Head to head · Lead search · October 2026 research run

Crustdata API + MCP vs Databar

Databar scores 53.8 (D) on agent readiness against Crustdata API + MCP's 52 (D), and leads in 2 of 7 scored categories. Crustdata API + MCP leads on reliability, schema & documentation, agent ergonomics and security & auth. Both do lead search.

Best lead, contact and company data APIs for AI agents · All 231 leads comparisons

Which one, for what

Crustdata API + MCP D

Best for Agents that monitor companies, people, jobs or posts over time and need change notifications.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 42 against 28
  • Schema & documentation, 89 against 84
  • Agent ergonomics, 73 against 66
  • Security & auth, 56 against 47

Watch for

No status page and no SLA

Databar D

Best for Waterfall enrichment across many providers for GTM agents, close to clay and fullenrich.

Ahead on

  • Payments & pricing, 35 against 5
  • Maintenance & community, 73 against 57

Also in its favour

  • Free to start without a card
  • No incidents deducted, where Crustdata API + MCP loses 3 points for them

Watch for

API access needs a paid plan; the free plan's 150 credits don't include it

Why the edge

Each category where one leads by five points or more, with the reason behind each side's score from its assessment. The numbers are in the table below; this is what they stand for.

Payments & pricing Databar +30

Crustdata API + MCP 5

No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Credit costs per endpoint and field are public, but no dollar price per credit is, and enterprise plans start at "four figures a month" through sales. We gave 5 rather than 0 because an agent can work out relative cost from the public credit table (5). Every new self-serve account now starts with $20 in free credits, but no page we read says whether signing up needs a card, so the line isn't met on the evidence (0). A person signs up in the dashboard (0).

Databar 35

No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Plan prices and credits are public, and each connector's credit cost is shown before a run and in the enrichment's pricing field; credits aren't sold per call outside a plan (15 of 20). A 14-day premium trial with no card, per the pricing FAQ (20). A person signs up in a browser, and API access needs a paid plan (0). 0+15+20+0 = 35.

Maintenance & community Databar +16

Crustdata API + MCP 57

The changelog labels every entry by month only, newest "October 2026" (NAICS and SIC on company search, geo_polygon, research profiles, the Usage API), with no exact dates or feed, and Crustdata publishes no SDK, MCP package or other dated source of its own. Read as the Zoho listings read month-only entries, dated to the month, all of October lies 4 to 34 days back, within 90 days but not shown within 30 (20). Nine entries fall in September and October, months wholly inside the 90 days from 6 August (20). Detailed public changelog, and we didn't test support (12 of 15). The only registry entry found on 1 October sat under a personal GitHub namespace, and we found no official SDKs (0). Versioned specs are current. No packages to judge (5 of 10). 20 + 20 + 12 + 0 + 5 = 57.

Databar 73

Closed service. Python SDK 2.9.0 on 30 October 2026, 7 days before this check (30). SDK 2.7.0 and 2.8.0 on 6 October and changelog entries on 23, 24, 27, 28, 29 and 30 September and 1 October (20). A public changelog, roadmap and feedback portal, an email address, and a Slack channel on Scale (10 of 15). An official Python SDK and CLI, no other languages (10 of 15). Package health not checked (3 of 10). 30+20+10+10+3 = 73.

Reliability Crustdata API + MCP +14

Crustdata API + MCP 42

No status page found. status.crustdata.com still doesn't answer and the docs link none (0). No readable incident history (5). Default rate limits published per endpoint, 15 a minute on enrich, 30 on search, 10 on live lookups and watch management, 60 on the usage endpoints, 300 on autocomplete (15). 429s return a typed rate_limit_error with X-RateLimit-Limit, -Remaining and -Reset headers, Retry-After on batch concurrency limits, back-off with jitter recommended, and batch guidance to poll before resubmitting. No idempotency keys, so safe-retry guidance without keys (12). No SLA found, and the published terms cover the website only (0). The API is generally available. Natural-language person search is labelled beta, but the core endpoints aren't (10). 0 + 5 + 15 + 12 + 0 + 10 = 42.

Databar 28

Hosted lines. No status page linked from the site or docs (0). No incident history to read (5). The 20 August changelog says rate limits return 429, but no numbers were found in the docs read (5 of 15). The SDK backs off on 429 per the 28 September entry, tasks can be cancelled with a refund, and no Retry-After or idempotency key is documented (8 of 15). No SLA found (0). The MCP server left beta on 15 July 2026 and the API is generally available (10). 0+5+5+8+0+10 = 28.

Security & auth Crustdata API + MCP +9

Crustdata API + MCP 56

Bearer keys, several named keys per account with active, inactive and deleted states, per-key endpoint restrictions and monthly credit caps since July 2026. OAuth for the MCP (28 of 30). Per-key endpoint limits give least privilege. Watchers create standing jobs, and the MCP docs don't separate read and write tools or ask for confirmation (12 of 20). Live web fetch, web search and social posts return untrusted text, and we found no prompt-injection guidance (2 of 15). Usage and logs filterable by key, a usage events API from October 2026, and X-Credits-Used on every response (14 of 15). No security.txt, bug bounty, disclosure policy or certification found (0 of 20).

Databar 47

A workspace API key in a header, never in the URL, and OAuth on the MCP with a Connected apps page to revoke access. No scopes found (20 of 30). No read-only key; MCP balance checks and confirmation above 50 credits, a 30-day trash for workbooks and tables, but row, column and table deletes through the tools (12 of 20). Enrichment results include web-scraped and AI researcher text, with no prompt-injection guidance (3 of 15). Credit usage charts, transaction logs and per-request data logs (12 of 15). No security.txt, disclosure policy, bug bounty or certification found (0 of 20). 20+12+3+12+0 = 47.

Agent ergonomics Crustdata API + MCP +7

Crustdata API + MCP 73

Premium field groups are opt-in and billed per group, cursor pagination, and the MCP publishes its tool catalogue as a resource instead of a long tools/list (22 of 25). Cursor pagination and rich filters (20). Typed errors, credit_limit_exceeded on 402 and a usage-errors endpoint grouped by error type (18 of 20). Batch jobs have poll-before-resubmit guidance, with no idempotency keys found (8 of 20). Every call needs the x-api-version header or it gets the latest version, and we found no official SDKs (5 of 15).

Databar 66

69 MCP tools with no toolsets found (5), and REST row reads sized by per_page with has_next_page (10 of 25 for the two together). Pagination, row filters and a search parameter on enrichments (16 of 20). Errors name the fix, such as unknown columns with the available ones, 406 for credits, 409 for a stale internal_version and 410 for expired results (18 of 20). Upserts by key, version tokens on flow edits, cancel with refund, and MCP confirmation above 50 credits; MCP tool annotations not confirmed (13 of 20). Python SDK and a CLI, one language (9 of 15). 10+16+18+13+9 = 66.

Schema & documentation Crustdata API + MCP +5

Crustdata API + MCP 89

Eight OpenAPI YAML files for version 2025-11-01, one per API group (account, batch, company, job, person, social_post, watch, web) (25). llms.txt with Markdown twins (10). Endpoint pages explain cost and when to search versus enrich (17 of 20). Typed filter trees with documented operators (12 of 15). Structured error envelope {error: {type, message, metadata}} and a usage-errors endpoint, with examples (13 of 15). Date-pinned API versions and a detailed changelog. Three changelog entries since August are flagged breaking inside the same pinned version, which undercuts the pin (12 of 15).

Databar 84

Each API reference page embeds its OpenAPI 3.1 operation (spec version 0.1.2), with no downloadable file found (20 of 25). llms.txt with 79 API entries and Markdown twins (10). Descriptions say when to use each endpoint, such as headless runs against table runs, and what a delete leaves behind (16 of 20). Typed request bodies with required fields (12 of 15). An error envelope with stable codes and examples for 400, 406 and 422 (14 of 15). v1 paths and a dated changelog, though the API's own versioning isn't described (12 of 15). 20+10+16+12+14+12 = 84.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runCrustdata API + MCPDatabarEdge
Reliability16%204228Crustdata API + MCP +14
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28984Crustdata API + MCP +5
Agent ergonomics13%16.27366Crustdata API + MCP +7
Security & auth14%17.55647Crustdata API + MCP +9
Payments & pricing10%12.5535Databar +30
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.85773Databar +16
Transparency & trust7%8.85655Crustdata API + MCP +1
Negative events≤15-30
TotalD 52/100D 53.8/100

Facts side by side

FactCrustdata API + MCPDatabar
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorCrustdataDatabar, Inc.
Hosted endpointhttps://api.crustdata.comhttps://mcp.databar.ai/mcp
TransportsHTTP, Streamable HTTPHTTP, Streamable HTTP, SSE (legacy)
AuthOAuth or keyOAuth or key
PricingPay per usePaid
x402nono
LicencenoneProprietary, under Databar, Inc.'s terms of service
Tools exposednone69
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
Last releasenone2026-10-30
Terms last updatedno date given2026-10-01
Privacy policy last updated2025-05-192026-10-01
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the textnot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waivernot found in the textyes
Agent reviews2.5/5 (2)none

How the scores have moved

Verdicts

Crustdata API + MCP

Per-field credit prices readable per account, X-Credits-Used on every response, per-key caps and $20 in free credits for new self-serve accounts. No status page, no SLA, no dollar price per credit, and changes that refuse earlier valid requests posted only after they shipped.

Databar

Databar puts 100+ enrichment providers, waterfalls and tables behind one REST API, a Python SDK, a CLI and a hosted MCP server with spending confirmation above 50 credits and stable error codes. API access needs a paid plan or trial, rate limits aren't published as numbers, and no status page or security programme was found.

Before you call either

Crustdata API + MCP

  1. Always send x-api-version: 2025-11-01. Unpinned calls get the latest version
  2. Call /account/endpoints first to see what your plan enables and what each field costs
  3. Ask only for the premium field groups you need, since each one bills
  4. Poll GET /batch/{id} before submitting more batch jobs. Active jobs count against a cap of 5 to 30
  5. Read the crustdata://catalog resource before calling MCP tools

Databar

  1. Poll GET /v1/tasks/{task_id} for async runs and collect results within 24 hours; after that the task returns gone
  2. When the MCP returns confirmation_required, show estimated_credits to the user and re-call with the retry_with object only after they agree
  3. Use upsert with a key column, and pass internal_version when editing flows, to avoid duplicates and stale-write 409s
  4. Check credits with GET /v1/user/me before bulk runs; 406 means the balance or plan can't cover it
  5. Treat AI researcher and scraped outputs as untrusted text

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Crustdata API + MCP or Databar?

Databar scores 53.8 (D) on agent readiness against Crustdata API + MCP's 52 (D), and leads in 2 of 7 scored categories. Crustdata API + MCP leads on reliability, schema & documentation, agent ergonomics and security & auth.

Do Crustdata API + MCP and Databar need an API key?

Both take an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

Can an agent call Crustdata API + MCP and Databar without installing anything?

Yes. Crustdata API + MCP has a hosted endpoint at https://api.crustdata.com and Databar at https://mcp.databar.ai/mcp.

Other comparisons with Crustdata API + MCP or Databar

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