Cresques vs Kompass: firmographic database vs evidence of who sells your category
Kompass sells a global B2B database with named contacts; Cresques shows who sold your category to public buyers. Criteria, sources and when Kompass fits better.
Marta Zielińska · Market research
Updated 29 October 2026 · 6 min read
Kompass, founded in 1944 and part of Expandi since March 2026, sells company information as EasyBusiness, a prospecting database with named contacts. Cresques answers a narrower question from a different source.
Putting it simply: Kompass EasyBusiness is a firmographic database: it tells you what a company is — activity, location, size, turnover — and who works there, with e-mail addresses and phone numbers, across more than 70 countries. It does not show whom a company has sold to. Cresques starts from contract award notices on TED, in which a public buyer names the company that supplied a category, with a date and a value, but it gives no named contacts today. Use Kompass to reach people at companies you have chosen; use award notices to choose companies that already sell your category.
Disclosure: Cresques is our own product. We compare on criteria you can check yourself and link to each source.
What Kompass is, as of October 2026
Kompass describes a network of 500 people in more than 70 countries, with "expert data specialists in 70 countries, collecting and verifying data locally"; its information is also "checked and monitored by the company itself". Companies can register free of charge in the Kompass directory and buy Booster packages offering "priority ranking in search results" and "certification as trusted supplier".
EasyBusiness, the product a searcher buys, is "the ultimate global B2B prospecting solution", "specially designed for Marketing, Sales, Business Development and Procurement departments". Its page lists more than 60 million companies, 150 million executives and decision makers, 40 million corporate and named e-mail addresses, 33 million phone numbers, 26 languages and 60 advanced search filters, with LinkedIn profile URLs, Excel and PDF export and pipeline management. The related EasyList selects on "company activity, location, executive contact, company size, turnover & type". Company totals differ between Kompass pages — the Swiss About page gives "+35 million companies", the international site "+60M companies" and the March 2026 acquisition announcement "more than 70 million companies worldwide" — so ask for the count in your country and sector.
Pricing: there is no standard public price list (the US site advertises a time-limited single-user offer). EasyBusiness offers user packs and "fair use or credit packs" for downloads, a demo and a free trial.
Public Tenders is a separate service giving "access to public and private sector bids": tenders from more than 190 countries, more than 50,000 a day, with daily e-mail alerts and "15 years of data" to "personalize the proposal based on the winning bidder, the previous contract and the value". It is built for bidders. Whether it can list past winners by category and country, to find resellers, is not published; neither is its price.
What Cresques is
Cresques is a web application for a manufacturer entering a new EU market through distributors. You create a market — a country plus CPV categories — and see the companies that have won public contracts in those categories, each tied to an award notice you can open, with the route to market and the lawful first-contact channel for that country. A materials reader proposes CPV categories from your brochure. Pricing is in credits, shown in the app before you pay. Company profiles with an AI-researched role and first messages drafted in the local language are live; e-mail alerts on new awards come with paid plans.
TED publishes more than 3,000 procurement notices every working day, with free access. Above the EU thresholds, a public buyer must publish an award notice naming the winner, its address, whether it is an SME, the value and the CPV codes (Directive 2014/24/EU, Article 50 and Annex V Part D).
The comparison table
Kompass descriptions are from Kompass's own pages in October 2026.
| Criterion | Kompass (EasyBusiness) | Cresques |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Global B2B prospecting database with named contacts, sold to the searcher | Web application built on public award notices, for manufacturers seeking distributors in an EU or EEA country |
| Data source | Collected and verified by Kompass's local data specialists; companies can maintain their entries | Award notices published on TED by public buyers under a legal duty |
| Evidence that a company sells your category | Indirect: recorded company activity; customers and contracts not shown | Documentary: buyer, date, value and CPV code in a notice you can open |
| Intra-EU coverage | Broad: more than 70 countries; per-country counts not shown on the product page | EU and EEA via TED; only winners of public contracts above the EU thresholds |
| What you get | Company records, executives, named e-mails and phone numbers, filters, exports, pipeline tools | Companies tied to notices, route to market, lawful first-contact channel, CPV proposals; profiles with role and quotes; first message in the local language; alerts (Starter and above) |
| Cost model | User and credit packs; no standard public price list (demo, free trial) | Credits: free plan with one market map, then plans from €49 a month (pricing) |
| Best for | Reaching decision makers at chosen companies; broad prospecting in any sector | A first shortlist of companies that already sell your category to public buyers |
Where the difference matters
A firmographic record answers "what is this company and who works there?" A manufacturer entering a market usually needs another answer first: "who already sells my category here, and to whom?" An activity field or description, whether compiled by a researcher or by the company, says what a company does in general. It does not show that it supplied, say, hospital beds to a named buyer last year. A dated award notice does.
A notice, in turn, names a company and an address, not a person. Cresques does not supply contacts today, and finding the right person at a shortlisted distributor is what a database such as Kompass is built for.
For any contact database, a named e-mail address is not permission to write. Rules on unsolicited business e-mail differ by country.
The natural order is evidence first, contacts second: shortlist from notices, confirm each company in the business register, then find the right person.
When Kompass is the better choice
- You need named decision makers at scale. E-mails, phone numbers and LinkedIn profiles are Kompass's core offer; Cresques does not provide them.
- Your distributors sell to private buyers only. Firms that never win public contracts appear in no notice but can appear in a company database.
- You are prospecting beyond TED's coverage. Kompass covers more than 70 countries; Cresques covers EU and EEA countries that publish on TED.
- You want a sales workflow. Pipeline management, exports, notes and, in the Sales Accelerator add-on, daily alerts on leads.
- You want to bid for public tenders. Kompass Public Tenders is built for bidders. Cresques reads award notices as evidence and does not help you bid.
- You want to clean or enrich your own customer file. Kompass offers data quality and enrichment services.
What this means for a manufacturer
- Kompass tells you what a company is and who works there; an award notice tells you what it sold, to whom and when.
- Ask Kompass for the company count in your country and sector, and for the price, before committing.
- Use evidence to choose and contacts to reach: shortlist from notices, then find the person.
- A named address is not consent; check the country's first-contact rules before writing.
