Honestly, there’s really just one thing that matters: Price per Sales Qualified Lead (SQL). That’s 80% of the value that comes from a sales intelligence software or lead generation partner, and if you’re super happy with the ROI you’re getting with your current processes, you can probably stop reading here. 

But, for those sales nerds that really want to push to 100% value, here’s how you can take your evaluation criteria to the next level when thinking about your sales intelligence tool.  

1. Data Quality

The best way to measure data quality is price per SQL (e.g. it’s OK if you’re paying more for a tool that’s giving you more leads, and it’s OK if you’re paying less for a tool that’s giving you less leads). That being said, there’s two other factors that determine overall data quality:

Breadth of Leads: How much of your total addressable market (TAM) is actually covered? If your tool is only covering ~10% of the buyers in your market, it doesn’t really matter if the leads are good because you’ll hit scaling problems really fast. 

Lead Filtering Ability: Even with great leads AND a dataset that covers your entire TAM, how quickly can your reps identify and target ICP-qualified accounts in that dataset? If your team needs to waste time filtering through all the bad leads because the right filters aren’t in place, you might still have the same price per SQL, but it’s super inefficient and time gets wasted.  

Orbital stands out because it covers the full breadth of your SMB market and gives you filters that actually match how your buyers operate. For example, take HVAC. Instead of flattening all HVAC businesses into the same '0–250 employees' bucket, Orbital’s AI agents distinguish between a two‑van shop run out of a garage and a 40‑truck fleet with a commercial yard. Or they figure out whether the business runs ServiceTitan or Housecall Pro, whether they’re investing in Google ads or Yelp, and even which equipment brands they carry. That combination of wide coverage and hyper‑specific filtering is why Orbital’s customers report getting more SQLs, at a cheaper rate, faster.

2. Workflows and Ease of Use

You want to make sure that your software of choice is designed to be a full-stack tool that can connect with your CRM, handle campaign management, and run quick and efficient searches. While this is important, to be completely honest, there’s not that much differentiation here. Most providers offer similar workflow basics: connect your CRM, launch campaigns, run searches. Orbital is no different, our customers who switch over from ZoomInfo or Apollo (and that’s most of them) find that the general processes they know and understand still apply. If anything, they like our UI a bit better! 

The difference is in what those workflows deliver once they’re powered by higher-quality data, and a team of experts that’s managing agents unique to your industry. With Orbital, your reps are prioritizing accounts with real buying signals, not just broad firmographics from ZoomInfo or Apollo. That means the same familiar workflows your sales reps already know, but with radically better outcomes.

3. Use Cases Beyond Sales 

The real power of modern sales intelligence unlocks new opportunities across your entire organization. We really don’t see anyone else on the market that’s doing this today, but here’s what Orbital customers report back to us on, every day.

RevOps: RevOps leaders finally get a "TAM in a box," including the messy SMB long tail that older tools ignore. They can build complete account universes, enrich them with real‑time signals, and design campaigns that use the right channels for SMBs (ads, postcards, multiple call touches). That level of orchestration wasn’t possible before.

Marketing: Marketers can run smarter campaigns with Orbital’s signals. Launch geo‑targeted ads in markets where SMBs are expanding, or build outbound for hyper‑specific niches (like dental practices with multiple locations and online booking). Even inbound gets a lift- forms are enriched and routed instantly, no spreadsheets or handoffs.

FP&A: For some customers, Orbital’s TAM visibility informs GTM budgets. Sales leaders hand finance detailed numbers (accounts per segment, ACVs, close rates) so finance can model spend with confidence. That’s a level of precision far beyond Statista or rough internal extrapolations can take you.

Investors: For fundraising, Orbital provides accurate TAM data to back your story with evidence. Investors want hard numbers; Orbital gives you coverage and accuracy that actually holds up.

Expert Networks: This is a really unique one - many times, businesses look to identify long-tail SMB contacts for non-sales purposes. A great example of this is Private Equity or Consulting firms who want to survey a given demographic for research purposes. We’ve recently discovered that there are some customers using Orbital for this purpose, because they have such a hard time otherwise getting in contact with those folks in the long tail. 

The Bottom Line

You should measure your sales intelligence / lead generation software by data quality, workflow effectiveness, and cross‑org impact. 

If you’ve got systems or vendors in place today that are continuously delivering new, fresh leads, at a blended CAC that’s much lower than your LTV, you’re probably set. Stick with what you’ve got, and make the most out of it until it stops providing. 

But if you feel like there’s more being left on the table, especially if you’re selling into SMBs, know that there’s more out there than ZoomInfo or Apollo will lead you to believe. We love working with hard-to-track markets. If you think you have a tough case, send it our way, please!