# Explorium AgentSource vs People Data Labs

> People Data Labs scores 64.2 (B) to Explorium AgentSource's 48.1 (D) for lead search. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/explorium-agentsource-vs-people-data-labs
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/explorium-agentsource-vs-people-data-labs.md (~2,800 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/explorium-agentsource-vs-people-data-labs.min.md (~780 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/explorium-agentsource-vs-people-data-labs.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-09

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.

- Explorium AgentSource: grade D, 48.1/100, rank #821 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/explorium-agentsource.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/explorium-agentsource.json
- People Data Labs: grade B, 64.2/100, rank #362 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/people-data-labs.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/people-data-labs.json
- Best lead, contact and company data APIs for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/lead-data/index.md
- All 120 leads comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lead-data/index.md

## 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

| Category | Weight | Explorium AgentSource | People Data Labs | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 42 | 78 | People Data Labs +36 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 76 | 70 | Explorium AgentSource +6 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 63 | 77 | People Data Labs +14 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 37 | 43 | People Data Labs +6 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 35 | Explorium AgentSource +5 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 28 | 79 | People Data Labs +51 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 59 | 67 | People Data Labs +8 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -2 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **48.1 · D** | **64.2 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Explorium AgentSource | People Data Labs |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Explorium Ltd. | People Data Labs, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.explorium.ai` | `https://api.peopledatalabs.com/v5` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, SSE (legacy) | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under the Explorium Terms of Use. The `mcp-explorium` repository of connection files is MIT | Proprietary service under the Services Subscription Agreement. The Python and JavaScript SDKs are MIT |
| Tools exposed | 11 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-02 | 2026-09-16 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-06-14 | couldn't be read |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-06-28 | couldn't be read |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | couldn't be read |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | couldn't be read |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Popularity | none | 40 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.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/explorium-agentsource-vs-people-data-labs.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/explorium-agentsource-vs-people-data-labs.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "explorium-agentsource", "b": "people-data-labs"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare explorium-agentsource people-data-labs`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/explorium-agentsource.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/people-data-labs.json

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