The fast start against the verified number
Lusha and Cognism both supply contact data for direct dialling. The difference is not the feature list but how much work sits behind a single phone number, and what that costs.
The short answer
You are one to five people, want to start today, and would rather not speak to a sales rep.
→ Lusha
Free entry, published pricing, browser extension set up in five minutes. You can evaluate the product before signing anything.
Your team makes several hundred cold calls a month and connect rate is your bottleneck.
→ Cognism
A share of the mobile numbers is actually dialled and confirmed. At high call volume that pays measurably. At twenty calls a month it does not.
Your legal team asks about screening against do-not-call registers.
→ Cognism
Cognism screens against the DNC lists of several countries, including Germany's. That takes some heat out of the internal discussion.
You need legal form, filed accounts or group ownership of German companies.
→ Neither delivers that
Both are built around people, not companies. Those facts live in the commercial register and the Bundesanzeiger, which neither reads systematically.
Direct Feature Comparison
Strengths and weaknesses based on real user experiences and data architectures.
Lusha
Israeli vendor, founded 2016. Started as a browser extension for grabbing a phone number quickly, now with its own company search. Access is self-serve, no call required.
The greatest strengths
The weaknesses
Cognism
British vendor from London, founded 2015. The focus is clearly contact data for direct dialling, above all mobile numbers that have been verified by phone.
The greatest strengths
The weaknesses
In-depth market analysis: Who is suitable for what?
Both sell phone numbers, at very different prices
Lusha and Cognism answer the same question: how do I reach this person directly. The difference lies in the work behind the answer.
Cognism actually dials part of its mobile database and confirms it. That is slow and expensive, and that is precisely why it is a real advantage. Lusha derives more and verifies less, but costs a fraction and is accessible without a conversation.
Both are legitimate designs. The only question is which one matches your call volume.
When the premium pays for itself
Do the arithmetic rather than guessing. Say your team makes three hundred cold calls a month. If the connect rate moves from fifteen to twenty-five per cent, that is thirty additional people reached. If one reached decision maker is worth more than a few euros in your business, the premium has paid for itself.
Make twenty highly targeted calls a month instead, and the arithmetic reverses. A bad number costs you five minutes of research, and five minutes is cheaper than the difference in the annual contract.
The legal point that often decides it
In Germany, cold calling business prospects requires presumed consent under section 7 UWG, and courts read that narrowly. DNC screening does not solve that problem, but it shows a vendor takes the topic seriously. In some organisations that alone decides procurement, independent of data quality.
If a data protection officer has a say where you work, bring them in before the trial, not after. Testing a tool that then fails internal review is a waste of everyone's time.
Where both stop in the German mid-market
Both vendors are built around people. They know names, titles and contact details, and internationally they know a great many of them.
A German family-owned firm with 180 employees works differently. The leadership often keeps no profile, the layer below almost never. At the same time that company is fully documented officially: legal form and directors in the commercial register, revenue and headcount in the Bundesanzeiger, investments in official notices and the local press.
Neither tool reads those sources. So neither answers the question that actually decides a first call: why now. Cognism gets closest through Bombora but stays at topic level. You learn that someone around a company is researching a topic, not what happened inside the company.
If you are starting small and want to begin immediately, take Lusha. If you call a lot and connect rate is your bottleneck, take Cognism. If what you are missing is the trigger, neither solves your problem.
Neither Lusha nor Cognism fit?
Kodo Leads is not a third contact database. We find the companies with an evidenced trigger first and deliver the matching contacts alongside, with phone number and address. Every statement carries the link it came from.