Ditch HubSpot Bloat: CRM Enrichment via Search API

HubSpot charges for contact enrichment as part of its higher-tier plans. You can replicate the enrichment layer for a fraction of the cost by querying a search API for company data, recent news, and competitive landscape, then writing results back to any CRM including lightweight alternatives like Attio, Folk, or a plain database.

What HubSpot enrichment actually does

HubSpot's enrichment fills in company size, industry, revenue range, and tech stack from its proprietary database. The problem: this data goes stale, coverage is patchy for smaller companies, and it is locked behind Professional or Enterprise tiers starting at $800+/mo. For many teams, especially those with under 10K contacts, paying that premium for basic firmographic data does not make financial sense.

The search-based alternative

A search API query for a company name returns its website, recent news, job postings, and competitive mentions. This is not the same as a structured firmographic database, but it covers the data points sales teams actually use: what does the company do, what have they announced recently, who are their competitors, and are they hiring (a growth signal).

Python enrichment script

import requests, os, json

API = 'https://api.scavio.dev/api/v1/search'
H = {'x-api-key': os.environ['SCAVIO_API_KEY']}

def enrich_company(company_name: str, domain: str = None):
    queries = [
        f'{company_name} company overview',
        f'{company_name} news 2026',
        f'{company_name} hiring jobs',
    ]
    enrichment = {'company': company_name, 'domain': domain}
    for q in queries:
        resp = requests.post(API, headers=H, json={
            'platform': 'google',
            'query': q,
        }, timeout=15)
        results = resp.json().get('organic_results', [])[:3]
        key = q.split(company_name)[1].strip().replace(' ', '_')
        enrichment[key] = [
            {'title': r.get('title', ''), 'snippet': r.get('snippet', ''), 'link': r.get('link', '')}
            for r in results
        ]
    return enrichment

# Enrich a batch of CRM contacts
contacts = [
    {'name': 'Acme Corp', 'domain': 'acme.com'},
    {'name': 'TechStart Inc', 'domain': 'techstart.io'},
]
enriched = [enrich_company(c['name'], c['domain']) for c in contacts]
for e in enriched:
    news = e.get('news_2026', [])
    hiring = e.get('hiring_jobs', [])
    print(f"{e['company']}: {len(news)} news items, {len(hiring)} job signals")

Writing back to your CRM

Most CRMs expose a REST API. Attio, the CRM frequently mentioned alongside Claude MCP integration, has a straightforward API for updating records. Folk, Pipedrive, and even Airtable work the same way. The enrichment script runs on a schedule, queries the search API, and writes structured notes back to each contact record.

def update_crm_record(crm_api_url: str, record_id: str, enrichment: dict, api_key: str):
    summary_parts = []
    for news in enrichment.get('news_2026', []):
        summary_parts.append(f"News: {news['title']}")
    for job in enrichment.get('hiring_jobs', []):
        summary_parts.append(f"Hiring: {job['title']}")

    note = '\n'.join(summary_parts) if summary_parts else 'No recent signals found.'
    resp = requests.patch(
        f'{crm_api_url}/records/{record_id}',
        headers={'Authorization': f'Bearer {api_key}'},
        json={'notes': f'[Auto-enriched {enrichment["company"]}]\n{note}'},
    )
    return resp.status_code == 200

Cost comparison

Enriching 500 contacts with 3 search queries each = 1,500 queries. At $0.005/query that is $7.50. Running monthly costs $90/year. HubSpot Professional with enrichment starts at $800/mo ($9,600/year). Even if you add a lightweight CRM like Attio ($29/user/mo for a 3-person team = $1,044/year) plus search enrichment ($90/year), the total is roughly $1,134/year versus $9,600/year for HubSpot Professional. That is an 88% cost reduction.

What you lose

HubSpot's enrichment data is structured and standardized: employee count ranges, industry codes, revenue estimates. Search-based enrichment is unstructured text that requires parsing. You can add an LLM layer to extract structured fields from search snippets, but that adds complexity and cost ($0.01-0.03 per Claude API call). For teams that primarily need recent news and growth signals rather than firmographic databases, search enrichment covers the practical use case at a fraction of the cost.