# DataForSEO review (2026): the fastest way to build local business lists

By [Florian Martens](https://pipe0.com/authors/florian-martens) · Published Oct 15, 2026

Source: https://pipe0.com/reviews/dataforseo
Scoring method: https://pipe0.com/reviews#methodology
Disclosure: pipe0 buys from DataForSEO and offers its business listings as pipe0's local business search. The scores come from our own benchmark, not from that relationship.

> DataForSEO is the best way we found to build local business lists: thousands of businesses per city in seconds, about $0.37 per 1,000 rows, most with a phone number. Its limit is scope: it only knows businesses with a map listing, and it filters by category, not by meaning.

**What we reviewed:** DataForSEO sells a large catalog of SEO and marketing data APIs. We reviewed one of them, Business Listings Search, for a single job: building lists of local businesses for sales and marketing outreach.

Tested for:

- Listing local businesses by category and city, on four scenarios
- Phone, website and freshness of every row returned
- Speed and cost against Exa, Parallel, Crustdata and Amplemarket

Not scored here:

- Search result, keyword, backlink and other SEO APIs
- Business info and review endpoints for a single listing

**Verdict: 4.3/5.** The best tool we tested for local business lists: two to six times the rows of the next best tool, in seconds, at $0.37 per 1,000. It only knows businesses with a map listing.

| Criterion | Score | Why |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Ease of use | 3.5/5 | One live endpoint that answers in about a second. You work in category ids and a latitude, longitude and radius string, and errors arrive inside an HTTP 200. |
| Data quality | 4.5/5 | The biggest list in every scenario, 80 to 96% of rows with a phone, and 94 to 98% of records updated this year. Permanently closed listings are flagged, not hidden. |
| Pricing value | 5.0/5 | $0.012 per request plus $0.00036 per business: about $0.37 per 1,000 rows, the cheapest per useful row we measured. Prepaid credit doesn't expire. |
| API and agent access | 4.0/5 | A synchronous REST API, a free category list, cursor paging with no depth limit, and an official MCP server. At most eight filters per request. |
| **Overall** (mean) | **4.3/5** | |

**Best for:**

- Lists of storefronts, trades, clinics, venues and restaurants by city
- Outreach that needs a phone number and opening hours per location
- Large lists: thousands of rows per city, paged in seconds

**Skip it if:**

- Your targets have no map listing, such as online-only brands
- You need firmographics: headcount, revenue, funding or tech stack
- Nobody on your team can call an API

**Price:** from $50 minimum prepaid top-up, pay as you go. No free plan.

## DataForSEO at a glance

- **What it searches:** Business listings by category, location and radius, with filters for rating, reviews, claimed listings and opening status ([source](https://docs.dataforseo.com/v3/business_data/business_listings/search/live/))
- **Categories:** About 5,300 category ids, downloadable for free ([source](https://docs.dataforseo.com/v3/business_data/business_listings/categories/))
- **Page size and paging:** Up to 1,000 businesses per request; a cursor token pages past that with no depth limit ([source](https://docs.dataforseo.com/v3/business_data/business_listings/search/live/))
- **Rate limits:** 2,000 calls per minute, 30 at the same time ([source](https://docs.dataforseo.com/v3/business_data/business_listings/search/live/))
- **MCP server:** Official, hosted at mcp.dataforseo.com/mcp, also open source ([source](https://dataforseo.com/help-center/setting-up-the-official-dataforseo-mcp-server-simple-guide))
- **Company:** DataForSEO OÜ, registered in Estonia (EU), registry code 14502291 ([source](https://dataforseo.com/terms-of-service))

## What is DataForSEO? [#what-is-dataforseo]

DataForSEO is an Estonian data company that sells SEO and marketing data
through APIs: search results, keywords, backlinks and business data.
Agencies and software companies build products on top of it.

Its Business Listings Search API is a database of local businesses with a
map listing. Give it a category, a location and a radius, and it returns
the matching businesses, up to 1,000 per request, each with an address,
phone number, website, rating and opening hours.

## What is the best API for local business lists? [#what-is-the-best-api-for-local-business-lists]

DataForSEO, in our benchmark. On four lists (New York City barbershops,
Dallas–Fort Worth HVAC contractors, Chicago event venues and Miami
property managers) it returned the most businesses every time, two to six
times the next best tool, in seconds. Prompt-based agents from Exa and
Parallel returned hundreds at best, and company databases built from
LinkedIn pages barely list storefront businesses: 26 barbershops in all of
New York City.

Unique rows returned per scenario (pipe0 benchmark, October 2026).

| Product | NYC barbershops | DFW HVAC | Chicago venues | Miami property managers |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| DataForSEO Business Listings | 3,959 | 2,147 | 826 | 1,180 |
| Exa Agent, ultra | 1,932 | 341 | 146 | 170 |
| Exa Agent, medium | 217 | 156 | 81 | 100 |
| Parallel Task, pro | 125 | 17 | 82 | 23 |
| Parallel Entity Search | 81 | 150 | 85 | 158 |
| Crustdata | 26 | 280 | 41 | 450 |
| Amplemarket | 26 | – | 100 | 500 |

## Is DataForSEO business data accurate? [#is-dataforseo-business-data-accurate]

Mostly, and it says when it isn't. Three out of four of its NYC
barbershops matched a shop on the state licence list by address, and every
row was inside a New York City ZIP code. Most of the rest are unlicensed
shops and salons that also cut hair. 8% were listings marked permanently
closed, which one filter removes.

NYC barbershops against New York State's licence list of 1,952 shops.

| Product | Rows | Matching a licensed shop | Note |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| DataForSEO Business Listings | 3,959 | 1,459 | 80% with a phone, all inside NYC ZIP codes |
| Exa Agent, ultra | 1,932 | 1,715 | copied the licence registry; 8% with a phone |
| Exa Agent, medium | 217 | – | all inside NYC, 68% with a phone |
| Parallel Task, pro | 125 | – |  |
| Parallel Entity Search | 81 | – | companies, no addresses |
| Parallel Task, ultra | 62 | – | 55% inside NYC |
| Amplemarket | 26 | – | about 18 real |
| Crustdata | 26 | – | about 8 real |

Records were fresh: 94% of NYC records and 98% of Dallas records had been
updated in 2026. Most rows are ready for outreach.

DataForSEO rows with a phone number and a website, per scenario.

| Scenario | Phone | Website |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Barbershops in New York City | 80% | 37% |
| HVAC contractors in Dallas–Fort Worth | 96% | 75% |
| Corporate event venues in Chicago | 87% | 83% |
| Property managers in Miami | 95% | 67% |

## How fast is DataForSEO, and what does it cost? [#how-fast-is-dataforseo-and-what-does-it-cost]

A page of 1,000 businesses comes back in one to three seconds and costs
about $0.37. The price is $0.012 per request plus $0.00036 per business,
so you know what a list costs before you run it. Research agents take two
to fourteen minutes per list and bill per run, which puts a short list at
several dollars per 1,000 rows.

Time per run, from the vendor's own timestamps.

| Product | Time per run |
| --- | --- |
| DataForSEO Business Listings | 2–15 s |
| Parallel Entity Search | 2–5 s |
| Exa Agent, medium | 1.8–2.2 min |
| Exa Agent, ultra | 2.9–5.6 min |
| Parallel FindAll, base | 6.3 min |
| Parallel Task, pro | 7.9–10.3 min |
| Parallel Task, ultra | 11.1–13.8 min |

What pipe0 paid per 1,000 rows, before margin.

| Product | USD per 1,000 rows |
| --- | --- |
| DataForSEO Business Listings | $0.37–0.38 |
| Parallel Entity Search | $0.051–0.062 |
| Exa Agent, medium | $0.46–1.23 |
| Exa Agent, ultra | $0.76–7.53 |
| Parallel FindAll, base | $48 |
| Parallel Task, pro | $0.80–5.88 |
| Parallel Task, ultra | $1.50–4.84 |

## Does DataForSEO find every business? [#does-dataforseo-find-every-business]

No source does. Between 42% and 85% of the businesses Exa's agent found
were also in DataForSEO's list; the rest were real misses or businesses
just outside the radius or category. For a complete territory, run a
second source and merge on the address.

Share of Exa ultra's rows that DataForSEO also returned.

| Scenario | Also in DataForSEO |
| --- | --- |
| Property managers in Miami | 85% |
| Barbershops in New York City | 66% |
| Corporate event venues in Chicago | 47% |
| HVAC contractors in Dallas–Fort Worth | 42% (against DataForSEO's first 1,000 of 2,147 rows) |

## What can't DataForSEO do? [#what-cant-dataforseo-do]

It only knows businesses with a map listing, so online-only companies are
missing entirely. It filters by category, not meaning: "venues that host
corporate events for 100 or more guests" is a category search followed by
a qualifying step on the description, services and attributes each
listing carries. And it has no headcount, revenue or ownership data.

It is also built for developers. Categories are ids such as
`barber_shop`, the location is a latitude, longitude and radius string,
and a failed task comes back inside an HTTP 200 with its own status code.
The free category list and the official MCP server make it easier to use
from an agent than by hand.

## DataForSEO and pipe0 [#dataforseo-and-pipe0]

pipe0 buys from DataForSEO and offers Business Listings as its local
business search, with category and city autocomplete done for you. Rows
land in a sheet, where enrichment pipes add emails and decision makers.

## DataForSEO, Exa or a company database: which should you use? [#dataforseo-exa-or-a-company-database-which-should-you-use]

Use DataForSEO when your targets are storefronts, trades, clinics,
restaurants or venues and you need thousands of them with phone numbers.
Use a company database when filters such as headcount or tech stack
describe the list, and Exa when only a prose brief does.

Which tool to use for which list-building job, from the benchmark.

| Job | DataForSEO | Exa | Parallel | Company databases |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Local businesses by category (e.g. barbershops in new york city) | Best pick: 826 to 3,959 rows per city in seconds | Works: 146 to 341 rows in 3 to 6 minutes | Weak: 17 to 200 rows in 8 to 14 minutes | Weak: 26 barbershops, most of them noise |
| Phone, hours and rating per location (e.g. hvac contractors to call) | Best pick: 80 to 96% of rows with a phone | Mixed: 97% with a phone in Dallas, 8% in NYC | Weak: Entity Search returns no phone | Not built for it: No phone per location |
| Companies by firmographics or tech stack (e.g. us apparel brands on shopify) | Not built for it: Only businesses with a map listing | Weak: 26 brands, 25 already in Crustdata | Not tested: Entity Search wasn't run on this | Best pick: 77 verified Shopify brands in seconds |
| Lists published on the web (e.g. exhibitors at a trade show) | Not built for it: No event or membership data | Works: A few hundred accurate rows per run, never the full list | Not tested: FindAll fits the shape; not run | Not built for it: No exhibited-at filter |
| One researched answer per row (e.g. the imprint page of a small company) | Not built for it: Not a web research tool | Not tested: Not benchmarked for this | Best pick: Task base solved 5 of 5, in 22 to 63 s | Not built for it: Not a web research tool |

## DataForSEO pros and cons

### Pros

- **Volume.** 3,959 New York City barbershops in 15 seconds, against 1,932 from the next best tool, which took five and a half minutes.
- **Contact-ready rows.** 80 to 96% of rows had a phone number. Every row carries the address, coordinates, rating, review count, opening hours and whether the owner claimed the listing.
- **Predictable price.** You pay per request and per business returned, so the cost of a list is known before you run it: $0.37 for a full page of 1,000.
- **Fresh and honest about closures.** 94% of NYC records and 98% of Dallas records were updated in 2026, and 8% of NYC rows were marked permanently closed, so you can filter them out.

### Cons

- **Only businesses with a listing.** Companies without a storefront, like online brands or software firms, aren't in the data at all.
- **Categories, not prompts.** You pick from about 5,300 category ids. An ask like 'venues that host 100+ guests' needs a second filtering step.
- **Developer-first.** No app for sales teams. You call the API, through their MCP server, or through a tool built on top of it.
- **Thin on firmographics.** No headcount, revenue or ownership data. Pair it with a company database or enrichment if you need them.

## DataForSEO pricing

| Plan | Price | What you get |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Trial | $0 | $1 in trial credit. |
| Pay as you go | $50 minimum top-up | Prepaid credit for every DataForSEO API. No subscription, and the credit doesn't expire. |
| Business Listings Search | $0.012 per request | Plus $0.00036 per business returned, so a full page of 1,000 businesses costs about $0.37. |

- The category list is free to call.
- DataForSEO raised Business Listings prices by 20% on July 1, 2026. The older product page still shows the previous rates.

Prices as of Oct 15, 2026, from https://dataforseo.com/pricing/business-data/business-listings.

## DataForSEO alternatives

- [pipe0 local business search](https://pipe0.com/docs/search-catalog/places:dataforseo/1): You want DataForSEO's listings in a sheet or through an agent, with enrichment pipes for emails and contacts on the same rows.
- [Exa](https://pipe0.com/reviews/exa): The list is defined somewhere on the web, like a show's exhibitors, rather than by a business category.
- [Crustdata](https://pipe0.com/reviews/crustdata): Your targets are companies you describe with firmographics or a tech stack, not storefronts.
- [Parallel](https://pipe0.com/reviews/parallel): You need one researched answer per business, not a bigger list.

## FAQ

### What is DataForSEO Business Listings?

An API that searches a database of local business listings by category, location and radius. Each result includes the name, address, coordinates, phone, website, rating, review count and opening hours.

### How much does DataForSEO Business Listings cost?

$0.012 per request plus $0.00036 per business returned, so 1,000 businesses cost about $0.37. Accounts are prepaid, with a $50 minimum top-up and a $1 trial credit.

### What is the best API for building local business lists?

In our October 2026 benchmark, DataForSEO returned the most businesses in all four scenarios, 826 to 3,959 per city, in 2 to 15 seconds. Exa's research agent returned 146 to 1,932 in 3 to 6 minutes, and LinkedIn-based company databases found 26 barbershops in New York City.

### Is DataForSEO data up to date?

In our test, 94% of New York City records and 98% of Dallas records had been updated in 2026. Permanently closed businesses are flagged, 8% of the NYC barbershops, and can be excluded with one filter.

### Does DataForSEO have an MCP server?

Yes. DataForSEO publishes an official MCP server, hosted at mcp.dataforseo.com/mcp and available as open source.