UpLead Review: Pros, Cons & a Smarter Alternative

Finding accurate lead data is a big challenge for sales teams, and UpLead promises a solution. 

But does it deliver? 

This article walks you through UpLead’s key features, pricing, and limitations. We also explore advanced tools that fill the gaps in UpLead’s offering. 

Is There a Better Option Than UpLead?

UpLead is a prospecting and data enrichment platform with a large B2B database of mobile numbers, email addresses, technographic data, and intent data. These features allow users to personalize messages and prioritize leads based on buying intent.

However, UpLead leaves you with a good bit of work to do later in the sales cycle. Specifically, you need to handle most outreach and nurturing tasks manually.

That’s why many sales reps are instead turning to tools that can automate lead discovery and outreach fully. These next-gen apps are freeing reps up to spend their time on important human tasks—calls, meetings, and closing deals. 

We’ll have a look at automation and AI-first prospecting tools later. First, let’s look at exactly what you get with UpLead—and what you don’t. 

UpLead Review: What You Get (and What You Don’t)

Before you choose a sales prospecting tool like UpLead, it's essential to understand what it can—and can’t—do for you. That's why you're here, after all. 

Here’s a quick overview:

Let's explore UpLead’s key features for sales teams in more depth. 

Verified B2B Contact Database

UpLead’s database contains contact information for over 160 million profiles, and it’s refreshed monthly. 

There’s also a feature called Quick Search for searching by contact name, company name, URL, or keyword, such as “CMO.” To help you find leads who match your ICP, it has over 50 search filters, including technographics, firmographics, and job titles.

But while the database is comprehensive, it is also US-focused. Teams working globally will struggle to find all the details they need. This is also true for sales teams working in niche areas with smaller businesses. 

Email Verification & Accuracy

One of UpLead’s best features is real-time email verification. The sales intelligence tool checks emails after you request them, with a promise of 95% data accuracy. And when it comes to that lost 5%, unlike some other tools, UpLead won’t charge credits if verification is unsuccessful.

UpLead provides high-quality data, which it promises will help your emails reach inboxes. However, it doesn’t offer any other warm-up tools, such as tracking deliverability scores or reporting. So, despite reaching out to bona fide accounts, you might be left with a ticket to the spam folder. 

CRM Integrations & Chrome Extension

UpLead integrates well with several sales platforms and CRMs, including Salesforce, Zapier, and HubSpot. 

UpLead also offers bulk API updates to your CRM. It doesn’t charge for API calls themselves, only for completed data. 

You can enrich profiles with key insights, such as company size, location, and contact details. A single company or person's data costs one credit. Combined results about a company and an employee also consume only one credit. 

When enriching an individual profile, you can search by email address or company name, and UpLead will fill up to 30+ attributes. 

You can also find decision-makers while you browse LinkedIn via the Chrome extension. This makes lead discovery simple and intuitive. 

But there’s a downside. Once you have the data, everything is manual from there on out.  You’re reliant on integrations to automate messaging and manage your sales pipeline. This increases campaign complexity, requiring that you juggle multiple tools—and multiple subscriptions. 

Intent Data & Technographics

As an advanced lead generation tool, Uplead provides a range of technographics, claiming to store over 27,000 datapoints. Sales reps can search by technology—for example, “HubSpot”—and immediately shortlist the companies using it. UpLead also allows teams to include or exclude multiple apps at once for precision. 

UpLead also supports intent-based marketing strategies with high-quality data from Bombora, a company that collects B2B sales data by gaining consent rather than scraping the web. It tracks which companies are searching for similar solutions. 

These features provide undeniably valuable insights, but to access them, you’ll need to upgrade your plan to the most costly Professional tier. 

Automate your outbound with an AI BDR

Meet Ava—your AI BDR who handles prospecting, outreach, and follow-ups, so your team can focus on closing.

Book a Demo

UpLead Pricing Breakdown

Cost is one of the most significant deciding factors for sales leaders. UpLeads’ tiers vary significantly, and you need to know precisely what you’ll get for your money to ensure a positive ROI. 

And keep in mind that you’ll have to pay out for other tools to streamline your sales pipeline fully. Let’s thoroughly investigate UpLead’s pricing and what each tier provides. 

Plans & Credits

UpLead uses a tiered pricing structure. While there is a seven-day free trial with five credits, it’s only a taster. To truly test the platform, you’ll need to pay. 

Here’s a breakdown of UpLead’s three (monthly)  paid tiers:

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  Essentials costs $99 per month for 170 credits, but it only provides emails, phone numbers, and CRM integrations.

  
  
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  Plus costs $199 per month for 400 credits, offering data enrichment, technographics, and advanced search filters. There are also suppression lists to prevent reactivating leads already in your CRM. 

  
  
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  Professional has custom credit limits and pricing. It’s the only way to access all of UpLead’s features, such as full API use and deeper buyer intent data. There is also additional customer support for onboarding. 

  
  

Across every tier, data quality remains high, but the credit system limits freedom. Sales teams can only access so many datapoints, forcing them to assess lead potential before enrichment. 

Hidden Costs of Manual Outreach

Despite paying hundreds of dollars monthly for data enrichment, you still need other tools to streamline your sales process. Otherwise, your team will waste time and resources manually messaging contacts. 

AI and automation can now save salespeople 2 hours and 15 minutes per day, according to research by HubSpot. 

To work efficiently, you’ll need a sequencing tool to organize your sales workflow and develop custom playbooks for different types of clients. B2B lead generation is just the start. 

You’ll also need an outreach tool that can personalize cold emails and track where leads are in the pipeline across multiple channels, such as LinkedIn. 

While you can create an automated pipeline, combining tools adds complexity. It makes forming a clear picture of leads and their position challenging. Ultimately, your team will need to get to grips with and manage multiple interfaces.

What UpLead Doesn’t Automate (And Why It Matters)

While UpLead adds intelligence to lead discovery, it lacks AI and automation features. In this section, we’ll explore UpLead’s manual features in detail and what they means for you.

Manual Lead Exports

Want to upload data to your CRM? You’ll need to transfer it using UpLead’s API manually. 

You’ll also need to search by prospect or company name. Therefore, your team will spend a lot of time hunting for leads. This could be the difference between you and a competitor reaching them first. You can’t set up smooth sequences that ensure you reach out to leads quickly.

No Personalization or Follow-Ups

UpLead won’t speed up your outbound sales strategy. All that intent data can only be interpreted using another tool or with a manual approach. You have to analyze and interpret data when contacting leads, writing emails from scratch.

And once you’ve reached out, you’ll have to track and manage your workflow on your own. There’s no help, such as alerts to notify you about lead activity. 

UpLead Is Still a Data Provider

Put simply, UpLead is a good data provider. The insights it provides, including technographics and intent data, will populate lead profiles reliably. 

But your team will have to do the rest of the work. From creating smart sequences to reporting, your team must work manually. And without A/B testing or insights into what’s working and what’s not, you may not find the optimal approach. 

Put simply, you gain insights, but nothing else changes for your team. This puts you at risk of falling behind competitors when it comes to driving efficiency. 

Introducing Artisan: What UpLead Misses, Artisan Automates

With UpLead lacking many key automation features, such as automated exports, workflow management, and outreach, your team has two choices: work manually or split your pipeline across disparate tools. 

Artisan allows you to consolidate all your sales requirements in one place. This makes it easier to prospect leads from Artisan’s 300 million-strong database, gain intent data, react to buying signals, and understand which leads to prioritize. 

But Artisan goes one step deeper, offering a virtual AI BDR called Ava. She automates lead discovery. She engages you in a conversation to understand who your ICP is and, from there, finds high-quality leads who match your requirements. 

Ava also automatically sends personalized messages, tailored to the recipient's activity. For example, if there has been a recent hiring push, Ava will customize messages to fit the update. This makes your communications more relevant and, therefore, more likely to resonate. 

With all of these features consolidated on one platform, your response speed is faster, and your sales reps are free to focus on meetings, calls, and closing deals.

UpLead vs. Artisan: Feature Comparison

Is UpLead Still the Right Fit?

UpLead works for teams that only need data enrichment. In this area, the B2B tool is comprehensive, providing highly accurate data. However, there is no automation for the lead generation process.

If you plan to automate parts of the sales pipeline at some point in the future, your team will need to adapt to another platform down the line. And working manually, teams need a lot of time to achieve results. 

For modern teams, these lost hours count. Automation gives you the best chance of being the first in the inbox. 

An all-in-one solution like Artisan provides agility, allowing your team to grow alongside the platform. AI BDR Ava searches for leads that match your ICP and enriches profiles with data from multiple sources. As the lead engages, Ava follows up with relevant messages and manages your pipeline, letting you step in only at the crucial human moments. 

Automate your outbound with an AI BDR

Meet Ava—your AI BDR who handles prospecting, outreach, and follow-ups, so your team can focus on closing.

Book a Demo