Cognism vs Seamless.AI: pricing, features and which to choose

Cognism is a B2B sales intelligence company founded in London in 2015. It built its service for revenue teams selling across EMEA, expanded into Europe and the United States in 2019, acquired Kaspr, and raised Series C funding in 2022. The company does not publish current employee, revenue, or funding totals. Its platform combines company and people records with firmographics, technology data, hiring, funding, mergers and acquisitions, and intent signals. Cognism said in March 2025 that its database contained more than 440 million contacts and 100 million mobile numbers. The company’s 2026 brand update presents Cognism as a global data business focused on professional information, compliance controls, and usable records for sales and marketing teams.

A typical Cognism workflow begins with a company or people search, then narrows results through filters for location, industry, headcount, revenue, technology, funding, hiring, job title, seniority, department, skills, and buying intent. Users can count matching records before retrieving them, resolve accepted filter values through dictionaries, and collect results through paginated searches. Contact details appear only when requested, which controls credit use. Teams can reveal records, export them, enrich CSV files, and connect data to CRM systems. CRM Enrichment can operate as an add-on or standalone service, maintaining records as details change. A previously revealed contact can be viewed without another credit, while a job change can require another credit for updated information.

Cognism’s main weakness is procurement friction. Buyers cannot see current prices, credit allocations, search-token allowances, or API limits before receiving a package proposal, and API access applies only to eligible subscriptions. The EULA limits use to internal business purposes and restricts reproducing, selling, distributing, or commercially exploiting Cognism Data unless an agreement permits it. Lusha offers published self-serve plans and a free tier, making it easier for smaller teams to start. Apollo.io combines contact data with email sequences and sales engagement, while Cognism concentrates on data, signals, enrichment, and delivery. ZoomInfo offers a broader enterprise sales suite. Pick Cognism if your revenue team needs managed enrichment and compliance-focused international data, especially across EMEA.

Seamless.AI is a B2B sales intelligence platform from Seamless Contacts Inc., founded in 2015 and based in Columbus, Ohio. CB Insights lists $3.38 million in total funding. Founder and CEO Brandon Bornancin remains the public face of the company. The business announced a rebrand to Seamless on February 10, 2026, while keeping seamless.ai as its website. Company figures point to rapid expansion: more than 500,000 sales teams in a June 2025 announcement, then more than 1,000,000 in the rebrand announcement. Its 2025 review reported 70 million contact searches and 13 million company searches. Those figures describe company-reported activity, not independently audited customer totals, but they show the product's intended scale and commercial focus clearly.

A normal workflow begins with filters for title, industry, geography, company size, and related company or contact fields. Users can research a person, save the record, enrich an uploaded list, or send contacts into outreach workflows. The product includes a Chrome extension, Job Change Enrich, Buyer Intent, org charts, AI Assistant, Autopilot, AI Campaigns, and CRM connections. Developers use a separate search and research sequence. They authenticate with an API key or OAuth, search contacts or companies, submit selected results for research, then retrieve results through polling or webhooks. The API also offers MCP access for Cursor, Claude, and ChatGPT. That gives technical teams a path to build CRM, warehouse, or agent workflows around the same contact data.

Credit accounting is the main constraint. Search, enrichment, research, AI actions, and automation use overlapping balances, and inaccurate records can still consume credits. Paid prices are not public, and API terms prohibit spam, resale, unauthorized aggregation, sensitive personal information, and unapproved caching. ZoomInfo is stronger for enterprise account intelligence and intent programs, while Seamless offers a free test and a prospecting workflow. Apollo.io presents a more explicit multichannel sequencing model, whereas Seamless emphasizes data discovery and enrichment. Lusha suits smaller contact lookups with fewer automation surfaces. Seamless is the better pick for B2B prospecting and API enrichment when a team can monitor credit use.