---
title: "Lead Generation Tools: What One Qualified Lead Costs"
description: "Lead generation tools compared by job, not by brand: what each step costs per qualified lead, which are free, and how to choose. Start free, 100 credits."
canonical: "https://derrick-app.com/b2b-marketing/lead-generation-tools"
category: "B2B Marketing"
updated: "2026-09-18"
---

# Lead generation tools sorted by the six jobs they do, and what one qualified lead actually costs

> Lead generation tools cover six jobs: finding the accounts, finding the people, finding the contact data, reaching out, capturing inbound and routing to the CRM. Comparisons price them by the month, which hides the only number that matters: what one qualified lead costs. On Derrick that chain is 1 credit for the account, 1 for the person and 5 for a verified email, billed only when an address is found, so a qualified lead lands between one and two European cents on a paid plan, provided your LinkedIn account is connected. The free plan gives 100 credits a month and covers the first two jobs; verified emails start on the paid tiers.

*Canonical: https://derrick-app.com/b2b-marketing/lead-generation-tools* · *B2B Marketing*

---

## Lead generation tools: the short answer

**Lead generation tools** are the software you use to turn an idea of who you want to sell to into named people you can actually contact. They cover six distinct jobs: finding the accounts, finding the people inside them, finding the contact data, reaching out, capturing the inbound traffic that comes to you, and routing everything to the CRM. Most roundups sort them by vendor category. That tells you what a tool is. It does not tell you whether you need it yet.

Every listing you will read prices these tools by the month. That number is close to useless when you are comparing, because two products at the same monthly price can differ by a factor of ten on the only figure that matters: what one qualified lead costs you. A qualified lead here means a named person, at an account that fits your criteria, with a contact channel you can use. This guide prices that, job by job, using the public entry tariffs as of 18 September 2026 and the per-unit credit costs we verified in our own account on the same day.

If you are still deciding which motion to run rather than which software to buy, our guide to [B2B lead generation and the plays behind it](https://derrick-app.com/b2b-marketing/lead-generation) covers the strategy layer this page sits underneath.

## The B2B lead generation tools landscape at a glance

Here is the whole map before the detail. Read it by job, not by brand: the question is which row you are missing, not which vendor has the nicest homepage. Entry prices are public list prices checked on 18 September 2026 and quoted in the currency each vendor publishes.

| Job in the funnel | What it produces | Tools that do it | Entry price, Sept 2026 | Free tier |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| **1. Find the accounts** | A list of companies matching your criteria, with domain and firmographics | **Derrick**, Clay, ZoomInfo, Cognism | **[Derrick from EUR 9/month](https://derrick-app.com/pricing?utm_source=seo&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=bm-lead-generation-tools-en&utm_content=table)** | **Derrick: 100 credits a month, no card** |
| **2. Find the people** | Named contacts with a role at those accounts | **Derrick**, Apollo, Lusha, LinkedIn Sales Navigator | **Derrick from EUR 9/month** | **Derrick: included in the 100 free credits** |
| **3. Find the contact data** | A verified professional email, a mobile number | **Derrick**, Hunter, Kaspr, RocketReach, ContactOut | **Derrick from EUR 9/month** | No, paid plans only |
| 4. Reach out | Sequenced email and LinkedIn touches | La Growth Machine, Smartlead, HubSpot Sales Hub | Category range, often EUR 50 to 120 per seat | Varies: free tiers exist |
| 5. Capture inbound | Form fills, chat conversations, booked meetings | Typeform, Tally, Calendly, Intercom, Drift | EUR 0 to 30 per seat | Yes, generous |
| 6. Route to the CRM | One record per account, deduplicated | HubSpot, Pipedrive, Salesforce, Attio | EUR 0 to 100 per seat | Yes on the small tiers |

Two things jump out of that table. Jobs four to six are crowded, cheap and well understood; most teams already own them. Jobs one to three are where the money and the failure both live, because that is where the data comes from, and a sequencing tool pointed at a bad list just fails faster. Derrick covers those first three jobs on one credit balance, which is why it appears first in each of those rows.

## Lead generation software, lead generation tools and a CRM are three different things

The short version: lead generation tools create records that did not exist before, lead generation software bundles that creation with capture and nurturing, and a CRM stores what already happened. These three words get used interchangeably in buying conversations, and the confusion costs real money. The distinction is simple once you see it, and it is about where each one sits in time.

**Lead generation tools** create records that did not exist a minute ago. You describe a segment, and the tool returns companies and people with the attributes you asked for. Nothing in that list came from your website or your past customers. This is net-new supply.

**Lead generation software**, whose [full definition sits in our glossary](https://derrick-app.com/glossary/lead-generation-software), is the broader platform category that bundles creation with capture and nurturing: the forms, the landing pages, the scoring, the sequences. Most platforms sold under this label are strong on what happens after a lead exists and thin on producing one from nothing. That is the gap buyers discover in month two.

**A CRM** stores what already happened. It is a system of record, not a system of supply. A CRM will happily hold ten thousand accounts and will never tell you about the ten thousand and first. When a team says its CRM is not generating pipeline, the CRM is behaving exactly as designed.

The practical test: if you deleted every record tonight, which tool could rebuild your target list by Monday? That tool is doing lead generation. The others are doing storage and orchestration, which matter, but only once supply exists.

Our guide on [B2B database marketing](https://derrick-app.com/b2b-marketing/b2b-database-marketing) goes deeper on the supply side, and [inbound lead management](https://derrick-app.com/b2b-marketing/inbound-lead-management) covers what to do with the leads that arrive on their own.

## What one qualified lead actually costs, step by step

One qualified lead, meaning one named person at an account that fits with an email you can send to, costs 7 credits on Derrick with a connected LinkedIn account: 1 for the company, 1 for the person, 5 for the verified address. That is between one and two European cents depending on the plan, and it is a paid-plan figure, because finding a verified email is not part of the free tier. Every comparison prices the subscription instead, and almost none price the output, so here is the arithmetic done properly.

Getting there takes three steps, and the cost of the lead is the sum of the steps, not the price of any single one. On Derrick each step is a credit cost we verified in the product on 18 September 2026:

- **Step one, the account.** Import Companies from a Prompt costs 1 credit per company with LinkedIn connected, 10 without. Describe the segment in plain language, get back name, industry, country, website and LinkedIn URL.
- **Step two, the person.** Import Leads from a Prompt costs 1 credit per lead on the same condition, and Enrich Leads costs 1 credit per profile and needs that connection to run if you want the full attribute set on someone you already have.
- **Step three, the contact channel.** Email Finder costs 5 credits per email, and it is billed per result found: an address that cannot be found costs you nothing. Phone Finder costs 150 credits per number, also per result found.

**One condition that changes those numbers, and that no honest comparison should bury.** The two prompt-based imports cost 1 credit per row when your LinkedIn account is connected through the Chrome extension, and 10 credits per row when it is not. Enrich Companies and Enrich Leads need that connection as well. The figures below are therefore the connected price; without connecting, the same lead costs 25 credits instead of 7. Connecting is free and takes a minute, which makes it the highest-leverage setup step in the whole chain.

So, with a LinkedIn account connected through the Chrome extension, a lead with a verified email costs **7 credits** when everything lands: 1 for the account, 1 for the person, 5 for the address. Without that connection the same lead costs 25 credits. At the SCALE plan floor of EUR 0.0016 per credit, that is a little over one European cent per qualified lead. At MINI, the EUR 9 tier with 4,000 credits, a 7-credit lead costs about 1.6 cents. Those two numbers bracket the range, and neither of them is a monthly subscription price.

Two caveats that any honest comparison has to state. First, the 5 credits for an email only apply when an address is found, so your real average depends on the coverage you get in your segment, and coverage varies by country and company size. Second, **Email Finder, Email Verification, Phone Finder and Search Leads are paid features**: the free plan does not include them, so the 7-credit lead is a paid-plan figure. The section on free lead generation tools below says precisely what the free 100 credits do buy.

| Derrick feature | Unit cost | Billing | LinkedIn connection | On the free plan |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Import Companies from a Prompt | 1 credit per company | Per row requested | 1 credit connected, 10 without | Yes |
| Import Leads from a Prompt | 1 credit per lead | Per row requested | 1 credit connected, 10 without | Yes |
| Enrich Companies | 1 credit per company | Per row requested | Required | Yes |
| Enrich Leads | 1 credit per profile | Per row requested | Required | Yes |
| Find Similar Companies | 1 credit per company | Per company | Not needed | Yes |
| Search Leads | 1 credit per profile | Per row requested | Required | No, paid plans |
| Email Finder | 5 credits per email | Per result found | Not needed | No, paid plans |
| Email Verification | 1 credit per email | Per row requested | Not needed | No, paid plans |
| Phone Finder | 150 credits per number | Per result found | Not needed | No, paid plans |

For the other tools in the category, the method is to divide the public entry price by the credits or contacts it includes, then multiply by the number of steps their documentation requires. That gives an estimate from published tariffs, not a measured test, and we label it as such rather than pretending we ran their product. What we can measure is our own: 20 companies imported from one prompt cost exactly 20 credits in our account on 18 September 2026, and one contact lookup inside a company cost 1 credit per person returned.

The cost per deal, rather than per lead, depends on your reply and close rates. That arithmetic lives in [our outbound sales guide](https://derrick-app.com/b2b-marketing/outbound-sales), and the cost of a whole list of a thousand rows is broken down in [how to build a prospect list](https://derrick-app.com/b2b-marketing/build-a-prospect-list).

## Job one: lead generation tools that find the accounts

Everything downstream inherits the quality of this step. If the account list is wrong, a perfect email sequence sold to the wrong companies produces polite silence, and no amount of copywriting fixes it.

There are three ways to produce an account list, and they suit different situations.

**Describe the segment in plain language.** With Import Companies from a Prompt you write what you are looking for, and the matches come back as rows: name, industry, country, website, LinkedIn URL, at 1 credit per company with LinkedIn connected. This is semantic search over company descriptions, so it shines when your segment is defined by what a company does rather than by an administrative filter. Describe a niche, get the niche.

**Filter on hard criteria.** When the segment is defined by size, geography or industry code, you want filters rather than a description. In the Google Sheets sidebar that means importing a LinkedIn or Sales Navigator search you have already refined, or importing by NAF code for the French market. The filtering happens where filters actually exist, and the rows land in the sheet.

**Start from what already worked.** Find Similar Companies takes your won accounts and returns lookalikes at 1 credit per company. It is the cheapest list to build because the criteria come from your own history instead of from a guess. Our note on [account-based marketing](https://derrick-app.com/b2b-marketing/account-based-marketing) covers how to turn that into a named account plan.

Other tools in this row build the account list from a licensed database instead. Clay, ZoomInfo and Cognism all sit here. Several of them are sold as platforms with seat pricing and an annual commitment, which means a procurement cycle before the first row; Derrick is sold by the credit, so a two-person team can build the same list without committing to a year.

## Job two: finding the people inside the accounts

An account is not a lead. Someone has to receive the message, and in B2B that someone is rarely the first name you find. The average deal now involves several people with different questions, which is why picking one title and stopping is the most common mistake at this step.

Two paths again. If you have the accounts and want the people, Import Leads from a Prompt describes the role you want and returns matching profiles at 1 credit per lead with LinkedIn connected. If you already have a profile and want the full picture, Enrich Leads returns the attribute set from the profile at 1 credit each. Search Leads finds the LinkedIn profiles of leads you already have names for, at 1 credit per profile, and it is a paid feature rather than a free one.

The practical rule is to take two or three people per account, not one: the person who has the problem, the person who owns the budget, and the person who will be blamed if it breaks. Our guide on [selling to decision makers](https://derrick-app.com/b2b-marketing/sell-to-decision-makers) covers how to sequence them without sending the same message three times.

Apollo, Lusha and LinkedIn Sales Navigator occupy this row too. Sales Navigator is worth naming separately because it is a search interface rather than a data export. It shows you the people; getting them out as rows is a separate job, and that handoff is what the Derrick sidebar is built for.

## Job three: lead generation tools for contact data

This is the step that decides whether the previous two produced anything usable. A named person with no reachable channel is a row in a spreadsheet, not a lead.

Email is the workhorse. [Email Finder](https://derrick-app.com/features/email-finder?utm_source=seo&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=bm-lead-generation-tools-en) returns a professional address at 5 credits, billed only when an address comes back, which changes the economics of testing a new segment: a segment with poor coverage costs you the lookups that succeeded and nothing more. Email Verification, also a paid feature, checks an address you already hold at 1 credit, which is what protects a sending domain from a bounce rate that gets it filtered.

Phone is the expensive one, and it should be. Phone Finder costs 150 credits per number and is also billed per result found. That price is a signal about when to use it: a mobile number is worth it for a shortlist of high-value accounts, and it is a waste on a list of two thousand. Teams that call everyone burn their budget on the least qualified half of the list. Our page on [LinkedIn prospecting](https://derrick-app.com/b2b-marketing/linkedin-prospecting) covers the channel mix around that decision.

Hunter, Kaspr, RocketReach and ContactOut all sit in this row, most of them sold as monthly credit bundles per seat. The difference that matters for a cost-per-lead calculation is billing on success versus billing on attempt: when a tool charges for a lookup that returned nothing, the advertised unit price is not the price you pay.

## Job four: reaching out

Sending is a job Derrick does not do, and saying so plainly is more useful than pretending otherwise. Derrick produces the rows; a sending platform runs the sequence, manages the inbox, handles the reply. The two jobs have different failure modes and different pricing logic.

La Growth Machine runs multichannel sequences across email and LinkedIn, and Derrick pushes enriched rows straight into an audience there, which removes the CSV round trip that quietly loses columns. Smartlead and the sending side of HubSpot Sales Hub cover similar ground. Expect per-seat pricing in the fifty to one hundred and twenty euro range at entry, because these tools are priced by the sender rather than by the record.

One rule that survives every tool change here: deliverability is a property of your domain, not of your sequencing software. Authentication records such as SPF, DKIM and DMARC, a gradually warmed domain and a clean list do more for reply rates than any feature comparison, and a verified list is the part you control from the data side.

## Job five: capturing the inbound that comes to you

Outbound produces leads on demand; inbound produces them on its own schedule, and a tool stack that ignores the second half leaves the cheapest leads on the table. This row is the friendliest one in the category: the free tiers are real and generous.

Forms and surveys, from Typeform or Tally, capture intent while it is warm. Scheduling, from Calendly and its equivalents, removes the four emails it otherwise takes to book a call. Chat, from Intercom or Drift, catches the visitor who would never fill a form. None of these are data tools, none of them compete with the first three rows, and most teams can run them at zero cost until volume justifies a paid plan.

The connection back to the data side is enrichment on arrival: a form gives you an email and a first name, and one enrichment call turns that into a company, a headcount, an industry and a role, which is what makes routing and scoring possible. That handoff is covered in [inbound versus outbound](https://derrick-app.com/b2b-marketing/inbound-vs-outbound), where the two motions meet.

## Job six: routing to the CRM

The last job is the least glamorous and the one that decides whether anyone can tell you what the stack produced. A lead that exists in three tools with three spellings of the same company name is three leads to the reporting and one to reality.

Pick the CRM you already have. HubSpot, Pipedrive, Salesforce and Attio all hold a B2B pipeline perfectly well, and switching CRM to fix a lead generation problem is an expensive way to avoid fixing the lead generation problem. What matters is the contract between the data side and the record side: one identifier per account, usually the domain, and deduplication on the way in.

Derrick pushes rows out through the API and through 3000+ integrations via Zapier, Make and N8N, which means the routing step rarely needs a new tool, just a wiring decision. Our guide on [the sales process step by step](https://derrick-app.com/b2b-marketing/sales-process-steps) covers what each stage of the pipeline needs to carry.

## The same job on three surfaces: spreadsheet, AI assistant, API

A question that never appears in roundups and that decides daily adoption: where does the work happen? The same lead generation job can run on three different surfaces, and the right one depends on who is doing it rather than on which is technically best.

**The Google Sheets sidebar** is for a list. You have a tab with two hundred companies, you open the sidebar, you pick the action and it fills the columns. This is the surface for anyone whose working document is already a spreadsheet, and it is where the free plan is most comfortable.

**The MCP server** is for a question. Connected to an AI assistant such as Claude, it lets you ask for the thing you want in a sentence and get rows back inside the conversation, then reason on them without leaving it. It is a paid surface rather than part of the free plan, so the free gestures described further down happen in the spreadsheet. You can see how it connects on the [Derrick MCP page](https://derrick-app.com/mcp?utm_source=seo&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=bm-lead-generation-tools-en&utm_content=surfaces).

**The REST API**, also a paid surface, is for a workflow. When enrichment has to happen on signup, on a form fill or on a CRM update, nobody should be opening a spreadsheet at all. The [data enrichment API](https://derrick-app.com/data-enrichment-api?utm_source=seo&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=bm-lead-generation-tools-en&utm_content=surfaces) covers that, and the 3000+ integrations through Zapier, Make and N8N cover the cases where you would rather not write code.

A web app is coming as well, which will give the same actions their own interface. What stays constant across all of them is the credit balance: the same account, the same per-unit price, whichever surface the work happens on. That matters for a cost-per-lead comparison, because it means the price of a lead does not change when the person doing the work changes.

## Automated lead generation: what you can actually wire today

Automated lead generation is sold as a single button and delivered as a chain of steps. Being precise about which steps automate well, and which ones never will, is what separates a stack that runs from one that needs a person watching it.

What automates cleanly: building the account list from stated criteria, enriching companies and people, finding and verifying an email, pushing rows into a sending tool or a CRM, and re-running the whole chain on a schedule. All of that is deterministic. It takes an input, it produces columns, it costs a known number of credits per row, and it does not need judgement.

What does not automate: deciding the segment, deciding the message, and deciding which reply is worth a call. Lead generation automation moves the work from doing to deciding. That is a real gain, and it is also the limit: the segment, the message and the shortlist still need someone to choose them.

A practical wiring that most teams can build in an afternoon has four pieces. A trigger, either a schedule or a new row in a CRM view. An enrichment call through the API. A conditional step that only sends rows above a threshold into the sequencing tool. And a write-back to the CRM, so the next run does not redo the same work. The conditional is the part people skip and the part that protects the budget.

## Free lead generation tools: what 100 credits a month really buy

On the free plan, 100 credits a month buy 100 rows of company or lead data when your LinkedIn account is connected, since importing, enriching and finding lookalike companies then cost 1 credit per row each. Finding a verified email is not included at all, and without that connection the two prompt-based imports cost 10 credits per row. Free is a real criterion in this category, and most roundups handle it badly by listing tools whose free tier is a seven-day trial. Here is the precise version for Derrick, feature by feature, because a vague promise about a free plan is worse than no promise.

The free plan gives **100 credits a month, at no cost and with no card**. Credits are spent per unit, so what they buy depends on the action:

- **[Import Companies from a Prompt](https://derrick-app.com/features/import-companies-by-prompt?utm_source=seo&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=bm-lead-generation-tools-en)**, 1 credit per company with LinkedIn connected and 10 without: describe a segment and get up to 100 companies in a month, with domain and firmographics.
- **[Enrich Companies](https://derrick-app.com/features/enrich-companies?utm_source=seo&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=bm-lead-generation-tools-en)**, 1 credit per company, LinkedIn connection required: the full attribute set on companies you already list.
- **Import Leads from a Prompt**, 1 credit per lead with LinkedIn connected and 10 without, and **Enrich Leads**, 1 credit per profile, LinkedIn connection required: named people and their profile attributes.
- **Find Similar Companies**, 1 credit per company: lookalikes from your won accounts.

Count steps, not features. Importing fifty companies and then enriching the same fifty is two actions on each row, so it is 100 credits, not 50. That arithmetic is the one thing to get right before planning a month on the free plan.

What the free plan does not include, stated plainly: **Email Finder, Email Verification, Phone Finder and Search Leads are paid features**. You can build and qualify a target list for free, and finding the verified email addresses starts at the EUR 9 MINI plan. That is the line between the two, and any page that implies you can get verified emails for nothing is selling you a trial.

If you would rather start from a shortlist of what is genuinely free across the category, our [free lead generation tools](https://derrick-app.com/free-lead-generation-tools) page keeps that list. The free tier here is also the right way to test the cost-per-lead arithmetic from earlier on your own segment rather than on ours, since coverage varies by market.

## How to choose lead generation software: five questions

Five questions, in order. The order matters more than the answers, because the first one eliminates most of the shortlist.

**1. Which of the six jobs am I actually missing?** Buying a second tool for a job you already cover is the most common waste in this category. Write down the six rows, mark what you own, and shop only for the gaps.

**2. What does one qualified lead cost, not one month?** Take the entry price, divide by the units included, multiply by the number of steps your workflow needs. A tool with a low monthly price and three billable steps can be more expensive per lead than a tool priced higher with one.

**3. Am I billed on attempt or on result?** For contact data this single line can double or halve the real cost. Billing per result found means a segment with thin coverage costs you less, not more.

**4. Where does the work happen?** Spreadsheet, AI assistant or API. A tool that only exists in an interface your team never opens has a zero adoption rate whatever the feature list says.

**5. Can I leave?** Credits that roll over, no annual commitment, and an export that gives you your rows back. For Derrick the answers are: unused credits roll over on the paid plans, there is no annual commitment, and on the spreadsheet surface your rows are already in your own sheet, so there is nothing to export. Our [pricing page](https://derrick-app.com/pricing?utm_source=seo&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=bm-lead-generation-tools-en) has the full grid. Procurement cycles are a feature for the vendor, not for you.

Answer those five and the shortlist usually collapses to two options, which is the point. If your gap is in the first three rows, Derrick covers them on one balance from EUR 9 a month, with a free tier to check the arithmetic first.

One last note on timing. Tool categories move, prices change, and free tiers get quietly trimmed. Every price on this page is a public list price checked on 18 September 2026, and every credit cost is the per-unit price in the product on the same day. Check the current figures before you commit a budget, and the newsletter form on this page sends one email every 2 weeks if you would rather have the changes arrive in your inbox. And if you want to price your own market rather than read ours, the first five minutes are: install the Google Sheets add-on, connect LinkedIn through the Chrome extension, then [import twenty accounts and watch the counter](https://derrick-app.com/?utm_source=seo&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=bm-lead-generation-tools-en-setup), which costs 20 of your 100 free credits.

## Use Derrick in Claude (MCP) or via API

Derrick isn't only a Google Sheets add-on. The same B2B data enrichment runs as an MCP server (use it directly inside Claude and other AI agents) and as a REST API:

- **Claude / AI agents (MCP)**: connect the Derrick MCP server, then enrich from chat. Setup: /mcp
- **REST API**: call the same enrichment endpoints from your own stack (PLUS plan and up). Docs: https://app1.derrick-app.com/api/v1/docs/

## FAQ

### What is lead generation software?
Lead generation software is the platform category that bundles creating leads with capturing and nurturing them: forms, landing pages, scoring and sequences. Lead generation tools in the narrow sense do the first part only, producing records that did not exist before from a description of your target segment. Most platforms sold under the software label are strong after a lead exists and thin at producing one, which is the gap buyers find in month two.

### How much do lead generation tools cost?
Entry plans across the category run from nothing to a few hundred euros a month per seat, but the monthly price is the wrong comparison. Price the output instead: on Derrick a qualified lead is 1 credit for the account, 1 for the person and 5 for a verified email, with the two 1-credit imports priced at 10 credits per row if your LinkedIn account is not connected, which is 7 credits in total, or between one and two European cents depending on the plan: about 1.6 cents on the EUR 9 MINI tier, a little over one cent at the EUR 0.0016 per credit floor on SCALE. Without a connected LinkedIn account the two imports cost 10 credits per row, and the same lead costs 25 credits.

### What is the best lead generation tool for a B2B sales team?
It depends on which of the six jobs you are missing, which is why a single answer is usually a sales pitch. Write down the six rows, mark what you already own, and shop only for the gap. If the gap is on the data side, finding accounts, people and contact details, Derrick covers those three on one credit balance across Google Sheets, an AI assistant over MCP and a REST API.

### Are there free lead generation tools that actually work?
Yes, with a precise limit worth knowing. Derrick's free plan gives 100 credits a month with no card, and those credits work on Import Companies from a Prompt, Enrich Companies, Import Leads from a Prompt, Enrich Leads and Find Similar Companies, all at 1 credit per row. Find Similar Companies needs no LinkedIn connection; the two prompt-based imports cost 10 credits per row without one, and the two enrichments require it. Email Finder, Email Verification, Phone Finder and Search Leads are paid features, so you can build and qualify a list for free and finding verified emails starts on a paid plan.

### Can ChatGPT or Claude do lead generation?
An assistant on its own cannot, because it has no access to company or contact data and will invent plausible-looking rows if you ask it to. Connected to a data source over MCP it can, since the assistant handles the conversation and the tool returns real records. That is what the Derrick MCP server does: you describe the segment in the chat and the matching companies or people come back as rows you can work with.

### What is the difference between lead generation software and a CRM?
A CRM is a system of record and lead generation software is a system of supply. The CRM stores what already happened and will hold ten thousand accounts without ever telling you about the ten thousand and first. The test is simple: if you deleted every record tonight, the tool that could rebuild your target list by Monday is the lead generation one.

### How does lead generation automation actually work?
It automates the deterministic steps and leaves the judgement to you. Building the list from stated criteria, enriching companies and people, finding and verifying emails, and pushing rows into a sequencing tool or CRM all run unattended on a schedule or a trigger, through the API or through Zapier, Make and N8N. Choosing the segment, writing the message and deciding which reply deserves a call do not automate, and treating them as if they did is how a stack contacts thousands of people and books nothing.

### Do I have to connect LinkedIn to get these credit prices?
For part of the range, yes, and it is worth knowing before you budget. Import Companies from a Prompt and Import Leads from a Prompt cost 1 credit per row with a LinkedIn account connected through the Chrome extension and 10 credits per row without one. Enrich Companies and Enrich Leads need that connection to run at all. Find Similar Companies, Email Finder, Email Verification and Phone Finder do not need it. Connecting is free, which is why a qualified lead is 7 credits connected and 25 credits otherwise.

## Related

- [The State of B2B Marketing Performance 2026: Benchmarks Report](https://derrick-app.com/b2b-marketing/b2b-marketing-performance-2026)
- [Account-Based Marketing (ABM)](https://derrick-app.com/b2b-marketing/account-based-marketing)
- [Inbound vs Outbound Marketing: the Differences and the 2026 Strategies](https://derrick-app.com/b2b-marketing/inbound-vs-outbound)
- [B2B lead generation: Strategies, tools, tips in 2026](https://derrick-app.com/b2b-marketing/lead-generation)
- [Go-to-market strategy: the B2B framework and 7 steps](https://derrick-app.com/b2b-marketing/go-to-market-strategy)
- [Lead generation company: types, costs, and buy vs build](https://derrick-app.com/b2b-marketing/lead-generation-company)
- [Outbound sales: definition, process, and how to make it work](https://derrick-app.com/b2b-marketing/outbound-sales)
- [How to Build a Prospect List That Survives Contact](https://derrick-app.com/b2b-marketing/build-a-prospect-list)
- [B2B Database Marketing: The Data-First Playbook](https://derrick-app.com/b2b-marketing/b2b-database-marketing)
- [Demand Generation vs Lead Generation](https://derrick-app.com/b2b-marketing/demand-generation-vs-lead-generation)
- [Inbound Lead Management](https://derrick-app.com/b2b-marketing/inbound-lead-management)
- [The 8 B2B Sales Challenges, and How to Tell Which One Is Actually Yours](https://derrick-app.com/b2b-marketing/b2b-sales-challenges)
- [How to sell to decision makers when five people share the decision](https://derrick-app.com/b2b-marketing/sell-to-decision-makers)
- [Inbound sales: how to sell to a buyer who already did the research](https://derrick-app.com/b2b-marketing/inbound-sales)
- [LinkedIn prospecting without Sales Navigator: the free-account workflow](https://derrick-app.com/b2b-marketing/linkedin-prospecting)
- [The 7 sales process steps, and the data each step runs on](https://derrick-app.com/b2b-marketing/sales-process-steps)
- [Social Selling Tools: The Five Jobs a Stack Actually Does](https://derrick-app.com/b2b-marketing/social-selling-tools)
- [LinkedIn Account Based Marketing: The List Problem Nobody Mentions](https://derrick-app.com/b2b-marketing/linkedin-abm)
- [Sales proposal template: the eight sections, and the data each one needs](https://derrick-app.com/b2b-marketing/sales-proposal-template)
- [ICP in sales: what it means, and how to build yours from the deals you already won](https://derrick-app.com/b2b-marketing/icp-in-sales)