lemlist vs Apollo

A note first: I founded Reachkit, a cold email tool that competes with both. Every lemlist and Apollo price on this page was checked in October 2026 on their own pricing and help pages.

lemlist and Apollo both sell lead data and send sequences now, but each is strongest at the end it started from: Apollo is a B2B database with sequences, calling and AI agents wrapped around it, lemlist a multichannel sequencer that added a lead database later. My verdict: if building the list is your bottleneck, Apollo is the better data tool, with lead credits in every paid seat; if working the list across email and LinkedIn is, lemlist automates more of the touches.

Pick Apollo if:

• You want verified emails and phone numbers included with every seat, plus intent, technology and funding filters.
• You want deals, meetings, calls and call recording in the same app as your data.
• You want to start free: Apollo’s Free plan has no end date.

Pick lemlist if:

• Your sequences need automated LinkedIn steps, SMS or WhatsApp next to email and calls.
• You personalize heavily, with conditional text, custom images or a landing page per lead.
• You already have leads and a whole team sends: lemlist’s Email plan was $69 a month in October 2026 for unlimited users and senders.

Figures as of October 2026: US dollars, monthly billing, from lemlist’s and Apollo’s own pricing and help pages.

Apollo is the stronger data tool, and its pricing shows it: credits come with every seat. Apollo’s own count is 240M+ contacts across 30M companies, from a 2M+ contributor network, web crawls and third-party vendors, plus Bombora intent data since June 2026. A paid seat brings 2,500 credits a month on Basic or 4,000 on Professional; one credit buys a verified email, eight a mobile number.

lemlist added data later and sells it on top. Its pricing page advertises a 650M+ lead database (its help center says 450M+), and finding plus verifying an email costs 5 credits, charged only for deliverable or risky results. The Email plan includes no credits, Multichannel 400 per user a month, and packs started at $20 for 2,000 credits a month in October 2026.

That’s about 3 to 5 cents per email on lemlist’s subscription packs, against 1.5 to 2.5 cents per Apollo add-on credit. Apollo’s pages disagree on what an email costs, though: its credits page says it “never charges more than 1 credit per contact”, while its developer docs say waterfall lookups (trying outside sources in turn) typically take 1 to 4 credits, up to 10 cents, so lemlist can come out cheaper per email. Mobile numbers cost 8 credits on Apollo and 20 on lemlist, with no credits back for a wrong one on either.

Apollo’s help center puts accuracy at 91% for emails it marks verified, and refunds the credit if you email one through Apollo within 30 days of getting it and it bounces. lemlist publishes no accuracy figure I could find.

lemlist automates more channels inside one sequence, while Apollo leaves its LinkedIn steps to a person. On lemlist’s Multichannel plan ($109 per user a month in October 2026), one sequence can mix LinkedIn profile visits, invites, messages, voice notes and InMails with dialer calls and texts, and branch on how the lead responds. Texts need a lemlist number at $15 a month plus credits per message, and WhatsApp is a $20-per-user add-on (both October 2026).

Personalization goes deep too, with Liquid conditions in the copy and a custom image or landing page for each lead.

Apollo sequences mix automatic emails with tasks. Calls use Apollo’s dialer, from Basic up, at 2 credits a minute in the US. LinkedIn steps are reminders by design: under a “Not a Bot” note, Apollo’s help center says they “need to be manually completed”, so a rep copies the message, opens the profile and marks the task done.

lemlist’s catch is the plan split: the $69 Email plan (October 2026) has no LinkedIn, call or WhatsApp steps, and moving up to Multichannel means asking support or starting a new team. Multichannel also allows one person per seat, so a second sender persona needs a second seat.

Both sell ready-made sending inboxes, lemlist in dollars and Apollo in credits. lemlist sells a domain with Google or Outlook mailboxes from $10 a month each, or SMTP ones from $5 (October 2026), sets up the authentication records (SPF, DKIM and DMARC) and is usually done in 2 to 4 hours. Apollo has sold domains and mailboxes since September 2025, at 1,500 credits a year per domain plus 800 a month per Google Workspace mailbox or 1,500 per Microsoft 365 one, with authentication handled.

Warmup is where costs part ways. lemwarm comes with every lemlist plan and taps a 20,000+ domain network; you start it per mailbox, and lemlist’s guide plans about 40 days of ramp and 14 of stabilization before campaigns. Apollo outsources warmup to Warmbox, covers one mailbox per seat, charges 200 credits a month for each extra one, and suggests six weeks before cold sending from mailboxes bought there.

• Guardrails: Apollo pauses sequences at 6% bounces by default, blocks risky catch-all addresses and runs weekly blocklist checks on paid plans.
• Monitoring: lemlist gives every plan a Deliverability Hub with alerts and DNS checks, and placement tests at 100 credits each. Apollo’s tests cost no credits, though some providers were unavailable in October 2026.
• Volume: lemlist’s guides allow 25 to 40 emails a day per warm mailbox, Apollo’s 20 to 50 to start.
• Tracking: lemlist’s default is to track opens and clicks, which now requires your own tracking domain; Apollo’s tracking needs Professional and is switched on per user.

Apollo puts more of a rep’s day into one app, while lemlist stays closer to outreach. Apollo’s unified inbox is on every plan, and by default a reply ends the contact’s sequence while an out-of-office reply pauses it; the inbox can also group replies by sentiment, and Apollo’s AI writer drafts responses. Around it sit a meeting scheduler, call recording, deals and workflows.

lemlist’s AI tags reply intent and spots out-of-office replies, and lemAgent writes draft answers for you to approve. lemlist has a unified inbox too, though its own pages disagree on whether the Email plan includes it, and meetings go through lemcal, a separate app.

Seats split them most. Apollo bills every seat and keeps all seats on the same plan, while lemlist’s Email plan has no per-user price; Multichannel does.

Agencies hit limits on both. lemlist recommends a separate team per client, each on its own subscription, and has separate terms for resellers. Apollo’s terms rule out using the platform “on behalf of any person or entity other than you”, though agencies in its partner program can get a seat in each client’s own account.

Both sell AI agents now, and both keep a person approving the work. Apollo added agents in September 2026 on its Professional and Organization tiers, which prospect, draft sequences and rework underperforming ones on a schedule while you sign off on each action. lemAgent, included on all paid lemlist plans, can research leads, set up campaigns, write copy and draft replies, checking with you at each step, and lemlist also markets signal, enrichment and messaging agents.

Each has an official MCP server on all plans (MCP is how AI assistants like Claude or ChatGPT get hands-on access to another app). Apollo’s runs even on Free, though prospecting its database needs a paid plan, and plugs into Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, Perplexity and Replit. lemlist’s exposes 40+ tools to Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and Grok.

Both offer a REST API on every plan, though Apollo’s pricing FAQ contradicts its developer docs on that. lemlist’s API includes webhooks; I couldn’t find reply or bounce webhooks in Apollo’s docs, though its workflows can send one. Both sync two ways with Salesforce and HubSpot; lemlist adds Attio and Close, Apollo adds Microsoft Dynamics.

lemlist is cheaper when you bring your own leads, and Apollo usually is once you need them found, if most emails come from its own data at 1 credit each. Two standard setups, at October 2026 monthly list prices:

• Setup A (solo founder): one user sending about 4,000 emails a month from 10 inboxes across 5 domains, adding roughly 1,500 new prospects.
• Setup B (agency or growing team): three users, 60 inboxes across 20 domains, around 25,000 emails and 10,000 new prospects monthly.

Assumptions: Google inboxes; each new prospect needs one verified email bought from the tool’s own database (5 credits on lemlist, 1 on Apollo); Apollo’s extra credits shown as a range because it doesn’t say how its tiers apply; lemlist’s domains left out because it doesn’t publish their price. At the 2 credits an email that Apollo’s own calculator assumes with waterfall, Apollo’s totals rise by about $20 to $30 (A) and $140 to $160 (B), and lemlist wins both B rows.

On lemlist the money goes on data: Setup A needs the $94 pack of 10,000 credits and Setup B the $441 pack of 50,000 (October 2026), and unused credits roll over. On Apollo it goes on seats and infrastructure, at 800 credits a month per bought mailbox and 200 per extra warmup slot, which is why lemlist leads Setup B with bought inboxes by $145 to $180 a month before its domain fees.

With your own list as well, lemlist’s Email plan stays $69 (October 2026) for either setup, against $99 and $297 for Apollo’s Professional seats. LinkedIn steps on lemlist’s Multichannel plan, at $109 per user plus $9 per sender past five (October 2026), bring the bought-inbox setups to about $348 and $1,773 before domains. Reachkit’s figures assume you prune contacts: Growth’s 5,000 fill in about month four, Scale’s first tier of 25,000 in about 11 weeks.

Both rate highly, and Apollo has about four times as many G2 reviews. In October 2026, Apollo’s G2 page showed 4.7 out of 5 from about 9,800 reviews and lemlist’s 4.6 from more than 2,300. Capterra had lemlist at 4.6 from 387 reviews and Apollo at 4.5 from 398.

Apollo scores lower on Trustpilot, 3.1 from about 1,360 reviews, against 4.7 from about 250 for lemlist.

In G2’s AI summaries, Apollo reviewers praise its verified-contact database, outreach automation and Salesforce connection; lemlist reviewers praise its ease of use, personalized automation and Gmail and LinkedIn connections.

The complaints mirror the starting points:

• Apollo: data quality and credits. A Capterra reviewer calls the reliability of its email addresses the biggest concern, and one Trustpilot review says “Credits get consumed unpredictably…” (Apollo answered publicly and gave the credits back). A post in an Apollo-focused subreddit puts its verified-email hard bounces at about 2.5% on average.
• lemlist: credit cost and the interface. G2’s summary flags the credit system as expensive, the interface as confusing at times and AI message writing as underdeveloped. A reviewer who ran lemlist with other tools for six months calls deliverability stable.

If you mainly need cold email that keeps landing, there’s a third route, the one I build. Reachkit is email only, with no LinkedIn, calls or phone numbers, where both tools above go further. What it does differently:

• One flat price per workspace, no seat fees. Growth is $39 a month with 1,000 verified-lead credits; Scale, from $99, adds the CRM, REST API, webhooks and integrations.
• Inboxes handled for you. Reachkit registers new domains at $15 a year, creates Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 inboxes at $5 a month each, and starts AI-written warmup on its own.
• Defaults that start slow. A new inbox sends 3 campaign emails on day one and climbs by 3 a day to 20, open tracking is off by default, CSV imports are verified by default, and a campaign pauses above 5% bounces.

It has no placement tests and no Salesforce sync, and its AI labels replies rather than drafting them. See how Reachkit compares with lemlist and how it compares with Apollo.

Switching is mostly a lead export and a sequence rebuild.

• Leads. lemlist exports leads as CSV per campaign, and unsubscribes through its API. Apollo exports saved contacts without spending credits, and lemlist lists an Apollo import among its integrations.
• Mailboxes you own. Reconnect them by Google or Microsoft sign-in. Reputation stays with the mailbox and domain, so switch off the old tool’s warmup first.
• Mailboxes you bought. A domain bought in lemlist can go to another registrar once its 60-day lock ends, though the Workspace subscription can’t follow it. Apollo ties access to an active plan and credits, and documents no transfer out.
• Sequences. Rebuild by hand. lemlist’s Liquid conditions and custom images won’t carry over, and Apollo’s LinkedIn tasks become automated steps only on lemlist’s Multichannel plan.

Time it with your renewal: Apollo’s yearly plans auto-renew without written notice at least 30 days ahead, and lemlist keeps fees for any month or year already started.

I’d decide this by asking where your outbound gets stuck. If it’s the list, Apollo is the better pick: data is what it was built for, and the credits come with the seat. If it’s the follow-through, and LinkedIn matters in your market, lemlist does that work for you where Apollo hands you a task list. For email at volume, both make you pay somewhere: lemlist for data, Apollo for every seat and every extra inbox you warm. That’s the case Reachkit is built for, and its 30-day trial needs no card.

More: Reachkit vs lemlist, Reachkit vs Apollo, Instantly or lemlist, Instantly or Apollo and Apollo or Clay for data.