ZoomInfo is one of the market's most known sales intelligence tools, for better or worse. But as prices sky-rocketed over the past few years, users have sought alternatives.
Right now, ZoomInfo isn’t just a lead finder tool. It’s a complete go-to-market (GTM) platform. If you’re just looking to find leads or enrich lists, the costs might not be justifiable.
And with dozens of sales intelligence tools to choose from, which one would fit your business best? We’re here to help you out with just that! In this article, we’ll be going over:
- Why users are opting out of ZoomInfo
- What to look for in a sales intelligence tool
- Best ZoomInfo alternatives of 2024
Why are Users Looking for ZoomInfo Alternatives?
ZoomInfo has all the bells and whistles. Why are some users so distraught? The biggest issue users from online forums and communities bring up is price. ZoomInfo is EXPENSIVE.
With pricing of $10-$15K/year, you’d expect the highest-quality contacts and premium sales intelligence tools. The issue is newcomers to the lead gen space can do what ZI does for a fraction of the cost.
Does this mean ZI is dead? Not really. It’s still alive and kicking with one of the most intuitive user interfaces. It’s just not the best at what it does like it used to be.
For example, ZI used to have “intent data” as a unique selling point. A lot of cheaper lead gen tools have that now. Still, price shouldn’t be your only deciding factor when finding alternatives.
What to Look for in a Sales Intelligence Tool
Sales teams need sales intelligence tools in their enablement strategies. SDRs use these tools to understand prospect needs better, act on data-driven signals, and focus on quality leads.
If you plan on finding a sales intelligence alternative to ZoomInfo, choose a tool that includes the following features:
Lead Finders and Advanced Search Filters
SI tools should include features that help you create contact lists for outreach. Choose one with advanced search filters to pinpoint your ICPs and buyer personas. Search filters also streamline lead qualification, scoring, segmentation, and content curation for outreach campaigns.
Lead Scoring
SI tools with lead scoring enable your SDRs to focus on qualified leads. You can always do lead scoring manually using qualification frameworks, such as BANT or MEDDIC, but the best approach is always to leverage automated intent signals.
Intent Signals
Alerts on tech stack updates, high engagement rates, or strong buying intent from prospects help SDRs stay ahead of the competition. Features that allow for custom alerts, such as significant events, market trends, or company news, make great sales intelligence tools.
Data Validation
Unvalidated contact lists ruin deliverability and waste precious resources. Sales teams need validation and enrichment tools to cleanse and keep up-to-date lead data. Your team can then create relevant and curated outreach campaigns.
Best ZoomInfo Alternatives for 2024
ZoomInfo was one of the best in its prime. However, the sales intelligence market grew at an unprecedented pace, shedding light on powerful, more affordable, intuitive sales intelligence tools. Here are the top alternatives we recommend:
Instantly B2B Lead Finder
Instantly is an email marketing tool with all the right sales intelligence features to ensure winning outreach campaigns at scale. With Instantly B2B Lead Finder, users get over 160 million high-quality, pre-verified leads to add to these campaigns.
But getting verified leads is only half the battle. The recently added “News” filter ensures that users get relevant, up-to-date, and accurate information on company updates. Users can then automatically include the data in their email copy with {{merge tags}}.
Email enrichment has never been easier. Each sales email sent can now be hyper-personalized, making you stand out from generic cold emails that plague inboxes.
Pricing:
- Growth Leads - $37.9/mo for 1000 Verified Leads
- Hyperleads - $169.3/mo for 10,000 Verified Leads
Each plan includes advanced search filters, keyword searches, finding similar clients using “lookalikes,” lead enrichment, and domain search tools.
Apollo
Apollo is another affordable alternative to ZoomInfo. Back then, the appeal for going for the higher price points from ZoomInfo was the B2B intent data—Apollo has that now. Users can segment and qualify leads already in the market for your solutions.
All that’s left is to run the contact list exported from Apollo through an email verification tool, automate an outreach campaign using email marketing software, and iterate on winning campaigns.
Outreach.io or SalesLoft users can also integrate with Apollo to streamline workflow. If you want to do it all in Apollo, you must pay for their Professional plan. The plan includes unlimited email sequences, email reply tracking, and integration with all email providers, not just Gmail.
Pricing:
- Free
- Basic - $49/mo for 12,000 lead export credits, 6 intent topics
- Premium - $79/mo for 24,000 lead export credits, 9 intent topics
Lead411
Lead411 has a massive database. It can track prospect activity, enrich contact lists, validate leads, and prioritize high-value or high-buying intent prospects.
You can use its wide range of search filters to zero in on your ICPs, including a lead’s tech stack and revenue. Users can use the tech stack to find companies that use similar solutions to yours.
Users also have the ability to do real-time email verification.
Once your list is cleaned and verified, you can send your data directly to major CRM platforms like Zoho and Hubspot.
The best part about Lead411 is that users can see unlimited B2B lead data. The issue is you only get 200 monthly exports and $0.50 for each additional export (if you get the monthly payment scheme).
If you pay annually, you get 2400 exports yearly, a free CRM, access to direct phone numbers, and unlimited sales cadence automation.
Pricing:
- Free 7-day trial for 50 lead exports
- Basic Plan - $99/mo for 200 lead exports or $899/year for 2400 lead exports
- Pro Plan - Custom pricing
- Unlimited Plan - Custom pricing
LinkedIn Sales Navigator
When it comes to accurate and up-to-date data, only a few do it, as well as LinkedIn Sales Navigator. It’s a tool built for creating highly-targeted and segmented prospect lists.
Users can create pre-defined filters with its sales preferences tool for a more efficient workflow. Some popular filters include industry, job title, company size, connections (if they’re connected to you or have a mutual connection), headcount, and spotlight.
Spotlights is an incredible feature that allows marketers to see prospects who follow your company, how active they are on LinkedIn, or if they share similar interests.
Reaching out to a prospect who already follows your company profile and is active on the platform is more likely easier to connect with. Instead of sending cold outreach, you can run outbound campaigns on warm leads, improving your conversion rates.
Pricing:
- Core - $99/mo
- Advanced - $149/mo
- Advanced Plus - $1600/year
All plans include 10K saved leads per month. Going for Advanced Plus provides enterprise tools and several CRM integrations.
Lead Genius
LeadGenius is a prospecting and enrichment tool that helps SDRs make every lead count. Users get highly personalized, custom B2B data with the help of AI and human researchers.
LeadGenius’s research team can even help you with custom work outside their platform when needed. It’s one of the best tools for prospecting within specific niches, as it can find contact info that most automated lead scrapers cannot.
If you already have a lead list, LeadGenius can enrich data and add custom attributes to each lead, equipping your sales team with the right information to improve response rates and close more deals.
But, if you need a broader data set, LeadGenius might not be for you. There are much more affordable options if you need something simple. If you want to test the waters, try free lead finder tools first. And if you’re ready to scale with customized data, look into LeadGenius again.
Pricing: LeadGenius has a custom pricing scheme based on your company's specific needs and scale.
Seamless.ai
Seamless leverages an AI-powered search engine to discover phone numbers, direct dials, and email addresses. It’s a solid tool for a multi-channel sales outreach strategy.
Think of it like ChatGPT. It has a feature that allows you to enter queries, and the AI does all the prospecting for you. For example, you can ask it to “Find {{position}} in {{industry}}, with {{employee count}} that has {{revenue}} located in {{region}}.”
It also includes a Chrome extension that acts as a lead scraper for websites and LinkedIn. With its email verification tool, you can get a validation report for your scraped emails.
Pricing: You’d need to contact Seamless.ai’s sales team for a pricing breakdown.
Each tier includes automation features. Higher tiers have more powerful AI-powered tools such as pitch intelligence, AI-writing assistants, and the real-time search engine.
Key Takeaways
ZoomInfo is always a good choice for teams that want the full package. But, if you don’t have the budget, only need a list builder, or simply looking for alternatives, here’s a quick rundown of tools we recommend:
- Instantly B2B Lead Finder: For finding pre-verified and enriched leads that fit your ICPs
- Apollo and Lead411: For a broad range of B2B prospects in various industries
- Sales Navigator: For quality and up-to-date lead data
- Seamless.ai: For powerful prospecting automation features
ZoomInfo and its alternatives make prospecting more accessible and more efficient for marketers. But contact lists don’t make sales. From here, it’s all about outreach, high deliverability, and scalability. That’s where Instantly comes in. Try it out today!