Surfe vs Zoominfo: 5,000 Contacts, 1 Clear Winner
TL;DR: sales teams rely on data enrichment tools to fill pipeline, but legacy providers don’t necessarily deliver the best results. In a controlled test of 5,000 LinkedIn-verified contacts, ZoomInfo found valid details for just 52% of emails and 60% of mobiles. Surfe achieved 89% and 95% respectively: providing higher accuracy, stronger global coverage, and better ROI for modern sales teams.
The choice between Surfe vs ZoomInfo is ultimately a question of data accuracy. ZoomInfo, a legacy giant with broad name recognition, is often the default choice – but reputation doesn’t equal results.
In a controlled test of 5,000 LinkedIn-verified contacts, it delivered valid details for only 52% of emails and 60% of mobiles. Even in its home market, performance lagged well behind the marketing promise. For a platform built on data, that inconsistency is a strategic risk. Every bad record compounds into wasted spend, missed connections, and distorted forecasts for the sales teams using it.
Surfe, in contrast, achieved an 89% email find rate and 95% mobile find rate under the same conditions. That accuracy turns enrichment from an operational task into a strategic advantage: more verified sales leads, cleaner forecasts, and measurable ROI.
Let’s take a closer look at the test and its results.
Methodology
Both Surfe and ZoomInfo were tested under identical conditions to remove any bias and reveal true enrichment capability. The objective was simple: identify which tool could deliver the highest verified reach when working from the same dataset.
Test Design
A randomised sample of 5,000 LinkedIn-verified contacts was selected to replicate a real outbound scenario. Each contact met strict baseline criteria to ensure consistency:
- Active LinkedIn users who had posted within the previous 30 days.
- Verified company affiliation and a visible profile photo (to exclude inactive or bot accounts).
- Balanced distribution across regions (EMEA, AMER, APAC), company sizes (SMB, Mid-Market, Enterprise), and seniority levels (C-Level, Decision-Maker, Practitioner).
What Was Measured
The key metric was Find Rate: the percentage of contacts for which a valid email address or mobile number was successfully returned.
Why This Matters
By standardising the dataset and controlling for regional or market bias, the test highlights one factor only: platform performance. This makes sure that the results reflect each tool’s actual ability to find and verify contact information, not the strength of its marketing claims or the quality of its database inputs.
With the testing framework set, we can now look at how Surfe and ZoomInfo performed side by side, starting with their global results.
Surfe vs Zoominfo: Global Performance Breakdown
Across the 5,000 LinkedIn-verified contact dataset, Surfe delivered higher enrichment accuracy in both email and mobile fields under equal conditions.
| Market | Surfe Email Find Rate | Surfe Mobile Find Rate | Zoominfo Email Find Rate | Zoominfo Mobile Find Rate |
| Global | 89.42% | 94.94% | 52.32% | 60.24% |
Surfe verified 89.42% of email contacts and 94.94% of mobile contacts. In the same test, ZoomInfo verified 52.32% of emails and 60.24% of mobiles. The gap in accuracy means that for every 1,000 prospects, Surfe reliably delivers ~370–400 more valid contacts than ZoomInfo.
Cumulatively, that difference compounds rapidly through outbound execution. In a 10,000-contact campaign, the lower baseline performance would lead to thousands of unreachable prospects.
A 2025 industry study found that 76% of organizations say less than half of their CRM data is accurate and complete, which means it’s more important than ever to have enrichment tools that deliver high verification rates.
Why This Matters
More accurate enrichment increases the quality of contacts entering your CRM, raising outreach efficiency and reducing wasted effort. For sales and RevOps leaders, reliable data supports better forecasting and pipeline visibility.
Regional Breakdown
When the results are viewed region by region, Surfe maintains consistently high accuracy across EMEA, APAC, and AMER, outperforming ZoomInfo in every market.
| Region | Surfe Email Find Rate | Surfe Mobile Find Rate | Zoominfo Email Find Rate | Zoominfo Mobile Find Rate |
| EMEA | 90.59% | 93.89% | 54.58% | 64.06% |
| APAC | 86.01% | 92.52% | 48.73% | 53.50% |
| AMER | 91.70% | 98.43% | 53.66% | 63.23% |
Across all three regions, Surfe’s accuracy remained above 85% for both email and mobile enrichment. ZoomInfo’s results ranged between 48% and 64%, showing higher variance across geographies.
In AMER, Surfe verified 91.70% of emails and 98.43% of mobiles compared with ZoomInfo’s 53.66% and 63.23%. That 38-point difference equates to roughly 380 more valid contacts per 1,000 prospects.
In EMEA and APAC, the pattern is similar: consistent high coverage from Surfe, greater volatility from ZoomInfo.
Why This Matters
For international sales teams, regional accuracy determines reach and cost efficiency.
When enrichment accuracy fluctuates by 30 to 40 percentage points between markets, global strategies will generate inconsistent results. On the other hand, enjoy stable performance across EMEA, APAC, and AMER, and you’ll also enjoy fewer wasted credits, fewer unverified leads entering the CRM, and a more predictable conversion modelling for leadership.
Segment-Based Breakdown
When the results are viewed by company size, Surfe has consistently high accuracy across all segments – small businesses, mid-market firms, and large enterprises – while ZoomInfo’s performance declines more sharply in smaller markets.
| Market Size | Surfe Email Find Rate | Surfe Mobile Find Rate | Zoominfo Email Find Rate | Zoominfo Mobile Find Rate |
| SMB | 88.42% | 94.12% | 42.87% | 52.88% |
| MM | 89.57% | 94.60% | 52.52% | 59.94% |
| ENT | 90.28% | 96.10% | 61.46% | 67.83% |
Surfe’s enrichment accuracy remains steady across all company sizes: between 88% and 96%. ZoomInfo’s performance falls below 60% in every segment except Enterprise. The gap is most visible in the SMB market, where Surfe verified 88.42% of emails compared with ZoomInfo’s 42.87% (a 45-point difference).
For smaller and mid-market accounts, where contact data often changes faster and sources are less standardized, Surfe’s stability indicates a deeper data pipeline and more effective enrichment process.
At the enterprise level, the gap narrows slightly (90.28% vs 61.46% for email) but still represents a significant margin. Even when working with larger, more publicly documented companies, Surfe’s enrichment accuracy stays well above typical benchmarks.
Across all segments, the data shows that Surfe’s enrichment reliability is not dependent on company size or data complexity. It performs consistently whether sourcing verified contacts from small, fast-changing businesses or global organisations with larger data footprints.
Why This Matters
Sales teams working across multiple market segments often struggle to maintain consistent pipeline quality, especially when smaller accounts have incomplete or fast-changing data.
For leadership, stable accuracy across all segments means predictable ROI on enrichment spend and more reliable forecasting, regardless of which part of the market the team is targeting.
Role-Based Breakdown
Whether targeting executives, decision-makers, or practitioners, Surfe maintains near-uniform enrichment accuracy. ZoomInfo’s performance, by comparison, declines across every seniority level.
| Role | Surfe Email Find Rate | Surfe Mobile Find Rate | Zoominfo Email Find Rate | Zoominfo Mobile Find Rate |
| C-Level | 89.47% | 95.94% | 48.17% | 59.69% |
| Decision Makers | 89.56% | 95.94% | 55.63% | 62.59% |
| Practitioners | 89.03% | 91.17% | 50.58% | 55.53% |
At the executive level, Surfe verified 89.96% of emails compared with ZoomInfo’s 56.48%, a 33-point gap. Among decision-makers, accuracy held steady for Surfe at 88.54% while ZoomInfo dropped to 51.26%. The difference becomes even more pronounced among practitioners, where Surfe maintained 89.12% accuracy compared with ZoomInfo’s 49.94%: a 39-point gap.
This shows that Surfe delivers equally reliable enrichment data across all seniority levels. ZoomInfo’s decline across tiers indicates that fewer contacts are fully verified as campaigns expand beyond top-level roles, constraining outreach coverage and reducing verified touchpoints within each account.
Why This Matters
Accurate contact data across every seniority tier allows teams to reach full buying groups, not just the executive layer. A 30 to 40-point accuracy difference can translate into hundreds of additional verified contacts per thousand prospects, improving connect rates and supporting deeper account penetration.
Consistent accuracy makes sure CRM data reflects the complete decision chain, strengthening forecasting and giving sales teams the coverage needed for multi-threaded outreach.
Market and Location Breakdown
When region and market type are combined, Surfe’s enrichment accuracy stays consistently high while ZoomInfo’s coverage fluctuates by up to 10 percentage points between domestic and international datasets. That inconsistency makes scaling outbound programs across regions harder to manage and less predictable.
| Location | Market | Surfe Email Find Rate | Surfe Mobile Find Rate | Zoominfo Email Find Rate | Zoominfo Mobile Find Rate |
| EMEA | SMB | 90.49% | 92.87% | 46.80% | 56.67% |
| APAC | SMB | 85.40% | 91.06% | 39.60% | 46.17% |
| AMER | SMB | 89.35% | 98.38% | 42.24% | 55.78% |
| EMEA | MM | 91.78% | 94.39% | 54.77% | 64.30% |
| APAC | MM | 86.10% | 91.52% | 48.74% | 52.53% |
| AMER | MM | 90.94% | 97.97% | 54.16% | 63.22% |
| EMEA | ENT | 89.53% | 94.40% | 62.09% | 71.12% |
| APAC | ENT | 86.51% | 94.96% | 57.73% | 61.69% |
| AMER | ENT | 94.78% | 98.92% | 64.57% | 70.68% |
In the US market, Surfe verified 90.21% of emails and 96.18% of mobile numbers: a steady performance across both data types. ZoomInfo’s domestic coverage was notably lower, returning 58.43% for email and 65.32% for mobile, creating a 30 to 35-point difference in verified reach.
Outside the US, Surfe’s accuracy remained stable at 88.74% and 93.85% respectively. ZoomInfo’s international coverage declined further, to 49.11% for email and 56.08% for mobile: a gap of nearly 40 percentage points.
For global sales teams, that level of variance means fewer verified contacts and higher enrichment costs when scaling into non-US markets.
Why This Matters
Consistent performance across geographies enables teams to run one enrichment process globally, not region by region. A 30 to 40-point difference in accuracy translates to thousands of additional verified contacts across international campaigns, improving connect rates and reducing manual data maintenance.
For leadership, stability across markets strengthens forecasting accuracy, ensures predictable ROI, and turns enrichment into a scalable, repeatable growth system rather than a localized fix.
Sell anywhere, reach everyone
With Surfe, your team gets verified contact data for every role in every region — so global outreach feels local.
Role and Location Breakdown
When geography and role are combined, Surfe’s accuracy remains steady across all seniority levels in every region, while ZoomInfo’s performance drops sharply outside the US. In some international segments, the gap widens to more than 35 percentage points: enough to limit verified reach across full buying groups.
| Location | Level | Surfe Email Find Rate | Surfe Mobile Find Rate | Zoominfo Email Find Rate | Zoominfo Mobile Find Rate |
| EMEA | C-Level | 90.37% | 95.08% | 49.59% | 64.14% |
| EMEA | Decision Makers | 91.24% | 94.77% | 58.27% | 65.09% |
| EMEA | Practitioners | 89.26% | 89.88% | 52.76% | 61.35% |
| APAC | C-Level | 86.88% | 95.23% | 44.33% | 54.08% |
| APAC | Decision Makers | 85.95% | 93.74% | 52.49% | 56.70% |
| APAC | Practitioners | 84.95% | 86.29% | 46.77% | 45.97% |
| AMER | C-Level | 91.18% | 97.45% | 50.59% | 60.98% |
| AMER | Decision Makers | 91.35% | 99.26% | 56.00% | 65.76% |
| AMER | Practitioners | 93.37% | 97.89% | 52.71% | 60.54% |
In North America, Surfe verified 90% or more of emails and 96% or more of mobile numbers across all roles. ZoomInfo’s accuracy ranged between 54% and 66%, leaving roughly a third of records incomplete.
Across EMEA, Surfe stayed above 88% for both data types, while ZoomInfo’s performance fell to between 49% and 61%.
In APAC, Surfe remained steady at 85–93%, while ZoomInfo’s accuracy declined to the mid-40s for both emails and mobiles.
The data shows that Surfe delivers reliable enrichment for every role and region combination, maintaining global consistency even as complexity increases. ZoomInfo’s results indicate significant volatility across markets, reducing verified reach and undermining global pipeline accuracy.
Why This Matters
Reaching full buying groups across multiple regions depends on consistent, verified data at every seniority level.
A 30 to 40-point performance gap across role and region can mean thousands of missed contacts, limiting both market coverage and deal progression. For leadership, accuracy that holds across geographies and roles ensures stable forecasting, cleaner CRM segmentation, and more dependable multi-market execution.
Region, Market, and Role-Based Breakdown
Looking at performance by data type, Surfe delivers near-identical accuracy across email and mobile, while ZoomInfo trails in both. The difference here determines how much of a campaign actually connects with its intended audience.
| Location | Market | Level | Surfe Email Find Rate | Surfe Mobile Find Rate | Zoominfo Email Find Rate | Zoominfo Mobile Find Rate |
| EMEA | SMB | C-Level | 93.21% | 93.21% | 44.44% | 59.26% |
| EMEA | SMB | Decision Makers | 90.22% | 94.57% | 51.09% | 57.25% |
| EMEA | SMB | Practitioners | 87.16% | 88.07% | 39.45% | 51.38% |
| APAC | SMB | C-Level | 86.98% | 94.08% | 30.77% | 43.79% |
| APAC | SMB | Decision Makers | 85.39% | 91.01% | 45.69% | 50.94% |
| APAC | SMB | Practitioners | 83.04% | 86.61% | 38.39% | 38.39% |
| AMER | SMB | C-Level | 91.49% | 97.87% | 44.68% | 54.26% |
| AMER | SMB | Decision Makers | 87.89% | 99.22% | 39.45% | 57.42% |
| AMER | SMB | Practitioners | 89.09% | 97.27% | 44.55% | 54.55% |
| EMEA | MM | C-Level | 88.61% | 96.20% | 44.94% | 61.39% |
| EMEA | MM | Decision Makers | 93.33% | 94.81% | 58.15% | 64.07% |
| EMEA | MM | Practitioners | 92.52% | 90.65% | 60.75% | 69.16% |
| APAC | MM | C-Level | 87.35% | 96.39% | 48.80% | 59.64% |
| APAC | MM | Decision Makers | 86.13% | 93.70% | 50.84% | 52.94% |
| APAC | MM | Practitioners | 84.67% | 82.67% | 45.33% | 44.00% |
| AMER | MM | C-Level | 88.31% | 96.75% | 48.05% | 62.99% |
| AMER | MM | Decision Makers | 90.58% | 98.91% | 57.97% | 65.94% |
| AMER | MM | Practitioners | 95.50% | 97.30% | 53.15% | 56.76% |
| EMEA | ENT | C-Level | 89.29% | 95.83% | 58.93% | 71.43% |
| EMEA | ENT | Decision Makers | 90.22% | 94.93% | 65.58% | 73.91% |
| EMEA | ENT | Practitioners | 88.18% | 90.91% | 58.18% | 63.64% |
| APAC | ENT | C-Level | 86.31% | 95.24% | 53.57% | 58.93% |
| APAC | ENT | Decision Makers | 86.33% | 96.40% | 60.43% | 65.47% |
| APAC | ENT | Practitioners | 87.27% | 90.91% | 57.27% | 56.36% |
| AMER | ENT | C-Level | 93.45% | 97.62% | 59.52% | 66.67% |
| AMER | ENT | Decision Makers | 95.31% | 99.64% | 69.31% | 73.29% |
| AMER | ENT | Practitioners | 95.50% | 99.10% | 60.36% | 70.27% |
Surfe verified 89.42% of emails versus ZoomInfo’s 52.32%: a 37-point gap equating to roughly 370 more verified contacts per 1,000 prospects. Mobile performance shows the same pattern: 94.94% for Surfe compared with 60.24% for ZoomInfo, meaning more than a third of ZoomInfo’s numbers are invalid or missing.
ZoomInfo markets its strength in the US, yet its highest find rate, 73%, refers only to data found, not verified. That distinction matters. If one in four contacts is unusable, outreach efficiency, forecasting, and quota accuracy all go down.
Surfe, meanwhile, has less than a six-point variance between email and mobile, giving teams balanced accuracy, fewer data gaps, and predictable performance across channels.
Why This Matters
When enrichment underdelivers in its core market, it raises questions about reliability everywhere else.
For leadership, Surfe’s 30- to 40-point advantage means cleaner CRMs, steadier conversion rates, and an enrichment layer that scales globally.
Why Surfe is the Better Choice for Your Sales Team
The results reveal a platform built for accuracy, reliability, and scale. Where ZoomInfo’s dataset fluctuates across markets and roles, Surfe delivers the consistency that revenue teams depend on to forecast confidently and operate efficiently.
- Accuracy that scales: across every test, Surfe verified nearly 90% of emails and 95% of mobile numbers, outperforming ZoomInfo by more than 30 percentage points. This means more verified contacts entering the CRM, higher connect rates, and forecasts that reflect true pipeline potential, not inflated estimates.
- Global coverage without drop-off: ZoomInfo promotes its strength in the US, yet even in its core market, its highest find rate – 73% – refers only to data found, not verified. Surfe’s accuracy holds between 85% and 95% across the U.S., EMEA, APAC, and LATAM, ensuring global reach without regional blind spots.
- Consistent quality across every market segment: from SMB to Enterprise, Surfe’s enrichment results vary by less than six percentage points. That reliability gives leadership predictable data quality and enables teams to run one enrichment strategy across segments without extra tools or manual corrections.
- High enrichment accuracy: Surfe consistently achieves a 93%+ verified email find rate, with equally strong mobile coverage across all global markets. This precision gives sales and RevOps teams dependable reach wherever they operate.
- Waterfall enrichment across 15+ providers: data is dynamically sourced from more than fifteen verified providers, with credits only consumed when a valid match is confirmed, ensuring teams pay solely for usable, verified results.
- LinkedIn-native workflows: reps can enrich, message, and sync contact data directly from LinkedIn, removing manual exports and keeping enrichment and outreach in one seamless motion.
- Deep CRM and engagement integrations: Surfe connects directly with Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive, Salesloft, and other major platforms, syncing verified data into existing systems and ensuring accurate, real-time reporting.
- Signals and automation: Surfe continuously surfaces live market signals, like job changes, funding rounds, hiring activity, AI-generated lookalikes, and tailored sales recommendations, helping teams prioritise prospects most likely to convert.
Together, these capabilities make Surfe a reliable, enterprise-ready alternative to ZoomInfo: accurate where it counts, consistent across every market, and built for teams that measure success in verified data, operational efficiency, and scalable growth.
Surfe vs Zoominfo ROI
When it comes to cost efficiency, the difference between Surfe and ZoomInfo is as much about transparency as performance. ZoomInfo’s pricing is variable, volume-based, and rarely disclosed publicly, making it difficult for teams to assess true ROI. Surfe, by contrast, offers clear, usage-based pricing and higher verified accuracy per credit spent.
| Platform | Plan / Model | Pricing (USD) | Pricing Structure |
| Surfe | Essential | $29 / user / month | Transparent, pay-per-verified-contact model. Credits used only when a match is confirmed. |
| Surfe | Pro | $59 / user / month | Predictable, scalable pricing: flexible tiers for team size and usage volume. |
| ZoomInfo | Pro Plan (est.) | $15,000–$18,000 / year (1–3 users) | Tiered, non-transparent pricing: bundled seats, data volume limits, and additional access costs. |
ZoomInfo’s high upfront fees and opaque seat-based structure make it difficult for teams to understand their true cost per verified contact. Reports suggest small teams can spend $15K–$18K annually for minimal access, and much more as usage scales.
Surfe, in contrast, charges only for verified matches. With plans starting at $29 and $59 per user per month, teams pay proportionally to actual performance. That structure eliminates wasted spend on incomplete data and gives leadership a direct link between enrichment cost and verified output.
Why This Matters
ROI clarity depends on transparency. When enrichment vendors hide pricing behind tiered bundles or charge for unverified data, spend becomes unpredictable, and results unmeasurable.
Surfe’s model ties every dollar to verified outcomes, ensuring accuracy scales with usage. For leadership, that means lower overhead, cleaner cost forecasting, and a pricing structure that grows in line with proven revenue performance, not locked contracts or inflated seat fees.
Conclusion
When comparing Surfe vs Zoominfo, what stands out most is the structural difference between the two models. ZoomInfo trades on size and legacy reach; Surfe is built for precision, transparency, and trust.
For leadership, that distinction is strategic. When data integrity becomes a shared foundation across Sales, RevOps, and Finance, the impact touches every part of revenue planning. Surfe enables that alignment: one verified dataset powering every decision, across every market.
