Apollo alternatives

Reachkit makes a competing cold email tool. Every price here was checked in October 2026 against the vendor’s own pages.

Apollo does two jobs in one subscription: it sells B2B contact data, and it sends sequences from your mailboxes. People who switch usually want one of those two jobs done differently. So start with the job:

• Enterprise data and buying intent, on a yearly contract: ZoomInfo.
• European contacts with phone-verified mobiles: Cognism.
• Self-serve contacts with direct dials and a free plan: Lusha.
• Paying only for emails that pass verification: UpLead.
• Finding more contacts by chaining many data providers: Clay.
• Looking up emails by company domain, with light sending: Hunter.
• Cold email at volume on one flat price, inboxes set up for you: Reachkit (our product).
• A fixed monthly bundle of inboxes, leads and sending: ListKit.

One caveat before you switch. If your team lives on the phone, Apollo’s built-in dialer and its two-way Salesforce and HubSpot sync are hard to replace with any single tool on this list.

If you used Apollo mainly for data, entries 1 to 5 are for you.

ZoomInfo is the data platform big sales and marketing teams buy when they want depth. It claims 500M+ contacts and 100M+ companies, plus intent data across 4,500+ topics that shows which accounts are researching what.

Price (October 2026): the main product is quote only, priced per seat, and sold as a prepaid yearly contract you can’t cancel mid-term. Vendr’s data (February 2026) puts the median at $33,500 a year across 1,577 purchases. ZoomInfo’s own FAQ denies the often-repeated claim that it starts at $15,000. Two cheaper doors exist: a pay-as-you-go GTM.AI plan (free starter credits, then from $20, no seat fees) and ZoomInfo Lite, free with 10 credits a month.

Strengths:

• Intent, technographics and org charts in one place, built for account-based selling.
• Its license terms include an accuracy remedy: if over 5% of contacts aren’t at the stated company, ZoomInfo has 30 days to fix it, or you may terminate with a prorated refund.

Drawbacks:

• Contracts renew automatically unless you opt out within your contract’s notice window. Third parties put it at 30 to 90 days, most often 60. It’s a recurring complaint.
• Reviewers on Trustpilot and G2 report outdated contacts. Lite’s terms say you contribute inbox data, such as signatures and contacts, in exchange.

Versus Apollo: deeper intent data and contractual remedies, but a bigger commitment. Apollo lets you start free and pay monthly per seat. ZoomInfo profile

Cognism is a B2B data provider built around EMEA coverage and phone numbers. Its “Diamond Data” set covers 10m+ contacts whose mobiles were checked by phone, and it screens numbers against do-not-call lists in 16 countries.

Price (October 2026): Standard and Pro packages, each with 5 seats included, and the price comes from sales. There’s no free plan or self-serve trial, only a free data sample. Third-party write-ups citing Vendr put the median between roughly $33,000 and $36,000 a year; the two sources disagree. One credit reveals one contact, and you aren’t charged again for that contact unless they change jobs.

Strengths:

• Phone-verified mobiles and do-not-call screening for teams calling into Europe.
• Bombora intent data on Pro, plus an API and an MCP server (the standard that lets AI assistants such as Claude or ChatGPT use the account) on the new packages.

Drawbacks:

• Coverage outside Europe is a common complaint next to its European depth.
• Yearly contracts; third parties report auto-renewal with a 60 to 90 day notice window.

Versus Apollo: pricier and sales-led, but stronger where Apollo users often struggle, on European mobiles. Apollo stays the cheaper way to try data before a sales call. Cognism profile

Lusha is a contact database you mostly use through a browser extension on LinkedIn, CRMs and company sites. It claims 515M+ verified contacts and 29M+ companies, and it’s known for direct phone numbers.

Price (October 2026): Free gives 40 credits a month with no card. Starter is $49.90 a month (or $449.10 a year) for 400 credits and 1 seat. Pro starts at $69.90 a month with 600 credits and 2 seats; Premium starts at $399.90 with 3,400 credits and 5 seats. An email costs 1 credit, a phone number 5.

Strengths:

• Published prices and a permanent free plan that includes CRM integrations and the MCP server.
• Monthly paid plans roll unused credits over, up to twice the monthly amount, per Lusha’s FAQ and docs.

Drawbacks:

• Credits run out fast if you reveal many phones, a pattern in reviews.
• Accuracy outside the US and UK draws complaints, per third-party summaries of G2 and Capterra.

Versus Apollo: a phone number costs 5 Lusha credits against 8 Apollo credits, though credit prices differ. Lusha’s own sender, Engage, sends from Gmail or Outlook, up to 1,000 emails per user a day. Lusha profile

UpLead is a B2B contact database that checks each email in real time when you reveal it. Its May 2026 release notes put the database at 208.5M contacts.

Price (October 2026): Essentials is $99 a month, or $74 a month billed yearly, for 170 credits. Plus is $199, or $149 yearly, for 400 credits. Professional is quote only. One credit buys one contact with email and phone numbers together. The 7-day trial gives 5 credits and rolls into a yearly Essentials plan unless you cancel.

Strengths:

• “Valid Only” mode skips invalid emails so you aren’t charged for them, and UpLead’s About page promises credits back if accuracy falls below 95%.
• Email and phones in a single credit, with no separate mobile price.

Drawbacks:

• Credits are use-it-or-lose-it, and Free, Essentials and Plus are single-user.
• Its terms ask for 60 days’ notice before auto-renewal without naming a plan; its help center applies that to annual plans and lets monthly plans cancel anytime. There’s no sender in the product, only a separate done-for-you email service.

Versus Apollo: fewer contacts per dollar, but each one passes a check first and comes with its phones. You’d pair it with a separate sending tool. UpLead profile

Clay is a spreadsheet-like workspace that asks many data providers in turn until one returns a match, called waterfall enrichment. Clay’s pages give the provider count as 150+, 200+ or 250+, depending on the page. Its AI agent, Claygent, researches accounts on the web.

Price (October 2026): Free has 100 data credits and 500 actions. Clay’s pricing FAQ puts Launch at $185 a month with 2,500 data credits and 15,000 actions, while the plan card on the same page shows $167, 3K credits and lower “starts at” prices. Growth is $495 a month per the FAQ ($446 on the card) and adds CRM sync, the HTTP API and bought inboxes. Every plan has unlimited seats, and the trial runs 14 days.

Strengths:

• Coverage from many providers in one table, and Clay’s FAQ says an enrichment that returns nothing costs no credits.
• Unlimited seats, plus an MCP server and many native sender integrations.

Drawbacks:

• A steep learning curve, per G2’s review summary, and credit use that G2 reviewers call hard to predict.
• Its Sequencer, generally available since September 1, 2026, runs on Smartlead, sends email only and is aimed at ops teams.

Versus Apollo: Clay builds and enriches lists but has no dialer. Its native integrations push lists into senders such as Instantly, Smartlead and lemlist. Reachkit vs Clay, Apollo vs Clay, Clay profile

If you used Apollo mainly to send, entries 6 to 8 are for you.

Hunter finds and verifies email addresses from a company’s domain or a person’s name, and adds cold email campaigns on top.

Price (October 2026): Free has 50 credits and 1 connected inbox. Starter is $49 a month, or $34 a month yearly, with 2,000 credits and 3 email accounts. Growth is $149 ($104 yearly) with 10,000 credits and 10 accounts; Scale is $299 ($209 yearly). Extra account slots cost $10 a month. Hunter sells Google-only managed inboxes at $6 a month and warmup at $7.50 per account a month.

Strengths:

• Unlimited users, and lookups that find nothing don’t cost a credit.
• Native HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive and Zoho integrations, with MCP on every plan.

Drawbacks:

• Little phone data: numbers appear only when Domain Search has them, with no mobile finder. In Clay’s own provider test, Hunter’s best entry scored high on quality but found an email for about 53% of contacts.
• Sending is capped by account slots (50 on self-serve), and there are no refunds.

Versus Apollo: narrower data and no dialer, but a free plan, unlimited users and no charge for failed lookups. Reachkit vs Hunter, Hunter profile

Reachkit is a cold email platform that sets up the sending side for you. You describe the campaign in a sentence and the AI drafts it, Lead Finder adds verified leads, and done-for-you Google or Microsoft inboxes come on lookalike domains registered and configured for you.

Price (October 2026): Growth is $39 a month, or $29 a month billed yearly, with 5,000 stored contacts, 15,000 campaign emails a month and 1,000 lead credits. Scale starts at $99 a month. No plan has seat fees, and connecting or warming your own inboxes carries no per-inbox fee. Done-for-you inboxes cost $5 each a month plus $15 per domain a year. The trial runs 30 days without a card.

Strengths:

• Cautious sending by default: 20 emails per inbox a day after a ramp, open tracking off, and High Bounce Protection pauses a campaign at 5% bounces.
• Leads are verified before they’re added, and the credit comes back when no verifiable email turns up. The MCP connector lets Claude or ChatGPT work in your account.

Drawbacks:

• Lead Finder sells verified emails: no phone numbers and no dialer. There’s no Salesforce or LinkedIn, and CRM sync and the API need Scale.
• New done-for-you inboxes need at least 3 weeks of warmup. At 1,500 new leads a month, Growth’s contact limit fills up in month 4.

Versus Apollo: one workspace price instead of seats, and inbox placement is the core job. Apollo keeps the edge on phones, calling and Salesforce. Reachkit vs Apollo

ListKit sells one all-in-one Bundle: lead data, domains, Google inboxes and sending, sold as a package rather than separate parts.

Price (October 2026): $597 a month per Bundle, which includes 1,000 emails a day, 10,000 credits, 20 domains and 40 Google inboxes. More capacity means more Bundles. Six months cost $3,223.80 and a year $6,089.40. There’s no free trial, and all payments are final.

Strengths:

• Pre-warmed .info domains that ListKit says are “usually ready within minutes”, or new .com domains if you’d rather warm them.
• A large claimed database (977M+ contacts) bundled into the same price as the inboxes.

Drawbacks:

• Credits expire after 60 days per the help center (its older terms still say 30), and warmup can’t be turned off.
• When a Bundle ends, its help center says domains and inboxes are deleted and “ListKit doesn’t transfer domains”, while its refund policy leaves transfers to ListKit’s discretion. There’s no public API or MCP yet.

Versus Apollo: the inboxes and 1,000 sends a day come inside the price, where Apollo charges credits for done-for-you mailboxes. The entry price is higher, and it isn’t built around calling. Reachkit vs ListKit, ListKit profile

Start by writing down what you actually used Apollo for last month. Then:

• You mostly pulled contacts and called them. Look at Lusha for self-serve phones, Cognism if your market is Europe, or ZoomInfo if a yearly contract is normal for your company. All three keep a phone-first workflow.
• Bounces were the problem. UpLead charges only for emails that verify; Clay tries several providers before giving up. Either way, verify again right before you send.
• You mostly sent sequences. Keep your data source and move sending to a tool built for it. If you want inboxes set up and a price that doesn’t grow with seats, compare Reachkit and ListKit. If you already run Instantly, Smartlead or lemlist, our head-to-heads cover Instantly vs Apollo, Smartlead vs Apollo and lemlist vs Apollo.
• You run outbound for clients. Apollo’s FAQ says sharing its data with customers or reselling it isn’t allowed under standard terms, so check each vendor’s terms for client work.

Before you leave a yearly Apollo plan, note that it auto-renews unless you give 30 days’ notice, and it isn’t refundable.

I build a cold email tool, so weigh this with that in mind. Apollo is a good database with a sender attached. The people I’d tell to leave are the ones who mostly send: you’re paying per seat for a database, and inboxes and warmup become extras paid in credits.

If you call prospects, stay with Apollo or move to Lusha or Cognism, and don’t let anyone sell you a cold email tool as a dialer. If you send, split the jobs. Keep the data source you trust and give sending to a tool that treats it as the main job. Whichever you pick, run one real campaign during the trial before you sign anything yearly.