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compare — Lusha

The free Lusha alternative.

Looking for a Lusha alternative — or weighing Lusha vs Company Dossier? Here's a fair, accurate read on what each tool does best, so you can pick the right one. Company Dossier is free, built from public sources, and every claim is sourced.

first, fairly

What Lusha is

Lusha is a contact and prospecting-data tool popular with salespeople who want quick access to business emails and phone numbers. It's known for a freemium model and a browser extension that surfaces contact details as you browse, making it a fast, lightweight way to find a person's details. Smaller sales teams and individual reps reach for it to grab a number and move on.

Lusha offers a free tier with limited credits, but its useful volume of lookups, exports and team features sit behind paid plans. It's a strong tool for what it's built to do — and that focus is exactly what makes a comparison useful, because Company Dossier is built for a different job.

side by side

Lusha vs Company Dossier

A general, honest comparison — no invented prices, no straw men.

 Company DossierLusha
PriceFreeLusha offers a free tier with limited credits, but its useful volume of lookups, exports and team features sit behind paid plans
TypePublic-source company researchcontact & prospecting-data tool
Data sourcesPublic web (job boards, filings, news, company sites, maps)Proprietary contact database + browser extension lookups
Source attribution every line linkedVaries
Single readable file one dossierDashboard / database / API
Runs in editor, CLI & AI web, VS Code, npm, ChatGPT, ClaudeMostly web / API
Best forFast, free first-pass company intelligenceQuickly finding a specific person's business contact details
be honest

When to use Lusha

Reach for Lusha when its specialty — quickly finding a specific person's business contact details — is the actual job:

  • You want fast, on-the-fly contact lookups while browsing prospects.
  • You need business emails and phone numbers for individual outreach.
  • You're a rep who wants a lightweight tool to grab a contact and go.

For those jobs, a paid, purpose-built platform is the right call and Company Dossier is not a substitute. We'd rather tell you that than pretend otherwise.

the other side

When Company Dossier fits better

Company Dossier is a fast first-pass intelligence file — free, public-source, fully attributed, and readable in one place. It fits better when:

  • You want a deep, sourced read on a company, not a single contact's details.
  • You need overview, hiring, money, tech, news and risk in one verifiable file.
  • You want a free first-pass intelligence file you can run anywhere.

It's not a contact database and not a replacement for curated paid datasets. It's the step you take first: open a free, sourced file on a company, read its whole story in minutes — overview, people, hiring, money, locations, tech, news, relationships and risk — and decide from there whether deeper paid tools are worth it. And it runs wherever you work: the web app, the VS Code extension, the npm CLI, and inside ChatGPT and Claude.

the fine print

Questions, answered

Q. Is there a free alternative to Lusha?

Yes, for the research side. Company Dossier is free and builds a sourced, nine-section company profile from public sources. It isn't a contact-lookup tool, so it won't pull a person's email or phone — it gives you a readable, verifiable company file instead.

Q. Does Company Dossier find phone numbers and emails?

No. It deliberately uses public sources only and is not a contact database. It surfaces leadership and org structure from the public record, not personal contact data like emails or phone numbers.

Q. Why use Company Dossier instead of Lusha?

When you want to understand a company deeply and for free — its money, hiring, tech, news and risk, every claim sourced — rather than grab one person's contact details to reach out.

Open me

A free first pass before Lusha.

open a sourced file on any company in minutes.