B2B Account Research Tool — Cognism Alternative

Research known B2B company domains using public company pages. Collect account context, published business emails, role-keyword evidence, LinkedIn company links, and source URLs for account-review workflows. For account researchers, each dataset record represents one known company domain and the public-page evidence gathered for it.

Workflow: put the results to work

Upload the domains from your target-account list and retain your account IDs. Add role keywords only when literal mentions on company pages matter. Review the cited pages before joining the public evidence back to your CRM or moving to a separate contact-enrichment step.

Best fit for this Actor

Use this Actor when you already have a target-account list and need a reviewable public-web record before a permitted enrichment, CRM, or outreach decision. It is read-only: it fetches only a fixed set of public company-owned pages and never sends messages, writes to a CRM, guesses email addresses, or looks up hidden contact data.

Start with a public company domain such as example.com. Use an optional account label and your own record ID to join the result back to an approved workflow. Add a few role keywords only when literal mentions on company pages are useful context.

This is not a replacement for a licensed B2B contact database, verified mobile data, buying-intent data, phone verification, person discovery, CRM synchronization, campaigning, or compliance operations. Those broader requirements need an appropriately licensed provider and the relevant internal controls.

How this public-account workflow compares with Cognism

This Actor is a focused alternative for the public account-research step: it turns known company domains into source-cited public evidence. Cognism remains the broader choice for its licensed contact database, verified mobile coverage, intent data, CRM workflows, sales workspace, and its operational compliance program.

Decision	This Actor	Cognism	Best fit
Scope	Bounded public company-page research for known accounts	Broader sales-intelligence platform	Choose this Actor for a source-review step; choose Cognism for suite-level sales intelligence.
Starting point	A known company domain and optional account context	Product and workspace configuration vary by plan	Choose this Actor when a public domain is already available.
Output	Source URLs, timestamps, public account context, visibly published business-email evidence, and outcomes	Broader company/contact data is outside this Actor's scope	Choose the output that matches the downstream review requirement.
Automation	Structured Apify run input and dataset readback; no CRM write or outreach action	Broader workflows are outside this Actor's scope	Keep a human-approved action step separate from data collection.
Provenance	Every useful record retains fetched public source URLs and a collection time	This Actor does not assert Cognism-equivalent data provenance	Choose this Actor when per-record public-source review matters.
Licensed contacts and mobile verification	Not provided	Available through Cognism products and selected packages	Choose Cognism when those capabilities are required.
Billing and same-job cost	Pay per validated public-account result plus Apify platform usage; the input cap makes the maximum result-event exposure visible at run start	Cognism pricing and contract scope are tailored; this Actor does not estimate a Cognism same-job price	Use the live pricing pages and your contract terms to compare one approved account-research job.
Effective efficiency	A short fixed page set avoids broad crawling and returns only evidence needed for a known-account review	Suite-level workflows may be more efficient when their licensed data, CRM workflow, and broader coverage are required	Use this Actor for a bounded source-review step; use a licensed contact database for broad contact coverage.

Cognism is a trademark of its owner. This independent Actor is not affiliated, associated, or endorsed by Cognism.

From known domains to a reviewable account record

A revenue-operations analyst receives a list of target accounts from an approved planning process. They send the company domains to this Actor, retain their own externalId, and ask for two role phrases that matter to the account plan. The Actor checks the homepage, contact, and about pages by default, then returns exactly which pages supplied the public business-email evidence and role mentions. A reviewer can inspect the sources before deciding whether a separate, permitted enrichment or CRM process is appropriate.

What one result contains

One dataset item represents one supplied company domain. It is never a claimed person profile or a verified contact record.

Field	Meaning
companyDomain	Normalized public hostname used for the bounded page pass.
accountName, externalId	Caller-supplied values returned unchanged for joins.
companyNameDetected, companyDescription	Public page metadata when the source exposes it; not legal-entity verification.
businessEmails, businessEmailEvidence	Values visibly published on fetched pages with the supporting source URLs. No guessing, verification, or individual attribution.
targetRoleKeywords, roleKeywordEvidence	Caller phrases with source pages where a literal phrase appeared. This is not people discovery or title verification.
companyLinkedInUrls	Public LinkedIn company links visibly linked by the source page; the Actor does not fetch or enrich them.
sourceUrls, pageTitles, fetchRoutes, collectedAt	Provenance, source context, route, and observation time.
collectionOutcome, warnings	A truthful result state and safe diagnostics.

{
    "externalId": "crm-account-001",
    "accountName": "Example Organization",
    "companyDomain": "example.com",
    "companyNameDetected": "Example Organization",
    "companyDescription": "Example organization homepage.",
    "targetRoleKeywords": ["Founder"],
    "roleKeywordEvidence": [{ "keyword": "Founder", "sourceUrls": ["https://example.com/about"] }],
    "businessEmails": ["info@example.com"],
    "businessEmailEvidence": [{ "value": "info@example.com", "sourceUrls": ["https://example.com/contact"] }],
    "companyLinkedInUrls": [],
    "sourceUrls": ["https://example.com/", "https://example.com/contact"],
    "pageTitles": ["Example Organization", "Contact us"],
    "fetchRoutes": ["direct"],
    "pagesRequested": 3,
    "pagesFetched": 2,
    "collectionMethod": "public-company-pages",
    "collectionOutcome": "PUBLIC_BUSINESS_EMAIL_FOUND",
    "warnings": [],
    "collectedAt": "2026-09-07T12:00:00.000Z"
}

The example shows the contract shape. Actual public sources may contain no business email or role-keyword match; a functioning source pass then returns PUBLIC_ACCOUNT_EVIDENCE_ONLY rather than inventing a value. When every required public source route is unavailable, the record and run summary expose SOURCE_UNAVAILABLE.

Quick start and input

Use company domains you are authorized to research. The input below is bounded to one public account and one source page for a low-cost first run.

{
    "accounts": [
        {
            "companyDomain": "apache.org",
            "accountName": "Apache Software Foundation",
            "externalId": "account-001",
            "targetRoleKeywords": ["Foundation", "Project"]
        }
    ],
    "maxAccounts": 1,
    "maxPagesPerAccount": 1,
    "requestTimeoutSecs": 15,
    "useApifyUnblockerFallback": false,
    "preferApifyUnblocker": false
}

The Actor validates targets before fetching: it rejects private, local, IP-address, credentialed, non-HTTP(S), and non-standard-port URLs. Candidate pages are bounded to the homepage, /contact, /about, /team, and /leadership; it does not crawl arbitrary links.

Run through the Apify API

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: process.env.APIFY_TOKEN });
const run = await client.actor('khadinakbar/cognism-alternative').call({
    accounts: [
        {
            companyDomain: 'apache.org',
            accountName: 'Apache Software Foundation',
            externalId: 'account-001',
            targetRoleKeywords: ['Foundation'],
        },
    ],
    maxAccounts: 1,
    maxPagesPerAccount: 1,
});

const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items);

Use with an AI agent through Apify MCP

Use this prompt when a known account list needs evidence, not hidden-person data:

Research these known company domains from their public company pages. Return one record per company with publicly visible business-email evidence, source URLs, collection time, and any literal mentions of the requested role keywords. Keep email values as observed public evidence, leave phone fields out, stop at five companies, and describe partial or unavailable sources.

The Actor is read-only. A hosted Apify MCP call returns a preview and the dataset ID; use dataset pagination or a smaller account list when more records are needed. Invalid domains return an actionable INVALID_INPUT result; a functioning public-page pass with no visible email remains a valid account-evidence result.

Best-results guidance

Starting situation	Helpful action	Expected outcome
You already have target accounts	Provide canonical public company domains	Source-cited account context and visible business-email evidence when published
You need context for one account	Set maxAccounts and maxPagesPerAccount to 1	A fast, reviewable first-run record
A permitted public site repeatedly blocks direct requests	Enable the optional Unblocker fallback for a small trial	A named recovery route and clear diagnostics if the source remains unavailable
You need verified contacts, mobiles, or buying signals	Use a separately licensed data provider	A workflow designed for that broader data boundary

Limits, reliability, and troubleshooting

• The Actor collects only from public company-owned pages reached through the fixed candidate path. It does not query private pages, personal profiles, or proprietary lead databases.
• businessEmails are only visibly published values. They are not verified, guessed, deduplicated across companies, or attributed to a specific person.
• Role phrases are simple literal text matches on a source page. They are not role classification, employment verification, or an identity claim.
• Valid empty evidence, invalid input, partial collection, and unavailable sources are surfaced in the dataset, OUTPUT, and RUN_SUMMARY so downstream workflows can branch without treating missing data as success.
• Apify Unblocker is an optional recovery route, not a promise to access restricted or authenticated material. Keep it off unless a permitted public target needs it.

Builder's note

I designed this Actor so account context remains a traceable public-web observation. Each useful observation keeps a source URL and collection time; when a page exposes no business email, the Actor retains the account evidence and describes that state plainly. That makes a small public research step easier to review and safer to compose with a later approved workflow.

Legal and responsible use

Use only public company pages and data you are authorized to process. You are responsible for applicable law, site terms, privacy obligations, suppression requirements, and any downstream use. The Actor does not establish a lawful basis for collection, make compliance claims, or authorize outreach. Private-individual targeting, access-control bypassing, and personal-contact inference remain outside this workflow.

Feedback

If a public source changes shape or a legitimate account page returns an unexpected outcome, include the non-secret input shape, source URL, collection outcome, and run ID in the issue report so the workflow can be investigated safely.

Pricing and run costs

This Actor uses Pay per event plus Apify platform usage. The Pricing tab lists the current event rates and billing terms.

Event	Billing unit	When it applies
apify-actor-start	Actor Start	Charged when the Actor starts running. Number of events charged depends on Actor memory (one event per GB, minimum one event).
public-account-researched	Public account researched	Charged once for each validated account record built from at least one successfully fetched public company page.

Run cost combines the charged events and Apify platform usage. Review the run charge limit and requested result count before starting.

Connect an AI agent

Use the Apify MCP configurator to choose an available client connection. Inspect this Actor’s current input schema and required credentials before running it.