Predictive lead scoring tools use machine learning to rank prospects by their real likelihood to convert, based on what your past buyers actually had in common. The category has churned hard over the past two years: MadKudu, long the reference pick for product-led SaaS, was acquired by HG Insights in August 2025, and several names that anchored older comparison lists no longer exist in their familiar form. This comparison covers five tools you can actually buy in 2026 — HubSpot AI lead scoring, Salesforce Einstein, MadKudu under HG Insights, 6sense, and Zoho Zia — with the data each one demands before its models start working.
How does predictive lead scoring work?
Instead of a marketer assigning +10 for a webinar signup and -5 for a free email domain, a predictive model trains on your historical CRM records. It examines which leads converted, identifies the attributes and behaviors those leads shared — job title, company size, email engagement, product usage — and scores every new lead by statistical similarity to past winners. The practical consequence: every tool in this list has a minimum data threshold. If your CRM lacks a sufficient history of converted leads, the model has nothing to learn from, and the better vendors are explicit about those floors.
Five predictive lead scoring tools at a glance
| Tool | Best for | Minimum training data | Availability and pricing |
|---|---|---|---|
| HubSpot AI lead scoring | Teams already on HubSpot | 50 contacts: 25 converted, 25 not | Marketing Hub Enterprise (manual scores from Professional) |
| Salesforce Einstein Lead Scoring | Salesforce-native sales orgs | 1,000 leads in 200 days, 120 converted | Paid add-on for Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited |
| MadKudu (HG Insights) | Product-led SaaS | CRM history plus product-usage data | Quote-based; part of HG Insights since Aug 2025 |
| 6sense | Enterprise ABM teams | No published floor; built in managed onboarding | Custom enterprise quote |
| Zoho Zia | Small teams on Zoho CRM | Historical converted leads in Zoho CRM | Zoho CRM Enterprise, $40/user/month (annual billing) |
The five tools in detail
HubSpot AI lead scoring
HubSpot supports three score types — engagement scores, fit scores, and combined scores — and lets you build them manually from Marketing Hub Professional. The AI-built version, which trains on your own contacts and generates scoring criteria automatically, requires Marketing Hub Enterprise. Per HubSpot's documentation, the AI needs a minimum sample of 50 contacts, at least 25 converted and 25 non-converted, and contact evaluation can take up to an hour. You choose which lifecycle-stage transition counts as a conversion (say, Subscriber to Sales Qualified Lead) and over what timeframe, and the model surfaces the commonalities it found as editable criteria — a useful middle ground between black-box scoring and hand-built point systems.
Salesforce Einstein Lead Scoring
Einstein Lead Scoring is part of Sales Cloud Einstein, available at extra cost to Enterprise, Performance, and Unlimited edition orgs. Its data floor is the steepest of any CRM-native option: Salesforce's setup documentation requires at least 1,000 leads created in the past 200 days, with at least 120 of them converted — and that applies to each lead segment you configure. Salesforce also warns that leads with mostly blank fields produce a weaker model. Clear those bars and Einstein scores every lead inside Salesforce, showing the top positive and negative factors behind each score so reps can see why a lead ranked where it did.
MadKudu (now part of HG Insights)
MadKudu built its reputation scoring product-led SaaS pipelines, blending firmographic fit with product-usage signals — the trial user who invited three teammates outranks the one who never logged back in. In August 2025, HG Insights acquired MadKudu after a four-year partnership and folded it into what it calls a Revenue Growth Agentic Ecosystem, pairing HG's market-intelligence data with MadKudu's signal-based scoring and workflows; madkudu.com now redirects to hginsights.com. Pricing was always quote-based and remains so. If you evaluate it today, you are evaluating the combined HG Insights platform, not the standalone scoring product that older reviews describe.
6sense
6sense scores at the account level rather than the individual lead. Its models combine your CRM history with third-party intent signals — anonymous research activity across the web — to predict which accounts are in-market and what buying stage they have reached. That makes it the strongest fit for enterprise account-based marketing teams with dedicated ops resources, and overkill for a team that simply wants ranked inbound leads. There is no published pricing and no self-serve tier: models are built during a managed onboarding, and contracts are custom enterprise quotes.
Zoho Zia
Zia, Zoho CRM's AI assistant, includes conversion prediction that scores leads and deals by likelihood to close, learning from your CRM's historical conversion patterns. Zia's prediction features require Zoho CRM Enterprise at $40 per user per month billed annually, or the Ultimate edition above it — by far the lowest entry price here. The trade-off is depth: Zia scores what lives inside Zoho CRM, without the product-usage modeling of MadKudu or the intent data of 6sense. For a small team already running Zoho, it delivers predictive scoring at the price of a seat license instead of a platform contract.
How much does predictive lead scoring software cost?
Costs split into two camps. CRM-native scoring is cheapest if you already pay for the tier that carries it: Zoho Zia comes with Enterprise seats at $40/user/month, HubSpot's AI scores require a Marketing Hub Enterprise subscription, and Einstein Lead Scoring is a paid add-on to Salesforce Enterprise and above. Standalone platforms — MadKudu under HG Insights, and 6sense — publish no prices at all; both sell annual contracts scoped to data volume and integrations, and in practice both should be budgeted as five-figure-and-up annual commitments. Be skeptical of any article quoting an exact dollar figure for either: no official price list exists, and third-party estimates vary widely.
Which tool should you choose?
- Already on HubSpot or Salesforce: start with the native option — no new vendor, no integration work, and the data requirements are documented up front.
- Product-led SaaS with usage data: the MadKudu product line inside HG Insights remains the specialist for combining fit with product signals.
- Enterprise ABM program: 6sense, if you need account-level intent and buying-stage prediction and can absorb an enterprise contract.
- Small team, small budget: Zoho Zia is the only option here with a public per-seat price.
One caution about older comparison articles: this market consolidates quickly. XANT — the rebranded InsideSales.com that appeared in many pre-2022 lists — was acquired by Aurea in 2021 and reverted to the InsideSales name, and MadKudu's 2025 acquisition has already dated its standalone reviews. Before you sign anything, confirm the vendor still sells the product under the name you researched and check the data thresholds against current documentation.