Cognism earned its position as Europe’s data incumbent honestly: a GDPR-first database, do-not-call screening most rivals skip, and human-verified mobile numbers that connect. Teams that shortlist alternatives are usually not disputing the quality. They are disputing the contract, or they sell into markets where even Cognism’s coverage runs thin.
Why teams look for an alternative
The contract. Cognism is custom-quoted: a platform fee plus seat licenses, with data allowances negotiated in. Reported deals run from a few thousand pounds a year to tens of thousands. You commit to a usage forecast before you know your hit rate.
The packaging. Seats and credits mean you pay for capacity whether or not the data you pull is usable. The metric that matters, cost per verified contact that actually connects, is buried under the plan structure.
Local depth. Cognism is strongest in the UK, DACH and France. In smaller markets, the Nordics among them, hit rates on person-level data drop, and that is precisely where teams that bought it for European coverage feel let down.
The work after the export. Cognism hands you data. Building the list logic, sequencing the outreach, logging the activity and keeping the CRM current stays with your reps.
The alternatives
| Alternative | Strongest when | Pricing model |
|---|---|---|
 Stalar |
Verified email and mobile per contact in any market, paid on results, deepest where databases are thinnest | Pay per contact found |
 Kaspr |
Reps prospect one profile at a time on LinkedIn | Credits, free tier |
 Lusha |
Simple self-serve lookups with solid mobile accuracy | Credits, free tier |
 Apollo |
Budget all-in-one with sequencing, US-weighted data | From $49/user/mo |
 ZoomInfo |
Enterprise depth and intent data, US-first | Custom |
 Clay |
Ops teams orchestrating many data sources | Credits, from $149/mo |
 FullEnrich |
Waterfall enrichment of lists you already have | Pay on found, from $29/mo |
 Vainu |
Registry-grade Nordic company data | Subscription, from ~€3,500/yr |
 Goava |
Swedish account recommendations from your CRM wins | Subscription |
Kaspr is the first stop if the problem is contract size rather than data: it is Cognism’s own self-serve product, drawing on related data, priced from a free tier for reps who prospect on LinkedIn. Lusha plays the same role with its own database and a strong mobile-accuracy reputation.
Apollo trades European depth for price and breadth: a 270-million-contact database with sequencing built in from $49 per user per month. For EU pipelines its coverage and compliance posture are the trade-off, covered in Apollo alternatives.
Clay and FullEnrich solve a different shape of the problem: instead of betting on one database, they query many in sequence until a data point comes back. FullEnrich charges only when data is found, which is the right pricing direction, though both enrich lists you already have rather than building them.
Vainu and Goava are the Nordic specialists. Vainu’s registry-grade company data across Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark is the region’s reference, and Goava recommends accounts from what your CRM says you win. Both are thin where Cognism is strong: verified person-level emails and mobiles.
Stalar is built for the buyer Cognism serves, and it sells something a data vendor does not: the agentic workspace around the data. Describe your market in a sentence and agents map it, find the right person at every company and verify email and mobile at that moment, in the local language, paid only per contact found, so the usage forecast disappears from the contract. Then the workspace’s sales brain takes over: every conversation and touchpoint recorded, outreach drafted in your voice, meetings briefed, the CRM kept current. A list is a starting point; the context that accumulates as you work it is the part no data subscription touches.
How to decide
- Run the same 100 target accounts through Cognism and each shortlisted alternative, and measure verified hit rate on your actual market. In the Nordics, expect the differences to be large.
- Convert every quote to cost per usable contact: contract price divided by contacts with a verified email or a mobile that answers.
- Decide whether you are buying data or outcomes. If the list still has to be built, sequenced and logged by reps, add that time to the data price before comparing.
