Intent data providers compared: where each one's data comes from

What intent data is

Intent data is a record of research activity, usually by company rather than by person: an account reading more than usual about a topic, comparing products on a review site, or visiting your pricing page. Providers turn that activity into a score or a list of topics per account.

It comes from five kinds of sources, and most providers mix several. Knowing the mix tells you how fresh, how precise and how explainable the signal will be.

• Publisher co-ops: a network of websites shares who reads what, through a tag on each site.
• Review sites: activity on the provider's own review and comparison pages.
• Own content networks: a media company sees who reads its articles and downloads its white papers.
• Bidstream: data from programmatic ad auctions, matched to companies by IP address.
• Your own website: visitors matched to companies by IP address (first-party, but only for people who already found you).

Eight providers, in their own words

What each vendor says about its source, and whether the price is public. The vendor pages are listed in the sources section at the end.

• Bombora: a publisher co-op of thousands of media sites, B2B brands and data providers, collected through a consent-driven tag on every site in the co-op. Bombora contrasts this with bidstream. Price: not public.
• 6sense: its own keyword intent network, data from vendors with direct publisher relationships, and partner intent from Bombora, G2, TrustRadius and others; 6sense says it doesn't use bidstream. Price: not public, sold by demo.
• ZoomInfo: bidstream from programmatic ad auctions, IP-to-company attribution and review-site signals from G2 and TrustRadius. Streaming Intent is an add-on priced by keyword volume and account universe. Price: not public.
• G2 Buyer Intent: research activity on G2, Capterra, Software Advice and GetApp, such as profile views, comparisons and alternatives pages. Buyer Intent is an add-on to G2's Professional ($18,000 a year) and Enterprise ($34,000 a year) packages, per G2's April 2026 pricing guide.
• Informa TechTarget (formerly Priority Engine): engagement with its own content across about 220 media properties and 58 million registered members. Price: not public.
• Demandbase: bidstream combined with its own account identification, plus imported intent from Bombora, G2 and TrustRadius. Price: not public; a platform fee plus a fee per user.
• Cognism: intent powered by Bombora's Company Surge, with up to 12 topics chosen from a library of over 11,000. Price: not public.
• Leadfeeder (Dealfront): companies visiting your own website, identified by IP address. Price: public, with a free plan and paid plans from €79 a month billed annually (the page may show your local currency).

What intent data can't tell you

Intent is an inference. A company reading about "data governance" might be buying, writing a report or training a new hire, and the score doesn't say which. It's usually at company level, so you still need to find the person.

It's also hard to say out loud. "Our data shows your company is researching our category" isn't a sentence a rep can open with. That's why intent works best for ad targeting and account prioritization, and less well for the first line of an email.

Intent data or public buying signals?

Public buying signals are events, not inferences: a job post for the team you sell to, a funding filing, a new leader, a competitor's product on their site, a post asking for a recommendation. Each one has a source you can quote, and most have a date.

The two answer different questions. Intent asks which accounts are researching a topic. Public signals ask which companies just changed in a way that makes them need what you sell, and give you the reason for the call. Tell is built for the second: it reads job posts, funding filings, LinkedIn, X and Reddit for your market and keeps the sentence that proves each signal.

How to choose

• Ask each provider where its signal comes from, in one sentence. If the answer is vague, so is the signal.
• Ask for ten accounts from your own market and check them by hand: would your rep have called them, and with what reason?
• Match the source to the use: co-op and bidstream intent for ad targeting at scale, review-site intent for late-stage comparisons, website visitors for warm inbound, public events for outbound with a reason.
• Ask about price and contract before the demo. Of the eight here, only Leadfeeder and G2 publish package prices.

Sources

Checked October 29, 2026, on each vendor's own site: bombora.com/intent, 6sense.com/pricing and 6sense.com/blog (data collection with its CTO), pipeline.zoominfo.com/sales/use-zoominfo-intent and zoominfo.com/pricing, documentation.g2.com/docs/buyer-intent and G2's FY27 pricing and packaging guide, informatechtarget.com/products/portal, demandbase.com/products/account-intelligence/intent and demandbase.com/pricing, cognism.com/signal-data and cognism.com/pricing, help.leadfeeder.com and leadfeeder.com/pricing.

Questions