Purchased lead data decays at 2-3% per month. After one year, a "fresh" list is 30%+ inaccurate. You're paying for data that's already stale.
Google Maps — Every business has name, address, phone, category, and often website and hours. This is the single best free source.
Yellow Pages & Business Directories — Traditional directories remain excellent sources with more detailed information.
Industry-Specific Directories — Most industries have specialized directories (Yelp for restaurants, Houzz for contractors, Avvo for lawyers).
• Business name and category
• Phone number and email
• Physical address
• Website URL
• Social media profiles
• Business hours and ratings
Using automated extraction, we built a list of 500 real estate agent contacts from a public directory. The dataset included name, phone, email, office location, and specialization. Cost: practically zero. A comparable purchased list: $200-500.
• Simple directory scraper — $20-30 (200-500 records)
• Google Maps leads — $30-50 (with phone + website)
• Multi-source enrichment — $80-120 (cross-reference data)
• Recurring monitoring — $50-100/month (weekly updates)