What Is Apollo.io? A Complete Guide to the B2B Sales Intelligence Platform

What Is Apollo.io?

Apollo.io is an AI-powered B2B sales intelligence and engagement platform designed to help sales teams find leads, automate outreach, and manage their entire prospecting workflow in one place. Founded in 2015, the platform has grown to become one of the most recognized names in B2B sales technology, now trusted by over 500,000 companies including Autodesk, Cyera, and DocuSign.

At its core, Apollo combines three essential functions: a massive B2B contact database with over 210 million contacts and 35 million companies, built-in email sequencing and outreach automation, and CRM-like deal management capabilities. This all-in-one approach is what sets Apollo apart from single-purpose tools that only handle one piece of the sales puzzle.

The platform is particularly popular among sales development representatives (SDRs), account executives, and marketing teams who need to identify decision-makers, verify contact information, and execute multi-touch outreach campaigns without juggling multiple tools.

Key Features of Apollo.io

B2B Contact Database

The foundation of Apollo is its extensive database of business contacts. You can search for prospects using criteria like job title, seniority, company size, industry, location, and even technographic data (what software a company uses). This allows you to build highly targeted prospect lists without manual research.

For example, if you're selling a customer support tool, you could filter for VP-level and above contacts at SaaS companies with 50-200 employees who are currently using Zendesk. That level of precision is where Apollo genuinely shines.

Email Sequencing and Automation

Apollo lets you create automated email sequences with multiple touchpoints, A/B testing, and scheduled follow-ups. You can set up sequences that combine emails, phone calls, and LinkedIn tasks—all triggered automatically based on prospect behavior.

The platform includes an AI writing assistant that helps craft personalized messages based on prospect data. While AI-generated emails still need human review, this feature can significantly speed up the initial drafting process.

Sales Engagement Tools

Beyond email, Apollo offers a built-in dialer for cold calling, call recording capabilities, and LinkedIn integration. The Professional and Organization tiers include more advanced dialing features, making it viable as a complete sales engagement platform rather than just a data provider.

CRM and Pipeline Management

Apollo includes basic CRM functionality, allowing you to track deals, manage opportunities, and maintain records of all prospect interactions. While it's not as robust as dedicated CRMs like Salesforce or HubSpot, it integrates seamlessly with those platforms if you need deeper CRM capabilities.

Apollo.io Pricing Breakdown

Apollo uses a tiered pricing model that looks straightforward at first glance but has some important nuances you should understand before committing.

Free Plan

The free tier gives you access to the contact database and two active outreach sequences. You're limited to roughly 5 mobile credits and 10 export credits per month, plus a 250-email daily sending limit. It's useful for testing the platform, but realistically not enough for running actual outbound campaigns.

Basic Plan: $49/user/month (annual) or $59/user/month (monthly)

This plan unlocks advanced filters like technographic data, job postings, VC funding, and revenue information. You also get CRM integrations and email open/click tracking. For small sales teams scaling their outbound efforts, this is typically the entry point.

Professional Plan: $79/user/month (annual) or $99/user/month (monthly)

Professional adds unlimited sequences with A/B testing, a dialer with call recording, and more credits. This tier is designed for experienced sales teams who know how to leverage automation tools effectively.

Organization Plan: $119/user/month (annual) or $149/user/month (monthly)

The enterprise tier includes an international dialer, advanced security features, SSO, customizable reports, and 200 mobile plus 4,000 export credits monthly. This is built for larger teams with strict security requirements.

The Credit System: Understanding the Real Cost

Here's where Apollo's pricing gets complicated. The platform runs on a credit system where different actions consume credits at different rates. Finding an email costs 1 credit, but accessing a mobile number costs 8 credits. Exporting data to external systems also uses credits.

For teams prospecting at scale, those credits can disappear quickly. Once you run out, additional credits cost approximately $0.20 each with minimum purchases of 250 credits monthly or 2,500 annually. Credits also expire at the end of your billing cycle with no refunds or extensions.

This means your actual monthly cost can exceed the advertised price significantly if you're doing high-volume prospecting. Before committing, estimate your credit consumption carefully based on how many contacts you'll need to access.

Strengths and Limitations

What Apollo Does Well

Consolidation: Instead of using separate tools for data, sequencing, calling, and CRM, Apollo handles everything in one interface. This simplifies your tech stack and reduces context-switching.

Advanced Filtering: The search capabilities are genuinely powerful. You can segment prospects by company size, location, technology usage, hiring signals, funding rounds, and more. This enables highly targeted campaigns.

Value at Entry Level: Compared to competitors, Apollo's starting price is reasonable for the feature set you get. The free plan also lets you test core functionality before paying.

Integrations: Apollo connects with Salesforce, HubSpot, Outreach, Salesloft, and most major sales tools, so it fits into existing workflows without major disruption.

Where Apollo Falls Short

Data Accuracy Varies: Multiple user reviews note that data accuracy can be inconsistent, particularly for smaller companies or non-US markets. Email addresses and phone numbers sometimes need manual verification before use. If you're running high-volume campaigns, consider pairing Apollo with an email verification tool to avoid deliverability issues.

Credit Consumption Adds Up: The credit system can make costs unpredictable. Teams often find themselves purchasing additional credits beyond their plan allocation, especially when accessing mobile numbers or syncing data to external systems.

Learning Curve: With so many features packed into one platform, Apollo can feel overwhelming initially. Users report that while customer support is responsive, it takes time to fully understand and leverage all capabilities.

Limited Email Validation: Apollo provides emails but doesn't always verify them thoroughly. High bounce rates can damage your sender reputation, which is why many users run Apollo contacts through separate validation before launching campaigns.

Who Should Use Apollo.io?

Apollo works best for:

• B2B sales teams who need an all-in-one platform for prospecting, outreach, and basic deal management
• SDRs and BDRs who want to build targeted prospect lists quickly without manual research
• Startups and SMBs looking for an affordable entry point into sales automation
• Teams currently using multiple point solutions who want to consolidate their stack

Apollo may not be ideal for:

• Enterprise teams with complex security and compliance requirements (unless on Organization tier)
• Companies targeting very small businesses or international markets where data accuracy is weaker
• Teams that need unlimited access to mobile phone numbers (credit costs add up fast)

Alternatives to Consider

While Apollo is a solid all-in-one option, you might explore alternatives depending on your priorities:

For pure data/prospecting: LinkedIn Sales Navigator offers the freshest data since most databases (including Apollo's) are built on LinkedIn. The tradeoff is you can't export contact info directly.

For multichannel outreach: Tools like Lemlist, Instantly, or Smartlead specialize in email deliverability and campaign management, often with simpler pricing models.

For data enrichment: Clay offers powerful enrichment workflows that can pull from multiple data sources, giving you potentially better coverage than any single database.

For LinkedIn automation: Expandi focuses specifically on LinkedIn outreach with sophisticated safety features.

Building Your Target List: The Foundation of Good Prospecting

Regardless of which tools you use, successful B2B prospecting starts with clearly defining your target market. Before you pull thousands of contacts from any database, you need to know exactly who you're looking for.

This means identifying your ideal customer profile (ICP): What industries do your best customers come from? What size companies? What job titles make purchasing decisions? What technologies indicate they might need your solution?

Our B2B Targeting Generator can help you define and refine your target market using AI-powered analysis. It's a useful starting point before you invest in a paid database tool like Apollo.

Once you have your targeting dialed in, you can use Apollo's filters more effectively—searching for exactly the right prospects rather than casting too wide a net and wasting credits on poor-fit leads.

Best Practices for Using Apollo.io Effectively

Verify Before You Send

Even with Apollo's data, running emails through a verification service before launching campaigns protects your sender reputation. Invalid emails lead to bounces, which hurt deliverability across all your outreach.

Start with Your Most Targeted Segments

Don't burn through credits on broad searches. Begin with your highest-value, most-likely-to-convert segments. As you learn what works, expand gradually.

Layer Multiple Data Points

Use Apollo's advanced filters together. Combining job title + company size + technology usage + recent funding creates much more qualified lists than single-criteria searches.

Track and Iterate

Apollo's analytics show you open rates, reply rates, and sequence performance. Use this data to continuously refine your messaging and targeting.

Consider Supplementing with Other Tools

If you need verified mobile numbers, our Mobile Number Finder can help you locate direct dial numbers for prospects you've identified. Using specialized tools for specific data points often yields better accuracy than relying on one platform for everything.

Final Verdict

Apollo.io is a genuinely capable B2B sales platform that delivers significant value for teams looking to consolidate their prospecting and outreach tools. The combination of a large contact database, built-in sequencing, and CRM functionality makes it a practical choice for growing sales organizations.

However, the credit-based pricing means your actual costs may exceed the advertised rates, especially if you're prospecting at scale or need mobile phone numbers. Data accuracy, while generally good, varies enough that you should plan for some verification work.

If you're currently using separate tools for lead data, email sequencing, and calling, Apollo could simplify your stack and potentially save money. If you need pinpoint accuracy on contact data or unlimited access without credit constraints, you may want to evaluate alternatives or supplement Apollo with specialized tools.

The smart approach: start with Apollo's free plan to test the data quality in your specific market, estimate your credit consumption based on realistic prospecting volumes, and factor in the true total cost before committing to an annual contract.