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By the end of this page you’ve imported a list of companies from a CSV, and you know where to watch the import while it runs.
Where
Leads→Companies
Your role needs
Read access to Companies read-lead-companies. Admin, Member and Viewer have it by default.
To create or change
create-lead-companies to add one, update-lead-companies to change one, on top of the permission above.
If you cannot find this in your sidebar, your workspace may have a custom menu configuration. Contact support and we will check it for you.

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Before you begin

  • Companies, tags and imports all belong to the workspace you’re viewing. Switch first if the list you want to bring in belongs somewhere else.
  • Starting an import needs create-imports, on top of the read-lead-companies the block above covers. Without it, Import Companies doesn’t appear on the Companies toolbar at all.
  • The Configure step won’t let you continue until you pick at least one tag. You can make one there and then with Create new tag if your role has create-tags; otherwise the workspace needs a tag already.
  • Pausing, resuming or retrying an import needs update-imports. Without it those controls are not drawn at all.

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Steps

1

Open the Import Companies wizard

Go to . The toolbar controls are icon buttons; the one for Import Companies sits between the export control and Add Company, and names itself when you hover it. On a workspace with no companies yet, the same action sits next to Add Company on the empty-state screen instead.The wizard opens on a five-step stepper: Upload, Map, Configure, Review and Import.
2

Upload your CSV and check the file report

Drop a file on the dropzone or click it to browse; CSV files only. No file to hand? Download Template gives you a CSV with every column the wizard understands, the required one marked with an asterisk.The file is read in your browser before anything reaches the server, and the report shows what the parser found: rows detected, and, when there are any, empty lines skipped, malformed rows, and rows recovered after a stray quote character had merged two lines into one. If the first row looks like it could be data rather than headers, the report asks outright and offers a My file has no header row toggle. If a large enough share of the file couldn’t be read, the import is blocked rather than silently dropping rows, with the exact counts on screen and a suggestion to re-export the file as CSV (UTF-8).The same check enforces the row cap: a file with more than 3000 rows, counted against both its raw line count and its parsed row count so a parsing quirk can’t sneak an oversized file past the limit, is rejected outright with the exact count found. The continue button names how many rows it’s about to carry forward, and stays off while the file is blocked for any of those reasons.
3

Map your columns to the right fields

Every column in your file gets a dropdown of the fields the wizard understands, already pre-filled where the header text matched one. A column with no values in any row is left on Skip even when its header matches, so map that one by hand if you want it. Only Website URL is required; everything else, Company Name, Description, Industry, AI Instructions, up to three emails and three phone numbers, address fields, four social links and a Tag column, is optional. A tip on this screen explains why Company Name isn’t required: it is extracted from the website when you don’t provide one.If the column you mapped to Website URL is empty on some rows, a warning names how many rows that is. Those rows are skipped, not blank-imported. Continue stays off until Website URL is mapped to something.
4

Configure decision-maker search and tags

Find Decision-Makers is on by default. With it on, a Leads per Company slider (1 to 10, starting at 2) sets how many contacts to look for at each company, and an optional AI Instructions field lets you steer who counts as a decision-maker, for example toward C-level executives or VPs of Sales.Assign Tags is required regardless of the toggle above: pick at least one, or Continue stays off.
5

Review the plan and start the import

The review screen totals what’s about to happen: how many companies (after removing rows with no website and repeated websites, keeping the first occurrence of each), an estimated lead count if Find Decision-Makers is on, and the tags you chose. A preview shows up to the first five mapped rows.A panel titled How this import will run gives the schedule: a file that needs more than one batch runs in batches of up to 100 companies, one dispatched every 2 hours, the first one right away, with an estimated finish date and time. A file small enough for a single batch says so instead, and notes that the company list is usually ready within minutes while decision-makers keep arriving afterwards.If Find Decision-Makers is on, a credits warning names how many companies will be processed and the ceiling on how many leads it will look for, and says credits will be consumed. See What consumes credits.Choose Start Import.
6

Confirm if the file is flagged as a duplicate

Clicking Start Import first checks the file’s fingerprint against your workspace’s recent imports. If it matches one, a dialog names that earlier import, how long ago it ran, and its row and company counts, instead of silently starting a second copy. Choose Cancel, View that import to open the imports list, or Import anyway to proceed regardless.
7

Wait for the import to queue

A short upload screen runs the file through, then confirms Import queued, not finished: the import keeps running in the background whether or not you stay on this screen. It repeats the company and lead counts from Review, then offers View Imports to jump straight to the monitor, or Done to close the wizard.

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What happens next

Done or View Imports closes the wizard and a toast confirms the import is queued. The import keeps running on its own, and companies appear in the Companies list as each batch completes.
Open View Imports from the Companies toolbar any time to see the workspace’s most recent company imports, newest first. The list polls every 10 seconds while anything is still active, and each row carries a phase: Queued first, then a batch counter naming which batch is running out of how many, then Analyzing companies or, with Find Decision-Makers on, Finding decision-makers, settling into Completed, Completed with issues, Paused, Out of credits or Failed once it stops. Click a row to open its details drawer. Overview, the default tab, shows a progress ring and the outcome recorded for every row: created, already in workspace, no website, blocked domain and row errors under CSV rows; analyzed, unreachable websites, invalid websites and discarded under Companies; and, with Find Decision-Makers on, leads found, with verified email, email not found and no decision-makers found under Decision-makers. Two more tabs appear once the import has been split into batches. Batches lists every batch’s own status, result counts and schedule, and lets you retry a single failed batch without touching the rest. Companies lists the import’s companies one by one, filterable by batch and by status, each with a reason chip (No website, Duplicate, Invalid website, Blocked domain, Site unreachable, No decision-makers, Email not found, Processing error) when something didn’t go through.

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Troubleshooting

Four checks can stop a file before anything is imported. A file too large to analyze in the browser is refused on sight, before any report is drawn; split it into smaller files. A file the parser finds no data rows in is refused the same way. If the file’s raw line count and its parsed row count then disagree by a wide margin, the import is blocked outright rather than silently losing rows, because a stray quote character can otherwise collapse thousands of rows into a handful with no warning: re-export the file as CSV (UTF-8) from your spreadsheet tool, remove stray quote characters, and try again. Separately, a file with more than 3000 rows is rejected on the row cap alone, counted against both the raw and parsed line counts; split it and import the pieces one at a time.
Batches run on their own schedule, hours apart. A batch whose slot has already passed reads Overdue on the Batches tab. Once the import is more than half an hour past its next batch’s slot, the Overview tab replaces its countdown with a line saying the next batch is running behind schedule and will be picked up automatically, and the phase pill in the imports list grows an amber dot carrying the same explanation. No action is needed.
Paused only happens when someone stops the import deliberately. Out of credits is the import stopping itself, when the credit check fails part-way through the run. Either way, resuming needs update-imports; if the control isn’t there, ask someone who has that permission. Resuming re-checks credits before it restarts anything, so an Out of credits import needs the balance topped up first or the resume is refused. See What consumes credits.

Companies list, match score and discards

Where these companies land, what the match score means, and how to discard one.

Add leads manually or import a CSV

The sibling wizard for a list of people instead of companies.

What consumes credits

Why finding decision-makers costs credits, and what doesn’t.

Leads troubleshooting

Symptom-first answers for stalled imports and lists that won’t update.