Coresignal vs People Data Labs: Data Coverage, Pricing & Use Cases

The Coresignal vs People Data Labs comparison comes up frequently when businesses evaluate B2B data providers. Both supply professional and company data, but they differ significantly in their data collection methods, update frequencies, and pricing models.

Understanding these differences matters when your workflows depend on accurate, current information. This article compares their data coverage, pricing, update frequency, and technical capabilities to help you choose the right provider.

Key Takeaways

• Data coverage differs by focus area 

Coresignal leads in company intelligence and job postings, while People Data Labs offers the largest employee database for person-level data.

• Batch updates create data freshness gaps 

Both providers use scheduled refresh cycles rather than real-time updates. Coresignal refreshes daily to quarterly, depending on the dataset, while People Data Labs updates monthly.

• Pricing structures vary in transparency 

Coresignal shows upfront tier pricing with visible credit allocation. People Data Labs uses volume-based pricing that typically requires sales conversations to understand final costs.

• Integration approaches target different teams 

Coresignal offers multiple data formats and self-service playgrounds for testing. People Data Labs provides developer SDKs targeting technical teams building data products.

• Crustdata is a better alternative that solves the batch processing problem 

Crustdata provides live data crawling and instant webhook notifications for job changes, promotions, and funding rounds.

Coresignal Overview

Coresignal is a public web data provider that collects structured information from 15+ sources covering companies, employees, and job postings. The platform scrapes publicly available business data and organizes it into datasets that customers access through APIs or bulk file downloads.

Their system processes professional information, including employment history, company firmographics, technographic data, and hiring activity. Data can be delivered as JSON, CSV, or Parquet files, with refresh cycles ranging from daily to monthly, depending on the dataset and customer needs.

Coresignal offers three dataset tiers, base, clean, and multi-source, letting teams choose between raw data, cleaned datasets, or fully enriched records combined from multiple sources. The tool serves over 700 organizations globally with datasets containing billions of records across companies, employees, and job postings.

Their approach emphasizes ethical data collection as a founding member of the Ethical Web Data Collection Initiative. However, the design relies on scheduled batch updates rather than live data crawling.

People Data Labs Overview

People Data Labs (PDL) is a B2B data provider that aggregates professional and company information through a data co-op model. Customers contribute their datasets in exchange for access to PDL's database of over 3 billion person profiles and 60 million companies.

Their platform combines purchased datasets from multiple vendors and organizes them into standardized schemas delivered through APIs. Data covers employment history, education, skills, contact information, social profiles, and company firmographics across global markets.

PDL's data can be accessed through multiple API endpoints for enrichment, search, and identification use cases. The service also provides data feeds for teams that prefer working with complete datasets.

The platform targets engineers, data scientists, and product teams building applications that need professional identity data. PDL supports use cases across HR technology, sales and marketing automation, investment research, fraud prevention, and AI model training.

Their approach prioritizes dataset breadth and standardization over real-time updates. PDL maintains pre-compiled datasets that refresh on monthly schedules, which creates a trade-off between data coverage and data freshness. 

Data Coverage and Sources

Coresignal and People Data Labs built their datasets through different methods, creating distinct advantages across data categories.

Company Profiles

Coresignal offers 75+ million company records scraped from 15+ public sources. Their approach combines information from multiple platforms into unified records covering firmographics, technographics, and funding.

PDL provides 70+ million companies through vendor partnerships and data aggregation. PDL structures data into granular fields optimized for API enrichment.

Employee Profiles

Coresignal provides 839+ million employee records from 15+ sources with multi-source enrichment. Their profiles include employment history, education, and skills with 500+ data points per record.

People Data Labs dominates with 2.4+ billion professional profiles built through their data co-op model. Coverage excels in North America and Western Europe, where professional networking density is highest.

Job Postings

Coresignal leads significantly with 425+ million job records from company websites and multiple job boards. They track both active and historical listings with detailed requirements and posting dates. PDL offers 20.8+ million job postings as supplementary data to their person and company focus.

Update Frequency

Coresignal offers daily to quarterly refresh cycles depending on dataset. They add new records continuously across all data categories. PDL updates monthly across their entire database.

Here's how the two providers compare across key data metrics:

Coresignal provides superior company and job intelligence with flexible delivery for hiring signals and firmographics. PDL offers the largest employee database for person-level prospecting and recruitment.

Pricing Structure

Coresignal and PDL use credit-based pricing models, but their structures and entry points differ significantly.

Coresignal Pricing

Coresignal offers separate pricing for APIs and bulk datasets with clear tiered plans.

API Plans:

• Free Trial: $0 with 200 Collect credits and 400 Search credits (valid 14 days)

• Starter: From $49/month with 250 Collect credits and 500 Search credits

• Pro: From $800/month with 10,000 Collect credits and 20,000 Search credits

• Premium: From $1,500/month with 50,000 Collect credits and 150,000 Search credits

One Collect credit retrieves one profile. Multi-source company data costs two Collect credits per record. Search credits come included at no additional cost, typically double or more the Collect credits. Annual plans provide credits upfront.

Dataset Pricing: Bulk datasets start at $1,000/month with monthly payments on yearly contracts. Final pricing depends on agreement length, source bundling, data scope, and refresh frequency.

People Data Labs Pricing

PDL uses a credit-based system where different APIs consume varying credits per request.

Plan Tiers:

• Free Plan: $0 for up to 100 person/company lookups monthly

• Pro Plan (Person Data): From $98/month for 350 person enrichment credits

• Pro Plan (Company Data): From $100/month for 1,000 company lookups

• Enterprise Plan: Custom pricing 

Credits are consumed per successful API match. Person and Company Enrichment APIs typically consume one credit per request. Search APIs consume one credit per profile returned.

This table compares their pricing structure side-by-side:

Coresignal provides upfront tier pricing with visible credit allocation through a self-service dashboard. PDL uses volume-based pricing that varies by credit consumption and API endpoint. Enterprise pricing and bulk dataset access require vendor contact for custom quotes.

Use Cases and Applications

Coresignal's strength in company profiles and job postings supports several workflows. Common use cases include:

• Sales teams: Enrich leads with tech stack, funding data, and headcount to qualify prospects faster

• Market researchers: Conduct competitive intelligence and track industry trends with comprehensive company data

• Venture capital firms: Analyze workforce growth and leadership changes to spot investment opportunities early

• Business analysts: Access multi-source firmographics for market research and competitive analysis

People Data Labs Use Cases

People Data Labs' massive person database powers technical teams across multiple industries, including:

• Recruiting platforms: Source candidates by skills and employment history through Person Search API

• Sales intelligence teams: Find decision-makers with specific job titles and contact information

• Data scientists: Feed structured profiles into machine learning models for lead scoring and fraud detection

• Product developers: Build data-driven applications with standardized person and company datasets for AI model training

Integration and Technical Implementation

Both providers offer REST APIs with API key authentication, but their integration approaches cater to different technical workflows.

Coresignal Integration

Coresignal prioritizes flexibility with multiple delivery methods and self-service testing tools:

• Playgrounds: Test queries without writing code in their self-service platform

• Data formats: JSON, JSONL, CSV, and Parquet for flexible delivery

• Credit consumption: One credit per standard data request, two credits for multi-source records

• Dataset downloads: Direct link, Google Cloud Storage, and AWS S3 delivery options

• Delivery schedules: Daily, weekly, or monthly file deliveries for offline analysis

• Pre-built connectors: Integrates with Clay, Pipedream, and Cargo

People Data Labs Integration

PDL focuses on developer-friendly tools designed for real-time API workflows:

• SDKs: Python, JavaScript, Go, Ruby, and Rust for faster integration

• Data format: JSON, CSV, and Parquet exclusively through their APIs

• Search capabilities: Elasticsearch query syntax for complex filtering

• Enrichment endpoints: Accept simpler parameters like email address

• Request handling: SDKs handle request formatting automatically

• API focus: Primarily designed for real-time enrichment workflows

• Pre-built connectors: Connects with Salesforce, HubSpot, Databricks, Snowflake, and AWS Data Exchange

Implementation follows the same pattern for both providers: send requests to specific endpoints, parse responses, and load results into CRM systems or databases.

Which Provider Should You Choose?

When decision-makers change roles between scheduled updates, you miss the window to reach them at the right time. By the time batch data refreshes, your outreach references outdated information.

Coresignal suits teams that need deep company intelligence for investment analysis, competitive research, and account-based marketing. People Data Labs fits technical teams building recruiting platforms, sales intelligence tools, and machine learning models that require massive person-level datasets.

Both providers use batch processing with scheduled refresh cycles. This creates timing gaps between when changes occur and when you access the data. Crustdata addresses this limitation through real-time data crawling instead of batch updates.

Why Crustdata Is the Better Alternative

When decision-makers change roles between scheduled updates, you miss the window to Crustdata crawls the web live at the moment of request. When you query a profile or company, the system instantly pulls current data from 16+ verified sources. That way, you work with information that reflects what exists now, not what existed during the last batch update.

Here's how Crustdata solves the batch processing limitations:

• Real-time webhooks: The Watcher API provides real-time webhooks for multiple datapoints and sends instant notifications when events occur, such as job changes, promotions, funding rounds, social posts, and hiring activity

• Multiple signal tracking: Monitor hundreds of datapoints across companies and people, not just basic job changes

• Unified data sources: Access SEC filings, company news, product reviews, employee ratings, and web traffic through a single API

• No integration overhead: Get comprehensive profiles without managing separate vendor integrations

• Live crawling: Every query returns current data pulled at request time

Ready to see how real-time data transforms your workflows?

Book a demo to learn how Crustdata delivers the current, accurate intelligence your team needs.

FAQs

Can I Combine Multiple Data Providers To Get Better Coverage?

Yes, but managing multiple vendors creates integration complexity, higher costs, and inconsistent data formats. You'll spend engineering time reconciling conflicting information and building custom pipelines. A unified provider with real-time crawling eliminates these headaches.

Do Coresignal And People Data Labs Offer Refunds For Incorrect Data?

Both providers charge credits for successful API matches, not accuracy guarantees. If enriched data contains errors or outdated information, you typically don’t get credits back. Review their data quality policies and test with free trials before committing to paid plans.

Can I Track Competitors’ Hiring Patterns With These Data Providers?

Yes, but only retrospectively with batch updates. You learn about competitor hiring after positions have been filled for weeks. This limits strategic response time. Crustdata’s Watcher API monitors competitor job postings and headcount changes in real time, giving you actionable intelligence when it matters.