Apollo.io vs Cognism: pricing, features and which to choose

Apollo.io is a sales intelligence and go-to-market platform made by ZenLeads, Inc., doing business as Apollo.io. Founded in 2015, it released its first product in 2016 and says it reached $150 million in annual recurring revenue in May 2025. Apollo also reports more than 500,000 companies using the platform and more than 50,000 weekly active users in 2025. Its 2023 Series D raised $100 million at a reported $1.6 billion valuation. The product combines a business contact database with prospect search, enrichment, sequencing, calling, pipeline support, analytics, and AI features. That combination places Apollo closer to a sales operating system than a standalone lead database, serving founders, sales teams, marketers, and revenue operations groups.

Apollo’s workflow usually begins with finding people or companies through filters, then selecting records for enrichment, lists, sequences, or exports. Email campaigns are available on every account. Free users can connect Gmail, while paid users can connect Microsoft Office and other providers. Teams can create sequences, manage pipeline activity, record calls, prepare for conversations, and review AI-generated insights. The AI Assistant accepts natural-language requests, uses Apollo data and saved messaging context, and can find decision-makers, research accounts, build sequences, export lists, and report on performance. Scheduled agents can run some outbound tasks in the background. Permissions still govern available actions, and Apollo advises reviewing generated messages, matches, and credit estimates before execution.

Apollo’s main limitation is pricing and usage complexity: the final amount depends on seats, billing frequency, credits, add-ons, and selected features. Basic includes one mailbox, 250 daily emails, five team workflows, and 1,000 records per selection, while Professional raises several limits and adds AI and call features. Standard plans are for internal business use, so powering external products, sharing data with customers, or reselling it requires a separate agreement. Apollo competes with ZoomInfo, Cognism, Outreach, Salesloft, and HubSpot Sales Hub. It combines data and enrichment more closely than Outreach or Salesloft, and adds execution tools beyond ZoomInfo or Cognism. Choose Apollo if one team needs prospect intelligence, outbound execution, enrichment, and AI actions together.

Cognism is a B2B sales intelligence company founded in London in 2015. It built its service for revenue teams selling across EMEA, expanded into Europe and the United States in 2019, acquired Kaspr, and raised Series C funding in 2022. The company does not publish current employee, revenue, or funding totals. Its platform combines company and people records with firmographics, technology data, hiring, funding, mergers and acquisitions, and intent signals. Cognism said in March 2025 that its database contained more than 440 million contacts and 100 million mobile numbers. The company’s 2026 brand update presents Cognism as a global data business focused on professional information, compliance controls, and usable records for sales and marketing teams.

A typical Cognism workflow begins with a company or people search, then narrows results through filters for location, industry, headcount, revenue, technology, funding, hiring, job title, seniority, department, skills, and buying intent. Users can count matching records before retrieving them, resolve accepted filter values through dictionaries, and collect results through paginated searches. Contact details appear only when requested, which controls credit use. Teams can reveal records, export them, enrich CSV files, and connect data to CRM systems. CRM Enrichment can operate as an add-on or standalone service, maintaining records as details change. A previously revealed contact can be viewed without another credit, while a job change can require another credit for updated information.

Cognism’s main weakness is procurement friction. Buyers cannot see current prices, credit allocations, search-token allowances, or API limits before receiving a package proposal, and API access applies only to eligible subscriptions. The EULA limits use to internal business purposes and restricts reproducing, selling, distributing, or commercially exploiting Cognism Data unless an agreement permits it. Lusha offers published self-serve plans and a free tier, making it easier for smaller teams to start. Apollo.io combines contact data with email sequences and sales engagement, while Cognism concentrates on data, signals, enrichment, and delivery. ZoomInfo offers a broader enterprise sales suite. Pick Cognism if your revenue team needs managed enrichment and compliance-focused international data, especially across EMEA.