ContactOut: Complete Review, Pricing Breakdown & Smarter Alternatives

What Is ContactOut and Who Is It For?

ContactOut is a B2B contact database and email finding tool that helps sales professionals, recruiters, and marketers locate email addresses and phone numbers for prospects. The platform claims access to data for over 300 million professionals across 30 million companies, primarily through its Chrome extension that integrates with LinkedIn profiles.

The tool is designed for anyone who needs to find contact information quickly: SDRs building prospect lists, recruiters sourcing candidates, or marketers running outbound campaigns. ContactOut's main value proposition is speed—you can pull contact data directly from LinkedIn profiles without leaving the platform.

ContactOut's Core Features

Before diving into whether ContactOut is worth your investment, let's break down what you actually get:

Chrome Extension

This is ContactOut's flagship feature. When you visit a LinkedIn profile, the extension displays available email addresses and phone numbers in a sidebar. You can save contacts to lists and export them directly to your CRM or CSV file.

Search Portal

Beyond the Chrome extension, ContactOut offers a search portal with over 20 filters to find prospects by job title, company, location, industry, and more. This allows you to build targeted lists without manually browsing LinkedIn profiles.

Email Campaigns

ContactOut includes basic email outreach functionality. You can import prospects and send multi-stage email campaigns directly from the platform. However, many users find these features limited compared to dedicated cold email tools like Smartlead or Lemlist.

AI Email Writer

The platform includes an AI-powered email writing assistant to help personalize outreach at scale. While useful for quick drafts, serious outreach teams typically prefer more robust solutions.

ContactOut Pricing: What You'll Actually Pay

Here's where things get complicated. ContactOut's pricing structure has several tiers, and the "unlimited" claims require careful examination.

Free Plan

ContactOut's free tier gives you 5 email lookups, 5 phone numbers, and 5 exports daily. It's essentially a trial—useful for testing accuracy but insufficient for any real prospecting work.

Email Plan ($49/month billed annually)

This plan is marketed as "unlimited emails" but actually caps you at 2,000 emails monthly with only 300 exports. You won't get phone numbers at this tier. For light outreach and small businesses, this might work, but the hidden limits catch many users off guard.

Email + Phone Plan ($99/month billed annually)

This adds phone number access with limits of 2,000 emails and 1,000 phone numbers monthly, plus 600 exports. Sales professionals who rely on cold calling will need at least this tier.

Sales Plan ($79/month)

The Sales Plan includes advanced features and higher usage limits, with access to up to 6,000 emails per year. This tier introduces integrations available in higher-priced plans.

Recruiter Plan ($199/month)

Designed for high-volume users with up to 12,000 emails per year and advanced search capabilities for more targeted lead generation.

Team/API Plans (Custom Pricing)

Enterprise solutions with custom pricing, API access, team management features, and dedicated support. Pricing negotiations required.

The Hidden Limitations Users Discover Too Late

ContactOut's marketing doesn't always tell the full story. Here are the limitations real users encounter:

"Unlimited" Isn't Unlimited

The fair use policy buried in the terms of service caps your monthly usage at specific numbers regardless of "unlimited" marketing claims. Hit those limits and you're done until next month—no overage options available.

Export Restrictions

Even if you find 2,000 contacts, you can only export 300-600 per month depending on your plan. This creates a frustrating bottleneck for teams building large prospect lists.

Per-User Pricing

Each team member needs their own subscription. A five-person sales team on the Email + Phone plan would pay nearly $500/month before taxes.

Variable Data Accuracy

While ContactOut claims 99% accuracy through "triple verification," user reviews frequently mention inconsistencies, particularly with phone numbers and contacts outside North America. Some users report bounce rates exceeding 5%, which can damage your sender reputation.

Who Should Actually Use ContactOut?

ContactOut makes sense for specific use cases:

• Recruiters with LinkedIn-heavy workflows: If you spend all day on LinkedIn sourcing candidates, the Chrome extension saves significant time
• Low-volume prospectors: Users who need fewer than 2,000 contacts monthly and don't mind export limits
• Teams already invested in the ecosystem: If you've built workflows around ContactOut's integrations, switching costs may outweigh limitations

However, if you're doing high-volume outreach, need international data, or want full control over your prospecting workflow, you'll likely hit ContactOut's walls quickly.

Better Approaches to B2B Prospecting

Contact finding is just one piece of successful outreach. Before investing in any tool, consider whether your overall targeting strategy is sound.

Start With Target Market Analysis

Most prospecting failures stem from targeting the wrong companies, not finding the wrong emails. Before spending on contact databases, you need clarity on your ideal customer profile, market size, and competitive landscape.

Our B2B Targeting Generator helps you build data-driven target market definitions using AI analysis. It's completely free and gives you the strategic foundation that makes every subsequent prospecting dollar more effective.

Verify Before You Send

Regardless of which contact finder you use, always verify emails before launching campaigns. A single tool rarely catches everything. Our Email Verifier provides instant validation to protect your sender reputation and improve deliverability.

Consider Multi-Source Approaches

Sophisticated sales teams rarely rely on a single data source. They combine tools strategically: use one platform for initial discovery, another for verification, and perhaps a third for enrichment. Tools like Clay excel at waterfall enrichment across multiple data providers.

Top ContactOut Alternatives Worth Considering

If ContactOut's limitations don't fit your workflow, here are proven alternatives:

Apollo.io

Apollo combines a massive database of 275+ million contacts with sales intelligence, automation, and a built-in dialer. The free plan is generous, and paid plans start at $49/month. Many users consider it the best all-in-one ContactOut alternative for teams wanting more than just contact finding.

Lusha

Lusha offers an intuitive Chrome extension with strong data accuracy, particularly for North American contacts. It's known for real-time email and phone verification and GDPR/CCPA compliance. Pricing starts around $37/month, making it accessible for solo SDRs and small teams.

RocketReach

RocketReach is a popular email-finding tool that helps businesses contact professionals through verified email addresses, phone numbers, and social media profiles. It's particularly strong for finding contacts across multiple platforms, not just LinkedIn.

Hunter.io

Hunter focuses specifically on email finding with transparent credit-based pricing starting at $49/month. It doesn't offer phone numbers, but excels at domain-based email searches and has a reputation for straightforward pricing without hidden caps.

Findymail

Findymail prioritizes deliverability and data quality over sheer volume. It's more expensive per contact but users report significantly lower bounce rates. Ideal for teams where sender reputation is paramount.

Building a Complete Prospecting Stack

Rather than searching for one perfect tool, build a stack that covers your entire workflow:

Targeting Layer

Start with clear ideal customer profile definition. Use our free B2B Targeting Generator to identify market segments, company characteristics, and decision-maker titles worth pursuing.

Discovery Layer

Choose one or two contact finding tools based on your volume needs and geographic focus. ContactOut works for LinkedIn-centric recruiting; Apollo or Lusha provide broader B2B coverage.

Verification Layer

Never trust any single data source. Run all emails through a dedicated verification tool before campaigns. Our Email Verifier catches invalid addresses that slip through other tools.

Outreach Layer

Use purpose-built cold email tools for actual campaigns. Smartlead and Instantly offer far more sophisticated deliverability features than ContactOut's built-in email campaigns.

Making the Right Choice for Your Team

ContactOut isn't a bad tool—it's a specific tool with specific limitations. It works well for LinkedIn-focused recruiting and low-to-moderate volume sales prospecting. The Chrome extension genuinely saves time if you spend hours on LinkedIn daily.

However, the "unlimited" pricing claims, export restrictions, and variable data accuracy make it frustrating for high-volume users or teams that need predictable costs. Most importantly, contact finding alone doesn't drive results—strategic targeting does.

Before committing to any paid prospecting tool, ensure your targeting foundation is solid. The best email list in the world won't help if you're reaching out to companies that aren't a fit. Start with our free B2B Targeting Generator to build that strategic foundation, then choose contact finding tools that match your specific volume, budget, and geographic needs.

Your prospecting results depend more on who you target than which tool finds their email. Get the strategy right first, then optimize the tactics.