What is lead generation software?

Software that produces contacts you can sell to. There are two kinds. Inbound tools capture people who visit your site (forms, popups, visitor identification). Outbound tools build lists of businesses or people for you to contact first.

What's the best free lead generation software?

For inbound, HubSpot's free forms and landing pages. For outbound, [Outscraper](/vs/outscraper)'s first 500 places or [ZipLead](/pricing)'s 5 free ZIP code searches a month. The right one depends on whether you have website traffic to capture.

Is lead generation software worth it for a small business?

When it matches your situation, usually. The common waste is paying for inbound tools with a few hundred visitors a month, or for a contact database that doesn't cover your buyers. Check coverage on a free plan first.

Can lead generation software replace cold calling?

No. It gets you a list or a form fill. Somebody still has to reach out, and for small businesses the phone is often the channel that gets answered.

Lead Generation Software: Which Kind Do You Need?

"Lead generation software" gets used for two products with almost nothing in common. One kind turns visitors on your website into contacts. The other builds a list of people who have never heard of you. Buy the wrong one and it can take months to notice it was never going to do what you needed.

QUICK ANSWER

If people already visit your website and leave without a trace, you want inbound software: HubSpot's free forms, a popup tool like OptinMonster, or Leadfeeder to see which companies came by. If hardly anyone visits yet, none of that helps. You want outbound software that builds a list: Outscraper for cheap raw Google Maps data, or ZipLead if you sell to local businesses and want the list scored and sorted for you.

One question sorts it

How many people visit your site in a month? If the honest answer is a few hundred, inbound tools have almost nothing to work with. Even if a popup caught 1 visitor in 50, 300 visitors is six emails.

Lots of small companies are right there, and they buy inbound software anyway because that's what comes up when they search. Outbound is the half that works with zero traffic.

Tool	Kind	Needs traffic?	Free option	Paid from
HubSpot	Inbound: forms and landing pages	Yes	Free plan, up to 2 users	$7 per seat/mo on annual billing
OptinMonster	Inbound: popups	Yes	No free plan. 14-day refund	$7/mo billed annually, first-year discount
Leadfeeder	Inbound: names the companies visiting your site	Yes	Lite, last 100 companies a month	€79/mo billed annually
Outscraper	Outbound: raw Google Maps data	No	First 500 places	$3 per 1,000 records
ZipLead	Outbound: scored lists of local businesses	No	5 ZIP code searches a month	$59/mo

Inbound: catching the people who already show up

HubSpot, for forms and landing pages

HubSpot's free Marketing Hub plan covers up to 2 users and includes its form builder and landing page builder. For a lot of small companies that's the entire inbound kit they need to start. Starter is from $7 per seat per month on annual billing, $20 month to month.

The next step up is steep. Professional starts at $800 a month with 3 seats, plus a one-time $3,000 onboarding fee. Plenty of teams never need it. Don't let a sales call convince you that you do.

OptinMonster, for popups

Popups and slide-ins that ask a visitor for their email. Basic shows as $7 a month billed annually, but that's a 60% first-year discount, and it covers one site and 2,500 impressions. They offer a 14-day refund if it doesn't pay off.

Worth it once you have traffic. Before that it's a nice popup nobody sees.

Leadfeeder, for knowing which companies visited

Leadfeeder identifies the B2B companies visiting your site even when nobody fills in a form. (Dealfront's pricing page now redirects to Leadfeeder's.) The free Lite plan shows the last 100 companies a month with 7 days of history, after a 14-day trial. Paid plans start at €79 a month billed annually.

It names the company, not the person. Someone still has to work out who there to contact, and that's usually where the outbound tools come back in.

Outbound: building the list yourself

Outbound software doesn't wait for anyone. You pick a market, it hands you businesses in it, and the rest is on you.

Outscraper, for cheap raw data

Outscraper pulls Google Maps listings at volume. The first 500 places are free, then $3 per 1,000 records up to 100,000, and $1 per 1,000 after that. No subscription.

You get the data and that's it: every row, unsorted, in a spreadsheet. If you already know how you filter, it's hard to beat on price.

ZipLead, when the list needs sorting

Same kind of source (Google Places, plus Foursquare), but the list comes back scored 0-99 and sorted, with each business marked Hot, Warm, Cold or Skip. Enrich the ones worth it to get contact emails off their own website, a yes or no on whether they run ads, and whether their reviews are picking up or slowing down. Then export a CSV or send them to HubSpot.

Free is 5 searches a month on ZIP codes with 3 enrichment credits. Operator is $59 a month for 100 searches and adds city and state searches.

Skip it if you need businesses outside the US, or firmographics like revenue and employee counts. It doesn't have them. And if your buyers are people with job titles rather than local businesses, read the sales prospecting tools post instead, because none of the outbound tools here will help.

Do you need both?

Eventually, maybe. Early on, almost never. Pick the half that matches where customers come from today. Most deals from referrals and cold outreach? Outbound. Steady site traffic that isn't converting? Inbound.

The expensive mistake is buying a full marketing suite to fix an empty pipeline. A suite is good at working leads you already have. It won't make them out of nothing.