Search counts
Count matching companies and people before you pull a single result — what's exact, what's estimated, and the two caveats that matter when a count feeds a report or a benchmark.
Search counts
Every search endpoint can tell you how many records match before you pull any of them. We built counts so you can tune a search cheaply: adjust filters against the count until the audience looks right, then page through results once. This page covers how counting works: which numbers are exact, which are estimates, and the caveats that matter when a count ends up in a report or a vendor comparison.
Three ways to count
| Method | What you get | When to use it |
|---|---|---|
includeCount: true on a search | The count alongside the first page of results | You want both in one call |
peopleSearchCount, companyCount | Just the number, no results | You're tuning filters or sizing an audience |
combinedSearchCount | Matching companies and people at them | Your audience is "people at companies like X" |
includeCount and the matching count endpoint return the same number.
Counts cover all matching records; they aren't capped, even when a
search matches millions of profiles.
Job-posting search and stealth founders search have their own count
endpoints, and both return exact numbers. To see how many companies and
people are already in an audience, read the audience's status instead: it
returns companiesCount and prospectsCount without running a count.
Exact vs estimated
- Company counts are always exact.
- People counts are exact, whether they come from
includeCountor the people count endpoint. - The combined count operation estimates the people count by default.
The
getFastEstimateparameter defaults totrue: you get a statistical estimate that's typically within about 5% of the exact number, and it returns much faster. PassgetFastEstimate: falsefor an exact count; it takes longer.
Every combined count response includes isEstimate, a boolean
telling you whether numProfiles came from the fast estimate or an exact
count. Check it when a count feeds something downstream; don't guess from
the shape of the number.
What counts don't include
Two differences between counts and results are easy to miss:
- Exclusion lists apply to results, not counts. A count is computed before your prospect and company exclusion lists are applied, so it can be higher than the number of results you can actually pull. The combined count accepts exclusion list IDs but doesn't apply them either. If you exclude heavily, count the filtered pull itself.
- Counts run before some result-level rules. A count can be slightly higher than the number of profiles a paginated search returns, because a few rules only apply when results are actually assembled.
Counts can lag slightly
Identical searches within a window of roughly two hours return the same count. Two consequences:
- Re-running the same count is fast and consistent. Change any filter and it's a different search, so the count is computed fresh.
- A count can be up to two hours behind your latest data. If freshness
matters, or you just changed your filters, that's another reason to use
getFastEstimate: false, which skips the cached estimate path.
Benchmarking counts fairly
If you're comparing Fiber with another provider:
- Use exact counts: pass
getFastEstimate: falseon combined counts. - Warm or clear the cache: re-run a search after editing it, or wait out the two-hour window, so you're not benchmarking a stale number.
- Remember exclusion lists: they don't apply to counts, on either side.
- Count the same thing: people vs companies, current job vs any job. See comparing providers for the full checklist.
Cost
| Count | Cost |
|---|---|
| Company count, people count, job-posting count, stealth founders count | 1 credit per count |
| Combined count | 2 credits (one for companies, one for people) |
includeCount: true on a search | 1 credit on top of the search |
Your response's chargeInfo is the authoritative record of what a call
cost. Credit amounts are defaults — custom pricing is available for bulk use
cases. See Billing.
Related
- Getting accurate results from search: filter semantics and worked examples
- Industry filtering: person vs employer industry
- Search: filters, ordering, pagination
Getting accurate results from search
Write people and company searches that return exactly the people you mean — the rules that matter, what's available today, and worked examples of common mistakes with their fixes.
Industry filtering
The two meanings of "industry", which filter expresses each, and how to pick valid values so an industry filter never silently matches nothing.