A complete B2B sales-intelligence stack — discovery, enrichment, contact finding, email validation, and tech-stack qualification — assembled from 5 pay-per-result actors. Total monthly cost typically $10-150 vs $1,000-15,000/seat for Apollo Pro, ZoomInfo Pro, or Clearbit Reveal.
The lead-gen tooling market consolidated into three categories: (1) massive contact databases like Apollo and ZoomInfo, where you pay per seat for access to ~250M-300M pre-scraped contacts; (2) enrichment APIs like Clearbit and Datanyze, where you pay per lookup but bundled with a SaaS platform fee; (3) scraping-as-a-service like Bright Data and Octoparse, which sell raw infrastructure but leave the workflow to you. None of these fit a small or mid-sized B2B team running 500-5,000 leads/month — too expensive at the seat tier, too generic at the scraper tier.
NexGenData’s lead-gen actors are a fourth model: composable per-result pricing. Each actor does one specific job well, billed per record returned, and outputs to JSON/CSV with overlapping keys for clean joining. Compose them into the exact pipeline your sales process needs.
The 5-actor stack
| Stage | Actor | Input | Output |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Discovery | B2B Leads Finder + Hiring Signal Detector | ICP keyword / geo / industry | Company list with domains |
| 2. Enrichment | Lead List Enricher | Company name or domain | Firmographics + tech stack + size |
| 3. Contact discovery | Company Email Finder + Contact Info Scraper | Domain + role hints | Verified exec emails + phones |
| 4. Email validation | Bulk Email Validator | Email address list | Deliverability + risk per email |
| 5. Tech-stack qualification | Tech Stack Detector | Domain | Technologies in use |
Why this beats Apollo, ZoomInfo, Clearbit for SDR teams under 10 seats
| Feature | NexGenData stack | Apollo Pro | ZoomInfo Pro | Clearbit / Breeze |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cost — solo SDR (500 leads/mo) | $10-15 | $147/seat | $1,500+/seat | $999+/mo |
| Cost — 3-person team (5K leads/mo) | $80-150 | $441/mo (3 seats) | $4,500+/mo | $999-2,500/mo |
| Contact database (pre-scraped) | No (you scrape on demand) | 250M+ contacts | 300M+ contacts | ~120M contacts |
| Compose-your-own pipeline | Yes — actor chaining | Limited (workflows) | Yes (workflows) | API integrations |
| Output formats | JSON / CSV / Excel | CSV export per query | CSV + API | API + webhook |
| API access | Apify actor API (standard) | Apollo API on enterprise tier | API on Pro+ | Native API |
| GDPR / CAN-SPAM compliant outputs | Yes — B2B-only data | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Email deliverability validation | Yes — included in stack | Yes — bundled | Yes — bundled | Yes |
| Free tier? | Yes (Apify free credits) | 50 credits/mo free | No | No |
The standard outbound pipeline
Most B2B outbound workflows reduce to the same 5-step pipeline. Here’s the NexGenData stack mapped to each step:
Step 1 — Discovery (find companies matching your ICP)
Input: ICP definition (industry, geography, company size). Output: company-name list with domains.
- B2B Leads Finder — broad-keyword search across business directories
- Hiring Signal Detector — companies actively hiring for specific roles (high-intent signal)
- Google Maps Scraper — local business discovery by category + radius
- Yelp Business Scraper — local business directory enrichment
Step 2 — Enrichment (company name to firmographic profile)
Input: company name list. Output: domain + tech stack + employee count + industry + location.
- Lead List Enricher — full firmographic enrichment
- Company Enrichment Tool — domain-only enrichment (lighter weight)
Step 3 — Contact discovery (find the decision-makers)
Input: domain + role hints. Output: exec/director names + verified emails + LinkedIn URLs.
- Company Email Finder — role-targeted email discovery (CEO, VP Eng, Head of Marketing, etc.)
- Contact Info Scraper — bulk emails + phones from a domain
- Website Email Extractor — crawl-based extraction across all site pages
Step 4 — Email validation (filter deliverable from bounce)
Input: email-address list. Output: status (valid / invalid / unknown) + risk flags per email.
- Bulk Email Validator — MX lookup + SMTP probe per email
- DMARC Bulk Auditor — domain-level deliverability check (DMARC / SPF / DKIM)
Step 5 — Qualification (filter to ICP-fit accounts)
Input: domain. Output: detected technologies, qualifying signals for your ICP.
- Tech Stack Detector — 2,500+ technology fingerprints
- Shopify Store Analyzer — for ecommerce-focused targeting
- SaaS Pricing Tracker — pricing intel for competitive positioning
Cost worked example: 3-person SDR team, 5,000 enriched leads/month
| Step | Volume | Actor + rate | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Discovery (B2B Leads Finder) | 5,000 companies | $0.005/result | $25.00 |
| Enrichment (Lead List Enricher) | 5,000 records | $0.005/result | $25.00 |
| Contact discovery (Email Finder) | 5,000 contacts | $0.010/result | $50.00 |
| Email validation | 5,000 emails | $0.001/check | $5.00 |
| Tech-stack qualification | 5,000 sites | $0.005/site | $25.00 |
| Total monthly cost | $130 | ||
| Equivalent Apollo Pro stack | $147/seat × 3 | $441 | |
| Equivalent ZoomInfo Pro | $1,500+/seat × 3 | $4,500+ |
When to use this stack vs Apollo/ZoomInfo
Use NexGenData’s lead-gen stack if: you’re an early-stage company under 10 SDRs; you want full control over the schema and pipeline; you target a non-standard ICP that Apollo’s pre-built database doesn’t cover well (e.g., very-small businesses, international markets, niche industries); or you need raw JSON/CSV exports for custom ML / scoring pipelines.
Use Apollo or ZoomInfo if: you have a large outbound team (15+ SDRs); you need email sequencing + dialer + CRM in one tool; you target the U.S. tech market where Apollo’s contact coverage is densest; or your team is non-technical and doesn’t want to manage an actor-chaining pipeline.
Frequently asked questions
How does this stack compare to Apollo, ZoomInfo, or Clearbit?
Apollo charges $49-149/month per seat for unlimited contacts within their database (~250M people). ZoomInfo is $14K+/year per seat with deeper firmographics. Clearbit (acquired by HubSpot, now Breeze Intelligence) is $99-999/month for enrichment + reveal. The NexGenData lead-gen stack charges per record returned — typically $5-50/month for a small team — and gives you raw control over the input/output schema. The trade-off: you don’t get Apollo’s massive contact database out of the box, but you can build any contact dataset you want by composing the actors.
Which actor do I start with?
Depends on your input. If you have **company names**, start with the Lead List Enricher to get domains + tech stack + employee count. If you have **domains**, run the Company Enrichment Tool to get firmographics + then Company Email Finder for the exec contacts. If you have **a target market or geography**, run the Hiring Signal Detector or B2B Leads Finder to discover companies first.
Can I run all of these together as a pipeline?
Yes — the actors are designed to chain. The standard B2B outbound pipeline is: (1) Discovery (B2B Leads Finder or Hiring Signal Detector) → (2) Domain enrichment (Lead List Enricher) → (3) Contact discovery (Company Email Finder or Contact Info Scraper) → (4) Email validation (Bulk Email Validator) → (5) Tech-stack qualification (Wappalyzer Replacement). All five actors output JSON/CSV with overlapping keys for clean joins.
How fresh is the data?
Most actors run on-demand against live sources, so freshness is whatever the source publishes. Company Enrichment runs against the target’s live website + WHOIS + DNS — that’s same-day fresh. Hiring Signal Detector pulls live job postings — usually within hours of posting. Lead List Enricher uses domain fingerprinting + search APIs that refresh daily.
What’s the typical monthly cost?
A solo SDR running ~500 enriched leads/month spends ~$10-15 total across the stack. A 3-person sales team running ~5,000 leads/month spends ~$80-150 total. That replaces Apollo Pro at $147+/seat, ZoomInfo Pro at $1,500+/seat, and Clearbit Reveal at $999/month. Cost-per-paying-customer (downstream conversion math) is typically 95%+ better than enterprise platforms.
What about GDPR / CCPA compliance?
All sources scraped are publicly-available business contact information (corporate domains, professional emails, public-facing employee directories). For consumer email validation or contact-discovery on private individuals, you need explicit consent — these actors are not the right tool for that. For B2B outreach, U.S. CAN-SPAM and most EU implementations of GDPR allow legitimate-interest cold outbound provided you include opt-out + identification — same standard Apollo/Outreach/Salesloft require.
Can I bring my own contact list and just enrich it?
Yes. Lead List Enricher accepts a CSV of company names or domains and returns enriched rows. Bulk Email Validator accepts an array of email addresses and returns deliverability + risk scoring per email. Company Email Finder accepts a domain + role hints (CEO, VP Engineering, etc.) and returns matching contacts.
NexGenData publishes 260+ buyer-intent actors covering sales intelligence, SEC filings, lead generation, news + press releases, and competitive intelligence — all pay-per-result. Browse the full catalog →