"6sense vs Bombora" and "Bombora vs ZoomInfo" are two of the most searched comparisons in B2B intent data, and for good reason: three category-defining vendors, three different methodologies, and none of them publish pricing. 6sense predicts which accounts are in an active buying stage using its own AI model. Bombora tracks what companies are reading across a co-op of B2B publishers. ZoomInfo pairs web-based intent signals with its own large contact database so you can act on a signal without leaving the platform. All three are built for revenue teams with five- and six-figure annual budgets. This guide breaks down what each one actually tracks, how they genuinely differ, and what companies really pay based on real contract data instead of a "book a demo" black box. At the end, I cover a fourth approach that none of the big three offer: reading what buyers say in public, in their own words, before they ever fill out a form. Full disclosure up front: I run Buska, one of the tools in that fourth category.
How each platform actually captures intent
All three vendors sell "intent data," but the underlying methodology is different enough that the label hides more than it reveals. Here is what each one tracks, verified against their own product pages as of September 2026.
6sense
As of 2026, 6sense positions its overall platform as "Intelligence for Agentic GTM" rather than the older "Revenue AI" tagline. Its intent product runs on what the company calls the Signalverse: first-party web deanonymization (matching anonymous site visitors back to accounts), custom keyword tracking across more than 40 languages, and third-party signal partnerships that explicitly include Bombora, G2, and TrustRadius data feeding into the same dashboard. An AI model (6AI) scores each account for buying stage and surfaces new keyword matches within about a day. The product is built around account-level orchestration: once an account is flagged, 6sense can trigger ad targeting, email sequences, and Slack alerts automatically.
Bombora
Bombora's Company Surge is the original B2B intent co-op. It runs on a Data Co-op of thousands of publisher sites, brand properties, and premium data providers, covering more than 5,000 sites and, per Bombora, 86% of the co-op's data is shared exclusively with Bombora and unavailable to any other intent provider. The platform scores companies against more than 21,600 topics by comparing recent content consumption to that company's own historical baseline, so the output is relative ("above baseline"), not absolute. Bombora does not sell contact data or run a sales platform; its data is embedded into other tools (HubSpot, Salesforce, LinkedIn Ads, and dozens more) as well as sold as a direct subscription.
ZoomInfo
ZoomInfo's Intent product tracks more than 210 million IP-to-organization pairings and over 6 trillion keyword-to-device pairings sourced monthly, built on the company's own proprietary network rather than a publisher co-op. Its distinguishing feature is Person-Level Intent: instead of stopping at "this account is showing intent," it surfaces the specific individuals inside that account, with their role and seniority, so you can go straight from signal to a named contact in the same platform. One correction worth making here, because it is repeated incorrectly in a lot of comparison content: ZoomInfo and Bombora do not currently share a data partnership. The two companies had a revenue-sharing agreement that terminated in early 2020 and was the subject of a lawsuit ZoomInfo and Bombora settled in 2022; as of 2026 they operate as unaffiliated, competing intent providers.
What 6sense, Bombora, and ZoomInfo actually cost in 2026
None of the three publish list pricing, but Vendr, which tracks anonymized real buyer contracts, gives a far more honest picture than any vendor's "request a demo" page. These are Vendr's median contract values and observed ranges as of 2026, not sales-rep quotes.
| 6sense | Bombora | ZoomInfo | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median annual contract (Vendr) | $62,440 | $25,000 | $33,500 |
| Observed range (Vendr) | $11,376 - $176,809 | $13,000 - $80,450 | $7,213 - $155,820 |
| Contracts sampled | 385 | 35 | 1,573 |
| Published list pricing | No, custom quote only | No, custom quote only | Entry tiers listed; intent add-ons custom |
| Contract term | Annual | Annual | Annual (per-seat add-ons) |
A caveat worth stating plainly: these figures track the vendor's overall platform contract, not an isolated "intent data" line item, because none of the three sell intent as a fully standalone SKU at scale. For Bombora, intent (Company Surge) is close to the entire product, so its number is the most directly comparable. For 6sense and ZoomInfo, intent is typically one module inside a broader account-based or contact-database platform, so treat those medians as "what a typical customer pays for the platform that includes intent," not a pure intent line item. Sources: Vendr / 6sense, Vendr / Bombora, Vendr / ZoomInfo.
Head-to-head: data type, attribution, and speed
| 6sense | Bombora | ZoomInfo | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Data source | Deanonymized web traffic + partner signals (Bombora, G2, TrustRadius) | B2B publisher co-op, 5,000+ sites | Proprietary IP-to-org network + own contact database |
| Attribution level | Account, AI-predicted buying stage | Account only, relative score | Account + named contacts (Person-Level Intent) |
| Delivery cadence | Near real-time to daily | Weekly batch | Daily |
| Signal type | Inferred (AI-modeled) | Inferred (statistical, relative to baseline) | Inferred (multi-source, statistical) |
| G2 rating (2026) | 4.4/5, ~1,000 reviews | 4.4/5 | 4.5/5, 9,000+ reviews |
| Best for | Predictive scoring + orchestration across the funnel | Broad account-level ABM prioritization | Sales teams that want intent and verified contacts in one tool |
Where the three actually agree
Strip away the marketing and the three converge on more than they diverge. All three infer intent statistically from anonymous behavior, meaning none of them show you a buyer's actual words, only a probability that someone at a company is researching a topic. All three require an annual contract and a five-figure minimum budget in almost every real deal Vendr has recorded. All three are built for mid-market and enterprise revenue teams with a RevOps function to run the platform, not for a 5-person startup evaluating its first outbound motion. And all three work at the account level first: even ZoomInfo's Person-Level Intent starts from "this account is active," then narrows to a person, rather than starting from an individual's own statement of need.
The option none of the three are built for
Full disclosure: I run Buska. What we do sits in a different category from 6sense, Bombora, and ZoomInfo, and I want to be specific about that instead of pretending it is a drop-in replacement, because it is not.
All three vendors above infer intent from behavior you cannot see: a page view, a content download, a keyword match against a taxonomy. Buska monitors 30+ public platforms, including Reddit, X/Twitter, LinkedIn, Hacker News, Quora, and YouTube, for people who are describing their own need in their own words, publicly: "anyone using a tool like this for a 15-person team," "just cancelled [competitor], what should I switch to," "budget approved, need to pick a vendor by end of quarter." This is buying intent data too, but it is declared, not inferred, and it is attributed to a named individual by default, not an anonymous account.
The honest limitations: Buska has no account-level orchestration, no predictive buying-stage AI, and no built-in contact database like ZoomInfo's. It only captures intent that someone chose to express publicly, so a company doing all of its research silently through cold web browsing will never show up. It is not a replacement for 6sense's account scoring at a 5,000-account TAM, and it is not what you use to run enterprise ABM. What it is: a real-time feed (Starter updates daily, Growth every 3 hours, Scale hourly) of named people publicly signaling a need, at $49 to $249 per month, month-to-month with no annual lock-in and a 7-day free trial. For B2B categories where buyers talk in public, mostly SaaS, developer tools, marketing, and agencies, that is often a faster and cheaper way to find the leads that matter than waiting on a weekly co-op batch.
Which one should you actually use
- Choose 6sense if you have a $50K+ annual budget, dedicated RevOps to run the platform, and you want predictive buying-stage scoring plus built-in orchestration across ads, email, and sales alerts.
- Choose Bombora if your main need is account-level prioritization at scale and you want intent data that is already embedded in tools you use, since its co-op data feeds dozens of other platforms including 6sense itself.
- Choose ZoomInfo if your priority is outbound speed: going from "this account is in-market" to "here is the named contact and their verified email" inside one platform, without a separate enrichment step.
- Choose Buska (or a social/public intent tool like it) if you want to start today for under $250/month, your buyers are active on Reddit, X, LinkedIn, or forums, and you want named, real-time leads instead of an anonymous account score.
- Combine sources if you can afford it. Teams running Bombora or 6sense for account-level breadth alongside a social intent tool for real-time, named signals report the highest-confidence leads when the two overlap: an account showing intent in Bombora AND a named person at that account posting about it publicly is about as strong a signal as B2B data gets.
For a broader, feature-by-feature breakdown that also includes TechTarget alongside these four, see our full intent data providers comparison. For the underlying concepts (first-party vs third-party vs social intent), our buyer intent data guide covers the fundamentals in more depth.
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