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Apollo.io Review
Reviewed by Carlos Gil · Founder & Editor, The Best Network
Updated 8 min readEditorially reviewed
Quick facts
- Starting price
- Free · Basic $49/seat/mo billed annually ($65 monthly)
- Free plan
- Yes
- Best for
- Founders, SDR teams and agencies running outbound on a budget
- Platforms
- Web app, Chrome extension (mobile app retired August 2026)
Pricing checked against the official Apollo.io pricing page on . See every plan or the pricing tracker.
BestStacked Score
Weighted average of 5 categories. Methodology below.
Quick answer
Is Apollo.io worth it in 2026?
For a founder or a small outbound team, usually yes. Apollo gives you a large B2B contact database (Apollo claims 240M+ contacts), unlimited sequences from the $49 Basic plan, CRM sync on every plan, and AI agents on Professional. What trips buyers up is credits. Every plan draws on one credit pool, an email reveal costs 1 credit and a phone number costs 8, unused credits don't roll over, and mobile credits aren't refunded when the number is wrong.
- Cheapest real plan
- Basic: $49/seat/mo billed annually ($65 monthly) with 2,500 credits per seat per month and unlimited sequences.
- Credit math
- 2,500 credits buys up to 2,500 email reveals, or about 312 phone numbers, or a mix. Credits are pooled across the team and reset each cycle.
- Where it gets expensive
- Parallel and power dialing need the Advanced Dialer add-on ($119/team/mo billed annually). Organization is annual only with a 3-seat minimum.
- Compliance
- Apollo lists SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001, GDPR and CCPA in its Trust Center. EU prospecting controls are admin toggles that only work when a contact's location is known.
The Verdict
Apollo is still the best-value way to stand up outbound without buying a data vendor, a sequencer and a dialer separately. Basic covers a founder doing their own prospecting. Professional ($79/seat billed annually) is where a real SDR team lands, because it adds unlimited daily sends, multiple mailboxes, A/Z testing, more call-recording minutes and Apollo's AI agents. Budget for the credit model. Phone numbers cost 8 credits each, credits expire each cycle, add-on credits auto-renew, and data quality varies by region and segment, so check coverage of your own ICP before you sign an annual plan.
Best for
Founders and 1–25-person sales teams that want a database, sequences and CRM sync in one subscription.
Skip if
You need guaranteed enterprise-grade contact accuracy for one region, phone-heavy prospecting at high volume (credits add up fast), or you can't use contributor-sourced data under your compliance policy.
The Background
What Is Apollo.io?
Apollo.io is a go-to-market platform that combines a B2B contact and company database with outbound tools: email sequences, a dialer, call recording, enrichment, buying-intent signals, AI research and writing, and AI agents. It was founded in 2015, and it says it has about 40,000 paying customers. Apollo's database is built from four sources it publicly describes: a network of 2M+ data contributors (customers who share mailbox and CRM signals), engagement data from its own platform such as bounces and replies, public web crawling, and third-party data providers. Apollo claims 240M+ contacts across 30M+ companies and a 98% email accuracy rate. Those are vendor figures, not independent measurements. You work in the web app or through the Chrome extension, which runs on LinkedIn, Sales Navigator, Gmail, Google Calendar, Salesforce, HubSpot and ordinary company websites. Apollo retired its iOS and Android apps on August 28, 2026 and now points mobile users to the web app in a browser.
The Product
Apollo.io Features: What You Actually Get
Contact and company database
Search by title, seniority, company size, industry, technology, location and buying intent. Revealing an email costs 1 credit and a phone number costs 8. Apollo refunds an email credit if the address bounces when sent from Apollo within 30 days. Mobile credits are never refunded.
Building a targeted list of 500 Heads of Marketing at 50–500-person SaaS companies.
Sequences
Multi-step email, call and task sequences. Free allows 2 sequences per team. Basic and above are unlimited. A/Z testing is Professional and above. Daily sends are capped at 250 on Free and Basic and unlimited on Professional and Organization, subject to fair use and your mailbox provider's own limits.
A 4-touch cold sequence mixing email, LinkedIn tasks and a call step.
Dialer and call recording
The US dialer is included on paid plans and bills credits: 1 credit per 30 seconds of connected time, with unanswered calls free. Parallel dialing (up to 5 lines; Apollo recommends 3), power dialing, local presence and international calling need the Advanced Dialer add-on. Call recording with AI insights is on every plan, with monthly caps: 150 minutes on Free and Basic, 4,000 on Professional, 8,000 on Organization.
An SDR running a daily call block from inside the sequence.
Buying intent (Bombora)
Intent signals are on every plan: 1 topic on Free, 6 on Basic and Professional, 12 on Organization. They come from Bombora, are refreshed weekly, and cover 15,000+ topics. Apollo scores high intent at 75–100.
Prioritizing accounts researching "sales engagement" this week.
AI assistant, research and agents
AI writing allowances run from 5,000 words a month on Free to 1M on Organization. AI Research costs 1 credit per run. Agents for lead discovery, sequence creation and sequence optimization are Professional and Organization only. Organization can bring its own LLM API key.
Generating first-draft personalization lines for a 200-contact sequence, then reviewing them before sending.
CRM sync and enrichment
Salesforce, HubSpot and Pipedrive integration is on all plans, according to Apollo's comparison table. Salesforce custom objects are Organization only. CSV, CRM and API enrichment are on all plans, with Free CRM enrichment capped at 100 a month. Job-change enrichment starts on Basic.
Keeping HubSpot contacts enriched and flagging when a champion changes jobs.
Deliverability tools
Apollo sends through your own connected mailboxes. Free and Basic allow 1 mailbox per user. Professional allows unlimited Google and Microsoft mailboxes plus 5 SMTP; Organization adds 15 SMTP. Warmup is typically included for 1 mailbox per seat, and each extra warmed mailbox costs 200 credits per 30 days. Apollo also offers deliverability scoring, blocklist checks, inbox placement tests and SPF/DKIM/DMARC diagnosis.
Warming a new sending domain before a campaign launch.
API and MCP
Apollo's help center and API docs say API access is available on all plans, with per-team rate limits that rise on paid plans. Its pricing FAQ says the API is for Custom plans, so confirm before you build on it. LLM integrations through MCP are listed on all plans. Webhooks are used for asynchronous enrichment results, not as a general event feed.
Enriching inbound signups in your own app or data warehouse.
Feature recap
- 240M+ contacts (vendor claim) with email and phone reveals
- Unlimited sequences from Basic
- US dialer on paid plans; parallel dialing via add-on
- Bombora buying intent on every plan
- AI agents on Professional and Organization
- Salesforce, HubSpot and Pipedrive sync
- Warmup, inbox placement and DNS diagnostics
- API with plan-based rate limits
The Numbers
Apollo.io Pricing: Every Plan Explained
Apollo charges per seat. Every plan includes a monthly pool of credits shared across the team. Annual billing is cheaper and grants the year's credits upfront. All seats on an account must be on the same plan. Prices checked October 19, 2026 on apollo.io/pricing; with the annual toggle the page shows Organization at $119 a seat (3-seat minimum); with the monthly toggle selected it shows Organization at $149 a seat but still labels it annual only; and the same page's FAQ lists no Organization plan, naming the top tier "Custom" (custom volumes, SSO, advanced security, dedicated support). All three read on October 19, 2026; ask Apollo which applies before you budget for the top tier.
| Plan | Monthly | Annual | Included Features | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | $0 | 75 credits/mo, 2 sequences per team, 250 sends/day, 1 Gmail mailbox, 1 intent topic, 150 call-recording minutes | Testing data quality on your ICP |
| Basic | $65/seat | $49/seat/mo | 2,500 credits/seat/mo, unlimited sequences, US dialer, 6 intent topics, job-change enrichment, MFA, 5 workflows | Solo founders and individual reps |
| ProfessionalBest value | $99/seat | $79/seat/mo | 4,000 credits/seat/mo, unlimited sends, multiple mailboxes, A/Z testing, AI agents, 4,000 call minutes, 50 workflows | SDR teams running daily outbound |
| Organization | Annual only | $119/seat/mo, 3-seat minimum | 6,000 credits/seat/mo, 12 intent topics, SSO, custom permissions and territories, Salesforce custom objects, 8,000 call minutes | Sales orgs needing admin and security controls |
Pricing verified . Tools change pricing frequently — confirm at Apollo.io before purchasing.
Credits are the real price. Email reveals cost 1 credit. Phone numbers cost 8. Enrichment costs 1–8. AI research costs 1 per run, and the US dialer costs 1 per 30 seconds connected. Credits are pooled across the team and granted upfront each cycle, and they don't roll over. That includes add-on credits, which renew automatically until you turn them off. Apollo doesn't publish a per-credit add-on price. Cost scenarios (calculations from Apollo's published prices, excluding tax): a solo founder working email-first pays $588/yr on Basic annual ($49 × 12) for 2,500 credits a month, enough for about 2,500 email reveals, or about 312 phone numbers if every credit went to phones. A solo founder who calls gets the US dialer on Basic, but parallel dialing adds the Advanced Dialer at $119/team/mo annual, which more than triples the bill. Three SDRs on Professional cost $237/mo annual ($2,844/yr) or $297/mo monthly, with a pooled 12,000 credits a month. If each rep reveals 40 phone numbers a day for 20 working days, that's 2,400 numbers × 8 = 19,200 credits, which is more than the pool. Phone-heavy teams should model this before buying. Three seats on Organization cost $357/mo ($4,284/yr), annual only, with 18,000 credits a month. Contract terms to know: annual plans can't be downgraded mid-cycle, and downgrades take effect immediately with no refund. The 14-day trial is available once, on Basic or Professional only, and includes 75 credits and at most 20 phone numbers. Free accounts are limited to one seat after 100 days.
The Tradeoffs
Apollo.io Pros and Cons
What we love
- Database, sequences, dialer and CRM sync in one per-seat subscription
- Unlimited sequences from the $49 Basic plan
- Buying intent and call recording on every plan, including Free
- AI agents for lead discovery and sequence building on Professional
- Trust Center lists SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001, GDPR and CCPA
- API, MCP and Chrome extension broaden where you can use the data
What could be better
- Phone numbers cost 8 credits, and mobile credits are never refunded
- Credits, including purchased add-ons, don't roll over
- Parallel and power dialing require a $119+/team/mo add-on
- Organization is annual only with a 3-seat minimum
- Mobile apps retired August 2026
- Contributor-sourced data: Free, Basic and Pro customers can't opt out of contributing without an agreement with Apollo
- Apollo's own pages conflict on API availability and dialer plan gating
The Audience
Who Should Use Apollo.io?
Founder doing their own outbound
Start on Free to test whether Apollo has your ICP covered, then move to Basic annual ($49/mo). Lean on email reveals, and use phone credits sparingly.
5–25-person SDR team
Professional is the working tier: unlimited sends, multiple mailboxes, A/Z testing, agents and 4,000 recording minutes per seat. Model your phone-reveal volume against the pooled credits.
Enterprise teams that need contractual data guarantees
If you need negotiated data accuracy, regional depth or procurement-grade terms, look at enterprise data vendors, or layer Clay on top of multiple providers.
The Methodology
How We Reviewed Apollo.io
This is an editorial review, not a documented hands-on test. It's based on Apollo's pricing page (viewed in a browser, because plan details load dynamically), the Apollo Knowledge Base, API documentation, Trust Center and privacy policy (updated August 10, 2026), all checked on October 7, 2026. Database size, accuracy and customer counts are Apollo's own claims and are attributed to Apollo. Where Apollo's pages contradict each other, as with API availability and dialer gating, we say so instead of picking one. Cost scenarios are calculations from published prices.
Our editorial evaluation considers product information, official documentation, pricing, features and professional experience. It is not a claim of documented hands-on testing.
Our review methodology →What changed
- : Fact-check follow-up (checked on apollo.io/pricing on 2026-10-19). Prices unchanged; the pricing intro now states all three top-tier descriptions on the page: Organization $119 a seat billed annually (3-seat minimum), $149 with the monthly toggle but labelled annual only, and "Custom" in the FAQ. Score untouched.
- : Re-checked apollo.io/pricing on October 19, 2026 with both billing toggles: Free (900 credits a seat a year, granted 75 a month; 2 sequences), Basic $49 annual / $65 monthly (2,500 credits a seat a month), Professional $79 / $99 (4,000) and Organization $119 a seat billed annually with a 3-seat minimum (6,000) are unchanged. Noted that the monthly toggle shows Organization at $149 while labelling it annual only.
- : Substantive update. Updated all plan prices and credit allowances to Apollo's current pricing (Basic $49 annual / $65 monthly; Professional $79 / $99; Organization $119, annual only, 3-seat minimum). Explained the single credit pool (phone numbers cost 8 credits) and the no-rollover rule. Corrected intent data, which is on all plans. Moved parallel dialing to the Advanced Dialer add-on. Noted the retirement of Apollo's mobile apps (August 28, 2026). Updated the database claims (240M+ contacts / 30M+ companies, attributed to Apollo) and the GDPR and data-source answers. Removed unverifiable competitor prices, outcome figures and an unconfirmed acquisition claim. Corrected the matching facts on Apollo vs ZoomInfo and Apollo alternatives.
The Field
Apollo.io vs The Competition
Apollo's competition is a contact-data vendor, an enrichment layer, or a dedicated sending tool. Most teams that leave Apollo replace it with two of these.
| Tool | Starting Price | Free plan | Best Feature | BS Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apollo.io | Free · Basic $49/seat/mo billed annually ($65 monthly) | Yes | Contact and company database | 9.2/10 |
| Clay | Free; Launch $167/mo | Yes | Waterfall enrichment across many providers | 9/10 |
| Lusha | Free; Starter $37.45/mo annual | Yes | Simple contact lookups | 8.6/10 |
| ZoomInfo | Quote only | No | Enterprise data depth | 8.5/10 |
| Instantly | Growth $47/mo | No | Unlimited sending accounts and warmup | 8.3/10 |
| Amplemarket | Startup $600/mo (annual term, 2 users) | No | Data, multichannel sequences and deliverability tools in one contract | 8.4/10 |
Clay: An enrichment and workflow layer rather than a single database. Clay's Launch plan lists $167/mo, and Growth $446/mo. Pairs with a sender like Instantly.Read our Clay review →
Lusha: Contact data by credit. Starter is $37.45/mo billed annually ($49.90 monthly) for 400 credits a month. Lusha now also lists engagement and workflow features.Read our Lusha review →
ZoomInfo: ZoomInfo doesn't publish prices. Plans (Professional, Copilot Advanced, Copilot Enterprise) are quoted by features, licenses and credits.Read our ZoomInfo review →See Apollo.io vs ZoomInfo →
Instantly: A sending and warmup tool, not a database. Growth is $47/mo for 5,000 emails, with unlimited email accounts.Read our Instantly review →
Amplemarket: Covers the same core jobs as Apollo plus AI drafting, signals and deliverability monitoring, but its cheapest published plan is $600/mo on an annual term, and Growth and Elite are custom-priced.Read our Amplemarket review →
Use cases
Example setups by buyer type
Founder-led outbound
Build a 300-contact list from intent plus firmographic filters, reveal emails only, and run a 4-step sequence from one warmed mailbox on Basic. Check bounce rates before scaling.
SDR team
Professional with 3–5 mailboxes per rep, A/Z-tested sequences, a daily call block on the US dialer, and Salesforce or HubSpot sync. Watch the pooled phone-credit burn weekly.
Agency running outbound for clients
Separate client lists with workflows and territories. Note that all seats on an account share one plan, and confirm data-use terms with each client.
The Ecosystem
Apollo.io Integrations
Apollo's core integrations are CRM and sending infrastructure. The rest run through Zapier, Make, workflows or the API.
- →Salesforce
- →HubSpot
- →Pipedrive
- →Outreach / Salesloft (Basic+)
- →Gmail and Google Workspace
- →Microsoft 365 / Outlook
- →SendGrid / Mailgun (Professional+)
- →Zapier
- →Make
- →Chili Piper
- →Vidyard
- →LinkedIn and Sales Navigator (via Chrome extension)
- →MCP for LLM tools
- →REST API
Greenhouse and Calendly appear only as workflow actions, not full sync. We couldn't verify Lever, Loom or native n8n integrations, so they're not listed.
Common Questions
Apollo.io FAQ
The Final Word
Should You Use Apollo.io?
Apollo remains the default outbound platform for teams that would rather pay $49–79 a seat than assemble three tools. Its weaknesses are mostly commercial, not functional: credits expire, phone reveals are expensive, the useful dialer features are an add-on, and the contributor-data model needs a compliance review. Test your ICP on Free, model your credit burn, then buy annual.
Yes, if
You're a founder or a small team running outbound and want data, sequences and CRM sync in one subscription.
No, if
Your motion depends on high-volume phone reveals, enterprise data guarantees, or a compliance policy that excludes contributor-sourced data.
About the reviewer
Carlos Gil
Founder & Editor, The Best Network
Carlos Gil is the Founder & Editor of The Best Network, bestselling author of The End of Marketing, and a LinkedIn Top Voice. His digital marketing career began in 2008 and spans corporate roles at LinkedIn and BMC Software, consulting for global brands, creator partnerships, and building his own businesses.
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