Best entity search API & providers
Entity search: a natural-language description in, matching companies out — the API layer under account sourcing, market mapping, and agentic research. Every provider in the field publishes its own benchmark and ranks itself first. This one is independent: identical queries to every provider, every returned company judged by an LLM against the query, every request and verdict committed publicly.
Scope, stated plainly: the benchmarked slice is similarity-shaped queries(describe companies, get lookalikes back). Multi-constraint criteria queries (“Series B fintechs in New York”) aren't in the query set yet — on that slice, today's published numbers are vendors' own.
long-list precision leaderParallel56.5%
Entity search providers, ranked on judged precision
Identical natural-language queries; Precision@100 = of the companies returned, the share the judge graded relevant. The full benchmark adds per-seed evidence, nDCG/MAP/MRR, and the raw audit trail.
| # | Provider | Precision@100 | Precision@10 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Parallel | 56.5% | 72.1% |
| 2 | Ocean.io | 48.6% | 69.6% |
| 3 | Exa | 25.8% | 77.9% |
| 4 | PredictLeads | 19.4% | 93.8% |
There is no single “best” company lookalike API — this independent benchmark points to a different winner depending on how you will use the results. Pick the workflow that matches yours:
- Low volume, high accuracyPredictLeadstop 10 P@10 93.8%
Reps hand-work a handful of accounts, so the top of the list has to be right. Sharpest top-of-list precision in the benchmark.
- High volume, broad reachParallellong list P@100 56.5%
A big list runs through automated sequences, so relevance has to hold deep into the results. Best long-list precision in the benchmark.
- Market / TAM sizingParallelrelevant 1,356
You are counting the universe of similar companies, not actioning a shortlist. Returns the most relevant companies across the cohort.
- Real-time in-product featurePredictLeadsavg latency 738 ms
A live “similar companies” lookup called on page-load, where response time is the constraint. Fastest average latency in the benchmark.
Full ranking, per-seed evidence, and average latency: the lookalike benchmark →
Entity search APIs — common questions
What is the best entity search API in 2026?
On the independently benchmarked slice — natural-language similarity queries, identical inputs, every returned company judged for relevance — Parallel currently leads on long-list precision (Precision@100 56.5%), with PredictLeads strongest at the top of the list (Precision@10 93.8%). Multi-constraint criteria queries ("Series B fintechs in New York") aren't in the query set yet; on that slice, every number published today is a vendor's own.
What is an entity search API?
An endpoint that takes a description of what you're looking for — in natural language rather than rigid filters — and returns matching entities, usually companies, as structured results. It's the API layer under account sourcing, market mapping, and agentic research flows. The measurable core: of the companies returned, how many actually match the query — which is what an LLM judge scores here, candidate by candidate, with the full audit trail public.
How is this different from a vendor's own entity-search benchmark?
Vendors benchmark themselves on query sets they chose and grade with their own methodology — and each one ranks itself first. This benchmark is independent: no vendor pays for inclusion or rank, every provider gets identical queries, the judge and prompts are open-source, and every HTTP request and judge verdict is committed publicly. Where our query set doesn't cover a vendor's claim (multi-constraint criteria queries), we say so instead of borrowing their number.
Is entity search the same as lookalike or similar-companies search?
Same machinery, different query shape. Lookalike search is entity search with a similarity-shaped query — 'companies like these seeds.' Criteria search is entity search with constraint-shaped queries — industry, stage, geography. The benchmarked slice here is the similarity shape; the constraint shape is the roadmap extension. Providers in this field serve both through the same natural-language endpoints.