Apollo.io alternatives compared: price and features
One row per tool from this page, Apollo.io first for reference: who it suits, its entry price for the same need (cold email, credits only) and what it does. The sections below explain each choice.
cold email
for reference
LinkedIn and cold email on your own lists
Cold email at volume
Agencies sending from many mailboxes
Email and LinkedIn, per user
Sequences with a LinkedIn accountcredits only
for reference
A larger database, on contracts of one to three years
European data and phone-verified mobiles
Pooling data from many providersMonthly prices, billed monthly unless stated, excluding VAT, read on each publisher’s site (checked between October 6, 2026 and October 19, 2026). Emelia’s prices follow your currency; tools billed in dollars only stay in dollars, and those billed in euros only stay in euros. –: not offered, or not checked for this need.
Replacing Apollo’s database, its sequences, or both
Start from what you actually use Apollo for:
- Email and LinkedIn in the same sequence: Emelia, lemlist, La Growth Machine or Reply.io; Apollo only turns LinkedIn steps into manual tasks.
- Emails and phone numbers for your own contacts: Emelia finds and verifies an email for 1 credit, and a phone number for 50 through a waterfall across several providers, refunded when no number is found. Its Chrome extension does it on a LinkedIn profile too, and extracts the leads of a Sales Navigator search.
- A ready-made database to search: ZoomInfo and Cognism. They publish no subscription prices, and both describe a contact, phone numbers included, as one credit on their pricing pages.
- Enriching lists you already have from several sources: Clay, billed in actions and data credits, from $185 a month with unlimited seats.
- Sending cold email at volume from many mailboxes: Instantly or Smartlead, billed by volume rather than per licence.
The Apollo alternatives at a glance
- 1
Best for: LinkedIn and cold email on your own listsEmelia replaces the sending half of Apollo and automates what Apollo leaves manual: LinkedIn steps run in the same sequence as the emails, from 3 to unlimited mailboxes with warm-up included. It has no database, so your lists come from files or from LinkedIn and Sales Navigator searches, and the finder charges 1 credit only when it finds an email. Plans are priced by mailboxes and LinkedIn accounts, not per licence as at Apollo.
- YesCredits valid for 1 year, even after cancelling
- NoBuilt-in B2B contact database
- YesEmail finder
- Price
- From $37/month
- Who it’s for
- Teams that already have their lists, or build them on LinkedIn, and want LinkedIn and email automated together.
- 2
Best for: A larger database, on contracts of one to three yearsZoomInfo claims a larger database than Apollo: 500M+ contacts and 18.5M+ mobile numbers in Europe, with intent signals and a browser extension in its plans. Everything is sold on quote, on contracts of 1 to 3 years, where Apollo has a free plan and monthly licences. Its email sequences belong to a separate product, Engage, with no public price.
- YesBuilt-in B2B contact database
- YesEmail finder
- YesPhone number finder
- Price
- On quote
- Who it’s for
- Large sales teams that need deep data and intent signals and can sign a multi-year contract.
- 3
Best for: European data and phone-verified mobilesCognism competes with the data half of Apollo with a European focus: a British company that checks mobile numbers by phone before selling them. It sells data only, so the sequences Apollo includes would need a second tool. There is no free plan and no public price: access starts with a demo and a quote.
- NoCold email from your own mailboxes
- YesBuilt-in B2B contact database
- YesEmail finder
- Price
- On quote
- Who it’s for
- Teams calling prospects across Europe who want verified mobile numbers and can work from a quote.
- 4
Best for: Pooling data from many providersClay goes beyond Apollo’s single database by querying 150+ data providers in turn, in tables where each column is an enrichment or an AI step. Seats are unlimited and it has its own Sequencer for cold email. Its plans are priced per team with two counters, data credits and actions, which take longer to learn than Apollo’s licences.
- YesBuilt-in B2B contact database
- YesEmail finder
- YesPhone number finder
- Price
- Paid plans from $185/month
- Who it’s for
- Growth and RevOps teams building enrichment workflows from several data sources.
- 5
Best for: Cold email at volumeInstantly is built for sending rather than searching: unlimited mailboxes on every plan, warm-up included, a price set by the emails sent. Its lead database is a separate subscription, so the data Apollo bundles with each licence costs extra. Like Apollo, it does not automate LinkedIn.
- NoPhone number finder
- YesBuilt-in B2B contact database
- YesEmail finder
- Price
- From $47/month
- Who it’s for
- Teams sending large email volumes from many mailboxes, with their lists already built.
- 6
Best for: Agencies sending from many mailboxesSmartlead is built for agencies that send from many mailboxes: unlimited mailboxes, a price based on the emails sent and client workspaces that keep each customer apart. Its SmartProspect database is an option on the lower plans, where Apollo’s data comes with every licence. LinkedIn is left to partner tools; Apollo itself only offers manual LinkedIn tasks.
- YesBuilt-in B2B contact database
- YesCold email from your own mailboxes
- YesNative CRM integration
- Price
- From $39/month
- Who it’s for
- Agencies sending cold email for several clients from many mailboxes.
- 7
Best for: Email and LinkedIn, per userlemlist covers both halves of Apollo, a contact database and sequences, and adds automated LinkedIn steps on Multichannel, one LinkedIn account per user. Its warm-up, lemwarm, is included, where Apollo spends credits to warm any mailbox beyond the first one per licence. Both bill per user, so each new salesperson adds a seat either way.
- YesLinkedIn automation
- YesBuilt-in B2B contact database
- YesEmail and LinkedIn in one sequence
- Price
- $109/user/month
- Who it’s for
- Teams that want data, email and automated LinkedIn steps in one tool and accept per-user pricing.
- 8
Best for: Sequences with a LinkedIn accountReply.io matches Apollo on data and sequences with a contact database of its own, and adds LinkedIn: Multichannel includes 1 LinkedIn account per user, next to call and SMS steps. Both charge per user; Reply.io’s email plan also sets a number of contacts reached each month. Its Jason AI agent can run the sequences for you, at a separate price.
- YesLinkedIn automation
- YesBuilt-in B2B contact database
- YesEmail and LinkedIn in one sequence
- Price
- $99/user/month
- Who it’s for
- Teams that want Apollo-style data plus LinkedIn and phone steps in their sequences.
Competitors with their own B2B database: ZoomInfo and Cognism
ZoomInfo
The incumbent: founded in 2007 as DiscoverOrg, listed on the Nasdaq, 35,000+ customers. It claims 500M+ contacts and 100M+ companies, against Apollo’s 240M and 30M. Its pricing FAQ counts one credit per exported record, email and phone numbers included depending on the contract, where Apollo charges 1 credit for the email and 8 for a phone number. But ZoomInfo publishes no subscription price, its annual report puts contracts at 1 to 3 years, and its terms say they cannot be cancelled during their term. Details in Apollo vs ZoomInfo.
Cognism
Based in London, Cognism focuses on Europe: mobile numbers verified by phone calls and an interface in English, French and German. Its pricing page counts one credit per revealed contact, mobiles included, once per account; its French comparison with Apollo says mobiles and emails are not limited by credits. It has no free plan or self-serve trial, sells on quote (plans include 5 licences) and does not send emails: it exports to your CRM or sales engagement tool. Capterra gives it 4.7/5, Trustpilot 2.9/5.
Enrichment without a single source: Clay
Clay enriches lists you already have from several providers: 150+ in its marketplace, plus its own search over 900M people. You pay for the work (actions) and the data (data credits) separately, from $185 a month on Launch, with unlimited seats; unused data credits roll over, actions do not. It can call Apollo as a source, with your own Apollo account.
Per email found, it costs more than Apollo at every volume we checked; its Sequencer, built on Smartlead, sends up to 4 emails per sequence. See Apollo vs Clay for the figures.
Cold email at volume: Instantly and Smartlead
Instantly and Smartlead are built for sending: their pricing pages allow unlimited mailboxes, and the price is set by the number of emails sent, not by licences. Instantly starts at $47 a month for 5,000 emails, Smartlead at $39 for 6,000. Neither automates LinkedIn, and both sell their lead data apart from the entry plan: Instantly from $9 a month, Smartlead’s SmartProspect at $59 on its first two plans.
Apollo Professional also connects unlimited Google and Microsoft mailboxes on one licence; the difference is warm-up. Apollo’s plan cards call it included, but its help centre counts only 1 mailbox per licence as covered and charges 200 credits a month for every other one.
Alternatives that also automate LinkedIn: Emelia, lemlist and Reply.io
Apollo has no place on this line, since it does not automate LinkedIn. These three do, with one LinkedIn account and three sending mailboxes included at the prices below; La Growth Machine, billed per identity, is the other option in this family.
1 LinkedIn account + cold email, 3 mailboxes
Billed monthly
Billed yearly (per month)
Mailboxes in that price
How it is billed
lemlist and Emelia show the same figure in euros and dollars; Reply.io bills in dollars only, so the advantage is marked for dollar payments. Reply.io’s figures come from its pricing page as read on October 14, 2026; the page blocks automated checks since. Emelia’s next plans: Grow (3 LinkedIn accounts, $97) and Scale (10 accounts, $297).
Paying per found email rather than per licence
If what you buy from Apollo is mostly emails, compare the credits: 1 per verified email at both Apollo and Emelia, bought each month on top of a plan.
1,000 emails found a month
5,000 emails found a month
10,000 emails found a month
Phone numbers for 10,000 credits
Apollo’s column shows a range: its per-credit tiers can apply to the whole amount at the tier reached (low end) or slice by slice (high end), and Apollo does not say which. Since Apollo invoices in dollars only and Emelia’s packs carry the same number in euros and dollars, the cheaper side is marked for a dollar payment; no conversion is made. Credits included in the plans are left out on both sides: Apollo’s 2,500 to 6,000 per licence a month reset at the end of each cycle, and Emelia’s plans come with 500 to 5,000 once, at signup.
Leaving Apollo: four practical questions
It claims more: 500M+ contacts against 240M, and 18.5M+ mobile numbers in Europe. Neither database can be checked from outside. ZoomInfo’s contracts are longer and its prices are not published.
Yes, by CSV export. Depending on the plan, an export may use credits; contacts already exported, imported or without a verified email are free to export. Do it before the end of the cycle.
They are lost: access and credits stay until the end of the paid cycle, then the pot resets. Bought credits do not roll over either.
Emelia features: Email finder · Cold email · Email warm-up · Emelia pricing
Emelia is an Apollo.io competitor. We have tried to stay fair: every figure about Apollo.io comes from its own website or public review sites.
