Cognism Review, Pricing & Alternatives (2026)

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 provides a REST API over HTTPS with JSON requests and responses, OAuth 2.0 client credentials, count endpoints, dictionaries, pagination, search tokens, credits, and rate limits. Its MCP server exposes the same search functions to assistants such as Claude, ChatGPT, and Cursor. In March 2025, Cognism released Sales Companion with personalized dashboards and recommendations based on intent signals, technology data, hiring trends, and account news. The company announced Data-as-a-Service in August 2025, delivering managed records into Snowflake, Databricks, CRMs, and CDPs. Cognism does not identify a foundation model behind Sales Companion or its AI search. The API and MCP server are newer package capabilities, not universal features of older subscriptions.

Cognism’s current pricing page lists Standard and Pro prospecting packages, each with five included seats, alongside CRM Enrichment and Data-as-a-Service. The company publishes no numeric monthly price. Standard includes company and contact data, firmographic, technographic, and signal filters, AI company research, MCP and API access, AI search, exports, and CSV enrichment. Pro adds higher-quality mobile data, on-demand mobile verification, intent data, and enhanced dashboards. Credits cover revealing, enriching, or exporting contacts, with one credit covering one revealed contact. Additional credits are available, and the same credits work across prospecting, Enrich, and API products. Credit allocations, search-token allowances, rate limits, annual terms, and add-on costs depend on the package and customer agreement.

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.