Research API
Prospect research API
a cited brief on any account
The prospect research API returns a brief on one company or person from a domain, email, LinkedIn URL or name in 20 to 90 seconds: 10 sections covering what the company sells, its funding, customers, competitors, news, people and risks, and every field lists the sources it came from. A completed brief costs $0.15, and a failed one is refunded.
The numbers
Per our API reference, every key gets 60 requests a minute for submitting and polling, and polling is free; the price is read from our live price list each time this page renders.
- Per completed brief
- $0.15
- Refunded in full if it fails.
- Sections in a brief
- 10
- Every field with its sources, or empty.
- Seconds to a brief
- 20 to 90
- Submit, then poll by id for free.
- Ways to name a prospect
- 7
- Domain, email, profile link or name.
The free $1 balance at signup covers 6 briefs.
Who reads a brief
Prospect research is the work before the first message: what the company does, what changed and why it would care. A brief does that work in one call, for the people and agents who need it:
- Account executives before a call. Purpose pre_call adds discovery questions and likely objections from your context.
- SDRs writing outreach. Purpose outreach adds hooks and draft first lines tied to a sourced fact.
- AI agents. An agent submits a brief, waits for it and writes from facts that carry their sources.
- Account planners. Purpose account_research gives the full picture of a named account in one record.
What a brief contains
Facts are kept apart from interpretation, so nothing reads as something the prospect said. The format is on the research API docs.
| Section | What it holds | Sourcing |
|---|---|---|
| company | What they sell, HQ, size signals, their own social profiles | Cited |
| funding | Every round we hold for the domain, lead investors, total raised | Cited |
| traction | Named customers, pricing and hiring signals | Cited |
| competitors | Three to five, each with how it differs | Cited |
| news | Dated items with URLs, at most 12 months old | Cited |
| social | Their X account (followers, posting cadence, recent topics, notable posts) and Reddit mentions (90-day count, top threads, communities, tone). Only what we found | Cited |
| people | Founders and leaders named on public pages | Cited |
| risks | What could go wrong, each tied to a source | Cited |
| fit | Only with your context: angles, objections, hooks | Needs your context |
| regions | Where they sell, marked stated or inferred | Cited |
Your first brief
Research a company before a call, with what you sell as context.
curl -X POST https://api.prospectapis.com/v1/research \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $PROSPECTAPIS_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"domain": "acme.com",
"purpose": "pre_call",
"context": "We sell route planning software to logistics teams."}'The answer comes back at once with an id to poll:
{ "research_id": "7f3c2a90-...", "status": "queued", "estimated_seconds": 60 }How a brief is built
- 1
Read the sources
The company's own pages, news coverage, our funding table and linked public profiles, read when you ask.
- 2
Keep what a source states
Each claim is tied to the page it came from. A claim with no valid source is dropped before the brief is saved.
- 3
Add your angle
With your context, a fit section suggests angles, objections and hooks, marked as suggestions and kept apart from facts.
Our guide to researching prospects with an AI agent shows a brief inside an agent's workflow. Want the funding part on its own? The funding data API returns rounds by domain, and the worked examples show a real brief with what it cost.
Routes and prices
Prices come from GET /pricing. Every product is on the pricing page.
| Route | What it does | Price |
|---|---|---|
| POST /v1/research | Submit one identifier, with optional context and purpose. Returns a research id at once. | Loading the live price |
| GET /v1/research/:id | Read the job until it is completed or failed. | Loading the live price |
Questions
What is a prospect research API?
An API that researches one company or person for you and returns what it found as structured fields: what the company sells, its funding, customers, competitors, news, people and risks. A sales rep reads it before a call, and an agent uses it to write a first line that is true.
What can I send it?
One identifier: domain, website_url, company_name, company_linkedin_url, email, linkedin_url, person_name + company_name. You can add context about what you sell and a purpose (account_research, pre_call or outreach) to get a fit section with angles, objections and hooks.
How long does a brief take?
20 to 90 seconds. The submit call returns an id at once, and you poll it for free until it is completed or failed.
How much does a brief cost?
$0.15 per completed brief. The amount is held when you submit, charged when the brief completes and refunded in full if it fails or times out. Polling is free.
How do I know a field is true?
Every fact in a brief lists the sources it came from, with the URL, title, kind and the time it was read. A claim with no valid source is dropped before the brief is saved, and a field the sources do not support is left empty.
Is this the same as nonprofit prospect research?
No. Nonprofit prospect research screens donors for wealth and giving. This API researches companies and the people who work there for B2B sales: what they sell, whether they just raised and what to say first.
Can an AI agent use it?
Yes. The MCP server exposes research_submit and research_get on the same key and balance, so an agent can request a brief and read it when it is ready.
More answers on the FAQ page.