Apollo
List buildFind people, unlock contacts, and send from one seat. Source here. Enrich hard misses elsewhere.
The verdict
Source in Apollo, then enrich the hard misses elsewhere. It is fine as a find-enrich-send seat when nobody on the team wires their own provider keys in a row (bring-your-own-key waterfall: you plug in several finders and they try in order until one hits). Watch phone credits.
Paying to unlock a mobile so you can see it burns eight times an email credit. Export credits are a separate fee when contacts leave via CSV or CRM. Organization needs three seats, so $119 reads as $357 a month before a single credit burns.
What operators say
“Apollo goes first - not because it's the best, but because it's the cheapest per-credit... easy 60% before you spend real money on the hard 40%. ... Track cost-per-valid-contact, not cost-per-lead.”
“A 400-person target list I ran through FullEnrich came back with verified emails for 91 percent... Apollo alone returned 63 percent on the same list.”
“If you need a LOT of data... C tier... Apollo - only for listbuilding ... BetterContact (if Clay credits are not enough) then LeadMagic, Prospeo”
Best for
Teams that want one seat for sourcing plus sequences, volume list pulls, and mid-market SDR work without standing up a separate enrichment stack on day one.
Not for
Skip if you need an API that only runs providers in a row, agency miss-equals-zero cascade pricing, or if you were about to make Apollo your only enrichment layer.
Pricing truth
Free is 900 credits per seat per year. Basic is $49 per user per month annual with 30k credits a year. Professional is $79 with 48k. Organization is $119 with a three-seat minimum, so $357 a month floor, and 72k credits a year. Email is 1 credit when verified. Phone is 8. Export credits (a fee when the contact leaves) burn on CSV, CRM, or sync. Multi-provider email runs typically 1 to 4 credits (can 20+). Phone runs typically 8 to 25 (can 45+). Credits do not roll over. Annual unlocks the year on day one. Paying Unlimited is Fair Use: lesser of dollars paid / $0.025 or 1M credits per account per year. CSV uploads over 50k rows turn off multi-source provider runs.
When we use it
- Build ICP lists fast and run sequences from the same seat.
- Catch easy emails first, then cascade only the misses through other finders.
- Source here, then enrich the high-value slice of the list outside Apollo.
- Export verified contacts and send through Smartlead once mailbox volume outgrows Apollo.
How to wire it
- Pull your ICP, export verified-only rows, and enrich the misses elsewhere.
- Unlock email first at 1 credit so you can see it. Gate mobiles at 8 credits until the row is dial-ready.
- Test multi-provider runs on 50 to 100 rows before a 10k phone push that can exceed yearly allotments.
- Export green-check only, check again, then push into Smartlead when send volume is the bottleneck.
Margin notes
- Org sticker is $119 with a 3-seat floor, so $357 a month before credits.
- Export credits are a separate fee when contacts leave Apollo for a sender.
- Phone multi-provider runs can cost 8 to 25 credits per row. Some misses still bill.
- Chrome extension is the LinkedIn one-by-one path. Still gate phones.
- Hand off volume send to Smartlead. Keep Apollo as the source seat.