Lusha competitors and alternatives for staffing agencies
By Drippay, Inc.Published 8 min read
Lusha is a light contact-data tool with a browser workflow, credit-based lookups, and an outreach product called Engage. That can suit a recruiter who needs a few decision-maker details at a time. It is less useful when the real problem is knowing which employer is hiring again, who owns the opening, and how a staffing firm can reach that person through an existing relationship.
The alternatives below are grouped by the job after contact lookup. All vendor facts and prices are from pages checked October 6, 2026. The staffing-specific test is simple: can the tool help the firm win a job order, not only reveal another record? dreach watches known employers for openings and gives the firm the manager and warmest path to work from its own accounts.
while you compare
dreach shows the client ledger.
Your team decides who to contact.
the short version
- Keep Lusha if you need occasional email and phone lookups, a browser extension, and light outreach without buying a larger sales platform.
- Choose Apollo if you want a self-serve database, sequences, and a dialer with public plan prices.
- Choose Cognism if verified mobile data and hiring or job-change signals justify a sales-led package.
- Choose Sales Navigator if your advantage is an account relationship and the team needs to map people around a decision maker.
- Consider dreach if your firm already knows the employer and needs a timely, worked path to its next job order.
What Lusha includes
Lusha’s public pricing page lists a free plan with 40 credits per month, Starter with 4,800 credits per year, Pro with 7,200, Premium with 40,800, and a Scale plan with custom credits and seats. The page shows dollar prices for the four self-serve plans, billed yearly, and a contact-sales route for Scale.
The page says a verified email uses one credit and a phone number uses five credits. It also describes intent and enrichment actions that use credits. The useful budgeting question is not the number of credits by itself. It is how many contacts the desk needs to reveal, enrich, and revisit in a billing period.
Lusha Engage adds email sequences, dynamic fields, reply tracking, and Gmail or Outlook sending. Lusha says Engage is included for users and can send up to 1,000 emails per day. Treat that as a vendor-stated product limit and confirm the account’s current sending policy before launch.
Related: ZoomInfo alternatives · Apollo alternatives
Lusha pricing: what is and is not published
The current public page publishes dollar prices and credit allowances for Free, Starter, Pro, and Premium, with the yearly-billing price shown by default. Scale is custom. Confirm the monthly-billing price, seats, and credit rules in the order form before you buy, and ask for the Scale scope as separate lines.
| Plan | Published price and allowance | What to ask sales or test |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0, 40 credits per month, one seat | Whether the sample covers the desk’s target employers |
| Starter | $37.45 per month billed yearly, 4,800 credits per year, one seat | How fast phone reveals use the allowance |
| Pro | $52.45 per month billed yearly, 7,200 credits per year | Seats, signals, and API access in the order form |
| Premium | $299.95 per month billed yearly, 40,800 credits per year | Intent, team management, and credit allocation across the desk |
| Scale | Custom credits and seats, contact sales | Price, rollover, admin controls, and contract term |
Apollo vs Lusha for a staffing firm doing BD
Apollo and Lusha are the two tools staffing teams most often compare first. Apollo is the broader self-serve platform: database, sequences, dialer, and credits that differ by action. Lusha is the lighter lookup tool: a browser extension, credit-based reveals, and Engage for basic sequences. Both are lists of people, so the question is which list your desk can turn into job orders.
Neither vendor’s published headline database size says how many of your hiring managers are in it, so this page does not repeat those counts. Run the same ten employers and the same titles through both and count current emails and phones.
| Apollo | Lusha | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Free, then $49, $79, and $119 per seat per month billed annually; credits per seat per year (30,000, 48,000, 72,000 on paid plans) | Free, then $37.45, $52.45, and $299.95 per month billed yearly; credits per plan (4,800, 7,200, 40,800); Scale is custom |
| Credit cost | Email 1 credit, phone number 8 credits; credits expire at the end of each billing cycle | Email 1 credit, phone number 5 credits, plus credits for exports, signals, and intent |
| Data coverage | Test on your own employers and titles | Test on your own employers and titles |
| Outreach | Sequences, dialer on higher tiers, CRM sync | Engage for email sequences and reply tracking; extension-first workflow |
| Signals | Job change and intent on paid tiers; check tier packaging | Signals and buying intent topics on higher plans |
| What a staffing firm still lacks | A dated opening at an employer you already know, the named hiring manager, and the warm path in | A dated opening at an employer you already know, the named hiring manager, and the warm path in |
In short, choose Apollo when you want lookup and outreach in one product and can manage credits by action. Choose Lusha when a recruiter needs occasional reveals and a lighter extension. Choose neither as your source of demand: hiring timing and the warm path come from watching your own client book, which is what the staffing leads guide describes.
Related: Apollo competitors and alternatives · ZoomInfo vs Apollo · Apollo pricing · staffing leads and recruiting leads
The best Lusha alternatives by job
Apollo is the broader self-serve alternative. It combines contact data with sequences and a dialer, publishes paid seat prices, and charges different credit amounts for email, phone, enrichment, and AI research. Choose it when the team wants the lookup and the follow-up motion in one product.
UpLead is the published-credit alternative for a smaller desk. Its page lists Essentials at $99 per month with 170 credits and Plus at $199 per month with 400 credits. Professional is a custom plan. Choose it when a fixed allowance is easier to approve than a sales quote, then measure how often the desk needs to reveal phones.
Cognism is the sales-led data and signal alternative. Its current pricing page describes five seats in Standard and Pro packages, with Pro adding mobile data, intent, hiring, funding or M&A, job-change signals, and on-demand mobile verification. The price is tailored to the product, team setup, and usage.
ZoomInfo is the enterprise alternative. Its Sales page describes contact data, company intelligence, buyer intent, CRM workflows, and sales automation. The page does not publish a paid price. Ask for the data, intent, export, and engagement scope separately.
Sales Navigator is the account-map alternative. Its current plan page lists Core at US$119.99 per month or US$1,079.88 per year and Advanced at US$159.99 per month or US$1,799.88 per year. It is better for finding the people around a target account and the relationship path than for bulk contact exports.
| Option | Best fit | Main trade-off |
|---|---|---|
| Apollo | Data plus sequences and a dialer | Credit math is more involved than the seat price |
| UpLead | Published credits for a small desk | The monthly allowance can limit phone-heavy work |
| Cognism | Verified mobiles and hiring signals | Pricing is tailored and sales-led |
| ZoomInfo | Enterprise data and intent workflows | Paid price and package are quoted |
| Sales Navigator | Relationship and account mapping | The team still has to research and work the record |
Related: Seamless.AI alternatives · recruitment database search · how staffing agencies get job orders
A staffing-specific Lusha test
Start with ten employers the firm knows well and the actual titles that own hiring for the roles it fills. Reveal one email and one phone path for each. Then ask the same ten questions of the alternatives. Record whether the person still works there, whether the title maps to the right business unit, and whether the contact can explain the firm’s reason for reaching out.
Run a second test on past clients. The point is not another list of cold names. It is whether a tool helps the team notice current demand at a company where it already has trust. If it cannot, keep the data tool narrow and put the client-development workflow somewhere else.
- Separate contact lookup from account selection.
- Count phone credits and enrichment credits, not only email reveals.
- Check Gmail or Outlook sending, reply handling, and permissions.
- Ask how credits roll over, expire, or are restored after a bad record.
- Put the exact plan, seats, credits, and term in the order form.
Related: staffing agency lead generation · recruiting email templates
Where dreach fits
Lusha and its alternatives help a team look up people. dreach helps a staffing firm work the employer side: it watches past clients and selected employers for new openings, confirms the hiring manager with a current email and phone, and shows the warmest way in. The firm sends the outreach from its own accounts.
That is a different purchase. Use Lusha when a recruiter needs contact data. Consider dreach when the firm already has employer relationships and the cost of missing a new job order is the real problem. Pricing is not published. Scope and terms are confirmed for the firm before starting.
Related: staffing agency business development · AI for staffing agencies · dreach pricing
Keep Lusha when light, credit-based lookup is the job. Choose Apollo for a bundled outreach motion, UpLead for published credit tiers, Cognism for signal and mobile depth, ZoomInfo for enterprise data, or Sales Navigator for account relationships. If the firm needs to find new demand among employers it already knows, dreach covers that separate job.