Best UK Business Databases in 2026 (Free & Paid)

Best UK Business Databases in 2026 (Free & Paid)

£15,000 a year for a UK business database - and half the records are two jobs out of date. That's the reality one small business owner described on r/smallbusinessuk after trying Experian and CorpData, calling both "very over-priced" with data that was "quite old."

The market has a dirty secret: company registrations aren't prospecting data. You can download every live company from Companies House for free, but you won't find a single email address or phone number in that file. What you actually need is contact data - verified emails, direct dials, intent signals - layered on top of company records. That's a completely different product from a registry dump.

We've tested ten of the most-cited options head to head. Here's what actually delivers.

Our Picks at a Glance

Prospeo leads on contact accuracy - 143M+ verified emails at 98% accuracy and a 7-day refresh cycle that's roughly six times faster than the industry average. Teams using Prospeo book 26% more meetings than ZoomInfo users and 35% more than Apollo users, at roughly 90% lower cost per lead ($0.01 vs $1). DataGardener is the strongest UK-native option for financials, credit data, and director info. Apollo gives you the widest free tier for teams just getting started with outbound.

The Free Baseline: Companies House

Before you spend anything, know what you can get for £0. Companies House publishes a free monthly CSV snapshot of every live UK company - company type, registered office address, SIC codes, status (live/dissolved), last/next accounts and confirmation statement dates, and previous names. The bulk download drops within five working days of each month end. You also get a free REST API for programmatic lookups, PSC (Persons of Significant Control) data as a JSON snapshot, electronically filed accounts in XBRL, and an XML gateway for deeper searches at £4.70/month plus additional charges.

What's missing: zero email addresses, zero phone numbers, zero intent data, no contact names tied to roles, and no technographic or firmographic enrichment. As a UK company database that sales teams can actually prospect from, Companies House falls short on its own.

Here's the thing - building a usable prospecting database on top of Companies House data is technically possible but brutally expensive. One developer documented spending roughly $4,000 and three months just to process a single year of filings. You'd still have zero contact data at the end. For most sales teams, a commercial B2B data provider pays for itself in the first week.

Best UK Business Databases Compared

Prospeo - Verified Contact Data

Prospeo's database covers 300M+ professional profiles, with 143M+ verified emails and 125M+ verified mobile numbers (30% pickup rate - roughly triple what ZoomInfo and Apollo deliver). Email accuracy sits at 98%. Snyk's 50-person AE team saw bounce rates drop from 35-40% to under 5% after switching, generating 200+ new opportunities per month. GreyScout saw pipeline jump 140% after making the same move.

The real edge is freshness. All records refresh on a 7-day cycle. The industry average is six weeks. That gap matters when you're prospecting into fast-moving UK tech companies where people change roles constantly.

Search filters go deep - 30+ options including buyer intent powered by Bombora across 15,000 topics, technographics, job changes, headcount growth, funding events, and revenue. The proprietary 5-step email verification handles catch-all domains, spam traps, and honeypots, so you're not burning your sender reputation on bad data.

Best fit: You need verified UK contacts with high deliverability and don't want to negotiate an annual contract. The free tier gives you 75 emails/month to test. Paid plans run about $0.01 per email - 90% cheaper than ZoomInfo.

Pair with: Your existing sequencer via native integrations with Salesforce, HubSpot, Smartlead, Lemlist, Instantly, Clay, Zapier, and Make.

DataGardener - UK Company Intelligence

DataGardener is the tool you want when the sale depends on knowing a company's financials, not just finding someone's email. It covers 17.2M+ UK companies with verified financials, credit data, and director/PSC information - the kind of depth you'd normally associate with Experian, but without the enterprise price tag.

Contact data is more modest: 2.05M+ verified emails and 1.3M+ validated phone numbers. That's solid for UK-specific outreach but won't compete with global databases on raw volume. For teams that need both financial intelligence and contact data, pairing DataGardener's company insights with a dedicated contact tool is a common play.

Pros: Unmatched UK company depth. Financials and credit data baked in. GDPR-compliant. Great for account-based teams that need to qualify companies before reaching out.

Cons: No free trial - they'll do a live demo but won't let you test the data independently. CRM integrations (HubSpot, Salesforce) and API access are add-ons. Pricing is quote-based; expect ~£200-500/month.

Apollo - Best Free Tier

Apollo is the obvious starting point if you've got zero budget and need to start prospecting UK companies today. The free tier is genuinely usable - not a 3-day trial, but an ongoing plan with enough credits to run small campaigns. Paid plans start at ~$49-99/month per user.

The global database is massive, and UK coverage is decent for larger companies. Apollo scores a 4.7/5 on G2 across 9,250+ reviews, which tells you the product works at scale.

We've seen higher bounce rates on UK contacts from Apollo compared to specialist verification tools, though. For high-volume cold email, verify Apollo exports through a dedicated verification layer before sending. Small teams with zero budget should start here, but graduate to a specialist tool once volume picks up.

Cognism - Enterprise Compliance

If you're making live calls into the UK and need bulletproof DNC compliance, Cognism is the play. It scrubs against 13 global DNC lists including TPS and CTPS, and their phone-verified mobile accuracy runs at 87%. Two packages - Grow and Elevate - with 25 free leads on signup. G2 rating: 4.5/5 across 1,200 reviews.

That said, access starts at ~$25,000/year plus ~$2,500/year per user seat. That's real money for a Series A company. Cognism wins over ZoomInfo on EMEA mobile data and DNC compliance. ZoomInfo still wins on US database depth and workflow breadth.

Dealfront - European Coverage

Your territory spans the UK plus DACH, Nordics, or broader Europe? Dealfront (formerly Leadfeeder + Echobot) covers 30M+ European companies and 83M+ contacts. The Visitor ID product runs $99-$1,199/month depending on volume. Sales Intelligence is quote-based - expect ~$500-2,000/month.

If you only sell into the UK, skip this. You'd be paying for European breadth you don't need. UK-native tools like DataGardener offer deeper company intelligence for the same market.

Lusha - Budget Self-Serve

Dead simple to use. The Chrome extension works well for one-off lookups. Pro starts at $36/user/month on a credit-based model, with a free tier available. G2: 4.3/5 (1,566 reviews). UK-specific coverage is thinner than UK-native tools, and credits burn fast if you're doing volume prospecting. It's a lookup tool, not a platform.

Coresignal - Developer Datasets

Coresignal sells raw datasets starting at $1,000 and API access from $49/month, with a 14-day free trial that includes 400 Search credits and 200 Collect credits. This isn't a sales tool - it's for engineering teams building custom data pipelines or ML models.

Experian BusinessView

Covers 5.7M UK companies with deep firmographic and financial data. The Reddit consensus is clear: overpriced for what you get, especially for SMBs. Typically £500-2,000+/month. Best for large organisations already embedded in the Experian ecosystem.

Prospect360

A classic UK list broker offering 1.9M company sites, 700k opted-in emails, and 1.2M TPS/CTPS-screened phone numbers on a 12-month multiple-use licence. Typical pricing runs ~£150-400 per 1,000 records.

Lead411

US-focused with UK coverage. $99/month gets you unlimited views and 200 exports, with intent data included. Worth a look if you sell into both markets.

Also worth knowing: Creditsafe (6M UK businesses with real-time credit monitoring), Marketscan (7M decision-makers via their Megabase product), and InfobelPRO (8.6M UK businesses) are additional UK-native options worth evaluating if the tools above don't fit your workflow.

Head-to-Head Comparison

The freshness column is where the real separation happens. In our testing, the difference between a 7-day and 6-week refresh cycle was the difference between 3% and 15% bounce rates. Most competitors refresh every four to six weeks, and some UK list brokers update only twice a year.

Let's be honest: if your average deal size is under £10k, you probably don't need Cognism or ZoomInfo-level data. A tool with 98% email accuracy and a free tier will outperform a £25k/year platform that your team barely logs into.

GDPR, PECR, and TPS Compliance

Selling into the UK means navigating a compliance stack that trips up even experienced teams.

PECR (Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations): Email to corporate subscribers (companies, LLPs) doesn't require prior consent - this is the carve-out that makes B2B cold email legal in the UK. Sole traders and some partnerships are treated as individual subscribers and do require consent. Live marketing calls must be screened against both TPS and CTPS registers. Calling a registered number without consent is a violation.

UK GDPR applies to any personal data in a business context - names, identifiable business emails, direct dials. You need a lawful basis, typically legitimate interest for B2B prospecting.

Practical implication: Compliance starts with data quality. Sending emails that bounce at 20%+ doesn't just waste your time - it damages your domain reputation and can trigger spam filters that tank deliverability for your entire organisation. Real-time email verification with catch-all handling reduces bounces and protects sender reputation, which is a compliance concern most UK list brokers don't address. Any reputable provider should handle TPS screening and email verification as standard, not as a paid add-on.

The ICO's guidance is currently under review following the Data (Use and Access) Act, so keep an eye on updates through 2026.

How to Evaluate a Provider

Start with UK coverage depth. How many UK companies and contacts does the tool actually have? A global database with 300M profiles can have deeper UK coverage than a UK-native tool with 2M emails - always ask for UK-specific numbers.

Data freshness is the single most underrated factor. Weekly refresh is best. Monthly is acceptable. "Twice yearly" - like some UK list brokers - means you're prospecting into a graveyard.

On accuracy, anything above 5% email bounce is a red flag, and anything below 20% phone pickup means you're wasting dials. Compliance features matter more than most teams realise - does the tool screen against TPS/CTPS? Does it handle GDPR consent tracking? Does it verify emails before you send?

Pricing model is the next filter: self-serve credits vs. annual contracts vs. per-thousand list purchases. Match the model to how your team actually buys data. Then check integrations - can it push directly into your CRM and sequencer? Manual CSV exports add friction that kills adoption.

Before committing to any tool, run a pilot batch of 200-500 contacts against your existing CRM to check for duplicates, normalise job title and region fields, and measure actual bounce rates. That pilot will tell you more than any demo ever could.

If you want a tighter outbound process end-to-end, combine your database choice with proven sales prospecting techniques and a repeatable lead generation workflow.

FAQ

Is Companies House data free?

Yes. Companies House publishes a free monthly CSV snapshot of all live UK companies, and the REST API is also free. The data includes no email addresses, phone numbers, or contact information - only company registrations, SIC codes, and filing dates. For prospecting, you need a commercial database layered on top.

Do I need consent for B2B emails in the UK?

Under PECR, email to corporate subscribers (companies, LLPs) doesn't require prior consent. Sole traders and some partnerships are treated as individuals and do require consent. UK GDPR still applies to personal data, so you need a lawful basis like legitimate interest for any B2B outreach.

What's the cheapest option with verified contacts?

Apollo and Prospeo both offer free tiers with UK contact data and no annual contracts. Prospeo's paid plans start at ~$0.01 per email with 98% accuracy, making it one of the most affordable verified-contact options. Quote-based providers like Cognism typically start at £20k+/year.

How often should business data be refreshed?

The industry average is every six weeks, but contacts change jobs frequently - especially in the UK tech sector. A 7-day refresh cycle catches job changes before your competitors' 6-week-old data does. Anything updated less than monthly will produce noticeably higher bounce rates.

Can I build my own database from Companies House?

Technically yes - the bulk downloads are free. But one developer reported spending $4,000 and three months just to process a single year of filings, with zero contact data at the end. For most teams, a commercial provider is faster, cheaper, and actually usable for outreach on day one.

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When choosing a UK business database, freshness and accuracy beat raw volume every time. Start with a free tier, run a 500-contact pilot, and let your bounce rate tell you whether the data is worth paying for.