How to Build a Canadian Business Contact List From Canada411

Short answer: enter a business type in Who / What (for example "dentist") and a place in Where (for example "Calgary, AB") in the Canada411 Scraper, run it, and download every listing as Excel or CSV with the name, phone number, full address and profile link. It follows every results page on its own and costs $0.005 per listing, so 1,000 contacts cost $5.

Canada411 is Canada's largest online phone book, covering both businesses and residential listings. For anyone selling to Canadian local businesses (clinics, trades, law firms, restaurants, accountants) it is one of the most complete public sources of phone numbers and street addresses by city. It just has no export. This guide shows how to turn it into a usable contact list, what the data looks like, what it costs, and the Canadian anti-spam rules you need to follow before you start dialling.

Can you download Canada411 listings?

Not from the site. Canada411 lets you search and click through listings one at a time, and there is no public API. The Canada411 Scraper fills that gap: it is the most used lead generation actor in my catalogue, with more than 25,000 runs from over 170 users. It runs your search, follows every "Next" page automatically, processes several searches in parallel and gives you one flat row per listing.

What data do you get?

Four fields per listing, kept deliberately flat so they drop straight into a CRM or spreadsheet:

• name: the business or person's name as listed
• phone: the phone number as listed on Canada411
• address: full street address with city and province
• source_url: the Canada411 profile page, so every row can be checked

There are no emails or websites in Canada411 data, because the directory does not publish them. If you need those, see the enrichment step further down.

How do you build a contact list by category and city?

1. Choose the category words. Use the words a business would list itself under: "dentist", "plumber", "physiotherapy", "accountant", "law firm". Run a few synonyms as separate searches, because listings are not perfectly categorised.
2. Choose the places. One city or region per search, such as "Calgary, AB" or "Laval, QC". Leave Where empty for a national search, though city by city gives cleaner, more complete lists.
3. Or paste URLs. If you already have Canada411 search URLs, add them to Direct Start URLs to control exactly what is scraped.
4. Set a page limit if you want one. Maximum Pages per Search caps pagination. Leave it empty to take every page.
5. Run, then export to Excel, CSV or JSON, or pull the dataset through the Apify API.
6. Clean up. Remove duplicates across your synonym searches by phone number, and drop listings outside your target area.

A typical input looks like this:

{
  "what": "dentist",
  "where": "Calgary, AB",
  "max_pages": 5
}

Can you look up a phone number from an address?

Yes, and it is the feature most people do not know about. Canada411 lists a phone line under whoever registered it, which is often not the name you have on file. Searching the name returns nothing even though the building is listed. Leave Who / What empty and put a full street address in Where, and you get every line registered at that address, whatever name it is under. Include the civic number, street, city and province, and leave out apartment or suite numbers, because Canada411 indexes the building address.

How much does it cost?

$0.005 per listing returned, plus $0.00005 per run start.

• 200 dentists in one city: $1.00
• 1,000 contacts: $5.00
• 10,000 contacts across a province: $50.00

On the free Apify plan the actor returns complete records but only the first page of each search, which is enough to check data quality for your category and city. A paid Apify plan removes the page limit. You can try it on Apify with a single search first.

How do you add emails and websites?

Canada411 gives you who, where and a phone number. To add websites, emails or anything else, enrich the list in a second step:

• Run the list through the Bulk LLM Runner with web search on and a prompt like "Find the official website for {{name}} at {{address}}. Answer unknown if unsure." You get a website column with a source link per row.
• Once you have websites, a contact scraper such as the Contact Details Scraper reads the public emails and social profiles from each site.

For construction and trade contractors specifically, the lead generation hub lists more specialised sources.

What rules apply to calling or emailing Canadian businesses?

This is the part people skip, and it matters in Canada:

• Phone calls: the National Do Not Call List (DNCL). If you make telemarketing calls, you must register with the DNCL and check your list against it. Calls to businesses are exempt from the DNCL, but residential numbers are not, and Canada411 contains both. Filter residential listings out before calling.
• Email: CASL. Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation requires consent for commercial emails. There is an implied-consent exception when an address is conspicuously published by a business and your message is relevant to its role, which is why an email address found on a company website is different from one guessed or bought.
• Privacy: PIPEDA. Names and phone numbers of individuals are personal information. Collect what you need for a legitimate business purpose and do not resell it.

The actor reads only public directory listings and does not log in anywhere. Canada411 is named here only to describe what the actor reads; the tool is independent and has no partnership with Canada411. This is not legal advice, so check the rules for your campaign.

Frequently asked questions

Need a different Canadian source? I also publish scrapers for AutoTrader Canada, Kijiji and Centris real estate, and you can suggest a new one for free.