Apollo.io is a sales platform that combines a B2B contact database with email sequences, a dialer, call recording, AI research and deal management. The free plan gives each seat 75 credits a month, two sequences and basic filters, with no time limit. Basic costs $49 per seat a month billed yearly, or $65 monthly. Professional costs $79, or $99 monthly, and adds AI lead scoring, A/Z testing and 4,000 minutes of call recording. Organization costs $119 per seat on yearly billing only, for at least three seats. An email address costs 1 credit and a phone number 8. Credits are pooled across the team and expire at the end of each billing cycle.
Reviewed by EdGrows·Updated Oct 4, 2026This analysis is based on documentation, public user reports, and vendor materials — not yet on our own hands-on testing. How we rate
Apollo's free plan is generous enough that some founders never leave it, and its paid plans are cheap next to enterprise sales platforms. Before paying, though, it's worth understanding the credit system. Credits, more than the plan name, decide how many people you can actually reach.
At its core, Apollo is a large B2B contact database with the tools to use it. You search for companies and people, reveal their email addresses and phone numbers, then reach them through email sequences or the built-in dialer. Around that sit call recording, website visitor identification, enrichment for your CRM and, in 2026, a growing set of AI features and agents.
Prices per seat on yearly billing, the only way to buy Organization. Monthly billing costs more. Captured October 3, 2026.
| Free | Basic | Professional | Organization | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Per seat a month, billed yearly | $0 | $49 | $79 | $119, three seats minimum |
| Per seat, billed monthly | $0 | $65 | $99 | Yearly only |
| Credits | 75 a month | 30,000 a year upfront, or 2,500 a month | 48,000 a year, or 4,000 a month | 72,000 a year |
| Sequences | 2 | Unlimited | Unlimited, with A/Z testing | Unlimited, with A/Z testing |
| Call recording | 150 minutes | 150 minutes | 4,000 minutes, with AI insights | 8,000 minutes |
| Intent topics | 1 | 6 | 6 | 12 |
| Also included | Basic filters, extensions | Email warmup, CRM integrations, 5 automated workflows | AI lead scoring, agents, analytics | Everything in Professional, unlimited meeting events |
Yearly billing saves 24% and grants the full year's credits on day one. Basic and Professional both come with a 14-day trial that includes 75 credits. Custom plans add SSO, advanced security and dedicated support.
| Action | Cost |
|---|---|
| Email address | 1 credit |
| Phone number | 8 credits |
| Enrichment | 1 to 8 credits |
| AI research | 1 credit per run |
| US dialer | 1 credit per 30 seconds |
Apollo's credit costs on October 3, 2026. International calling varies by region.
The arithmetic is worth doing before you buy. Basic's 2,500 monthly credits reveal 2,500 email addresses, or about 300 phone numbers. The free plan's 75 credits cover 75 emails or nine phone numbers. Teams that need phone numbers more than email addresses burn through credits about eight times faster.
Credits are pooled across the whole team and granted at the start of each billing cycle. Admins can set caps per user so one person doesn't drain the pool. Unused credits expire when the cycle ends, and that applies to purchased add-on credits too. Extra credits are bought with a slider in the subscription settings, charged immediately and usable until the end of the current period.
Every seat must be on the same plan. If one rep needs Professional for call recording and AI scoring, the whole team pays for Professional. Apollo's own advice is to pick the plan your most demanding users need.
Switching is lopsided too. You can move from monthly to yearly billing at any time, and payments already made count toward the year. Going the other way means cancelling and waiting for the yearly plan to expire, because mid-cycle downgrades on yearly plans aren't allowed. Downgrades on monthly plans take effect immediately, without a refund for the unused part of the month, and cancellations take effect at the end of the term.
A contact list is only half of outbound. Cold email at volume needs warmed-up mailboxes and separate sending domains, or messages end up in spam. From Basic upward, Apollo includes a deliverability suite with email warmup and lets you buy domains and mailboxes inside the product. Professional adds unlimited connected Gmail and Microsoft mailboxes, which helps teams that spread sending across several accounts.
Apollo's homepage now pitches it as an agentic system that works where you already work, naming Apollo, Claude and ChatGPT. Every plan gets AI research, pre-meeting insights and an AI assistant, which is limited to five chats on the free plan. Professional adds AI lead scoring and agents, and pairs its 4,000 minutes of call recording with AI insights on each call.
As with any AI research on contact data, check what it tells you before you send it to a prospect. A wrong job title in the first line of an email undoes the personalization it was meant to add.
Sales tools tend to do one of three jobs: find contacts, send to them or track the deals that follow. Apollo tries to cover all three, while specialists go deeper on one. Clay pulls data from many providers into enrichment workflows you design yourself. Lemlist, Instantly and Smartlead are built for sending and often sit next to a separate database. HubSpot starts from the CRM, and Outreach and Salesloft are enterprise platforms sold by quote. The AI sales tools guide maps who does what.
Apollo's strength is having all of it in one place at a price a two-person startup can afford. The free plan is the place to measure how many contacts you reveal in a typical week. Then buy the plan whose credits cover that number.
Each seat gets 75 credits a month, two sequences, basic search filters and the Chrome, Gmail and Salesforce extensions. It also includes 100 CRM enrichments a month, 150 minutes of call recording and a limited AI assistant. The plan is free with no time limit, and accounts drop to it when a paid trial ends without an upgrade.
Credits pay for data and some actions. An email address costs 1 credit, a phone number 8, enrichment 1 to 8, and an AI research run 1; the US dialer uses 1 credit per 30 seconds. Paid plans grant credits upfront each billing cycle and pool them across the team. Unused credits, including purchased add-ons, expire when the cycle ends.
Basic and Professional come with a 14-day trial that includes 75 credits and most features of the chosen plan. When it ends, you either pay or move to the free plan.
No. Every seat on an account is on the same plan, so a team with one heavy user and several light ones pays the higher plan for everyone. Apollo suggests choosing the plan your most demanding users need, or asking sales about a custom plan.
Yearly saves 24%: Basic drops from $65 to $49 a seat a month and Professional from $99 to $79. It also grants the whole year's credits upfront. The catch is commitment. You can switch from monthly to yearly at any time, but leaving a yearly plan means waiting for it to run out.
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