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Saniya Sood
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Published October 8, 2026 · Updated October 8, 2026
The verdict in 60 words: Apollo is the default all-in-one for small and mid-size sales teams: a 240M-contact database, sequences, a dialer, deliverability tools and an AI Assistant, from $49 a seat a month on annual billing. The data is broad rather than deep, the credit system confuses nearly everyone, and LinkedIn steps are manual. For the price, nothing else bundles as much.
Price: Free plan; Basic $49 a seat on annual ($65 monthly); Professional $79 ($99); Organization $119 with a 3-seat minimum. 14-day trial on Basic. Best for: a team that wants data and email sequences in one seat and will tolerate data cleanup. Not for: LinkedIn automation or anyone who needs verified mobiles at scale.
What we checked, and when: each vendor's pricing and features pages, its help centre, Vendr where it publishes contract data, and the public review listings we could open (Capterra, Trustpilot; G2 blocked automated reads on most pages and is cited only where it rendered or where the vendor states its own score). All read on October 8, 2026. This is a documentation and reviews-based assessment, not a hands-on test.
Disclosure: Valley makes an outbound platform and competes for part of this budget. Where Valley appears it is marked, and every price and claim below was read from the source named next to it on October 8, 2026.
Valley is an AI outbound platform that finds the people most likely to buy from you - from live buying signals, natural-language search, or your own lists - qualifies them against your ICP, researches each one, and sends personalized messages across email and LinkedIn that get 15-45% reply rates, against a category average of about 2%.
Give your sales team
an unfair advantage.
Apollo at a glance
Apollo | |
|---|---|
What it is | An AI GTM system: contact database, sequences, dialer, deliverability, AI Assistant |
Starting price | Free; Basic $49 per seat per month billed annually |
Trial | 14 days on Basic |
Channels | Email and calls automated; LinkedIn tasks are manual |
Prospect data | 240M+ contacts, 30M+ accounts; 30,000 to 72,000 credits per seat per year on paid plans |
Stated sending | Start at 50 emails a day per mailbox, 50 to 100 recommended |
Reviews | Capterra 4.5 from 398, read October 8, 2026; Apollo's own pricing page states a G2 score of 4.7 from 9,690 reviews |
Contract benchmark | Vendr median $19,000 a year across 101 purchases, range $4,284 to $45,000 |
Pros
Data and outreach in one seat: search, enrich, sequence and call without leaving the product.
The cheapest published entry among the big databases, with monthly billing and a free plan that includes 900 credits a year.
Unlimited sequences from Basic, A/Z testing and lead scoring from Professional, 12 intent topics on Organization.
The AI Assistant left beta in March 2026 and is free on paid plans as an introductory promotion.
Native Salesforce, HubSpot, Outreach, Salesloft and Marketo, plus Claude, ChatGPT and Clay in the marketplace.
Cons
Contact data is the top Capterra complaint: outdated records, duplicates and phone numbers reviewers call highly inaccurate.
Credits are granted per seat per year, expire at the end of each cycle, and reviewers describe consumption as excessive and confusing.
LinkedIn is not automated. A LinkedIn step in a sequence is a task a rep completes by hand.
Support is a recurring complaint, with waits of over a week reported.
The Chrome extension is praised for capture and criticised for slowing LinkedIn and the browser.
Key features
Database and search
240M+ contacts and 30M+ accounts with firmographic, technographic and intent filters. Exports and reveals consume credits: 30,000 a seat a year on Basic, 48,000 on Professional, 72,000 on Organization, all granted upfront and expiring each cycle.
Sequences and deliverability
Unlimited email sequences from Basic, with a deliverability suite, warmup and domain and mailbox purchasing. Apollo's own guidance is 50 emails a day per mailbox to start, 10 to 20 an hour, with a 60 to 300 second delay.
Dialer and recordings
A parallel dialer is sold as an add-on ($119 per team a month on annual); call recording and AI insights are 150 minutes on Free, 4,000 on Professional, 8,000 on Organization.
AI Assistant, Workspace and MCP
The AI Assistant builds lists, drafts and workflows from a chat; the Free plan allows five chats. Apollo MCP exposes the data to Claude and ChatGPT. Builder Studio and GTM Harness are the 2026 names for workflow and agent tooling.
Inbound add-ons
Inbound Essentials ($119 per team a month on annual) and Max ($639) add routers, forms and meeting scheduling; Organization includes unlimited inbound routers.
Apollo pricing
All figures from apollo.io/pricing, read October 8, 2026, per seat, excluding tax; annual billing saves 24%.
Plan | Annual (per seat per month) | Monthly | Credits per seat per year | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Free | $0 | $0 | 900, granted monthly | 2 sequences, Gmail only, 5 AI Assistant chats |
Basic | $49 | $65 | 30,000, upfront | Unlimited sequences, warmup, 14-day trial |
Professional | $79 | $99 | 48,000 | A/Z testing, unlimited lead scoring, 4,000 recording minutes |
Organization | $119, 3-seat minimum | $149 shown as annual only | 72,000 | 12 intent topics, unlimited meeting events and routers |
Add-ons | Dialer $119 per team; Inbound $119 or $639 per team | $149 / $149 or $799 | Extra credits via an in-app slider, no rollover |
Worked examples for a 3, 5 and 10-seat team are in Apollo pricing and credits explained.
Give your sales team
an unfair advantage.
Apollo alternatives
Prices read October 8, 2026.
ZoomInfo: deeper data and intent, no public price, Vendr median $33,500 a year; the step up when coverage matters more than cost. See Apollo vs ZoomInfo.
UpLead: verified-on-search emails and mobiles from $74 a month on annual with a 95% accuracy guarantee, but no sequencing. See UpLead alternatives.
lemlist: sequences that include LinkedIn, SMS and calling from $87 a user on annual, with a 650M-contact database on the side. See our lemlist review.
Valley (our product) starts from the other end: live buying signals, natural-language search or your own list, then qualification against your ICP, per-person research and a first message in your voice, then LinkedIn and email sequences. One seat is one LinkedIn account; Starter is $199 a month or $149 billed quarterly, with a 7-day trial. Fewer messages, each with a reason to reply. See how Valley compares.
The full field: Apollo alternatives (2026) and Valley vs Apollo.
Who Apollo is for
A founder or a team of two to twenty that needs a database and an email sequencer today, wants monthly billing, and has someone willing to clean data as they go. At $49 to $79 a seat it replaces two tools, and the free plan is a real way to test it.
Who Apollo is not for
LinkedIn-led teams, because every LinkedIn step is manual. Teams that buy on mobile-number accuracy, because reviewers rate Apollo's phones poorly. And finance-led buyers who need predictable spend, because credits expire and consumption is hard to forecast.
► Weighing a database seat against signal-based outbound? Book a demo
FAQ
How much does Apollo cost? Free, then Basic $49, Professional $79 and Organization $119 per seat per month on annual billing ($65, $99 and $149 monthly; Organization needs 3 seats). Add-ons for the dialer and inbound are $119 to $639 per team a month. Read October 8, 2026.
Does Apollo have a free trial? A permanent free plan with 900 credits a year, and a 14-day trial of Basic.
How do Apollo credits work? Each paid seat gets a yearly allowance (30,000, 48,000 or 72,000) granted upfront; exports and reveals spend it; unused credits expire at the end of the billing cycle; extra credits are bought on a recurring slider.
Does Apollo automate LinkedIn? No. LinkedIn tasks in a sequence must be completed manually, per Apollo's knowledge base.
Is Apollo's data accurate? It is the largest cheap database and the most common complaint in its reviews: outdated contacts, duplicates and inaccurate phone numbers. Verify before you dial.
Is Apollo cheaper than ZoomInfo? Yes by a wide margin on published numbers: Apollo from $49 a seat; ZoomInfo's Vendr median is $33,500 a year with no public price.
What is the Apollo AI Assistant? A chat assistant that builds lists, drafts emails and runs workflows. It left beta on 4 March 2026 and is free on paid plans as an introductory promotion, with five chats on Free.
How this page was made: the facts were read from the sources named in the text on October 8, 2026; drafted with AI assistance; fact-checked, reviewed and edited by Saniya Sood.
