# Crustdata alternatives in 2026: company and people rows from 5¢ Compared on Nov 12, 2026. The page: https://specstream.ai/alternatives/crustdata Crustdata sells its database of people, companies and jobs by the credit: 0.03 a search result, 1 to 9 a person, from 2 a company. New accounts get $20 in free credits, credits last 12 months, and enterprise plans start at four figures a month. SpecStream is the live web data engine for teams and agents. Describe the companies or people in plain words, with any condition and field, and get each match as a row at 5¢, 15¢ or $1. Source URL and read time on every value. [Get an API key](https://specstream.ai/signup?src=alternatives-crustdata&utm_source=alternatives-md&utm_campaign=crustdata&returnTo=%2Fworkspace%2Fagents%3Ftab%3Dkeys) New accounts get $10 of credit, no card. ## SpecStream and Crustdata side by side | | SpecStream | Crustdata | |---|---|---| | What you send | The companies or people you want in plain words, with the conditions every row must meet and the fields to bring back | Filters on its own index, 350+ across people, companies and jobs, or a person or company to enrich | | 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 database of 1B+ people and 60M+ companies, refreshed every 1 to 30 days | | 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: 0.03 for each search result, 1 to 9 for a person and from 2 for a company. Every response shows the credits that call used | | 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 | $20 in free credits. Real time API access from four figures a month, and the rate per credit drops as volume grows | | Emails and phones | An email adds 5¢ and a phone 15¢ to the row that carries it, on every plan. An email no page printed is labeled likely | Add ons to the base profile: work email 1 credit, personal email 2, phone 2. Verified work emails add 0.5 | | Fresh data | Read from the live web when the run happens, with the source URL and read time on every value | Indexed records refreshed every 1 to 30 days. Live people search costs 2 credits a profile and live enrich 7, on enterprise plans | | What a miss costs | Nothing. Duplicates, rows you already own and rows a page contradicts are not charged, and a run that finds nothing costs nothing | A search that comes back empty costs nothing, and contact enrich charges nothing when it finds no match | | Credits and limits | The most a run can cost, quoted before it starts. Nothing runs until you approve it, and there are no automatic overages | Credits last 12 months. Default rate limits run from 10 requests a minute on live endpoints to 45 on autocomplete | | 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¢ | Watchers alert you when a person or company changes or a new match appears, from 0.5 credit a new result | | 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 | The REST API, where batch calls cost the same as single calls | | Where the data goes | Google Sheets, Excel, Airtable, Notion, monday.com, HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Attio, Slack, Teams, Zapier, Make, n8n and signed webhooks | API responses, into the product you build | ## Why product teams choose SpecStream over Crustdata ### The whole request, written once On Crustdata you search the index with its filters, shortlist, then enrich the records you keep, and each step costs credits. A SpecStream request is the whole job: "Fintech companies in the United States that raised a Series A or B in the last 90 days, with the amount, the lead investor, the CEO and a work email for each". SpecStream turns it into the conditions every row must meet and the facts to bring back, which you can edit before it runs. Then it searches the live web, reads each page and joins what it finds into one record per company or person. A row that fails one condition is not delivered and not billed. ### A price in dollars, per row The rates are on [pricing](https://specstream.ai/pricing?utm_source=alternatives&utm_campaign=crustdata): 5¢, 15¢ or $1 a delivered row by how much the row needs, plus 5¢ for an email and 15¢ for a phone. Plans at $19, $99 and $499 a month turn their whole price into credit at the same rates. Crustdata lists its prices in credits, with enterprise plans from four figures a month. On SpecStream the quote is in dollars before the run starts, and duplicates, rows you already own and rows a page contradicts are not charged. ### Funding, hiring and leadership signals US funding rounds, layoffs and new executives are on [signals](https://specstream.ai/signals?utm_source=alternatives&utm_campaign=crustdata). A request can name the signal as a condition, such as a round in the last 90 days, and each row carries the page that states it. ### Every run has a maximum you approve Every request gets a quote of the most it can cost, and pricing a request spends nothing. Nothing runs until you approve the quote, the charge never goes past it, and what the run does not use goes back to your balance. An API key carries its own limits: total, per run and monthly. Agents connect to `https://api.specstream.ai/mcp` with OAuth or an API key, and your team uses the workspace, from one balance. ### Rows that 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 and an unchanged row 1¢, and new matches arrive in Slack, email, a sheet, a CRM or a signed webhook. US funding rounds, layoffs and new executives are on [signals](https://specstream.ai/signals?utm_source=alternatives&utm_campaign=crustdata). ### The most accurate web search API, on the same account The same key runs the Search API. On SimpleQA Verified it scores 97.9 F-score on all 1,000 official questions, 978 of them correct. On WideSearch it scores 64.0 item F1 and 43.4 row F1 on all 200 official 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=crustdata). The Search API costs $5 per 1,000 searches of up to 10 results, and $1 per 1,000 on the fast tier. The Extract API reads pages at $0.80 per 1,000, and a page with no text is not charged. ## Other Crustdata alternatives ### SpecStream The live web data engine for teams and agents. One request in plain words, through the API, MCP or the workspace, returns every company or person that meets your conditions as a 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. ### BlitzAPI A B2B data API on flat monthly plans: $99 a month for 200,000 records or $499 for 5,000,000, with calls paused at the limit until the next cycle. SpecStream has no allowance that resets: you pay for the rows delivered. ### People Data Labs A person data API whose Pro plan starts at $98 a month for 350 credits, with a free plan of up to 100 credits a month that hides emails, phones and addresses. On SpecStream an email costs 5¢ on every plan. See [People Data Labs alternatives](https://specstream.ai/alternatives/people-data-labs?utm_source=alternatives&utm_campaign=crustdata). ### Coresignal Company, employee and job records sold by the credit, from $49 a month, with 20 credits for a full employee record. Each SpecStream row costs 5¢, 15¢ or $1, on every plan. See [Coresignal alternatives](https://specstream.ai/alternatives/coresignal?utm_source=alternatives&utm_campaign=crustdata). ### MixRank Bulk feeds of company, people, jobs and technology data delivered to a warehouse, with no published rate card: the price comes after a call. SpecStream prints its rates and quotes each run before it starts. ## How to switch Write the companies or people you want in plain words, in place of the filters you send today. 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 the United States that raised a Series A or B in the last 90 days, with the amount, the lead investor, the CEO 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. Using Crustdata for web search? See [Crustdata Web Search API alternative](https://specstream.ai/crustdata-web-search-api?utm_source=alternatives&utm_campaign=crustdata). ## Frequently asked questions ### How much does Crustdata cost? Crustdata bills credits: 0.03 for each search result, 1 to 9 for a person and from 2 for a company. New accounts get $20 in free credits, credits last 12 months, and enterprise plans start at four figures a month. ### How much does a Crustdata email or phone cost? On top of the 1 credit base profile, a work email costs 1 credit, a personal email 2 and a phone 2, and verified work emails add 0.5. On SpecStream an email adds 5¢ and a phone 15¢ to the row that carries it. ### What is the best Crustdata alternative? SpecStream, at 5¢, 15¢ or $1 a delivered row. You describe the companies or people and the fields in plain words, approve the most the run can cost, and get one row per match that meets every condition you wrote, read from the live web with the source URL and read time on every value. ### Is there a free Crustdata alternative? New SpecStream accounts get $10 of credit, no card, which is up to 200 rows at 5¢. BlitzAPI gives 1,000 free records, and People Data Labs has a free plan of up to 100 credits a month with contact data hidden. ### Does SpecStream have an MCP server? Yes, at `https://api.specstream.ai/mcp`, with OAuth or an API key. Deep Search returns companies and people as rows at 5¢, 15¢ or $1, the Search API costs $5 per 1,000 searches of up to 10 results, and the Extract API costs $0.80 per 1,000 pages, all from one balance. ### How accurate is SpecStream? The 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. The scores and method are on [benchmarks](https://specstream.ai/benchmarks?utm_source=alternatives&utm_campaign=crustdata). In each row, every value carries the page it was read on and the time it was read. ## Sources SpecStream wrote this page. Each rival figure comes from that company's own page, read on the day 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 - [Crustdata pricing](https://crustdata.com/pricing), read Nov 12, 2026 - [Crustdata pricing docs](https://docs.crustdata.com/general/pricing.md), read Nov 12, 2026 - [BlitzAPI pricing](https://blitz-api.ai/pricing), read Nov 12, 2026 - [People Data Labs person pricing](https://www.peopledatalabs.com/pricing/person), read Nov 12, 2026 - [Coresignal pricing](https://coresignal.com/pricing/), read Nov 12, 2026 - [MixRank: get started](https://mixrank.com/pricing), read Nov 12, 2026