TL;DR: In DACH phone enrichment (Germany, Austria and Switzerland), the list decides how clean your numbers are. In our first benchmark (15,000 enrichments run in 2025 and 2026, published May 2026), tight DACH lists returned 88% to 99% clean mobiles and broad ones returned 65% to 70%, on the same providers. But a clean mobile in DACH still misses the person most of the time. In October 2026, 25% of dialled Kaspr mobiles in Germany reached the right person, and 20% in Switzerland. Tighten the list, keep your providers, add one where they are weak, and check every number before your team dials.
77% usable.
That is how many Kaspr numbers in Germany passed our basic checks in October 2026. 130 of 168. It is the best Kaspr rate of any country we ran.
Then we dialled 87 of them. 22 reached the person we wanted.
Answrd is part of Profitbl, which runs cold calling campaigns across Europe. DACH is where we learned two things the hard way. The list you build matters more than the tool you buy. And a German or Swiss mobile that looks perfect still fails most of the time when you call it.
Why do tight DACH lists enrich so much better than broad ones?
Tight lists enrich better because they pull in people whose mobiles sit in the sources providers scrape. Broad lists pull in small Swiss and German firms, where senior people are listed under the switchboard.
Here is the split from that first benchmark (28 companies and 12 countries, more than 2,700 enrichments in DACH):
- Broad cut, 1,382 contacts: DACH software firms, 10 to 200 staff, all three countries. 65% to 70% clean mobiles, and 22% landlines.
- Tight cut, 191 contacts: marketing leaders and CEOs at German firms in one manufacturing industry. 99% German mobiles. Zero landlines and only a handful of foreign numbers.
- Tight cut, 193 contacts: Swiss software companies, one country, one industry. 88% clean mobiles.
- Broad cut, 1,013 contacts: HR and talent leaders at Swiss firms of 11 to 50 staff, all industries. Noisy, mixed quality.
Same provider stack every time. Only the list changed.
DACH has a strong directory culture, most of all in Switzerland. Company directories list the main line next to the boss's name. Providers scrape those directories and hand the switchboard back as a "found phone". A broad list full of small firms fills up with those numbers.
Narrow lists skew toward mid-market people who are active on LinkedIn. Their mobiles show up in cleaner sources. So the fix starts before you spend a single credit.
How do you build a DACH list that enriches well?
Cut by one country, one industry, one persona and one size band before you enrich. Every filter you add removes some of the small-firm switchboard noise.
What tight looks like in DACH:
- One country: Germany only, or Switzerland only. Never "all DACH" in one list.
- One industry: "software development" beats "all software and IT".
- One persona: "head of marketing" beats "all senior roles".
- One size band: 50 to 200 staff beats 10 to 200 staff.
You get smaller lists. Expect 100 to 300 contacts per cut instead of 1,000 or more. That is fine. In our 2025 to 2026 data, the gap between tight and broad DACH cuts was about 30 points of mobile quality. No provider swap moved the number that far.
Austria is the gap in our data. We have too few Austrian contacts in either round to give you a rate, so we leave it out.
Does a usable DACH mobile reach the person?
Most of the time, no. In October 2026, 25% of dialled Kaspr mobiles in Germany reached the right person, and 20% in Switzerland. Across Europe it was about 1 in 4.
Our October 2026 dial data, by provider and country:
- Kaspr, Germany: 130 of 168 numbers usable (77%). 87 dialled. 22 reached the person (25%).
- Kaspr, Switzerland: 46 of 88 usable (52%). 40 dialled. 8 reached the person (20%).
- Eficia, Germany: 91 of 93 usable. 57 dialled. 11 reached the person (19%).
- Eficia, Switzerland: 27 of 27 usable. 14 dialled. 0 reached the person. Small n, but zero is zero.
Compare that with the rest of Europe, same month, same Kaspr source. 43% of dialled Swedish mobiles and 42% of Danish ones reached the person. The Netherlands came in at 35%. Switzerland sits at the bottom with the UK (21%) and France (22%). Germany does a little better.
"Usable" here means a mobile, in the contact's own country, that we had not already marked as bad. It is a format and country check. It says nothing about who picks up.
Our first benchmark could not make this point. Back then we measured fill and promised to measure dial outcomes later. Now we have. The answer for DACH is plain. A clean-looking German mobile misses the person three times out of four.
The gap between "found" and "reached" is a general problem with waterfalls. We cover it in waterfall enrichment for phone numbers. Switzerland makes it bigger.
Why do so many clean DACH mobiles miss?
Most misses ring out, go to voicemail or reach someone else. A number can pass every format check and still belong to the wrong person, or to someone who left the firm.
Our data shows the size of the problem in DACH more than the cause. Eficia's German numbers passed the format check 98% of the time (91 of 93), and 19% of the dialled ones reached the person. Across Europe, 26% of dialled Eficia numbers reached the person (60 of 233). Format and reach are two different numbers.
We see the wrong-person pattern across every big provider. Here is why Lusha and Kaspr mobiles reach the wrong person. A line check alone does not catch it either, as we show in the limits of HLR lookups.
So check before you dial. In Switzerland you lose more dials per good number than in the Netherlands or the Nordics.
Which providers fill DACH mobiles?
Kaspr and Eficia fill most of our DACH mobiles. Behind them, the cheap tier adds almost nothing, and the specialist providers help only on small, hard lists.
The big two (October 2026):
- Kaspr: 77% usable in Germany (n = 168) and 52% in Switzerland (n = 88). We have dialled its numbers on our campaigns. Germany fills well. In Switzerland, almost half its numbers fail the check.
- Eficia: 91 of 93 usable in Germany and 27 of 27 in Switzerland. We use Eficia. It fills cleanly on format. It reached the person less often than Kaspr in both countries (11 of 57 and 0 of 14 dialled).
From our first benchmark, 2025 to 2026 (mobile format only, no dial data):
- Forager: 88% clean mobiles on the 193-contact Swiss software cut. It held 88% to 99% on the tight DACH cuts (191 and 193 contacts) and dropped to 65% to 70% on the 1,382-contact broad cut.
- Wiza and Datagma: both returned 95% to 100% mobile format where they showed up on tight DACH cuts. Their DACH samples were too small to give an n, so treat this as a signal.
- ContactOut: too few DACH contacts in the earlier runs to give it a DACH rate.
After Kaspr had missed (October 2026):
These providers ran through looot, the data gateway we use for extra providers.
- Cheap tier on senior DACH security: five low-cost providers found 3 usable mobiles for 71 senior security contacts in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. About 4%, for USD 1.64.
- Cheap tier on Mittelstand and public sector: on 60 DACH contacts at mid-sized firms and public bodies, the cheap tier made 133 lookups. It found 1 number, a US mobile for a German contact. 0 usable.
- German and Belgian public sector: on 11 network leaders that Kaspr had missed, Tomba found 0 of 11. FullEnrich found a usable mobile for 3 of the 11 contacts. Lusha found 1. AI Ark and Prospeo found none.
These later providers only saw the hardest contacts, the ones Kaspr, and often Eficia, had already missed. Their rates show what is left after the big two.
If you are weighing a single big database for DACH instead, we compare the options in our Apollo alternative for Europe post.
How should you set up a DACH phone stack?
Keep the providers you have. Add one or two where they are weak. Then check every number before the team dials it.
- Tighten the list first. One country, one industry, one persona, one size band.
- Run your main provider. For us that is Kaspr. Germany fills well. Switzerland needs a second step.
- Add a second source for the gaps. Eficia fills the German and Swiss format gaps in our data.
- Add a specialist for hard cuts. On public sector, FullEnrich found what the others missed (3 of 11 contacts, October 2026).
- Skip the cheap tier on senior DACH people. 3 of 71 and 0 of 60 in October 2026 is not worth the API work.
- Check every number before anyone dials. More providers means more numbers. More numbers means more wrong ones.
We cancelled Clay in April 2026. Our waterfall now runs in-house, built in Claude Code, with providers ordered by cost per usable number. How we order and gate each step is in the waterfall post.
Answrd sits at the end of that stack. You upload the numbers your providers found. You get back the ones that pick up, with wrong and dead ones flagged. Your first 100 numbers are free.
What can this data not tell you?
It cannot rank providers head to head in DACH. Every provider in a waterfall sees a different set of contacts. The first one sees everyone. The later ones only see the people the first ones missed. So a late provider's rate always looks worse than it would alone.
Other limits:
- Small n. Eficia Switzerland is 14 dials. Kaspr Switzerland is 40. Read them as signals.
- Austria. Too few contacts to report.
- First benchmark versus October 2026. The first benchmark measures mobile format. The October 2026 numbers add dial outcomes. They come from different lists, so do not add them together.
The Swiss data protection authority, the FDPIC, expects you to keep personal data accurate. That job stays with you, whichever provider sold you the number.
For the full European picture, read the European B2B data enrichment report. For contrast, see the Netherlands, where most providers work, and the Nordics, where phone beats email.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is DACH phone enrichment so hard?
DACH is hard on broad lists. Small Swiss and German firms list senior people under the switchboard, so providers return landlines. In our first benchmark, broad DACH cuts returned 65% to 70% clean mobiles and tight cuts returned 88% to 99%.
How many dialled German mobiles reach the right person?
In October 2026, 22 of 87 dialled Kaspr mobiles in Germany reached the person (25%). For Eficia it was 11 of 57 (19%).
What about Switzerland?
Switzerland was weaker. Kaspr found usable mobiles for 46 of 88 Swiss contacts (52%), and 8 of 40 dialled reached the person (20%). Eficia reached 0 of 14 dialled Swiss mobiles.
Are cheap enrichment providers worth it for DACH?
Not on senior DACH contacts in our data. A five-provider cheap tier found 3 usable mobiles for 71 senior security contacts (October 2026). On 60 Mittelstand and public-sector contacts, 133 lookups gave 0 usable numbers.
How do I tighten a DACH list?
Pick one country, one industry, one persona and one size band before you enrich. Expect 100 to 300 contacts per list. Sales Navigator's industry and headcount filters do most of the work.
Should I add more providers for DACH?
Add one or two where your main provider is weak, then check every number. More providers fill more gaps. They also add more wrong numbers, and in DACH about 3 in 4 dialled usable mobiles miss the person.
Tighten the list, then check the numbers
DACH phone enrichment rewards a tight list more than a fancy stack. Build narrow cuts, keep your providers and add one for the gaps. Then judge the stack by how many mobiles reach the right person, because in Germany and Switzerland that number is low.
Run your next DACH list through a check before the next call block. Test 100 numbers free, no card needed. If you would rather talk it through, book a 15-minute call.