Surfe vs Lusha comes down to what you need to know before a rep dials: how often a tool returns a value, how often that value is right, what each lookup costs, and where the data ends up. Both tools put verified emails and phone numbers in front of your reps. They are built differently underneath, and they publish different numbers about their data.
This comparison works through eleven areas, each sourced to the vendor’s own pages, then gives a decision guide by team and a test you can run on your own list.
Checked against both vendors’ live pages on October 25, 2026
In this comparison
The short answer · At a glance · 1. Data quality: find rate vs accuracy · 2. Where the data comes from · 3. Freshness and decay · 4. Coverage · 5. Buying signals and account intelligence · 6. Credits and what you pay for · 7. CRM and workflow · 8. Outreach built in · 9. API, MCP and AI agents · 10. Security, compliance and data use · 11. How Surfe’s page describes Lusha · Which one fits your team · Run your own test · FAQ · Sources
The short answer
- Lean toward Lusha if you want accuracy published with its method, one credit balance across the Workspace, the extension, the API and the MCP, 26 dated buying signal types with account ranking, email sequences built in, and the API and MCP on every plan, including Free.
- Lean toward Surfe if your reps work inside LinkedIn and want CRM fields on the profile in front of them, and you want a multi-provider waterfall behind each lookup, with separate email and mobile credits charged only for validated results.
- Still deciding? Run the 100-contact test at the end of this page. It answers the question better than any vendor’s benchmark, this one included.
Surfe vs Lusha at a glance
Every Surfe entry paraphrases Surfe’s own pages. Every Lusha entry links to the Lusha page that publishes it.
| What you’re comparing | Lusha | Surfe |
|---|---|---|
| What each publishes about quality | Accuracy with method: 98% email on verified B2B contact records, 85% US and 86% global phone. lusha.com/data | Find rate: 85% email and mobile, per surfe.com/data |
| Quality signal on each record | Email confidence indication, plus a last update date on every email and phone | Emails validated with ZeroBounce and mobiles checked for line type before delivery |
| How data is built | Lusha B2B Database, plus Data Waterfall from additional sources on Pro and above | Own 1B+ profile database plus a live waterfall across 15+ providers |
| Refresh | Sources checked daily, fields and signals on weekly or monthly cycles, each signal dated | Lookups at request time, own database verified and updated monthly |
| Data decay measurement | Published: 12.25% of US sales leaders changed roles in 12 months. Study | Not published on the pages checked |
| Buying signals | 26 dated signal types in four groups | Buying signals and signal playbooks, count not published |
| Account ranking | Deep Intelligence: ICP Fit, Signal Score, Predictive Score, lookalikes, website visitors, buying committee | Account lookalikes, prospect list builder and AI prioritization on higher plans |
| Credit model | One shared balance, search free, email 1, phone 5, company 1 | Separate email and mobile find credits, no charge for confirmed-invalid results |
| Free plan | 40 credits a month, one seat, no card | 20 email and 5 mobile find credits a month |
| CRM | Native Salesforce and HubSpot on all plans, plus eight more native integrations | HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive and Copper sync, one contact a day on Free |
| Built-in outreach | Lusha Engage email sequences, included for all users. Engage | Sends emails and places calls through connected tools |
| API | Every plan, rate-limited on Free and Starter | Search and waterfall API listed on Enterprise |
| MCP for AI assistants | Every plan, including Free | Native MCP server, plan requirement not stated on the pages checked |
| Certifications | SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, 27017, 27701, 31700 and 42001, GDPR by ePrivacyseal, CCPA by TrustArc. Trust Center | GDPR, ISO 27001 and CCPA, per surfe.com/data |
| Working from LinkedIn | Chrome extension reveals contacts on LinkedIn, Sales Navigator and company sites | CRM fields visible and editable from the profile, conversations synced to the CRM |
1. Data quality: find rate vs accuracy
A find rate counts how many records come back with a value. Accuracy counts how many of those values reach the right person. A tool can lead on one and not the other, and only accuracy decides whether the call connects or the email lands.
What Lusha publishes
- 98% email accuracy on verified B2B contact records, and 85% US and 86% global phone accuracy, with the method on lusha.com/data.
- Email accuracy by region: North America 98%, EMEA 97%, APAC 96%, LATAM 95%.
- Every email is checked across multiple data sources before it is shown, and carries an email confidence indication. How that works: B2B data accuracy FAQ.
- Every email and phone shows the date it was last updated, so a rep can judge a record before using it.
What Surfe publishes
- An 85% email and mobile find rate on its data page.
- Emails validated with ZeroBounce before delivery, and mobiles checked by two independent checks for line type, with landlines filtered into a separate field.
- A head-to-head figure on its comparison page from a test of 4,945 profiles, reported as find rates.
How to read any find-rate test
- Which list was used. Region, seniority and company size all move the result.
- What counted as found. A returned value, a validated value, or a value that reached the person.
- Whether each vendor’s waterfall was on. A single source and a waterfall answer different questions.
- How a found value was checked. A deliverability check, a delivered email and a connected call are three different measures.
Pro note: Ask any vendor for the method behind a find-rate or accuracy figure: sample size, date, regions and what counted as correct. A number without a method is a claim, not a measurement.
2. Where the data comes from
Lusha
The Lusha B2B Database is built from four sources: the opt-in Lusha Community, licensed partner directories, publicly available business information, and Lusha’s own pattern analysis. Lusha collects business contact information only and does not scrape professional networks or social platforms. Details: data sources.
On Pro and above, Data Waterfall enriches each record with additional sources, automatically, in the Workspace, the API and the MCP, once an admin turns it on. It is charged only on a confirmed match: 2 credits for an email, 8 for a phone. How Data Waterfall works.
Surfe
Surfe combines its own database of 1B+ verified profiles with a live waterfall that routes each request across 15+ providers. Its data page names its provider partners, including ZeroBounce, Forager, ContactOut, People Data Labs, Prospeo, RocketReach, Hunter, LeadMagic, Findymail, Wiza, Dropcontact and Datagma.
Pro note: With any waterfall, yours or a vendor’s, ask whether each record shows which source returned it. When a number turns out wrong, the source tells you where to fix it.
3. Freshness and decay
Contact data goes wrong on a clock. Lusha measured it: across 148,000 records in September 2026, 12.25% of US sales leaders changed roles in 12 months and 25.67% in 24, about 1% a month.
| Lusha | Surfe | |
|---|---|---|
| Refresh | Sources checked daily. Contact fields and buying signals refresh on weekly or monthly cycles. | Lookups pull from providers at request time. Its own database is verified and updated monthly. |
| Dates you can see | Last update date on every email and phone, effective date on every signal. | Validation at delivery. Per-field dates not described on the pages checked. |
| Decay published | Yes. B2B data decay, measured | Not published on the pages checked. |
Pro note: Whatever tool you use, re-check leadership contacts in your CRM at least every quarter. At about 1% a month, a list built in January has lost roughly one leader in ten by October.
4. Coverage
| Lusha | Surfe | |
|---|---|---|
| Contacts or profiles | 515M+ verified contacts | 1B+ verified B2B profiles |
| Companies or accounts | 29M+ companies | 50M+ accounts |
| Verified emails | 165M+ | Not published on the pages checked |
| Phone numbers | 117M+ | Not published on the pages checked |
| Country counts | 132M+ in the US, 162.5M+ in North America, 56 markets with 1M+ contacts, by the contact’s recorded location | Coverage by region shown as a chart on its data page |
Lusha’s counts are dated on lusha.com/data. Some markets are excluded from country-level reporting for compliance reasons, and Italian contact data is not currently available.
Pro note: A verified contact and a profile are different units. Compare coverage on your own target list, by region and seniority, not on headline totals.
5. Buying signals and account intelligence
Lusha
26 signal types in four groups, each a dated event on a named company. See all signals.
- Growth: headcount increase over 1, 3, 6 and 12 months, hiring surges by total, department and location, new job posts, IT spend increase.
- Intent: LinkedIn activity intent, website traffic increase.
- Events: job change and promotion, which flag a position filled or vacated, plus financial, people, product, commercial, corporate strategy and market news.
- Risk: risk news, IT spend decrease, headcount decrease, website traffic decrease.
Deep Intelligence ranks accounts against your ICP, your CRM and your closed-won deals: ICP Fit Score, Signal Score, Predictive Score (with HubSpot or Salesforce connected), lookalikes, website visitor identification and buying committee mapping across decision makers, potential champions and end users. Lead prioritization.
Surfe
Surfe lists buying signals and signal playbooks, account lookalikes and a prospect list builder on its higher plans, and describes AI prospect prioritization. It does not publish a signal count or refresh cycle on the pages checked.
6. Credits and what you pay for
Prices change, so this section compares how each vendor charges, not list prices. Current plans: lusha.com/pricing and surfe.com/pricing.
| Lusha | Surfe | |
|---|---|---|
| Plans | Free, Starter, Pro, Premium, Scale | Free, Essential, Pro, Enterprise |
| Credit pools | One shared balance across the Workspace, extension, API and MCP | Separate email find credits and mobile find credits |
| Free plan | 40 credits a month, one seat, no card | 20 email and 5 mobile find credits a month |
| Per action | Email 1, phone 5, company 1 | One email or mobile find credit per validated result |
| What costs nothing | Searching, seeing which fields exist before revealing, records already in the CRM or unchanged on export, waterfall lookups with no match | Results confirmed invalid, email validation |
| CRM export | 1 credit per record the CRM writes | Included in sync, with a separate paid module for the CRM connector |
| API | 1 credit per up to 25 results, plus the data revealed | API on Enterprise |
Worked example: 100 new contacts, email and phone, into your CRM
- Lusha: 100 emails (100 credits) plus 100 phones (500) plus 100 new CRM records (100) comes to 700 credits from one balance. With Data Waterfall on, records Lusha’s own data doesn’t cover cost 2 more per email and 8 per phone, only when a match is confirmed.
- Surfe: up to 100 email find credits plus up to 100 mobile find credits, from two separate pools, charged only for validated results.
Pro note: Compare cost per usable contact, not cost per credit: total spend divided by contacts you could actually email or reach by phone a week later.
7. CRM and workflow
| Lusha | Surfe | |
|---|---|---|
| Native CRM | Salesforce and HubSpot on all plans, plus Bullhorn, Pipedrive, Outreach, Salesloft, Zoho, Dynamics, Capsule and monday | HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Copper |
| How records update | Enriches new records as they’re created and refreshes existing ones on a schedule, without overwriting your team’s fields unless you set it to | Bidirectional sync, with a duplicate check before a record is created |
| Duplicates | Records already in the CRM or unchanged cost nothing on export | Checked against the CRM before creation |
| Workflow tools | Clay, n8n, Make, Zapier, Workato, Pipedream | Salesloft, Outreach and Lemlist on Pro and above, Google Sheets on paid plans |
| Partnerships | Gong Enrich Data Partner | Pipedrive’s native enrichment provider and a data provider for HubSpot’s Prospecting Agent, per Surfe |
All Lusha integrations: lusha.com/integrations.
8. Outreach built in
Lusha Engage is Lusha’s built-in email sequencing, included for all Lusha users at no extra charge. It sends from your connected Gmail or Outlook account, writes sequences with an AI email assistant, enrolls new contacts from search or from the extension on LinkedIn, and syncs sequence activity to Salesforce. Lusha Engage.
Surfe sends emails and places calls through the tools you connect to it, and its comparison page lists built-in sequencing on Lusha’s side of the table, not its own.
9. API, MCP and AI agents
Lusha
- API on every plan. Rate-limited on Free and Starter, full access from Pro. Contact, company, signal, lookalike and enrichment endpoints. Lusha API.
- MCP on every plan, including Free. Claude, ChatGPT and Codex connect with a sign-in and no API key. Cursor, VS Code, Gemini CLI, n8n and any MCP client connect to https://mcp.lusha.com with an API key. Setup.
- What an agent can do: search and enrich contacts and companies from an email, LinkedIn URL or domain, one at a time or in bulk, map the buying group, read the 26 dated signals, find lookalikes, score accounts and return ranked recommendations, see which companies visit your website, build Workspace tables, and check the credit balance at no cost.
- What it cannot do: send messages or add contacts to sequences. Admins can restrict MCP access by role.
- Data use: data from the API or MCP cannot be used to train AI or ML models, or be resold or embedded in another product without written consent.
Surfe
- API features: enrich contacts, search people and companies, search lookalikes, and enrich from an email only. Search and waterfall enrichment through the API are listed on the Enterprise plan. surfe.com/api-mcp.
- A native MCP server for Claude, ChatGPT and any MCP-compatible agent. The plan it requires is not stated on the pages checked.
Pro note: For agents that run on a schedule, check three things before you build: which plan unlocks the API and MCP, whether a lookup that finds nothing is charged, and whether the agent can read its credit balance before it starts.
10. Security, compliance and data use
| Lusha | Surfe | |
|---|---|---|
| Certifications | SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, 27017, 27701, 31700 and 42001, TRUSTe Responsible AI, GDPR certified by ePrivacyseal, CCPA validated by TrustArc | GDPR compliant, ISO 27001 certified, CCPA compliant |
| Data sources | Opt-in community, licensed directories, public business information, pattern analysis. No scraping of social platforms. | Own database plus 15+ named provider partners under partnership and reseller agreements |
| Removal requests | Privacy Center for viewing, correcting or removing a record | Opt-out page linked from its site footer |
Lusha’s full list and documents: Trust Center.
11. How Surfe’s page describes Lusha, checked against what Lusha publishes
Surfe’s comparison page makes five points about Lusha. Here is each one, paraphrased, next to what Lusha publishes.
| Surfe’s page says | What Lusha publishes |
|---|---|
| Lusha is a static database with a periodic refresh. | Sources are checked daily. Contact fields and buying signals refresh on weekly or monthly cycles, every email and phone shows its last update date, and every signal carries an effective date. Data Waterfall adds sources at request time on Pro and above. |
| Lusha does not publish a validation pipeline or per-result checks. | The accuracy method is on lusha.com/data and the data accuracy FAQ. Emails are checked across multiple sources before they are shown and carry a confidence indication. |
| Credits are spent regardless of whether the data is usable. | Searching and seeing which fields exist cost nothing, Data Waterfall charges only on a confirmed match, and CRM export charges only for records the CRM writes. A revealed email or phone does cost credits. |
| Lusha’s CRM sync is a one-way push. | Native Salesforce and HubSpot integrations enrich records as they’re created and refresh existing ones on a schedule, without overwriting your team’s fields unless you set it to. |
| An email, a phone and a CRM export together cost seven credits. | Correct: 1 for the email, 5 for the phone and 1 for the CRM record. |
Which one fits your team
| Your team | Lean toward | Why |
|---|---|---|
| SDRs who live in LinkedIn and want the CRM record next to the profile | Surfe | Its CRM overlay on the profile is the workflow it is built around. |
| Reps who want to find, check and email from one place | Lusha | Engage sequences are included, on the same credits and data. |
| RevOps keeping Salesforce or HubSpot current | Either, test both | Lusha enriches on create and refreshes on a schedule on all plans. Surfe checks for duplicates before creating a record. |
| GTM engineers building agents and workflows | Lusha | API and MCP on every plan, including Free, with access to the 26 dated signal types. |
| Teams that work accounts by timing | Lusha | 26 dated signal types and Deep Intelligence ranking against your own wins. |
| Teams that want many providers behind one lookup with nothing to configure | Surfe | Its waterfall across 15+ providers runs behind each lookup. Lusha offers Data Waterfall on Pro and above. |
| Security review before purchase | Check both trust centers | Lusha lists SOC 2 Type II and five ISO certifications. Surfe lists ISO 27001, GDPR and CCPA. |
Run your own test: 100 contacts, one week
- Pull 100 contacts from your ICP, split across the regions and seniorities you sell into.
- Run the same list through both tools on the same day, with each tool’s waterfall switched on.
- Record for each contact: email found, phone found, and the credits each lookup cost.
- Send to the emails and dial the phones within a week.
- Count delivered emails, calls that reached the right person, and total credits used.
- Divide credits by usable contacts. That is your real cost per contact, and the number to decide on.
Compare on your own accounts
The Free plan includes the Workspace, the extension, Engage, the API and the MCP, with 40 credits a month and no card.
Surfe vs Lusha: frequently asked questions
Is Surfe more accurate than Lusha?
They publish different measures. Surfe publishes find rate, how often a value comes back. Lusha publishes accuracy, how often the value is right: 98% email accuracy on verified B2B contact records and 85% US and 86% global phone accuracy, with the method on lusha.com/data. To compare them on your market, run both on the same 100 contacts and count delivered emails and connected calls.
Does Lusha have waterfall enrichment like Surfe?
Yes. On Pro and above, Lusha Data Waterfall enriches each record with additional sources, automatically, in the Workspace, the API and the MCP. It is charged only on a confirmed match: 2 credits for an email, 8 for a phone.
Where does Lusha’s data come from?
Four sources: the opt-in Lusha Community, licensed partner directories, publicly available business information, and Lusha’s own pattern analysis. Lusha collects business contact information only and does not scrape professional networks or social platforms.
How often is Lusha data refreshed?
Sources are checked daily. Contact fields and buying signals refresh on weekly or monthly cycles, every email and phone shows its last update date, and every signal carries an effective date. Lusha also measures decay: 12.25% of US sales leaders changed roles in 12 months, against 148,000 records in September 2026.
How many credits does a Lusha contact cost?
An email costs 1 credit, a phone number 5 and company information 1. Exporting to a CRM costs 1 credit per record the CRM writes, and records already there or unchanged cost nothing. So a new contact with an email and a phone, exported once, costs 7 credits. Searching, and seeing which fields exist before you reveal, costs nothing.
Does Lusha include email sequences?
Yes. Lusha Engage is built in and included for all Lusha users at no extra charge. It sends from your connected Gmail or Outlook account, writes sequences with an AI email assistant, and syncs sequence activity to Salesforce.
Can I use Lusha in Claude or ChatGPT on the Free plan?
Yes. The Lusha MCP works on every plan, including Free. Claude, ChatGPT and Codex connect with a sign-in and no API key, and Cursor, VS Code, Gemini CLI and n8n connect with an API key.
Which should I choose, Surfe or Lusha?
If your reps work inside LinkedIn and want CRM fields on the profile, look closely at Surfe. If you want published accuracy, one credit balance, 26 dated buying signal types with account ranking, built-in email sequences, and the API and MCP on every plan, look closely at Lusha. The fastest way to decide is a 100-contact test on your own list.
Sources
- surfe.com/vs/lusha, accessed October 25, 2026
- surfe.com/pricing, accessed October 25, 2026
- surfe.com/data, accessed October 25, 2026
- surfe.com/api-mcp, accessed October 25, 2026
- lusha.com/data, accessed October 25, 2026
- B2B data accuracy FAQ, accessed October 25, 2026
- Lusha data sources, accessed October 25, 2026
- Lusha facts for AI assistants, accessed October 25, 2026
- lusha.com/pricing, accessed October 25, 2026
- How Lusha credits work, accessed October 25, 2026
- B2B data decay, measured, accessed October 25, 2026
- Waterfall enrichment, accessed October 25, 2026
- Buying signals, accessed October 25, 2026
- Lead prioritization, accessed October 25, 2026
- Lusha Engage, accessed October 25, 2026
- Integrations, accessed October 25, 2026
- Trust Center, accessed October 25, 2026
- Lusha MCP documentation, accessed October 25, 2026
- Lusha glossary, accessed October 25, 2026
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