Phone number lookup is your best bet to ensure your database of contacts is active and real.
But what tool should you be using?
In this post, we’ll share everything you need to know about phone number look-up services and how you can use them for phone number searches when identifying leads.
A phone number lookup service is a tool that allows you to enter a phone number and retrieve information about the person or business associated with it. It is the opposite of a traditional phone book, where you look up a name to find a phone number.
However, some services like lemlist offer this feature where you can look up a name online and get any phone number associated with their professional accounts like LinkedIn.
So when dealing with a new business contact, you can run a quick check to confirm that you’ll be speaking to the right person during a sales call.
Phone lookup services can be helpful, but you should also respect people’s privacy and their personal information.
So here are a few tips to ensure you remain respectful;
Look for established companies with clear data sources and privacy policies.
Free services might be tempting, but their information might be inaccurate or outdated. This can be a problem for your business.
Only some things you see online are true, especially with free lookups.
Verify information through multiple sources before concluding.
Fair use policies exist for a reason. Avoid excessive lookups, especially on the same number, to avoid harassment.
To verify a phone number or business contact, you need the right tool for your specific needs. This is why you need to understand how they work before getting started.
Depending on the software or service you choose, your phone number look-up could work in any of these two ways;
This is the most common type of phone number lookup.
You enter the phone number and the software then reviews public and private databases to find information about the owner of the number. This could include the owner’s name, address, location and phone carrier.
In some cases, it would also contain a spam and risk score. Oftentimes, this is used as a phone number verifier.
In this case, you upload a list of contacts and the software scans through several databases to give you a contact number.
Most times, the contacts you upload could be either email addresses or LinkedIn profiles. Tools that offer this often provide a Chrome extension so you can find leads and their phone numbers straight from within LinkedIn.
Want to start looking up phone numbers online and not sure where to start from? Here are the top phone number lookup services you can consider;
Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐
G2 - 4.4/5 (16 reviews)
Overview
Datagma is a phone number lookup service that goes beyond basic phone number lookup.
It looks through the internet, searching for publicly available data to identify the owner of a phone number.
This includes name, location, and potentially carrier information. It also uses the database and algorithms to discover business and individual email addresses associated with a name or company.
Datagma also has a LinkedIn integration that uses a Chrome extension to retrieve contact details directly from the LinkedIn profiles you search for. It can extract verified email addresses and phone numbers whenever you upload a contact.
Additionally, Datagma offers WhatsApp integration too.
Pricing
Free plan, $32/month on Discover plan, and $55/month on the Premium plan.
✅ Pros
❌ Cons
Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Capterra - 4.5/5 (62 reviews) | G2 4.4/5 (24 reviews)
Overview
While primarily designed for direct consumers, Truecaller is a free phone look-up service that uses reverse phone lookup to identify the details associated with a phone number, allowing you to block spammers.
Once you search for the phone number on the search bar, you’ll see details like location, caller’s name, and a spam statistic to help you measure the spam risk of that number
The major difference here is that the information is entirely crowdsourced from the Truecaller community. So you’re getting details based on the interaction that number has had with other people.
For example, if a caller ID is mostly stored as ‘Food delivery’, that’s what will be displayed in the results you get.
This tool is particularly great for small teams because you can quickly dial a number and get the details from Truecaller before proceeding to the call.
Pricing
Free plan, and custom pricing for the business plan
✅ Pros
❌ Cons
Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Comparably- 3.5/5 (215 reviews), Gartner - 5/5 (2 reviews)
Overview
Whitepages were initially used for background checks. However, you can use it to find a business contact and get their contact information like emails and phone numbers. Since the searches are confidential, you can quickly get verified phone numbers using its search engines.
These search engines go through public records search and premium data partners to provide the most accurate details available. It’s perfect for business owners who want to maintain an up-to-date database of customers.
You can also run a reverse phone lookup with this service. Simply add the phone numbers you want to verify and it’ll search billions of phone records to provide the name linked to the number.
Pricing:
$4.99/month for contact info, $9.99/month for business and $29.99/month for business all-access. But can only be accessed from the U.S.
Although you can access the free page from anywhere.
✅ Pros
❌ Cons
Rating ⭐⭐⭐
Consumer Affairs - 3.3/5 (576 reviews) | Trustpilot - 2.4/5 (319 reviews)
Overview
The Intelius phone lookup service uses a reverse phone lookup to find details associated with a phone number.
Each search provides a report that could include the name, known aliases, and other contact information of the owner like email addresses and other phone numbers.
You can even get the social media profiles associated with that number like LinkedIn, Facebook or Instagram profiles.
Pricing
$0.95 for a 5-day trial or $21.35/month for People Search
✅ Pros
❌ Cons
Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Gartner - 4.4/5 (91 reviews) | G2 - 3/5 (6 reviews)
Overview
Experian offers a free phone validation tool that ensures you call the right person at all times.
Specifically designed for businesses, you don’t have to waste productive time calling the wrong numbers.
The reverse phone append feature provides all information associated with a phone number. It also has an API that can run on your website to check before adding a contact to your database.
The best part is that you can do a bulk upload and regularly maintain your list with this service. While you can validate some numbers for free, you need to be subscribed to the service to validate more numbers.
Pricing
Custom pricing from $1000/annum
✅ Pros
❌ Cons
If you’re considering whether paying for a phone number lookup service or tool is worth the price, you should compare both options.
Free services are great for smaller businesses who want to verify a few contacts. They offer straightforward features with simple interfaces. However, they tend to offer lower accuracy, limited information and sometimes ads.
Paid services, on the other hand, often get their details from private databases, so they offer more comprehensive information. These paid services also offer additional features and higher accuracy.
So it all boils down to what your business needs at a particular time. Nevertheless, if you’re going to use this system on a regular basis, we recommend investing on a paid plan.
Getting quality prospects requires staying on top of the most productive tools you can get. This includes getting more advanced tools to qualify your leads.
Tools like lemlist offer more accurate data, more customisation and advanced verification.
lemlist uses a waterfall enrichment method to combine information from third-party data sources that provide 40-55% more accurate contacts. Also finding the numbers is just the beginning. You also need a robust engagement tool to keep them engaged and interested.
Learn more about lemlist's lead database, and Email Finder and Verifier here.
G2 Rating | Price | Best for | Standout feature | Con | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
4.9 star star star star star | $30/mo $75/mo $2,999/mo | Large, distributed sales teams | AI evaluation precision, gamified KPIs | Lack of tracking system | |
4.6 star star star star star-half | Not publicly available | Sales operations and finance teams | Powerful configurability | Limited training resources and complex to navigate | |
4.4 star star star star star-half | Not publicly available | Mid-market and enterprise businesses | Comprehensive incentive management | Potentially high cost and steep learning curve | |
4.7 star star star star star-half | $15/user/mo $40/user/mo Enterprise: custom price | Complex sales structures and businesses of all sizes | Complex sales structures and businesses of all sizes | Steep learning curve | |
4.6 star star star star star-half | Not publicly available | Collaborative teams | Connected planning | Complexity and steep learning curve | |
4.6 star star star star star-half | Not publicly available | Companies with complex sales structures | Complex incentive compensation management (ICM) with high efficiency and accuracy | Complexity for smaller teams and potentially high costs | |
4.7 star star star star star-half | Not publicly available | Companies who want to automate commission calculations and payouts | Simplicity and ease of use | Lack of features like redirection | |
4.7 star star star star star-half | $30/user/mo $35/user/mo Custom: upon request | Businesses that need a comprehensive and user-friendly sales compensation management software | Ease of use and adoption | Lack of ability to configure the product based on user needs | |
4.8 star star star star star-half | Not publicly available | Companies with modern sales culture and businesses who want real-time insights | A built-in dispute management and real-time visibility | Users say it works slowly, customer support is slow | |
4.9 star star star star star | $30/user/mo $50/user/mo | Smaller sales teams | Powerful automation | Lesser user base and average user interface | |
4.7 star star star star star-half | Not publicly available | Companies with scalable needs | Automated Commission Calculations | Lack of filtering by date, no mobile app |
PRM Tool | Rating | Feature | Pro | Con | Mobile App | Integrations | Free Plan | Pricing |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
4.65 star star star star star-half | Org-wide alignment | User-friendly layout and database | Suboptimal as a personal CRM | square-check | Lack of tracking system | square-check | Team: $20/month Business: $45/month | |
4.7 star star star star star-half | Social Media Integration | Easy contact data collection | No marketing/sales features | square-check | Lack of tracking system | square-xmark 7-day trial | $12/month | |
4.75 star star star star star-half | Block Functions | High customization capability | Not a dedicated CRM | square-check | Limited | square-check | Plus: €7.50/month Business: €14/month | |
N/A | Open-source | Open-source flexibility | Requires extensive manual input | square-xmark | Limited | square-check Self-hosted | $9/month or $90/year | |
3.1 star star star | Simple iOS app | Ideal for non-tech-savvy users | iPhone only | square-check iOS only | Limited | square-xmark 1-month trial | $1.49/month or $14.99/month | |
3.6 star star star star-half | Smart Contact Management | Feature-rich and flexible | Reported bugs | square-check | Rich | square-xmark 7-day trial | Premium: $13.99/month Teams: $17.99/month | |
4.4 star star star star star-half | Customizable Interface | Customizable for teamwork | Pricey for personal use | square-check | Rich | square-xmark | Standard: $24/member Premium: $39/member | |
4.7 star star star star star-half | Integrated Calling | Integrated Calling | Too sales-oriented & pricey | square-check | Rich | square-xmark 14-day trial | Startup: $59/user/month Professional: $329/user/month | |
4.8 star star star star star | Business Card Scanning | Business Card Scanning | Mobile only | square-check | Limited | square-check | $9.99/month | |
4.45 star star star star star-half | 160+ app integrations | Comprehensive integrations | No free app version | square-check | Rich | square-xmark 14-day trial | $29.90/month or $24.90/month (billed annually) |
Capterra Rating | Free Trial | Free Plan | Starting Price (excluding the free plan) | Maximum Price (for the most expensive plan) | Best for | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
4.5 star star star star star-half | square-check 14-day | square-check | €15/month/seat billed annually | €792/month/3 seats billed annually + €45/month for each extra seat | Versatility and free plan | |
4.2 star star star star | square-check 30-day | square-xmark But it offers reduced price to authorised nonprofit organisations | €25/user/month | €500/user/month billed annually (includes Einstein AI) | Best overall operational CRM | |
4.3 star star star star star-half | square-xmark | square-check Limited to 3 users | Comprehensive incentive management | €52/user/month billed annually | Small-medium businesses and automation | |
4.5 star star star star star-half | square-check 14-day | square-xmark | €14/seat/month billed annually | €99/seat/month billed annually | Sales teams and ease of use | |
4.1 star star star star | square-xmark | square-check Limited 10 users | $9.99/user/month billed annually | $64.99/user/month billed annually | Free plan for very small teams up to 10 |
CRM goal | Increase the sales conversion rate for qualified leads from marketing automation campaigns by 10% in the next 6 months. | ||||
SMART Breakdown | 1. Specific: It targets a specific area (conversion rate) for a defined segment (qualified leads from marketing automation). | 2. Measurable: The desired increase (10%) is a clear metric, and the timeframe (6 months) allows for progress tracking. | 3. Achievable: A 10% increase is possible based on historical data and potential improvements. | 4. Relevant: Boosting sales from marketing efforts aligns with overall business objectives. | 5. Time-bound: The 6-month timeframe creates urgency and a clear target date. |
Actions | Step 1: Refine lead qualification criteria to ensure high-quality leads are nurtured through marketing automation. | Step 2: Personalize marketing automation campaigns based on lead demographics, interests, and behavior. | Step 3: Develop targeted landing pages with clear calls to action for qualified leads. | Step 4: Implement lead scoring to prioritize high-potential leads for sales follow-up. | Step 5: Track and analyze campaign performance to identify areas for optimization. |
Outcomes | Increased sales and revenue | Improved marketing automation ROI | Marketing and sales alignment | Data-driven marketing optimization |