Company list offers look alike: a huge number, a promise of up-to-date data and a price per thousand records. The differences show only when you go out into the field and find that every fifth company is no longer at the given address and half the rows have no phone. Ask these ten questions of every data vendor, including us.
1. Where does the data come from?
A reliable vendor names the sources: official registers, business directories, websites, lists kept by professional bodies. “From publicly available sources” tells you nothing. Everything else depends on the source: which fields are filled in, how quickly the data ages and whether the vendor may pass it on to you at all.
2. From what date is the data?
“Continuously updated” is not a date. Ask when the records for your industry and your region were last refreshed. Companies are set up, suspend their business and disappear every day, and a list from two years ago in hospitality or retail is largely out of date.
3. How many companies are there in my counties?
A number of “companies in all of Poland” does not tell you how many operate where you drive. Databases can be uneven: they have many records in some regions and few in others. Ask for the number of records for your voivodeship, counties and industry before you pay.
4. How many records have the fields I need?
This question decides the price. For sending letters you need a full address, for planning visits the address and phone, for tidying the CRM the NIP. If 3,000 of 10,000 records have a phone, then for booking visits you are buying 3,000 records, not 10,000. A good overview shows how full each field is separately; at our end that is the Database status page.
5. Is there an address with postcode and county?
For a field sales rep this is the basis. Without a postcode and county you cannot sort companies by area or lay out a day’s route. Ask whether the county is a separate column and what it was derived from: the registered office address or something else. Also remember that the registered office is not always where the company actually works.
6. How was the industry determined?
There are two ways: a PKD code from a register or a category from a directory, and most of our records currently have the latter. The PKD code is official, but companies enter a dozen of them “just in case”, and since 2025 a new classification applies in which some codes have changed meaning; we describe this in the guide PKD 2025: how to choose industry codes for a company list. A directory category shows better what a company really does, but it is not uniform. It is worth knowing which case you are dealing with.
7. Will I get a sample from my territory?
The sample should come from your own selection, not from a showcase set. You can check a few dozen records yourself in the free registers; how to do that is described in the guide A free company list for a county: CEIDG, KRS and REGON. If the vendor will not give a sample, that is an answer too. What our file looks like is shown by the sample with made-up companies; it shows the file layout, not the data quality, which you judge from the figures for your own selection.
8. Is there personal data on the list?
Almost always. A sole proprietorship is a natural person, so its owner’s name, address and phone are personal data. Whoever decides after the purchase why and how to use such data generally becomes its controller: they need a legal basis, must inform the people concerned (Article 14 GDPR) and must respect objections. A vendor who says that “the GDPR does not apply to businesses” is oversimplifying.
9. What about phone and email?
Since 10 November 2024 an offer sent in Poland by email or text message, or made by phone, requires the recipient’s prior consent, and the provision does not distinguish consumers from businesses. A purchased list contains no such consent for you. More in the guide What a sales rep may do after the change in the law. If someone sells a “mailing database with a guarantee of legality”, ask for the consent wording and proof that it was obtained.
10. What may I do with the file, and what if the data turns out to be wrong?
The licence may be short, but it matters: single use or without time limit, one company or the whole group, no resale, no publication. Also check whether the price is final or net and what invoice you will receive. No list is free of errors, so an honest vendor says up front what it does not guarantee, usually email delivery and that someone will answer the phone, and how it handles complaints. A promise of “100% up-to-date contacts” cannot be kept.
Checklist before paying
- sources named
- data date for my selection
- number of records after filters: voivodeship, counties, industry, required fields
- postcode and county in separate columns
- how full each field is, separately
- a sample from my territory checked in the registers
- a clear licence and a final price
- a plan of use compatible with the GDPR and Article 398 PKE
How it works with us
At kontaktyb2b.pl we answer an enquiry with figures first: how many companies meet the conditions, how many of them have a phone, email and NIP, and from what date the data is. The price comes after that. The sources are described in the methodology, and voivodeships and industries on the Polish company lists by voivodeship and industry page. If we have few companies in your region, we will say so plainly.
Questions and answers
Is buying a company list legal?
Buying company data from public sources is not prohibited. Everything depends on where the vendor got it and what you do with it. The data of people running a sole proprietorship is subject to the GDPR, and in Poland an offer sent by email or made by phone requires the recipient’s prior consent (art. 398 of the Electronic Communications Law).
What does a company list for one region cost?
There is no single market price. The price depends on the number of records, the fields you need, the industry and region, and whether you pay once or every month. Compare the cost of one record that is really useful in your work, not the price per thousand rows.
Is it better to buy a file once or a subscription?
A one-off file is enough for one letter campaign, laying out routes or analysing a territory. A subscription makes sense when you need the data all the time and the vendor really refreshes it; ask for the date of the last update of a specific sample.
How do I check a list before paying?
Ask for a sample from your county and industry and check a few dozen records in the free registers: does the company exist, has it not suspended its business, and does the address match?
