There are a lot of bulk skip tracers out there. So far, I’ve been researching PropStream, Direct Skip, Need to Skip, and Hivemind.
For some of these options (like PropStream and Hivemind), you’re actually paying for a much larger system, and skip tracing is one of many tools you’ll have baked into their system.
For others (like Direct Skip and Need to Skip), it’s pretty much a dedicated skip tracing service and that’s all. No other bells and whistles. I can’t pretend to be an expert yet, but this is what I’ve found so far…
Disclaimer: REtipster has affiliate links for some of these. Not trying to push anyone one way or another, but I’ll include them below as I cover what I’ve learned so far.
Hivemind: This is a much larger CRM system with a ton of tools built into it (including text campaigns, email campaigns, websites, and a lot more). Depending on which level you sign up for, the monthly cost is anywhere from $99 - $199 per month, and the cost for skip tracing is 11 cents to get the list (this cost will be going up to 12 cents pretty soon) plus 2.5 cents to skip trace each lead, so effectively 13.5 cents per lead (soon to be 14.5 cents per lead).
PropStream: This is a much larger lead generation and texting/mailing/emailing service. If you’re a paying subscriber (which starts out at $99/mo) you’ll have access to a ton of other cost-per-use features like skip tracing. There is no additional cost per lead to download a list (say, if you just want to use it for direct mail), but if you want to skip trace each lead, that will cost you .10 - .12 cents per skip, depending on what level plan you have.
Direct Skip: From what I’ve seen so far, it looks like Direct Skip does provide a bit more information (like relatives and finding the owners of LLCs, for example), whereas other skip tracers will ignore corporations altogether. Direct Skip also claims to have the best, most current, and accurate data, but I haven’t split-tested the same list between multiple services yet, so I can’t verify this first-hand as of the date of this post. I’ll be curious to throw some business entities in there to see what the results are AND if Direct Skip is more or less accurate than others in terms of the quality of information it provides. Direct Skip charges .12 cents per hit by default, but you can get better pricing if you buy into one of their discounted packages (and these seem to be the best pricing I’ve seen so far), which you can see here. You can also generate your list all within Direct Skip, so you can avoid DataTree altogether (though, I don’t know where Direct Skip is pulling its data from or how current/accurate it is).
Need to Skip: In total transparency, I’ve done the least amount of research into this one, so there could be something I’m missing, but just looking at their pricing sheet, their prices seem to be the highest and I’m not sure what their competitive advantage is. You still need to get your list from another source before using this one, so there’s also this added step/cost (if anyone has experience with Need to Skip and if you know what I’m missing, do chime in).
From what I’ve seen so far, for skip tracing alone (assuming this is your primary need and you aren’t looking for a larger system that does additional things), Direct Skip appears to be the leader… but remember, I’m still learning and I haven’t seen it all.
I’m excited to keep digging into this!