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Head to head · Lead search · October 2026 research run

Explorium AgentSource vs People Data Labs

People Data Labs scores 64.2 (B) on agent readiness against Explorium AgentSource's 48.1 (D), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Explorium AgentSource leads on schema & documentation and payments & pricing. Both do lead search.

Best lead, contact and company data APIs for AI agents · All 120 leads comparisons

Explorium AgentSourceExplorium Ltd. · HTTP API D48.1/100#821 of 950 People Data LabsPeople Data Labs, Inc. · HTTP API B64.2/100#362 of 950

Which one, for what

Explorium AgentSource D

Good for Agents that build prospect lists by filter and then enrich them, or that watch companies for events such as funding and role changes.

Ahead on

  • Schema & documentation, 76 against 70
  • Payments & pricing, 40 against 35

Watch for

No status page was found, and no SLA is published

People Data Labs B

Good for Products and pipelines that enrich or search person and company records at volume and can write Elasticsearch or SQL queries.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 78 against 42
  • Agent ergonomics, 77 against 63
  • Security & auth, 43 against 37
  • Maintenance & community, 79 against 28
  • Transparency & trust, 67 against 59

Watch for

No OpenAPI file was found. The machine-readable material is a Postman collection and Elasticsearch mappings

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runExplorium AgentSourcePeople Data LabsEdge
Reliability16%204278People Data Labs +36
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.27670Explorium AgentSource +6
Agent ergonomics13%16.26377People Data Labs +14
Security & auth14%17.53743People Data Labs +6
Payments & pricing10%12.54035Explorium AgentSource +5
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.82879People Data Labs +51
Transparency & trust7%8.85967People Data Labs +8
Negative events≤15-20
Total48.1 · D64.2 · B

Facts side by side

FactExplorium AgentSourcePeople Data Labs
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorExplorium Ltd.People Data Labs, Inc.
Hosted endpointhttps://api.explorium.aihttps://api.peopledatalabs.com/v5
TransportsHTTP, Streamable HTTP, SSE (legacy)HTTP
AuthAPI keyAPI key
PricingPay per useFreemium
x402nono
LicenceProprietary service under the Explorium Terms of Use. The mcp-explorium repository of connection files is MITProprietary service under the Services Subscription Agreement. The Python and JavaScript SDKs are MIT
Tools exposed11none
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-09-022026-09-16
Terms last updated2026-06-14couldn't be read
Privacy policy last updated2026-06-28couldn't be read
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textcouldn't be read
Terms restrict automated accessyescouldn't be read
Terms restrict benchmarkingyescouldn't be read
Terms or service can change without noticeyescouldn't be read
Arbitration or class-action waivernot found in the textcouldn't be read
Popularitynone40 stars, 133k npm/wk, 30k PyPI/wk

Verdicts

Explorium AgentSource

AgentSource v2 has a public OpenAPI 3.1 file, Markdown docs, a 200 queries a minute limit with Retry-After, public credit prices and a 100-credit trial. No status page or published SLA was found, each company shares one API key with no scopes, and the vendor's two published price tables disagree.

People Data Labs

Monthly dated release notes, a free sandbox with synthetic data, response headers that report credits and rate limits, and a free plan of 100 records a month make the API easy to start with. No OpenAPI file was found, keys carry no scopes and may travel in the URL, and the agreement allows changes without notice.

Before you call either

Explorium AgentSource

  1. Send the key in the api_key header to https://api.explorium.ai and use /v2 paths. v1 is deprecated
  2. Point MCP clients at https://mcp-v2.explorium.ai/mcp. The site's agent files still name the v1 server at mcp.explorium.ai
  3. Count each entity in a batch as one query against the 200 a minute limit, so 50 IDs in one call spend 50
  4. Call the statistics endpoint first to size an audience for free. Fetch costs 1 credit a result, or 2 with the Bombora intent filter
  5. Call /v2/autocomplete before filtering on category, tech stack or job title, and never mix two category types in one request

People Data Labs

  1. Send the key in the X-Api-Key header. The api_key query parameter puts the secret in URLs and logs
  2. Build and test queries against https://sandbox.api.peopledatalabs.com/v5/... first. It costs no credits and allows five calls a minute
  3. Set size deliberately on search. Every record returned costs one credit, and responses over 1 MB fail
  4. Treat 404 on enrichment as no match, not an error, and 402 as credits exhausted. Neither is worth a retry
  5. On 429, wait until the x-ratelimit-reset time. Limits are fixed-window per key and per endpoint

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Explorium AgentSource or People Data Labs?

People Data Labs scores 64.2 (B) on agent readiness against Explorium AgentSource's 48.1 (D), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Explorium AgentSource leads on schema & documentation and payments & pricing.

Do Explorium AgentSource and People Data Labs need an API key?

Both need an API key.

Can an agent call Explorium AgentSource and People Data Labs without installing anything?

Yes. Explorium AgentSource has a hosted endpoint at https://api.explorium.ai and People Data Labs at https://api.peopledatalabs.com/v5.

Other comparisons with Explorium AgentSource or People Data Labs

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