The best company data APIs in 2026, compared on what a call actually costs

Name: BusinessMCP
Brand: BusinessMCP

Clearbit/Breeze, ZoomInfo, Apollo, Crunchbase, Hunter, IPinfo and BusinessMCP on September 2026 pricing, what each returns, and who each one suits.

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Price: ZoomInfo GTM.AI ~$0.38/credit · Apollo from $49/seat · Crunchbase quoted · Hunter from $49/mo · IPinfo from $26/mo · BusinessMCP: 1,000 free credits/mo · then $2.00 per 1,000
Switching gets you: A shortlist sorted by job — firmographics, contacts, funding, email, IP — with the vendor that fits each, and where a pay-per-call key beats a seat or an annual contract.
Stay with Company data APIs if: If one vendor already covers your job at a price you accept, stay: every API here now ships an official MCP server, so agent access is no longer a reason to move.

Feature comparison — pricing verified September 2026. Sources: public pricing pages + published teardowns.
	BusinessMCP	Clearbit / Breeze	ZoomInfo	Apollo	Crunchbase	Hunter	IPinfo
Published self-serve API price	1,000 free credits/mo · then $2.00 per 1,000	Inside a HubSpot seat	~$0.38/credit (GTM.AI)	$49/seat/mo annual	Quoted	$49/mo (Starter)	$26/mo (Core)
Company firmographics by domain	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Enrichment API	No
Contacts / people	Business contacts, limited regions	Contacts in HubSpot	Yes	Yes	Some contacts	Emails	No
Funding and investor data	No	No	No	No	Yes	No	No
IP to company	Yes	Buyer intent in HubSpot	WebSights module	No	No	No	Enterprise
Email verification	Domain-level, no SMTP	No	No	Not a standalone verifier	No	SMTP	No
Official MCP server	Yes	CRM MCP server	Yes	Yes	On your package	Yes	Yes
Minimum commitment	None	HubSpot seat	Prepaid credits (GTM.AI); annual (SalesOS)	Per-seat plan	Enterprise licence	Monthly plan	Monthly plan

The full picture

“Company data API” covers at least five different jobs: firmographics for a domain, contacts at a company, funding and investor history, an email address you can send to, and the company behind an IP address. No vendor on this page is best at all five, and several are not really sold as APIs at all — they are platforms with an API attached to a seat or an annual contract. The useful comparison is what one call costs you, what it returns, and what you have to buy first.

Two things changed in 2026. Every vendor here now runs an official MCP server, so “my agent can use it” is table stakes. And the market split into metered and contracted: ZoomInfo started selling per-credit access through GTM.AI, while Crunchbase ended its free API tier and Clearbit stopped issuing new keys. Every price below is from the vendor’s own page on 28 September 2026, or a dated teardown where the vendor publishes none — including ours, which is on this list with its limits stated.

The tools, honestly assessed

Clearbit / HubSpot Breeze Intelligence — pick it if you live in HubSpot

Enrichment is included in paid HubSpot subscriptions and, per HubSpot, consumes no credits; records fill in place. No new standalone Clearbit API keys are issued, so outside HubSpot it is not an option.

ZoomInfo (GTM.AI) — pick it for contacts, direct dials and intent in one dataset

Since June 2026 ZoomInfo sells API and MCP access per credit: 1,000 data and 1,000 AI credits free, then data credits at about $0.38 each at the $1,000 spend tier, one credit per company, contact or intent record.

Apollo.io API — pick it if you already pay for Apollo seats

The API is available across Apollo’s plans with per-team rate limits by plan (600 calls a day per endpoint on Free, 6,000 on Organization), and enrichment draws on the seat’s credits — a 2026 teardown puts an email at 1 credit and a phone number at 8. Seats run $49–$119/user/month on annual billing.

Crunchbase API — pick it for funding and private-market data

The free API tier is gone; API access is an enterprise licence priced through a sales form, rate-limited to 200 calls a minute according to an August 2026 review. Its MCP server follows your Crunchbase package. Unmatched for funding rounds and investors; not a contact source.

Hunter.io — pick it for finding and SMTP-verifying email addresses

Free 50 credits a month, then $49–$299/month for 2,000–25,000 credits; a found email is 1 credit, a verification 0.5, an enrichment 0.2. Its verifier performs the SMTP check the others skip.

IPinfo — pick it for IP geolocation and network data

Free country-level Lite, Core $26/month and Max $163/month for city geolocation, privacy and carrier data; the company field is listed on Enterprise. The reference for “where and what network”.

BusinessMCP Data API — pick it for pay-per-call company, IP and email checks on one key

1,000 free credits a month, then $2.00 per 1,000: company lookup charged only when found, company search, IP to company, email formats, domain-level email checks and lead checks over REST and MCP. The trade: no SMTP verification, no funding data, a smaller store, and people data that excludes whole regions.

Company data API pricing, verified September 2026

Plan	Price	Notes
Clearbit / HubSpot Breeze	Included in paid HubSpot plans	Sales Hub Starter $20/seat/mo ($15 annual); no new standalone Clearbit API keys
ZoomInfo (GTM.AI)	~$0.38 per data credit	at the $1,000 spend tier; 1,000 data + 1,000 AI credits free; AI credits $0.05; credits expire after 12 months
Apollo.io	$49–$119/seat/mo (annual)	API rate limits by plan; enrichment uses seat credits (email 1, phone 8)
Crunchbase API	Quoted	enterprise licence via sales; free API tier discontinued
Hunter.io	Free · $49–$299/mo	50 to 25,000 credits/mo; ~30% less annual; Data Platform prepaid bundles
IPinfo	Free · $26–$163/mo · Enterprise	company field listed on Enterprise
BusinessMCP Data API	1,000 free credits/mo · then $2.00 per 1,000	falls to $0.80 per 1,000 above a million credits; no seat, no contract

Vendor pages were checked on 2026-09-28. ZoomInfo’s core SalesOS platform is still sold on annual contracts; the per-credit price above is GTM.AI’s. Crunchbase and Clearbit publish no API price. BusinessMCP: the first 1,000 first-party credits each month are free; after that credits are billed in arrears at $2.00 per 1,000 for the first 100,000, falling to $0.80 per 1,000 above a million. New paying accounts start with a 50,000-credit monthly cap you can change. Prices come from the same file the charge path reads.

Where BusinessMCP is NOT the right choice

An alternatives page you can trust has to cut both ways. Honestly:

Our email_verify never opens an SMTP session, so it cannot tell you a specific mailbox exists: its verdicts are undeliverable, risky, domain_ok or unknown — never “valid”. If you need a per-mailbox answer before a send, use a verifier that performs the SMTP check.
The people tools (people_search, email_finder, person_enrich) need a card and accepted people-data terms, are never covered by the free credits, default to 500 records a day, and never return people in the EU, the EEA, the UK or Switzerland, people we place in California, Texas, Vermont and Oregon, or people we cannot place at all. A European or Californian prospect list is not something this API will build.
No funding, investor, revenue, technographic or intent data. If those fields drive your scoring, Crunchbase or ZoomInfo carry them and we do not.
Our company store (34M companies) is smaller than ZoomInfo’s or Apollo’s databases, and we do not crawl on demand: a domain we hold no row for returns found=false.
The Data API is a young product from a small company. You get published per-call prices and direct founder support, not an account team, a long track record or an integrations marketplace.

Frequently asked questions

Which company data API is cheapest?

For a handful of lookups, the free tiers: Hunter’s 50 credits, ZoomInfo GTM.AI’s 1,000 data credits, IPinfo Lite at country level, and our 1,000 free credits a month. At volume it depends on the job — per company record, our company_lookup is $0.002 at the first tier and charged only when found, against about $0.38 per ZoomInfo credit; per verified email, Hunter’s plans are the cheaper option because we do not do SMTP verification.

Which one should I use for funding data?

Crunchbase. Funding rounds, investors and private-market predictions are what it is built on. Its API needs an enterprise licence priced through sales; none of the others, us included, is a substitute there.

Do these APIs work with AI agents?

All of them now ship an official MCP server: Hunter, Apollo, IPinfo, Crunchbase, ZoomInfo through GTM.AI, HubSpot for its CRM records, and BusinessMCP at /api/hub/mcp on the same key as REST. Check what each server exposes and which plan it needs — Apollo’s is for paid plans and Crunchbase’s follows your package.

What happened to the Clearbit API?

HubSpot acquired Clearbit and folded it into HubSpot as Breeze Intelligence. Free Clearbit tools ended on April 30, 2025, the Logo API on December 8, 2025, and new self-serve API keys are no longer issued. Enrichment now lives inside paid HubSpot subscriptions.

Where does BusinessMCP’s data come from?

Company data comes from a store we build and maintain ourselves from public sources and our own crawling; IP to company comes from an IP graph we rebuild every night from public registry, routing and DNS evidence. We do not resell another API vendor’s responses.

Other honest alternatives

Hunter.io alternative

Email finding and verification, head to head.

Compare

Clearbit API alternative

Company enrichment by domain outside HubSpot.

Compare

IPinfo alternative

IP to company versus IP geolocation.

Compare

Sources & verification

Every price on this page traces to a public source, last verified September 28, 2026. Spotted a change? Tell us and we'll re-verify.

Keep reading

Data API: company, IP and email data per call Company data API IP to company API Data API reference (REST, MCP, credits, errors)MCP vs API: when to use which ZoomInfo alternative Apollo alternative

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