Searchbase vs Browse AI (2026 Comparison)
2026-09-08
Quick answer: Searchbase searches B2B contact databases (Apollo alone: 240M+ people and 30M+ companies, as Apollo states; plus Hunter and more) and the open web from one prompt, so you never supply a URL: you get companies or people with email and phone where a provider has them, the ads they run, the jobs they post and the social profiles they keep. Describe your ideal customer. Searchbase finds them across Europe in one prompt, with the source on every cell. It works in Italian as well as English, bills in euros, and charges per action rather than per seat (€0 to €199 a month). Browse AI is the better pick if you already know which pages you want and you want them watched: you point a robot at a URL, it learns the structure, and it re-runs hourly, daily, weekly or monthly into Google Sheets, Airtable or Zapier (free plan with 50 credits a month, then $19 to $69 a month on annual billing, or $48 to $87 month to month, with Premium from $500 a month). Both are free to start.
What each tool actually does
Browse AI (browse.ai) calls itself "the leading data scraper" and says it lets you "scrape, monitor, and integrate data from almost any website with no coding required". The mechanic is a trained robot. You point it at a URL, the AI builds the data structure it thinks is there, and you review, customise and approve it. From then on the robot repeats: it can click dropdowns, fill forms and page through results, and you can schedule it to run hourly, daily, weekly or monthly to check for changes. Browse AI says 770,000+ users have used it, that there are 250+ prebuilt robots for common sites so you often skip the training step entirely, and that it can extract up to 500,000 pages at the same time. Output flows into 7,000+ tools and apps, with Google Sheets, Airtable, Zapier, Make.com, Pabbly Connect, AWS S3, REST APIs and webhooks named directly.
That monitoring loop is the real product. Browse AI is not mainly a way to find data once. It keeps a known page under observation and tells you when it changes, which is why it sits alongside Apify, Octoparse and Bright Data rather than in the lead generation category.
Searchbase (searchbase.org, Europe) answers the question you have before you have a URL. You type the request in plain words, "every digital agency in Milan with an email and a website", "heads of marketing at Italian furniture manufacturers", "creators in the running niche with over 10k followers and a contact email", "companies advertising kitchen furniture on Meta in Italy", and the agent decides where to look. For standard B2B contacts it queries contact databases, Apollo (240M+ people and 30M+ companies, as Apollo states) and Hunter among them, and enriches companies against Crunchbase and the Italian company registry. For everything else it searches, opens the pages, reads them and streams extracted rows into a table while you watch. You never supply a URL and you never train anything. Each cell carries a link to the page or provider it came from, a freshness badge and the extraction method used, and emails carry the provider's status. If a value cannot be verified it stays n/a rather than being guessed. From the people it finds, the agent drafts personalised email and LinkedIn sequences that you approve before anything launches.
The short version: with Browse AI you bring the URL and it brings the repetition. With Searchbase you bring the question and it brings the databases and the URLs.
Side by side
| Searchbase | Browse AI | |
|---|---|---|
| Input | plain-language prompt | a URL plus a trained robot |
| Coverage | B2B contact databases (Apollo alone: 240M+ people and 30M+ companies, as Apollo states; plus Hunter and more) plus any public web page, 12 social platforms, 3 ad libraries (Meta, Google, TikTok), 9 job boards, the Italian company registry, Crunchbase | almost any website you can point at |
| Output | table of companies or people: email and phone where a provider has them, website, LinkedIn, any column you ask for; source link on every cell | structured rows from the pages you targeted |
| Verification | source link, collection time and method on every cell; provider status on emails; unknown = n/a, never guessed | you see the page you targeted |
| Ad intelligence | yes, the Meta, Google and TikTok ad libraries | no |
| Creators and social | yes, 12 platforms | only if you train a robot per page |
| Languages | English, Italian | English |
| Pricing model | per action, no seats: a 10-person team pays the same as one | credits plus a cap on the number of websites per plan |
| Pricing | €0 / €29 / €79 / €199 per month, billed annually; 150 to 12,000 credits | Free (50 credits a month, 2 websites); Personal $19 a month annual or $48 monthly (2,000 credits, 5 websites); Professional $69 a month annual or $87 monthly (from 5,000 credits, 10 websites); Premium from $500 a month annual |
| CRM and export | HubSpot push; CSV, JSON, API, webhooks | 7,000+ tools, Google Sheets, Airtable, Zapier, Make.com, AWS S3, REST and webhooks |
| Outreach | drafts personalised email and LinkedIn sequences per lead; you approve before launch | none, it is a scraping tool |
| Who finds the pages | the agent | you |
| Setup | none | point and click training, or a prebuilt robot |
| Monitoring | not the core use case | core feature, hourly to monthly, change alerts |
| Best for | any team that needs a list a single database cannot give: B2B sales, agencies, recruiters, marketers, European and Italian teams | anyone tracking known pages over time |
Where Browse AI is stronger
- Point-and-click monitoring. This is the headline difference. Browse AI schedules a robot to re-check a page hourly, daily, weekly or monthly and tells you what changed. Price tracking, stock alerts, competitor page watching, job board diffs. Searchbase runs a research task and gives you a table, and it is not a change-detection system.
- Precision on one known layout, and prebuilt robots. When you need exactly the fields on a single page, training a robot beats describing it, because you see what you are selecting, and robots click dropdowns, fill forms and paginate. For 250+ common sites someone has already done that work.
- Raw volume and integrations. Up to 500,000 pages at the same time, Premium from $500 a month with managed onboarding, and 7,000+ destinations including Google Sheets, Airtable, Zapier, Make.com and AWS S3. Continuous industrial extraction is its home ground.
Where Searchbase is stronger
- One prompt, every source. Browse AI needs a URL. Searchbase asks the B2B contact databases, Apollo (240M+ people and 30M+ companies, as Apollo states) and Hunter among them, and then reads the open web, 12 social platforms, 3 ad libraries, 9 job boards, Crunchbase and the Italian company registry. If your question is "which digital agencies in Milan have a public email", building the list of pages is the actual work, and that is the part Searchbase does.
- A source on every cell. Both tools show you real pages, but Searchbase attaches the link, the collection time and the extraction method to each individual value, and the provider's status to each email, so a row assembled from four different sources stays auditable cell by cell.
- Unverifiable stays empty. Searchbase writes
n/arather than a plausible guess, which matters when the output goes to a client. - Ad libraries and social as first-class surfaces. Twelve social platforms, three ad libraries and nine job boards are searchable by description, not by URL. "Who is advertising kitchen furniture on Meta in Italy right now" is a prompt, not a robot you could realistically train.
- It ends in leads, not rows. Searchbase drafts personalised email and LinkedIn sequences for the people it found and waits for your approval, and pushes contacts into HubSpot. Browse AI, like Apify and Octoparse, hands you data and stops there, which is correct for what it is and means another tool downstream.
- Per action, no seats, no maintenance, built for Europe. A ten-person team pays what one person pays, and there is no per-website cap: Browse AI allows 2 sites on Free, 5 on Personal and 10 on Professional, with extra sites sold separately. Trained robots also break when a site changes layout, the standing tax on every point-and-click scraper, and a prompt has no selector to break. Prompts, interface and results are in Italian as well as English, pricing is in euros, and the company is European, so GDPR is the frame the product was designed inside.
How credits work in Searchbase
You pay per action, not per seat. Reading a page costs about 1 credit, a social profile about 3, a Deep Research report 20 to 40. The Free plan renews 150 credits every month with no card. Starter (€29) gives 1,000 credits, Pro (€79) gives 4,000 with API access and rollover, Business (€199) gives 12,000 with webhooks. Export is JSON on every plan, CSV from Starter, API from Pro and webhooks on Business, with a direct HubSpot push for contacts. Browse AI also runs on credits, but it caps the number of distinct websites per plan as well: 2 on Free, 5 on Personal, 10 on Professional, with extra sites sold separately.
Frequently asked questions
Is Searchbase a Browse AI alternative? Only for one of the two jobs. If you want data extracted from pages you already know, and watched afterwards, Browse AI is the right tool. If you want to find the companies and people in the first place and end up with a lead table, Searchbase is built for that and Browse AI cannot start without a URL.
Can Searchbase monitor a page for changes? Not the way Browse AI does. Scheduled re-checks with change alerts are Browse AI's core feature, along with Octoparse and the other classic scrapers. Searchbase is a research agent: you ask, it reads, you get a table.
Which one is cheaper? Browse AI Personal is $19 a month annually or $48 monthly. Searchbase Starter is €29. At the top, Searchbase Business is €199 while Browse AI Premium starts at $500 with managed services. They meter different things, so compare what one finished list costs, not the sticker, and remember Searchbase does not charge per seat or cap the number of sites.
Do Browse AI robots break? Any selector-based scraper is exposed to site redesigns, the standing cost of the point-and-click approach across Browse AI, Octoparse and Apify alike. Browse AI mitigates it with prebuilt robots and retraining. Searchbase has no saved selectors to break, at the cost of not being a monitoring tool.
Does Searchbase do outreach? The agent drafts personalised email and LinkedIn sequences for the people it found and you approve every message. Nothing goes out on its own, and launching from the campaign wizard is being switched on progressively. Browse AI does no outreach at all.
Where does the data come from? Searchbase: B2B contact databases including Apollo and Hunter, plus company sites, 12 social platforms, 3 ad libraries, 9 job boards, Crunchbase, the Italian company registry, reviews and press, each linked from the cell. Browse AI: whichever pages you point a robot at.
Prices and features checked on 2026-09-08 from https://www.browse.ai/ and https://www.browse.ai/pricing. Tell us if something changed.