Apollo.io has four plans. Free is $0 with 900 credits per seat per year (75 per month). Basic is $49/seat/month (annual) with 30,000 credits per seat per year. Professional is $79/seat/month (annual) with 48,000 credits. Organization is $119/seat/month (annual, minimum 3 seats) with 72,000 credits. Monthly billing is available at $65/$99 for Basic/Professional; Organization is annual-only. Apollo labels annual billing “save 24%”; on the listed prices that holds for Basic ($49 vs $65), while Professional saves about 20% ($79 vs $99).
Credits are the per-action cost on top of the subscription: 1 credit per email lookup, 8 per phone number, 1 per AI research run, 1 per 30 seconds of US Dialer time. Unused credits do not roll over.
The database holds 240M+ contacts and 30M+ companies, with a claimed 98% email accuracy rate. Named integrations include Salesforce, HubSpot, Outreach, and SalesLoft, out of 200+ in total. The Chrome extension works on a target account’s website, in your CRM, and in Gmail.
Buy if: you are running outbound at any volume and want your contact data, sequences, and dialing in one platform rather than three. Skip if: you are very early stage and cannot model how many credits your team will burn per month, or if a free-forever CRM with its own prospecting layer already covers you.
How it scores
What we love (and don't)
// PROS
- 240M+ contacts and 30M+ accounts with a claimed 98% email accuracy rate
- Free plan at $0 with 900 credits per seat per year and 2 email sequences; genuinely usable for early-stage prospecting
- Basic plan at $49/seat/month (annual) includes unlimited sequences, advanced filters, and 6 intent topics
- Professional plan at $79/seat/month adds unlimited lead scoring, A/Z testing for sequences, call recordings with AI insights (4,000 mins), and unlimited daily emails
- Chrome extension rated 4.7/5 with 1M+ installs; works on prospect websites, in Gmail, and in your CRM
- 200+ integrations including Salesforce, HubSpot, Outreach, SalesLoft, Marketo, and SendGrid
- GDPR compliant; rated 4.7/5 on 9,690 reviews
- Apollo MCP available: AI assistants connect directly to Apollo data
- 14-day free trial on Basic and Professional
// CONS
- Credit costs are variable on top of the subscription: phone lookups cost 8 credits each, dialer time costs 1 credit per 30 seconds. Teams doing high-volume calling need to model this before committing
- Unused credits expire at the end of each billing cycle and do not roll over
- Free and Basic plans limit daily email sends to 250; Professional and Organization remove the cap
- Free and Basic plans limit to 1 mailbox per user; unlimited Google and Microsoft mailboxes start at Professional ($79/seat/month)
- Organization plan (the most feature-complete tier) is annual-only with a minimum of 3 seats at $119/seat/month
- Cannot mix plan levels across a team; all seats must be on the same plan
- Basic plan call recording limited to 150 mins; AI insights on call recordings start at Professional (4,000 mins)
- Advanced Dialer (international calling, parallel dialer, power dialer, local presence) is an add-on at $119/team/month annual
If you are evaluating Apollo.io, the question you need to answer is not whether the database is big. It is: can the platform actually replace two or three separate tools without breaking the workflow of a team doing real outbound at real volume?
The answer is yes for most sales teams doing regular outbound. Apollo.io’s 240M-contact database comes bundled with email sequencing, a US dialer, AI enrichment, deal management, and a Chrome extension that works inside Gmail and your CRM. Free plan starts at $0. Professional plan at $79/seat/month (annual) is where full-time reps should evaluate. The credit system deserves careful modeling before you commit, especially if your team dials heavily.
This Apollo.io review covers every plan, the credit cost structure, what each tier includes, and who should skip it.
What Apollo.io is
Apollo.io launched in 2015. The company describes itself as one connected AI GTM system: data, intelligence, and execution. By the numbers: 240M+ contacts, 30M+ companies, 1 million sales professionals, 40,000 paying customers, and over 600,000 companies using Apollo.
The platform’s architecture has three distinct layers. The data layer is the database: 240M+ contacts and 30M+ accounts, data refresh, and waterfall enrichment. The intelligence layer is where agents research accounts, prioritize leads, write outreach, and book meetings, trained through what Apollo calls the AI Context Center on your ICP and product. The execution layer is the Workspace for prospecting, outreach, and dialing.
That combination is what makes Apollo.io’s value proposition hold up at $49/seat/month. You are not paying for a database that feeds a separate sequencing tool. You are paying for one integrated platform.
Apollo.io plans and pricing
Apollo.io has four plans. All listed prices are per seat per month on annual billing. Apollo labels annual billing “save 24%”. On the listed prices that is right for Basic ($49 vs $65, 24.6% off) but closer to 20% for Professional ($79 vs $99).
Free ($0 per seat). 900 credits per seat per year, granted 75 per month. Two sequences per team. Basic filters only. One intent topic. Gmail connection only (no Microsoft). 250 daily email sends. 1 mailbox per user. Website visitors: 20 companies per month. CRM enrichment: 100 records per month. 2 automated workflows per team. This is a real free tier. Limited in every dimension, but it covers founders and early-stage teams prospecting from scratch without a budget for tools.
Basic ($49/seat/month annual, $65/seat/month monthly). 30,000 credits per seat per year, granted upfront on annual. Unlimited sequences. Advanced filters. 6 intent topics. CRM integrations. Automated CRM enrichment. Deliverability suite and email warmup. Domain and mailbox purchasing. 5 automated workflows per team. 250 daily email sends (same cap as free). 1 mailbox per user (same as free). Call recording at 150 minutes. This is the starting point for individual sellers doing regular outbound. The move to unlimited sequences and advanced filters makes Basic a meaningfully different product from free.
Professional ($79/seat/month annual, $99/seat/month monthly), the most popular plan. 48,000 credits per seat per year, granted upfront. Unlimited sequences with A/Z testing. Unlimited lead scoring. Basic caps lead scoring at 2 scores; Professional removes the cap entirely. AI lead scoring added. Call recordings with AI insights: 4,000 minutes. 50 automated workflows per team. Unlimited daily emails. Unlimited Google and Microsoft mailboxes plus 5 SMTP mailboxes per user. 6 meeting events. 800,000 AI writing words per month. This is where Apollo becomes a tool for full-time sales reps. The jump from Basic to Professional removes three meaningful constraints: the daily email cap, the mailbox limit, and the lead scoring cap.
Organization ($119/seat/month annual only, minimum 3 seats). 72,000 credits per seat per year, granted upfront. 12 intent topics. Call recordings with AI insights: 8,000 minutes. 500 automated workflows per team. Unlimited Google and Microsoft mailboxes plus 15 SMTP per user. Unlimited meeting events. Unlimited inbound routers. 1,000,000 AI writing words per month. No monthly billing option. The Organization tier is built for teams that need higher call recording limits, more intent signals, and larger automation capacity. The annual-only requirement and 3-seat minimum make it a team purchase, not an individual one.
Monthly billing runs $65 and $99 for Basic and Professional. Organization is annual-only.
The credit system: what it costs to actually use Apollo.io
The subscription fee is not the full cost.
Apollo credits are the per-action currency that sits on top of your plan. The costs:
- Email lookup: 1 credit
- Phone number lookup: 8 credits
- Data enrichment: 1 to 8 credits
- AI research per contact: 1 credit per run
- US Dialer: 1 credit per 30 seconds
Credits are pooled across your team. They are granted upfront on annual plans. They do not roll over. Unused credits at the end of a billing cycle are gone.
A Basic plan at $49/seat/month gives one seat 30,000 credits per year, or 2,500 per month. At 1 credit per email and 8 per phone number, a rep pulling 100 phone numbers per month burns 800 credits on those alone. At 1 credit per 30 seconds of dialer time, 10 hours of calling per month burns 1,200 credits. That is 2,000 credits before any enrichment or AI research. For a solo rep on Basic, you will want to monitor the balance.
Professional’s 48,000 credits per year (4,000/month) is more workable. The math changes when multiple seats are on the same plan, because credits pool across the team. A 5-seat Professional account gets 240,000 credits per year shared, and credits consumed by one rep come from the shared pool.
If you need more credits mid-cycle: Settings > Manage Subscription > Customize Credits. These add-on credits are recurring and renew automatically until you remove them, and like plan credits they do not roll over.
Apollo.io sales intelligence: the database
The database is the reason most teams evaluate Apollo.io in the first place.
240M+ contacts. 30M+ companies. Apollo says the database grows continuously through a 2-million-contributor network. Apollo claims a 98% email accuracy rate, citing a multi-step verification process on the Chrome extension page.
The search and filtering layer matters as much as the database size. Free plan users get basic filters. Basic, Professional, and Organization plans get advanced filters and buying intent signals. The number of intent topics scales with plan: 1 on free, 6 on Basic and Professional, 12 on Organization.
Apollo lists intent alongside job changes and website visits as the buying signals it tracks. In my view, intent filtering is what makes the database actionable: it is the difference between a list of potential prospects and a prioritized one.
The record selection limit is worth understanding: it caps how many records you can select in a single action. It is 25 on Free, 1,000 on Basic, 2,500 on Professional, and 10,000 on Organization. This matters for teams running bulk enrichment or large CSV exports.
Apollo.io email finder and Chrome extension
The Chrome extension is rated 4.7/5 stars and has over 1 million installs. Apollo says it works on a target account’s website, in your CRM, and in Gmail. The extension surfaces verified emails and phone numbers from Apollo’s database, lets you make dials, and lets you add prospects to an Apollo list or sequence.
The extension is free to download. It works with every Apollo plan, including the free tier.
Email lookups cost 1 credit each. Phone lookups cost 8 credits each. The accuracy claim is 98% for email, with real-time verification.
For a rep doing manual copy-paste from a prospect’s website into a separate prospecting tool and then importing into a sequencing platform, the extension collapses those steps into one.
Sequences, outreach, and AI writing
Email sequences are included on every plan. Free is limited to 2 sequences per team. Basic and above include unlimited sequences. Professional and Organization add A/Z testing to find which sequence performs better.
The daily email send limit is 250 on Free and Basic. Professional and Organization remove the cap. The mailbox limit is 1 per user on Free and Basic. Professional adds unlimited Google and Microsoft mailboxes plus 5 SMTP; Organization gets 15 SMTP per user. For a team running multi-mailbox rotations to protect domain reputation, the upgrade to Professional is the practical trigger.
AI writing is included as a words-per-month allowance: 5,000 on free, 250,000 on Basic, 800,000 on Professional, 1,000,000 on Organization. Apollo pitches its outbound AI as a way to research leads and personalize messaging.
The deliverability suite (email warmup, domain and mailbox purchasing) is available from Basic upward.
Apollo.io integrations
200+ integrations. The named list from Apollo’s own pricing page: Salesforce, HubSpot, Outreach, SalesLoft, Marketo, SendGrid, LinkedIn, and all major email providers. The Free plan card lists API access and the paid cards list API enrichment; for advanced or custom integrations, Apollo says API access is available on Custom plans.
Apollo MCP is a listed product. It allows AI assistants (Claude and ChatGPT are named on Apollo’s own product page) to connect directly to your Apollo account, read contact data, and take actions across your outreach workflows.
One plan restriction worth noting: all seats on an Apollo account must be on the same plan. If some reps need Professional features and others could work on Basic, the account pays Professional pricing for everyone. For larger organizations with varied use cases, Apollo suggests a Custom plan may offer more flexibility.
Apollo.io add-ons
Two add-ons sit outside the main plan tiers and require a paid plan first.
Inbound. Identifies companies and contacts visiting your website. Two tiers: Essentials at $119/team/month and Max at $639/team/month on annual billing, or $149 and $799 on monthly billing. The card lists 1,000 US contacts and 5,000 companies (US and global) identified per month, 1 lead router, 3 forms, and 100 enriched form contacts per month, without splitting those limits by tier. This is a separate team-level purchase, not per seat.
Advanced Dialer. $119/team/month on annual billing. Includes international dialing, parallel dialing (calling multiple numbers simultaneously), power dialing (single-line with auto-advance, voicemail drop, and call logging), and local presence (using local area codes to help increase pickup rates). The base US Dialer is listed on Basic and above, with credits applying; this add-on is for teams doing high-volume international or parallel outreach.
Who should use Apollo.io
The free plan makes sense for founders, early-stage reps, and anyone doing low-volume prospecting. 75 credits per month, 2 sequences, Gmail only. It is enough to run a contained outbound motion without spending anything.
Basic at $49/seat/month (annual) is for individual sellers doing regular outbound who need unlimited sequences, advanced database filters, and CRM integrations. The 250 daily email cap and the 1-mailbox-per-user limit still apply; they are not removed until Professional.
Professional at $79/seat/month (annual) is where Apollo becomes the right tool for a full-time sales rep. Unlimited emails, unlimited mailboxes, A/Z tested sequences, unlimited lead scoring, 4,000 minutes of call recording with AI insights, and 48,000 credits per seat per year. This is the plan to evaluate if you are comparing Apollo to two separate tools (a data vendor and a sequencing platform) and running the math on what a consolidated platform would cost.
Organization at $119/seat/month (annual, minimum 3 seats) is for sales teams that need 12 intent topics, 500 automated workflows, 8,000 minutes of call recording, and unlimited inbound routers.
The teams that should not start here: very early stage companies that do not yet know their outbound motion. Apollo’s credit system rewards teams that have a clear sense of how many contacts they research, how many emails they send, and how much time their reps spend on the dialer. If that model is not established, the monthly credit consumption will be hard to predict.
Apollo.io vs ZoomInfo
Apollo.io publishes its pricing. ZoomInfo does not. That alone shapes how most teams approach the comparison.
Apollo.io’s paid plans start at $49/seat/month (annual) with the credit limits above. ZoomInfo’s pricing page offers custom packages through a pricing request form instead of a rate card. That is a pricing strategy, and it leaves the buyer with less leverage going in.
Both vendors now pitch an all-in-one platform: ZoomInfo’s pricing page lists running sequences under its prospecting use case, and Apollo’s paid plans list sequences, a US dialer, and deal management.
For small and mid-size sales teams, I think Apollo.io is the more practical starting point: one platform, published pricing, and a free tier. Teams with complex enterprise data needs and the budget for a custom package should evaluate ZoomInfo alongside Apollo.
For teams without that budget, Apollo.io is the more accessible answer to the same underlying question: who should I call, what is their contact information, and how do I reach them at scale.
The verdict
Apollo.io earns its place for outbound teams that want prospecting data, sequences, and dialing in one platform.
The free plan is real. Basic at $49/seat/month is competitive for individual sellers. Professional at $79/seat/month is where most full-time reps should land. The credit system is the variable to watch: model your team’s credit consumption before you commit, and monitor it in the first month.
What you are really paying for is the consolidation. One login for data lookup, sequence management, call recording, AI enrichment, and CRM sync. If your team is currently paying for a data vendor plus a sequencing tool separately, I think the Apollo.io consolidation is worth pricing out against that stack. If you are on the free tier doing 20 to 30 contacts per month, you may never need to upgrade.