Searchbug publishes its full rate card with no contracts, no setup fees, and no monthly minimums, as advertised on its pricing page as of September 2026: $1.97 per query for the Professional People Trace API, $5.50 per search for console skip tracing, and $14.00 per search for Skip Trace Details. That transparency is genuinely useful and rarer than it should be. It also makes the arithmetic straightforward — and the arithmetic is exactly why call centers doing volume end up looking elsewhere. This page walks each published rate, the access tier behind it, and the point at which per-query pricing stops being the right model.
Disclosure: Scout Data is our product; treat that entry as a maker's pitch and the rest as our honest read.
The full rate card
Figures below are from Searchbug's public pricing page, as advertised on 4 September 2026. Searchbug divides its catalogue into a restricted professional tier and an open tier; the access column matters more than the price column if you have not confirmed which tier you can buy.
| Service | Published price | Access tier |
|---|---|---|
| Professional People Trace API | $1.97 per query | Verified businesses only |
| Skip Trace Search | $5.50 per search | Professional (restricted) |
| Skip Trace Details | $14.00 per search | Professional (restricted) |
| Do Not Call List + TCPA | $0.15 per search | All accounts |
| Address lookup and verification | $0.05 per search | All accounts |
| Background Report | $15.00 per report | All accounts |
Pricing on this page is as publicly advertised at the time of writing — confirm current pricing with each vendor, and with our sales team for Scout Data.
Read the access column before building a budget
The three products that actually locate a person — People Trace API, Skip Trace Search, Skip Trace Details — all require Searchbug to verify your business before you can buy them. That is not a formality you clear by signing up with a work email. It is an application process, and whether a solar, roofing, or home-services outbound operation qualifies is a question the guide cannot answer on Searchbug's behalf.
Settle the access question before building a budget around $1.97. If your operation does not clear the professional tier, the open catalogue — address verification and DNC checks — is genuinely useful for hygiene and compliance work but is not a skip-tracing product. The structure is the same as what the credentialed investigative platforms use, applied at a smaller scale and lower price point; the logic behind it is covered in our Accurint alternatives guide.
When per-query pricing is the right model
Per-query pricing fits two situations cleanly, and neither of them is a weekly outbound file. The first is the genuine one-off: a single record important enough to spend $5.50 on, where you need the depth of a skip-trace search and no bulk append makes sense. The second is compliance spot-checking: a $0.15 DNC and TCPA check run ad hoc on a number a rep flags or a complaint brings in. No contract, no minimum, credits that do not expire. Both are legitimate and Searchbug handles them cleanly.
The model stops working once the volume compounds. A floor of twelve reps working 25,000 records a month at $1.97 per People Trace query is $49,250 in data costs before a single call is placed. At $5.50 per console skip trace, the same file is $137,500. Those are multiplications of a published number, not estimates, and they are not an argument that Searchbug is bad value for what it sells. They are the argument that a per-query instrument is not a per-file instrument. The full comparison — and which vendors are priced for the volume case — is in our Searchbug alternatives guide.
No-charge-on-empty and what it does not cover
Searchbug's no-charge-on-empty policy is a meaningful protection against paying for dead records — records where the vendor has nothing to return. A query that resolves to zero results bills zero. That is better than the systems that charge on submission.
The protection ends there. A query that returns a phone number belonging to the previous tenant, a household member, or an address-associated contact who is not your target still bills as a successful query. The definition of what counts as a billable result — and whether that definition produces right-party connects on your specific file — is the question worth asking before you run volume. How that question compares across vendors, and how to structure a test that reveals the answer on your own records, is covered in best skip tracing software.
Where Scout Data fits
List Builder is built for the volume case. It builds a homeowner audience from live property signals — permit activity, roof age, storm exposure, ownership change — resolves each parcel to its current owner of title, and delivers the file with a phone matched to that person by name, scrubbed against the federal do-not-call registry, dead numbers replaced. Pricing is per record against your monthly volume, with no per-query structure and no access application. The same data is available per property through the API.
The right comparison is not Searchbug's rate card against Scout Data's rate card — the billing units are different. Convert both to cost per right-party connect on your own records using the skip tracing cost calculator. That is the number that determines which one is cheaper on your floor.
Frequently asked questions
How much does Searchbug charge per skip trace?
As publicly advertised on Searchbug's pricing page as of September 2026: the Professional People Trace API costs $1.97 per query, Skip Trace Search costs $5.50 per search, and Skip Trace Details costs $14.00 per search. All three are restricted to verified businesses that complete an application. The open catalogue — address verification at $0.05, DNC and TCPA checks at $0.15 — is available to any account without an application.
Does Searchbug charge when a search finds nothing?
Its pricing FAQ says no: when a query returns no information there is no charge, with the exception of products where a no-result is itself the answer — a clean criminal-records check, for example. That is a genuinely buyer-friendly policy. It does not mean you only pay for useful data: a query that returns any phone number bills, whether or not that number reaches the person you wanted.
Is there a monthly minimum or subscription with Searchbug?
No. Searchbug advertises no contracts, no setup fees, and no monthly minimums — pay only when you use it. Credits do not expire. That structure suits teams with occasional or unpredictable lookup volume and makes it straightforward to calculate the cost of any specific run before submitting it.