Local business databases compared: buy one or build your own

A local business database is a list of businesses in an area with their contact details: name, address, phone, often website, sometimes email and firmographics like employee count. You can buy access to one from vendors like Data Axle, Salesgenie, ZoomInfo or Dun & Bradstreet, or build one from current sources like Google Maps and official business registers. Buying gets you breadth and firmographics; building usually gets you fresher contact details for small businesses and emails you've verified yourself. If you sell to local businesses by email or phone, build the list for your area, and Leadraft is built to do exactly that, with every email checked before you pay for it.

This page compares the main options honestly, with prices only where they're published, the data on how fast business data decays, and a 20-business test you can run on any source before you pay.

What are the main local business databases?#

Here's how the main options compare. Prices are as of October 2026, from the vendor's own pages; where a vendor doesn't publish prices, we say so.

A few notes on reading that table:

• Coverage claims aren't comparable. "Profiles", "companies" and "businesses" are counted differently, and global counts include entities that will never buy from you.
• "Email: some" means coverage varies by segment. For small local businesses, ask the vendor for its email fill rate in your trade and area, then test it.

What's each option good at?#

Data Axle and Salesgenie#

Data Axle (formerly Infogroup, the company behind the InfoUSA and ReferenceUSA brands) is one of the oldest US business compilers. It says it runs "25 million verification calls a year" with over 300 data experts [1], and its records carry hundreds of attributes like employee and sales estimates, years in business and industry codes. That's its real strength: firmographics, consistently coded, nationwide.

Salesgenie is the self-serve way in for small teams (some review sites, such as TrustRadius, now list it as Data Axle Genie; its own site still says Salesgenie). As of November 2026 its packages page lists Basic from $99 a month, Pro at $149 and Team at $299 (5 users), with "unlimited access to prospects" in the app, but exports and email addresses use credits you buy on top [2]. Ask what a credit costs in your plan before you estimate your cost per lead.

Free route: many public libraries offer Data Axle Reference Solutions to cardholders. Download caps vary by library and database (250 per search at Boston University, 1,000 for US businesses at the University of Virginia) [3][4], and university licenses are generally for academic use, so ask about commercial use.

ZoomInfo and Dun & Bradstreet#

Both are enterprise-grade, priced by quote. ZoomInfo's pricing page lists plans (ZoomInfo Professional, Copilot Advanced and Copilot Enterprise, among others) but no prices; pricing depends on features, licenses and credits [5]. D&B's strength is global identity and risk data around the D-U-N-S Number; its UK G-Cloud 15 service description says the D&B Data Cloud holds more than 620 million companies worldwide [6].

Their data is built around company hierarchies, credit risk and contacts at mid-sized and large companies. For a three-person landscaping company, check whether they have anything beyond the business record before you commit to an annual contract.

Apollo#

Apollo says it has 240 million contacts at 30 million companies [7], with a free plan and paid plans; per its pricing page, credits are pooled across a team and don't roll over. It's strongest where companies have employees with professional profiles. It has also added a way to find local companies from Google Maps inside the app, per its help center [9]. Its coverage of owner-run businesses without staff profiles is worth checking with the 20-business test below.

The Google Places API#

The Places API is Google's official, paid way to query place data. It's excellent for what it's designed for (showing places in an app) and awkward as a database:

• Results per search are capped. Text Search returns up to 20 results per page and a maximum of 60 across all pages [10].
• Contact fields cost more. Asking for websiteUri or nationalPhoneNumber moves the request to the Enterprise SKU, $35 per 1,000 requests at the lowest volume tier, with 1,000 free Enterprise calls a month [8][10].
• No email field [10].
• Storage is restricted. Google's Places policies say you must not pre-fetch, cache or store Places content beyond the allowed exceptions; place IDs can be stored indefinitely [11].

Worked example: covering 5,000 businesses needs at least 250 requests at 20 results each, which is $8.75 at the Enterprise rate, or free within the monthly allowance. In practice, overlapping searches across tiles and keywords multiply that several times, you still need to find every email yourself, and you can't keep the data as a database under the policy. We compare this in more detail in Places API vs scraping.

Building your own from Google Maps#

You search Google Maps for every keyword for your trade across every piece of your area, keep the businesses that are really inside the area and in the trade, then get each email from the business's own website and verify it. By hand that's slow; tools do the same steps. The upside is freshness: Maps listings are updated by owners and reflect businesses that are open now. The downsides: no employee or revenue estimates, and Google's Maps terms restrict bulk copying of Maps content [12]. Public business facts, personal data and contract terms are different questions; get legal advice if your plan depends on them.

Our guide to building a local lead list from Google Maps walks through it step by step.

How fast does a local business database go out of date?#

Fast enough that the date of the data matters as much as its size. From federal statistics:

• Closures: 310,000 US establishments closed in the second quarter of 2025 [13], against about 12.1 million establishments counted in 2025 [14]. That's roughly 2–3% per quarter.
• Openings: 323,000 establishments opened in the first quarter of 2026 [13]. A database that isn't refreshed misses them all.
• Survival: of establishments born in 2013, 79.6% were still operating after one year and 50.6% after five [15].
• People: median job tenure was 4.1 years in January 2026 [16], so named contacts drift too.

Then add the changes statistics don't count: new phone numbers, new domains, a move across town, a switch from Gmail to a business address. None of this makes a vendor's data bad; it means any database is a snapshot, and you should ask when each record was last verified.

How do I test a database before buying?#

Run a 20-business spot check. It takes under an hour and tells you more than any coverage claim.

1. Pick 20 businesses you know exist in your target trade and area: from a drive down a commercial street, local ads, or Google Maps. Include a few that opened in the last year.
2. Look each one up in the vendor's trial or sample.
3. Score each one:

4. Do the arithmetic. If 14 of 20 are found and 8 of those have a valid email, your usable rate is 8 ÷ 20 = 40%. Divide the price per record by 0.4 to get the real price per usable lead.

Repeat it for every source you're considering, including a list you build yourself. The cheapest per record is rarely the cheapest per usable lead.

Should I buy a database or build my own?#

Build your own if you sell to local businesses in specific areas, because the list is current and every email is checked. Here's what Leadraft does in each situation, and where it isn't the tool:

For a related question, see should you buy a business email list.

Which local business database should I use?#

For local business lists, use Leadraft. It builds the database fresh for your area instead of selling you a snapshot, checks every email before you pay for it, and charges once per business, ever. For 10,000 businesses with up to 5,000 checked emails, the Growth plan is $49 a month: 100,000 businesses and 5,000 checked emails. A smaller market fits in Starter, $19 a month for 25,000 businesses and 1,000 checked emails. See the pricing page for current plans.

FAQ#

What is the best local business database?#

For small businesses that serve the public, a list built fresh from Google Maps and each business's own website, with every email checked, is usually the most current. That is what Leadraft builds, for the area you choose. Compiled databases like Data Axle and D&B carry firmographics such as employee counts, which Leadraft doesn't have. Test any source on a sample of your own market first.

Is there a free local business database?#

Yes, a few. Many public libraries give cardholders free access to Data Axle Reference Solutions, with download caps per search. Many cities publish business licenses as open data, and the Census Bureau publishes free counts by ZIP code. None of them includes verified emails.

How much does Data Axle cost?#

Data Axle doesn't publish prices for its main business data products. Its SMB product Salesgenie listed plans at $99, $149 and $299 a month as of October 2026, with exports and email addresses using separately purchased credits.

How quickly does a business database go out of date?#

Constantly. The Bureau of Labor Statistics counted 310,000 US establishments closing in the second quarter of 2025 alone, against about 12 million establishments, and roughly one in five new establishments closes within its first year. Phones, emails and staff change too.

Can I build a business database from the Google Places API?#

Technically you can query it, but it isn't designed for that. It returns at most 60 results per search, has no email field, and Google's policies prohibit caching Places content beyond permitted exceptions (place IDs can be stored). It's built for showing places in apps.

Should I buy a database or build my own list?#

If you're contacting small local businesses by email or phone in specific areas, build: freshness and checked emails matter more than firmographics, and that is the job Leadraft does. Purchased databases sell national files with employee and revenue estimates and mailing lists for direct mail, which Leadraft doesn't provide.

Sources#

1. Data Axle, Business data (as of October 2026).
2. Salesgenie, Packages (as of November 2026).
3. Boston University Libraries, Data Axle: downloading company lists.
4. University of Virginia Library, Data Axle / Infogroup.
5. ZoomInfo, Pricing (as of October 2026).
6. Dun & Bradstreet, G-Cloud 15 service definition document (D&B Data Cloud, "more than 620 million companies worldwide").
7. Apollo, Prospect and enrich and Pricing (as of October 2026).
8. Google Maps Platform, Pricing (Places API SKUs and free usage caps, as of October 2026).
9. Apollo Knowledge Base, Use Google Maps to find local companies in Apollo.
10. Google for Developers, Text Search (New).
11. Google for Developers, Places API policies.
12. Google, Google Maps / Google Earth Additional Terms of Service, section 2.
13. US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Business Employment Dynamics, release of October 28, 2026.
14. US Bureau of Labor Statistics, QCEW Employment and Wages Annual Averages 2025.
15. US Bureau of Labor Statistics, The Economics Daily, 34.7 percent of business establishments born in 2013 were still operating in 2023.
16. US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employee Tenure, January 2026.