Actions and credits
Learn what a credit buys, which providers run each action, and what every action costs.
ColdIQ puts 40+ data providers behind one API and one balance.
- Actions are what you ask for: find an email, enrich a company, build a list. You call the action, never the vendor.
- Credits are the single currency you spend, whichever provider ends up answering. There is no second meter running alongside.
The router decides which provider runs your call, and every response tells you which one answered and exactly what it charged.
How it works
You call an action, not a vendor. The router picks the provider that works best for that particular search, sends the call, and stops at the first usable answer. If nothing comes back, it falls through to the next one in the chain.
What decides the pick is the shape of what you gave it. A name and a domain, a LinkedIn URL, a strict headcount filter, a tech-stack filter: each one reaches a different set of providers, because they are not equally good at the same inputs.
You can override it whenever you want. Pass one provider to pin a single vendor, or an ordered list to run your own chain instead of ours. The chains below are the default order, and the price of each step is next to it so the choice is yours to make.
What spends a credit
Spends credits
- Enrichments returning net-new data: emails, phones, profiles, firmographics, technologies.
- Records sourced from a provider database when you build a list.
- Web search, page reading, AI answers.
- Ads, job postings, reviews and signals pulled from a provider.
Spends nothing
- Importing your own data, from a file or your CRM.
- A provider that returns nothing on a result-billed action, or that the chain skipped.
- Reading, filtering, deduplicating and exporting your own tables.
- Sending and syncing: Instantly, Lemlist and Attio endpoints are free.
What each action costs
One card per action: the order we call providers in, and what each one charges.
Find Email
A professional email from a name and a company, or from a LinkedIn URL.
Findymail3.57
LeadMagic4.16
Prospeo3.50
Apollo9.91
Lima Data3.50
Icypeas1.05
Wiza35.00The winner changes with the input. A name and a domain lands on Findymail or LeadMagic; a LinkedIn URL lands on Prospeo and returns the full profile, employment history, company firmographics and a masked mobile for the same price. Pass the LinkedIn URL whenever you have one. A verification hop is included when the provider does not verify its own result.
Verify Email
Whether an address is deliverable, before it enters a sequence.
BounceBan0.71LeadMagic1.04Findymail3.57Icypeas1.05
LinkUp6.30BounceBan leads because it is the only one that returns a verdict on catch-all and risky addresses, the ones every other verifier hands back as unknown. It is charged only on a conclusive verdict, so an inconclusive check costs nothing before the chain falls through.
Find People
Contacts at companies you already have, by job title.
LeadsFactory0.35Apollo9.91LinkUp6.30per 10
Sumble2.10Prospeo3.50
AI Ark1.03
FullEnrich11.63Findymail3.57Pass titles exactly as you want them: LeadsFactory handles fuzzy matching itself, and adding your own variants degrades the result. Apollo obfuscates last names and hides emails unless you pay a reveal, which is why it sits behind. One company per call: two in the same call can exceed the time budget.
Search Companies
A list of accounts from firmographics, geography, funding, headcount, tech stack or hiring.
Prospeo3.50FullEnrich11.63
TheirStack12.60
SignalBase3.50AI Ark0.21Lima Data0.35
PredictLeads2.51LinkUp6.30per 10Apollo9.91
DiscoLike42.00The action with the most providers, and the one where your filters decide the price. Put formal categories in the industry field and keep the keyword field for themes no taxonomy covers. The industry field reaches a structured database at 3.50 for a full page of companies; the keyword field reaches live search, which costs more and returns less.
Enrich Company
Size, industry, location, funding, technologies, from a domain, a LinkedIn URL or a name.
Apollo9.91Lima Data3.50Prospeo3.50
Openmart3.13AI Ark0.21
BuiltWith3.13Wiza35.00FullEnrich11.63LinkUp6.30DiscoLike42.00Name the fields you want. A bare domain with no field list routes to technology detection and returns a very large stack payload rather than firmographics. A domain reaches more providers than a LinkedIn company URL does. Set a per-record cap when you run this at scale.
Enrich Person
A profile, current role and employer, from a LinkedIn URL or from an email in reverse.
LinkUp6.30Apollo9.91Findymail3.57Icypeas1.05AI Ark1.03
Icypeas reverse email1.05On a reverse email lookup, read the confidence the response returns before trusting the match: a record whose email sits on a different domain than the one you queried is a wrong person, not a weak match. The email finder often returns the same profile for less.
Find Phone
A direct mobile number for a named person.
Findymail3.57AI Ark10.29Prospeo35.00FullEnrich119.00Lima Data35.00A spread of 33 to 1, the widest of any action. A thousand lookups cost 47 dollars at one end of the pool and 1,580 at the other. Put a per-record cap on every bulk run: a provider that holds the number but costs more than the cap is skipped, and you are charged nothing rather than surprised.
Search Jobs
Live job postings as a buying signal, by role, region or ATS platform.
Career Site Jobs1.26
LinkedIn Jobs API0.74TheirStack4.20Lima Data7.00SignalBase3.50LeadsFactory0.35The filter picks the source rather than a fallback order. ATS names and company domains reach 175,000 company career sites across 54 platforms; LinkedIn-only filters like seniority or employee count reach LinkedIn.
Search Ads
Live and past creatives from the Meta, Google, LinkedIn and TikTok libraries.
Meta Ads Library0.16
Google Ads0.21LinkedIn Ad Library0.21
Adyntel1.85LeadMagic4.16One library per network, because they hold different inventory. Adyntel covers all four in a single call when you do not know where the company advertises.
Find Technologies
Which technologies an account runs, and when it added or dropped one.
DataForSEO0.13PredictLeads2.51BuiltWith3.13TheirStack12.60Sumble10.50DiscoLike42.00Four different answers rather than four attempts at the same one. DataForSEO reads what the site exposes, PredictLeads gives dated detections so you see a change rather than a state, BuiltWith the deep stack, TheirStack the company-level record.
What a full contact costs
Sourced from a list, given a work email, verified.
| Plan | Credits a month | Price | Roughly |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | 300 | $0 | 90 contacts |
| Starter | 7,000 | $99 | 2,100 contacts |
| Pro | 15,000 | $199 | 4,500 contacts |
| Scale | 40,000 | $499 | 12,000 contacts |
Questions people ask
How do I know which provider answered?
Every response carries it. You get the provider name, why it was picked, how long it took and exactly how many credits were charged, on every call.
Why is the cheapest provider not always called first?
Because the cheapest attempt and the cheapest usable record are different numbers. A source at a third of the price that returns rows you discard at verification costs more per good record, not less.
The price of every step is printed next to it, so you can disagree and pin your own chain.
If a provider finds nothing, am I still charged?
It depends on the provider, and we pass that through rather than averaging it. Some charge the attempt, some only what they return.
Where we can, the chain opens on a source that charges nothing on a miss, so a chain that only reaches those and comes back empty costs you nothing. Once a provider that bills the attempt has run, that attempt is charged even if the chain ends up with no answer. The response names every provider that charged and what it charged, so an empty result is never an unexplained one.
Why did the same job cost more this time than last time?
Three things move it. How deep the chain had to go, since an easy lookup costs one step and a hard one costs several. How many attempt-billed providers were involved. And whether the run had to retry.
Running the same list twice will not produce the same bill, because the second run is not looking for the same missing records.
Can I stop one expensive provider from eating my budget?
Yes. Every enrichment action takes a per-record spend cap. A provider that would answer but costs more than the cap is skipped, and the record comes back as not found rather than as a surprise on the invoice.
It is the setting to use on any bulk run, and the one most people find too late.
Can I force a specific provider?
On every action. Pass one provider to pin a single vendor, or an ordered list to run your chain instead of ours. Auto is the default and the only setting that lets the router skip a source that is down.
Do campaign and CRM calls cost credits?
No. The Instantly, Lemlist and Attio endpoints are free. You spend credits on data, not on moving it.
What is the smallest amount I can spend to see if this works?
Nothing. A new account carries 300 free credits, roughly 90 contacts sourced, given a work email and verified.
Working out a budget first? Estimate your usage takes your volume and tells you which plan covers it.