520companies%2520in%2520New%2520York%2520with%252050%2520to%2520500%2520employees%2520that%2520are%2520hiring%2520backend%2520engineers%252C%2520with%2520the%2520CTO%252C%2520the%2520head%2520of%2520talent%2520and%2520a%2520work%2520email%2520for%2520each)

## Frequently asked questions

Something we didn't answer? [Talk to a human](https://specstream.ai/talk-to-a-human.md)

How much does ContactOut cost?

ContactOut's pricing page sells unlimited sales users for $299, and Saleshandy reports Email at $49 a month and Email + Phone at $99, or $25 and $49 without US and UK data. Vendr reports a median buyer pays $32,050 a year, from $10,200 to $102,340. SpecStream charges 5¢, 15¢ or $1 a delivered row, plus 5¢ for an email and 15¢ for a phone.

Is ContactOut unlimited?

Up to 2,000 email credits and 1,000 phone credits per account a month: its terms run paid unlimited plans under a fair use policy with that limit. On SpecStream there is no monthly limit, and each delivered row is billed at the same rate on every plan.

What is the best ContactOut alternative?

SpecStream, at 5¢, 15¢ or $1 a delivered row. You describe the accounts in plain words, approve the most the run can cost, and get each account that meets every condition with its buying committee, an email for 5¢ more and a phone for 15¢ more. The rows land in HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Attio or your sheet, and stay up to date on your schedule.

Can recruiters use SpecStream in place of ContactOut?

Yes, at 5¢ a row plus 5¢ for each email. Describe the companies and the people in plain words, such as the CTO and the head of talent at fintech companies hiring engineers, and each one arrives as a structured row with a source URL on every value.

Can SpecStream fill in a list I already have?

Yes, up to 20,000 rows from a CSV, Excel file, Google Sheet or Airtable base. Importing is free. Each row that matches your request pays its row rate, and a row that does not match costs a 5¢ check.

Does SpecStream have an API?

Yes. The Search API costs $5 per 1,000 searches of up to 10 results, the Extract API $0.80 per 1,000 pages, and Deep Search returns rows at 5¢, 15¢ or $1 each. All three run through the REST API, the Python and TypeScript SDKs, the CLI and the MCP server at `https://api.specstream.ai/mcp`. The docs start at [specstream.ai/docs/api](https://specstream.ai/docs/api?utm_source=alternatives&utm_campaign=contactout).

How accurate is SpecStream?

SpecStream's Search API scores 97.9 F-score on all 1,000 official SimpleQA Verified questions (978 correct), and 64.0 item F1 and 43.4 row F1 on all 200 official WideSearch tasks. It is the most accurate web search API in the world, and the scores and method are on [benchmarks](https://specstream.ai/benchmarks?utm_source=alternatives&utm_campaign=contactout). In a row, each email says whether a page printed it, and a likely one is labeled.

### Sources

SpecStream wrote this page. ContactOut's terms and headline price come from its own pages. Its plan prices come from Saleshandy and Overloop, and its contract figures from Vendr.

1.  [SpecStream pricing](https://specstream.ai/pricing)specstream.ai/pricing, read Nov 9, 2026
2.  [SpecStream for agents](https://specstream.ai/agents.md)specstream.ai/agents.md, read Nov 9, 2026
3.  [SpecStream benchmarks](https://specstream.ai/benchmarks)specstream.ai/benchmarks, read Nov 9, 2026
4.  [SpecStream data, Form D](https://specstream.ai/data/form-d)specstream.ai/data/form-d, read Nov 9, 2026
5.  [SpecStream signals](https://specstream.ai/signals)specstream.ai/signals, read Nov 9, 2026
6.  [ContactOut pricing](https://contactout.com/pricing)contactout.com/pricing, read Nov 9, 2026
7.  [ContactOut terms](https://contactout.com/terms)contactout.com/terms, read Nov 9, 2026
8.  [Vendr, ContactOut pricing](https://www.vendr.com/marketplace/contactout)vendr.com/marketplace/contactout, read Nov 9, 2026
9.  [Saleshandy, ContactOut pricing](https://www.saleshandy.com/blog/contactout-pricing/)saleshandy.com/blog/contactout-pricing/, read Nov 9, 2026
10.  [Overloop, ContactOut pricing](https://overloop.com/blog/contactout-pricing)overloop.com/blog/contactout-pricing, read Nov 9, 2026
11.  [Kaspr pricing](https://www.kaspr.io/pricing)kaspr.io/pricing, read Nov 9, 2026
12.  [Lusha pricing](https://www.lusha.com/pricing/)lusha.com/pricing/, read Nov 9, 2026
13.  [Apollo pricing](https://www.apollo.io/pricing)apollo.io/pricing, read Nov 9, 2026