Waterfall enrichment explained, and when an owned database beats it
Waterfall tools ask a chain of vendors until one answers. It finds more on paper. Here's what it costs in time, money and certainty, and the two cases where it's still the right pick.
By Hasan, founder of HeyEnrich
A waterfall is a loop: send the person to vendor A; if A returns nothing, send to vendor B; keep going until something comes back or the list runs out. Clay made the pattern famous and FullEnrich, BetterContact and others sell it as a product. It's a good idea with three costs that the marketing leaves out.
The three costs
Each hop waits for the last
Fourteen vendors in sequence means fourteen round trips in the worst case. One tool's widget literally shows "re-ranking 14 providers". A single owned database answers in one query, which is how we hold a 180 ms median.
The reseller pays for discards
Vendors charge the waterfall per hit, including hits it then rejects. FullEnrich and BetterContact publish discard rates around a third of what they buy. That cost is priced into your credits.
The answer depends on the order
Change the vendor sequence and the same person returns a different email. A waterfall can tell you which vendor answered; it can't tell you when that value was last checked.
Same lookup. Different bill.
- ×Queries vendors in sequence and waits for each
- ×Throws away a third of what it buys, and prices that in
- ×Can name the vendor, not the check date
- ×Mobile at 10 credits
- ×Resale: not mentioned
- ✓One owned database, one query, median 180 ms
- ✓Nothing charged on a miss, by design
- ✓A check date on every value
- ✓2,000 phone numbers included from $29
- ✓Resale rights in writing
When the waterfall still wins
- A short, high-value list. Fifty board members where every find is worth a meeting. Pay for the widest net.
- A region where one database is thin. If our coverage page shows 36% mobile coverage in Germany, a waterfall that includes a European specialist may do better. Check the table before you choose.
How to decide
Run the same 500 rows through both. Count finds per field, bounces after sending, credits spent, and minutes waited. Ours shows coverage by country before you start, so you know where to expect misses.
See where we're strong first
Coverage by field, country, function and seniority, counted monthly.