ZoomInfo answers who exists and how to reach them. Proxi answers which businesses in your territory are about to buy, and shows you the record that proves it.
TLDRZoomInfo is the biggest B2B contact database: who exists and how to reach them, priced per seat and credit packs. Proxi is the industrial database tracker: it reads 10,000+ public sources (permits, 811 locates, contract awards, licenses, filings) across 11M+ physical-economy businesses and ranks who in your territory is about to buy, with the record as evidence. Many teams run both: ZoomInfo for contact coverage, Proxi to decide who to call this week.
ZoomInfo is the largest B2B contact and company database, and for a lot of teams it is the right purchase. If your reps need contact coverage at named accounts, org charts to find the buying committee, and a refreshed email or direct dial for someone who just changed jobs, that is the job it was built for and it does it at scale. It is priced the way that work is done, around seats and credit packs, and its center of gravity is the office economy: software, services, finance, the companies with large public footprints.
Proxi is the industrial database tracker. It reads more than 10,000 public record sources continuously (state business filings, 811 locate tickets, construction and environmental permits, licenses, procurement awards, court records, job postings, and the open web), resolves every record to one of over 11 million businesses in the physical economy, and every morning ranks the businesses in your territory by what their records just did. Each name arrives with the record that put it there and a phone number.
Where the difference shows up. A firmographic row is a description. It can be perfectly accurate and still be no help on a Tuesday morning, because it does not change when the business changes. "Forty two employees, drilling contractor, Ohio" stays true for years. "Won a geotechnical contract on Thursday, posted two driller openings on Friday, pulled a locate ticket this morning" stays true for about a week, and it is the reason to pick up the phone. Proxi exists to catch that second kind of fact, in a territory too large for anyone to watch by hand.
| Proxi | ZoomInfo | |
|---|---|---|
| What the data is | Live public records resolved to one business: filings, permits, 811 locates, licenses, awards, court records, hiring | A contact and company database with firmographics, technographics, and intent signals |
| Question it answers | Which businesses are about to buy, and what proves it | Who exists, and how do I reach the right person there |
| Freshness | Every source polled on its own publishing cadence, from minutes for locate feeds to daily for state registers; the call sheet is rebuilt each morning | Continuously maintained company and contact records |
| Unit of coverage | A business inside a territory (11M+ businesses in the physical economy) | A company and the people who work there |
| Workflow output | A ranked call sheet with the record behind each name and a phone number, pushed into your CRM | Lists, contacts, and org charts, exported into your CRM or sequencer |
| Center of gravity | The physical economy: drillers, contractors, haulers, fab shops, and the dealers and suppliers who sell to them | The office economy: software, services, and larger enterprises |
| Pricing model | Per territory, not per seat | Per seat and credit packs |
Yes, and most teams should. The two solve different halves of the same problem. ZoomInfo gives you contact coverage and org detail at accounts you already know about. Proxi decides which accounts are worth working this week and hands over the record that explains why. If you already pay for contact data, keep it: Proxi decides where to point it.
No. Proxi does not want to be your system of record. It pushes the ranked list and the evidence behind each name into the CRM you already use, so your reps work their normal pipeline with better inputs.
No. Intent products generally infer interest from online behavior, such as research activity on topic pages. Proxi does not infer. It reads records a business actually filed: a permit, a locate ticket, an award, a license renewal. You can open the source record behind every line on the call sheet.
That is the case Proxi was built for. A nine person boring contractor rarely has a rich contact profile, but it files locate tickets, pulls permits, renews licenses, and wins public work. Those records are how Proxi finds it, and how Proxi knows when it is buying.