Cognism · compared
Cognism verifies the mobile. We hand you the number on the door.
They're not on LinkedIn. They're on Google Maps. Cognism is the most careful European contact file we know of. It holds people at employers, and a one-van firm has no people to hold.
The number the shop published€49 a month, on a cardNo DNC screening here
What Cognism is genuinely built for
Cognism sells phone numbers you can ring with a clear conscience. That is a harder product to build than a list, and they built it.
Their premium phone data goes through a human check. Their own site puts it plainly: they call the number and confirm the right person picks up.
They also scrub against do-not-call registers. Their site names the US, Canada, Australia, the UK with TPS and CTPS, France, Germany and other European countries, with the full list on request.
That is not marketing. It is a piece of working compliance kit, and it is the reason careful European sales teams buy Cognism over cheaper files.
What we do not offer, said plainly
We do not screen against any national do-not-call register. Not TPS, not CTPS, not any of the others.
We hold a suppression list per account. Anyone who asks you to stop goes in it, and the app blocks that domain on every future export. That is useful, and it is not the same product.
If your play is ringing employee mobiles at scale across Europe, buy Cognism. We would give you the wrong tool.
Two different phone numbers
This is the heart of the page, so here it is in full.
A Cognism number is a person's mobile. Someone at a company, found by title, checked by a human, screened against a register.
Our number is the one the business printed on its own Maps listing so that customers would ring it. It is the shop line. Nobody had to find it, because the owner published it.
A salon that puts its number on Google wants the phone to ring. That is a different starting point from a mobile you found for a person who never listed it.
That does not make cold calling free of rules. You still need a lawful basis, and you still need to stop when someone asks you to. Read our position on data and the law.
How they price it
Cognism publishes no prices. Their pricing page shows two prospecting packages, Standard and Pro, each listed with five seats included, and asks you to talk to sales.
Their credit rule is plain on the same page: one credit equals one revealed contact. CRM enrichment and bulk data delivery sit beside those packages as add-ons.
We will not print a Cognism number here. They do not publish one, so any figure we gave you would come from somebody else's blog.
Cognism and FindAndClose, row by row
Grouped by cover of local firms, contact fields, compliance, freshness, price shape, who owns the export, and sending. Grey rows are the ones Cognism wins.
| FindAndClose | Cognism | |
|---|---|---|
| Where a row comes fromthe thing the index grows out of | The Google Maps listing | People at employers |
| Firm with no website | Yes | Nobody to hold |
| Firm with no LinkedIn page | Yes | Nobody to hold |
| Nordic local tradesNorway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland | 44,684 rows today | Cover follows employers |
| Search by Maps category4,000+ categories, every plan | Yes | No |
| Filter on star rating and review count | Yes | No |
| Named person with a job title | No | Yes |
| Human-checked mobile numbers | No | Yes |
| Screening against do-not-call registers | No | Yes |
| Buying intent and CRM enrichment | No | Yes |
| The number the shop answers | Yes | Not the target field |
| Opening hours, rating, review count | Yes | No |
| Columns in the export | 64, on every plan | Contact and firm fields |
| Date stamps on the rowfirst seen and last seen | Yes | No |
| Price on the website | €49, €99, €249 a month | Talk to sales |
| Buy without talking to anyone | Yes | No |
| Smallest package on offer | One seat | Five seats included |
| Trial | 14 days, 100 leads, no card | Demo first |
| Files you already exported | Yours for good | Also yours once out |
| Email sending or dialer | No | No |
Cognism's pricing and features last checked on 26 July 2026. We re-check every month. Rows shaded grey are ones where they beat us.
Every Cognism row above comes from cognism.com on the date shown. They publish no prices, so we describe the shape of the deal and leave the number blank.
- Pick the trade Type it and take the match. One trade or twenty, on every plan.
- Pick the place Country, region, municipality, city. No plan gates the geography.
- The count moves first The number updates before you spend anything. Looking is free.
- Filter to the ones worth calling Has email, has phone, has a website, has a contact page. Combine them freely.
- Contacts are masked until export You can see a row exists and judge it. The address itself is the product.
- Export what you are looking at The file is exactly this filter set, with nothing dropped in between.
The coverage test — ask for a sample on a named trade
Cognism will run a demo. Use it to answer one question and no others.
- Name one trade and one Nordic town. Roofers in Aarhus. Opticians in Uppsala. Pick one you can check by eye.
- Ask the rep to pull that list live. On screen during the call, not in a file they send you later.
- Count firms with under ten staff and a street address. Those are the ones you meant when you asked.
- Ask which of those numbers are the shop line. A person's mobile is a fine field. It is not the field you wanted here.
- Count the pins for that trade on Google Maps. Do it on your own screen in the same minute and compare.
For a list of finance leads at mid-market firms, that demo will look very strong. That is the ground Cognism was drawn for.
For roofers in Aarhus, we think the count will be small. Run it and see. A number you counted beats a table either of us wrote.
When to run both
One file for the people you have to find. One file for the businesses that already told you where they are.
Keep Cognism for regulated outbound to employees across Europe. The DNC screening is the product, and no cheaper file replaces it.
Use us for the trade lists, where the buyer is the owner and the number is on the shop front. That is a different risk shape and a different job.
- Ringing finance leads across five countries — Cognism
- Ringing every dentist in a region — us
- Needing a screened mobile for a named person — Cognism
- Needing 900 salons with no website — us
- Needing rating and review count on every row — us
On the legal question, do not read this page as advice. Take your own. Our own line is that public business data gives you legitimate interest for B2B contact, with an opt-out in the first message.
We do not send email and we run no dialer. Whatever you buy, the calling and the sending happen in your tools, not ours.
What people ask before they switch
Should I cancel Cognism?
Most of the time, no, and the reason is the screening. If you ring employee mobiles across Europe, that check is doing real work for you.
We are the second file, not the swap. Move your local trade lists here and keep Cognism for the rest.
Do you screen against do-not-call lists?
No. We do not screen against TPS, CTPS or any national register, and we are not going to imply that we do.
What we run is a per-account suppression list. A domain added there is blocked on every future export you take.
How is your phone number different from theirs?
Ours is the landline or mobile the business itself published on its Maps listing for customers. Nobody had to hunt for it.
Cognism sells a person's mobile, found by title and checked by a human who rang it. Both are useful. They answer different questions.
What does Cognism cost?
We do not know. They publish no price, and their pricing page asks you to talk to sales.
What their page does show is two prospecting packages, each with five seats included, and a credit rule of one credit per revealed contact.
Are you GDPR compliant?
Every field we sell is public business data, published by the business on its own listing. We hold no consumer data and no home addresses.
You still carry duties as the sender. Offer an opt-out, honour it, and put anyone who asks into your suppression list.
What do I get for €49 a month?
Starter gives 10,000 lead credits, one seat, and CSV or XLSX exports with all 64 columns on every row.
Every country, every filter and all 4,000+ categories sit on that plan. Nothing about geography is behind an upgrade. See what each plan holds.
Read the other three, then the lists
The same test runs against each of these tools. The answer changes a little each time.
- Apollo compared The volume tool with sending built in
- ZoomInfo compared The enterprise contract, priced by quote
- Lusha compared Credits burnt per reveal
- Every list we publish Trades, countries and guides
- Plumbers in Norway The file, with counts
- Dentists in Norway The file, with counts
- Accountants in Norway The file, with counts
Get the number the shop published
Fourteen days, 100 leads, no card. Take one trade in one town and ring five of the numbers yourself.
- 14-day free trial
- 100 leads included
- No credit card