How Accurate Is SalesIntel Data? A Breakdown by Data Type

We verify 95% of our contacts by hand, every 90 days, through our human verification process, and back it with a 4.4-star rating from 540 reviews on G2, as of July 2026. Phone data is the hardest data type in this industry to keep current, for us and for every other B2B data provider. It’s also where we lead: in an independent three-vendor test, our connect rate came in more than double ZoomInfo’s and more than quadruple Cognism’s. This post breaks down exactly how.

Quick answer: We’re 95% accurate on human-verified contacts, backed by a 4.4/5 rating from 540 G2 reviews as of July 2026, reverified every 90 days. Our own phone number accuracy runs 83%+, based on an ongoing sample of 5,000 mobile numbers a month. Independently, Aeroleads found a 68% direct-dial connect rate (March 2026), a different, harder metric: whether the number is right versus whether the call connects.

Key takeaways

• 4.4/5 on G2, from 540 reviews, plus three G2 leader badges, the software industry’s real scoreboard for a B2B data platform, not a single self-reported number.
• In an independent three-vendor test, our connect rate beat ZoomInfo’s by more than double and Cognism’s by more than quadruple, the exact data type every provider struggles with most.
• Our own phone number accuracy runs 83%+, sampled at 5,000 mobile numbers a month, on an ongoing basis. It’s still the relative weak point next to email, company, and title data internally, but it’s still the data type where we out-perform the competition most clearly.
• Aeroleads, an independent testing firm, found a 68% direct-dial connect rate against 95%+ on email in a March 2026 test, a different question from number accuracy: does someone pick up, not whether the number is right. The phone-inaccuracy figure that circulates online has no source at all.
• We re-verify every human-verified contact on a 90-day cycle, backed by a 2,000+ certified on-demand research network. Stale data doesn’t get 90 days to cost your reps a deal.

4.4/5 on G2, from 540 reviews: what buyers say

G2 is the software industry’s actual review standard, and it’s where we’ve built the deepest track record: a 4.4/5 rating from 540 reviews on G2, as of July 2026, plus Account Intelligence Leader, Momentum Leader, and Small Business High Performer badges. Capterra backs the same number: 4.3/5 from 35 reviews, same month. Two independent platforms, one consistent score.

Reviewers praise clean, reliable third-party data far more often than they flag problems with it, and on the rare occasions they don’t, it’s a specific and consistent gap, not scattered complaints about the platform overall. Across the reviews, one theme shows up more than any other: finding the right phone number or direct line, not a coincidence, and the same gap the independent Aeroleads test below finds, which is exactly why we’re leading with it instead of hoping nobody notices.

A dramatic phone-inaccuracy figure circulates in secondary blog posts, repeated word for word with no named or dated review and no working link back to an original source. There’s a certain irony in a data-accuracy company getting graded by an anonymous internet stat with no receipts. We’ll take the receipts every time: 540 dated, G2-verified reviews over one unsourced number floating around the internet.

Email at 95%, phone at 68%: accuracy by data type

Our own phone number accuracy runs 83%+, based on a human-verified sample audit of 5,000 mobile numbers, run every month: the percentage of numbers correctly assigned to the person on record, a strong number, but a correctly-assigned one still doesn’t guarantee a picked-up call, a different, harder thing to measure. Email deliverability comes in at 95.2% for our contacts. Direct-dial phone connect rate is a separate question entirely, whether the phone rings through to a person, and independent testing put that at 68%. Both are proxies for record accuracy, not accuracy itself, and the breakdown below shows exactly where each number comes from.

In March 2026, Aeroleads ran an independent test of 1,000 of our records, an audit we did not commission or control. Their methodology: email deliverability through NeverBounce, manual LinkedIn cross-reference on 200 contacts, and phone verification on 100 direct dials.

Email, company, and title data all land in the high 80s to mid 90s. Direct-dial connect rate is lower, and that’s the harder metric of the two phone numbers face: is the number right (83%+, our own ongoing measurement), and does the line pick up (68%, Aeroleads’ independent finding), more than quadruple the 16% connect rate ZoomInfo’s own comparison page cites for itself. Aeroleads’ own verdict on the full test: “Yes, for their target market.” If phone accuracy matters most for you, those are the two numbers to watch.

No B2B data provider has published a fresher independent version of this breakdown. See our full data coverage for how these numbers scale across our broader database.

Why the phone-data gap matters to your pipeline

A 68% direct-dial connect rate (Aeroleads, March 2026) is easy to state and hard to feel until you picture it. Picture a rep working a list of 20 direct dials pulled from a typical B2B data set: at 68%, roughly 14 of those numbers reach someone. Drop that rate further, and the gap isn’t abstract anymore, it’s calls that go nowhere and a rep who’s now behind on quota for the week.

We split this breakdown by data type instead of publishing one blended score for exactly this reason. A single “95% accurate” headline hides exactly the gap that costs your team the most. Knowing where the real risk sits, phone data, not email, not firmographics, means you can plan around it: double-check direct dials before a high-stakes outbound push, and lean on the 95%+ email and 91% company-match numbers for everything else without a second thought.

It’s also why the 90-day re-verification cycle below matters more for phone data than for any other field. Titles and companies change slowly. Phone numbers get reassigned the moment someone switches carriers or roles, and a stale one looks identical to a working one right up until a rep dials it.

Every 90 days: how we verify our data

One mechanism drives our accuracy claim: every human-verified contact gets checked twice. First by an algorithm, then by a person, on a fixed 90-day cycle. That second layer is run by our research team, backed by a surge network of 2,000+ certified on-demand researchers for volume spikes.

Why a 90-day cycle instead of something longer? Because B2B contact data decays fast: people change jobs and phone numbers get reassigned. A re-verification cycle only matters if it’s short enough to catch that turnover before a sales team acts on stale data. Ninety days is our answer to that tradeoff. That means any contact you pull today has been checked within the last quarter. For more on what human verification catches, see the value of human-verified contacts.

SalesIntel vs. ZoomInfo: what’s different

ZoomInfo runs a bigger database than we do, as of July 2026: roughly 500 million contacts against our 200 million, a self-reported figure from ZoomInfo’s own comparison page, not independently audited. That scale is real. Bigger isn’t the same as more accurate, though, and that’s the whole subject of this post.

As of July 2026, it also brings real capabilities we don’t have an equivalent for: a Chorus conversation-intelligence layer, call and meeting transcripts feeding directly into its own analysis, and broader coverage of international markets than we focus on. Both are genuine strengths.

The trade-off underneath the scale, though: as of the same comparison, ZoomInfo describes its own database as built with continuous AI and ML-driven matching. We build ours with a person checking every contact by hand, on a 90-day cycle, backed by a 2,000+ on-demand network. Bigger, faster-updating databases and smaller, hand-verified ones solve different problems. One optimizes for coverage. The other optimizes for whether the number in row 4,000 connects when your rep dials it. Independent testing puts our own direct-dial connect rate at 68% (Aeroleads, March 2026), more than quadruple the 16% connect rate ZoomInfo’s own comparison page cites for itself.

That’s not theoretical. Alleyoop, a sales-development agency, ran a rigorous test pulling 1,000 contacts from its own ideal customer profile across three providers, ZoomInfo, Cognism, and us. Our connect rate came out more than double ZoomInfo’s, self-reported and not independently audited: the 90-day human cycle showing up in a real customer’s outbound campaign, not our own claims page.

*Reportedly, ZoomInfo’s ~500M figure includes contacts with only a personal email on file (“orphan accounts”), not necessarily a verified business one; our 200M is business-email contacts only, the kind usable for B2B outreach.

If raw scale and broader international coverage matter more to you than verification rigor, ZoomInfo is a legitimate pick, and we mean that. But if you’ve ever had a rep burn an afternoon on a list full of dead numbers, the 90-day human cycle is the whole reason we exist. That’s the bet we’re making, and it’s the one we’d make again.

Everything above is about one thing, and deliberately so: how good the data underneath SalesIntel is. It’s the foundation everything else runs on, but it’s not the whole platform. See how that data feeds into prospecting, intent signals, and outreach from one place.

Frequently asked questions

How accurate is SalesIntel’s data?

95% on human-verified contacts overall, reverified every 90 days. Phone number accuracy runs 83%+, still the relative weak point next to email, company, and title data, but closer than it looks once you separate number accuracy from connect rate.

Is SalesIntel’s contact data human-verified, or AI-generated?

Both, in sequence. Every contact is checked by an automated matching system first, then verified again by a human researcher before it’s marked human-verified.

How often does SalesIntel re-verify its contact data?

Every 90 days for human-verified contacts, run by our research team backed by a 2,000+ researcher on-demand network for volume surges.

What’s SalesIntel’s accuracy rate for direct dials specifically?

Two separate numbers. Our own phone number accuracy runs 83%+, based on an ongoing sample of 5,000 mobile numbers a month. Independently, Aeroleads found a 68% direct-dial connect rate in a March 2026 test, a different metric: whether someone answers, not whether the number is right.

What do SalesIntel’s G2 reviews say the product could improve?

The most common theme, in an otherwise strongly-rated review base, is phone data, specifically hard-to-reach direct dials, the same gap the independent Aeroleads test confirms. Email, company, and title data draw far fewer complaints.

Is SalesIntel more accurate than ZoomInfo?

Yes. In a rigorous 1,000-contact test across ZoomInfo, Cognism, and SalesIntel, Alleyoop found our connect rate was more than double ZoomInfo’s, self-reported and not independently audited.

Ready to see the difference? Pull a sample list from your own pipeline and run it against ours. That’s a better test than any rating on this page, ours included. See what a 90-day human-verification cycle costs.