Use case · SaaS founders selling to local businesses

Build a target list for your local-business SaaS

Founders of booking, CRM, review, invoicing or scheduling software for local service businesses.

How it is usually done today

• Buying a broad SMB database that is thin on small local operators.
• Scraping Maps and guessing who the decision maker is.
• Relying on directories that do not show what software a business uses.

Why that hurts

• B2B contact databases skew toward companies with LinkedIn presence; many small trades have little.
• You cannot tell from a listing whether a business already uses a competitor.
• Early outreach needs precision, not volume.

How LeadMerlin does it

1. 1

   Pick one vertical

   Start with the niche and metro you know best.

2. 2

   Search and filter

   Use strictness "strict" to drop adjacent trades so the list stays on-niche.

3. 3

   Check their tools

   web.tech.chat, frameworks and other fields show embedded widgets and platforms detected on the site.

4. 4

   Reach the owner

   Owner name plus a mobile number or verified email gives you a direct line for founder-led sales.

A strict, on-niche search

curl -X POST "https://api.leadmerlin.com/api/v2/searches" \
  -H "x-api-key: $LEADMERLIN_API_KEY" \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -d '{"keyword":"hvac contractor","location_codes":[1026201],"strictness":"strict"}'

Location codes in these examples are placeholders — always look yours up with GET /v2/locations first.

What comes back

Most useful for this job:

• Detected chat widgets and other embedded tools in web.tech.
• services, specialties, service areas and employees when the site states them.
• Phone line type so you know when you are calling a mobile.

Limits and honest caveats

• Booking or CRM tools that only live behind a login are not visible from the public website.
• Employee counts and year established only appear when the business states them.
• Location coverage is tuned for US searches.

Pricing

• 1 lead credit per business that has a website to enrich.
• Listings without a website are never charged (counted as skipped, not returned in results).
• Off-niche listings removed by the niche filter are never charged.
• Failed enrichments are refunded automatically.
• A search charges only what your balance covers: with 40 credits left, it enriches the 40 top-ranked matches. Set max_leads to cap any search.
• Locations, niche suggestions, polling and demo endpoints are free.
• Phone line-type lookups have a monthly allowance: 100 on the free start, 1,000 Starter, 2,000 Pro, 4,000 Agency. Numbers looked up before are free. Past the allowance, phones still come back without a line type.

FAQ

Related