Apollo.io review
Launched Founded 2015 as ZenProspect; rebranded to Apollo.io in June 2018Sales platform pairing a vendor-claimed 230M+ contact B2B database with email sequencing, dialing, and enrichment; self-serve plans from $49 per user/month.
By Frederik S. Christiansen · Published 2026-07-05
Apollo.io is a B2B sales platform that combines a large contact and account database with outreach tooling in one product. The company claims 230M+ contacts and 30M+ company records with verified emails and phone numbers, and says millions of sellers at over 600,000 companies use the platform. On top of the database sit email sequences, a dialer, task management, meeting scheduling, deal pipeline boards, and data enrichment for CRMs. The company was founded in 2015 as ZenProspect (a Y Combinator Winter 2016 alum), rebranded to Apollo.io in 2018, and is headquartered in San Francisco.
Data access is metered by credits: revealing an email costs 1 credit, a phone number costs 8 credits, and enrichment runs 1-8 credits per record. Each per-seat plan carries an annual credit allotment (900 on Free, 30,000 on Basic, 48,000 on Professional, 72,000 on Organization, granted upfront on paid annual plans), with add-on credits purchasable and unused credits expiring at the end of the billing cycle. Users prospect through filters, buying-intent topics, and a Chrome extension that works inside LinkedIn, Gmail, and Salesforce, then push contacts into sequences sent from connected mailboxes. Tier gating is significant: Free and Basic cap sending at 250 emails per day from one mailbox per user, while Professional and Organization allow unlimited daily sends across unlimited Google/Microsoft mailboxes.
Apollo raised a $100M Series D led by Bain Capital Ventures at a $1.6B valuation in August 2023, bringing total funding to roughly $250M, per TechCrunch. Its market position is deliberately hybrid: it competes with data vendors like ZoomInfo on the database side and with sales-engagement tools on the sending side, undercutting both with self-serve per-seat pricing and a free tier. Since 2023 the company has layered in AI features — an AI assistant, AI research 'power-ups' that consume credits, AI lead scoring, and AI email writing with per-tier word caps from 5,000 to 1,000,000 words per month — plus paid add-ons for inbound visitor identification and advanced dialing.
The honest positioning: Apollo is a consolidation play. Teams that would otherwise buy a data subscription plus a separate sequencer get both for one per-seat price, with published pricing and a 14-day Professional trial. The trade-offs are credit accounting that makes phone-heavy prospecting expensive (8x the email cost), meaningful feature gating (SSO only on the top tier, which requires a 3-seat minimum), and $119/team/month add-ons for capabilities like parallel dialing and website visitor identification. Buyers weighing data governance should also know Apollo disclosed a breach of its prospect database in 2018, reported at over 200 million contact records. Apollo's own site and G2 seller page display a 4.7/5 G2 rating; the exact review count fluctuates daily so no single figure as of a specific date is reliably verifiable.
Key features
B2B contact and account database
Vendor-claimed 230M+ contacts and 30M+ companies searchable by firmographic and technographic filters, buying-intent topics, and lookalike search. Access is credit-metered: 1 credit per email reveal, 8 per phone number. Record selection limits cap bulk list-building at 25 records at a time on Free, 1,000 on Basic, 2,500 on Professional, and 10,000 on Organization.
Email sequences and multichannel outreach
Multi-step sequences with A/Z testing (Professional and up), unified inbox, and a deliverability suite with email warmup on paid tiers. Free and Basic are capped at 250 email sends per day from 1 mailbox per user; Professional and Organization get unlimited daily sends across unlimited Google/Microsoft mailboxes plus several SMTP mailboxes per user.
Chrome extension for in-context prospecting
The extension surfaces Apollo data and actions inside LinkedIn, Gmail, and Salesforce, letting reps reveal contact data (consuming credits), add people to sequences, and log activity without switching tools. It is included on every tier, including Free.
Data enrichment for CRMs
CSV, CRM, and API enrichment plus waterfall enrichment (cascading across Apollo data and partner sources) keeps Salesforce, HubSpot, or Pipedrive records current, with job-change detection. Export credits are consumed whenever contacts are synced outside Apollo, which is a separate cost lever buyers often miss.
AI assistant, research, and scoring
An AI assistant, AI research power-ups that consume 1 credit per run, AI lead scoring, and AI email writing with hard word caps per tier ranging from 5,000 words/month on Free up to 1,000,000 on Organization. Organization customers can bring their own LLM API key.
Dialer and conversation intelligence
A built-in US dialer (per-minute credit usage) plus call recordings with AI insights capped at 4,000 minutes on Professional and 8,000 on Organization. International calling, parallel dialing, power dialing, and local presence form a separate 'Advanced Dialer' add-on at $119 per team per month billed annually.
Apollo.io pricing
- 900 credits per seat per year, granted monthly
- AI Assistant limited to 5 chats (10 messages each) and AI Research
- 2 sequences per team; 250 email sends per day; Gmail-only mailbox connection
Phone-number access is time-limited and seats may be limited after the initial period, per Apollo's pricing FAQ.
- 30,000 credits per seat per year, granted upfront
- Unlimited sequences; deliverability suite and email warmup
- CRM integrations (Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive); US dialer with credit usage
- Still capped at 250 email sends per day and 1 mailbox per user
- 48,000 credits per seat per year, granted upfront; 14-day free trial available
- Unlimited daily email sends; unlimited Google/Microsoft mailboxes plus SMTP mailboxes per user
- Unlimited sequences with A/Z testing
- Call recordings and AI insights up to 4,000 minutes
Marked 'Most popular' on Apollo's pricing page.
- 72,000 credits per seat per year, granted upfront; minimum 3 seats
- Single sign-on (SSO), advanced security configurations, bring-your-own LLM API key
- Call recordings and AI insights up to 8,000 minutes
3-seat minimum makes the effective entry price $357/month billed annually.
Free plan available. Free trial (14 days).Pricing verified 2026-07-05 — source: vendor pricing page. Always confirm at checkout.
Pros and cons
Pros
- Genuine free tier (900 credits/seat/year, 2 sequences, Chrome extension) and published self-serve pricing with a 14-day trial on the Professional plan, so evaluation costs nothing.
- Consolidates a contact database, sequencer, dialer, enrichment, and basic pipeline management into one per-seat price, replacing a data-vendor-plus-sequencer stack.
- Broad documented integrations — Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive CRM sync, Outreach/Salesloft, SendGrid/Mailgun, Gmail and Microsoft — plus a public REST API covering search, enrichment, and sequences.
- Security posture is documented: SOC 2 Type 2 and ISO 27001 certified, EU-US Data Privacy Framework certification, published DPA, and a public trust center.
- Annual paid plans grant the full credit allotment upfront rather than monthly, which front-loads usable data access for new deployments.
Cons
- Credit accounting is a real cost driver: phone numbers cost 8 credits versus 1 for an email, enrichment consumes 1-8 credits per record, exports consume separate export credits, and unused credits expire with the billing cycle.
- Meaningful outbound volume requires Professional ($79/seat/month annual) or above: Free and Basic are capped at 250 email sends per day with 1 connected mailbox per user, and Free plans can only connect Gmail accounts.
- SSO and advanced security configurations are gated to the Organization tier, which carries a 3-seat minimum — an effective floor of $357/month billed annually just to get single sign-on.
- Several headline capabilities are paid add-ons on top of seat prices: website visitor identification and international/parallel/power dialing with local presence each cost $119 per team per month billed annually, at introductory pricing the vendor says may change.
- Apollo disclosed a breach of its prospect database in October 2018, reported at over 200 million contact records, which is relevant history for buyers with strict data-governance requirements.
- Record selection limits on lower tiers (25 records at a time on Free, 1,000 on Basic) make bulk list-building deliberately tedious until you upgrade.
Who it's for
- SMB and mid-market sales teams that want a contact database and outreach tooling in one per-seat subscription instead of separate data and sequencing vendors
- Founders and early sales hires starting outbound on a small budget, using the free tier or Basic plan before committing
- RevOps teams on Salesforce, HubSpot, or Pipedrive that need CRM enrichment and job-change tracking alongside prospecting
- Teams that value published, self-serve pricing and want to trial the product for 14 days without talking to sales
Probably not for
- Agencies and high-volume cold-email operations that rotate dozens of client mailboxes — flat-price sending platforms with unlimited sender accounts fit that structure better
- Teams that want outreach executed autonomously by an AI agent rather than operated by human reps with tooling
- Small teams that need SSO but cannot justify the Organization tier's 3-seat minimum
- Phone-first sales floors: US dialing consumes credits per minute and parallel/international dialing requires a separate per-team add-on
Our verdict
Apollo.io's core bargain is consolidation at a published price: a very large (vendor-claimed 230M+ contact) B2B database, sequencing, a dialer, and CRM enrichment for $49-$119 per seat per month, with a usable free tier. For SMB and mid-market teams running rep-driven outbound, that bundle is hard to assemble more cheaply from separate vendors, and the self-serve trial makes verification easy. The costs to scrutinize are structural rather than hidden: credits price phone data at 8x email data and expire each cycle, real sending volume starts at the Professional tier, SSO sits behind a 3-seat-minimum top tier, and advanced dialing and visitor identification are $119/team/month add-ons. Buyers should model their actual credit consumption before assuming the sticker price, and data-governance-sensitive organizations should weigh the platform's 2018 breach history.
Frequently asked questions
Does Apollo.io have a free plan?
Yes. The Free plan includes 900 credits per seat per year, the AI assistant limited to 5 chats, 2 sequences per team, 250 email sends per day, and the Chrome extension. Only Gmail accounts can be connected for sending, and bulk selection is capped at 25 records at a time.
How do Apollo credits work?
Credits are the currency for data access: revealing an email costs 1 credit, a phone number costs 8 credits, enrichment costs 1-8 credits per record, and an AI research run costs 1 credit. Paid annual plans grant the full yearly allotment upfront; unused credits expire at the end of the billing cycle, and separate export credits apply when syncing contacts to outside systems.
Is there a free trial on paid plans?
Yes — Apollo's pricing page offers a 14-day trial on the Professional plan. Per Apollo's own pricing-page FAQ, trials include 50 credits and 5 mobile credits along with most plan features, but connecting a non-Gmail/Microsoft mailbox for campaigns requires a paid plan.
Is Apollo.io SOC 2 and GDPR compliant?
Apollo states its services are SOC 2 Type 2 and ISO 27001 certified, that it is certified under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, and it publishes a GDPR Data Processing Addendum and a trust center. Single sign-on (SSO) is only included in the Organization tier.
Top Apollo.io alternatives
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Apollo.io is listed as an alternative in our reviews of AiSDR, Instantly, Monaco, Smartlead.
Sources
- Apollo.io pricing page (live plan cards, credits, add-ons, tier features) (accessed 2026-07-05)
- Apollo.io security page (ISO 27001, SOC 2 Type 2, GDPR) (accessed 2026-07-05)
- Apollo API documentation (accessed 2026-07-05)
- TechCrunch: Apollo.io bags $100M at a $1.6B valuation (accessed 2026-07-05)
- TechCrunch: YC grad ZenProspect rebrands as Apollo, lands $7M Series A (accessed 2026-07-05)
- TechCrunch: Apollo says its massive contacts database was stolen in a data breach (accessed 2026-07-05)