Apollo.io Review: Pricing, Features & What the Data Shows
The all-in-one sales platform combining contact data, sequences, and CRM for growth teams.
What Apollo.io Does
Apollo.io has become the default sales intelligence platform for startups and growth-stage companies, offering a B2B contact database of 275M+ contacts and 73M+ companies combined with built-in email sequences, a phone dialer, and a lightweight CRM — all starting with a genuinely useful free tier. The platform's rapid growth since its founding in 2015 has been driven by a simple value proposition: deliver 80% of what ZoomInfo and Outreach do separately, in one platform, at roughly 10-20% of the combined cost.
Apollo's competitive edge is the breadth of its all-in-one approach. While ZoomInfo charges $15K+/year for contact data alone and Outreach charges $100+/user/month for sequences, Apollo bundles both capabilities starting at $49/user/month. The data quality gap with ZoomInfo is real — particularly for enterprise contacts and direct dials — but for SMB and mid-market prospecting, Apollo's accuracy is sufficient for most outbound motions. The platform has invested heavily in improving data quality, claiming 91% email accuracy, though independent testing suggests 80-85% is more realistic for business emails.
The platform's evolution has been aggressive. Apollo has added AI-powered email writing, buying intent signals, job change alerts, and conversation intelligence features over the past two years. The built-in CRM — while basic compared to Salesforce or HubSpot — is functional enough for small sales teams to skip a dedicated CRM entirely. For teams already using Salesforce or HubSpot, Apollo integrates as a prospecting and engagement layer on top of the existing CRM.
The practical consideration for buyers is where Apollo sits in your growth trajectory. For teams under 50 people selling into SMB or mid-market, Apollo is almost certainly the right choice — the all-in-one model reduces tool sprawl, lowers costs, and simplifies onboarding. As companies scale into enterprise selling, the data quality limitations and less sophisticated engagement features often push teams toward ZoomInfo plus a dedicated SEP. Many successful companies start on Apollo and graduate to the enterprise stack at Series C or D.
Apollo.io Key Features
Contact & Company Database
275M+ contacts and 73M+ companies searchable by title, seniority, department, company size, industry, technology stack, funding stage, and more. The free tier includes 60 mobile credits per year and 250 emails per day — enough for individual sellers to run meaningful outbound. Data sourcing combines web crawling, public records, and community-contributed data. Accuracy is strongest for US-based tech companies and weaker for international contacts and non-tech industries.
Email Sequences & Automation
Multi-step email sequences with automated follow-ups, A/B testing, and reply detection. Available on all paid tiers. The sequence builder supports conditional branching based on email opens, clicks, and replies. Sending limits are generous — the Professional plan offers uncapped email sending. Deliverability management is basic compared to Instantly; high-volume senders (10K+ emails/month) typically need to manage their own domain rotation and warmup.
Phone Dialer
Built-in click-to-call dialer available on Professional and Organization plans. Includes call recording, local presence dialing, and voicemail drop. The dialer is functional but lacks the sophistication of dedicated tools like Nooks or Orum — there's no parallel dialing, AI-powered call routing, or real-time coaching. For teams making 20-50 calls per day, it's adequate. High-volume calling teams (100+ dials/day) will want a dedicated parallel dialer.
Buying Intent Signals
Identifies accounts researching topics relevant to your product based on content consumption patterns across B2B publisher networks. Available on higher tiers. The intent data is less granular than ZoomInfo's or Bombora's standalone offering — fewer topics, less historical depth — but useful as a prioritization signal when combined with Apollo's contact data. Most helpful for ABM-adjacent motions where you want to focus outbound on accounts showing active interest.
Enrichment API
REST API for real-time contact and company enrichment, available on Organization plans. Common use cases include enriching inbound form fills, powering lead scoring models, and building custom prospecting workflows. Rate limits and credit costs apply. The API is well-documented and reliable, though enrichment coverage varies — match rates are typically 60-70% for email-to-company enrichment and 40-50% for reverse IP-to-company lookups.
AI-Powered Email Writing
Uses AI to generate personalized email drafts based on prospect data — job title, company, industry, and recent news. The quality is serviceable for first-draft generation but almost always requires human editing. Best used to speed up personalization for high-volume campaigns rather than replacing thoughtful messaging for high-value accounts. Available on Professional and Organization plans.
Who Uses Apollo.io
Startup SDR Teams
The canonical Apollo use case. Seed to Series B startups with 2-10 SDRs use Apollo as their entire sales stack — contact data, email sequences, phone dialer, and basic CRM. An SDR searches for ICPs by title, company size, and tech stack, adds contacts to a sequence, and runs automated email follow-ups with manual call steps mixed in. The $49-79/user/month price point means a 5-person SDR team costs $3K-5K/year instead of $50K+ for ZoomInfo plus Outreach. At this stage, the data quality trade-off is easily worth the cost savings.
Founder-Led Sales at Early Stage
Pre-revenue and seed-stage founders use Apollo's free tier to run outbound without a sales hire. The 250 emails/day limit and 60 mobile credits/year are enough to test messaging, identify early customers, and validate product-market fit. The built-in CRM lets founders track deals without paying for Salesforce. Many YC and Techstars founders start on Apollo Free and upgrade to the Basic plan when they hire their first SDR. It's become the default recommendation in startup communities for early outbound.
Growth Marketing & Lead Enrichment
Marketing teams use Apollo's enrichment to append firmographic data to inbound leads — company size, industry, funding stage, and tech stack — for lead scoring and routing. The API enriches form submissions in real-time, allowing marketing ops to route enterprise leads to AEs and SMB leads to self-serve flows without manual intervention. At $119/user/month for the Organization tier with API access, it's significantly cheaper than ZoomInfo or Clearbit for enrichment-only use cases, though match rates and data depth are correspondingly lower.
Apollo.io Pricing
Free
250 emails/day, 60 mobile credits/yr, basic sequences
Basic
Unlimited emails, 900 mobile credits/yr
Professional
Uncapped sending, dialer, A/B testing
Organization
Advanced reports, call transcription, SSO
Apollo's pricing is transparent and competitive. The Free plan includes 250 emails/day, 60 mobile credits/year, basic sequences, and limited search filters — genuinely useful for individual sellers, not just a lead-gen trap. The Basic plan at $49/user/month (annual billing) unlocks unlimited email sending, 900 mobile credits/year, and all search filters. Professional at $79/user/month adds the dialer, A/B testing, and uncapped sending limits. Organization at $119/user/month includes advanced reporting, call transcription, SSO, and API access.
Monthly billing adds roughly 20% to all prices. The main consumption-based cost is mobile credits — each phone number reveal costs one credit, and running out means purchasing additional packs. At scale, credit costs can add meaningfully to the base subscription. A 10-person SDR team on Professional making 50 calls/day will burn through the 1,200 annual mobile credits in about 3 months.
Compared to the enterprise stack it replaces, Apollo's value is stark. A 10-person team on Apollo Professional costs about $9,500/year. The equivalent ZoomInfo Advanced ($25K/year per seat) plus Outreach ($1,200/user/year) combination runs $260K+ for the same team. Even accounting for Apollo's data quality gap, the economics make it the default choice for companies under $10M ARR.
One thing to watch: Apollo has been gradually moving features from lower tiers to higher ones as the company grows. Features available on Basic today may shift to Professional in future pricing updates. Lock in your tier and terms on an annual contract if you find a plan that works.
Job Market Demand for Apollo.io
Apollo.io appears in 37 job postings across 25 companies in our database of 23,338+ analyzed job postings. The average salary range for roles requiring Apollo.io: $146K - $173K.
Department
- Sales Development Representative
- Regional Sales Director (RSD) | Denver
- Business Development Representative (BDR)
- apollo.io (6)
- team velocity marketing (3)
- stratix corporation (2)
- mantra digital (2)
- global payments (2)
Commonly Used With Apollo.io
Based on job posting co-occurrence data, these tools are most frequently mentioned alongside Apollo.io:
Apollo.io Data Quality & Coverage
Apollo claims 91% email accuracy, but independent testing consistently puts the real number at 80-85% for business email addresses. This is adequate for high-volume cold email campaigns where a 15-20% bounce rate is acceptable, but it's a meaningful gap below ZoomInfo's 85-90% range for teams sending to carefully curated enterprise lists.
Phone number accuracy is the bigger weakness. Apollo's mobile and direct dial data is estimated at 60-70% accuracy — significantly below ZoomInfo's 70-80%. The contributor network model that powers ZoomInfo's phone data advantage simply doesn't exist at the same scale in Apollo. For teams where phone outreach is a primary channel, this gap matters.
Geographic coverage follows predictable patterns. US-based tech companies have the strongest data — accurate emails, detailed firmographics, and reasonable phone coverage. European data is thinner, and APAC coverage is sparse. For international selling, Cognism (Europe) or region-specific providers are better choices. Apollo's technographic data (what software a company uses) is available but less comprehensive than ZoomInfo's or BuiltWith's dedicated coverage.
Data freshness is a known concern. Job changes, company acquisitions, and role transitions can take weeks to months to reflect in Apollo's database. The platform has added job change alerts to flag contacts who've moved, but the underlying data update cycle is slower than ZoomInfo's. For time-sensitive outbound to newly promoted executives or recent hires, supplementing Apollo with LinkedIn Sales Navigator provides much better recency.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- All-in-one: data + sequences + CRM in one platform
- Generous free tier for individuals and small teams
- 275M+ contact database at a fraction of ZoomInfo's price
- Email and phone sequences with A/B testing
- Strong API for custom integrations
Cons
- Data accuracy is lower than ZoomInfo for enterprise contacts
- Mobile credit limits can be restrictive on lower tiers
- Built-in CRM is basic — most teams still use Salesforce/HubSpot
- Email deliverability management is less robust than Instantly
- International data coverage is weaker
Best for: Growth-stage startups and SMBs wanting contact data + outreach in one affordable platform
Not ideal for: Enterprise teams needing premium data accuracy or complex CRM workflows
Apollo.io Alternatives
| Tool | Starting Price | Job Mentions | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
| ZoomInfo | $15,000+/yr | 85 | Mid-market to enterprise sales teams targeting US-based B2B companies |
| Instantly | $37/mo | 38 | Agencies, consultants, and growth teams running high-volume cold email campaigns |
| LinkedIn Sales Navigator | $99/user/mo | 61 | Any B2B sales team as a foundational prospecting tool — works for SMB through enterprise |
| Cognism | Custom (~$15K-25K/yr) | 4 | B2B sales teams targeting European markets or companies that need GDPR-compliant data sourcing |
| LeadIQ | $0 | 3 | Individual SDRs and small outbound teams who prospect from LinkedIn and want a fast, affordable workflow for capturing contacts |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Apollo a good alternative to ZoomInfo?
For growth-stage companies, yes. Apollo offers 80% of ZoomInfo's functionality at 20% of the cost. Data accuracy is lower for enterprise contacts, but for SMB and mid-market prospecting, Apollo's 275M+ database is more than sufficient. You'll save $10K-30K/year switching from ZoomInfo.
How accurate is Apollo's data?
Apollo claims 91% email accuracy. In practice, expect 80-85% for business emails. Phone number accuracy is lower — around 60-70% for direct dials. Accuracy is best for US tech companies and worse for international or niche verticals.
How popular is Apollo in job postings?
Apollo appears in 37 job postings across 25 companies in our data. Average salary range: $146K-$173K — higher than average, suggesting it's popular at well-funded startups.
Our Verdict on Apollo.io
Apollo is the right choice for startups and growth-stage companies that want contact data and sales engagement in one platform without spending $50K+/year on enterprise tools. The all-in-one model genuinely works for teams under 50 people selling into SMB and mid-market accounts. The free tier is the best in the category, and the paid plans deliver strong value through Series B.
The trade-off is data quality and engagement sophistication. Enterprise sales teams targeting Fortune 500 accounts will hit Apollo's accuracy ceiling — bounced emails and wrong numbers cost more in lost opportunities than the subscription savings. Similarly, teams running complex multi-channel cadences with call coaching, LinkedIn automation, and deal intelligence will find Apollo's engagement features basic compared to Outreach or Salesloft. The built-in CRM, while convenient for small teams, isn't a real substitute for Salesforce or HubSpot at scale.
Apollo appears in 37 job postings across 25 companies in our database, with an average salary range of $146K-$173K. It co-occurs most frequently with HubSpot (21 mentions), Salesforce (15), and LinkedIn Sales Navigator (8) — confirming its position as a prospecting layer used alongside established CRMs rather than replacing them. The tool is most demanded in sales roles (29 of 37 postings), and the companies hiring for Apollo experience skew heavily toward growth-stage startups.
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