Kompass is strong for broad company research. SphereScout is built for downloadable local-business lists with ratings, hours, contacts, and update dates.
Choose Kompass for broad B2B company research. Choose SphereScout for local business list buying with listing-level fields.
What kind of alternative is this?
Kompass is an established global B2B directory. It advertises more than 60 million companies across 70 countries and offers EasyList for company lists and EasyBusiness for prospecting. It suits supplier research, company discovery, and B2B classification.
SphereScout has a narrower purpose: exporting local businesses by category and country, with business and email counts shown before purchase and an update date published for each country.
| SphereScout | Kompass | |
|---|---|---|
| How you buy | Self-serve: public plans, free preview, subscription credits, and one-off top-ups. | EasyList supports online list building and secure payment; EasyBusiness is the broader prospecting product. |
| Primary workflow | Preview any segment free, exact count and email coverage included, before using export credits. | Build a company list from B2B criteria such as activity sector, executives, turnover, size, and company type. |
| Local business coverage | 105M+ local businesses from listings, with contact and listing-level fields. | 60M+ company profiles across 70 countries, oriented to broad company and supplier research. |
| Time to a usable file | Minutes: filter, preview, export CSV. | EasyList can be bought online; broader Kompass workflows are built around company-list criteria and directory research. |
| Best buyer | Outreach teams that need lists now. | Research and procurement teams with managed data budgets. |
Kompass EasyList is useful for building B2B company lists from company and executive criteria. SphereScout starts from the local listing: category, city, region, contact availability, ratings, reviews, hours, socials, and phone line type.
Kompass is strong when the question is company research or supplier discovery. SphereScout is stronger when the question is which local businesses in a country/category/geography are fresh, reachable, and ready to export.
Kompass profiles companies; SphereScout profiles the local market: ratings, review counts, opening hours, socials, and phone line types across 105M+ businesses. For local outreach, the listing-derived fields are the ones your campaign qualifies on.
Not product defects, just workflow mismatches that matter when the goal is outbound prospecting.
Not for supplier research. SphereScout is a prospecting-export workflow for local business contacts, while Kompass is broader B2B directory infrastructure.
Because both can be used to source business prospects, but the workflows differ: Kompass is broader company research, while SphereScout is local-business list export.
Kompass is better for deep company research, supplier discovery, and directory browsing across broad B2B markets.
It depends on the target. For deep company research and supplier discovery across large enterprises, D&B Hoovers or Kompass itself remain the broader directory tools. For fast local-business list buying by category and country, SphereScout is the more direct alternative.
Kompass offers limited free company search before requiring a paid plan for full data access. SphereScout offers a free preview of up to 100 leads per category so you can check real record and email counts before paying anything.
Collecting and holding public business directory data is legal essentially everywhere. What varies by jurisdiction is using it for outreach: B2B email has a legitimate-interest basis under GDPR in some EU countries but stricter opt-in requirements in others, and CAN-SPAM applies in the US. Check your local email marketing rules before running outbound campaigns.
Kompass profiles companies for research and supplier discovery — activity sector, executives, turnover, company type. SphereScout profiles the local market itself: which businesses exist in a category and place, with contact and listing-level fields (ratings, hours, socials) that a research-oriented directory doesn't carry.
For speed, the deciding factor is whether you're browsing a directory or exporting a ready segment. Kompass and D&B Hoovers are built around company research workflows; SphereScout's segments are pre-filtered and previewable, so filtering, previewing, and exporting a country/category list takes minutes, not a research process.
Reviewed by Raphael Canyasse, SphereScout's founder and the person responsible for its local-business data product.
Kompass presents EasyList as an on-demand company-list builder with immediate downloads, 13 filters and global company coverage. It is a broad B2B directory and list product; SphereScout is centered on export-ready local-business categories by country.
Official product pages, review directories, and public comparisons, linked so you can verify every claim above.
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