Clearbit Prospector API: What It Is and Where It Went
The Clearbit Prospector API returned contacts (name, title, verified email, seniority) for a company domain, so you could build prospect lists with code instead of by hand. HubSpot acquired Clearbit in November 2023 and rolled it into Breeze Intelligence. If you're searching for the classic standalone Prospector endpoint in 2026, here's what it did, what changed, and what to use now.
What Clearbit Was, in One Paragraph
Clearbit built B2B data APIs. The flagship endpoints were Enrichment (fill in company and person fields), Reveal (turn anonymous website visitors into named companies), and Prospector (find people at a target company). For GTM Engineers, Clearbit was a clean, developer-first way to pull data into a pipeline without a heavy platform. You'd hit an endpoint, get JSON back, and route it into Clay, a CRM, or an outbound sequence.
What the Prospector API Did
Prospector was the people-search piece. You passed a company domain and filters (role, seniority, department), and it returned a list of matching contacts with verified emails. A common pattern: feed Prospector a list of target accounts, ask for the VP of Sales and the RevOps lead at each, and get back a contact list ready for enrichment and sequencing. It saved the manual work of finding the right person at every account one by one.
Here's how the three Clearbit APIs split the work, since searchers often confuse them.
| API | Input | Output | GTM use |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prospector | Company domain + role filters | Contacts with verified emails | Build target contact lists |
| Enrichment | Email or domain | Company + person fields | Fill in CRM records |
| Reveal | Visitor IP | Company name + firmographics | De-anonymize web traffic |
What Changed After the HubSpot Acquisition
HubSpot bought Clearbit in November 2023. Through 2024 and 2025, Clearbit was rebranded as Breeze Intelligence and absorbed into HubSpot's platform. The standalone Clearbit product page and self-serve API signup went away. New buyers can't purchase the classic Prospector API on its own. The contact-search and enrichment capabilities now live behind HubSpot plans and Breeze Intelligence credits.
For GTM Engineers who relied on a lightweight Clearbit API call outside of HubSpot, that's the catch. The data is good, but it's now coupled to HubSpot. If your stack is already HubSpot-centric, Breeze is a reasonable continuation. If it isn't, the standalone-API convenience that made Clearbit popular is gone.
Best Clearbit Prospector API Alternatives for GTM Engineers
If you want programmatic prospecting and enrichment without committing to HubSpot, four tools cover the same jobs.
Apollo. The closest direct swap for Prospector. A 275M+ contact database, a documented API, and a free tier with 10,000 credits a month. Best when you want broad coverage and self-serve access. See our Apollo alternatives breakdown for where it falls short.
Clay. Instead of one prospecting endpoint, Clay orchestrates a waterfall across many providers in a single table. Heavier to set up, but you control which source fills each field. Our Clay alternatives page covers the trade-offs.
FullEnrich. Strong on email and mobile waterfalls when contact accuracy matters more than database breadth.
ZoomInfo and Cognism. Enterprise-grade data with APIs, priced accordingly. Worth it when coverage depth justifies the contract. For Clearbit-specific context, read our Clearbit review.
Should You Wait for Clearbit to Come Back Standalone?
No. HubSpot acquired Clearbit to feed its own platform, and there's no signal it plans to revive a separate, self-serve Prospector API. If you need contact search and enrichment through an API today, pick a substitute that's actively sold as a standalone product. Apollo and Clay between them cover nearly everything Prospector did, and both keep shipping.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Clearbit Prospector API?
The Clearbit Prospector API was an endpoint that returned contacts (name, title, verified email, and seniority) for a given company domain. You'd pass a domain plus filters like role or seniority, and it returned matching people at that company. GTM Engineers used it to build contact lists programmatically instead of pulling them by hand. Clearbit also shipped a Reveal API (de-anonymize website visitors) and an Enrichment API (fill in company and person fields), and Prospector was the people-search piece of that suite.
Is the Clearbit Prospector API still available?
Clearbit was acquired by HubSpot in November 2023 and rebranded as Breeze Intelligence. The standalone Clearbit product and its self-serve APIs have been folded into HubSpot. New customers can't buy the classic Prospector API on its own anymore. The contact-search capability now lives inside HubSpot's Breeze data tools, so access depends on a HubSpot plan rather than a separate Clearbit subscription. Some legacy Clearbit API keys still functioned through the transition, but the long-term path is HubSpot's platform.
What's the difference between Clearbit Prospector, Reveal, and Enrichment?
Three jobs, three endpoints. Prospector found people at a company (the search and list-building piece). Reveal turned anonymous website traffic into named companies (the de-anonymization piece). Enrichment filled in firmographic and demographic fields on a record you already had. GTM Engineers chained them: Reveal spots a company on your site, Prospector finds the right contact there, Enrichment rounds out the record before it hits a sequence.
What are the best Clearbit Prospector API alternatives?
For programmatic contact search, Apollo's API has the broadest free coverage and a 275M+ contact database. For waterfall enrichment across many sources, Clay orchestrates providers in one workflow. For deep B2B data, ZoomInfo and Cognism both offer APIs, though at enterprise pricing. FullEnrich is strong on email and mobile waterfalls. See our Clay alternatives and Apollo alternatives roundups for full comparisons.
How much did the Clearbit Prospector API cost?
Clearbit never published flat public pricing for the Prospector API. Access came through Clearbit's paid plans, which were quote-based and typically started in the four-figures-per-year range for API use, scaling with volume and which endpoints you needed. Since the HubSpot acquisition, pricing is tied to HubSpot's Breeze Intelligence credits and plan tiers rather than a standalone Clearbit API contract.
Can GTM Engineers still use Clearbit data without HubSpot?
Not as a clean standalone API the way it worked before 2024. The data now sits inside HubSpot Breeze. If you're not on HubSpot and want Clearbit-style enrichment and prospecting through an API, the practical move is a substitute like Apollo, Clay, or FullEnrich rather than waiting for a revived standalone Clearbit endpoint.
Source: State of GTM Engineering Report 2026 (n=228). Salary data combines survey responses from 228 GTM Engineers across 32 countries with analysis of 3,342 job postings.