You are looking at two tools. One charges per user per month. The other sells credits. The headline numbers look similar, but they measure different things, so you cannot tell which is cheaper by glancing at the pricing pages.
The fix is to stop comparing plans and start comparing what you will actually do in a month. This guide walks you through that in about half an hour.
What each model really charges for
Monthly seats charge for people. You pay for each person who logs in, whether they pull 50 leads or 5,000. Usage limits often still apply, they are just bundled into the seat.
Credits charge for actions. Each lead found, email verified or record enriched uses credits. You can have one person or five, the cost follows the work done.
Neither is better by default. Seats tend to suit large teams with steady, heavy usage. Credits tend to suit solo owners, freelancers and small agencies whose volume goes up and down.
| Question | Seats favour you when | Credits favour you when |
|---|---|---|
| How many people need access? | One or two heavy users | Several people, light use each |
| Is your volume steady? | Same every month | Busy months and quiet months |
| Do you run client projects? | Rarely | Often, with uneven sizes |
| Do you pause outreach? | Never | Sometimes for weeks |
Step 1: Write down your real monthly volume
Open a note and list what you did last month, or what you plan to do next month if you are starting out:
- Leads you need to find (for example, 600 local businesses across three cities)
- Emails you need to verify before sending
- Campaigns you plan to run
- People who need to log in
Be honest. Planning numbers are usually bigger than real ones. If you have no history, take a conservative guess and plan to check it after one month.
If you are not sure how many leads a search will return, a quick test helps. Our Google Maps lead generation guide shows how to size a niche by keyword and city before you commit.
Step 2: Map each action to its cost
For a seat-based tool, read the limits inside each plan: leads per month, exports, verifications, connected mailboxes. Note what happens when you hit a limit. Some tools block you, some force an upgrade to the next tier.
For a credit-based tool, find out how many credits each action uses. Check whether a lead with no email found still costs a credit, whether verification is separate, and whether unused credits roll over or expire.
Put both in a simple table: action, your monthly volume, cost in tool A, cost in tool B.
Step 3: Count the hidden seats and add-ons
This is where seat pricing often surprises people. Ask yourself:
- Does your VA, partner or client need a login?
- Is email sending a separate tool with its own subscription?
- Is verification a third tool?
If finding leads, verifying them and sending campaigns are three separate subscriptions, add all three. Moving CSVs between them also costs time. That is the main reason we built GetClient to keep the lead list and the campaign in one place, explained in find leads and email them in one tool.
Step 4: Calculate cost per usable lead
Total monthly cost divided by leads you can actually email gives you the number that matters. A cheap tool that returns few valid emails can cost more per usable lead than a pricier one.
A simple worksheet:
- Total monthly spend across every tool involved
- Leads found
- Leads with a verified email
- Spend divided by line 3
Run this for each option. The lower number wins, assuming similar lead quality.
Step 5: Model a quiet month and a busy month
Volume rarely stays flat. An agency might take on a big client one month and nothing the next. A local service business might prospect hard before its busy season, then stop.
Repeat Step 4 twice: once at half your normal volume, once at double. Seat pricing stays fixed in quiet months, so you pay for unused capacity. Credits drop with usage, but check whether one-time packs or a larger plan make sense for busy months.
If you resell leads to clients, this matters even more. See white label lead generation for how uneven client work changes the math.
Step 6: Test before you commit
Pricing worksheets are guesses until you run real searches. Use free trials to check:
- How many leads come back for your actual niche and cities
- How many of those have emails
- How many credits or seat allowance one real campaign uses
GetClient gives new accounts 100 free credits with no card needed, enough to run a small search in your niche and see the cost per lead for yourself. Plan details and credit packs are on the plans and credits page.
A quick decision rule
As a rule of thumb, not a law:
- Choose seats if you have a team of dedicated prospectors using the tool daily at steady volume.
- Choose credits if one or two people do the outreach, your volume changes month to month, or you want to stop and start without paying for idle logins.
Whichever you pick, revisit your numbers after the first month. Your real usage is the only figure that tells you if you chose right.