ContactOut vs Lusha: Chrome Extension Contact Finders for 2026
By Kushal Magar · October 19, 2026 · 10 min read
Key Takeaway
ContactOut wins on personal emails, Lusha on direct dials, and both live in a LinkedIn Chrome extension. ContactOut caps exports, Lusha charges 5 credits per phone reveal. Personal emails add GDPR risk in the EU and UK. Neither covers every contact, so a waterfall and CRM dedupe layer fills gaps and stops duplicates.
ContactOut vs Lusha is a choice between two LinkedIn Chrome extensions that sell different strengths: ContactOut is known for personal emails, Lusha for direct dials and verified business emails. Both reveal contact details while you browse a profile.
This guide compares how the extensions behave, credit and export rules, pricing, compliance and what happens once the contacts hit your CRM. Numbers from the vendors are labeled vendor claims, and we did not run our own accuracy test. For single-tool depth, read our ContactOut review and Lusha review.
Quick Verdict
Choose ContactOut when you need personal emails to reach candidates or executives who hide behind corporate filters.
Choose Lusha when phone outreach matters and you want business emails and direct dials in the same side panel, with a simple credit meter.
Use neither alone if coverage gaps and duplicate CRM records cost you replies. SyncGTM fills missing fields through a waterfall across 50+ providers and dedupes the contacts both extensions push in.
ContactOut vs Lusha: Side-by-Side Comparison
| Dimension | ContactOut | Lusha |
|---|---|---|
| Marketed strength | Personal and work emails from LinkedIn | Verified business emails and direct dials |
| Where the extension runs | LinkedIn profiles and search results, company websites (ContactOut Anywhere) | LinkedIn, Sales Navigator, CRM records, supported company sites |
| Database (vendor claim) | 800M profiles; 350M+ emails (150M personal, 200M work); 100M direct dials | Not compared here; see Lusha's own figures |
| Accuracy (vendor claim) | 99% confidence, triple verification | Verified data, no-bounce messaging |
| Free plan | Daily caps on emails, phones and exports | 40 credits per month |
| Credit model | Fair-use unlimited reveals with monthly export caps | 1 credit per email, 5 per phone |
| Team access | Self-serve is one user per company; Team/API is custom | Teams over 5 users go through sales |
| Best for | Recruiters, personal-email outreach | SDRs who want direct dials |
Figures come from the vendors' own pages: ContactOut's extension page and Lusha's extension page. They are vendor claims and are not independently verified.
How Each Chrome Extension Works
ContactOut
ContactOut overlays contact details on LinkedIn profiles and can bulk-reveal the results of a LinkedIn search in one click, per its extension page. A feature called ContactOut Anywhere looks for decision-makers on company websites. Contacts can sync to a CRM or ATS, with Salesforce, HubSpot, Lever, Greenhouse and Bullhorn listed as integrations. It also adds prospects to light email campaigns.
Lusha
Lusha works on LinkedIn, Sales Navigator, company sites and inside CRM records, where it enriches a contact when you open it. Revealed contacts save to Salesforce, HubSpot or another connected CRM. Lusha says the extension pulls from its own database rather than scraping LinkedIn. That is a vendor statement. If a lookup tool is not enough, see Lusha alternatives or ContactOut alternatives.
Personal Emails vs Direct Dials
ContactOut wins on personal emails and Lusha wins on direct dials, as far as each vendor positions itself. ContactOut claims 150M personal and 200M work emails plus 100M direct dials. Lusha markets verified emails, direct dials and mobile numbers, and charges more credits for phones than for emails.
Personal emails help with recruiting, former employees and executives behind strict filters. Direct dials help SDRs who call. If you only email, ContactOut's breadth matters more. If you call, check Lusha coverage for your countries first. If you want a work-email-only angle, our Hunter.io vs Lusha comparison is the closer read.
Accuracy Claims and How to Test Them
ContactOut states 99% confidence from triple verification and says the extension finds emails and phones for 75% of people on LinkedIn. Lusha describes its data as verified and promises low bounces. Third-party comparison posts repeat different numbers, and most do not publish a method or sample size.
Run your own check. Pick 50 to 100 prospects from your ICP, reveal them on both free plans, verify the emails with a separate verifier and compare bounce rates and phone connect rates by country. A single database always has holes, which is why teams adopt a waterfall approach.
Pricing and Credit Rules
Lusha
When we read lusha.com/pricing in October 2026, it listed:
- Free: 40 credits per month, with the extension and CRM integrations.
- Starter: $49.90/month for 400 credits. Professional: $69.90/month for 600. Premium: $399.90/month for 3,400. Annual billing is about 25% cheaper.
- 1 credit per verified email, 5 credits per phone. So 400 credits is roughly 80 phone reveals if you only call.
- Monthly plans roll unused credits over up to twice the plan limit; annual credits reset at cycle end.
- Teams over 5 users contact sales (Scale plan).
Our Lusha review records the same plan structure as of September 2026.
ContactOut
ContactOut's pricing page did not load plan prices when we fetched it, so check current pricing on contactout.com/pricing. As of September 2026, our ContactOut review lists the Email plan at $49/month (300 exports) and Email + Phone at $99/month (600 exports), with unlimited reveals under a fair-use policy. Self-serve is one user per company, Team/API is custom, and plans that exclude US and UK data cost less.
Compare cost per usable contact, not sticker price. ContactOut caps exports, Lusha caps credits, and phone-heavy work burns Lusha credits five times faster than email. Third-party posts quote different prices for both tools, so trust only the vendor pages.
Compliance and GDPR Regions
Personal emails carry more compliance risk in cold outreach to the EU and UK, because a private address is harder to justify under a lawful basis. The UK regulator's direct marketing guidance is a sound starting point.
ContactOut states that it is SOC 2 certified and GDPR and CCPA compliant. Lusha's FAQ states it holds SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001, with GDPR compliance certified by ePrivacyseal and CCPA validated by TrustArc, and says it keeps an opt-out suppression list. These are vendor statements about the vendors, not about your outreach. You stay responsible for how you use the data.
Practical rule: for EU and UK prospects prefer work emails, keep personal-email use for recruiting or clearly relevant one-to-one messages, honor opt-outs fast and ask counsel. This is not legal advice.
Filling Gaps and Deduping the CRM
Each extension pushes its own version of a contact into your CRM. Use both and one person can arrive with a personal email from ContactOut and a work email and phone from Lusha, as two records. Activity history splits, routing breaks and list counts inflate.
SyncGTM enriches the fields each tool misses through a waterfall across 50+ providers, then dedupes contacts before they reach your CRM. For the pattern, see waterfall email finders and best CRM data enrichment tools. If you are also weighing ContactOut against a broader platform, read ContactOut vs Apollo.
Who Should Pick Which
- Recruiters and sourcers: ContactOut, for personal emails and ATS integrations.
- SDRs who call: Lusha, for direct dials, if your regions are covered.
- Teams selling into the EU and UK: lean on work emails and be careful with personal ones.
- RevOps owners: add a waterfall and dedupe layer so neither tool bloats the CRM.
- Small budgets: test both free plans on 50 to 100 real prospects first.
More ContactOut comparisons: ContactOut vs ZoomInfo, ContactOut vs RocketReach, ContactOut vs LinkedIn, and SignalHire vs ContactOut.