Apollo.io Pricing Guide: Every Plan Explained (Free to Organization)
Apollo.io is one of the most widely used sales intelligence and engagement platforms in the B2B market — and it's one of the few tools at this level that actually offers a usable free tier. But understanding exactly what you get at each price point (and where the hidden costs kick in) takes some digging.
This guide breaks down every Apollo.io plan with exact prices, credit limits, feature caps, a head-to-head competitor pricing table, and actionable tips for getting the most value before you spend a cent.
Apollo.io Plan Overview: All Four Tiers
Apollo.io offers four pricing tiers as of 2026. Annual billing saves you approximately 20% across the paid plans.
| Plan | Monthly Price (per user) | Annual Price (per user/month) | Minimum Users |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | $0 | 1 |
| Basic | $59 | ~$47 | 1 |
| Professional | $99 | ~$79 | 1 |
| Organization | N/A (annual only) | $149 | 3 |
The Organization plan is billed annually only — there is no monthly billing option. At 3 users minimum, the entry cost is $149 × 3 = $447/month billed as $5,364/year upfront.
The Apollo.io Free Plan: What You Actually Get
The Free plan is permanent — not a trial — and it's more functional than most "freemium" tiers in the lead generation space. Here's the full breakdown of what's included:
Credits and Quotas
- Email credits: 10,000/month per account (unlimited in the sense that the cap resets monthly)
- Mobile credits: 5 per month — enough to test the feature, not to rely on it
- Export credits: 10 per month — this is the tightest limit on the free tier
- Email sending cap: 250 emails/day
- AI-assisted email writing: 10,000 words/month
- Conversations recording: 150 minutes (free trial basis)
Automation and Outreach
- Basic Sequence Automation with a limit of 2 active sequences
- 1 Play limit (Apollo's automated workflow feature)
- 1 Buying Intent topic (for intent-based prospecting)
Integrations Included on Free
- LinkedIn Extension
- Gmail Extension
- Email reply and meeting tracking
- Outreach and SalesLoft integration
- Zapier integration
- CSV export
- Limited API access
- Advanced Salesforce and HubSpot integration (bi-directional)
The bi-directional Salesforce and HubSpot sync on the free plan is a genuine standout — most competitors gate CRM integrations behind paid tiers. If your team is already using HubSpot Marketing Hub, you can connect Apollo.io to it without paying for either product at entry level.
Apollo.io Basic Plan ($59/user/month)
The Basic plan at $59/month (or ~$47/month billed annually) is the first paid tier and removes the most painful free plan constraints.
What's New vs. Free
- Mobile credits: 25/month (up from 5)
- Export credits: 250/month (up from 10 — a 25x increase)
- Sequences: No limit (up from 2)
- Bulk selection: Select up to 1,000 records at a time
- Uncapped email credits (minimum 10,000/month per account with higher ceiling)
- Advanced filters for more granular prospecting
The 10-export-credit cap on the free plan is intentionally restrictive. Upgrading to Basic is the minimum requirement for any team doing real outbound prospecting at volume.
Apollo.io Professional Plan ($99/user/month)
The Professional plan at $99/month (~$79/month annually) adds:
- Comprehensive reporting and analytics dashboards
- Significantly increased credit limits across mobile and export
- Full access to buying intent data (multiple topics)
- Advanced A/B testing for sequences
- Call recording and transcription without the trial cap
- Expanded AI writing credits
This is the tier most full-cycle SDR teams land on. The reporting suite is what justifies the jump from Basic — without it, tracking sequence performance across reps is manual and error-prone.
Apollo.io Organization Plan ($149/user/month, Annual Only)
The Organization plan is designed for larger sales teams and adds:
- Custom roles and permissions
- Advanced security controls and SSO
- Highest credit allocations across all categories
- Dedicated customer success management
- Custom data ingestion and API rate limits
- Log-in as user (admin feature for team oversight)
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At $149/user/month with a 3-user minimum, the Organization plan costs at least $5,364/year. This tier makes sense for revenue operations teams that need auditability, compliance controls, and dedicated support SLAs.
Hidden Costs: The Credit System Explained
Apollo.io uses three separate credit currencies — email, mobile, and export — and confusing them is easy. Here's what each actually does:
Email Credits
Email credits unlock email addresses from Apollo's database. The free tier gives 10,000/month, which sounds generous, but these are account-level credits (not per-user). If you have 3 users on the free plan sharing one account, you're all drawing from the same 10,000.
Mobile Credits
Mobile credits unlock direct-dial phone numbers. At 5/month on free and 25/month on Basic, mobile credits are the most supply-constrained resource on lower tiers. If phone outreach is core to your process, you'll hit the ceiling fast and face pressure to upgrade or buy credit top-ups.
Export Credits
Export credits allow you to download contact data to CSV or push records to your CRM. The free plan's 10 export credits per month is the practical ceiling that forces most active users to upgrade. At Basic you get 250/month, which covers moderate prospecting volumes.
Overage and Add-On Fees
Apollo.io does not publicly advertise a standard per-credit overage rate. When you exhaust mobile or export credits, you either wait for the monthly reset or purchase additional credit blocks through your account dashboard. These add-on prices are negotiated at the account level and are not fixed — treat any mobile-heavy outreach strategy as a variable cost line item.
Apollo.io vs. Competitors: Pricing Comparison
To put Apollo.io's pricing in context, here's how it compares against three major alternatives in the B2B lead generation and sales intelligence category:
| Tool | Free Plan | Entry Paid Plan | Mid-Tier Plan | Enterprise / Team Plan |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apollo.io | Yes — 10,000 email credits/mo | $59/user/mo (Basic) | $99/user/mo (Professional) | $149/user/mo, 3-user min (Organization) |
| ZoomInfo | No free plan | ~$14,995/year (~$1,250/mo) for small teams | Custom | Custom — typically $25,000+/year |
| Cognism | No free plan | Custom — typically $1,500+/month | Custom | Custom — typically $2,500+/month |
| Lusha | Yes — 5 credits/month | $29/user/mo (Pro) | $51/user/mo (Premium) | Custom (Scale plan) |
Apollo.io sits in a clear sweet spot: a more functional free tier than Lusha, dramatically lower entry pricing than ZoomInfo or Cognism, and an all-in-one feature set that includes sequencing, calling, and CRM sync in a single platform. ZoomInfo's data quality is generally considered superior for enterprise-grade accuracy, but at 25x the price for an equivalent team size, the comparison rarely holds up for sub-50-person sales organizations.
Who Each Plan Is Best For
Free Plan — Best For: Solo Prospectors and Tool Evaluation
The free plan is genuinely useful for a solo founder or SDR who needs to run small, targeted outbound campaigns while evaluating whether Apollo's database matches their target ICP. If your outreach volume is under 250 emails/day and you're not doing mobile prospecting, the free tier can sustain a functional workflow for weeks before you hit a hard wall.
Specific use case: A solo consultant launching a 3-month outbound campaign into a defined niche (say, 500 target companies) can use the free tier to build and work the list without paying anything — as long as they stay under the 10 export/month cap by working records directly inside the Apollo UI rather than exporting.
Basic Plan ($59/mo) — Best For: Growing SDR Teams Scaling Outbound
The Basic plan is the right call the moment you need unlimited sequences or more than 10 exports per month. A team of 2–5 SDRs running 5+ active sequences across different segments will immediately outgrow the free tier's sequence cap. At $59/user, it's the most cost-efficient upgrade path in the market for high-volume email outreach.
Specific use case: A SaaS startup with 3 SDRs running separate sequences for enterprise, mid-market, and SMB accounts needs at minimum the Basic tier for sequence flexibility, and should budget ~$141/month total ($47 × 3 on annual billing).
Professional Plan ($99/mo) — Best For: Revenue Teams Measuring Performance
Once you have sequences running and want to know which ones are actually generating pipeline, the Professional plan's reporting suite becomes essential. A/B testing subject lines without analytics is guesswork. This tier is right for any team that reports on outbound metrics in a weekly revenue review.
Specific use case: A 5-person sales team with a VP of Sales who needs a sequence performance dashboard, conversion rates per rep, and call recording review capability for coaching — Professional is the minimum tier that covers all three needs.
Organization Plan ($149/mo, Annual Only) — Best For: Mature Sales Ops with Compliance Needs
The $149/month Organization plan is justified when custom permissions, SSO, and dedicated support SLAs are non-negotiable. Healthcare or fintech companies with data handling requirements, or enterprises with 10+ seat deployments where admin oversight is critical, are the right audience here.
Money-Saving Tips for Apollo.io
- Max the free tier before upgrading. Work leads directly in the Apollo UI rather than exporting — the 10 export credits limit doesn't restrict how many contacts you can view, enrich, or sequence inside the platform. You can run meaningful outbound without touching the export quota.
- Always buy annual. The ~20% discount on annual billing saves $144/year on Basic and $240/year on Professional per user. For a 5-person team on Professional, that's $1,200/year back in your budget.
- Pool accounts strategically. Email credits are account-level on the free plan. One shared account can cover a small team's email enrichment needs without requiring individual paid seats, as long as sequence and export limits aren't hit.
- Use the bi-directional HubSpot sync on free. Rather than exporting contacts (burning export credits), push enriched records directly into your CRM via the native HubSpot Marketing Hub integration. This sidesteps the export credit cap entirely for CRM-based workflows.
- Audit mobile credit usage before upgrading tiers. If mobile prospecting is driving your upgrade decision, calculate whether buying add-on mobile credit blocks is cheaper than jumping to the next tier. For some use cases, staying on Basic and purchasing add-on credits is more cost-efficient than paying for a full Professional seat.
- Negotiate before renewing. Apollo.io has a sales team. If you're approaching annual renewal with multiple seats, there's typically room for 10–15% off list price, particularly if you can show competitive quotes from alternatives like Cognism or ZoomInfo.
Final Verdict: Is Apollo.io's Free Plan Worth It?
Apollo.io's free plan is the most functional permanent free tier in the sales intelligence category. The combination of 10,000 email credits, native CRM integration, sequence automation (up to 2), and LinkedIn enrichment makes it a legitimate starting point — not just a lead magnet designed to frustrate you into upgrading.
The upgrade triggers are clear and honest: if you need more than 10 exports/month, more than 2 active sequences, or reliable mobile number access, you're a Basic plan user at $59/month. If you need performance reporting to manage a team, you're a Professional user at $99/month. The pricing scales predictably, and the 20% annual discount makes the math straightforward.
For teams comparing options across the lead generation stack — especially those weighing data enrichment tools against landing page and conversion tools like Leadpages or Unbounce — Apollo.io occupies a distinct category: it's an outbound engine, not a lead capture tool. Used together, they address the full funnel from prospecting to conversion.
