Apollo advertises plans starting at $49 per user per month. That number is misleading. The credit system that governs every meaningful action inside Apollo means active outbound teams typically spend $150 to $400 per user per month. Credits expire at the end of each billing cycle with no rollover. Phone number lookups cost 8 credits each. Data exports cost credits. Enrichment costs credits. And when the credits run out mid-month, overage charges kick in at $0.20 per credit with a 250-credit minimum purchase.
That is before you deal with the data quality. Independent reviews consistently report email bounce rates of 15-25% on Apollo data. A quarter of the emails you pay credits to unlock may not even be deliverable. Every bounced email damages your sender reputation, which means the emails that are valid also start landing in spam.
You are paying enterprise prices for data that bounces, gated behind a credit system designed to make you spend more than you planned.
There is a free alternative that does not work this way.
AgentData is a company intelligence platform with 130 million companies, 8 million verified emails, 2.9 million people records, and 845 technology detections. No credit system. No monthly expiry. No per-contact charges. No credit card required to sign up. The data you access today is still free tomorrow.
This post breaks down exactly what AgentData gives you that Apollo charges for, what Apollo does that AgentData does not, and how to decide which one fits your workflow.
What Apollo charges for that AgentData gives you free
Apollo gates nearly everything behind credits or paid tiers. Here is what that looks like in practice and what the free equivalent is in AgentData.
Company search and filtering. Apollo lets you search by job title, company size, industry, and location. The search itself is free on the Free plan, but you can only view 5 mobile numbers and export 10 contacts per month. The Basic plan ($49/user/month) gives you 75 mobile credits and 1,000 export credits. Once those are gone, you wait or pay overages.
AgentData lets you search 130 million companies by industry, business model, company size, location, and web signals. There is no credit system. You search, filter, and browse as much as you want. Exports are included. No monthly cap on viewing company profiles.
Verified emails. Apollo includes email access on all plans, but accuracy is the issue. User reviews on G2 and Trustpilot consistently report 65-70% accuracy, with bounce rates of 15-25%. Apollo does not show you a confidence score before you spend the credit.
AgentData has 8 million verified emails with confidence scores visible before you export. You can see whether an email is high, medium, or low confidence before deciding to use it. No credits consumed by looking.
Tech stack data. Apollo does not detect technologies. You cannot search for “companies using Zendesk” or “companies running Shopify” in Apollo. This is not a premium feature that costs extra. It does not exist in the product at any price tier.
AgentData detects 845 technologies on every website it crawls. You can search for companies by the tools they use, filter by technology category, and see the full tech stack on every company profile. This is a core feature, not an add-on.
Web signals. Apollo does not detect whether a company has a pricing page, a free trial, a careers page, a blog, or API documentation. These buying signals are not available in Apollo at any tier.
AgentData detects these signals automatically on every crawled website. “B2B SaaS companies with a careers page and a free trial” is a filter you can run for free. In Apollo, this filter does not exist.
MCP server for AI agents. Apollo has an MCP server, but independent reviews describe it as low quality. One GTM agency review noted it “outputs a lot of garbage.” It is also only available on paid plans.
AgentData’s MCP server is free on all paid plans starting at $19/month. It is purpose-built for AI agent workflows: describe your ICP in natural language, get structured company data back. Install it with one command:
npx agentdata-mcp-serverWhat Apollo does that AgentData does not
This is a fair comparison. Apollo has capabilities that AgentData does not offer, and you should know about them before switching.
Contact volume.Apollo claims 275 million contacts. AgentData has 2.9 million people records and 8 million verified emails. If you need to send 50,000 cold emails to VPs of Sales at companies with 200+ employees, Apollo has more raw contacts to pull from. AgentData’s contact database is growing but is currently smaller in volume.
Built-in sequencing. Apollo includes email sequences, a dialer, and campaign management. AgentData is a data platform, not a sending tool. You use AgentData to find and export leads, then import them into your sending tool (Instantly, Smartlead, Lemlist, Apollo itself, or any CRM).
Intent data. Apollo offers buying intent signals on Professional plans and above ($79+/user/month). AgentData detects web signals (pricing page, careers, free trial) which are intent indicators, but does not have third-party intent data from review sites or ad networks.
CRM integrations. Apollo integrates natively with Salesforce, HubSpot, and other CRMs. AgentData offers API and CSV export. Direct CRM integrations are on the roadmap but not yet available.
If your workflow depends on Apollo’s sequencing, dialer, or native CRM sync, AgentData is not a drop-in replacement. It is a replacement for Apollo’s data layer. You can use AgentData for data and a separate tool for sending.
The real cost comparison
The sticker prices are misleading on both sides. Here is what you actually pay.
Apollo, realistic scenario: A 3-person SDR team on the Professional plan. $79/user/month annual billing. That is $237/month base. Each SDR makes 30 calls per day and needs mobile numbers. At 8 credits per phone lookup, 30 calls/day is 240 credits/day per SDR, or about 5,000 credits/month. The Professional plan includes 100 mobile credits. The remaining 4,900 cost overage rates. At $0.20 per credit, that is $980 in overages per SDR. Total: $237 base + $2,940 overages = $3,177/month for 3 SDRs. That is $1,059/user/month, not $79.
Even without heavy phone usage, a solo SDR on Basic who exports 2,000 contacts per month exceeds the 1,000 export credit limit and pays overages.
AgentData: Free. For everything described in this post. If you need API access or MCP server, paid plans start at $19/month with no per-contact credits and no overage charges.
How to switch from Apollo to AgentData
If you are currently paying for Apollo and want to test AgentData alongside it before switching, here is the practical workflow.
Step 1: Sign up at agentdata.run. Free, no credit card. Takes 30 seconds.
Step 2: Recreate your Apollo saved search in AgentData.If your Apollo list is “VP of Sales at SaaS companies with 50-200 employees,” the AgentData equivalent is: filter by sector (SaaS), filter by business model (B2B), filter by company size. Add web signals for sharper targeting: companies with a careers page (growing), companies with a pricing page (selling a product).
Step 3: Compare the results. Run the same target profile in both tools. Check: how many companies match? How many have verified emails? What is the email confidence score? Does AgentData surface companies Apollo missed (or vice versa)?
Step 4: Export from AgentData and test deliverability.Download a CSV of 100 contacts from AgentData. Upload to your email verification tool (ZeroBounce, NeverBounce, or Instantly’s built-in verifier). Compare the bounce rate to your last Apollo export.
Step 5: If the data holds up, cancel Apollo. Keep your sending tool (Instantly, Smartlead, Lemlist). Use AgentData as your data layer. Your stack goes from $49-119/user/month (Apollo) + $37+/month (Instantly) to $0 (AgentData) + $37/month (Instantly). If you need API or MCP access, add AgentData Starter at $19/month. Either way, you save $30-100+ per user per month.
What you get that Apollo cannot offer at any price
These are not premium features behind a higher tier. These are capabilities Apollo does not have.
Technology detection across 845 tools. Search for companies using any specific technology: Zendesk, Shopify, HubSpot, Stripe, Intercom, and 840 more. Filter your prospect list by the tools your target companies actually use. Build campaigns that reference their tech stack. “I noticed you are running Zendesk” hits differently when they actually are.
Web signals as filters.Find companies with a free trial (product-led growth), a careers page (hiring, has budget), a pricing page (sells something), a blog (marketing-aware), or API docs (technical). These are live signals detected from the company’s website, not static fields from a CRM import three years ago.
AI-classified industries.AgentData crawls each company’s website and uses AI to classify them by sector, business model (B2B, B2C, marketplace), and go-to-market motion. “B2B SaaS” means B2B SaaS, not “Information Technology and Services” from a dropdown someone picked during signup in 2019.
Natural language prospecting via MCP.Install the AgentData MCP server. Ask Claude: “Find me 200 B2B SaaS companies in the UK with a pricing page, a careers page, and verified emails.” Claude returns a structured list. No clicking, no filtering, no exporting. Describe your ICP, get a list. This workflow does not exist in Apollo.
Data freshness under 3 days.AgentData crawls company websites continuously with an average data freshness under 3 days. If a company added a pricing page last week, AgentData has already detected it. Apollo’s data is sourced from a mix of web crawling, user contributions, and third-party data providers. Freshness varies widely and is not published.
Who should stay on Apollo
AgentData is not the right choice for everyone currently on Apollo. Stay on Apollo if:
You need the built-in dialer.Apollo’s dialer with call recording and transcription (Organization plan) is integrated. AgentData does not have a dialer. If phone outreach is your primary channel, you need Apollo or a separate dialer.
You need 50,000+ contacts per campaign.Apollo’s database is larger in raw contact volume. If your campaigns are high-volume, low-targeting (spray and pray), Apollo’s scale matters. If your campaigns are precision-targeted (find companies using a specific tool in a specific industry), AgentData’s smaller but more enriched database may outperform.
You rely on native CRM sync. If your workflow depends on Apollo pushing contacts directly into Salesforce or HubSpot, switching to AgentData means moving to CSV import or API integration. This is a workflow change, not just a tool swap.
Your company pays for Apollo and you do not control the budget.If Apollo is a company-wide tool managed by RevOps, switching is a procurement decision, not an individual one. But you can still use AgentData’s free tier alongside Apollo for comparison data and tech stack intelligence that Apollo does not provide.
Get started
- Sign up at agentdata.run. Free, no credit card.
- Search for companies by industry, location, or technology at agentdata.run/companies.
- Filter by web signals: careers page, pricing page, free trial, blog.
- Export contacts as CSV. Upload to your sending tool.
- Or install the MCP server (
npx agentdata-mcp-server) and build lists in Claude with natural language.
You are paying Apollo for data access. AgentData gives you the same access plus technology detection, web signals, and AI-classified industries. For free.
See how we compare on the Apollo alternative landing page, or read the API documentation and pricing.
AgentData is company intelligence for AI agents and growth teams. 130M+ companies. 8M+ verified emails. 845+ technologies. Native MCP server. Completely free.
