What is data as a service (DaaS)?

How does data as a service work?

In data as a service, the provider does the heavy work once, for every customer: it gathers the data from its sources, cleans and matches it, stores it and keeps it current. Customers never hold a copy of the whole dataset. They ask for what they need, when they need it:

• Through an API. A request names a company, a person or a set of filters, and the response returns structured records, usually as JSON. A B2B data API works this way.
• Through a cloud connector. The provider shares tables directly into the customer’s data warehouse and refreshes them on its side.
• Through scheduled feeds. Files delivered every day or every week, halfway between a purchase and a service.

Billing follows the same logic: per call, per record, per row delivered, or a subscription with a monthly volume.

The proof above shows the point of it. On October 28, 2026, one request counted 115,350 US job postings published in the last day, and another counted 3,796,897 in the last 30 days. A file exported a month earlier cannot list any of them.

Data file, data as a service and SaaS: what is the difference?

A data file, data as a service and SaaS differ in what you receive and in who keeps the data current:

	Data file	Data as a service	Software as a service (SaaS)
What you get	A copy of a dataset, once	Answers to requests, as often as you ask	An application to use
Freshness	Frozen on the export date	As of the provider’s latest update, read at each request	Depends on the data you put in
Where the data lives	In your CRM or warehouse	On the provider’s servers	In the vendor’s app, but it is your data
Who keeps it current	You	The provider	You
Typical pricing	One-time purchase or license	Usage or subscription	Per seat or subscription
Example	A contact list bought for a campaign	A company record fetched when a lead signs up	A CRM or an email platform

The lines blur in practice: plenty of SaaS products embed a data service, and data services often come with an app. One question sorts them out. When a fact changes in the world, who updates your copy?

Why do B2B teams use data as a service?

B2B teams use data as a service because the facts they sell on keep moving. People change jobs and titles; companies hire, move and rebrand; a work address stops working when its owner leaves (data decay). A list bought in January describes January.

Three uses follow from that:

1. Enrichment at the moment of need. A new lead or account gets its company and contact details when it enters the CRM, as they stand that day (data enrichment).
2. Signals. Job postings, headcounts and the tools named in postings are worth reading while they are recent (technographic data).
3. Agents and automations. A workflow tool or an AI agent does not open last quarter’s spreadsheet: it calls an endpoint, reads the JSON and acts on it (AI agents guide).

Check yourselfWhich of these is data as a service?

• A spreadsheet of contacts bought once and imported into the CRM
• An API your CRM calls for the current company record when a new lead signs up
• A dashboard your team builds on its own CRM data
• An email platform your team subscribes to

Show the answer key

1. ✕A spreadsheet of contacts bought once and imported into the CRMThat is a data purchase: the copy is yours, and nothing updates it after the import.
2. ✓An API your CRM calls for the current company record when a new lead signs upThe provider hosts and refreshes the data, and your system asks for one record at the moment it needs it.
3. ✕A dashboard your team builds on its own CRM dataThat is analytics on data you already own; no provider serves anything.
4. ✕An email platform your team subscribes toThat is software as a service: the vendor provides the application, and the contacts in it are yours.

How do you get B2B data as a service?

You get B2B data as a service by calling an API from wherever the work happens: a CRM, a spreadsheet, a workflow tool such as Clay, n8n, Make or Zapier, or an AI agent through an MCP server.

Company Enrichment returns a company’s record from its company page, once Domain to LinkedIn URL has resolved a bare domain, as in the Datadog example above. Jobs Search returns job postings filtered by title, location and date, with a total count. Each call returns the values the provider holds at the time of the request, so the same question asked next month gets next month’s values.