Apollo.io review (2026): pricing, credits, pros, cons, alternatives

What Apollo.io is

Apollo.io is a B2B sales platform that combines a contact database with the tools to act on it: a sequencer, a dialer, enrichment, intent data, lead scoring and a Chrome extension for LinkedIn and Gmail. Apollo says more than 600,000 companies use it and quotes a 4.7 out of 5 rating from 9,690 reviews; both are its own figures. For a cold email operation it can be either the list source that feeds a dedicated sequencer or, on the higher plans, the sequencer itself.

Apollo.io pricing

There are four plans, priced per seat and billed annually. Free costs nothing and includes 900 credits a year granted monthly, two sequences and 250 emails a day from a single mailbox. Basic is $49 a seat a month and adds 30,000 credits a year, unlimited sequences, advanced filters, warmup and a deliverability suite, domain and mailbox purchasing, and CRM integrations. Professional, marked most popular, is $79 with 48,000 credits, A/Z testing, AI research and scoring, call recording, and the two limits that matter for outbound: unlimited Google and Microsoft mailboxes and unlimited daily sends. Organization is $119 with a three-seat minimum, 72,000 credits, SSO and custom reporting. Add-ons for inbound and an advanced dialer cost $119 a month each per team.

Credits are the meter. An email reveal costs one credit, a phone number eight, enrichment one to eight, an AI research run one. Monthly billing is available at a higher rate that Apollo does not print on the page; it says annual saves 24 percent. Every seat on an account must be on the same plan, and the page notes the prices are introductory and may change.

The mailbox limit is the whole story for cold email

If you send cold email from a rotating set of inboxes, Free and Basic will not work: one mailbox per user, 250 emails a day. Professional is the entry point, because it connects unlimited Google and Microsoft mailboxes and removes the daily cap. At $79 a seat that puts Apollo in the same price range as a dedicated sequencer, with the database thrown in. For a two-person team that is $1,896 a year up front on annual billing.

Setup and integrations

Setup is self-serve and fast. The Chrome extension reveals contacts on LinkedIn and inside Gmail, CSV and CRM enrichment fill gaps in lists you already have, and Salesforce and HubSpot are native on paid plans. Apollo also sells domains and mailboxes from within the platform on Basic and above; the pricing page does not give the prices, so treat that as a convenience to compare against a dedicated provider rather than a default.

Data quality and what to do with it

Apollo’s database is large and its filters are deep, but a reveal is a snapshot. Emails go stale, catch-all domains verify as valid, and the credit is spent either way. The practice that keeps inboxes healthy is the same as with any data source: export, run the list through a verifier, remove the risky addresses, then send.

Who Apollo.io is for, and who should look elsewhere

Apollo suits small sales teams that want one tool for data, sequences and calls and can commit for a year. It is the obvious pick for a founder-led team on the free or Basic tier building a first list. It is a poorer fit if you already run Smartlead or Instantly and only need data, where a per-credit finder is cheaper, or if you need monthly billing at the published rates.

Using Apollo.io with PureMail

Two workflows work. The simple one: build and export lists in Apollo, verify them, and load them into the sequencer your PureMail inboxes are already connected to. The all-in-one: on Professional or Organization, connect the PureMail inboxes directly to Apollo, let its rotation spread sends across them, and keep its warmup running alongside your daily limits. Either way, Apollo supplies the names and PureMail supplies the sending reputation, and neither substitutes for the other.