Apollo.io vs Prospeo
An independent, review-free comparison compiled by the SaaSTracker editorial team. Both products are profiled in full, and neither can pay for placement here.
The short answer
Editorial assessmentProspeo compared with Apollo.io
Apollo is the incumbent value platform: a bigger ecosystem, bundled sequencing and dialing, and famously loose data quality at the record level. Prospeo is data-only but consistently scores higher on verified-email accuracy in head-to-head finder tests, at credit prices even Apollo undercuts only via its unlimited-tier marketing. Teams that want one platform for data plus outreach take Apollo; teams that keep outreach elsewhere and just want cleaner records per dollar take Prospeo.
Choose Apollo.io if
Startups and SMB sales teams that want the largest self-serve contact database and outreach execution in one affordable product.
Choose Prospeo if
Cost-conscious founders, outbound agencies, and small-to-mid sales teams that want a genuine searchable database with verified emails and mobile numbers, plus AI-assisted list building, at the lowest credible price in the category, especially US and EU targeted motions.
Side by side
13 attributes| Attribute | Apollo.io | Prospeo |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Data | Data |
| Starting price | Free plan; paid from $49/user/mo (free plan available) | $0 (Free, 100 credits/mo); paid from $37/mo per user billed yearly (free plan available) |
| Pricing model | Freemium with per-user monthly tiers; credits meter email reveals (generous) and phone/export credits (tighter). Self-serve through Organization tier; custom above. | Credit-based freemium subscription: 1 credit per verified email revealed or exported (0 if no email is found), 10 credits per mobile number, 1 credit per full company record. Monthly or yearly per-user billing, with yearly discounted 25% and the full annual credit pool deposited upfront. Credits reset each cycle with no rollover; top-up add-ons start at 1,000 credits for $10. |
| Free plan | Free forever: limited credits, 2 sequences, basic filters. | 100 credits/month with no time limit, 28 search filters, 3 intent topics, AI Search, 5 AI Lookalike searches, Personas, and the Chrome extension. |
| Free trial | 14 days (of paid features) | No |
| Best for | Startups and SMB sales teams that want the largest self-serve contact database and outreach execution in one affordable product. | Cost-conscious founders, outbound agencies, and small-to-mid sales teams that want a genuine searchable database with verified emails and mobile numbers, plus AI-assisted list building, at the lowest credible price in the category, especially US and EU targeted motions. |
| Setup time | Minutes to first list on free tier; a week to wire CRM enrichment rules and team sequences properly. | Minutes to first list on the free plan; the extension is a Web Store install and CRM sync on Growth is an OAuth flow. No deployment project exists at any tier. |
| Learning curve | Low for prospecting; moderate for admin surface (credit policies, enrichment rules, plays). | Low for basic search and reveals; moderate to exploit the full filter set, intent topics, and ICP detection well. AI Search flattens the curve for non-specialists. |
| Platforms | Web app, Chrome extension, iOS app, REST API | Web app, Chrome extension, REST API, Google Sheets add-on, MCP server |
| Compliance | SOC 2 Type II, GDPR program, CCPA | GDPR, CCPA opt-out and do-not-sell handling |
| Founded | 2015 | 2022 |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, California, US | Toronto, Ontario, Canada (French-founded, incorporated in Canada) |
| Ownership | Venture-backed (private) | Privately held, founder-led; no institutional funding disclosed |
Strengths and limitations
Apollo.io
Strengths
- Unmatched self-serve coverage-per-dollar; the price floor of the entire category.
- Data + engagement in one product removes the export/import loop entirely.
- Free tier and transparent pricing make evaluation frictionless.
- Enrichment/dedupe layer quietly excellent for CRM hygiene.
Limitations
- Direct-dial accuracy trails phone specialists (Lusha, Cognism) in many segments.
- Engagement layer lacks enterprise governance, CI depth, and forecasting.
- Credit mechanics (phone/export) complicate the headline pricing.
- EU data compliance posture is workable but not the selling point Cognism makes it.
Prospeo
Strengths
- The best price-to-database ratio in the category: a genuine 280M-record, 41-filter database with intent topics and technographics at prices that undercut even fellow challengers.
- Honest reveal economics: 1 credit per verified email, 0 for misses and duplicates, with a permanent 100-credit free plan that lets buyers verify accuracy in their own ICP before paying.
- Independent finder benchmarks repeatedly place Prospeo's coverage and accuracy at or near the top for US and EU contacts, consistent with its 98% claim there.
- AI Search, Lookalikes, and Personas make the database usable by people who will never learn a 41-filter query builder, and they ship on the free tier.
Limitations
- No credit rollover on monthly plans; unused credits expire every cycle, the harshest expiry policy among its direct competitors.
- Accuracy is region-skewed: excellent in the US and EU, but independent testing reports APAC accuracy falling to roughly 60%, and niche non-tech verticals are thinner.
- Bulk jobs against low-match segments burn budget on the 10-credit mobile side and can disappoint on match rates; third-party tests of large cold Sales Navigator lists have reported very low bulk match rates, so test your segment on the free tier before industrial runs.
- Support is a recurring complaint in user reviews, slow and inconsistent under load, which is the predictable cost of the price point and team size.
Pricing compared
Apollo.io
Freemium with per-user monthly tiers; credits meter email reveals (generous) and phone/export credits (tighter). Self-serve through Organization tier; custom above.
- Free$0
- Basic$49
- Professional$79
- Organization$119
Nothing matches Apollo's coverage-per-dollar; it reset the category's price floor and forced legacy vendors into defensive bundling. The honest caveats: dial accuracy trails specialists, and heavy exporters discover credits are the true price. As a first data stack or a waterfall's volume layer, it remains the obvious call.
Prospeo
Credit-based freemium subscription: 1 credit per verified email revealed or exported (0 if no email is found), 10 credits per mobile number, 1 credit per full company record. Monthly or yearly per-user billing, with yearly discounted 25% and the full annual credit pool deposited upfront. Credits reset each cycle with no rollover; top-up add-ons start at 1,000 credits for $10.
- Free$0
- Starter$49/mo monthly, or $37/mo billed yearly ($441/yr)
- Growth$99/mo monthly, or $74/mo billed yearly ($888/yr)
- Pro$249/mo monthly, or $187/mo billed yearly ($2,241/yr)
On raw price per verified email, Prospeo is close to unbeatable among tools with a real database: about 1.8 cents on yearly Starter and 1.2 cents on yearly Pro, versus roughly 44 cents and up per credit at UpLead, and it charges nothing on misses. The full-year upfront credit deposit makes yearly plans quietly more flexible than the no-rollover policy suggests. The discipline required is knowing the discounts' edges: mobiles are 10x, expired credits are gone, APAC accuracy drops off, and a $10-per-1,000 top-up culture can mask overspend on low-match bulk jobs. For US/EU email-led motions, capability per dollar is the category benchmark; for phone-led, APAC, or enterprise-governed motions, the cheap credits are answering the wrong question.
Editorial verdict on each
Apollo.io
Category LeaderApollo is the gravitational center of self-serve B2B data: coverage that reset the market's price floor, fused to an engagement layer that genuinely eliminates the export loop for SMBs. Its honest weaknesses, dial accuracy, credit fine print, mid-depth engagement, haven't slowed the flywheel because nothing else offers this much stack per dollar. Start here; add specialists only where measurement says Apollo falls short.
Read the full Apollo.io profileProspeo
Prospeo is the price-performance benchmark of the new B2B data generation: a real database with intent, technographic, and AI-assisted search at one to two cents per verified email, a permanently free on-ramp, and reveal economics that never charge for a miss. Against ZoomInfo-class contracts the value gap is absurd; even against fellow challengers it usually wins on pure cost per record. The bill for that positioning is paid in edges: expiring credits, 10x mobile costs, APAC accuracy that falls off a cliff, thin support, and no enterprise security story. Buy Prospeo as the high-volume, US/EU email-data engine of a cost-disciplined stack, verify your specific segment on the free plan first, and pair it with a deliverability-first verifier when your lists skew toward hard catch-all domains.
Read the full Prospeo profileApollo.io profile last reviewed 2026-08-22; Prospeo last reviewed 2026-08-22. Pricing is compiled from public sources and can change without notice. See our methodology.