The prospiq free tier is genuinely free — no card required, no auto-conversion to paid, no manipulative countdown timer. It does have specific limits that paid plans don't have. This page explains each one and the reasoning behind it.
The headline limits
- 20 credits total (not per month — a one-time grant)
- Maximum 2 phone numbers per reveal
- Single user (no team seats)
- No CRM push (HubSpot, Salesforce, Zoho require a paid plan)
- No API access (Pro plan only)
Everything else — single search, bulk upload, company search, saved lists, Chrome extension, CSV export, full verification quality — works exactly the same as on paid plans.
Why the credit grant is one-time
The 20 free credits exist so you can evaluate prospiq with real data before committing money. They're not a renewing monthly allowance, because that would let people run permanent free outbound at our expense.
That said, we're flexible. If you've used your free credits, you're seriously considering a paid plan, and you want a few more credits to make a final decision — email support and ask. We'd rather extend a few credits to a serious evaluator than have you commit to a plan and regret it.
Why phone reveals are capped at 2
When we successfully find direct dials for a contact, sometimes there are multiple numbers available (a primary mobile and a secondary office line, for example). Paid plans let you see all of them. The free tier caps the display at 2.
The cap exists because phone data is significantly more expensive for us to source than email data. Returning up to 2 numbers is enough to evaluate quality. Returning more would push the unit economics of the free tier into territory we can't sustain.
Why no team seats
Each prospiq account is single-user by design. To work with a team, you need the team add-on — but the add-on is only available on paid plans.
This isn't a punishment. Team accounts require additional infrastructure: role management, per-user credit tracking, shared lists, audit trails. Building and maintaining that infrastructure has a real cost, and it doesn't make sense to offer it on a free tier where there's no funding model to support it.
If you want to evaluate the team workflow before committing, email support — we can set up a short evaluation period on Starter with the team add-on.
Why no CRM push on free
CRM push (HubSpot, Salesforce, Zoho) requires us to maintain authenticated connections to each CRM, handle their rate limits, and process push errors. Each push is also a place where customer data leaves prospiq, so we have additional security obligations around it.
Like team seats, this is infrastructure cost that the free tier wouldn't sustain. Any paid plan unlocks all CRM integrations.
Why no API on free
The API is intentionally limited to Pro and custom plans. The reasoning is operational, not pricing:
- API users tend to drive significantly higher volume than UI users (it's the whole point of having an API)
- API users need consistent rate limits, predictable response times, and dedicated support — all of which take real engineering effort to provide
- Free-tier API would create a pressure to optimize for API workloads instead of human ones, which conflicts with our priorities
If you need the API for a serious project, the right path is Pro. If your use case is small enough that Pro isn't justified but you still need programmatic access, email us — we can sometimes work something out under a custom plan.
How to know when you've outgrown the free tier
Common signals:
- You burned through all 20 credits in your first week of evaluation and the results were good
- You want to push enriched contacts directly to your CRM instead of exporting CSV
- You want to bring on a teammate to share the work
- You've hit the 2-phone cap and you want to see additional numbers
If any of these are true, Starter is the natural upgrade. It's $23/month billed yearly — meaningfully less than the cost of a single bounced email campaign.
How to know if the free tier is still right
If you're running fewer than 10 lookups per month and don't need CRM or team features, the free tier is fine for the long term. We don't pressure free users to upgrade. The free tier exists so people who genuinely don't need more can use prospiq without paying.