Lusha won its position by being the simplest way to turn a LinkedIn profile into a phone number: install the extension, click, spend a credit. Teams outgrow that model in predictable ways, and each way points at a different alternative.
Why teams look for an alternative
The credit meter. Per-lookup pricing is friendly at rep scale and punishing at team scale. Credits expire, plans tier, and the annual bill quietly approaches platform territory while the product remains a lookup tool.
European mobiles. Lusha’s accuracy reputation was built US-first. In Europe, and sharply in the Nordics, mobile hit rates trail the marketing, and a credit spent on a dead number still costs a credit on most plans.
Lookup is not list building. Lusha requires knowing whom to look up. Mapping a market, finding the right person per company and building the list stays human work the tool never touches.
The alternatives
| Alternative | Strongest when | Pricing model |
|---|---|---|
 Stalar |
The whole motion run by agents, list building included | Pay per contact found |
 Kaspr |
The same extension motion with EU-focused data | Credits, free tier |
 Cognism |
Compliance-grade European data, human-verified mobiles | Custom |
 Apollo |
Lookup plus database plus sequencing in one | From $49/user/mo |
 Hunter |
Verified emails only, clean and cheap | Free tier, from ~$34/mo |
 FullEnrich |
Waterfall enrichment of lists you already have | Pay on found, from $29/mo |
Kaspr is the closest swap for a European rep. Same extension, same click, and since Cognism bought it, data that leans EU where Lusha leans US. Nothing about the working day changes.
Cognism is where you go when the mobile numbers matter enough to pay for someone to check them. Human verification, do-not-call screening, contract pricing, no self-serve door. Details in Cognism alternatives.
Apollo answers a different question. If what you actually lacked was pipeline, not phone numbers, it puts the database, the sequencer and the dialer behind one $49 login.
Hunter does one thing. Give it a domain, get verified email addresses back, from about $34 a month. No phone numbers, no pipeline, no ambitions beyond that.
FullEnrich is for the list you already have and cannot complete. It waterfalls across twenty-odd providers and only charges when something comes back, which is the wasted-credit problem solved from the other end.
Stalar removes the lookup motion instead of pricing it better. Describe your market in a sentence and agents map it, pick the right person at each company, and verify the email and mobile at that moment. You pay per contact found, so a dead number is not your cost.
The difference shows up after the list exists. A sales brain holds every conversation and touchpoint, and the agents draft the outreach, brief the meetings and keep the CRM current from what was said, so what you have is worked pipeline and not another spreadsheet somebody has to maintain.
How to decide
- Pull a quarter of credit spend and divide by contacts that connected. That is your true cost per usable contact.
- Run 50 target profiles from your actual market through each candidate and count live mobiles.
- Ask what the tool is for. Occasional lookups: Kaspr or Hunter. A data platform: Cognism or Apollo. The list built for you: Stalar.
