Best Explorium Alternatives in 2026

At ColdIQ, we have run outbound for 300+ companies. Every campaign starts with B2B data, so we test data providers constantly, and we now plug them into one API.

Explorium built one of the best-known data layers for AI agents. Its tagline said it plainly: "The B2B data foundation for AI agents." Through its AgentSource platform, teams could query company data, people data and business signals over a REST API or a hosted MCP server, straight from Claude or their own agents.

That is ending. After almost nine years, Explorium is ceasing operations, and AgentSource will be discontinued on December 2, 2026. Unused credits will be refunded to the original payment method, according to the official notice. If your agents, enrichment workflows or lead lists run on Explorium, you have a few weeks to move them.

Below is the full breakdown of Explorium alternatives in 2026, starting with what you need to replace.

What Explorium Did Best (and What You Need to Replace)

Explorium's strength was breadth behind a single key. One account gave you company data on 146M+ businesses, people data on 767M+ professional profiles and a library of business signals, in a format an AI agent could read without extra work.

Here is what Explorium users now need to rebuild:

→ Company data: firmographics, tech stack, funding and financials.

→ People data: prospect search and contact enrichment.

→ Signals: business events, website changes and funding news to time outreach.

→ Agent access: a REST API and an MCP server, so Claude, Cursor or a custom agent could pull data in natural language.

→ Credits on one bill: plans ran from a free trial with 100 credits to a Scale plan at $7,499.99 for 500,000 credits.

No single provider below copies Explorium one to one. Some cover the whole job, others cover one piece of it extremely well. We picked tools we use in production, and every one of them is also reachable through the ColdIQ API, so you can mix them without opening six accounts.

The Best Explorium Alternatives in 2026

ColdIQ: One API Over 40+ Data Providers

ColdIQ covers the same job as Explorium from a different angle. Explorium sold access to its own database. ColdIQ runs one chat, one MCP server and one API over 40+ data providers and 700+ endpoints, plus its own database of 700M+ people.

For every request, ColdIQ scores each provider on fit, cost and accuracy, then calls the best one. When a provider comes up empty, the next one runs, and every email comes back verified. You get one account, one bill and one response format, whatever provider answered.

Three ways to use it

You can use ColdIQ wherever you already work. In your terminal, you connect the ColdIQ MCP to Claude Code or Cursor and ask for data in plain English, like "Find 20 sales leaders at US SaaS companies with 50-200 employees and get their verified emails." The agent picks the providers, runs the waterfall and saves the result.

In the browser, the ColdIQ Agent works as a chat. Describe the list you want, and it searches companies, enriches domains, finds contacts and verifies emails in one thread, while Projects let you enrich a CSV row by row. In Slack, you tag ColdIQ in any channel or thread and the same agent answers with the same credits.

For developers replacing Explorium's API, the REST API takes one key and returns one normalized format. A request for an email, a phone or a company profile runs across every connected provider instead of a single source.

Unlimited data from ColdIQ's own database

This is the biggest difference with Explorium's credit model. On the Unlimited plans, people and company data from ColdIQ's proprietary database is unlimited, at a fixed monthly price. Credits are only spent when a request goes out to an external provider.

The agent queries ColdIQ data first and only falls back to providers like Prospeo or FullEnrich when it misses.

For recruiters and staffing agencies

Recruiting teams need the same data as sales teams, pointed at a different goal. The ColdIQ Agent has a dedicated Recruiting mode, and the API covers both sides of an agency's search.

On the candidate side, you search people by title, seniority and location, then find their work email and mobile in the same request. On the client side, you find companies hiring for the roles you place, using job posting data from providers like PredictLeads and LimaData. A company with 10 open sales roles is a warm lead for a sales recruiting agency. You can also follow placed candidates and past hiring managers when they change jobs, and reach them in their first weeks at a new company.

Agencies usually need two separate stacks for this, one for candidates and one for clients. With ColdIQ, both run on the same key.

Pricing

ColdIQ has a Free plan with 300 credits at sign-up to try every provider. The Starter plan runs from $99/month for 7,000 credits up to $399/month for 31,000 credits, and unused credits roll over for 3 months. The Unlimited plans start at $499/month, with unlimited people and company data from ColdIQ's database plus 40,000 credits for external providers. Every plan includes the API, the MCP server, the chat agent, Slack, Visitor ID and mailboxes. Full details are on the pricing page.

Best for: teams that ran agents, enrichment or list building on Explorium and want one replacement for company data, people data and signals.

Limitation: unlimited data only covers ColdIQ's own database. Calls to external providers still use credits, and the Unlimited plans start at $499/month, so small one-off projects fit better on the Free or Starter plans.

PredictLeads: Company Signals for AI Agents

PredictLeads is the closest replacement for Explorium's signal data. It describes itself as "structured company intelligence data on 120M+ companies, built for AI agents and autonomous systems."

Its datasets come from what companies publish about themselves: 300M+ historical job postings from 3M+ companies, 9M+ news events across 46 event types like funding, partnerships and leadership changes, and 2B+ technology detections across 240K+ technologies. It also maps similar companies, products, key customers and GitHub repositories. That makes it strong for timing outreach. A company that just opened five sales roles, adopted a new CRM or announced a funding round is a better target this week than last month.

PredictLeads offers a REST API and a hosted MCP server. The Free plan includes 100 credits per month. Paid usage starts at a $40/month minimum at $0.04 per credit and drops to $0.002 per credit above 500,000 credits, with an Enterprise flat file that includes historical data since 2015.

Best for: teams running signal-based outbound and AI SDR agents that research accounts before writing.

Limitation: PredictLeads covers companies, not contacts. There are no emails or phone numbers, so you need a contact provider next to it. It is also available through the ColdIQ API.

Prospeo: Verified Emails and Mobiles

Prospeo replaces the contact side of Explorium. It finds verified work emails and mobile numbers from a name and company, a domain or a LinkedIn profile, and its Chrome extension works directly on LinkedIn and Sales Navigator.

We have used Prospeo across client campaigns for years, and we helped the Prospeo team build $3M+ in pipeline. Its strength is accuracy on a narrow job: give it a person, get back a contact you can send to. Domain search lists the contacts at a company, and the API handles enrichment at volume.

Prospeo has a Free plan with 100 credits per month, and paid plans start at $49/month. One valid email costs 1 credit and one mobile number costs 10 credits.

Best for: sales teams prospecting from LinkedIn who mainly need emails and phone numbers.

Limitation: Prospeo returns contacts, not company intelligence, so there is no firmographic or signal data to replace that part of Explorium. It is also available through the ColdIQ API.

FullEnrich: Waterfall Contact Enrichment

FullEnrich takes a different approach from Explorium. It does not keep its own contact database. It queries 25+ data providers in a waterfall for each contact and returns what it finds, verified. Its pricing follows the same logic: credits are only spent on data it finds and verifies, and a miss costs nothing.

For teams that used Explorium mainly to enrich existing lists with emails and phones, FullEnrich covers that job with higher coverage than any single source. It finds work emails, personal emails and mobile numbers, runs reverse email lookups and connects to HubSpot. The API and MCP server come with the Pro plan.

The free trial includes 50 credits with no credit card. Pro starts at €55/month for 1,000 credits, with larger tiers and custom Enterprise pricing. A work email costs 1 credit, a personal email 3 credits and a mobile number 10 credits.

Best for: teams that want multi-provider coverage on contact data without managing each provider.

Limitation: mobile numbers cost 10 times more than a work email, and FullEnrich does not provide company signals or intent data. It is also available through the ColdIQ API.

LimaData: Real-Time People and Company Data

LimaData is an API-first data provider for people and company data, with a strong focus on LinkedIn. It enriches a person or a company from an email, a LinkedIn URL or a domain, runs structured people and company searches with database filters, and pulls LinkedIn posts, engagements and company job listings. Email finding, email verification and mobile finding complete the set.

That mix makes it useful for two Explorium use cases at once. You can enrich a person or a company in real time, and you can pull activity data, like who engaged with a competitor's LinkedIn post or which roles a company is hiring for.

LimaData has a free trial with 25 credits and API access included. Starter costs $50/month for 1,500 credits, Pro costs $200/month for 10,000 credits, and Enterprise is custom with volume discounts.

Best for: developers and agent builders who need real-time LinkedIn and contact data over an API.

Limitation: LimaData is built for real-time lookups. By its own description, it is not designed for long-term customer database management or complex analytics. It is also available through the ColdIQ API.

AI Ark: AI-Powered People and Company Search

AI Ark is a B2B data platform built for list building, with 400M+ people and 70M+ company profiles. Its standout feature is lookalike search, and its homepage promise is direct: "Build a 95%+ ICP-match list in one click with AI Lookalike Search." Describe your best customers, and it finds companies and people that match them.

For Explorium users who relied on prospect search to fill the top of the funnel, AI Ark covers that step. It also offers email and mobile enrichment, an Enrichment API, a Semantic Search API and a remote MCP server for AI agents. In our own phone waterfall, it often returns mobiles at a lower cost than other providers.

The Free plan includes 100 credits per month, with exports of up to 25 records at a time. The usage-based plan costs $49/month for 5,000 credits and exports of up to 10,000 records, and unused credits roll over. Agency and Enterprise plans are custom, and annual billing saves 20%.

Best for: B2B sales and marketing teams building targeted lists and lookalike audiences.

Limitation: emails are found at export time, not stored in advance, so large pulls with low match rates can still use credits. It is also available through the ColdIQ API.

Findymail: Verified Emails With No Wasted Credits

Findymail focuses on one outcome: emails that do not bounce. It finds and verifies work emails and mobile numbers, and it only charges for successful finds. Its pricing page sums it up: "Verified data without worrying about credits."

Findymail also ships an API and an MCP server on every plan, which makes it an easy plug-in for teams that used Explorium inside Claude or ChatGPT. The email verifier cleans existing lists, and paid plans add signals.

The Free plan gives you 10 credits to test with no card. Individual costs $99/month for 1 seat, Team $399/month for 5 seats and Scale $999/month for 20 seats. A phone lookup costs 10 credits.

Best for: teams that already have their target list and want the cleanest possible emails before sending.

Limitation: Findymail has no prospecting database. It enriches contacts you already have, it does not help you discover new ones. It is also available through the ColdIQ API.

How the Explorium Alternatives Compare

For reference, Explorium AgentSource covered company data, people data and signals over a REST API and MCP server, from a free trial with 100 credits to $7,499.99 for 500,000 credits. It is discontinued on December 2, 2026.

How to Move Your Explorium Workflows to ColdIQ

If your workflows run on Explorium today, the move takes an afternoon. Start before December 2, so you can compare results while both are live.

→ Step 1, list what you call: go through your agents, scripts and spreadsheets and note each Explorium call, whether it is company match, prospect search, contact enrichment or events.

→ Step 2, map each call: company data maps to company enrichment, prospect search maps to people search on ColdIQ data, contact enrichment maps to the email and phone waterfalls, and events map to signal providers like PredictLeads.

→ Step 3, connect the MCP: add the ColdIQ MCP to Claude Code or Cursor, and your agent can ask for data in plain English without code changes on your side.

→ Step 4, run a sample: re-run 50 rows you already enriched with Explorium and compare coverage before switching the full volume.

→ Step 5, switch and claim your refund: move the rest of your workflows, then check that your unused Explorium credits were refunded.

You can start on the Free plan with 300 credits to test, then move to Unlimited once volume picks up. If you are rebuilding your account list at the same time, our guide on TAM mapping in 6 steps shows how we run it end to end.

Which Explorium Alternative Should You Pick?

The right choice depends on which part of Explorium you relied on.

If you used Explorium for everything, from company data to contacts to signals, ColdIQ replaces it as a whole. One API and one MCP server cover all three, with unlimited data from ColdIQ's own database on top.

If your main use was buying signals, PredictLeads has the deepest job, news and technology datasets of this list, and it was built for AI agents.

If you mostly enriched lists with emails and phones, Prospeo gives you verified contacts from a single source, and FullEnrich adds coverage through its 25+ provider waterfall.

If you need real-time LinkedIn data, LimaData covers profiles, posts, engagements and job listings over an API. If you build lists from scratch, AI Ark finds lookalike companies and people from your best customers. If bounce rate is your top concern, Findymail only charges for verified emails and plugs into Claude through its MCP.

And if you want several of these without six contracts, every tool on this list is reachable through the ColdIQ API on one key. You can read more about why we built it in our unified API for GTM launch post.

Signals are the hardest part of Explorium to replace by hand. You can check the intent signals of the companies already looking for a tool like yours here, for free:

Intent Signals

Move Before December 2

Explorium proved that AI agents need clean B2B data behind a single key. Its shutdown does not change that need, it only changes where the data comes from.

Single providers like PredictLeads, Prospeo, FullEnrich, LimaData, AI Ark and Findymail each replace one part of Explorium very well. If you only used one part, pick the matching tool and move on.

If you used Explorium as your full data layer, ColdIQ is the closest replacement. It covers company data, people data and signals through one API, one MCP server and one chat, routes every request to the best of 40+ providers, and adds unlimited data from its own database of 700M+ people.

Whatever you choose, move before December 2, 2026. Testing on a sample while Explorium is still live is the easiest way to compare results.