CognismCognism alternative

AgentData vs Cognism: UK-built company intelligence, free, with an MCP server today

Nick Timms·Reviewed by Duda Timms·Updated

Cognism for phone-verified European mobiles on an enterprise contract; AgentData for the company layer your agent needs, free, from another UK team.

The short version

Cognism is the European enterprise data vendor: Diamond Verified phone numbers, DNC screening across a dozen jurisdictions, Bombora intent, and a compliance posture that procurement teams like. It is sold by quote in five-seat packages (Standard and Pro) on a credit model, with a median contract of about $36,000 a year according to Vendr's February 2026 data, no free tier, and an MCP connector that its own blog describes as “upcoming” as of 16 September 2026. AgentData is also UK-built and takes the other position: company profile, 3,625-technology tech stack, verified emails, people and switch signals, $0, 1,000 lookups a day, REST API and MCP live now. Verified 17 September 2026.

Start free →See how it worksNo card. 1,000 lookups a day.
128M companies3,625 technologies7.8M email addresses3.7M peopleUpdated daily
Founder’s take

Cognism is the company I'd point a European enterprise sales team at if they needed phone-verified mobiles and a compliance team to sign off on the vendor. They've done the hard, unglamorous work on DNC lists and GDPR notifications and they deserve credit for it. We're a two-person UK team building the opposite product: no sales call, no five-seat minimum, no credit meter, and the company layer Cognism doesn't focus on, the tech stack. If your budget has five figures and your reps need mobiles, talk to Cognism. If you're building an agent this week, start here; it's free and the MCP server already works.

Nick, co-founder of AgentData

The verdict

AgentDataChoose AgentData if you…
  • want to start today without a sales call, a contract or a five-seat minimum
  • need company intelligence (tech stack, switch signals, web signals) rather than phone numbers
  • are building an agent and want an MCP server that exists now, not one that's upcoming
  • want public company and technology pages your whole team can read
  • want free to mean 1,000 lookups a day with API access
CognismChoose Cognism if you…
  • need phone-verified European mobiles (Diamond Data) for a calling team
  • need DNC screening and documented GDPR notification as part of the vendor's process
  • want Bombora intent data and CRM enrichment inside the same contract
  • have procurement that requires ISO 27001 / 27701 and SOC 2 Type II on file

One company, two responses

Cognism's API is documented publicly at developers.cognism.com but keys are issued by its sales team. Search and Enrich calls are free; revealing a contact costs one credit and revealing a company costs none. No example account payload is published, so we show its documented contact enrich response and AgentData's lookup. Both read 17 September 2026.

Cognism POST /api/search/contact/enrich (documented example, trimmed)
{
  "matchScore": 42,
  "results": [{
    "id": "7351d07c-9118-403b-a7c1-d6510cc0c378",
    "fullName": "Stjepan Buljat",
    "jobTitle": "CTO",
    "hasManagementLevel": true, "hasSeniority": true,
    "hasEmail": true,
    "hasMobilePhoneNumbers": false, "hasDirectPhoneNumbers": false,
    "hasCountry": true, "hasCity": true, "hasLinkedinUrl": true
  }]
}
// then POST /redeem (1 credit) returns e.g.
// "email": { "address": "…@cognism.com", "quality": "HIGH_PLUS" }, "managementLevel": "Executive-Level"

Enrich returns has-flags; Redeem (1 credit per contact, no charge to redeem again) returns the values with an email quality grade. Keys by sales; 1,000 requests/minute; 6-month key TTL.

AgentData /api/v1/lookup?domain=stripe.com (documented, trimmed)
{
  "domain": "stripe.com",
  "company": {
    "name": "Stripe", "sector": "Financial Services & Fintech",
    "vertical": "Payments", "b2b_b2c": "b2b", "size": "large",
    "headquarters_country": "US", "email_pattern": "first.last",
    "signals": { "has_pricing_page": true, "has_api_docs": true, "has_careers_page": true }
  },
  "technologies": [
    { "name": "React", "category": "Framework", "confidence": "high" },
    { "name": "Segment", "category": "Analytics", "confidence": "high" }
  ],
  "emails": { "total": 42, "verified": 38,
    "data": [{ "email": "jane.smith@stripe.com", "title": "VP Engineering",
               "confidence": 95, "verification_status": "valid", "verified_at": "2026-09-01T10:30:00Z" }] },
  "people": { "total": 156, "data": [{ "name": "…", "title": "CTO", "seniority": "c_level" }] },
  "lookup": { "consumed": true, "remaining": 999 }
}

One lookup, one call: company, technologies, verified emails with a 0–100 confidence score, people. Key issued at signup.

AgentData vs Cognism at a glance

AgentDataAgentData
CognismCognism
Pricing & limits
Free tier
1,000 lookups/day, all features
None
How it's sold
Self-serve signup
Quote; Standard and Pro packages, each including 5 seats
Typical contract
$0
Median $36,000/yr, range $17,832–$93,209 (Vendr, Feb 2026, n=109; secondary)
Unit
1 lookup = one company: profile, stack, emails, people
1 credit = 1 contact revealed; companies free to redeem; no charge for previously revealed contacts
Card required
No
Contract
Data
Contacts
3.7M people, 7.8M email addresses, SMTP-verified with confidence
“Hundreds of millions” of profiles (vendor); 10m+ phone-verified contacts (vendor)
Mobile numbers
No
Diamond Verified Phone Data, phone-verified, re-verified every 18 months; Diamonds-on-Demand (Pro)
Tech stack
3,625 technologies with confidence
Not a documented field in the account schema
Switch signals
Yes, per company
No; Job Change Indicator and Bombora intent (Pro)
Company profile
AI-classified sector, size, model, 8 web signals
Account schema: domain, name, website, office phones, firmographics
Public company pages
Yes, indexable
None
Agent access
MCP server
Free, mcp.agentdata.run + npm, live
“Upcoming MCP connector” (Cognism blog, 16 Sep 2026); third-party Zapier wrappers only
REST API
Free, 5 req/s, key at signup
Documented publicly; keys via sales; Search/Enrich free, Redeem 1 credit; 1,000 req/min
Delivery
API, MCP, CSV
API, CRM Enrichment, Data-as-a-Service (Snowflake, S3, GCS, Databricks, SFTP)
Compliance
Certifications
GDPR; UK-based; data-removal process
ISO 27001, ISO 27701, SOC 2 Type II; California data-broker registration
DNC screening
n/a (no phones)
Cross-checked against 12–16 DNC lists (the count differs across Cognism's own pages)
GDPR notification
Legitimate interest; removal on request
Notifies contacts of inclusion within GDPR timeframes; legitimate interest, Art. 6(1)(f)

Verified 17 September 2026 against cognism.com/pricing, developers.cognism.com, help.cognism.com, cognism.com/diamond-data and cognism.com/compliance. Contract values are from Vendr (Feb 2026, n=109) and marked as secondary; Cognism publishes no prices.

Why agent builders and growth teams pick AgentData over Cognism

Start today

Cognism starts with a sales call and a five-seat package. AgentData starts with a signup.

AgentDataKey issued at signup; first API call in two minutes
Cognism“Contact someone in our team to get set up on a trial or to upgrade to the API”
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $KEY" \
  "https://agentdata.run/api/v1/lookup?domain=stripe.com"
Start free →
The MCP server exists

Cognism's is upcoming. Ours has seven tools and runs in Claude Code now.

AgentDataHosted MCP + npm, free, seven tools
Cognism“Cognism's upcoming MCP connector”, blog, 16 September 2026
claude mcp add agentdata --transport http https://mcp.agentdata.run/mcp \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"
# then: "Find German manufacturers running SAP and Salesforce with 500+ staff; give me the head of IT at each with a verified email."
MCP setup →
The company layer

Cognism's account schema is firmographics. Ours is the stack, the signals and what changed.

AgentData3,625 technologies with confidence; switch signals; 8 web signals
CognismDomain, name, website, office phones, firmographics
Tools: lookup_companysearch_companiesfind_peopleget_technologiesget_signalscheck_usage
Technology directory →
Public pages

Every company, technology and sector has a page you can read before you query.

AgentData/company/[domain], /tech/[slug], /companies/[sector]
CognismNo public company pages
Browse companies →
UK-built, both of us

Two UK teams, two different bets.

AgentDataFree, self-serve, company-first, crawl-based, global
CognismEnterprise, quote-priced, contact-first, EU mobiles, compliance-led
Why AgentData is free →

Pricing: AgentData vs Cognism

Cognism publishes no prices. What we can say comes from its pricing page (packages and credit rules) and from Vendr's contract data, which we mark as secondary.

Cognism sells Standard and Pro packages, each including five seats, plus CRM Enrichment and Data-as-a-Service as add-ons or standalone; pricing is “tailored based on the product you need, your team setup and how you plan to use the platform”. One credit is used each time a contact is revealed; redeeming companies is free; previously revealed contacts are not charged again. Vendr's marketplace data (February 2026, 109 contracts) shows a median of $36,000 a year with a range of $17,832 to $93,209. UpLead's October 2025 estimate put the older Grow package at roughly $15,000 platform fee plus $1,500 per user per year, and Elevate at $25,000 plus $2,500 per user. Treat all figures as indicative. AgentData: $0 at 1,000 lookups a day.

How Cognism's model has changed

  • August 2023 (Arquivo.pt capture): “on this page you won't find a simple pricing table”; data licences priced per user plus a flat platform fee; “all users get unrestricted access”, no credits.
  • December 2023 (capture): packages named Platinum and Diamond; Diamond adds phone-verified mobiles and intent data.
  • 2025 (UpLead, secondary): packages renamed Grow and Elevate; fair use around 2,000 records per user per month.
  • 17 September 2026 (live page): packages now Standard and Pro, each with five seats; pricing text is credit-based, “1 credit = 1 revealed contact”. A shift from unrestricted access to metered credits.
  • 16 September 2026 (Cognism blog): MCP connector described as “upcoming”.
  • AgentData: $19 / $49 / $99 specced April 2026, never launched; free since May 2026.

AgentData vs Cognism, feature by feature

Phone data: Cognism's strongest card

Diamond Verified mobiles are the reason enterprise calling teams pay five figures.

  • AgentData: No phone numbers. Verified emails with confidence, people with seniority.
  • Cognism: Diamond Verified Phone Data: mobiles phone-verified by Cognism, re-verified every 18 months; Diamonds-on-Demand verification on Pro; 10m+ phone-verified contacts (vendor).

Source: cognism.com/diamond-data; help.cognism.com Diamond Data article, 17 September 2026

Compliance as a product

Cognism sells compliance; we sell data with a removal process.

  • AgentData: Company and tech data is non-personal; people and emails under legitimate interest with removal at /legal/data-removal; UK-based; no ISO/SOC certifications.
  • Cognism: ISO 27001, ISO 27701, SOC 2 Type II; DNC cross-checks (12, 15 or 16 lists depending on which Cognism page you read); GDPR notification of contacts; California data-broker registration.

Source: cognism.com/compliance; cognism.com/our-data; cognism.com/diamond-data, 17 September 2026

The company layer

The part Cognism doesn't focus on.

  • AgentData: 3,625 technologies per company with confidence; switch signals; sector, size, model and 8 web signals classified from the live site.
  • Cognism: Account schema documents domain, name, website, office phone numbers and firmographics; no technographics field documented.

Source: developers.cognism.com, 17 September 2026

Agent access

One MCP is live; one is announced.

  • AgentData: mcp.agentdata.run/mcp or npm, seven tools, free, key at signup.
  • Cognism: API keys via sales with a 6-month TTL; Search and Enrich free, Redeem 1 credit; MCP connector “upcoming”; only third-party Zapier wrappers exist today.
claude mcp add agentdata --transport http https://mcp.agentdata.run/mcp \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"

Source: help.cognism.com API setup article; cognism.com/blog/b2b-data-api (16 Sep 2026)

Who moves from Cognism to AgentData

The UK startup priced out

You asked for a Cognism quote and got a number with five seats in it. AgentData is the same country, the opposite price, and it has the company data Cognism doesn't lead with.

The agent builder who can't wait for the connector

Cognism's MCP is coming. Ours has been running in Claude Code, Claude Desktop and Cursor with seven tools; add it in one command.

The enterprise team that still needs mobiles

Keep Cognism for Diamond Data and DNC-screened calling. Use AgentData to decide which accounts are worth the credits, by tech stack and recent switches.

Switching from Cognism

  1. Export your redeemed contacts and accounts from Cognism (or from the CRM they were enriched into). Keep the company domain.
  2. Re-enrich by domain in AgentData via /api/v1/lookup or the MCP; you gain the tech stack, signals and switch history, and you'll see which emails we verify.
  3. Check your contract terms before cancelling; Cognism is sold on annual contracts. Run both until renewal if you still need mobiles.

Field map: Cognism → AgentData

Cognism
AgentData
Notes
account.domain
domain
Join key
account.name / website
company.name
account firmographics
company.sector, company.vertical, company.size, company.employee_count, company.founded_year
account.officePhoneNumbers[]
not available
No phone numbers in AgentData
contact.email.address + quality (HIGH_PLUS…)
emails.data[].email + verification_status, confidence (0–100)
contact.jobTitle / managementLevel / seniority
people.data[].title / .seniority
contact mobile / direct dial
not available
Bombora intent
not available
We have web signals and switch signals, not third-party intent
(none)
technologies[], company.signals, /api/v1/signals
Ours only

Where Cognism fits better

  • You run a calling team in Europe. Phone-verified mobiles with DNC screening across a dozen jurisdictions is Cognism's reason to exist and we don't do phones.
  • Compliance is a buying criterion, not a checkbox. ISO 27001/27701, SOC 2 Type II, documented GDPR notification: Cognism has the paperwork; we have a removal process.
  • You want intent data and CRM enrichment in one contract, with Data-as-a-Service delivery into Snowflake or S3.
  • You have the budget and a procurement process that prefers a vendor with account managers.

We would rather you pick the right tool than ours for the wrong reasons.

Start free →No card. 1,000 lookups a day.

Frequently asked questions

Related reading

Nick Timms
Co-founder, AgentData
Builds the crawler and the API; writes the honest versions of the comparisons.
Duda Timms
Reviewer · Co-founder, AgentData
Reviews every comparison before it ships.
Sources (read 17 September 2026)

Pricing and features verified September 2026 and may change; confirm current details on each vendor's site. AgentData is our product; comparisons reflect our honest assessment.

Switching from Cognism takes an afternoon.

128M companies. 3,625 technologies. 7.8M email addresses. Free.

Start free →No card. 1,000 lookups a day.