Are you looking for the best sales intelligence software to supercharge your lead generation efforts? With so many options on the market, it can be challenging to choose the right platform for your business needs.
In this comprehensive guide, we’ll take a deep dive into comparing two of the leading players in the space: ZoomInfo and Lusha. Discover their key features, pricing, pros and cons, and get expert insights to determine which one is the optimal choice for you.
For even more comparisons, check out our guides to ZoomInfo vs Apollo, ZoomInfo vs Cognism, ZoomInfo vs RocketReach, Lusha vs Apollo, Lusha vs Cognism, and Lusha vs RocketReach.
ZoomInfo and Lusha: An Overview
Before we get into the nitty-gritty details, let’s start with a high-level overview of what ZoomInfo and Lusha each bring to the table:
About ZoomInfo
Launched in 2000, ZoomInfo has grown to become a go-to resource for B2B contact and company data. Some key facts about ZoomInfo:
- Extensive database with over 65 million direct dials and 100 million email addresses
- Detailed company insights including revenue, employee count, industry, and tech stack
- Acquired DiscoverOrg in 2019 and rebranded the combined entity as ZoomInfo
- Went public in June 2020 and trades on the Nasdaq under ticker symbol ZI
- Used by over 20,000 businesses worldwide, including many Fortune 500 companies
For a deeper dive, read our full ZoomInfo review and explore top ZoomInfo alternatives.
About Lusha
Founded more recently in 2016, Lusha has quickly made a name for itself as an affordable, user-friendly tool for sales prospecting. Some highlights on Lusha:
- Over 100 million B2B contact profiles, including 60 million email addresses and 50 million direct dials
- Focused on providing verified, accurate data to improve outreach success rates
- Browser extension enables seamless prospecting on sites like LinkedIn
- Completely bootstrapped and profitable, before raising a $205M Series B in 2021 at a $1.5B valuation
- Trusted by over 670,000 sales professionals and recruiters in 200,000 companies
Check out our in-depth Lusha review and top Lusha alternatives for more information.
Key Features Comparison
Now that we have the lay of the land, let’s examine how ZoomInfo and Lusha stack up in terms of core functionality. We’ll look at critical aspects like data coverage, integrations, prospecting tools, and more.
Database Size and Quality
One of the most important considerations in choosing a sales intelligence platform is the breadth and accuracy of its underlying database. Here’s how ZoomInfo and Lusha compare:
| Platform | Contacts | Direct Dials | Email Addresses | Company Profiles |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ZoomInfo | 235M+ | 65M+ | 100M+ | 14M+ |
| Lusha | 100M+ | 50M+ | 60M+ | 15M+ |
As you can see, ZoomInfo boasts a significantly larger database overall, with around 2.3X more total contacts than Lusha. However, Lusha holds its own on verified email addresses and company profiles.
Quantity is one thing, but data quality and freshness is equally important. Both ZoomInfo and Lusha employ large teams of researchers and data scientists to validate and cleanse their databases using a combination of AI, web crawling, and human verification.
ZoomInfo also provides “data coverage indicators” on company profiles estimating how complete and recently refreshed the information is. Lusha allows users to report invalid or outdated data through their extension.
In terms of types of contact details provided, the two platforms are quite comparable—with fields like name, title, company, email, phone, social profiles, location, etc. Lusha has a slight edge in providing mobile numbers.
Integrations
To streamline workflows, sales and marketing teams rely heavily on integrated tech stacks. Let’s see how well ZoomInfo and Lusha play with other tools:
ZoomInfo Integrations
ZoomInfo offers an extensive partner ecosystem with 200+ apps across categories like:
- CRM: Salesforce, HubSpot, Microsoft Dynamics, Pipedrive, and more
- Marketing Automation: Marketo, Pardot, Eloqua, Campaign Monitor, and more
- Sales Engagement: Outreach, SalesLoft, Groove, VanillaSoft, and more
- Recruitment: Bullhorn, Lever, Greenhouse, JobDiva, and more
Native integrations are available for many popular platforms out-of-the-box. ZoomInfo also provides webhooks and open APIs to build custom integrations with any system.
Lusha Integrations
In contrast, Lusha offers a more curated selection of direct integrations with top CRMs and sales tools:
- Salesforce
- Outreach
- SalesLoft
- Pipedrive
- HubSpot
- Microsoft Dynamics
- Zoho
For marketing automation, Lusha connects primarily through Zapier. They also offer an API for custom development, but don’t yet have a formal integration marketplace like ZoomInfo.
Overall, ZoomInfo gets the nod here for its broader partner network, especially for enterprise marketing automation and HR/recruiting use cases. But for core sales CRM and enablement apps, Lusha checks the major boxes.
Prospecting and List Building
At their core, both ZoomInfo and Lusha are designed to help sales reps and recruiters find and connect with relevant leads more efficiently.
ZoomInfo Prospecting
Within ZoomInfo, users can search for contacts and companies using a wide range of filters and data points, including:
- Title, role, and seniority level
- Company size, revenue, and industry
- Tech stack and installed products
- Content engagement and buyer intent keywords
- Recent funding rounds and growth indicators
Saved searches can be turned into dynamic lists that populate new contacts matching the criteria over time. Users can also upload lists of target accounts or contacts to enrich with additional details from ZoomInfo’s database.
ZoomInfo offers a Chrome extension to view contact and company details on websites like LinkedIn. However, some users complain it can be clunky compared to Lusha’s.
Lusha Prospecting
Lusha also provides a robust set of search capabilities to find leads, including:
- Name, company, and location
- Title, role, and department
- Company size, industry, and revenue
- Technologies used
- Seniority level
One differentiator is Lusha’s ability to surface personal email addresses in addition to corporate ones. This can be helpful for reaching prospects who have left a company or use an alias.
The Lusha browser extension is where the product really shines. With a single click, it finds contact details, including email format and direct dial, for most LinkedIn profiles. It’s an incredibly efficient way to gather accurate data at scale while browsing.
Like ZoomInfo, Lusha enables CSV uploads to enrich and fill in missing details across existing contact lists. They also support exports to seamlessly activate the data in external systems.
While both offer powerful search and list building tools, users often prefer Lusha’s snappy browser extension for ad-hoc, high-velocity prospecting. But ZoomInfo’s advanced filters and intent data give it an edge for strategic, targeted list development.
Data Privacy and Compliance
Whenever dealing with personal data, privacy and compliance must be top of mind. ZoomInfo and Lusha take somewhat different approaches here:
ZoomInfo’s Stance
As a public company, ZoomInfo is highly focused on data protection. Their privacy policy states they are fully GDPR, CCPA, and TCPA compliant. They have strict processes for opt-outs and data subject requests.
ZoomInfo gathers data primarily from public sources like company websites, news articles, SEC filings, stock profiles, public and government sources, etc. They do not source contact details from social networks.
Lusha’s Approach
Lusha crowdsources a portion of its data from a “community” of sales professionals who install the extension and voluntarily share their contact details in exchange for free credits on the platform. Some see this as a grey area under certain privacy laws.
That said, Lusha has a public commitment to compliance and strives to adhere to GDPR and other applicable regulations worldwide. Like ZoomInfo, they fully honor opt-out requests and have published their privacy policy in line with best practices.
Ultimately, both companies seem to take data privacy seriously and have established policies to stay compliant with evolving regulations. But ZoomInfo’s data sourcing methods may be perceived as more “above board” than Lusha’s community approach. It’s up to each business to evaluate the potential risks and rewards.
Pricing Comparison
For most companies, cost is a crucial factor when selecting a tool. ZoomInfo and Lusha have quite different pricing models, so it’s important to understand the details:
ZoomInfo Pricing
ZoomInfo does not publish pricing on their website. Everything is customized based on factors like number of seats, data access level, intent keywords tracked, and integrations activated. You must contact their sales team for a consultation.
Based on online reviews and publicly available information, ZoomInfo packages tend to start around $15,000-$20,000 per year for a team of 3-5 users, billed annually. Larger teams and those needing advanced features like intent and org charts can expect to pay easily $30,000-$50,000 or more per year.
ZoomInfo does offer a free trial to test drive the platform, but requires entering credit card details to get started—suggesting there is likely no totally free plan available for ongoing use.
Lusha Pricing
In stark contrast, Lusha openly publishes their prices and plans:
Key things to note about Lusha’s pricing:
- They offer a generous free plan with 5 credits per month, which is enough to enrich around 25-50 contacts
- Paid plans start at just $49/month for individuals, up to $199/seat/month for large teams
- All plans are billed annually or monthly, but they do offer a 7-day free trial before charging
- Unlike ZoomInfo, Lusha prices solely based on number of users—all features are included
This transparent, affordable pricing makes Lusha very accessible for startups, small businesses, and even solo entrepreneurs.
However, large enterprises with bigger budgets and complex data needs may still prefer the white-glove customization of ZoomInfo’s packages. It really depends on the scale and sophistication of your sales operations.
Pros and Cons
We’ve covered a lot of ground in comparing ZoomInfo and Lusha. To make it easily digestible, here’s a quick summary of the key advantages and disadvantages of each platform:
ZoomInfo Pros
- Industry-leading database size with 235M+ contacts and 14M+ companies
- Powerful list building with advanced filters and dynamic updates
- Provides intent data and other buying signals for account prioritization
- Extensive integrations across CRM, marketing automation, and recruiting
- Enterprise-grade features to support the most complex environments
ZoomInfo Cons
- High cost with opaque, custom pricing and required annual contracts
- Chrome extension not as full-featured or user-friendly as Lusha
- Steeper learning curve to make use of advanced capabilities
- May be overkill for small teams with simpler sales stacks
Lusha Pros
- Very intuitive and easy to use, with little training required
- Slick browser extension to quickly find emails and direct dials
- Transparent, affordable pricing starting at just $29/month
- Completely free plan for light prospecting needs
- GDPR and CCPA compliant with clear opt-out procedures
Lusha Cons
- Smaller database size compared to ZoomInfo (~100M vs. 235M contacts)
- Fewer direct integrations, especially outside of core CRMs
- Lacks some advanced features like intent data and org charts
- Crowdsourced data from user community may raise privacy flags
As with any software decision, the right choice between ZoomInfo and Lusha comes down to your specific needs, budget, and risk tolerance. Review the above trade-offs carefully to determine where your priorities lie.
Choosing the Best Sales Intelligence Software for You
Having reviewed the ins and outs of ZoomInfo vs. Lusha, here are a few recommendations based on common scenarios:
When to Choose ZoomInfo
- You run a large sales and marketing operation needing advanced lead prioritization and data enrichment capabilities
- You’re seeking to cleanse a high volume of contacts from multiple data suppliers and sources
- You rely heavily on intent data to inform account-based selling and marketing strategies
- You want to activate contact and company data across a wide tech stack, including marketing automation and recruiting tools
- You have the budget for an extensive, enterprise-level data intelligence platform
When to Choose Lusha
- You’re a small B2B team looking for an affordable way to scale lead generation without breaking the bank
- You primarily prospect manually on sites like LinkedIn and need a quick way to find personal email addresses and direct phone numbers
- You require an easy-to-use tool that sales reps can learn and adopt immediately
- Your core sales stack consists of mainstream CRMs like Salesforce, HubSpot, or Pipedrive that Lusha integrates with
- You appreciate transparent pricing with a fully free plan to get started
Alternatives to ZoomInfo and Lusha
While this guide focused on comparing ZoomInfo and Lusha, there are several other strong contenders in the B2B contact data space worth considering:
- Seamless.ai – AI-powered lead generation platform with 100M+ contacts
- Apollo.io – Sales engagement and intelligence tool with 220M contacts
- Clearbit – Data activation platform for marketing and sales with 95M contacts
- UpLead – Affordable B2B prospecting tool with 54M contacts
- LeadIQ – Prospecting and data enrichment solution with 42M contacts
Each of these has its own strengths, integrations, and unique technology. We encourage evaluating multiple options to find the optimal fit for your needs.
Key Takeaways
- ZoomInfo and Lusha are both powerful sales intelligence platforms used by thousands of B2B sellers and recruiters to scale prospecting efforts.
- ZoomInfo offers the largest contact database and most extensive feature set, but comes with custom enterprise pricing.
- Lusha provides an incredibly intuitive and affordable solution, anchored by their slick browser extension to find contact data on the web.
- When choosing between the two, consider your budget, use cases, tech stack compatibility, and appetite for crowdsourced vs. proprietary data.
- Don’t forget to weigh other leading vendors like Seamless.ai, Apollo, Clearbit, UpLead, and LeadIQ in your evaluation.
FAQs
- What’s the cost difference between ZoomInfo and Lusha? ZoomInfo requires custom enterprise pricing starting around $15,000-$20,000/year, while Lusha has transparent plans from $49-$199/month.
- How many contacts are in ZoomInfo vs. Lusha? ZoomInfo reports over 235 million contacts, compared to around 100 million for Lusha.
- Which one is easier to use for the average sales rep? Lusha is generally considered more intuitive with faster time-to-value, especially their Chrome extension for ad-hoc prospecting on LinkedIn.
- Can I get a list of decision-makers at target accounts in my industry? Yes, both tools allow building hyper-targeted lead lists, although ZoomInfo offers the most advanced filters like intent keywords, technologies used, funding details.
- Do either ZoomInfo or Lusha offer free trials? Yes, ZoomInfo has a free trial requiring a credit card to get started. Lusha offers a 7-day free trial on paid plans, as well as a free forever plan for 5 credits.
