What does buyer intent data actually tell you?
Buyer intent data tells you which companies are reading more than usual about a topic. It names a company and a topic. It does not name the person doing the reading.
Bombora defines third-party intent as data collected outside a company's own websites and ads. Its product, Company Surge, comes from a co-op of publisher and brand sites that carry a Bombora tag. Bombora's Company Surge page says it tracks research against 25,300+ topics and compares each account's last three weeks of activity with a 12-week baseline for that same account. A surge means a company is reading more about a topic than it normally does.
To turn page views into company names, a 2021 Bombora explainer describes three methods: matching IP addresses to business domains, registration data from co-op members, and offline databases. Bombora offers a persona layer on top, which shows the roles and seniority of the people researching. Roles and seniority are still not names.
G2 works differently. G2's Buyer Intent documentation (updated 21 October 2026) lists signals such as a buyer viewing your G2 profile, your pricing page, a comparison page, or a competitor in your category. Each company gets a Buying Stage and an Activity Level, updated daily, plus a count of unique visitors. The signals only cover research done on G2, Capterra, Software Advice and GetApp, and your G2 plan decides which signal types you receive.
What does buyer intent data cost in 2026?
Bombora and 6sense don't publish prices. Bombora quotes each deal, and the 6sense pricing page lists three plans with third-party intent in each and no prices (both checked 24 October 2026). The best public guide is Vendr, which reports what its buyers paid. These are buyer-reported contract figures, not list prices.
| Source of intent | What you get | Price, checked 24 Oct 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Bombora Company Surge | Account-level surges across chosen topics | Vendr median $25,000 a year, low $13,000, high $80,450, from 35 purchases |
| 6sense | Account platform with third-party intent in every plan | Vendr median $62,000 a year, from 387 purchases |
| G2 (all G2 contracts, not only intent) | Company-level signals from G2 research | Vendr median $28,000 a year, from 531 purchases; Professional with add-ons such as Buyer Intent often $15,000 to $20,000 |
| Bombora topics inside Apollo | Surging accounts as a filter in Apollo search | Free plan: 1 topic. Basic and Professional: 6. Organization: 12 |
The last row matters most for a small team. Bombora's Apollo integration page says Company Surge is embedded in Apollo for every customer, refreshed weekly, with the topic counts above. Vendr's Bombora page also lists onboarding fees of $5,000 to $20,000 or more, so the first-year bill can sit above the median, and says contracts often include annual price rises of 3 to 7%.
How many customers does intent data need to pay for itself?
Divide the yearly contract by what one customer pays you a year. That gives the number of new customers the data must bring in, on top of what you would win anyway, just to cover its cost.
| Your yearly price per customer | At $25,000 (Bombora median) | At $62,000 (6sense median) |
|---|---|---|
| $3,000 ($250 a month) | 8.3 extra customers | 20.7 extra customers |
| $6,000 ($500 a month) | 4.2 | 10.3 |
| $12,000 ($1,000 a month) | 2.1 | 5.2 |
| $25,000 | 1.0 | 2.5 |
This is revenue, not profit, and it leaves out onboarding fees and the hours spent working the accounts. If you charge $250 a month, $25,000 of intent data has to produce more than eight customers you would not otherwise have found. That is hard for a small team to prove, because it is hard to separate the customers intent found from the ones your outbound would have found anyway.
Bombora's own 2021 explainer claims that on average only 15% of an ideal-customer list is in-market at a given time. On a 400-account list, that claim works out to about 60 accounts. That is the pool you would be paying to spot, so price the contract against what 60 well-timed accounts could be worth to you.
Why is account-level intent a weak fit for teams under 20?
Account-level intent gives a small team a company name and a topic, and leaves the slowest work to you: finding the right person and a reason to write. Bombora's 2021 post argues that team size doesn't matter and you can start small. For a team under 20, four limits show up quickly.
- You still have to find the person. A surge at a 300-person company does not say who read the articles. You pick a likely role, find the contact and write without knowing what they read.
- The reason is vague. "Your company is researching CRM software" is awkward to say in a cold email, so it works better for deciding who to contact first than as an opening line.
- It needs someone to act weekly. Apollo's Bombora data refreshes weekly. Check it every week, or you will be calling accounts on the strength of old research.
- G2 only sees its own sites. G2 signals depend on buyers researching your category on G2 and its sister sites, and G2 sends them per product. A new product with little G2 traffic will see few signals.
Quality varies by method too. Bombora's own myths-and-truths post argues that keyword-based bidstream data used by some providers "allows for false positives" because a keyword on a page does not mean the reader cares about it. Ask any vendor which method it uses before you compare prices. If you are also weighing tools that name website visitors, our guide to website visitor identification accuracy and cost covers the same matching problem from your own site.
What is the cheaper alternative to buyer intent data?
Person-level public signals: a named person posting, asking or hiring in public about the problem you solve. They cost time instead of a contract, and they come with something to say.
| Third-party intent (Bombora, 6sense, G2) | Public person-level signals | |
|---|---|---|
| Who it names | A company, sometimes roles | A person, with their own words |
| Typical cost | Vendr medians of $25,000 to $62,000 a year | Free to search by hand; tools cost extra |
| Freshness | Weekly or daily scores | The day of the post |
| What you can say | Little you can quote | "Saw your post about..." |
| Main weakness | You must find the person and a reason | Low volume; slow to search by hand |
Examples worth watching: someone asking for a tool recommendation, someone comparing two tools, a complaint about a competitor, a job ad for the work you automate, a new funding round, a new head of the team you sell to. Our guide to finding people who describe the problem you solve in public has search strings for LinkedIn, X and Hacker News. For tools that watch these posts for you, see our comparison of keyword alerts and intent scoring tools.
When is buyer intent data worth buying?
Buy it when one or two new customers cover the contract, and when you already have a named list of target accounts and someone to work them every week. Use this checklist before you take a sales call.
| Question | Buy if | Wait if |
|---|---|---|
| Yearly price per customer | $12,000 or more, so about 2 customers cover a median Bombora contract | Under $6,000 |
| Target account list | Several hundred named accounts | You are still defining who you sell to |
| Who acts on it | A person reviews surges every week | The founder does sales between other jobs |
| Ads | You run account-based ads that can use intent audiences | No paid ads |
| G2 presence (for G2 intent) | Buyers already research your category on G2 | Few or no G2 reviews |
If you land in the right-hand column on three or more rows, start with free signals and Apollo's bundled topics, then revisit intent once deal sizes grow.
A 30-day test before you sign an intent contract
Pick one topic in Apollo
Use the Bombora topic slot in Apollo's free plan for the one topic closest to what you sell, such as the category name of your product.
Split your list
Take 100 accounts that fit your ideal customer. Mark which ones show a surge on your topic and which don't.
Add a public-signal group
Find 50 named people who posted, asked or hired around your problem in the last 30 days.
Send the same offer to all three groups
Same offer, same follow-up rule. Only the opening line changes with the reason you have.
Compare replies and meetings
If surging accounts don't beat the rest by enough to cover the arithmetic in the table above, keep your money.
The samples are small, so treat the result as a direction, not proof. If you want the public-signal group built for you, Siela's AI SDR looks for people asking how to solve the problem, comparing tools, looking for a competitor alternative or hiring for the work you automate. It scores each lead hot, warm or cold with a one-line reason and saves them to Siela's built-in CRM. For more free signals, our signal-based selling stack under $200 a month prices the cheaper tools.
Frequently asked questions
Does Apollo include Bombora intent data?
Yes. Bombora's Apollo integration page says Company Surge intent is embedded in Apollo for every customer and refreshed weekly. Free Apollo accounts get 1 Bombora intent topic, Basic and Professional plans get 6, and the Organization plan gets 12, as checked on 24 October 2026. Surging accounts show up as a filter in Apollo's account and contact search.
Does buyer intent data tell you who is researching?
Usually not by name. Bombora's Company Surge identifies the company, and its persona layer adds roles and seniority. G2 shows the company, a count of unique visitors and their locations. You still need to find the right contact at that company and work out what to say, which is the slow part for a small team.
How does Bombora decide a company is surging?
Bombora says it compares each account's research on a topic over the most recent three weeks with a 12-week baseline for that same account. A surge means the company is reading more about the topic than it normally does. Bombora tracks more than 25,300 topics across its co-op of publisher and brand websites, according to its Company Surge page.
Is G2 Buyer Intent useful for a new software product?
It depends on how many buyers already research your category on G2. G2's documentation says signals come from activity on G2, Capterra, Software Advice and GetApp, such as viewing your profile, pricing or comparison pages, and that your plan decides which signals you get. A product with few reviews and little G2 traffic will see few signals.
How much does buyer intent data cost per month?
Using Vendr's buyer-reported medians checked on 24 October 2026, a $25,000 Bombora contract works out to about $2,083 a month and a $62,000 6sense contract to about $5,167 a month. Neither vendor publishes list prices. Vendr also lists Bombora onboarding fees of $5,000 to $20,000 or more on top.
Sources
- Bombora: Company Surge intent data (checked 24 Oct 2026)
- Bombora: What is intent data? (checked 24 Oct 2026)
- Bombora: Demystifying Intent data myths and truths (30 Aug 2021)
- Bombora: Bombora + Apollo integration (checked 24 Oct 2026)
- Vendr: Bombora pricing (checked 24 Oct 2026)
- Vendr: 6sense pricing (checked 24 Oct 2026)
- Vendr: G2 pricing (checked 24 Oct 2026)
- G2 Documentation: Buyer Intent (updated 21 Oct 2026)
- 6sense: Pricing (checked 24 Oct 2026)