We read the MCP documentation of 12 sales-data vendors on 23 September 2026 and scored each out of 15 on the same five things: finding companies and people, contact data, technographics, buying signals, and what it takes to start. ZoomInfo, Explorium’s Vibe Prospecting and SyncGTM tie at 14. Apollo, Amplemarket, Crustdata, Lusha and AgentData, which is ours, tie at 12. Pick Apollo or Amplemarket if you want Claude to act (build sequences, enroll, send) rather than just find. Crustdata, SyncGTM and AgentData are free with no card, and AgentData’s search works without an account. Every score comes from the vendor’s own docs, and the rubric is below so you can disagree with us.
Disclosure: AgentData is our product. Every other roundup on the first page of Google for this topic is written by a vendor that ranks itself first; the most-read one gives itself 15 out of 15. We scored ourselves on the same rubric as everyone else, published the rubric, and came joint 4th.
Quick picks
The scores
Each criterion is 0 to 3, so the maximum is 15. Ties share a rank. Click a name to jump to its notes.
| Rank | Server | Score | Find | Contacts | Tech | Signals | Access | Free to start | Card | Writes? | Connects via |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Joint 1st | 14 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | Free credits once at signup | No (per docs) | Inside ZoomInfo only | Directory · OAuth | |
| Joint 1st | 14 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 200 credits a month | Not stated | CSV export only | Directory · OAuth | |
| Joint 1st | 14 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 3 | Yes | No | No | Custom · OAuth | |
| Joint 4th |  AgentData (ours) | 12 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 3 | Yes; search needs no account | No | No | Custom · none or key |
| Joint 4th | 12 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 2 | Free plan (work email only) | Not stated | Sequences, email, CRM records | Directory · OAuth or key | |
| Joint 4th | 12 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 3 | Free credits | No | Watchers only | Directory · OAuth or key | |
| Joint 4th | 12 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 40 credits a month | Not stated | No | Directory · OAuth or key | |
| Joint 4th | 12 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 1 | Trial only; from $600/mo | Not stated | Sequences, lists, tasks | Custom · OAuth | |
| 9th | 11 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 500 credits on first connect | Not stated | Via admin-built Functions | Directory | |
| Joint 10th | 9 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | No; from $49/mo | n/a | No | Custom · OAuth or key | |
| Joint 10th | 9 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 1 | Free plan, closed beta | Not stated | No | Custom · OAuth (client ID first) | |
| 12th | 8 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 50 credits a month | Not stated | Leads, sequences, CRM push | Custom · OAuth or key |
“Directory” means it installs from Claude’s connector directory. “Custom” means you add the server URL yourself. Scores from each vendor’s own documentation, read on 23 September 2026.
What the table actually tells you: the scores bunch because most serious vendors now expose the same basics through MCP. The real differences are in the right-hand columns: what it costs to start, whether Claude can act or only read, and how it connects.
How we scored
We scored what each vendor documents for its MCP server, not for its whole product. If a capability exists in the vendor’s app or API but the MCP docs don’t mention it, it scores lower. That’s deliberate: an agent can only use what the server exposes.
Ties share a rank; within a tie the table lists higher Access first, then alphabetical.
What we didn’t score. Database size, because every vendor claims a big number and none can be checked from outside (ours are on our live data page: 9.1M companies profiled, 3.0M people, 9.3M emails found of which 214,434 are SMTP-verified). Accuracy, because that needs hands-on testing against ground truth, which is a different piece of work. Price beyond the entry point, because credit costs vary too much by use to compare fairly.
The 12 servers
ZoomInfo14 out of 15 · Joint 1st
The deepest documented tool set here: 26 tools covering company and contact search, enrichment with direct emails and mobile numbers, a “Technologies used” filter and field, intent, “scoops”, news, hiring and funding. Its research tools write inside ZoomInfo (audiences, GTM context), but it says plainly it is not built for CRM write-back.
The catch: the MCP needs bulk data credits, not the recurring monthly credits most subscriptions come with. ZoomInfo’s developer docs say new users start with 1,000 data and 1,000 AI credits and no card; its marketing page says 100. Beyond that, pricing is by demo, and there is “no cost preview shown before a tool call”, so watch the meter. We have a longer ZoomInfo comparison.
claude mcp add --transport http zoominfo https://mcp.zoominfo.com/mcp
Explorium Vibe Prospecting14 out of 15 · Joint 1st
Twelve tools that cover the lot: firmographics, people, professional and personal emails, mobile and direct phones, “complete technology stack” (and search by it), premium intent, hiring events and funding. You don’t compose filters; its agent picks them for you. Exploring and previewing are free, and exporting a full dataset uses credits.
The catch: queries cap at 1,000 entities and previews show 5 to 10 rows. Free credits refresh monthly and don’t roll over; paid credits come as one-off packs from $29.90 for 900 (valid 365 days), not a subscription. Explorium also runs a second, developer-facing server (AgentSource) with raw tools and an API key, so don’t mix the two up. Error -32000 in Claude Code means you used the deprecated local route.
claude mcp add --transport http vibe-prospecting https://vibeprospecting.explorium.ai/mcp
SyncGTM14 out of 15 · Joint 1st
The most tools: 49 by its own count. People and company search, work and personal email, verification, mobile and work phone, “Company Tech Stack”, and a long list of signals: job changes, promotions, headcount growth, job-opening growth, website traffic, product launches and ad activity. Sign-up is free with no card, and it uses OAuth with “no API key and no Authorization header”.
The catch: the free allowance isn’t stated, and the cheapest plan we could read is Solo at $529 a year. Several tools scrape LinkedIn, X, Instagram and TikTok, so check your own compliance position before an agent uses them at scale. The organisation you pick on the OAuth screen is the one whose credits get spent.
claude mcp add --transport http syncgtm https://api.syncgtm.com/mcpAgentData (ours)12 out of 15 · Joint 4th
What it’s for: finding companies by the software they run. Seven read-only tools. We detect 3,073 technologies across 19.5M detections, and you can both filter by a technology and get a company’s stack back. It’s free with no card, and Pro is $99 a year. Company, technology and signal search work with no account and no key, at up to 300 requests every 5 hours and 200 companies a day. As far as we can tell, nothing else in this list can be used without signing up.
Here is a real call to the live server, made with no key while writing this post:
PromptWhich technologies do you track, and how many companies use each?
Claude calls get_technologies and gets this back in under a second:
{"technologies":[
{"name":"Google Analytics","category":"Other","company_count":5851891,"slug":"google-analytics"},
{"name":"Google Tag Manager","category":"Other","company_count":2624626,"slug":"google-tag-manager"},
{"name":"Google Search Console","category":"Other","company_count":1303749,"slug":"google-search-console"},
… 97 more, including …
{"name":"Shopify","category":"Other","company_count":183697,"slug":"shopify"},
{"name":"Stripe","category":"Other","company_count":127317,"slug":"stripe"},
{"name":"HubSpot","category":"Other","company_count":94888,"slug":"hubspot"}
],"total":100,"lookups_consumed":0}
usage: plan anonymous · requests 291 of 300 left this 5h windowEvery response ends with that usage line, so an agent can pace itself instead of hitting a wall.
Where it falls short, honestly. No phone numbers. People coverage is 3.0M, small next to the incumbents. Of 9.3M emails found, 214,434 are SMTP-verified; every email carries its verification status and a confidence score, so an agent can filter. Switch signals (a company adding or dropping a tool) are new and the volume is still thin, which is why they score 1, not 2. And it’s read-only.
# No key: search_companies, get_technologies, get_signals, check_usage
claude mcp add --transport http agentdata https://mcp.agentdata.run/mcp# Free key: adds lookup_company, find_people, get_person
claude mcp add agentdata --transport http https://mcp.agentdata.run/mcp \
--header "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"In claude.ai you can add it as a custom connector with no auth, but only the keyless tools work there, because custom connectors can’t send a key header. Our Claude Code prospecting guide walks it through five prompts end to end.
Apollo12 out of 15 · Joint 4th
The one to pick if you want Claude to do things: 52 documented actions, including creating contacts, accounts and deals, building and enrolling sequences, and “Send one-off emails”. Search covers companies and people, including a website-visitor-intent filter and job postings, and the docs’ examples search by technology.
The catch: free Apollo accounts registered with a personal email “can’t use people or company search and enrichment actions”, so you need a work address. People search doesn’t return emails or phones; enrichment does, and costs credits. Scoped API keys are rejected with a 403, so headless clients need a master key. Apollo also prohibits AI model training with its MCP. Phone numbers are documented for Apollo’s API, but the MCP page doesn’t say they come back through the MCP, hence the 2. See our Apollo comparison.
claude mcp add --transport http apollo https://mcp.apollo.io/mcp
Crustdata12 out of 15 · Joint 4th
Company and people search, email and phone enrichment, hiring and jobs data, funding, and “Watchers” that alert you on changes. It installs from the directory, and every new account “includes free credits. No card required.”
The catch: technographics exist in Crustdata’s API as a paid add-on, but its MCP docs don’t say they’re exposed, hence the 1. Its own pages give two different server URLs and two different tool counts, so if one URL fails, try install.crustdata.com/mcp.
claude mcp add --transport http crustdata https://mcp.crustdata.com/mcp
Lusha12 out of 15 · Joint 4th
Twenty-two tools named in its docs: contact and company search, lookalikes, enrichment that reveals emails and phones, company search “by firmographic and technographic filters”, activity signals and recommendations. The MCP is available on “any plan, including Free”, and Free is 40 credits a month.
The catch: 40 credits doesn’t go far when a phone costs 5. Technology works as a search filter, but the docs don’t say whether the stack comes back as a field. Lusha says API data may not be used to train AI systems. Install it from Claude’s connector directory; the remote URL is https://mcp.lusha.com. See our Lusha comparison.
Amplemarket12 out of 15 · Joint 4th
The strongest write support here, with over 50 tools by Amplemarket’s count: create and update sequences, enroll leads, build lead lists, add notes, create workflows and manage tasks. On the data side: people and company search, emails and phones by reveal, tech stack in company enrichment, intent signals and job changes.
The catch: there is no free plan; the cheapest plan with MCP is Startup at $600 a month on an annual term, with 2 users. It isn’t in Claude’s directory yet, so it’s a custom connector, which Amplemarket says needs a paid Claude plan, and it recommends against small models for its tools. For transparency: Amplemarket wrote the top-ranking roundup for this search and scored itself 15/15. Its rubric weights sequencing, which ours doesn’t.
Clay11 out of 15 · 9th
The easiest start here: Clay says a free Claude account is enough, and you get 500 free Clay credits when you first connect, whether you’re new to Clay or not. Data covers verified emails, phones, tech stack, hiring and funding, and admins can expose custom “Functions”, including one that pushes people into Clay’s sequencer.
The catch: the tools find and enrich people at companies you name rather than doing open-ended filter search, and results stop at 100. It “cannot browse tables” or raw workspace data. Clay doesn’t document a server URL or a Claude Code command, so install it from the directory.
DataForB2B9 out of 15 · Joint 10th
Clean and read-only: people and company search with funding-stage and headcount-growth filters, profile enrichment with work and personal email, job search for hiring signals, and post engagers as leads. OAuth on the hosted server, plus an open-source local server.
The catch: no free plan; it starts at $49 a month for 3,000 credits, with no rollover. Phones are in the REST API but not documented for the MCP, and its product page lists “tech stack” while its API and MCP docs don’t, hence the 1.
claude mcp add --transport http dataforb2b https://mcp.dataforb2b.ai/mcp
MoltSets9 out of 15 · Joint 10th
Strong on contact data from LinkedIn URLs: business and personal emails, carrier-verified mobile numbers, reverse email lookup, and ip_to_company for identifying website visitors. There’s a real free plan (1,000 lifetime enrichments) and paid plans from $27 a month.
The catch: it’s in closed beta, and you create an OAuth client ID and secret in its app before anything connects. There’s no technographic data, and the free plan caps search at 100 lifetime records, 5 per call. We compared it in more depth in our MoltSets alternatives post.
claude mcp add --transport http moltsets https://mcp.moltsets.com/mcp \
--client-id YOUR_CLIENT_ID --client-secret
Hunter8 out of 15 · 12th
Does one thing well: finding and verifying emails. It works on every plan including Free (50 credits a month), Starter is $49 a month or $34 billed yearly, and it can save leads, add people to sequences and push to your CRM.
The catch: its MCP docs don’t cover phones, technographics or signals, though its Discover API has technology, funding and job-opening filters. We couldn’t find it in Claude’s connector directory; Hunter’s own guide adds it as a custom connector at https://mcp.hunter.io/mcp. In Claude Code, use the plugin. See our Hunter comparison.
/plugin marketplace add hunter-io/claude-pluginThings that will trip you up
Each of these comes from the vendors’ own docs.
- Apollo won’t search with a Gmail address. Personal-email accounts are blocked from search and enrichment through the MCP.
- Apollo rejects scoped keys with a 403. Headless setups need a master key.
- ZoomInfo’s MCP doesn’t use your monthly credits. It needs bulk data credits, and there’s no cost preview before a call.
- Crustdata documents two server URLs. If one fails, try the other:
mcp.crustdata.com/mcporinstall.crustdata.com/mcp. - Explorium’s old local route is deprecated. Error -32000 in Claude Code means you used it.
- SyncGTM spends the credits of whichever organisation you pick on the OAuth screen.
- MoltSets needs an OAuth client ID and secret from its app before anything connects.
- Clay stops at 100 results per search.
- Custom connectors and your Claude plan. Hunter, MoltSets and SyncGTM note that on Team and Enterprise only an owner or admin can add one. Amplemarket and SyncGTM say custom connectors need a paid Claude plan; MoltSets says a Free account can add one. Directory connectors are the path of least resistance.
- AI training. Apollo prohibits AI model training with its MCP, and Lusha says its data may not be used to train AI systems. Normal use in Claude is fine; building a training set from outputs is not.
How to connect one to Claude
Claude Code. Most hosted servers follow one pattern:
claude mcp add --transport http <name> <server-url>Then run /mcp inside Claude Code and choose Authenticate for that server; a browser window opens for OAuth. claude mcp list confirms it’s connected.
Claude on the web or desktop. Settings, then Connectors. Directory servers are under Browse connectors; for the rest, choose Add custom connector and paste the URL.
What we didn’t score, and why
- AgentEnrich. Closed beta and local-only (an npm package with an API key), so it can’t be a claude.ai connector. Its own pages disagree on its tool count (12 or 31) and describe the free tier four different ways. We’ll score it when it settles.
- People Data Labs. No official MCP server yet. Community servers wrap its API, but we only scored vendor-built servers.
- Sequencers and CRMs such as Instantly, Smartlead, Outreach, Salesloft, HubSpot and Salesforce. They act on leads you already have, so they sit alongside a data server rather than replacing one, and a data rubric would be unfair to them.
Sources
All read on 23 September 2026. Apollo: docs.apollo.io/docs/apollo-mcp, knowledge.apollo.io. ZoomInfo: gtm.ai/docs/mcp (getting started, credits, tools, FAQ), zoominfo.com/solutions/zoominfo-mcp. Lusha: docs.lusha.com/mcp-docs, lusha.com/pricing. Hunter: hunter.io/mcp, hunter.io/pricing, help.hunter.io. Explorium: github.com/explorium-ai/vibeprospecting-mcp, developers.explorium.ai, vibeprospecting.ai/pricing. Crustdata: crustdata.com/mcp-server, mcp.crustdata.com, docs.crustdata.com. Clay: university.clay.com (Using Clay in Claude, MCP settings), clay.com/pricing. SyncGTM: docs.syncgtm.com/mcp_server, syncgtm.com/product/enrichment-mcp, syncgtm.com/pricing. DataForB2B: docs.dataforb2b.ai, dataforb2b.ai/pricing. MoltSets: developer.moltsets.com, moltsets.com/pricing. Amplemarket: knowledge.amplemarket.com, amplemarket.com/pricing, amplemarket.com/blog/best-mcp-servers-for-sales. AgentEnrich: agentenrich.com, the npm registry. People Data Labs: github.com/peopledatalabs. AgentData: agentdata.run/data, agentdata.run/pricing, and the live server. Vendor pages change; if something here is out of date, email hello@agentdata.run and we’ll fix it and note the change.
