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B2B prospecting tools help you find the right people, qualify them, and start relevant conversations. Build your shortlist around the step your team needs help with: contact data, LinkedIn relationships, account intent, enrichment, or outreach.
For SDRs, account executives, and founders building relationships on LinkedIn, Extrovert combines prospect discovery, post tracking, and contextual comment and DM drafts. Phone-led and email-led teams also need to assess data coverage and sending infrastructure. Compare those workflows below, including costs and the plan limits that affect your reps' work.
B2B prospecting tools at a glance
Prices below use monthly billing unless marked annual. USD is the default; Hunter and Lemlist euro rates are labeled. Quote-only products need a defined package. Product names in the table link to their sections. On a phone, swipe the table to see the pricing column.
Jump to contact data and enrichment, account-level intent, outreach execution, or the trial checklist.
| Tool | Prospecting job | Starting price and billing unit |
|---|---|---|
| Extrovert | Find, track, and engage target buyers on LinkedIn | $49/LinkedIn account/month |
| Sales Navigator | LinkedIn search and saved-lead alerts | $119.99/license/month |
| Taplio | Publishing and contact-list engagement | $39/month publishing; $69 Growth adds AI engagement |
| HeyReach | LinkedIn sequences across senders | $79/sender/month |
| Apollo | Contact data, enrichment, email and calling | $49/seat/month, annual billing |
| Clay | Multi-provider data and research workflows | $185/month; Credits and Actions |
| ZoomInfo | Contact and account intelligence | Custom quote |
| Cognism | European contact and mobile data | Custom quote; 5 seats included |
| Hunter | Find and verify emails, run sequences | €49/month; shared team plan |
| UpLead | Build verified email and phone lists | $99/month; 170 contact Credits |
| Bombora | Account-level topic research signals | Custom quote |
| G2 Buyer Intent | Software evaluation signals | Quoted add-on |
| Lemlist | Email and multichannel execution | €69/month Email; €109/user/month Multichannel |
| Instantly | Cold-email campaign management | $47/workspace/month Outreach |
Start with the channel your buyers use and the bottleneck your team has. A database answers who to contact. A signal helps decide whom to investigate now. An engagement tool helps maintain familiarity and find a reason to talk. A sequencer manages follow-up. Some products cover several steps, but their entry plans rarely include every workflow.
1. Extrovert for discovery and engagement-led LinkedIn prospecting
Extrovert helps you find relevant people, follow what they post, and turn that context into comments and conversations. Add an existing target list or use Lead Finder to search by person and company criteria. Then track prospects and topics in a shared workflow instead of relying on a rep to remember every profile.
In long-cycle B2B sales, following a prospect's activity can give you a concrete reason to engage, reconnect, or ask a useful question. A contact record tells you who they are; their recent posts help you decide what to say. Extrovert drafts in your style, and you control the message and campaign settings. See the Extrovert product workflow or how it supports SDRs selling on LinkedIn.
Find people from relevant LinkedIn activity
Intent Signals finds ICP-matched people who engaged with configured posts, topics, companies, or competitor teams. Lead Finder searches a B2B database by role, company, and location; Intent Signals starts with what people did. Use Lead Finder to search a defined territory and Intent Signals to investigate people already engaging with relevant subjects. Assess that activity before reaching out; engagement alone does not establish that someone is ready to buy.
Illustration: a radar sweeping LinkedIn activity. Most of it is passed over; three people are found by what they did: commented on a post about your topic; engaged with a competitor's post; connected with a competitor's sales team.
Turn a prospect's post into a conversation restarter
Extrovert surfaces prospect posts and suggests a DM tied to the specific activity. The example below shows a post signal beside a suggested message, so you can check the reason for reaching out and edit the draft before sending. This supports warm outreach and reconnecting with contacts whose conversations have gone quiet.
Illustration: Extrovert reads the prospect's posts. hot take, thought leadership, motivation, promotion are skipped. One post, went to sf tech week, is a Restarter signal. Extrovert suggests the DM "Seen you went to SF Tech Week. How did it go?", and the prospect replies.
What you control:
- Review and edit comment and DM drafts before sending.
- Configure selected comment campaigns for automatic execution.
- Set campaign pace and timing. A connection request can follow the comment threshold you configure; the first DM is drafted for review and sending.
- Use API and MCP access to connect the workflow to other tools.
Price and limits: $49 per LinkedIn account per month on monthly billing, with a 10-day free trial and no card required. Each seat includes 250 tracked prospects, one topic, and 300 monthly Credits, pooled across the team. Lead Finder uses one Credit per delivered prospect; Intent Signals costs 25–250 Credits per delivered prospect, depending on the signal. Tracking add-ons and Credit top-ups are separate. Check current Extrovert pricing for your team size.
Discovery Credits and tracked-prospect capacity are separate. Finding 300 people does not mean you can track 300 people simultaneously on a single seat's included capacity. Import an existing qualified list when discovery is already done; use Lead Finder or Intent Signals when finding the right people is the bottleneck.
Start with a target list small enough to review consistently and use the trial to check discovery, engagement, and follow-up against your team's actual workflow.
Other LinkedIn prospecting workflows
2. LinkedIn Sales Navigator: search, lists, and alerts
Sales Navigator provides first-party LinkedIn search, saved lead and account lists, and alerts. Its 50+ filters narrow searches by role, seniority, company size, geography, and other criteria. Core includes 50 monthly InMail credits for reaching people outside your network; InMail is a separate message format, not a guaranteed response.
Capabilities: advanced search, saved-lead and account alerts, and team collaboration on eligible plans. Advanced Plus provides advanced CRM integrations; Core does not include that full sync workflow. TeamLink exposes paths through colleagues' networks on eligible team plans.
Pricing: Core is $119.99 per license per month or $1,079.88 per license per year. Advanced is $159.99 per license per month or $1,799.88 per year. Advanced Plus is custom-priced. Prices can vary by region, tax, device, and promotion.
Member-maintained profiles can be incomplete or outdated. Check the saved leads against your actual territory before expanding a list. Our LinkedIn prospecting tools comparison covers this narrower set of workflows.
3. Taplio: LinkedIn publishing and contact-list engagement
Taplio combines content drafting, scheduling, analytics, and engagement tools. It can import people who engaged with posts into contact lists and support comments and replies. Its workflow extends beyond engaging only with your own post's audience.
Starter covers scheduled publishing and analytics. Growth adds AI writing, comment and reply assistance, and team collaboration. Pro adds automated lead outreach. Contact lists connect publishing engagement with prospect follow-up; assess those workflows separately.
Pricing: Starter is $39 per month, Growth is $69, and Pro is $199 on monthly billing. Annual discounts are available.
The $39 Starter rate is a publishing entry point. Budget for the tier that includes the engagement or outreach actions your team needs.
4. HeyReach: LinkedIn sequences across multiple senders
HeyReach coordinates LinkedIn campaigns across sender accounts, including sender rotation, client workspaces, and a shared LinkedIn inbox. API, webhooks, MCP, and external integrations connect the campaign workflow to other systems.
Capabilities: multi-sender campaign administration and shared inbox management. Email workflows connect through external tools; HeyReach's native execution is LinkedIn-focused.
Pricing: Growth begins at $79 per LinkedIn sender per month on monthly billing. Agency is $999 per month for 25 senders; Unlimited is $2,999 per month.
The buying unit is a LinkedIn sender. Compare sender count, client-workspace administration, inbox access, and integration requirements before choosing an agency package.
Contact data and enrichment tools
A database finds records; enrichment adds fields to records you already have. You still need to qualify each person and find a relevant reason to contact them. Check whether the records fit your ICP and contain usable contact details for your territory before expanding the list.
5. Apollo: contact data with sales engagement
Apollo combines a searchable B2B contact and company database with enrichment, email sequences, a dialer, and deal tracking. Its browser extension supports prospect research on LinkedIn profiles and company websites.
Capabilities: contact discovery, ICP filters, email sequencing with A/B testing and reply tracking, calling, and CRM-like deal workflows.
Pricing: Basic is $49 per seat per month, Professional $79, and Organization $119, all billed annually. Organization requires at least three seats. Annual Credits are 30,000, 48,000, and 72,000 per seat respectively. The free plan grants 900 Credits per seat per year in monthly installments; monthly paid billing costs more.
An email reveal uses one Credit, a phone number uses eight, and enrichment uses one to eight. Dialer and add-on charges can affect the total. Test current employment, email usability, phone coverage, and duplicates in a representative sample. Database size alone does not establish coverage for your market.
6. Clay: multi-provider enrichment workflows
Clay connects lists to enrichment and research steps across 150+ data partners. Waterfalls can try another provider when one returns no useful result, supporting qualification that requires multiple fields or providers. Teams can score fit and route qualified records into a CRM or outreach workflow.
Define the research steps and run a waterfall only when necessary. Integration access depends on the plan; Growth includes webhooks and HTTP integrations.
Pricing: Free includes 100 Data Credits and 500 Actions per month. Launch starts at $185 per month with 2,500 Data Credits and 15,000 Actions. Growth starts at $495 with 6,000 Data Credits and 40,000 Actions. Annual rates start at $167 per month for Launch and $446 for Growth; Enterprise is custom-priced with an annual commitment.
Check before buying: Data Credits pay for purchased data and AI; Actions meter workflow execution. Define the fields you need and test workflow costs on a sample. Calling every provider can add cost without changing which prospects qualify.
7. ZoomInfo: contact and account intelligence
ZoomInfo provides contact and company intelligence, account research, org charts, and package-dependent intent capabilities. CRM integrations and additional engagement or conversation-intelligence modules extend the scope of a contract.
Capabilities: phone and email data, buying-committee research through org charts, account intelligence, and integrations with systems such as Salesforce, HubSpot, and Dynamics.
Pricing: custom quote based on licenses, Credits, features, and integrations.
Check before buying: compare exports, module inclusion, contract length, and renewal conditions. A contact-intelligence agreement does not automatically include every intent or engagement product. Assess coverage with a sample of contacts from your target market.
8. Cognism: European prospecting and mobile data
Cognism focuses on sales intelligence with European coverage, phone-verified mobile data, and filters for company fit and signals such as hiring, job changes, and funding. It supports account research, CSV enrichment/export, and API and MCP access. For a calling-led team, the useful test is whether the right decision-makers in its territory have usable phone data.
Standard and Pro each include five seats. Pro adds enhanced mobile data, on-demand mobile verification, and buyer intent. CRM Enrichment is a separate add-on or standalone purchase.
Pricing: custom quote. A Credit is charged when a contact record is revealed. A redeemed record can be reused during the contract; revealing it after a job change uses another Credit. Request a quote that specifies seat count, contact Credits, and the mobile-verification workflow.
9. Hunter: email discovery, verification, and sequences
Hunter combines a Discover B2B database with Domain Search, Email Finder, Email Verifier, and email Sequences. Reps can start with companies that fit, find the relevant work email, verify it, and manage follow-ups. CRM integrations, API access, a browser extension, and MCP connect that work to other systems.
Pricing: the euro monthly rates are €49 for Starter, €149 for Growth, and €299 for Scale. Starter includes 2,000 Credits a month and three connected email accounts; Growth includes 10,000 Credits and ten accounts; Scale includes 25,000 Credits and twenty accounts. Team members are unlimited and share the plan, so the entry price is not per rep. Annual rates are €34, €104, and €209 per month, billed yearly.
A single Email Finder result uses one Credit; verification uses half a Credit per email. Starter supports 2,500 recipients per sequence. Mailbox slots, recipient limits, and Credits are different capacities. The free plan includes 50 monthly Credits and one connected email account. Hunter's separate API-only Data Platform has its own pricing.
10. UpLead: verified contact-list building
UpLead provides contact and company search, real-time email verification, mobile/direct-dial data, and CRM export. Its workflow suits reps who need a defined list of people to research and contact, with an explicit allowance for unlocked records.
Pricing: Essentials is $99 a month with 170 Credits. Plus is $199 with 400 Credits. Annual equivalents are $74 and $149 per month. One Credit unlocks a contact for download or CRM export, including available email and mobile direct-dial details. The seven-day trial includes five Credits.
Plus adds enrichment, technographics, advanced filters, and suppression-list uploads. Professional is quote-based, billed annually, and adds buyer intent, full API access, bi-directional CRM sync, and team management. Entry-plan CRM integration is not the same as that two-way sync. Assess email and phone coverage separately in your target market.
Account-level intent data tools
Account intent can tell you where to investigate. It does not necessarily identify the person behind the activity, their role in a buying committee, or a purchase date. Your team still needs contact research and an execution workflow. See buying signal tools for more detail on the signal layer.
11. Bombora: elevated research on B2B topics
Bombora Company Surge compares an account's research activity with its historical baseline across its Data Co-op of publisher, brand, and other media sites. Topic research can inform account-priority tiers and advertising audiences.
Capabilities: account-level research signals, Company Surge scores, and integrations into CRM and marketing workflows. Bombora lists 25,300+ topics, with coverage updated over time.
Pricing: custom quote. Define topic coverage, account scope, delivery cadence, integration access, and contract term.
Check before buying: elevated research is a reason to investigate, not proof of an imminent purchase. Account-level Company Surge still requires contact identification; confirm the account and buying-group detail included in the specific package.
12. G2 Buyer Intent: software evaluation activity
G2 Buyer Intent identifies accounts researching products, categories, and competitors across G2, Capterra, Software Advice, and GetApp. That activity is closer to software evaluation than general topic research, but it does not establish who will buy or when.
Capabilities: product, category, and competitor-research signals, buyer-intent filters, and integrations that route account information into sales and marketing systems.
Pricing: Buyer Intent is a quoted add-on for Professional or Enterprise. Free and Starter do not include the add-on; the Starter listing price is not Buyer Intent pricing.
Check before buying: coverage depends on identifiable research activity and the package purchased. Confirm categories, competitors, sites, and integration scope, then identify the relevant contacts. A signal does not guarantee an open buying process.
Outreach execution tools
Email sequencing and engagement-led LinkedIn prospecting require different infrastructure. Email programs also depend on mailbox setup, sending volume, suppression, and relevant targeting. A warm-up feature cannot guarantee inbox placement.
13. Lemlist: email and multichannel sequences
Lemlist combines email, LinkedIn steps, and phone calls in a sequence builder. It supports dynamic image and video personalization, AI sequence drafting, Lemwarm, and native integrations with HubSpot, Pipedrive, and Salesforce.
Pricing: Lemlist's euro pricing is €69 per month for Email on monthly billing at the 50,000-email tier, or €55 per month with annual billing. Multichannel is €109 per user per month on monthly billing, or €87 with annual billing. Enterprise is custom-priced. Confirm currency and tax for your region before comparing these rates with USD subscriptions.
Check before buying: the Email plan is volume-based with unlimited users and email senders; Multichannel is per user and adds LinkedIn automation and calls. Data enrichment, buying signals, and WhatsApp options can add cost.
14. Instantly: cold-email campaign management
Instantly's Outreach product runs cold-email campaigns across connected sending accounts. It includes warm-up, sequence testing, reply detection, and Unibox for handling replies across senders. Its broader product range includes data, verification, CRM, website-visitor tools, and AI agents.
Pricing: Growth Outreach is $47 per workspace per month on monthly billing, with 1,000 uploaded contacts and 5,000 emails per month. Hypergrowth is $97 per workspace per month with 25,000 uploaded contacts. Light Speed is $358 per month. Annual discounts are available.
Check before buying: unlimited account connections do not remove plan limits on contacts or sending volume. Uploaded-contact capacity is not a fresh monthly lead allowance. Outreach, data/Credits, and bundles are distinct purchases; confirm the selected plan's email allowance and add-ons.
How to choose a B2B prospecting tool
Define the missing step
Write down what prevents your reps from having relevant conversations: missing contacts, incomplete records, no clear priority, missed prospect activity, or inconsistent follow-up. Assign each step to a tool and a person. A larger database will not fix a queue of contacts that nobody follows up with.
For teams selling through ongoing LinkedIn relationships, Extrovert combines discovery, tracking, and contextual engagement. Test whether reps can find relevant people, review their activity, and send useful comments or DMs consistently. Judge the workflow before expanding capacity.
Evaluate email, calling, and account-intent tools against the specific work you need them to do. Before adding another database or sequence builder, identify the gap it would fill.
Test fit in your actual market
Check a representative sample for current roles, company fit, usable contact details, duplicates, and cost per record your reps can use. For account signals, check whether they change priorities and whether you can identify a relevant stakeholder. For engagement, review whether the suggested messages refer to real context and sound like the rep.
In regulated markets, assess lawful basis, retention, suppression, and vendor terms. A provider's compliance claim does not replace your own legal assessment.
Run a prospecting trial around the same target accounts
Use one representative list across the products you are considering. Include the roles, company sizes, and countries you sell to, rather than only the easiest contacts to find.
| What to check | What to record |
|---|---|
| Contact coverage | Current role, correct company, usable email or phone, duplicates |
| Qualification | Which records meet your ICP and why rejected records fail |
| Context | Whether a signal or draft points to real, relevant activity |
| Rep effort | Time spent fixing records, researching, editing, and logging work |
| Integration | Whether fields, owners, suppression, and replies reach the right system |
| Commercial result | Relevant replies, qualified meetings, and opportunities, kept separate |
For Extrovert, start with the people your reps already want to reach. Review the posts it surfaces and check that comment and DM drafts sound like the rep and provide a relevant reason to talk or reconnect. Add discovery when the team needs more qualified people. Assess the full workflow from finding a prospect to starting a conversation.
First-party website-visitor tools answer a different question from Bombora or G2: which companies visited your own site? They can help prioritize inbound interest, but a company match still needs qualification and contact research. Keep website visits, third-party research, and person-level engagement separate when deciding what triggers a follow-up.
Compare total cost and control
Separate seats, LinkedIn accounts, workspaces, Credits, Actions, exports, and email volume. Put annual commitments beside monthly subscriptions rather than comparing headline rates alone. Include mailbox infrastructure and required integrations in an email-led budget.
For LinkedIn actions, check exactly what runs automatically and what a rep approves. LinkedIn can restrict automated activity. Proxies, cloud infrastructure, and human review are different controls; none makes a tool ban-safe or officially approved.
If your main gap is keeping target buyers on your radar and starting relevant conversations, return to the Extrovert section and trial with a focused list. For additional workflow guidance, read how to network on LinkedIn and the social selling tools guide.
FAQ
What is the best B2B prospecting tool for LinkedIn?
For discovery and ongoing engagement-led prospecting, Extrovert combines prospect finding, people and topic tracking, comment drafts, and DM workflows. First-party LinkedIn search, publishing, and multi-sender sequences are separate jobs described above. Evaluate the actions you need rather than assuming every LinkedIn product does the same work.
How is prospecting different from lead generation?
Prospecting is the active work of finding, qualifying, and contacting people or accounts that fit your ICP. Lead generation also includes creating or capturing demand through content, ads, events, and other channels. Compare tools by the work they perform, because the labels overlap.
Can I prospect on LinkedIn without automation tools?
Yes. You can search for prospects, follow posts, leave relevant comments, and send messages manually. A tool becomes useful when list management, monitoring, or drafting takes more time than your team can maintain. You can also use Extrovert's free LinkedIn tools for focused copy tasks.
What does a B2B prospecting stack cost?
Budget by billing unit, commitment, and usage. Extrovert starts at $49 per LinkedIn account per month on monthly billing. Data, email execution, and account-intent subscriptions add separate costs if required. Annual headline rates, usage Credits, tracking limits, and custom-quote modules need to be included before comparing totals.
What's the difference between B2B prospecting software and a CRM?
A CRM stores contacts, deals, and activities. Prospecting software helps you discover or enrich contacts, prioritize accounts, and start outreach; some products also include CRM-like functions. Decide which system owns each record and verify the integration and plan before buying.
