Cognism vs Kaspr in 2026: One Owner, a Flagship, and the Outlet Round the Corner

Cognism vs Kaspr is a choice between two contact data products with one owner: Cognism, the quote-only flagship sold in five-seat packages with DNC screening, and Kaspr, the self-serve LinkedIn extension Cognism bought in April 2022, sold from $49 a seat a month. Whichever way you type it, kaspr vs cognism or the reverse, the two are not rivals in the usual sense. Cognism’s own page sends small teams to Kaspr, and Kaspr’s own page sends growing teams up to Cognism. The short answer, by who it fits:

• Supered Prospector. Teams whose RevOps already runs Clay. The GTM engineer’s Clay tables, a waterfall across 200+ providers, run by reps from Sales Navigator, a company site, or the CRM record. $45 per rep per month, billed annually.
• Cognism. Five or more reps cold calling into Europe who need phone-verified mobiles, DNC screening and a vendor with a legal team. Quote only; Vendr’s median contract is $32,750 a year.
• Kaspr. One to a dozen LinkedIn-first reps who want numbers today on a card. From $49 per user per month on annual billing.

Think of a department store and its outlet shop round the corner. Same owner, same delivery vans, some of the same stock on the shelves. The outlet is cheaper, self-serve, and open to anyone who walks in. The flagship keeps the best lines behind its own counter, has a tailor on staff, and will not sell you anything without an appointment. The question is never which shop is better. The question is whether you need what only the flagship stocks.

How do Cognism and Kaspr compare at a glance?

Prices are the plan that includes the job, opened on kaspr.io/pricing and cognism.com/pricing on October 2, 2026, with Cognism’s contract values from Vendr. Grades come from the weighted scoring below, on the lens of a five-to-fifty-rep sales team.

The scoring, so you can argue with it. Each criterion is scored 1 to 5 and multiplied by its weight, for a maximum of 50. The rows match the Kaspr alternatives page and Cognism vs ZoomInfo, so the pages read together.

Flip the weights toward compliance and Cognism pulls well clear; flip them toward price for a two-rep team and Kaspr wins. Prospector scores 1 on outreach on purpose: it has no sequencer and drafts nothing. Its coverage score belongs to Clay, because Prospector has no database of its own.

Why trust this comparison?

Supered is my company, so weigh that first. Before it, I started RevPartners, a HubSpot partner that did only sales implementations, sold roughly twice as much Sales Hub as any other partner, and reached Elite tier in 13 months. I have sat in the room while a VP of Sales signed a five-figure data contract and watched the same reps keep a cheap extension open in another tab. Supered holds 4.9 out of 5 from 81 reviews on G2 (October 1, 2026). Prospector runs on Clay, and neither Cognism nor Kaspr is a step in Clay’s marketplace, so I have no reason to prefer one of these two. The price section below favors Cognism per contact, because the arithmetic does.

Is Kaspr owned by Cognism, and what does it mean for buyers?

Yes. Cognism announced the deal on April 27, 2022, terms undisclosed, describing Kaspr as a Paris prospecting company with 1,500 customers, 50,000 users and a team of 14 (Cognism press release). Its CEO at the time, James Isilay, later put the price at €21M (LinkedIn). Kaspr’s about page now reads “Kaspr is part of Cognism,” with “50K+ Companies using Kaspr,” “100K+ Active users,” and “35+ Employees” (kaspr.io/about-us, October 2, 2026). A news search on October 2, 2026 found no new acquisition, funding round or ownership change for either company since; Cognism’s 2026 newsroom covers a brand refresh, a SOC 2 Type II audit and a native two-way HubSpot sync.

The interesting part is what each shop says about the stock. At the acquisition, Isilay was plain about the direction: “We will merge Kaspr’s data into Cognism products as soon as possible, which will provide nearly 30% more mobile coverage in key markets.” Four years on, the two sales pages read differently.

• Kaspr’s version. “Kaspr and Cognism share information between datasets. But specific subsets of data, such as Diamond Data®, intent data, and other premium data points, are only available in Cognism” (kaspr.io/kaspr-vs-cognism, October 2, 2026). Its Apollo comparison adds that Cognism “has one of the largest cell phone databases in the US” and “this makes Kaspr’s phone numbers incredibly accurate.”
• Cognism’s version. “Kaspr and Cognism are separate products with independent databases and different use cases.” And: “Kaspr is part of Cognism, but that doesn’t mean each dataset is the same. For instance, specific subsets, such as verified data, intent data, and other premium data points, are only available on the Cognism platform” (cognism.com/cognism-vs-kaspr, October 2, 2026).

Both statements can be true at once. Stock moves from the outlet’s stockroom to the flagship, and some returns, while the tailored suits never leave the flagship floor. Each shop describes the arrangement in the way that sells its own counter. For a buyer, three practical things follow.

• One negotiation, two price lists. When you weigh Cognism against Kaspr you are talking to one company with two price lists. Vendr’s buyer notes on Cognism describe discounts won by putting a rival on the table; a Kaspr quote is not a rival.
• Overlap you cannot measure from outside. Neither page says how much of Kaspr’s data comes from Cognism or the reverse. If you run both tools on the same list, expect duplicate hits and pay for the reveal twice.
• An upgrade path with a wall in it. The step from Kaspr to Cognism is a step from $588 a seat to a contract whose Vendr floor is $16,585. Nothing in between is posted.

How much does Cognism cost compared with Kaspr?

Kaspr posts its prices. Starter is $49 per user per month billed annually, or $65 monthly, with unlimited B2B emails (under a fair-use limit of 10,000 credits per account per month in its terms) and 100 phone credits a month, 1,200 a year. Business is $79 annually or $99 monthly for 200 phones and 200 direct emails a month (kaspr.io/pricing, October 2, 2026). The free plan gives 5 phones and 15 B2B emails a month. The full ladder, add-ons included, sits on the Kaspr pricing page.

Cognism posts no prices. Its page sells two prospecting packages, Standard and Pro, each with “5 seats included,” and a credit rule: “1 credit = 1 revealed contact,” with no charge to view a contact already revealed (cognism.com/pricing, October 2, 2026). Its Kaspr comparison gives the allowances: Standard includes “an annual data allowance per user (10,000 credits),” and Pro “includes 12,000 credits per user annually.” Vendr’s buyers report a median of $32,750 a year across 94 purchases, a range of $16,585 to $88,449, and a 26% average saving off the first quote (Vendr, Cognism, read October 1, 2026; Vendr’s page returned no figures to a fetch on October 2). More on the quote, the platform fee and the tiers is on the Cognism pricing page.

Put five reps in each shop.

The median Cognism contract is about 11 times five Kaspr Starter seats. People quote that multiple, and it misleads in both directions. If the median buyer were on Standard with its five included seats at 10,000 credits each, the contract would buy 50,000 revealed contacts, about 65 cents each, with email and phone in one credit. Five Kaspr Starter seats buy 6,000 phones. The flagship is not the dear shop per item. It is the dear shop per visit, because it will only sell you a year’s worth of items at once.

That supposition has edges, and they matter. Vendr does not say which tier or how many seats sit behind its median, and a team that reveals 8,000 contacts a year leaves most of the 50,000 on the shelf, which pushes the price per used contact far above Kaspr’s. The useful way to say it: Cognism gets cheaper per contact the more your team calls, and Kaspr gets cheaper per contact the fewer reps you have.

What does the extra money buy at Cognism?

Mostly, things that happen after the number is found. Cognism’s page lists them: “GDPR and CCPA compliant, SOC 2 accredited, with TPS and DNC screening across 15 countries and a notified database,” and, on Pro, “premium mobile data” and “on-demand mobile verification.” Kaspr’s own comparison page is unusually candid about its side: “Kaspr is GDPR and CCPA aligned. This means we don’t give legal support or update legal documentation,” and its feature table marks “Data checked against DNC lists” as No for Kaspr, Yes for Cognism.

DNC screening sounds like paperwork until a rep dials a UK mobile registered with the Telephone Preference Service. Then it is the difference between a clean call and a complaint to a regulator. On Kaspr, that check is yours to run.

The regulator has looked at Kaspr directly. On December 5, 2024 the CNIL, France’s data protection authority, fined KASPR SAS €240,000. It found that Kaspr’s extension had collected contact details of LinkedIn members who had “expressly limited visibility to their 1st and 2nd-degree connections,” kept contacts for five years from each update, and waited until 2022 to inform people. It ordered Kaspr to stop collecting and to delete that data, with a compliance deadline of June 18, 2025 (CNIL, published December 19, 2024). I make no claim about Kaspr’s status since; ask Kaspr for its remediation in writing, and ask every vendor what it reads from LinkedIn, ours included.

Reviewers see the split too. On G2, Cognism holds 4.5 from 1,356 reviews and Kaspr 4.4 from 837. Cognism leads on quality of support, 9.1 to 8.6; Kaspr leads on ease of use, 9.2 to 9.0. The buyers differ more than the scores: 53.2% of Cognism’s reviewers are mid-market and 21.3% enterprise, while 69.2% of Kaspr’s are small businesses (G2, Cognism vs Kaspr, read October 2, 2026). Kaspr’s reviewers even rate its contact data accuracy higher, 8.1 to 7.8, which says more about what a small team expects from a $49 seat than about whose numbers ring.

Cognism vs Kaspr for a team on Clay

For a team that already pays for Clay, both shops are a step sideways. Clay is closer to a wholesale market than a third shop: “200+ providers in one place,” a waterfall that asks one provider after another until a verified email or phone comes back, and a rule neither shop offers. “If an enrichment returns no result, you’re not charged Data Credits or Actions” (clay.com/pricing, October 2, 2026). Neither Cognism nor Kaspr has a page in Clay’s integrations directory; both returned a 404 on October 2, 2026, so a Clay team that wanted either would keep a separate contract and a separate meter. Our Clay vs Cognism page covers the custom-step route for teams set on Cognism.

The market has one gap, and Clay names it in its own copy: “GTM engineers build on Clay.” The tables live in the GTM engineer’s workshop, and reps live in Sales Navigator and the CRM. So reps keep asking for Kaspr seats, because a button in the browser is the only way they know to get a number. Clay plus Supered is the best way for a sales team to prospect: GTM engineers build in Clay, reps never open Clay. Supered Prospector runs inside the Supered Chrome extension on the team’s own Clay account.

• The GTM engineer’s table as a button. The GTM engineer builds named flows once, such as person enrichment or a buying committee, and reps pick one from a Push menu in Sales Navigator, on a company’s website, or in a HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive record. Waterfalls, tiers and tags stay the GTM engineer’s. Start from the Supered Clay template or bring your own tables.
• Sales Navigator lists into Clay. Reps add Navigator leads to a prospect list and push the list to a Clay table. Prospector works within LinkedIn’s terms and does not copy search results in bulk; the contact data comes from Clay’s waterfall on the customer’s Clay account.
• A check before the push. The rep sees the matching CRM record, who owns it, and a flag when the prospect was already worked, so two reps do not chase the same person.
• Found, worked, closed. The leader sees every list found from the team’s tables, who is working their list and who is not, and how each lead ended: Qualified, Recycled, or Disqualified, the way your process says.

The price, done straight. Prospector is $45 per rep per month, billed annually, from one rep, on your own Clay account and credits (Prospector). Ten Prospector seats cost $5,400 a year. If you are buying Clay for this, Growth at its $495 monthly rate is $5,940 a year, so Clay plus ten seats is $11,340, about a third of Cognism’s median contract and about twice ten Kaspr Starter seats ($5,880). The phones come out of your Clay data credits, roughly six credits for an email plus a phone on our reading of Clay’s calculator, a supposition explained on the Clay pricing page. The side-by-side with Kaspr alone is on Prospector vs Kaspr.

Choose something else if:

• No Clay, and no plan to buy it. Prospector runs only on Clay. Pick Cognism or Kaspr from the branches below. If you want Clay built for you, RevPartners, the company I founded, is a Clay Elite Studio Partner that builds and tunes the tables.
• Regulated cold calling at volume. If a compliance review requires a vendor that screens against DNC lists in 15 countries and signs your legal paperwork, Cognism is built for that job and Clay plus Prospector does not do it for you.
• A solo rep on a card. Kaspr Starter is a simpler purchase than a Clay plan plus a seat.
• A field or mobile-first team. Supered runs at the computer and has no mobile product.

Cognism or Kaspr: which should you choose?

Back to the two shops. Decide what you need from behind the counter before you compare price tags.

• Cognism. Choose Cognism if five or more reps cold call into the UK and Europe, your legal or compliance team reviews data vendors, and you will use most of a 50,000-credit year. Per contact it can undercut Kaspr; per contract it is the Vendr median of $32,750. Ask which tier and seat count the quote assumes, and put a rival vendor, not Kaspr, on the table.
• Kaspr. Choose Kaspr if one to a dozen reps work LinkedIn all day, email more than they call, and run their own DNC checks. Starter is $588 a seat a year for 1,200 phones with emails unmetered. Ask in writing about the CNIL remediation and whether the 10,000-credit fair-use limit is per user or per account.
• Neither: Supered Prospector. Choose neither if your RevOps already runs Clay. Reps run the GTM engineer’s tables from the screen they are on with no Clay login, the waterfall asks 200+ providers, and you see every list found, worked and closed. $45 per rep per month, billed annually, on your own Clay account.

If you are still choosing between the outlet and its neighbors, Kaspr vs Lusha prices a phone on both, Apollo vs Kaspr sets Kaspr against the same $49 sticker with a sequencer attached, and Kaspr vs ZoomInfo shows what the step to an enterprise contract looks like. If you already have Clay, book a Prospector demo and bring the account.