Sales Intelligence Software: Which Tools Actually Work?

Sales intelligence software helps you find prospects, get their contact info, and learn enough about them to make outreach relevant. The market's crowded with tools that promise accurate data, but many deliver outdated emails and generic company info that won't help you close deals.

I've tested most of the major platforms. Here's what actually works, what you'll pay, and which tool makes sense for your use case.

What Sales Intelligence Software Does

These tools pull data from public sources, proprietary databases, and user contributions to give you:

The quality gap between tools is massive. Some give you 70%+ email accuracy, others waste your time with bounced emails and outdated data.

Best Sales Intelligence Platforms

Lusha: Best for Small Teams

Lusha works as a Chrome extension and web app. You see a prospect on LinkedIn, click the extension, and get their email and phone number instantly.

Pricing: Free plan includes 5 credits per month. Pro starts at $29/user/month (annual billing) for 80 credits monthly. Scale plan is $51/user/month for 200 credits. Enterprise pricing is custom.

What's good: The Chrome extension is fast and doesn't break. Email accuracy is solid—I see around 75-80% deliverability. The interface is simple enough that new reps can use it without training.

What sucks: Credit system is annoying. Revealing a phone number costs the same as an email, even though emails are what most people actually need. Data coverage outside North America and Western Europe is weak.

Best for: Small sales teams (5-15 people) who prospect mainly on LinkedIn and need a tool that just works without complexity.

RocketReach: Best Database Coverage

RocketReach has one of the largest databases—over 700 million professionals. More importantly, their search filters actually help you find the right people.

Pricing: Individual plan is $53/month for 170 lookups. Pro is $105/month for 375 lookups. Ultimate is $249/month for 1,000 lookups. Annual billing gets you about 30% off.

What's good: Search functionality is excellent. You can filter by job title, company size, location, technologies used, and keywords in job descriptions. The bulk lookup feature saves time when you have a list of companies and need to find specific roles. Email verification is built-in.

What sucks: The interface feels dated. Exporting data requires extra clicks that should be simpler. Phone number coverage is inconsistent—you'll get emails for most prospects but phone numbers for maybe 30-40%.

Best for: Mid-sized teams who need to build targeted lists based on specific criteria and have budget for quality data.

Amplemarket: Best All-in-One Platform

Amplemarket combines sales intelligence with email sequencing and call automation. It's a full sales engagement platform, not just a data tool.

Pricing: Starts around $399/month per user. Pricing varies significantly based on features and email volume. You'll need to talk to sales for exact numbers.

What's good: The AI-powered personalization actually works. It pulls relevant details about prospects and suggests email copy that doesn't sound robotic. Built-in email warmup and deliverability monitoring. Intent data shows you accounts actively researching solutions.

What sucks: Expensive. Setup takes time—expect 1-2 weeks before your team is fully productive. The learning curve is steeper than simpler tools. Overkill if you just need contact data.

Best for: Teams running high-volume outbound campaigns who want intelligence, outreach, and analytics in one platform. Check out our detailed comparison of sales engagement platforms if you're considering this category.

Clay: Best for Custom Workflows

Clay is different. Instead of being a single database, it's a workflow builder that pulls data from 50+ sources including RocketReach, Lusha, Apollo, and others.

Pricing: Free plan includes 100 search credits. Starter is $149/month for 2,000 credits. Explorer is $349/month for 10,000 credits. Pro is $800/month for 50,000 credits.

What's good: Waterfall enrichment checks multiple data sources sequentially until it finds accurate contact info, giving you better coverage than any single tool. You can build complex workflows—find companies that raised Series A in the last 6 months, identify their VP of Sales, check if they use Salesforce, and personalize outreach based on what you find. Integrates with everything.

What sucks: Not beginner-friendly. You need to understand how data enrichment works and be comfortable building multi-step workflows. Credits can burn fast if your workflows aren't optimized. No native email sending—you'll need to connect it to another tool.

Best for: Technical sales teams or growth hackers who want maximum flexibility and are willing to invest time in setup. Read more about Clay's pricing structure to understand the credit system.

Dealfront (formerly Leadfeeder): Best for Intent Data

Dealfront identifies companies visiting your website and shows you what they looked at. It's less about cold prospecting and more about finding warm leads already interested in what you sell.

Pricing: Leadfeeder Lite starts at €139/month. Premium is €439/month with more identified companies and features. Enterprise pricing is custom.

What's good: Shows you which companies are on your site right now, which pages they visited, and how long they spent. You can set up alerts for high-value accounts. Integration with CRMs lets your sales team see website activity alongside other prospect data.

What sucks: Only identifies companies, not individuals—you still need to figure out who at that company to contact. Accuracy depends on IP data, which misses remote workers and VPN users. Less useful if you don't have meaningful website traffic.

Best for: B2B companies with decent inbound traffic who want to identify and prioritize warm prospects already showing interest.

Sales Intelligence vs CRM: What's the Difference?

Sales intelligence tools help you find and research prospects. CRMs help you manage relationships after you've made contact. You need both.

Most sales intelligence platforms integrate with CRMs like Salesforce, HubSpot, and Pipedrive. You find prospects in Lusha or RocketReach, push them to your CRM, then manage the relationship there.

Some CRMs include basic prospecting features, but they're usually not as good as dedicated intelligence tools. If prospecting is a major part of your sales process, you'll want a specialized tool. Check out our guide to the best sales CRM software to see which CRMs integrate well with intelligence platforms.

How to Choose Sales Intelligence Software

Start with data quality: Sign up for free trials and test the same 10-20 prospects across multiple platforms. Send test emails to see what bounces. The tool with the best accuracy wins, even if it costs more—bad data wastes more money than expensive subscriptions.

Match coverage to your market: Selling to US enterprise companies? Most tools will work fine. Targeting SMBs in Europe or Asia-Pacific? Test coverage specifically for those regions because it varies wildly.

Consider your workflow: If your team lives in LinkedIn, a Chrome extension like Lusha makes sense. Running list-based campaigns? You need bulk lookup and export capabilities. Building complex multi-channel campaigns? Look at all-in-one platforms like Amplemarket.

Check integration requirements: Make sure the tool connects to your CRM, email platform, and other sales tools. Moving data manually between systems kills productivity.

Calculate actual cost per lead: A tool charging $100/month for 200 contacts costs $0.50 per lead. Another charging $400/month for 1,000 contacts costs $0.40 per lead. Factor in accuracy—if 30% of emails bounce, your real cost per valid lead is higher.

Common Mistakes When Using Sales Intelligence Tools

Buying data and letting it sit: Contact information degrades fast. People change jobs, emails get deactivated, phone numbers change. Use data within 30 days or it's wasted money.

Skipping verification: Always verify emails before sending cold outreach. Sending to bad addresses tanks your domain reputation and gets you blacklisted. Most tools include verification, but some require an extra step.

Relying on one data source: No single database is complete. Tools like Clay that waterfall through multiple sources find more valid contacts than relying on one provider.

Ignoring compliance: GDPR, CAN-SPAM, and CCPA apply to how you use prospect data. Make sure you understand the rules for your market and that your tool helps you stay compliant.

Not training your team: Sales intelligence tools have more features than most reps use. Invest a few hours in training so your team actually leverages the filters, alerts, and integrations you're paying for.

Do You Actually Need Sales Intelligence Software?

If you're doing any B2B outbound sales, yes. Manually finding contact information is a terrible use of time. A sales rep earning $75k costs your company roughly $36/hour. If they spend 10 minutes per prospect finding an email address, that's $6 per contact—way more expensive than any intelligence tool.

The exception: If you're selling to a tiny niche with 50 total prospects, just research them manually. But for any market with hundreds or thousands of potential customers, intelligence software pays for itself immediately.

Start Here

For most small sales teams, start with Lusha. It's affordable, easy to use, and data quality is solid. Test it for a month and track email deliverability.

If you need more sophisticated targeting or your market isn't well-covered by Lusha, try RocketReach. The database is bigger and search filters are more powerful.

Running high-volume outbound campaigns with dedicated SDRs? Look at Amplemarket for an all-in-one solution that combines intelligence with email sequencing and call automation.

Want maximum flexibility and don't mind a learning curve? Clay gives you access to multiple data sources and lets you build custom workflows that match exactly how your team works.

Whatever you choose, focus on data accuracy first. Everything else—features, interface, integrations—matters less than whether the emails actually work. Sign up for trials, test real prospects in your market, and measure deliverability before committing to annual plans.

For more tools that help with the full prospecting process, check out our roundup of B2B lead generation tools and cold email software.