Surfe vs Lusha: Which Actually Improves Pipeline Quality (5K-Contact Test)
TL;DR: Lusha is an enrichment tool commonly used for email-first outbound prospecting. In a controlled test of 5,000 B2B contacts, Lusha returned usable email addresses for 71.6% of contacts and mobile numbers for 81.9%. Surfe proved the stronger option by delivering 89.4% email address find rates and 94.9% mobile find rates, giving sales teams materially higher contactability and more predictable list output from the same input.
For sales leadership and RevOps teams, choosing an enrichment provider comes down to one core question: how many usable contacts actually make it into the CRM?
That’s exactly what we asked when evaluating Surfe vs Lusha. Lusha is commonly evaluated as a lightweight option for email-first outbound, particularly for teams optimising around speed and cost. Surfe approaches enrichment differently, treating it as a core prospecting workflow and applying validation at the point where contacts are created and enriched inside the Surfe app.
To compare the two, both platforms were tested against the same dataset of 5,000 B2B contacts. The focus was deliberately narrow: the ability to return validated email addresses and reachable mobile numbers at scale.
In this test, Surfe returned usable email addresses for 89.4% of contacts and mobile numbers for 94.9%. Lusha returned 71.6% and 81.9%, respectively. That difference equates to hundreds of additional reachable contacts from the same input list, which will impact rep, team, and, ultimately, business performance. Let’s take a closer look.
Methodology
Surfe and Lusha were evaluated using the same dataset. The aim was to assess which platform returned the highest volume of validated, usable contact data from identical inputs.
Test Design
Surfe and Lusha were evaluated using the same randomised sample of 5,000 B2B contacts. This list was designed to reflect a realistic outbound prospecting mix rather than a narrow or vendor-friendly segment.
The sample included contacts across multiple regions, company sizes, industries, and seniority levels. This structure was intentional, ensuring that results were not skewed by over-representation of any single market where one provider might naturally perform better.
Each platform was applied independently to the full dataset, with no manual intervention or adjustment once enrichment was initiated.
What Was Measured
The comparison focused on a single outcome: whether a contact record could be completed with a usable email address and a reachable mobile number.
Results were assessed using a find-rate metric, calculated as the percentage of contacts for which valid contact data was successfully returned. Partial, unverified, or unusable data was excluded from the results.
For Surfe, enrichment was performed using its in-app workflow, with validation applied at the moment contacts were created and enriched.
Why This Matters
By keeping the dataset constant and narrowing the evaluation to one measurable output, the test isolates enrichment reliability rather than feature breadth or positioning.
This makes the results directly applicable to a common decision-stage question: how much usable contact data each platform delivers from the same lists.
Surfe vs Lusha: Global Performance Breakdown
At a global level, Surfe returns materially more usable contact data than Lusha for the same lists.
| Surfe | Lusha | |
| 89.42% | 71.63% | |
| Mobile | 94.94% | 81.94% |
Across the full sample of 5,000 B2B contacts, Surfe outperformed Lusha on both email and mobile coverage. In practical terms, for every 1,000 contacts enriched, Surfe returned 178 more usable email addresses and 130 more reachable mobile numbers than Lusha.
This gap is meaningful at volume. Teams enriching tens of thousands of contacts will see hundreds or thousands of additional contacts that can actually be reached, without increasing list size or running enrichment multiple times.
Why This Matters
At the global level, enrichment performance sets the ceiling for outbound capacity. Higher find rates mean more usable contacts flowing into the CRM from the same inputs, fewer dead records, and less pressure to compensate with larger lists. For sales leadership and RevOps, this directly affects how predictable outbound output is at scale before any segmentation or targeting is applied.
Regional Breakdown
Surfe outperforms Lusha across all major regions, with the largest gaps appearing in mobile coverage.
| Region | Surfe email | Lusha email | Surfe mobile | Lusha mobile |
| EMEA | 90.59% | 68.52% | 93.89% | 77.81% |
| APAC | 86.01% | 72.56% | 92.52% | 79.92% |
| AMER | 91.70% | 73.77% | 98.43% | 88.07% |
Across EMEA, APAC, and AMER, Surfe consistently returns a higher share of usable email addresses and reachable mobile numbers than Lusha. The pattern holds regardless of region, with email find-rate gaps ranging from +13 to +22 percentage points, and mobile gaps from +10 to +16 points in Surfe’s favor.
The difference is most pronounced on mobile in EMEA and AMER, where Surfe approaches near-complete coverage while Lusha leaves a meaningful portion of contacts unreachable. Even in APAC, Surfe maintains a clear lead on both channels.
Why This Matters
Regional consistency matters for teams running distributed or multi-market outbound motions. Higher and more stable find rates across regions reduce the need to adjust list sizes, enrichment strategies, or channel mix by geography. For sales leadership and RevOps, this makes outbound planning more predictable and reduces operational variance when scaling prospecting across markets.
Segment-Based Breakdown
Company size does not materially change the performance difference between Surfe and Lusha, with Surfe maintaining higher coverage across all segments.
| Segment | Surfe email | Lusha email | Surfe mobile | Lusha mobile |
| SMB | 88.42% | 70.16% | 94.12% | 79.68% |
| Mid-market | 89.57% | 72.39% | 94.60% | 82.70% |
| Enterprise | 90.28% | 72.33% | 96.10% | 83.43% |
Across all company sizes, Surfe consistently returns a higher share of usable email addresses and reachable mobile numbers than Lusha. The gap is already clear in SMB accounts and widens slightly as deal size increases, particularly for mobile numbers, where Surfe approaches mid-90% coverage across every segment.
Enterprise data shows the strongest absolute performance, with Surfe delivering over 96% mobile coverage, while Lusha remains in the low-80s. That pattern suggests Surfe’s enrichment reliability scales with account complexity rather than degrading as company size increases.
Why This Matters
Segment mix directly affects pipeline efficiency. Teams selling across SMB, mid-market, and enterprise need enrichment that performs consistently without forcing different workflows or list strategies by deal size. Higher and more stable find rates across segments reduce enrichment overhead and make it easier for sales leadership and RevOps to support mixed-segment outbound motions from a single source of truth.
Role-Based Breakdown
Surfe maintains higher email and mobile coverage than Lusha at every seniority level.
| Seniority level | Surfe email | Lusha email | Surfe mobile | Lusha mobile |
| C-level | 89.47% | 72.02% | 95.94% | 81.95% |
| Decision makers | 89.56% | 72.33% | 95.94% | 83.02% |
| Practitioners | 89.03% | 69.42% | 91.17% | 79.42% |
Across all roles, Surfe returns a higher share of usable contact data than Lusha on both channels.
Email coverage remains consistently close to 90% for Surfe regardless of seniority, while Lusha’s email find rates drop more noticeably for practitioner-level contacts. On mobile, Surfe sustains mid-90% coverage for C-level and decision-maker roles, with a smaller but still clear lead at the practitioner level.
This consistency suggests that Surfe’s enrichment performance is not dependent on targeting a specific layer of the org chart. Whether teams are prioritising executive outreach or broader buying-group coverage, the relative gap between the two tools remains stable.
Why This Matters
Seniority mix has a direct impact on outbound efficiency. Tools that perform unevenly by role force teams to adjust targeting strategies or over-enrich certain segments to compensate.
More consistent coverage across seniority levels reduces complexity, making it easier for sales leadership and RevOps to support multi-threaded outreach without introducing variability in list quality.
Market and Location Breakdown
Combining market and geography does not change the pattern: Surfe’s enrichment coverage remains higher across every segment–region combination.
| Location | Market | Surfe email | Lusha email | Surfe mobile | Lusha mobile |
| EMEA | SMB | 90.49% | 66.36% | 92.87% | 75.32% |
| APAC | SMB | 85.40% | 72.63% | 91.06% | 76.82% |
| AMER | SMB | 89.35% | 71.48% | 98.38% | 86.82% |
| EMEA | MM | 91.78% | 70.65% | 94.39% | 80.00% |
| APAC | MM | 86.10% | 72.38% | 91.52% | 77.98% |
| AMER | MM | 90.94% | 74.12% | 97.97% | 90.20% |
| EMEA | ENT | 89.53% | 68.59% | 94.40% | 78.16% |
| APAC | ENT | 86.51% | 72.66% | 94.96% | 84.89% |
| AMER | ENT | 94.78% | 75.72% | 98.92% | 87.23% |
Across all combinations of company size and region, Surfe returns a higher share of usable contact data than Lusha. The gaps are most visible in EMEA and AMER, particularly for SMB and enterprise accounts, where Surfe’s mobile coverage frequently exceeds the mid-90% range while Lusha remains materially lower.
APAC shows more variability overall, but the relative pattern holds: Surfe maintains stronger coverage on both email and mobile regardless of market segment. Importantly, there are no segment–region combinations where Lusha closes the gap or reverses the pattern.
Why This Matters
Market and location are often layered together in outbound planning, especially for teams running regional quotas or segment-specific motions. Consistent enrichment performance across these combinations reduces the need for region-specific list strategies or fallback tools.
For sales leadership and RevOps, this simplifies planning and helps ensure that outbound capacity scales predictably across both geography and deal size.
Role and Location Breakdown
Breaking the data down by both seniority and geography shows the same pattern holding under more granular conditions.
| Location | Role | Surfe email | Lusha email | Surfe mobile | Lusha mobile |
| EMEA | C-level | 90.37% | 65.37% | 95.08% | 76.02% |
| EMEA | Decision makers | 91.24% | 69.59% | 94.77% | 78.95% |
| EMEA | Practitioners | 89.26% | 70.55% | 89.88% | 77.61% |
| APAC | C-level | 86.88% | 75.75% | 95.23% | 81.71% |
| APAC | Decision makers | 85.95% | 72.03% | 93.74% | 81.74% |
| APAC | Practitioners | 84.95% | 69.35% | 86.29% | 73.66% |
| AMER | C-level | 91.18% | 74.71% | 97.45% | 87.84% |
| AMER | Decision makers | 91.35% | 75.40% | 99.26% | 88.38% |
| AMER | Practitioners | 93.37% | 68.37% | 97.89% | 87.65% |
Across every region and seniority level, Surfe returns a higher share of usable email addresses and reachable mobile numbers than Lusha. The gaps are widest at the executive level, particularly in EMEA and AMER, where Surfe’s mobile coverage consistently exceeds the mid-90% range. Practitioner-level data shows more overall variance, but the relative difference between the two platforms remains clear.
APAC continues to show lower absolute coverage across both tools, yet Surfe maintains a consistent lead on both channels regardless of role. There are no region–role combinations where the gap meaningfully narrows or reverses.
Why This Matters
Outbound strategies often vary by both seniority and region, especially for teams balancing executive outreach with broader buying-group coverage. Consistent enrichment performance across these dimensions reduces the need for role-specific or region-specific workarounds. For sales leadership and RevOps, this supports more predictable outreach planning without fragmenting list strategy or enrichment tooling.
Region, Market, and Role-Based Breakdown
At the most granular level of the dataset, the performance gap between Surfe and Lusha does not fragment or narrow.
The table below combines geography, company size, and seniority to reflect how outbound lists are often built in practice.
| Location | Market | Role | Surfe email | Lusha email | Surfe mobile | Lusha mobile |
| EMEA | SMB | C-level | 93.21% | 69.14% | 93.21% | 77.16% |
| EMEA | SMB | Decision makers | 90.22% | 64.86% | 94.57% | 76.81% |
| EMEA | SMB | Practitioners | 87.16% | 66.06% | 88.07% | 68.81% |
| APAC | SMB | C-level | 86.98% | 75.74% | 94.08% | 80.47% |
| APAC | SMB | Decision makers | 85.39% | 71.16% | 91.01% | 78.28% |
| APAC | SMB | Practitioners | 83.04% | 71.43% | 86.61% | 67.86% |
| AMER | SMB | C-level | 91.49% | 77.66% | 97.87% | 88.30% |
| AMER | SMB | Decision makers | 87.89% | 70.70% | 99.22% | 85.94% |
| AMER | SMB | Practitioners | 89.09% | 62.73% | 97.27% | 86.36% |
| EMEA | MM | C-level | 88.61% | 66.46% | 96.20% | 84.18% |
| EMEA | MM | Decision makers | 93.33% | 72.96% | 94.81% | 77.41% |
| EMEA | MM | Practitioners | 92.52% | 71.03% | 90.65% | 80.37% |
| APAC | MM | C-level | 87.35% | 77.71% | 96.39% | 76.51% |
| APAC | MM | Decision makers | 86.13% | 71.01% | 93.70% | 82.35% |
| APAC | MM | Practitioners | 84.67% | 68.67% | 82.67% | 72.67% |
| AMER | MM | C-level | 88.31% | 72.73% | 96.75% | 87.66% |
| AMER | MM | Decision makers | 90.58% | 74.64% | 98.91% | 91.30% |
| AMER | MM | Practitioners | 95.50% | 74.77% | 97.30% | 90.99% |
| EMEA | ENT | C-level | 89.29% | 60.71% | 95.83% | 67.26% |
| EMEA | ENT | Decision makers | 90.22% | 71.01% | 94.93% | 82.61% |
| EMEA | ENT | Practitioners | 88.18% | 74.55% | 90.91% | 83.64% |
| APAC | ENT | C-level | 86.31% | 73.81% | 95.24% | 88.10% |
| APAC | ENT | Decision makers | 86.33% | 73.74% | 96.40% | 84.53% |
| APAC | ENT | Practitioners | 87.27% | 68.18% | 90.91% | 80.91% |
| AMER | ENT | C-level | 93.45% | 73.21% | 97.62% | 87.50% |
| AMER | ENT | Decision makers | 95.31% | 80.51% | 99.64% | 87.73% |
| AMER | ENT | Practitioners | 95.50% | 67.57% | 99.10% | 85.59% |
Across every combination of region, segment, and seniority, Surfe returns a higher share of usable email addresses and reachable mobile numbers than Lusha. Importantly, there are no edge cases where the gap closes meaningfully or reverses. Even in segments that typically introduce more variability, like SMB in APAC or practitioner-level roles, for example, Surfe maintains a clear lead on both channels.
As complexity increases, Surfe’s mobile coverage in particular remains consistently high, frequently reaching the upper-90% range in AMER and enterprise contexts. Lusha’s performance, by contrast, shows greater dispersion once multiple targeting dimensions are layered together.
Why This Matters
Real-world outbound targeting is rarely one-dimensional. Teams segment by region, company size, and role simultaneously, and any weakness in enrichment performance compounds at that level. Consistent results across these combinations reduce the need for manual overrides, secondary tools, or segment-specific enrichment rules. For sales leadership and RevOps, this translates into more predictable list quality as targeting becomes more granular.
Why Surfe Is The Better Choice For Your Sales Team
Surfe delivers accurate data, but it also fits directly into your team’s prospecting and enrichment workflows. Let’s find out more about how Surfe supports sales team success:
Build Prospecting Lists Directly From Search
Surfe allows sales teams to search for people or companies inside the app and convert those results directly into prospecting lists. Instead of exporting data, cleaning it externally, or re-enriching later, contacts are created and enriched as part of the same workflow.
Lists are built with enrichment in mind from the start, which reduces data loss between steps and ensures that contacts entering the CRM are already usable.
Turn Your ICP Into A Daily Source Of New Leads
Surfe also enables teams to define their ideal customer profile directly in the app, including role, industry, geography, and other targeting criteria. Based on that profile, Surfe continuously recommends a daily set of new contacts that match those parameters.
Reps can open Surfe each day and see who to reach out to next, without rebuilding searches or manually refining lists. For managers and RevOps, this creates consistency in how targeting is applied across the team.
Enrich Lists Using Built-In Waterfall Enrichment
All contacts, whether they’re sourced through search, ICP recommendations, or existing lists, are enriched using Surfe’s waterfall enrichment technology. Data is validated at the point of enrichment, which is what underpins the higher email and mobile find rates shown throughout this comparison.
Because enrichment happens inside the same workflow where contacts are created, teams avoid reprocessing the same records or compensating for missing data later. The output is simpler: more usable contacts from the same inputs, with less manual intervention.
Surfe vs Lusha ROI
At decision stage, pricing comparisons are most useful when evaluated against cost per usable contact delivered, not headline subscription cost.
| Plan | Platform | Pricing (USD / month / user) | Pricing structure | Approx. cost per usable contact |
| Essential | Surfe | $39 | Per-user subscription with fixed monthly email and mobile credits | ~$0.23 |
| Pro | Surfe | $79 | Per-user subscription with higher fixed monthly email and mobile credits | ~$0.08 |
| Pro | Lusha | ~$30 | Per-user subscription with monthly shared credits (~250–500) | ~$0.17 |
| Premium | Lusha | ~$70 | Per-user subscription with higher monthly shared credits (~600) | ~$0.13 |
What This Shows
- Surfe’s higher find rates reduce cost per usable contact relative to equivalent paid tiers from Lusha once email and mobile find rates are factored in.
- Lusha’s Premium tier narrows the gap compared with its Pro plan because of larger credit allotments, but Surfe still delivers lower estimated cost per usable contact in typical usage patterns.
- For sales leadership and RevOps, evaluating enrichment providers on cost per usable contact highlights efficiency differences that headline prices alone do not reflect.
Conclusion
Across a controlled test of 5,000 contacts, Surfe consistently returned more usable email addresses and reachable mobile numbers than Lusha. That advantage held across regions, company sizes, and seniority levels, including in the most granular breakdowns of the dataset.
This consistency is the key difference. As targeting becomes more specific, enrichment performance often degrades. Surfe’s results show that higher coverage is maintained even as segmentation increases, keeping outbound capacity stable without requiring larger lists or repeated enrichment.
When pricing is evaluated on cost per usable contact rather than subscription fees, the same pattern emerges. Higher find rates reduce the cost of each reachable contact and make output more predictable at scale. For sales leadership and RevOps teams, choosing Surfe means cleaner data, fewer dead records, and more reliable outbound planning from the same inputs.
