FullEnrich vs Cognism: Which is Better and Why?

TL;DR: The data enrichment provider you choose will impact sales efficiency, pipeline reliability, and ROI. FullEnrich excels at bulk enrichment with high email accuracy, while Cognism offers enrichment and prospecting but has weaker global coverage. An alternative is Surfe. It offers bulk enrichment and prospecting with 93%+ verified accuracy, strong global coverage, and seamless CRM and LinkedIn-native workflows.

A data enrichment tool is an essential part of an SDR’s arsenal – but that doesn’t mean they all offer the same in terms of data delivery, data quality, and workflow integration. If the tool misses the mark on any of these points, reps will lose hours chasing down missing emails or dialing incorrect phone numbers, while leaders will suffer from reduced pipeline accuracy, distorted forecasting, and a lower ROI on outbound investment.

In this blog post, we’re going to compare two lead enrichment tools: FullEnrich (which offers enrichment in bulk) and Cognism (which offers enrichment and prospecting workflows). Each tool has its strengths, but teams might need to make trade-offs depending on their needs. If your goal is both high enrichment accuracy and seamless sales workflows, Surfe offers a stronger alternative. With 93%+ verified email find rates, 100% CRM accuracy reported in customer case studies, and proven pipeline lift including a 142% increase in demos, Surfe delivers enrichment and workflow integration in a single, connected revenue workspace.

Let’s take a closer look at how FullEnrich and Cognism compare, and find out which is the best option for your team.

Methodology

Before comparing FullEnrich and Cognism directly, it’s important to define how we assessed them. Our goal was to replicate real-world prospecting conditions and evaluate performance on both volume and accuracy.

Sample & Mix

• 5,000 contacts were tested consistently across both providers.
• Coverage included multiple geographies, industries , and company sizes. We wanted results to reflect diverse prospecting environments rather than a narrow use case.

How We Measured Results

• Find rate = percentage of contacts where an email or mobile number was returned.
• Quality rate = percentage of those returns that proved accurate, deliverable emails, or working mobile numbers.

Why this matters: a high find rate alone can be misleading. Many enrichment tools inflate coverage by using pattern-matching techniques; for example, deciding on a lead’s email address based on the pattern of their colleague’s. This approach introduces two problems:

1. Accuracy risk: a guessed email is not the same as a verified one, and every bounced email wastes rep time and damages sender reputation.
2. Mobile blind spot: Unlike email, mobile numbers cannot be “guessed.” Accuracy here is far more difficult, but the data is valuable for reps who need direct conversations.

In other words, enrichment that prioritizes raw volume without quality control creates the illusion of coverage – but this data might fail to drive real pipeline impact. By weighting both find rate and verified accuracy, our methodology reflects what actually matters to sales teams.

Performance and Coverage

With average email response rates at 8.5%, every missed or inaccurate contact reduces your chances further. Enrichment that inflates find rates without delivering verified accuracy cuts directly into the small margin you already have to generate pipeline.

Let’s take a look at FullEnrich vs Cognism on performance and coverage:

The Results

FullEnrich

Strengths: delivers strong coverage in North America, India, and EMEA. Uses a waterfall enrichment model across 15+ premium providers, with credits only consumed on verified matches.

Results Assessment: with a 90% email quality rate, FullEnrich minimizes bounce risk and delivers a more reliable base for cold email campaigns. However, mobile accuracy lags at 65%, limiting its effectiveness in a call-driven outbound motion.

Who it suits: teams relying on high-volume email-first outreach. For VPs of Sales, the value here is in cleaner pipeline inputs and reduced deliverability issues, but call-heavy teams may see diminishing returns.

Cognism

Strengths: Cognism has a proprietary database with manual verification, with a strong performance in EMEA. ‘Diamond Data’ provides curated, human-verified mobile numbers.

Assessment: Lower find rates across both email (68%) and mobile (46%) limit the size of reachable prospects, while email quality at 67% risks wasted sequences and reduced trust in pipeline metrics.

Who it suits: organizations prioritizing targeted EMEA coverage with specific emphasis on manually verified mobile numbers. For sales leaders, the trade-off is smaller, cleaner data sets at the cost of scale.

Which is Best?

A high find rate is meaningless if accuracy doesn’t follow. Leaders funding outbound on inflated numbers end up with overstated pipeline, missed forecasts, and wasted SDR hours. The difference between 65% and 90% mobile accuracy is a big one; it translates directly into higher connect rates, more booked meetings, and greater ROI on headcount. Plus, inconsistent global coverage can make performance tracking difficult across global teams.

Winner: FullEnrich edges ahead on accuracy and breadth, especially for global teams running scaled email programs. Cognism’s curated data is valuable in narrow contexts, but inconsistent coverage across the world limits its usefulness for leaders looking for predictable, scalable pipeline contributions.

Workflows and Integrations

Sales reps already spend just 33% of their time actually selling. The rest disappears into administrative work: manual CRM updates, fixing duplicates, and cleaning data. This is why workflows and integrations matter. Without them, enrichment becomes another source of admin work instead of a driver of revenue productivity.

FullEnrich

​​Strengths: designed for prospecting at scale, FullEnrich supports bulk enrichment with list uploads of up to 100,000 contacts via CSV or API. It integrates with major CRMs, like Salesforce, HubSpot, and Pipedrive, and connects to automation tools like Zapier, Make, Clay, and n8n.

Limitations: the workflow ends at contact data enrichment. While the data returned is clean and verified, it does not include extras like buying signals or prospecting workflows.

Who it suits: ops-driven teams prioritizing large-scale database hygiene and enrichment at volume. CRM records will be clean, but reps will still face heavy admin when trying to act on that data.

Cognism

Strengths: Cognism has a Chrome extension for LinkedIn and company site enrichment. In particular, company site enrichment is a huge plus as it’s not widely offered across the industry. It integrates with Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive, Microsoft Dynamics, and Zoho, and has native tie-ins with Outreach and Salesloft. Job-change alerts make timing outreach correctly easier.

Limitations: stronger for prospecting workflows, but bulk enrichment capacity is limited compared to FullEnrich.

Who it suits: teams running outbound prospecting motions where reps need enrichment directly in their daily workflow. For leadership, the appeal lies in reducing admin drag and ensuring cleaner sync between enrichment, CRM, and engagement tools.

Which is Best?

Integrations determine whether enrichment data actually flows into CRM cleanly. Poor integrations create duplicates, harm forecast accuracy, and leave leadership second-guessing pipeline accuracy. Strong CRM and engagement tie-ins, on the other hand, protect data hygiene and give sales leaders confidence in both productivity metrics and revenue forecasts.

Winner: if database scaling is your priority, choose FullEnrich. If you follow prospecting-led workflows, choose Cognism.

Signals and Automation

Nurtured leads generate 50% more sales-ready prospects at 33% lower cost – proof that hitting the right contact at the right moment materially improves ROI. This is where signals and automation come into play.

FullEnrich

Strengths: Provides pure enrichment with clean data return.

Limitations: No job-change alerts, no intent signals, no scoring, and no automation beyond the enrichment itself.

Who it suits: Teams focused strictly on database hygiene. Leadership benefits from accurate records, but misses the opportunity to help reps engage when prospects are most likely to convert.

Cognism

Strengths: Offers trigger signals including job changes, hiring activity, and funding events. These give SDRs clear cues on when a prospect may be more open to outreach.

Limitations: Cognism’s signals cover job changes, hiring, and funding rounds, but stop short of broader intent data such as content engagement or buying signals.

Who it suits: Outbound teams looking for event-based timing signals to sharpen prospecting. For leaders, the benefit is improved conversion rates from the same outreach budget, effectively lowering CAC.

Which is Best?

Signals and automation directly influence conversion economics. For SDR teams, they mean fewer wasted touches and more conversations that land at the right time. For leadership, they mean higher conversion rates, faster pipeline velocity, and a lower cost of customer acquisition.

Winner: again, the winner here depends on a team’s specific needs. FullEnrich provides good quality data, but leaves timing to the rep. Cognism’s signals help reps strike at the right time, but they may lose time to lower-quality or missing data in certain regions.

Pricing and Credits (With Example Tiers)

Pricing models in enrichment shape how predictable your ROI will be. Some providers tie cost directly to verified usage, making spend easy to track against outcomes. Others have a contract model where unused seats or inconsistent coverage inflate CAC. Understanding these differences is essential before weighing value for money.

Calculating exact ROI for these tools is difficult, as neither make pricing clear. Finding exact pricing will unfortunately add time to your research and selection process. In the meantime, we’ve put together some approximate costings based on our own internal research:

FullEnrich

Reports suggest that pricing starts at $29 per user/month for 500 credits and scales up through higher-volume tiers: 5,000 credits for $255, and 50,000 credits for $1,950. The credit system is straightforward – 1 credit per email, 10 credits per phone number – which makes usage and ROI easy to track. For leadership, this predictability ensures costs align directly with verified matches, avoiding budget surprises.

Cognism

Cognism does not publicly list pricing. Contracts are annual, negotiated on a case-by-case, and typically position the product as an enterprise solution. Reports suggest pricing averages around €20,000/year for 10 users, or roughly €167 per user/month. While this grants access to Cognism’s database and signals, the lack of credit-based pricing means teams risk paying for unused seats or inconsistent coverage.

ROI Snapshot

FullEnrich offers predictable, consumption-based pricing, which makes budgeting straightforward. Users only pay for what is verified and usable. This makes ROI far easier to forecast, particularly for teams scaling enrichment.

Cognism’s ROI is more difficult to predict; it can deliver value if signal coverage is critical to your outbound motion, but it’s easy to overpay and harm your margins.

Who Should Choose What

Politician’s answer here: the best tool will depend on the needs of your unique business.

FullEnrich is best for:

• Teams with large, pre-built lists from LinkedIn or CRM exports that need them cleaned and enriched at scale.
• Companies that want predictable costs tied to verified matches, ensuring budget control and straightforward ROI tracking.
• Sales orgs that do not require signals, intent data, or embedded prospecting workflows.

If your priority is database accuracy and cost predictability, FullEnrich is a strong choice.

Cognism is best for:

• EMEA-first teams where mobile outreach is a major channel and SDRs hit high activity numbers.
• Enterprise-level organizations making daily use of unlimited enrichment contracts where volume justifies the cost.
• Companies prioritizing GDPR compliance, job-change alerts, and prospecting capabilities bundled into a single platform.

If signals and compliance outweigh the need for flexible pricing, and SDR call volume is consistent, Cognism is an excellent choice.

One thing to note here is that either choice requires some degree of compromise. Depending on your business needs, this might be an easy choice – but what if you don’t want to choose between data accuracy & coverage, flexible pricing, and buying signals?

We might just have a solution for you.

Surfe: The Alternative to FullEnrich and Cognism

Surfe is a stronger all-in-one lead enrichment tool for sales teams that want both accuracy and scalability. It combines verified enrichment with LinkedIn-native workflows, CRM integrations, and real-time sales signals, bringing together the best of both FullEnrich and Cognism.

Surfe at a Glance

Here’s why Surfe is an excellent choice for sales teams:

• High enrichment accuracy: delivers a 93%+ verified email find rate, with strong mobile coverage across the US, EMEA, APAC, and LATAM.
• Waterfall enrichment: pulls from 15+ high-quality databases, with credits consumed only on verified matches.
• LinkedIn-native workflows: enrichment, CRM sync, and outreach templates sit directly in LinkedIn, reducing admin and keeping reps in their prospecting flow.
• CRM and engagement integrations: two-way sync with Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive, Copper, Zoho, plus tie-ins to Salesloft and Outreach.
• Signals and automation: daily job-change alerts, funding and hiring activity, plus AI-driven lookalike accounts and recommended prospects.

Why choose Surfe

FullEnrich delivers bulk data accuracy, and Cognism delivers market signals and prospecting. Surfe combines both: users get accuracy, workflows, and signals in one place, and get to use their time as efficiently as possible. For leadership, that means predictable pricing tied to verified matches and higher pipeline conversion.

FullEnrich vs Cognism: Final Thoughts

The choice between enrichment providers comes down to how well each tool supports predictable growth. FullEnrich delivers predictable, usage-based pricing and strong database hygiene. Cognism offers event-based signals and prospecting tools for high-output SDR teams. Surfe offers the best of both, pairing verified enrichment with workflows and signals in one connected workspace.