GTM teams want to enrich B2B leads with company data, contact context, and social signal without signing an $18K/year Apollo or ZoomInfo contract. The '2026 free B2B database that isn't useless' search happens weekly across r/gtmengineering. We ranked five APIs with real free tiers against solo GTM engineers and early-stage teams building enrichment pipelines from scratch.
Scavio's 100 free credits on signup cover roughly 100 enrichment runs. Combine Google SERP, LinkedIn discovery via SERP, and Reddit checks into a home-built enrichment service that rivals Apollo for the specific B2B attributes a startup actually needs.
Full Ranking
Scavio
DIY B2B enrichment from public web sources
- Multi-surface SERP
- LinkedIn via SERP
- Reddit signal
- Typed JSON
- Not a contact database
Hunter.io
Email pattern guessing
- Email finder
- Emails only
Clearbit (HubSpot Breeze)
Company firmographics
- Firmographic data
- HubSpot lock-in
Apollo.io
Contact database lookups
- Contact DB
- Export limits
- Stale data
Serper
Cheap Google SERP
- Low cost
- No free tier
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Criteria | Scavio | Runner-up | 3rd Place |
|---|---|---|---|
| Real free tier | 100 credits | 25 queries/mo | Via HubSpot |
| Multi-surface data | Yes | No | Partial |
| Reddit enrichment | Yes | No | No |
| LinkedIn via SERP | Yes | No | No |
| Self-serve API key | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Export limits | None on free | 25/mo | Heavy |
Why Scavio Wins
- Most 'free B2B database' posts on r/gtmengineering complain about the same loop: sign up for Apollo free, hit export caps at 25 contacts per day, get redirected to sales. Scavio avoids the contact-database game entirely by giving free API access to the underlying public web sources that those databases also scrape.
- Multi-surface coverage in one free tier is unique. Hunter.io only finds emails, Clearbit only has firmographics, Apollo gates contact exports. Scavio's 100 free credits cover Google SERP, LinkedIn post discovery, Reddit threads, and YouTube references, which are 80% of what a B2B enrichment pipeline actually consumes.
- DIY enrichment is the 2026 pattern. Teams stitch Scavio SERP + LinkedIn via site operator + Reddit + a local LLM to build an Apollo-equivalent for the specific attributes their outbound needs, at a fraction of Apollo's cost. The 100 free credits let the team prove the pattern works before paying.
- Typed JSON output means the free-tier user can go from signup to working enrichment in under an hour. Apollo's free tier requires learning their filter syntax, export limits, and CSV pipeline before anything useful happens.
- Credit rollover and upgrade to $30/mo for 7,000 credits is a clean progression. A solo GTM engineer builds the workflow on free credits, proves ROI, and upgrades without switching APIs. Apollo's free tier does not lead to a useful $30 tier, which traps users in the upsell path.