Checked against apollo.io/pricing on 19 October 2026. At the time of checking, the page named four plans and published no prices, credit allowances or sending limits.
Most pricing posts start with a table. This one cannot, because Apollo’s public pricing page does not contain numbers, the figures load behind the sign-up flow rather than on the page itself.
That is worth stating plainly rather than filling the gap with figures from memory or from a third-party blog, which is how most “Apollo pricing” articles are written and why so many of them disagree.
What the page does publish is the billing terms, and for a credit-metered product those decide your real cost more than the headline rate does.
The four plans
Free, for exploring or very light usage. The page describes a time-unlimited free Starter plan after a trial, though the naming is inconsistent between “Free” and “Starter.”
Basic, individual sellers doing regular outbound. Email sequencing and core integrations.
Professional, full-time reps needing higher credit limits, AI features, call recording and advanced CRM integrations.
Custom, teams needing custom volumes, SSO, advanced security and dedicated support. Priced through sales.
The four terms that decide your cost
These are published, and they matter.
1. Credits do not roll over
Unused credits, including purchased add-on credits, expire at the end of the billing cycle.
This is the single most consequential term on the page. It means you must either over-buy every month and accept waste, or under-buy and run out mid-month. There is no way to smooth usage across a quarter.
For teams with seasonal or project-based prospecting, agencies especially, this is a real cost. You pay for peak capacity every month regardless of whether you use it.
2. All seats must be on the same plan
You cannot have two reps on Professional and three on Basic. The whole account sits on one tier.
So the cost of your most demanding user becomes the cost of every user. A single rep needing call recording or higher credit limits upgrades everyone.
3. Downgrading from annual is not possible mid-term
Monthly to annual can be switched at any time. Annual to monthly requires cancelling and waiting for the plan to expire.
That is a one-way door. If you commit annually and your team shrinks, you are carrying the seats to term.
4. Add-on credits bill immediately and renew
Extra credits are added via a slider in settings. They charge immediately and renew each cycle until you set the slider back to zero before renewal.
A one-off top-up during a busy month becomes a recurring charge unless somebody remembers to turn it off. Worth a calendar reminder the day you add them.
The structural question underneath
Apollo is a data platform with sequencing attached, not a sending tool with data attached. That distinction decides whether it suits you.
It suits you if your bottleneck is finding people. The database is large, the filters are good, and having search and sequencing in one place removes an export step.
It suits you less if your bottleneck is sending. Deliverability tooling is thinner than dedicated platforms, and the free tier only connects Gmail, Microsoft and other providers require a paid plan, which catches out teams evaluating on a free account with an Outlook estate.
It suits you least if you need many sending mailboxes. Platforms built around large mailbox estates handle that differently, and Apollo is not primarily that product.
What to establish before buying
Since the numbers are not published, these are the questions to put to sales, and to get in writing:
- What is the per-user monthly and annual price, at our seat count?
- How many email, export and mobile credits does each plan include per user?
- Do exports that return nothing consume a credit? This changes effective cost substantially at a 60% match rate.
- What is the add-on credit rate, and what happens to unused add-ons?
- What are the sending limits, and do they differ by connected mailbox provider?
- What is the mobile number credit cost relative to an email?
Question three is the one that most often changes the comparison. How to compare data providers has a test you can run on 100 records in an afternoon to find out what your real cost per usable record is.
Reading the credit model
Whatever the rate turns out to be, credit-metered data products share the same traps. Worth checking Apollo against all four:
Expiry, confirmed, no rollover. This is the harshest of the four.
Paying for misses, not stated publicly. Ask.
Separate pools, Apollo distinguishes email, export and mobile credits. Running out of one while holding another is possible.
Search costing credits, if filtering or previewing consumes credits, exploratory work gets expensive and people stop doing it, which quietly degrades targeting.
For context on how different models compare, per-seat versus flat versus credit pricing covers which suits which team.
How it compares structurally
Not on price, since Apollo’s is not published, but on model.
Apollo: per-seat, all seats on one tier, credits expire monthly, annual commitment is one-way.
Outboundry: flat plans at $39, $89 and $399 regardless of headcount, with data on a separate balance (1 credit for a lead with a verified email, 0.5 for LinkedIn-only, 10 for a verified mobile) where company records and all 50+ filters cost nothing and unused credits roll over while the plan is active.
The rollover difference is the one that compounds. If your prospecting is uneven month to month, a model that lets you bank unused capacity is worth a meaningful premium over one that does not.
The short version
Apollo does not publish prices on its pricing page, so treat any article quoting specific figures, including the ones that rank well for this query, with suspicion unless it is dated and sourced.
What is published matters anyway: credits expire monthly including add-ons, all seats sit on one plan tier, annual-to-monthly downgrades require cancellation, and add-on credits renew until you switch them off.
Before buying, get the per-user rate, the credit allowances, whether failed lookups consume credits, and the mobile-to-email credit ratio in writing. Then calculate cost per correct record in your segment rather than per credit.
Next: Apollo alternatives compared, or how to migrate off Apollo.
Frequently asked questions
How much does Apollo cost?
Apollo’s public pricing page named four plans (Free, Basic, Professional and Custom) and published no prices, credit allowances or sending limits when checked on 19 October 2026. Figures appear behind the sign-up flow.
Do Apollo credits roll over?
No. Unused credits expire at the end of the billing cycle, including purchased add-on credits. This means over-buying for peak months or running out mid-month.
Can different users be on different Apollo plans?
No. All seats on an account must be on the same plan, so the requirements of your most demanding user set the tier for everyone.
Can you downgrade Apollo from annual to monthly?
Not mid-term. Monthly to annual can be switched at any time, but annual to monthly requires cancelling and waiting for the plan to expire.
