Prospect reveal

Masking is what makes searching free and taking expensive. You can run twenty queries, refine the filters, and satisfy yourself that a list is worth working before spending anything — and the data owner is not handing a complete database to anyone willing to page through results.

The important consequence for the buyer is that the cost lands on judgement rather than on curiosity. A pricing model that charges for search punishes exactly the behaviour that produces good lists.

Three questions decide whether an allowance is generous or theatrical:

• Is a repeat reveal free? Revealing the same person twice should never cost twice, or the meter is charging for your own filing system.
• Do bad records refund? A reveal that returns nothing usable is not a delivery.
• Does the allowance roll over, reset, or expire? A monthly meter that resets is a use-it-or-lose-it budget, and it drives people to reveal records they have no intention of contacting.

Having an address is not a basis for using it. Under GDPR the basis is usually legitimate interest, which requires the message to be relevant to the person's professional role and to carry an easy way out; CAN-SPAM requires accurate headers, a physical address and a working unsubscribe. Neither is satisfied by the fact that a database returned a value.

Practically: reveal narrowly, keep the reason you revealed each record, and honour opt-outs across every list at once rather than per campaign.

SalesShift masks addresses in search results and records every reveal, so a record you have already revealed is free the next time and leads saved while masked are back-filled once revealed. Reveals are metered per workspace per month, and the meter is visible rather than inferred from a balance.