# PhantomBuster — Lead Generation

PhantomBuster by PhantomBuster SAS holds a panel rating of 1.5/5 from 6 AI judges (category median 1.5/5), as of 2026-10-21. Provenance: provenance unknown; sovereignty: not determined.

- Vendor: PhantomBuster SAS (https://www.phantombuster.com)
- Category: [Lead Generation](https://whats-best.ai/software/lead-generation.md)
- Provenance (editorial classification): provenance unknown
- Canonical page: https://whats-best.ai/software/lead-generation/phantombuster
- Alternatives: https://whats-best.ai/software/lead-generation/phantombuster/alternatives ([markdown](https://whats-best.ai/software/lead-generation/phantombuster/alternatives.md))
- Data as of: 2026-10-21 · evaluated 2026-10-21 · oldest source captured 2026-10-20

**AI-generated.** Every score, rationale and verdict here is written by a panel of AI judges from public evidence — an analysis, not a hands-on test. Every fact quotes the vendor page it was read from. No score can be bought. How scores are made: https://whats-best.ai/methodology

## At a glance

- Vendor: PhantomBuster SAS
- Headquarters: Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 20 Oct 2026
- Data hosting: Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 20 Oct 2026
- Free plan: Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 20 Oct 2026

## The panel's verdict

PhantomBuster is a lead-generation automation layer, not a contact database: Phantoms pull live data through your own LinkedIn session from 15+ platforms and deliver it to HubSpot, Salesforce, CSV or Google Sheets. Strongest is CRM sync and export, scored 4 to 6 — HubSpot and Salesforce enrichers with field mapping, custom fields, create-or-update behaviour, chained launches on a configurable schedule, and a refresher flagging 'No longer at company' contacts. Weakest is visitor identification at 0 to 1: the Profile Visitor visits prospects' LinkedIn profiles so you appear in their notifications, and we found no public information on identifying companies behind website visits. Data provenance scores hold at 2, resting on the phrase 'GDPR and platform-compliant'. Prospecting compliance spans 1 to 3 — the low score weighs the recommended Bright Data proxies, the high one the 'only data you have access to' sourcing limit. Sovereignty scores 4 to 5 on a French contracting entity with main sites on Amazon Web Services EMEA in Luxembourg, with no public information found on subprocessors. Pricing: a free trial and one slot per Phantom.

**Speaks for it:**
- Native HubSpot and Salesforce enrichers with field mapping, custom fields and create-or-update of existing records
- A contact refresher marks outdated contacts 'No longer at company', with chained launches on a configurable schedule for continuous refresh
- Live extraction through your own LinkedIn session answers freshness at scrape time rather than through a database refresh cadence
- Exports run to CSV, JSON and Google Sheets as well as direct CRM sync
- A French société par actions simplifiée in Paris with main sites hosted by Amazon Web Services EMEA in Luxembourg

**Held against it:**
- We found no public information on identifying companies behind website visits — the Profile Visitor is an outbound warm-up tool
- Compliance rests on the phrase 'GDPR and platform-compliant', with no public information on a legal basis or an opt-out route for the people scraped
- Outreach 'safe parameters' read as platform rate limits — recommended caps of 80 profiles a day — with no public information on suppression lists or country-aware flags
- We found no public information on coverage figures by country, verification methods, or a bounce or credit-back guarantee
- We found no public information on subprocessors, a data-processing agreement, or where the scraped personal data itself is processed

**Best for:**
- You run HubSpot or Salesforce and want scraped LinkedIn data mapped to specific objects, with custom fields and create-or-update on a schedule
- Your team's priority is contact hygiene — flagging contacts no longer at their company and refreshing records continuously
- You already hold LinkedIn or Sales Navigator access and want live extraction through your own session rather than a bought database
- You want no-code, cloud-run automations that chain into repeated launches

**Avoid if:**
- You need to identify the companies visiting your own website or measure intent — the Profile Visitor warms outbound prospects instead
- You must verify coverage counts, data accuracy or a bounce guarantee before committing spend
- Your compliance review requires a stated legal basis, a notice to the people scraped, or a data-processing agreement
- You need suppression lists or country-aware do-not-contact handling before any German-market outreach

## Scores by judge and criterion

Scores out of 5, each judge scoring independently against the published rubric (v1). "n/r" = not rated: the vendor publishes no price.

| Criterion | The SDR Team Lead | The RevOps Manager | The Data Protection Officer | The ABM Marketer | The DACH Sales Director | The Skeptic |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Coverage, accuracy & freshness | 1.5/5 | 1.5/5 | 1.5/5 | 1/5 | 1/5 | 1.5/5 |
| Data sources & lawful basis | 1/5 | 1/5 | 1/5 | 1/5 | 1/5 | 1/5 |
| Visitor identification & intent signals | 0/5 | 0.5/5 | 0.5/5 | 0.5/5 | 0/5 | 0.5/5 |
| Prospecting workflow & outreach rules | 1.5/5 | 1/5 | 1/5 | 0.5/5 | 1/5 | 1/5 |
| CRM sync, enrichment & export | 3/5 | 3/5 | 2/5 | 2/5 | 2.5/5 | 2.5/5 |
| European sovereignty | 2/5 | 2.5/5 | 2/5 | 2.5/5 | 2/5 | 2/5 |
| Pricing transparency | n/r | n/r | n/r | n/r | n/r | n/r |
| **Weighted verdict** | **1.5/5** | **2/5** | **1.5/5** | **1/5** | **1/5** | **1.5/5** |

### The judges

- **The SDR Team Lead** (v1.0): Runs eight SDRs against a monthly meeting target. Wants filters that find the right buyer at the right company, emails that do not bounce, and direct dials that reach a person. Measures a database by connect rate, not by the record count on the homepage.
- **The RevOps Manager** (v1.0): Owns the CRM and cleans up after every tool sales buys. Wants sync with field mapping and deduplication, re-enrichment that updates rather than duplicates, objections that propagate into synced records, and exit terms that say what the company may keep.
- **The Data Protection Officer** (v1.0): Knows the company becomes controller the moment a list is exported. Wants the source and legal basis of every record stated, the Art. 14 notice actually sent, a removal route for the people in the database, and a visitor script that does not fire before consent.
- **The ABM Marketer** (v1.0): Works a list of three hundred target accounts and wants to know which of them are in market. Cares about company-level visitor identification, intent data with a named source, and alerts that reach the account owner while the signal is still warm.
- **The DACH Sales Director** (v1.0): Sells into German Mittelstand companies that are barely visible in US-built databases. Wants register-based company data, coverage stated for Germany, Austria and Switzerland rather than for "Europe", and a tool that knows a cold call under UWG §7 is not a growth hack.
- **The Skeptic** (v1.0): Has read "98% accuracy" and "GDPR-compliant data" on every homepage in the category. Reads instead for the refresh cadence, the credit-back rule for a bounced email, what a mobile number costs in credits, and the source the privacy notice admits to.

## European sovereignty — proven facts

Built only from facts on the vendor's own pages; a dimension we could not prove is left open, never scored as zero. Headline: not determined.

| Dimension | Finding | Points | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Legal entity | Not determined | — | — |
| Ownership | Not determined | — | — |
| Data residency | Not determined | — | — |
| Subprocessors | Not determined | — | — |

## Key facts

Each fact is the vendor's own statement, cited to the source page it was read from ([S*n*] → Sources).

**Compliance**
- GDPR: yes [S6]

**Hosting**
- Main provider: phantombuster.com · discover.phantombuster.com · affiliates.phantombuster.com · status.phantombuster.com · 38 avenue John F. Kennedy, L-1855 Luxembourg · Amazon Web Services EMEA SARL [S2]
- Teamtailor sites: careers.phantombuster.com · Sweden · TeamTailor AB [S2]
- Thinkific site: academy.phantombuster.com · Canada · Thinkific Labs Inc. [S2]

**Integrations**
- Export targets: CSV · Google Sheets · CRM [S5]
- Hubspot workflow: HubSpot Contact Sender phantom [S5]

**Legal**
- Address: Paris · 49 rue de Ponthieu · France · 75008 [S2]
- Entity: The Phantom Company · Société par actions simplifiée · Trade and Commerce Register of Paris · 66939 · 818 723 629 [S2]
- VAT number: FR46818723629 [S2]

**Pricing**
- Free trial: yes · 14 · no [S6]
- Free trial: Free trial offered [S7]
- Trial: yes [S5]
- Trial: 14 · no [S2]

**Product**
- Accounts support: yes · yes [S8]
- Capability summary: Visits LinkedIn profiles and extracts names, headlines, endorsements, connection counts, profile pictures, and full-profile screenshots, delivered to CRM or Google Sheets [S5]
- Cloud execution: yes [S4]
- Cloud execution: yes [S7]
- Cloud execution: yes [S8]
- Companies and contacts: yes · yes [S7]
- Create or update: yes [S8]
- Create or update entries: yes · yes [S7]
- Creates new contact: creates new contact linked to new company, adds company to HubSpot if missing, enriches with professional email, start date, previous lifecycle stage, job title, company [S3]
- CRM enricher purpose: Migrates large batches of enriched data (firmographic, contact, intent) into HubSpot CRM [S7]
- Custom fields: yes [S7]
- Custom fields: yes [S8]
- Daily recommendation: 40 · 150 · 80 [S5]
- Dashboard monitoring: yes [S4]
- Data mapping: yes [S8]
- Data sources: lists built only from data you have access to; no bought third-party databases [S6]
- Difference from scraper: extracts data without visit · visits profiles + extracts data [S5]
- Enrichment attributes: email · first name · last name · job title · company name · company size · gender · industry · phone number · website · address [S7]
- Enrichment attributes: attributes: email, full name, first name, last name [S8]
- Extracted fields: emails · phone numbers · websites · business hours [S4]
- Flags outdated contact: original contact marked as 'No longer at company' [S3]
- Free trial: yes [S3]
- Free trial: yes [S4]
- Hubspot auth method: private app token required; API keys deprecated since 2022-11-30 [S7]
- Hubspot contact data refresher: HubSpot Contact Data Refresher · automatically updating HubSpot contacts that are outdated [S3]
- Inputs: LinkedIn profiles · LinkedIn cookie · 3 [S3]
- Launch frequency configurable: yes [S3]
- Linkedin profile scraper: Extract LinkedIn profile data including emails [S6]
- Linkedin search export: Export LinkedIn search results to enriched lead lists [S6]
- Live data: yes [S5]
- Multi account: Multiple LinkedIn accounts feature across your team to scale safely [S6]
- Multi search tip: multiple granular location searches to exceed result limits [S4]
- No code: yes [S4]
- Output formats: csv · json · excel [S4]
- Outputs: Company Industry · Company Name · 51 [S3]
- Outreach safety: controls and limits keep activity within safe parameters [S6]
- Own session: Real-time lead data pulled through your own LinkedIn session [S6]
- Platforms: public data sourced from 15+ platforms [S6]
- Proxy recommendation: ISP (static residential) · Bright Data [S4]
- Purpose: Extract emails, phone numbers, and social media handles from Google Maps search results into a CSV file [S4]
- Rate limiting: smart account distribution respects fair usage and rate limits [S6]
- Related phantoms: HubSpot Contact Career Tracker · HubSpot Contact LinkedIn Url Finder · HubSpot Contact Data Enricher [S3]
- Related phantoms: Related Phantoms: Data Scraping Crawler, Google Maps Search Export, Yellow Pages Search Export [S4]
- Related phantoms: LinkedIn Group Members Export (up to 2500 members) · LinkedIn Search Export · LinkedIn Company Employees Export [S5]
- Repeated launch: yes · yes [S8]
- Repeated launch chaining: yes · yes [S7]
- Requires linkedin profile URL: LinkedIn profile URL of leads · HubSpot Contact LinkedIn URL Finder [S3]
- Sales navigator outreach: Extract Sales Navigator contacts, auto-connect, send follow-ups [S6]
- Salesforce enricher: Salesforce CRM Enricher Phantom migrates enriched data (firmographic, contact, intent) into Salesforce CRM [S8]
- Screenshot capture: yes · yes [S5]
- Slot cost: 1 [S5]
- Slot limit: 1 [S3]
- Slot usage: 1 [S7]
- Warm up behavior: yes [S5]
- Workflow setup: Create a free Phantombuster account · Create a list of HubSpot contacts to refresh · Select your list of HubSpot contacts in PhantomBuster · Select the launch frequency · Track the progress of your updates in HubSpot [S3]

**Support**
- Community: community [S3]
- Community: yes [S5]
- Tutorial: yes [S5]

## Questions

### Is PhantomBuster European?

Not determined: the vendor’s pages as captured do not say where PhantomBuster is based.

### Where does PhantomBuster store data?

Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 20 Oct 2026.

### Does PhantomBuster have a free plan?

Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 20 Oct 2026.

### What are the best alternatives to PhantomBuster?

As of 21 Oct 2026, the panel rates [Cognism (3/5)](https://whats-best.ai/software/lead-generation/cognism), [Dealfront (2.5/5)](https://whats-best.ai/software/lead-generation/dealfront) and [Apollo.io (2.5/5)](https://whats-best.ai/software/lead-generation/apollo) highest among the other 35 Lead Generation products evaluated. Ratings that look equal are rounded to half stars; the order uses the unrounded rating, then the name. The highest-rated European alternative is [Cognism](https://whats-best.ai/software/lead-generation/cognism) (UK / wider Europe). Ratings are the AI panel’s opinion, formed from public evidence: [how scores are made](https://whats-best.ai/methodology#ordering). The full list, with European products first: [PhantomBuster alternatives](https://whats-best.ai/software/lead-generation/phantombuster/alternatives).

## What this page leaves out

- 15 product facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material.
- 3 compliance facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material.
- 3 hosting facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material.
- 3 integrations facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material.
- 2 legal facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material.
- 1 data fact could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and was left out of this page and of the panel’s material.
- 1 support fact could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and was left out of this page and of the panel’s material.
- 2 sovereignty dimensions could not be confirmed on the vendor’s own pages and are shown as unknown.

## Sources

- [S1] Vendor page: https://www.phantombuster.com (checked 2026-10-20)
- [S2] Legal notice — found from the homepage: https://phantombuster.com/legal/legal-notice/ (checked 2026-10-20)
- [S3] Coverage, accuracy & freshness — found from sitemap: https://phantombuster.com/automations/hubspot/8591269450646814/hubspot-contact-data-refresher (checked 2026-10-20)
- [S4] Coverage, accuracy & freshness — found from sitemap: https://phantombuster.com/automations/google-maps/3164769743055708/google-maps-search-to-contact-data (checked 2026-10-20)
- [S5] Visitor identification & intent signals — found from sitemap: https://phantombuster.com/automations/linkedin/3112/linkedin-profile-visitor (checked 2026-10-20)
- [S6] Prospecting workflow & outreach rules — found from sitemap: https://phantombuster.com/data-compliance (checked 2026-10-20)
- [S7] CRM sync, enrichment & export — found from sitemap: https://phantombuster.com/automations/hubspot/276741128276076/hubspot-crm-enricher (checked 2026-10-20)
- [S8] CRM sync, enrichment & export — found from sitemap: https://phantombuster.com/automations/salesforce/2264953542925362/salesforce-crm-enricher (checked 2026-10-20)

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Cite as: whats-best.ai, "PhantomBuster — Lead Generation", AI panel analysis, as of 2026-10-21. https://whats-best.ai/software/lead-generation/phantombuster

Corrections: https://whats-best.ai/correct/923?target=page