No sales call. No annual commit. Self-serve in 2 minutes, no procurement.Cognism sells annual contracts for contact data with custom quoting and a sales-call gate. Kustiq is self-serve: paste a domain, get a 20-field profile with SMTP-verified contacts and churn risk in 47s. Starts free. Month-to-month.
§1The short version
Kustiq differs from Cognism in three ways most SMB and startup buyers notice first.
- No sales call, no annual commit. Kustiq is self-serve: paste a domain, get a 20-field profile in 60 seconds. Cognism requires a demo, custom quote, and a 12-month contract.
- Real-time AI per request, not a periodic database refresh. Kustiq reads live web signals on every profile and verifies every contact via SMTP. Cognism serves records from a database that refreshes on its own schedule.
- Roughly 10% of Cognism's typical entry price. Cognism contracts typically run $15k to $40k per year. Kustiq Pro is $1,428/yr total, no seat fees, with churn risk and ICP scoring on every profile.
EMEA enterprise vs SMB GTM. Cognism's GDPR-compliant database, intent data, and dedicated CSMs are the right answer for European enterprise sales orgs that need procurement-grade compliance posture. Kustiq is the right answer for the SMB and small-team GTM motion that doesn't need any of those. The natural cut-over moment is a Cognism renewal — start the Kustiq trial 60 days out.
§2The price anchor
- Cognism entry
- ~ $15k / yr · annual contract · per-seat pricing · custom quote.
- Cognism Diamond
- Higher tiers commonly $25k to $40k / yr · adds intent + integrations.
- Kustiq Pro
- $119 / mo · $1,428 / yr · 800 credits · effective
$0.15per profile. - Free tier
- Kustiq · 3 profiles a week, signed in. Cognism · none.
| Tool | Per-contact cost | Per-seat fee | Verification quality |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kustiq | $0.15 to $0.30 | $0 | SMTP handshake on every contact |
| Cognism | Custom (typically $15k+ / yr per seat) | Annual contract, custom | Periodically refreshed DB, no live handshake |
| ZoomInfo | ~ $1.00 / record | $15k / yr / seat | Confidence score, no SMTP handshake |
Cognism prices are typical 2026 ranges; the company does not publish list pricing. ZoomInfo prices reflect public entry-tier guidance. Kustiq pricing is the public Pro tier at full credit utilization.
Comparison page for Cognism.
§3Where the products diverge
Self-serve, no sales call.
Sign up in under two minutes. Free tier on day one. No contract, no card up front.
Demo + custom quote + annual commit.
Sales-call gated. 12-month auto-renewing contracts with cancellation windows.
Live web on every request.
Browserless scrape, AI classification, SMTP verification each time a profile is generated.
Periodically refreshed database.
Records refresh on Cognism's schedule, not yours.
0-100 with rule-based disqualifiers, on every profile.
Returned with the profile and the rules that drove it.
Basic firmographic filters.
Static filters on industry, size, geography. No per-company score.
90-day churn-risk score on every account.
Sourced from public hiring, leadership-change, and pricing-page signals.
Not offered.
Cognism is built around contact volume. Account health is left to your CRM.
EU residency, GDPR-compliant data sourcing.
Public-source profiling with opt-out + suppression. DPA on request.
Strong GDPR story (GDPR-compliant contact DB).
Cognism's published DACH and EMEA-compliant data is a major reason enterprises buy.
Founders and 2-10 person GTM teams.
Intelligence per company, no procurement cycle.
EMEA enterprise sales orgs with $15k+/yr budget.
Large SDR teams that need GDPR-compliant contact volume and intent data.
§4What Kustiq has, today
§5Kustiq pricing in full
- Free $0
- 3 profiles a week, signed in. No card. Anonymous: 1 per week. Outreach not included.
- Insight $39 / mo
- 200 credits. ~ 12 weeks of solo prospecting at the typical 16-profile-a-week pace.
$0.20effective per profile. - Pro $119 / mo
- 800 credits. Targeted Outreach included. HubSpot 2-way sync.
$0.15effective per profile at full use. - Extra credits $0.30 ea
- Top-up at any time, no expiry. Counts toward the same monthly cap as plan credits. No seat fees, ever.
§6Other Cognism alternatives we compete with
§7Six questions, six intents
01 · Real?Is Kustiq a real Cognism alternative?
For SMB and small-team GTM, yes. Kustiq covers the workflow most non-enterprise teams actually use Cognism for: shortlist accounts, score by ICP, get a verified contact. Where Kustiq is not a fit is enterprise EMEA contact-volume motions and Cognism's washed-database compliance positioning, both of which Cognism is built for.
02 · Catch?What is the catch · why is Kustiq cheaper?
No DB licensing, no sales team. The line item is the bill: $0.15 to $0.30 per profile, paid only when one is generated.
What you give up: volume. Kustiq fits 100-800 profiles a month per team. Eight-thousand-contact monthly motions belong on a database product like Cognism.
03 · MigrateCan I migrate my Cognism data to Kustiq?
Export accounts from Cognism to CSV, drop the file into Targeted Outreach, and Kustiq re-profiles each company with a fresh ICP score, churn-risk signal, and SMTP-verified contact. Common pattern: top 50-100 accounts move first, Cognism handles the long tail until renewal.
04 · MissingIs Kustiq missing anything Cognism has?
Cognism's product is a GDPR-compliant EMEA contact database with intent data from publisher networks and a dedicated CSM stitching it all together. Kustiq ships none of those. For EMEA enterprise teams whose procurement requires explicit GDPR posture, dedicated support contacts, and intent-data integration, Cognism owns that ground.
05 · PricingHow does Kustiq pricing compare to Cognism at 5 seats?
Five seats on a Cognism entry package typically lands between $15k and $25k / yr. Five users on Kustiq Pro is $119 / mo · $1,428 / yr, with no seat fee on top. Kustiq covers the team for under 10% of the Cognism bill, with churn risk and ICP scoring on every profile.
06 · Both?Can I use Kustiq and Cognism together?
It happens, mostly during a Cognism renewal window. Teams use Kustiq to score and prioritize accounts and Cognism for the contact-volume layer. Both can write to HubSpot or Salesforce, so SDRs see one view.
Profile a company free. No card, no scheduled call.
Skip the procurement cycle. Paste a domain into /try; Kustiq returns the full profile, ICP score, and a verified contact in 60 seconds. Skip the demo, skip the annual ask. 3 profiles a week free, no card.