D&B Hoovers review: pricing, data accuracy, and the credits that expire

By Jan Suski, six years working in digital. How the scoring works.

Published 11 August 2026 · Updated 14 August 2026

Company data

D&B Hoovers is Dun & Bradstreet's sales intelligence platform, built on the same Data Cloud that backs the company's credit reports and business verification products. This review covers what the Essentials and Enterprise tiers include, how the credit system behaves once a team is a few months in, and what the accuracy numbers look like against Gartner's own reporting.

The angle here is cost, because that's where the surprises show up. A $49 monthly plan reads as cheap next to a category where quotes routinely start in the thousands. Credits expire every three months regardless of use, intent data is a separate purchase, and the Enterprise tiers that unlock CRM sync and predictive scoring carry no public rate card.

This is written for sales teams and marketing teams evaluating D&B Hoovers against ZoomInfo, Lusha, Cognism or Apollo, as a first purchase or a renewal decision. It draws on the vendor's own product and pricing pages, third-party pricing breakdowns, and more than a dozen verbatim reviews from G2 and Capterra covering what works and what doesn't.

D&B Hoovers is the one platform in this category built primarily for credit-risk and compliance research, with sales prospecting added on top. That history shapes almost every tradeoff below: deep corporate hierarchy data, thinner contact data, and a pricing model that reads like a research database with a SaaS wrapper bolted on.

What D&B Hoovers is: the Dun & Bradstreet Data Cloud explained

D&B Hoovers runs on the Dun & Bradstreet Data Cloud, the dataset Dun & Bradstreet also uses for credit reports and supply chain risk scoring. The product traces back to Hoover's, a company research database founded in 1990 by Gary Hoover and Patrick Spain, which went public on Nasdaq in 1999 before Dun & Bradstreet acquired it in 2003 for $119 million (Wikipedia, sourced from D&B's own product history).

After D&B bought the sales-acceleration platform Avention in 2017, the two merged and relaunched under the current D&B Hoovers name, replacing Hoover's entirely.

Dun & Bradstreet's core business is corporate risk and compliance data, and D&B Hoovers is the commercial front end for prospecting off those same companies and contacts. The Data Cloud updates roughly 5 million times a day from more than 30,000 sources. AI Prospect Scoring ranks accounts by fit on top of that data, and trigger alerts surface funding rounds and leadership changes without a manual search.

New users get full access to the same tools other customers use, not a stripped preview, and the product targets sales reps, marketers and business development professionals inside sales teams and marketing teams alike. Essentials functions as a self-serve SMB plan for small businesses and small teams wanting CRM connectors like Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics, no credit card required to start, without a sales call.

Company profiles and company data: corporate hierarchy and search filters

The company data covers more than 330 million companies, with contacts for over 520 million people, including more than 190 million flagged as decision-makers. Each company profile carries financials, industry classification and corporate family tree mapping built off the D-U-N-S number system, D&B's proprietary identifier for linking a subsidiary back to its parent and its affiliates.

Essentials users access those 130+ filters through a dynamic user interface built around list building: assembling a target list of companies and contacts before outreach starts, with filters supporting strategic targeting by industry, size and location.

That's the company intelligence layer, the part that separates D&B Hoovers from a flat contact list, and it runs through the same user interface enterprise teams use for corporate family tree mapping once research scales past a single list. Third-party listings cite filter counts as high as 175 to 200+ on Enterprise. Reviewers rate the hierarchy mapping as the standout feature relative to rivals:

"One of the most valuable features is its corporate hierarchy and family tree view, which I find far more comprehensive than what's available in ZoomInfo or Lusha."

annpurna S., Marketing Data Ops Lead, Computer Software, Enterprise, G2 review, July 3, 2025.

"It shows company hierarchy, location address and industry all in one place. It helps me a lot during my work, because other systems/platforms don't have this all information in one place."

Marie J., Associate Consultant, Enterprise, G2 review, February 4, 2026.

The audience-building layer adds three separate intent products: Bombora Intent, drawing on a taxonomy of 16,000+ keywords; D&B Custom Intent, which lets a team build its own buyer-intent model; and Visitor Intelligence, which unmasks companies visiting a website. None of the three ships free, a point covered in the pricing section below.

Business data and contact data accuracy, tested against the numbers

Dun & Bradstreet's business data, the firmographic and financial layer, gets consistently better marks than its contact data. Gartner-cited figures put contact data accuracy at approximately 70%, and that number drops further for contacts outside North America.

Data quality complaints concentrate on contacts, not company records, and Gartner reviewers separately flag deceased contacts as a recurring complaint, distinct from the trigger alerts and buying signals reviewers rate more highly. ZoomInfo, by comparison, claims up to 95% accuracy on its own first-party data (pipeline.zoominfo.com), a gap that shows up repeatedly in reviews and is the single most common complaint on both G2 and Capterra.

"The quality of the data is not good at all. Contact names that have been deceased for 5 years or no longer with the company or retired for many years. Companies are closed down or moved. The data seems to be old."

Verified User, Marketing and Advertising, Small-Business, G2 review, February 19, 2026.

"It uses its credits extremely quickly and I get really annoyed when I purchase a number only to discover it's either an inactive number or some gentleman that retired three years ago. Why does it continue to charge me for unverified numbers?"

Sakshi M., Software Developer, Information Technology and Services, Capterra review, January 14, 2026.

G2's aggregate tags echo the pattern: 32 reviews cite outdated data on private companies, 24 cite inaccurate data, 22 cite outdated contacts (g2.com). On the business side the picture flips, and users report few bounce-backs off company-level records:

"I like that the data is accurate in D&B Hoovers. When we used a list, there were very few email bounce backs, which shows the accuracy of the data."

Melissa W., G2 review, February 10, 2026.

D&B Hoovers pricing: Hoovers Essentials and Enterprise custom pricing

Hoovers Essentials costs $49 a month or $529 a year, covering 150 company credits and 150 contact credits monthly on the paid-monthly plan, or 1,800 of each granted across the year on annual billing. That's the only tier with a published rate. Everything above it, Enterprise Explore, Enterprise Focus and Enterprise Predict, runs on custom pricing set in a sales call, with third-party estimates putting the entry point near $25,000 a year.

The three Enterprise tiers stack capability: Focus adds CRM-synced workflows on top of Explore, and Predict layers advanced insights and intent signals on top of Focus's CRM integration work, the same intent signals available piecemeal through the Audience Builder module on lower tiers.

None publishes a rate card, putting D&B Hoovers in the same pricing-opacity bracket as ZoomInfo and Cognism, both of which also route serious buyers to a sales call.

D&B Hoovers offers a first month free on Essentials, capped at the same 150 company and 150 contact credits, with no credit card required to start. Enterprise tiers carry no public trial at all; the only route to Enterprise pricing is a sales call. Unlike Lusha's free plan, D&B Hoovers offers no free plan of its own, only the first-month-free trial.

This D&B Hoovers pricing structure runs on a dual credit system that separates company credits from contact credits, and Essentials is the only tier where that dual credit system is public. D&B advertises Essentials as cancel anytime, billed month to month. Total cost climbs fast once intent data lands as an extra cost on every tier. See how D&B Hoovers pricing compares against ZoomInfo, Lusha, Cognism and Seamless.AI below.

For the contract-level detail, Vendr's tracked median across 108 purchases, the negotiation levers that move a quote, and a full vendor comparison table, see our D&B Hoovers pricing report.

Is D&B Hoovers worth it? For account-based research on companies and contacts, yes. For a small team chasing volume outbound, the credit caps make it a harder case.

Hidden costs: what D&B Hoovers costs in credit expirations and paid add-ons

The credit structure is where the sticker price stops telling the whole story. Company and contact credits expire after three months and don't roll over, so a slow month doesn't bank credits for a busy one. Intent data, all three products, Bombora, Custom Intent and Visitor Intelligence, is priced as an add-on separate from the base subscription at every tier, and running out of monthly credits mid-cycle means buying more.

Reviewers cite the expiration policy as the reason they left:

"It's also frustrating that the credits expire month by month, which ultimately made me cancel my membership. The lack of a catalog for all revealed contact data over the history of the account is a major drawback for me. I also think credits should carry over and not expire so quickly."

Joel S., Vice President, G2 review, February 3, 2026.

"The customer support is terrible. There are bugs that can cause you to lose contacts you already paid for. Their billing date changes almost every month, so you're not really getting the full window to use your credits. With how the credits work, you're really only getting about 75 leads per month, not actually 150."

Sonny L., VP of Sales/Marketing, Small-Business, G2 review, May 26, 2026.

Add the intent data add-ons and the extra credit purchases together and the effective monthly cost on a team that uses the tool runs well past the $49 sticker, a pattern that matches how Cognism and ZoomInfo price credits and add-ons on top of a base subscription.

CRM integration, API access, and reaching decision makers

D&B Hoovers ships native CRM integration with Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics, syncing companies, contacts, corporate hierarchy data and trigger alerts directly into CRM workflows. API access exists for teams that want to pull companies and contacts programmatically, but it's gated to specific tiers, priced on top of the base plan. A research-heavy working environment gets more from those buying signals than a fast-moving sales floor.

Reaching decision makers is the product's stated purpose, and 190M+ decision-maker records give it real depth on paper. The gap shows up in the workflow: reviewers say the interface takes real effort to get the decision-maker contacts they need.

"The UI/UX experience feels very cluttered, making it difficult to find lead information easily. It requires a lot of toggling between places just to get the information I need. I wish it was more like ZoomInfo, which is simpler and more user-friendly. For sales individuals, having something simple and easy to use is really important because time is crucial for us."

Simoni P., Business Development Associate Consultant, G2 review, February 4, 2026.

What users complain about most

Beyond credit expiration and contact-accuracy complaints already covered, users report a steep learning curve on the number of filters and modules:

"Hoovers is a highly powerful tool, though it does come with a steep and complex learning curve at first."

Korek L., Sales Director, Small-Business, G2 review, November 10, 2025.

Support quality is the other recurring theme, with Capterra reviewers describing long wait times and unresolved login issues:

"Horrible. Terrible company. Don't know how they are still in business!... Could not even log in. Customer support is awful, if you can through to them. Waited 40 minutes to have some clown email me mispelled nonsense that did not solve the problem!"

Steve W., Partner, Accounting, Capterra review, February 18, 2025.

TrustRadius's own synthesis of recent reviews puts roughly 60% of reviewers flagging outdated contacts, incorrect classifications or delayed updates (trustradius.com), which lines up with the individual complaints above.

What users praise most

Praise splits into prospecting efficiency and data breadth. Reviewers leaning on intent data describe it cutting wasted outreach:

"I really like the intent data as I can find out if there are other companies looking at my product prior to reaching out to them. This reduces a large amount of useless cold outreach."

Corey K., Sales Director, Information Technology and Services, Capterra review, March 28, 2026.

"It saves me from spending an entire day (or days) looking for the correct email address through Google or LinkedIn. I use it to find actual decision makers…"

Leon G., CEO, Information Technology and Services, Capterra review, January 26, 2026.

Long-tenured users, who watched the product change ownership and rebrand, still find gaps newer entrants haven't closed:

"I have used D&B Hoovers for at least 25 years! It used to the only game in town... I use the products in tandem but sometimes I find that D&B Hoovers is less up-to-date than the others. Other times, it finds a global entity I could not find on the other platforms!"

Ann G., Librarian, Legal Services, Capterra review, August 29, 2024.

D&B Hoovers alternatives

Each D&B Hoovers alternative below trades price, accuracy or hierarchy depth for a different total cost, and customers moving off D&B Hoovers tend to land on one of these four, all covered on our B2B data providers ranking.

ZoomInfo is the clearest head-to-head comparison and the one most reviewers name unprompted. ZoomInfo publishes no rate card either, with third-party guides citing entry packages near $200 a month and a typical professional plan near $15,000 a year, well above D&B Hoovers' $49 Essentials tier.

ZoomInfo wins on contact-data accuracy, claiming up to 95% versus D&B's reported 70%, and on interface simplicity, per the reviewer quoted above who wished D&B Hoovers "was more like ZoomInfo." D&B Hoovers wins where corporate hierarchy and credit-risk research matter more than contact freshness; one buyer who evaluated both put it plainly. Read the full D&B Hoovers vs ZoomInfo comparison for the rest of the gap:

"Although D&B was somewhat more expensive than ZoomInfo, after evaluation it seemed that the data in D&B was more accurate and up-to date... Sometimes the info is outdated. I will try to reach a person and find that they left the company several years earlier."

Perry R., National Sales Director, Machinery, Capterra review, April 12, 2024.

Lusha undercuts D&B Hoovers sharply at the entry level, with a free plan at $0 for 40 credits a month and a Starter tier at $49.90, close to Essentials' price but without the corporate hierarchy depth. Lusha's Chrome extension pulls contacts straight off a LinkedIn profile, which suits solo reps more than D&B Hoovers' account-research workflow. The Lusha review has the credit-cap detail.

Cognism sits above D&B Hoovers on price, with third-party estimates ranging $1,500 to $25,000 a year, and focuses on phone-verified European contact data. A team buying for GDPR-compliant European coverage fits Cognism better; a team buying for US corporate-family research fits D&B Hoovers better. The Cognism review covers the European data angle.

Seamless.AI runs a credit-pool model similar to D&B's, but with real-time scraping and a free tier offering 50 credits a month against 10 exports, Pro starting at 10,000 annual credits behind a sales call. It skips the corporate hierarchy and intent-data layer D&B Hoovers ships, trading depth for a cheaper entry point aimed at individual reps. The Seamless.AI review covers the credit-pool model in full.

Verdict

D&B Hoovers fits a team whose research starts with the company, not the contact: account-based selling built on corporate hierarchy, credit-risk context and compliance verification, where the 330M+ company database and D-U-N-S hierarchy mapping have no close equivalent among pure-play contact databases. It's a fit for enterprise procurement and market research teams already inside the Dun & Bradstreet ecosystem.

It isn't a fit for a solo rep or a small team chasing volume outbound. The 150 monthly credits on Essentials, expiring after three months, run out fast against real prospecting cadence, and the roughly 70% contact accuracy means budgeting for bounced emails as a standing cost, not an occasional annoyance. A team that mainly needs fresh contact data gets more for less from ZoomInfo, Lusha or Seamless.AI.

It might suit a mid-market team that already owns Salesforce or Microsoft Dynamics and wants trigger alerts and corporate hierarchy synced into existing pipelines, provided the buyer accepts a custom quote at Enterprise and budgets for intent data as a separate line item.

Enterprise teams doing list building at scale, and the company intelligence layer behind it, justify the custom quote more easily than a single rep buying Essentials would.