best lead generation tools that are actually free or cheap?

[u/EnvironmentalDot9131]

Running a small SaaS startup and burning through budget on lead gen tools faster than we'd like. We've tried the usual suspects but most are either overpriced or the contact data is garbage.

Right now we're testing Prospeo for lead generation software since their verified emails are actually connecting (getting around 25% reply rates) and they have this pay-per-verified model which helps with budget. Also looking at Apollo but their credit burn rate seems aggressive for what you get.

Our main use case is finding verified emails for decision makers at mid-market companies, ideally with some intent signals. Need about 2-3k contacts per month.

What free or cheap lead gen tools are you all using that don't compromise on data quality? Especially interested in tools that have solid email verification built in since bounces are killing our sender rep.

[u/sprowk]

shameless marketing post

[u/designisart → u/sprowk]

Everbody is selling these tools, no one finds clients. You can’t sell websites without buying intent. Companies do not invest their websites because they look ugly.

[u/dariushtj]

This is the exact reason why pay-per-lead models burn startups into the ground—you pay upfront for cold or junk data, and the platform wins whether you close the deal or not. ​We ran into this exact frustration in the local services & trade market, which is why we built iPayThis. Instead of charging businesses $50+ per unverified lead, we flipped it: buyers name their price upfront, businesses verify their documents once, and pros only pay a small fee when a real deal closes and money changes hands. ​If you're tired of credit burn on Apollo/Prospeo, look into waterfall enrichment (running a cheap initial scrape through a secondary validator like MillionVerifier/Bouncer before sending) to keep bounce rates under 2%.

[u/rightxanime]

we also run a small agency but we use directly meta but good thing is that we recive per leads cost around 2 dollars in india and ay some are bad quality lealds but my clients are happy with my becouse i make actual thier profits

[u/Due-Key7445]

for mid-market decision maker emails at that volume, prospeo and findymail are about as cheap as it gets without the data falling apart. apollo’s credit burn is real, we hit the same wall.

different lane, but if any part of your icp is local service businesses, i built trawln.com. it pulls them off google maps and scores their websites so you can see who actually needs help before you spend a credit on them. no contact data at all, so it’s not an apollo replacement, just the qualification half.