Cognism vs Lusha: Data Enrichment Tool Comparison

The Cognism vs Lusha decision turns on one word that both pricing pages use and neither defines the same way. Lusha's pricing page prices a phone number at 5 credits and an email at 1, and grants the year's credits upfront. Cognism's page prices a credit as a permanent reveal: pay once, keep the contact, pay again only if they change jobs. Both call it a credit and neither means the same thing by it.

Once you hold those two definitions side by side, most of the usual coverage argument between these two becomes secondary.

Cognism vs Lusha: The Short Answer

Lusha is the purchase you can price today. Its pricing page shows Starter at $37.45 a month, Pro at $52.45 and Premium at $299.95, all billed yearly with the credits granted upfront. Cognism's pricing page shows no price, sells Standard and Pro packages with 5 seats included, and treats a credit as a permanent reveal. Pick Lusha for a known cost, and Cognism for European mobile accuracy and a compliance answer.

Lusha is the faster, cheaper and more predictable purchase. Cognism is the one that answers a compliance question and holds up on European mobile numbers.

What Each Tool Actually Is

Cognism is a compliance-first B2B data platform sold by quote, with phone-verified Diamond Data, Bombora intent and 5 seats included in each package.

Lusha is a contact database with a LinkedIn browser extension and bulk reveal, billed yearly with the year's credits granted upfront.

Lusha's credit table is unusually specific and worth reading before comparing anything. One credit reveals one verified email; a phone number costs 5 credits; an export to CSV or CRM of up to 25 results is 1 credit; an intent topic is 1; a de-anonymised IP address is 2. So Starter's 4,800 credits a year is 4,800 emails or 960 phone numbers, and those are very different products.

Cognism's credit is the opposite kind of unit. Its page states that one credit reveals one contact, that viewing a previously revealed contact is free, and that a credit is only used again if that contact changes jobs. A team that returns to the same accounts year after year is building an asset rather than renewing a rental.

Pricing Comparison

Cognism Pricing

The Cognism pricing page fetched for this comparison publishes no prices, and its own FAQ says why: "Cognism pricing is tailored based on the product you need, your team setup and how you plan to use the platform." The same page states that "Sales Prospecting is offered in Standard and Pro packages", each with 5 seats included, and closes on an invitation to "Get a personalised quote for your team".

What the page does publish is the credit rule, and it is unusual enough to matter. "1 credit = 1 revealed contact", there is "No charge for viewing previously revealed contacts", and a credit is only spent again if that contact changes jobs. So a Cognism credit is closer to a permanent record than to a monthly lookup, which makes a straight credits-per-dollar comparison against a metered tool misleading in Cognism's favour and hard to hold against it.

Source: Cognism Pricing

Lusha Pricing

Lusha's pricing page opens on a toggle reading "Pay yearly (25% off)", and the figures above are the ones it displays in that state: Starter at $37.45, Pro at $52.45 and Premium at $299.95 a month. The Premium card is tied to a credit slider, and $299.95 is the price at the 40,800 credits a year the page loads with, so dragging the slider moves the number. Every paid tier on that view is billed yearly with the credits granted upfront, so the monthly figure is an annual commitment expressed monthly.

Lusha's own credit table then prices the units, and a phone number is not a contact. The page charges 1 credit for a verified email address and 5 credits for a phone number, 1 credit for a CSV or CRM export of up to 25 results, 1 credit per intent topic and 2 for a de-anonymised IP address. Starter's 4,800 credits a year is 4,800 emails or 960 phone numbers, and those are very different plans.

Source: Lusha Pricing

What 2,000 emails and 400 mobiles a year costs on Lusha

Only Lusha can be priced here. The example is illustrative: the volumes are invented and the rates are its published credit table.

Two thousand verified emails at 1 credit and 400 mobile numbers at 5 credits is 2,000 plus 2,000, or 4,000 credits for the year. That fits inside Starter's 4,800-credit annual grant with room to spare, at $37.45 a month, billed yearly and granted upfront.

Double the mobiles to 800 and the same job is 6,000 credits, which pushes it onto Pro and its 7,200-credit year at $52.45. The phone multiplier is doing all the work, which is exactly why the credit table matters more than the headline rate.

Cognism has no published equivalent. The questions that make its quote comparable are the credit allowance for the term, the cost of seats beyond the included five, whether CRM Enrichment sits inside the number, and how a re-reveal is counted. Get all four in writing and only then compare against a Lusha annual total.

Beyond the quote, the vendor's own pages carry claims of very different quality, and the Cognism claims specific enough to test begin with a compliance step cross-checking do-not-call lists.

Lusha vs Cognism: Who Should Pick Which

Pick Lusha if you want to know the price today, if usage arrives in bursts that suit an upfront credit grant, or if you need several people to have access cheaply. Pro includes 2 free seats and Premium 5, which is a real saving against per-seat pricing.

Pick Cognism if procurement asks about GDPR before it asks about coverage, or if connect rate on European mobile numbers is the metric your team is judged on. Cognism's Pro package lists mobile verification on demand and higher-quality mobile data, and Lusha's pricing page lists no equivalent line on any plan.

Feature Breakdown

The two pricing pages are also the cleanest record of what each tier adds. Cognism's Standard package lists list building with firmographic, technographic and signal-based filters, AI account research and CSV enrichment, and Pro adds higher-quality mobile data, on-demand verification and buying intent. Lusha's Starter adds bulk enrichment and 5 buying intent topics, Pro adds the API, CSV enrichment, Signals and Webhooks, Premium adds credit allocation and team management, and Scale adds SSO.

Cognism's page lists

• Standard Lists built with firmographic, technographic and signal-based filters
• Standard AI account research and CSV enrichment
• Pro Higher-quality mobile data
• Pro On-demand verification
• Pro Buying intent
• Both 5 seats included

Lusha's page lists

• Starter Bulk enrichment and 5 buying intent topics
• Pro API, CSV enrichment, Signals and Webhooks
• Pro 2 free seats
• Premium Credit allocation, team management and 5 free seats
• Scale SSO

Cognism Key Features

• Diamond Data phone-verified contacts
• GDPR and CCPA compliant data
• Intent data powered by Bombora
• Technographic data
• Job change and funding alerts
• Browser extension for LinkedIn
• CSV enrichment
• On-demand mobile verification
• Target market analysis lists
• Unlimited admin access

Lusha Key Features

• Browser extension for LinkedIn
• CSV enrichment
• Bulk contact reveal
• Intent signal alerts
• Technology stack data
• Custom API
• Team management
• CRM enrichment (Scale)
• SSO (Scale)

Lusha's list is about revealing at scale: bulk reveal, CSV enrichment, intent alerts, technology stack data. Two of its entries carry a tier qualifier, CRM enrichment and SSO on Scale, which is worth checking against your own requirements before comparing entry prices. Cognism's list is about the data being right: verification on demand, compliance, Diamond Data.

Integration Ecosystem

Cognism connects with: Salesforce, HubSpot, Outreach, SalesLoft, Pipedrive, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Bullhorn, Zapier.

Lusha connects with: Gmail, Outlook, Salesforce, HubSpot, Outreach, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Pipedrive, SalesLoft, Zoho CRM, Zapier, Make, n8n.

Lusha's twelve integrations include Make and n8n alongside the CRMs, which suits a team wiring enrichment into its own automations. Cognism's eight include Bullhorn and Microsoft Dynamics 365, which is an enterprise and staffing footprint. Both reach Salesforce, HubSpot, Outreach and SalesLoft.

Where Each One Sits In A Cold Outbound Stack

Cognism is the compliance-first enterprise data layer, bought on an annual contract and fed into a sending tool you already own. Lusha is a browser-extension and bulk-reveal layer for teams that already know which accounts they want.

Lusha sits closest to the list: reveal in bulk, export, hand over. Cognism sits at the top of an outbound stack as the source of record, feeding a sequencer somebody else owns.

Neither sends. Because we send one message per campaign and never bump a thread, every address gets one attempt, and a wrong mobile number is a lost conversation rather than a retry. That is the argument for paying more per contact rather than buying more of them, and it is the argument Cognism is built on.

Switching Between Them

Lusha to Cognism is a procurement exercise rather than a technical one, and the thing to time is the credit grant. Lusha's credits are granted upfront for the year, so moving mid-term forfeits whatever is unspent.

Cognism to Lusha means giving up the permanent-reveal model, and the surprise is usually the re-reveal cost on accounts you had treated as already paid for. Export your revealed contacts before the contract ends, because that history does not travel.

Getting Started

1. Work out your annual split between emails and mobile numbers, then apply Lusha's 1 and 5 credit rates to it.
2. Read the Lusha price with the billing toggle set the way you will pay, since the page opens on yearly billing.
3. Ask Cognism the four quote questions above in writing before comparing anything.
4. Test 100 mobile numbers from each in your main geography.
5. Count seats: Lusha includes 2 free on Pro and 5 on Premium, Cognism includes 5 in each package.

Final Thoughts

Lusha is the better buy when the price has to be known today and the volume is predictable. Cognism is the better buy when accuracy on mobile numbers and a compliance story are what the business is actually buying.

Start from the credit tables. Lusha publishes one and Cognism publishes a rule, and between them they explain most of the price difference.

Related Reading

• Best Cognism Alternatives in 2026
• Best Lusha Alternatives in 2026
• LeadIQ vs Lusha: Data Enrichment Tool Comparison
• Cognism vs UpLead: Data Enrichment Tool Comparison
• B2B Intent Data: What It Actually Predicts and Which Providers Are Worth Paying For
• Cold Email Bounce Rate Benchmarks: 2026 Performance Data

If you would rather have this run for you, RevenueFlow books qualified meetings on a pay-per-meeting basis and publishes client results.

Pricing and features are taken from the vendors' own pages. Verify current terms with the vendor before relying on them.