Why 80% phone coverage is the outreach standard
A profile with no number is a profile you found and cannot call. What phone coverage actually changes on a sourcing run, and how to test a vendor's claim.
At Kalent, 80% of the profiles the agent returns carry a verified mobile number and email address.
Here is why that number, and not the database total, is the one to compare.
A vendor announcing 800 million profiles and a vendor announcing 850 million are saying almost the same thing. Neither figure tells you how many people you can actually reach this afternoon.
Sourcing does not end when you find the right person. It ends when they reply.
Every sourcing tool publishes a database size. Almost none publishes a coverage rate.
That gap is the whole subject of this page.
It answers six questions: what coverage actually means, why the total misleads, what happens to a sequence when the number is missing, what vendors publish and what they leave out, how to test a coverage claim in a demo, and what it changes on a live role.
TL;DR:
- Coverage is the share of returned profiles carrying a usable contact detail. At Kalent it is around 80%, on a base of 850 million profiles of which 250 million are enriched with verified details.
- A database total decides nothing. Local density in your trade fills a shortlist, and no vendor publishes it.
- Missing numbers push you back to InMail, the single channel with the lowest reply rate in the stack.
- Enrichment billed per unit turns a fixed cost into a variable one. Three hundred approaches a month can consume six hundred credits.
- The test is the reply rate, not the coverage claim. At FAB Group it went from 15% on LinkedIn Recruiter to 30% with Kalent, across more than 18,000 qualified profiles in 12 months.
Key facts:
- Kalent database: 850 million profiles, 250 million enriched with verified contact details
- Share of returned profiles directly reachable: around 80%
- Channels Kalent automates: email, LinkedIn, SMS, WhatsApp
- Kalent pricing: $149/month or $1,490/year on Sourcing, $179/month or $1,790/year on Copilot, per licence
- Contact details included: 100 a month on monthly billing, 1,500 a year on annual
- Geographic breakdown of the database, at every vendor read: not published
What does contact coverage actually mean?
It is the share of the profiles a search returns that carry a contact detail you can use today.
Not the share of the database. The share of what lands in front of you.
The distinction matters because the two numbers can be very far apart. A base can hold 800 million profiles and return, on your particular search, a page of people whose only reachable channel is an InMail.
Two things have to be true for a contact detail to count. It has to exist in the record before you ask for it. And it has to have been verified, meaning the address accepts mail and the number is in service.
A detail fetched on demand, one profile at a time, is not coverage. It is a purchase.
Why the database total misleads
Because the bottleneck was never how many names you found.
On a developer role in any large city, every engine returns more candidates than a team can contact in a quarter. Fifty million profiles apart on a global total does not make a shortlist better.
What fills a shortlist is local density in your trade. No vendor publishes it, us included. That is the honest state of the category in 2026.
| What the vendor announces | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| "850 million profiles" | the order of magnitude of the index, nothing more |
| "250 million enriched profiles" | how many you can contact today |
| "verified contact details", no number | nothing at all |
| "30 data sources" | the aggregation method, not the coverage |
The demo question is the same for every vendor: how many active profiles in my region and my trade, and what share already carries a number.
What a missing number costs you
It sends you back to InMail, and InMail is the weakest channel in the stack.
FAB Group, 50 consultants, sourced on three licensed tools. 98% of their approaches left as InMails, for a reply rate that plateaued at 15%. Plenty of volume, very little transformation.
The mechanism is simple. A candidate who does not open LinkedIn does not see your message. A candidate who left the platform never will. With one channel, those people are unreachable, however good your copy is.
With a verified number and email, the same shortlist opens on four channels. Email, LinkedIn, SMS and WhatsApp, from the same sequence, at Kalent on the Copilot plan.
Since moving to Kalent, FAB Group runs at 30% reply rate, across more than 18,000 qualified profiles and more than 1,000 interviews in 12 months. Same team.
What vendors publish, and what they leave out
Read on 6 September 2026 on public surfaces and documentation.
Juicebox is the most transparent on this point, and that should be written. It announces that more than 200 million of its 800 million profiles carry a contact detail, roughly one in four. It is the most honest figure on its sheet, because it shows the gap between the total and the useful.
Profilr states it in its own privacy policy: its indexing database does not contain contact details. Enrichment is a second step, on a second system.
Pin describes a per-unit model in its documentation: the detail is fetched profile by profile and consumed in credits.
TalentFindr announces "verified contact details" and one-click enrichment, without ever putting a number on the coverage.
Kalent publishes the pair: 850 million profiles, of which 250 million are enriched with verified contact details, and around 80% of what the agent returns is directly reachable.
How to test a coverage claim in a demo
Four questions, and they go to every vendor, us included.
- On a search in my region and my trade, what share of the returned profiles carries a mobile number? Ask them to run it live.
- What share carries a personal email? Two different figures. Ask for both.
- Is the detail included in the plan or billed per unit? And if included, how many per month.
- When was the record last verified? A number that was valid three years ago is not a number.
A vendor who refers these to its sales team has not answered.
What it costs, and why the model matters more than the price
The credit model charges for each detail revealed. It looks cheaper at entry and becomes unpredictable as soon as a campaign scales. A role needing 300 approaches consumes up to 600 credits if you want both email and phone.
The included model puts a volume in the subscription. At Kalent, the Sourcing plan includes 100 contact details a month on monthly billing, or 1,500 a year on annual, at $149 a month or $1,490 a year, per licence. Copilot is $179 a month or $1,790 a year and adds the four outreach channels.
A Kalent licence is individual: five recruiters, five licences.
And multiplying $149 by twelve does not give the annual plan. Monthly opens 3 active sourcing runs and 100 details a month. Annual opens unlimited runs and 1,500 details. Two offers, not two ways of paying for one.
So the comparison that matters is the cost per candidate contacted, not the entry ticket.
Related reading
The AI sourcing comparison cluster, all read on the same date against the same criteria:
On the same subject: candidate contact data enrichment, the 2026 guide.
To see the mechanism on a real account: how FAB Group structured its direct sourcing, 18,000 qualified profiles in 12 months and a 30% reply rate.
And the product pages carrying the figures quoted here: pricing, ATS integrations, trust center.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good phone number coverage rate for a sourcing tool?
Around 80% of returned profiles carrying a verified mobile is the level Kalent publishes. Most vendors publish no coverage figure at all, which makes comparison impossible.
Why does database size not predict coverage?
Because a total counts records, not usable contact details. Juicebox, the most transparent on this, publishes more than 200 million reachable profiles out of 800 million, roughly one in four.
Is a phone number better than an email for candidate outreach?
Neither alone. What raises the reply rate is having several channels available for the same person. At FAB Group, moving from InMail-only to four channels took the reply rate from 15% to 30%.
Does Kalent charge extra for contact details?
No. The Sourcing plan includes 100 a month on monthly billing, or 1,500 a year on annual. Some vendors bill each detail revealed as a credit.
How much does Kalent cost?
$149 a month or $1,490 a year on Sourcing, $179 a month or $1,790 a year on Copilot, per licence. Team is on quote. See our pricing page.
Is enrichment GDPR compliant?
Yes, under conditions: the candidate must be able to learn where their detail came from and object to it, and the place of processing is documented. Kalent is built in France and SOC 2 Type 2 certified, with 47 published controls.
