Lusha and Cognism are both B2B contact databases competing for the same RevOps budget line — direct-dial mobile numbers and verified business emails for outbound prospecting. The tools look identical in a vendor pitch. The routing decision is actually sharp: Lusha is a self-serve US-and-SMB tool with a low entry price; Cognism is a European-first platform with structural GDPR compliance infrastructure and phone-verified mobile data that costs 10–15x more. Picking the wrong one burns either budget or pipeline coverage.
Where Lusha wins
Self-serve speed and low entry cost. Lusha has a free tier (40 credits/month) and a Pro plan starting at ~$29/seat/month (billed annually). A one-person SDR team or a 3-person US-focused outbound team can be pulling contact data in minutes — no sales call, no MSA, no IT security review. The Chrome extension works on LinkedIn profiles out of the box. For SMB teams that sell in North America and need a usable database without a procurement cycle, Lusha clears the bar.
Depth on US and North American contacts. Lusha’s database skews heavily toward North American professionals. For a team prospecting into US mid-market and enterprise accounts at scale, Lusha’s coverage holds up. Email accuracy is adequate for LinkedIn-heavy prospecting workflows, and the browser extension is the fastest lookup path in the market for individual contributors.
Credit-based flexibility at the low end. Lusha’s per-credit model lets small teams buy only what they need. The Pro plan bundles 480 credits/seat/month (each mobile number costs ~10 credits). This is inefficient for high-volume outbound but workable for teams doing targeted, low-volume prospecting into named accounts.
CRM integrations without enterprise contracts. Lusha integrates with HubSpot, Salesforce, and Pipedrive on paid plans without requiring six-figure commitments. For a startup RevOps team running HubSpot, that’s a meaningful unlock that Cognism won’t offer at the same price point.
Where Cognism wins
GDPR compliance architecture — the structural difference. Cognism screens all phone numbers against Do Not Call (DNC) registries in 13 countries, provides explicit legal-basis documentation per contact record, and sends Article 14 notifications to data subjects in the EEA and UK. Lusha states GDPR compliance at the platform level but DNC scrubbing is limited to the UK and US, and only on its highest-tier Scale package. Italy’s data protection authority (Garante) launched proceedings against Lusha in April 2025 (announced 8 April 2025) for unauthorized data collection on Italian citizens. If your team sells into EU markets and your legal counsel asks “what’s your lawful basis per contact?” — Cognism has a documented answer; Lusha does not.
European and APAC data coverage. Cognism’s core dataset covers ~25 million Platinum-tier contacts with genuine depth in UK, DACH, Nordics, and Western Europe. Lusha has approximately 280 million contacts globally but accuracy outside North America is materially lower and refresh frequency drops. If your ICP is a VP of Sales in Frankfurt or a Head of Engineering in Amsterdam, Cognism’s hit rate will be higher.
Diamond Data: phone-verified mobile numbers. Cognism’s signature tier has human researchers physically verifying that a number reaches the named person before it enters the dataset. Connect rates on Diamond Data are 2–3x higher than standard mobile numbers from competing providers. If cold calling is a primary channel and European connects are the goal, no other provider has an equivalent.
Compliance-safe outbound at scale. For enterprise teams selling into GDPR-regulated markets that need to defend their prospecting data chain to a DPO or external auditor, Cognism is the only provider with a GDPR-first architecture, ISO 27701 certification, and pre-built DNC workflows. The compliance story is load-bearing, not marketing.
Pricing reality
Lusha: Free tier with 40 credits/month; Pro at ~$29/seat/month (annual, 3-seat minimum, ~$1,044/year for 3 seats); Premium at ~$52/seat/month; Scale (enterprise, custom pricing, starts around $15,000/year). Vendr data shows median Lusha contracts at $15,180/year with a range of $5,800 to $66,000 depending on team size and credit volume.
Cognism: Quote-only, annual contracts. Platinum tier starts around $15,000/year in platform fees plus ~$1,500/seat/year. Diamond tier starts around $25,000/year in platform fees plus ~$2,500/seat/year. For a 5-person team on Diamond, expect $30,000–$45,000/year. There is no self-serve trial and no monthly billing.
The gap: for a 3-person team, Lusha Pro costs about $1,000/year and Cognism Platinum costs $19,500/year. That is roughly a 20x price difference for the same seat count. The math only closes when European data quality and GDPR compliance genuinely matter to your motion.
Implementation effort
Lusha is a same-day install. Chrome extension, LinkedIn integration, CRM connect — a solo SDR can be productive in under an hour. No onboarding manager, no training required.
Cognism is a procurement and onboarding project. Expect a 2–4 week sales process, security review for enterprise buyers, and 1–3 weeks of onboarding for data configuration, DNC suppression list setup, and CRM integration. The compliance workflow configuration alone — mapping contact records to their GDPR legal basis — takes time. Plan for a 4–6 week ramp before the team is fully productive.
Verdict
Pick Lusha when: your team sells primarily into North American markets, you have fewer than 10 outbound reps, you need self-serve access without a procurement cycle, and GDPR compliance depth is not a legal requirement for your motion.
Pick Cognism when: your ICP is in the UK, DACH, Nordics, or broader Western Europe; your volume of cold calling makes Diamond Data’s verified connect rates worth the premium; or your legal team has placed real constraints on your prospecting data sourcing because you sell into GDPR-regulated markets.
Pick neither when: you’re running high-volume outbound entirely inside North America and you want a bundled data-plus-sequencer. In that case, Apollo covers the data and adds sequences in one bill at a fraction of the cost of either Cognism or Lusha Scale.
Default pick if you’re choosing without the specific conditions above: Lusha Pro for a US-focused team under 10 reps. It is cheap, fast, and good enough for most North American prospecting. Upgrade to Cognism only when EU data quality and GDPR compliance become the load-bearing requirements.
Lusha and Cognism are both B2B contact databases competing for the same RevOps budget line — direct-dial mobile numbers and verified business emails for outbound prospecting. The tools look identical in a vendor pitch. The routing decision is actually sharp: Lusha is a self-serve US-and-SMB tool with a low entry price; Cognism is a European-first platform with structural GDPR compliance infrastructure and phone-verified mobile data that costs 10–15x more. Picking the wrong one burns either budget or pipeline coverage.
Where Lusha wins
Self-serve speed and low entry cost. Lusha has a free tier (40 credits/month) and a Pro plan starting at ~$29/seat/month (billed annually). A one-person SDR team or a 3-person US-focused outbound team can be pulling contact data in minutes — no sales call, no MSA, no IT security review. The Chrome extension works on LinkedIn profiles out of the box. For SMB teams that sell in North America and need a usable database without a procurement cycle, Lusha clears the bar.
Depth on US and North American contacts. Lusha’s database skews heavily toward North American professionals. For a team prospecting into US mid-market and enterprise accounts at scale, Lusha’s coverage holds up. Email accuracy is adequate for LinkedIn-heavy prospecting workflows, and the browser extension is the fastest lookup path in the market for individual contributors.
Credit-based flexibility at the low end. Lusha’s per-credit model lets small teams buy only what they need. The Pro plan bundles 480 credits/seat/month (each mobile number costs ~10 credits). This is inefficient for high-volume outbound but workable for teams doing targeted, low-volume prospecting into named accounts.
CRM integrations without enterprise contracts. Lusha integrates with HubSpot, Salesforce, and Pipedrive on paid plans without requiring six-figure commitments. For a startup RevOps team running HubSpot, that’s a meaningful unlock that Cognism won’t offer at the same price point.
Where Cognism wins
GDPR compliance architecture — the structural difference. Cognism screens all phone numbers against Do Not Call (DNC) registries in 13 countries, provides explicit legal-basis documentation per contact record, and sends Article 14 notifications to data subjects in the EEA and UK. Lusha states GDPR compliance at the platform level but DNC scrubbing is limited to the UK and US, and only on its highest-tier Scale package. Italy’s data protection authority (Garante) launched proceedings against Lusha in April 2025 (announced 8 April 2025) for unauthorized data collection on Italian citizens. If your team sells into EU markets and your legal counsel asks “what’s your lawful basis per contact?” — Cognism has a documented answer; Lusha does not.
European and APAC data coverage. Cognism’s core dataset covers ~25 million Platinum-tier contacts with genuine depth in UK, DACH, Nordics, and Western Europe. Lusha has approximately 280 million contacts globally but accuracy outside North America is materially lower and refresh frequency drops. If your ICP is a VP of Sales in Frankfurt or a Head of Engineering in Amsterdam, Cognism’s hit rate will be higher.
Diamond Data: phone-verified mobile numbers. Cognism’s signature tier has human researchers physically verifying that a number reaches the named person before it enters the dataset. Connect rates on Diamond Data are 2–3x higher than standard mobile numbers from competing providers. If cold calling is a primary channel and European connects are the goal, no other provider has an equivalent.
Compliance-safe outbound at scale. For enterprise teams selling into GDPR-regulated markets that need to defend their prospecting data chain to a DPO or external auditor, Cognism is the only provider with a GDPR-first architecture, ISO 27701 certification, and pre-built DNC workflows. The compliance story is load-bearing, not marketing.
Pricing reality
Lusha: Free tier with 40 credits/month; Pro at ~$29/seat/month (annual, 3-seat minimum, ~$1,044/year for 3 seats); Premium at ~$52/seat/month; Scale (enterprise, custom pricing, starts around $15,000/year). Vendr data shows median Lusha contracts at $15,180/year with a range of $5,800 to $66,000 depending on team size and credit volume.
Cognism: Quote-only, annual contracts. Platinum tier starts around $15,000/year in platform fees plus ~$1,500/seat/year. Diamond tier starts around $25,000/year in platform fees plus ~$2,500/seat/year. For a 5-person team on Diamond, expect $30,000–$45,000/year. There is no self-serve trial and no monthly billing.
The gap: for a 3-person team, Lusha Pro costs about $1,000/year and Cognism Platinum costs $19,500/year. That is roughly a 20x price difference for the same seat count. The math only closes when European data quality and GDPR compliance genuinely matter to your motion.
Implementation effort
Lusha is a same-day install. Chrome extension, LinkedIn integration, CRM connect — a solo SDR can be productive in under an hour. No onboarding manager, no training required.
Cognism is a procurement and onboarding project. Expect a 2–4 week sales process, security review for enterprise buyers, and 1–3 weeks of onboarding for data configuration, DNC suppression list setup, and CRM integration. The compliance workflow configuration alone — mapping contact records to their GDPR legal basis — takes time. Plan for a 4–6 week ramp before the team is fully productive.
Verdict
Pick Lusha when: your team sells primarily into North American markets, you have fewer than 10 outbound reps, you need self-serve access without a procurement cycle, and GDPR compliance depth is not a legal requirement for your motion.
Pick Cognism when: your ICP is in the UK, DACH, Nordics, or broader Western Europe; your volume of cold calling makes Diamond Data’s verified connect rates worth the premium; or your legal team has placed real constraints on your prospecting data sourcing because you sell into GDPR-regulated markets.
Pick neither when: you’re running high-volume outbound entirely inside North America and you want a bundled data-plus-sequencer. In that case, Apollo covers the data and adds sequences in one bill at a fraction of the cost of either Cognism or Lusha Scale.
Default pick if you’re choosing without the specific conditions above: Lusha Pro for a US-focused team under 10 reps. It is cheap, fast, and good enough for most North American prospecting. Upgrade to Cognism only when EU data quality and GDPR compliance become the load-bearing requirements.