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# Coresignal alternatives in 2026: company and people rows from 5¢

Compared on Nov 12, 2026. The page: https://specstream.ai/alternatives/coresignal

Coresignal sells company, employee and job records by the credit. Mini is $49 a month for 2,500 credits, and a full employee record takes 20: 125 records, 39¢ each. Unused monthly credits do not roll over. Datasets start from $1,000, on a yearly contract.

SpecStream is the live web data engine for teams and agents. Ask in plain words, through the API, MCP or the workspace, for the companies, people or jobs you need, and get typed rows that meet every condition, at 5¢, 15¢ or $1 a delivered row.

[Get an API key](https://specstream.ai/signup?src=alternatives-coresignal&utm_source=alternatives-md&utm_campaign=coresignal&returnTo=%2Fworkspace%2Fagents%3Ftab%3Dkeys) New accounts get $10 of credit, no card.

## SpecStream and Coresignal side by side

| | SpecStream | Coresignal |
|---|---|---|
| What you send | The companies, people or jobs you want in plain words, with the conditions every row must meet | Filters or an Elasticsearch DSL query to the Company, Employee or Jobs API, or a question to its Agentic Search API |
| 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 | Records from its datasets: 70M+ companies, 907M+ employee profiles and 482M+ job postings, each with a timestamp of its last update |
| 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 | A credit. A full employee or company record takes 20 credits and a core record 10. A job posting takes 1, and an Agentic Search /reasoning call 100 |
| The price to start | $10 of credit on sign-up, no card. Plans at $19, $99 or $499 a month turn their whole price into credit, with no yearly commitment. 10,000 rows with 5 facts cost $500 | A 7 day free trial, then Mini at $49 a month for 2,500 credits, Starter at $199 for 12,000 and Pro at $499 for 35,000. Datasets start from $1,000, with monthly payments on a yearly contract |
| Emails and phones | An email adds 5¢ and a phone 15¢ to the row that carries it, at the same rate on every plan. An email no page printed is labeled likely | The Employee Contact Enrichment API takes 10 credits per email found |
| What failed or empty work costs | Nothing. A row left out, a retry and a run that finds nothing are not charged | Credits are deducted for a successful request, by the feature, data field or action used |
| The cost cap before a run | The most the whole job can cost, quoted before it starts. Nothing runs until you approve it, and there are no automatic overages | The plan's monthly credits. They are valid for one billing cycle and do not roll over on a monthly plan |
| Rate limits | The Search and Extract APIs answer each account up to its per minute limit, and a call past it gets `503` with `Retry-After` and is not charged | 5 requests a second on the trial, Mini and Starter, 10 on Pro and 20 on Growth at $1,000 a month |
| Keeping data up to date | Save the request and it reruns hourly to yearly. Each row comes back labeled changed, unchanged or no longer matching, and an unchanged row costs 1¢ | Dataset records are updated daily, weekly or monthly |
| MCP and API | MCP server, REST API, Python and TypeScript SDKs, a CLI and A2A. An agent can buy one request with no account, by card or in USDC | REST Data APIs for companies, employees and jobs, an Agentic Search API and webhooks |

## Why Coresignal buyers move to SpecStream

### The whole request, written once

Coresignal answers from the records in its datasets, through filters or an Elasticsearch DSL query, and a full record costs 20 credits whether you need all of it or not. A SpecStream request is the whole job in plain words: "Software companies in the United States and Europe hiring data engineers, with headcount, the open roles, the head of data and a work email for each". SpecStream reads the request back as parts you can edit, the conditions every row must meet and the facts to bring back, then searches the live web, reads each page and joins what it finds into one record per company or person.

### A row costs 5¢, and a miss costs nothing

On Coresignal's Mini plan, $49 buys 2,500 credits: 125 full employee records at 20 credits each, or 250 core records at 10. Monthly credits reset every billing cycle. SpecStream's rates are on [pricing](https://specstream.ai/pricing?utm_source=alternatives&utm_campaign=coresignal): 5¢ for a row with up to 5 facts, 15¢ for up to 15 facts and one set of related records, and $1 for a deep row with no limit. $49 on SpecStream is 980 rows at 5¢, and a row that fails one of your conditions is not delivered and not billed.

### Hiring and company signals we hold

SpecStream holds public databases and reads them every morning, among them Form D filings, H-1B and PERM filings by employer, layoff notices (WARN) and UK companies, at [specstream.ai/data](https://specstream.ai/data?utm_source=alternatives&utm_campaign=coresignal). Funding rounds, new executives and layoffs are at [specstream.ai/signals](https://specstream.ai/signals?utm_source=alternatives&utm_campaign=coresignal). Ask for your own cut of any of them through the same API, with the people you need on each row.

### Your agent spends under a maximum you approved

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. An API key carries its own limits: total, per run, monthly, and the operations it allows. Agents connect to `https://api.specstream.ai/mcp` with OAuth or an API key, and people and agents spend from one balance.

### The rows stay up to date

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 (3¢, 8¢ or 50¢) and an unchanged row costs 1¢, so rechecking 1,000 rows that did not change costs $10. Changes arrive by signed webhook or through the API, and in Sheets, HubSpot, Salesforce or Slack with no code. Rows you already own are never charged again.

### The most accurate web search API, in the same account

The Search API answers one question from the live web from $1 per 1,000 searches of up to 10 results. It scores a 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 Extract API reads pages for $0.80 per 1,000 and scores 0.908 F1 on WCXB. Scores and method are on [benchmarks](https://specstream.ai/benchmarks?utm_source=alternatives&utm_campaign=coresignal).

## Other Coresignal alternatives

### SpecStream

The live web data engine for teams and agents. One request in plain words, through the API or MCP, returns every company, person or job that meets your conditions as a typed row, at 5¢, 15¢ or $1 a delivered row, plus 5¢ for an email and 15¢ for a phone. New accounts get $10 of credit, no card.

### People Data Labs

Person and company records sold by the credit. Person plans start at $98 a month for 350 credits, 28¢ a record, and company plans at $100 a month for 1,000 records. SpecStream bills a delivered row at 5¢, 15¢ or $1 on every plan, and a run that finds nothing costs nothing. [Compare SpecStream and People Data Labs](https://specstream.ai/alternatives/people-data-labs).

### Crustdata

A people and company data API billed in credits, with people enriched from 1 credit and companies from 2. New accounts start with $20 in credits, and enterprise plans start at four figures a month. SpecStream prices the whole request before it runs and bills only the rows that meet your conditions.

### Enrich Layer

A people, company and jobs API sold in credits. The Starter plan is $588 a year for 35,000 credits, and monthly and annual plans are a 12-month commitment with a fee to cancel early. SpecStream has no commitment: you pay for delivered rows from your balance.

## How to switch from Coresignal

Write the records you want in plain words, in place of the filters and DSL queries you send to Coresignal today. Or import the list you enrich now, 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.

To test it from code before you pay, send this call. It 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": "Software companies in the United States and Europe hiring data engineers, with headcount, the open roles, the head of data 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.

## Frequently asked questions

### How much does Coresignal cost?

The Data APIs have a 7 day free trial, then Mini at $49 a month for 2,500 credits, Starter at $199 for 12,000, Pro at $499 for 35,000 and Growth at $1,000 for 150,000. Yearly plans run from $2,149 a year for Starter, and datasets start from $1,000 on a yearly contract.

### What is the best Coresignal alternative?

SpecStream, at 5¢, 15¢ or $1 a delivered row. Your product or agent asks in plain words through the API or MCP, you approve the most the run can cost, and you get one typed row per company, person or job that meets every condition, read from the live web.

### How do Coresignal credits work?

A full employee or company record takes 20 credits, a core record 10, a job posting or social post 1, and each email found 10. On a monthly plan, credits last one billing cycle and unused credits do not roll over.

### Is there a cheaper alternative to Coresignal?

SpecStream delivers a row with up to 5 facts for 5¢, against 39¢ for a full employee record on Coresignal's $49 Mini plan. 10,000 rows with 5 facts cost $500, and a run that finds nothing costs nothing.

### Does SpecStream have an API and an MCP server?

Yes. Deep Search costs 5¢, 15¢ or $1 a row, the Search API from $1 per 1,000 searches and the Extract API $0.80 per 1,000 pages. They run through the REST API, the Python and TypeScript SDKs, a CLI and the MCP server at `https://api.specstream.ai/mcp`.

### Can SpecStream enrich 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.

### How accurate is SpecStream?

The Search API scores a 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 Extract API scores 0.908 F1 on WCXB. The scores and method are on [benchmarks](https://specstream.ai/benchmarks?utm_source=alternatives&utm_campaign=coresignal).

## Sources

SpecStream wrote this page. Each rival figure comes from that company's own page, read on the date shown.

- [SpecStream pricing](https://specstream.ai/pricing), read Nov 12, 2026
- [SpecStream for agents](https://specstream.ai/agents.md), read Nov 12, 2026
- [SpecStream benchmarks](https://specstream.ai/benchmarks), read Nov 12, 2026
- [SpecStream data](https://specstream.ai/data), read Nov 12, 2026
- [Coresignal pricing](https://coresignal.com/pricing/), read Nov 12, 2026
- [People Data Labs person pricing](https://www.peopledatalabs.com/pricing/person), read Nov 12, 2026
- [People Data Labs company pricing](https://www.peopledatalabs.com/pricing/company), read Nov 12, 2026
- [Crustdata pricing](https://crustdata.com/pricing), read Nov 12, 2026
- [Enrich Layer pricing](https://enrichlayer.com/pricing), read Nov 12, 2026
