Open Source ZoomInfo Alternative for Developers

#api #opensource #database #business

ZoomInfo charges $15,000+ per year and requires a sales call just to see the product. For a developer who needs company data for a side project, a SaaS integration, or a startup MVP, that's absurd.

The S.C.A.L.A. Score API gives you access to 272 million company records across 265 countries — starting at free.

ZoomInfo vs Score API: Developer Experience

	ZoomInfo	S.C.A.L.A. Score API
Pricing	$15,000+/year	Free – €149/mo
Signup process	Sales call required	Self-service, instant API key
Free tier	No	50 lookups/month
Open source SDK	No	Yes (GitHub)
Data source	Proprietary scraping + user-contributed	Official government registries
Companies	~100M (US-focused)	272M+ (265 countries)
Rate limits	Opaque	Transparent, per-plan
Contract length	Annual minimum	Month-to-month

JavaScript SDK: 3 Lines to Your First Query

npm install scala-score

const ScalaScore = require('scala-score');
const client = new ScalaScore({ apiKey: process.env.SCORE_API_KEY });

// Search by company name
const results = await client.search({
  name: 'Spotify',
  country: 'SE'
});

console.log(results.companies[0]);
// {
//   name: "Spotify AB",
//   country: "SE",
//   registry_id: "556703-7485",
//   status: "active",
//   incorporation_date: "2006-04-18",
//   address: "Regeringsgatan 19, 111 53 Stockholm"
// }

Batch Enrichment Example

Need to enrich a list of companies? Here's how:

const ScalaScore = require('scala-score');
const client = new ScalaScore({ apiKey: process.env.SCORE_API_KEY });

const companies = ['Klarna', 'Revolut', 'N26', 'Wise'];

for (const name of companies) {
  const result = await client.search({ name, limit: 1 });
  if (result.companies.length > 0) {
    const co = result.companies[0];
    console.log(`${co.name} | ${co.country} | ${co.status} | ${co.registry_id}`);
  }
}

// Klarna Bank AB | SE | active | 556737-0431
// Revolut Ltd | GB | active | 08804411
// N26 Bank GmbH | DE | active | HRB 209049
// Wise Payments Limited | GB | active | 07209813

REST API for Any Language

Don't use JavaScript? The REST API works with anything:

curl -s "https://score.get-scala.com/api/v1/search?q=Siemens&country=DE" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" | python3 -m json.tool

import requests

response = requests.get(
    "https://score.get-scala.com/api/v1/search",
    params={"q": "Siemens", "country": "DE"},
    headers={"Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"}
)

companies = response.json()["companies"]
for co in companies:
    print(f"{co['name']} — {co['status']}")

Pricing Comparison

For a developer doing 5,000 lookups/month:

ZoomInfo: ~$15,000/year = $1,250/month
S.C.A.L.A. Score API Growth plan: €49/month

That's a 25x cost reduction. And you get global coverage instead of ZoomInfo's US-centric data.

Plan	Lookups/month	Price
Free	50	€0
Starter	500	€19/mo
Growth	5,000	€49/mo
Scale	50,000	€149/mo

What Score API Doesn't Do (Yet)

To be transparent — ZoomInfo has features Score API doesn't:

Intent data (who's researching your product category)
Direct dial phone numbers
Personal email addresses
Technographics (what tech stack a company uses)

Score API focuses on official registry data: company status, officers, addresses, filings, industry codes. If you need verified business entity data rather than sales prospecting data, Score is the better choice at a fraction of the cost.