Build a B2B software company database#

Create a comprehensive list of B2B software companies and automatically extract key business intelligence like pricing models, target markets, seller type, and product positioning. Perfect for competitive research, partnership development, or market analysis.

This recipe combines dataset generation with custom enrichment tasks to build a complete competitive intelligence database.

Prerequisites#

• Enterprise plan access – Dataset generation requires Enterprise
• Target market defined – Know which software category you want to research
• Enrichment goals – Decide what data points matter most for your analysis

Step 1: Generate your software company list#

Navigate to dataset generation#

Go to your Datasets page and click Generate Dataset.

Select Global Crawl#

Choose Global Crawl mode. This finds companies worldwide that match your business criteria—perfect for software companies that aren't geographically limited.

Set your business filters#

Define your target software companies using these filters:

Industry focus:

• "B2B Software"
• "SaaS"
• "Enterprise Software"
• "Cloud Services"

Company type (optional):

• "Marketing Automation"
• "Sales Tools"
• "HR Software"
• "Analytics Platforms"
• "Developer Tools"
• "Finance Software"

Additional filters:

• Headquarters: "United States" or "Global"
• Company size: Choose from Small (1-10), Medium (11-50), Large (51-200), Enterprise (200+)
• Funding stage: "Seed," "Series A," "Series B+," or leave open

Generate and review#

Click Generate and wait 5-15 minutes. You'll receive:

• Company names
• Website URLs
• Headquarters location
• Estimated company size
• Founding year (when available)

Initial results typically include 500-5,000 companies depending on filter specificity.

Step 2: Create an enrichment task#

Now extract detailed intelligence from each company's website.

Navigate to task creation#

Go to Tasks and click Create New Task or use the task builder.

Configure your enrichment task#

Create a task with these outputs to extract key competitive intelligence:

Seller Type:

What type of customers does this company serve?
Options: B2B, B2C, B2B2C, Marketplace

Pricing Model:

What is their pricing model?
Options: Subscription (monthly/annual), Usage-based, Per-seat, Freemium, One-time purchase, Enterprise (contact sales), Free

Starting Price:

What is their starting price point? Include currency and billing frequency.
Example: "$49/month" or "Contact sales"

Target Market:

What size companies or industries do they target?
Example: "SMB retailers" or "Enterprise healthcare" or "Startups"

Product Category:

What category best describes their main product?
Example: "CRM," "Marketing Automation," "Analytics," "Collaboration"

Key Features:

List 3-5 core features or value propositions from their homepage.

Tech Stack (optional):

What technologies do they mention using? (APIs, integrations, infrastructure)

Funding Status (optional):

Any mentioned funding rounds, investors, or revenue milestones?

Set task inputs#

Configure the task to use the Website column from your generated dataset as the primary input.

Test your task#

Before running on the full dataset:

1. Test on 5-10 sample companies
2. Verify the task extracts accurate information
3. Adjust prompts if results are inconsistent
4. Check that pricing and seller type values are standardized

Learn more about creating tasks

Step 3: Run enrichment on your dataset#

Start the autoloop#

1. Open your generated software company dataset
2. Select your enrichment task
3. Click Run Autoloop
4. Map the website column to the task input
5. Start the job

Processing time depends on dataset size. Expect 2-5 minutes per 100 companies.

Monitor progress#

Watch the autoloop dashboard for:

• Completion percentage
• Successful extractions
• Any failed rows (usually due to websites being down or restructured)

Step 4: Analyze and segment your data#

Once enrichment completes, you have a rich competitive intelligence database.

Segment by pricing model#

Filter companies by how they charge:

• Subscription companies – Analyze monthly vs. annual pricing
• Usage-based pricing – Identify consumption-based models
• Freemium models – Find companies with free tiers
• Enterprise sales – Companies without public pricing

Segment by target market#

Group by ideal customer profile:

• SMB-focused – Tools for small businesses
• Mid-market – Solutions for growing companies
• Enterprise – Large company platforms
• Vertical-specific – Industry-focused software

Segment by product category#

Organize by software type:

• CRM and sales tools
• Marketing automation
• Analytics and BI
• Collaboration and productivity
• Developer tools and APIs
• Finance and accounting

Identify pricing trends#

Analyze competitive pricing:

• Average starting price by category
• Common pricing tiers
• Freemium vs. paid-only strategies
• Per-seat vs. flat-rate models

Example workflow#

Here's a complete workflow for researching marketing automation competitors:

Generation phase:

• Filter: "Marketing Automation" + "B2B Software" + "United States"
• Result: 347 companies found

Enrichment phase:

• Created task to extract: Seller type, pricing model, starting price, target market, key features
• Ran autoloop: 338 successful enrichments (97% success rate)

Analysis:

• 89% use subscription pricing (monthly + annual)
• Average starting price: $79/month
• 34% offer freemium plans
• 67% target SMB, 28% mid-market, 5% enterprise
• Most common features: Email campaigns, automation workflows, analytics, CRM integration

Insights:

• Clear pricing gap between $49-99 for SMB and $299+ for enterprise features
• Freemium adoption growing as competitive strategy
• Integration with CRM is table-stakes feature

Use cases#

Competitive intelligence:

• Track pricing changes over time
• Identify market positioning gaps
• Monitor feature evolution
• Analyze go-to-market strategies

Market research:

• Understand category maturity
• Identify emerging trends
• Map competitive landscape
• Find white space opportunities

Business development:

• Find integration partners
• Identify acquisition targets
• Discover complementary products
• Build partnership pipeline

Sales enablement:

• Create battle cards
• Understand competitor positioning
• Prepare competitive responses
• Train on pricing objections

Quality checks#

After enrichment, validate your data:

1. Pricing accuracy – Spot-check 10-15 companies to verify pricing is current
2. Category consistency – Ensure product categories are standardized
3. Seller type validation – Confirm B2B classification is accurate
4. Website changes – Flag any companies with recently redesigned sites that may need re-enrichment
5. Data completeness – Check for blank cells and investigate failed extractions

FAQs#

How many B2B software companies will I find?
Depends on your filters. A broad "B2B Software" search can return 5,000+ companies globally. Narrow categories like "Sales Engagement Platforms" might return 100-300.

How do I keep pricing data current?
Pricing changes frequently. Re-run your enrichment task quarterly or monthly for active competitive tracking. The system only charges for rows it processes.

What if a company doesn't list pricing publicly?
The task will extract "Contact sales" or "Enterprise pricing" as the result. You can then filter for companies with transparent vs. hidden pricing.

Can I extract customer testimonials or case studies?
Yes. Add an output to your task like "Extract 2-3 customer quotes or company logos from the homepage" to capture social proof.

How do I compare my pricing to competitors?
After enrichment, export to a spreadsheet and create pivot tables or charts showing price distribution by target market, features, or company size.

What if I want to track companies over time?
Save your enriched dataset, then re-run generation and enrichment monthly or quarterly. Compare versions to identify new entrants, pricing changes, or positioning shifts.

Related#

• Create your first task
• Find a list of CPA firms with AI
• Prepare datasets for research