How Apollo.io Works
How does Apollo.io get its data?
Apollo collects data in four main ways:
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Public data crawling- Apollo’s proprietary algorithms regularly and systematically navigate through the web and follows links to gather scattered data. The unstructured data is then collected in one place and structured into a web-wide index of people and company contact data.
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Third-party data provider- vetted external providers aggregate data from apps, web, and websites and “package it up” for Apollo, who verify its accuracy before adding it to its database.
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Data contributor network- Apollo also boasts over two million contributors who share information about their business contacts while using Apollo services.
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Engagement suite- Apollo’s suite of engagement features verifies valid emails from invalid ones by tracking replies and bounces.
The collected contact information goes through an extensive verification process to ensure the email actually exists and works. One way Apollo achieves this is by a 7-step verification process that determines the validity of emails. This process provides a 91% accuracy rate, meaning that the emails you send when cold emailing will most likely land in an actual person's inbox.
Let’s talk briefly about how to use Apollo.io
To start using Apollo.io, go to their main page and sign up for free. You can sign up using your work email or Google or Microsoft account. The signup process is straightforward and takes about two minutes. You won’t need to provide your credit card information.
During the onboarding process, you can earn up to 1090 free credits for completing seven simple tasks. You will later use these credits to request a contact’s personal or business email address. Apollo charges you one credit for every verified email address it reveals.
One thing we like about the Apollo UI is how clean it looks. Everything is well laid out and easy to understand, making it easy to use.
The first thing you want to do when getting started with Apollo.io is to create a target audience. This means creating your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) based on key attributes, including industry, job title, location, revenue, buying intent, company size, and technology.
Once you identify potential leads and prospects, you can save them in a list. From the list, you can also add them to Sequence if you intend to do Outreach from the same platform. Data enrichment is another cool function you’ll find on this dashboard. You can use it to import additional data from your CRM or supercharge it with other data points from Apollo.
Apollo.io Review: Plans and Pricing
Apollo.io offers its services in four plans: Free, Basic, Professional, and Organization. Pricing for the paid plans varies, depending on whether you prefer monthly or annual billing.
Note that the indicated prices are per user per month. Also, Apollo.io has a 14-day free trial for its Basic and Professional plans. This is really cool, as it lets you experiment with
Here are the features included in each plan.
Free
The Apollo Free Plan is an excellent choice for individuals, startups, and small businesses who want to explore Apollo.io’s capabilities without committing fully.
The free plan includes the following features:
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5 mobile credits/month
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10 export credits/month
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10,000 credits per account per month
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2 basic sequence automation
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Basic filters (you won’t access key filters like technologies, revenue, funding, and job postings)
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3 intent buying buying topics
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Intent filters
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AI-assisted email writing (5000 words per month)
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LinkedIn and Gmail extensions
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Send 250 emails/day
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Zapier, Salesforce, and Hubspot integrations
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CSV export
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API access (limited)
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Custom fields
Basic
The Apollo.io Basic Plan costs $49 per user per month if billed annually and $59 with monthly billing. This is the most affordable Apollo plan. It best fits individuals and businesses who want more features that aren’t available on the free plan but have a limited budget.
The basic plan adds the following features to those of the free plan:
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75 mobile credits/month
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1000 export credits per month
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Advanced filters
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Select 10,000 records at once
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Outreach and SalesLoft integration
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Job changes alerts
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Buying intent (6 topics) and intent filters
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Data enrichment
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Dialer
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A/B testing
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Plays (20 plays limits)
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Email open and click tracking
Professional
The Professional plan costs $79 per user per month if billed annually but $99 per user per month if billed monthly. This is Apollo’s most popular tier and works best for medium-sized businesses.
With the Apollo Professional plan, you get all the features in the Basic plan plus the following:
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100 mobile credits/month
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2000 export credits/month
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No Sequence Limit
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AI-assisted email writing (up to 300k words per month)
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Call recordings
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Integration with all email providers
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Permission profiles
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9 buying intent topics and intent filters
Organization
This plan is for organizations and large businesses looking for enterprise-level solutions. It costs $119 per user annually and $149 per user monthly. This is Apollo’s most expensive plan, but it also offers the highest email, mobile, and export credits.
The Apollo’s Organization plan offers all features of the Professional plan plus the following:
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200 mobile credits/month
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4000 export credits/month
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12 buying intent topics and intent filters
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Customizable reports
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Advanced API access
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AI-assisted email writing (1M words per month)
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Advanced security configurations
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Call transcriptions, international dialing, and local presence
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300 plays limit
Apollo.io Pros and Cons
Now let’s dive into what we like and dislike about Apollo.io:
Pros
- An Extensive Database and Google Chrome Extension to Boot
- When it comes to prospecting and lead generation, you want to expose your brand to as many people (and companies) as possible across the relevant industries. Apollo.io gives you access to over 275 million contacts from 73 million companies around the world.
- Google Chrome Extension
- On top of its vast database, Apollo.io has a Google Chrome extension that lets you search through the millions of data points on LinkedIn and the sites you visit.
- A User-friendly UI
- Most Apollo reviews highlight its clean and easy-to-use dashboard. From searching for leads to closing deals, this intuitive interface makes it easy to manage contacts and complete tasks efficiently.
- It’s a 3-in-1 Tool
- Apollo.io has all the three vital tools that sales and marketing teams need to run successful campaigns. You can extract millions of data points from its database, enrich your list, and even do outreach without switching between tools. In other words, your team won’t necessarily require a separate cold email tool or dialer tool as they are all built into Apollo.io software.
- Competitive Pricing and a Free Plan
- We appreciate that Apollo offers flexible plans and pricing structures to accommodate individuals and B2Bs of different sizes and budget limits. If you're new to lead generation tools or have been frustrated by other platforms before, you’ll love Apollo’s Free Plan and the 14-day free trial available for some of its paid plans.
- Buyer Intent Signals
- Buyer intent signal is valuable data because it shows that your leads or prospects have a high level of interest in your products or services. This makes Apollo.io one of the most insightful lead-generation tools on the market today.
Cons
- Learning Curve
- Some users find that it takes some time for them to learn the tools, functions, and features on Apollo’s dashboard.
- Inaccurate Data
- Despite its complex data verification process, there are still chances for inaccuracies, which may lead to time and credit wastage.
Apollo.io Reviews- What Current Users Say
Apollo.io lead generation tool has a score of 8.4/10 on TrustRadius and 4.6/5 on SoftwareAdvice.
Here are some of the good things that its users have to say:
“Apollo is, by far, one of the most efficient prospecting tools I ever laid my hands on.
It's not just intuitive but also very robust, with several filters and search options from which you can segment and create your campaigns.
It might require a bit of adaptation, but once you understand how it works, it becomes a powerful tool in your hands.
Customer support is always simple and accessible.”- Vitor Bolonhesi (TrustPilot)
“Everything about Apollo when it comes to Lead Generation, it's prospecting feature and contact details scrapping feature is the best. It is on in all tool when it comes to marketing and running campaigns. Customer support is on the ball all the time.”- Nick (SoftwareAdvice)
While most of Apollo reviews are highly positive, some users specifically mention that the learning curve is a minor drawback for them.
Our Verdict: Should You Use Apollo.io?
All businesses need lead generation, but smaller businesses need it more to broaden their exposure and audience. Apollo’s competitive pricing strategy makes it a perfect fit for everybody, including personal users and small businesses with a tight budget.
Plus, this lead generation platform has a very extensive database that gives prospecting and sales teams a vast pool of potential customers to target.
What’s more, the Apollo database is constantly updated, meaning users get really clean data. As most Apollo.io reviews affirm, you can expect accuracy levels of 80-95%, which is excellent compared to most of its competitors.
When it comes to features and ease of usage, Apollo.io is hard to beat, too. Besides having a rich database, this software is an all-in-one tool that allows you to prospect, engage, and close deals all under one roof. If you’re scaling your sales, you may not even need separate cold email and dialer tools if you have Apollo.io.
While its numerous features make it quite powerful, they also add a learning curve to it. In other words, it may need a bit of adaptation. But once you get the hang of it, you get so much value and ultimately rake in more dollars.
Overall, Apollo.io is a top-notch lead generation tool worth giving a shot.
