Apollo.io alternatives 2026: better European data or meetings
2026-09-08 · updated 2026-10-23 · 8 min read · Adam Axelsson, founder of Revexa
Apollo is a good database with sequences and a dialer built in, at a price few can beat. But Apollo gives you data and tools, not meetings: you build the lists, write the sequences and handle the replies yourself. Here are seven Apollo alternatives 2026 with honest verdicts: ZoomInfo for enterprise data, Clay for those who want to build, Unify and lemlist for better sequences, Amplemarket for teams of reps, and agents such as Gojiberry and Leo that do the outreach themselves.
Honest disclosure: Revexa builds Leo, read with that in mind. That is why Leo is not first: the list runs from the tools that are most like Apollo, data and sequences you run yourself, to the agents that do the work. Facts about Apollo and the others come from their own sites, checked on 14 October 2026, or are marked as external figures where the price is not public.
What Apollo is good at
Apollo calls itself "the AI sales platform for smarter, faster revenue growth", and in the press release on its acquisition of Pocus on 19 March 2026 (terms undisclosed) it talks about "an AI-native GTM operating system". In practice it is three things in one: a contact database, email sequences from your own mailboxes and a dialer. Apollo states that over 600,000 companies use the platform.
Price is the strength. Per Apollo's own pages: a free plan with 900 credits per year, Basic from $49 per user per month billed annually with 30,000 credits per year, Professional, and an Organization or Custom tier for larger teams ($119 per user per month billed annually when listed). Apollo tests different layouts of its pricing page, so the plan names can vary. The pricing page renders in JavaScript, so check it in a browser before you do the math.
For a team that knows exactly who it wants to reach and has time to work the list, it is hard to get more per dollar.
Why teams look for Apollo alternatives
What Apollo itself costs, plan by plan and with credits, is in Apollo pricing 2026.
- It is data and tools, not outcomes. Apollo gives you filters and contacts. Deciding which companies are buy-ready, writing the sequence, handling the replies and booking the meeting stay with you.
- Self-service for real. List building, mailboxes, warmup, follow-up: reps handle all of it. That works with a sales team, rarely with a founder selling between everything else.
- Coverage has to be tested. Every database is strongest where it has the most customers. Run Apollo's matches against your own Nordic ICP before you buy an annual plan. The same rule applies to every vendor on this list.
- Seats and credits scale with the team. The price per user is low, but every new rep is a new license and credits are counted per year.
The quiet cost: a database with 600,000 customers does not help if nobody on the team has time to run the sequences. Sends that never go out have no reply rate.
Apollo alternatives with better European data
Apollo publishes no coverage figures per country, so "better European data" can only be judged from what each vendor publishes about itself and from a test on your own accounts. In its help center (updated March 2026, archived copy), Apollo says the way to see coverage for your ICP is to run your filters in the product, and its do-not-call screening covers six countries, two of them in Europe: the UK and Germany. Among the alternatives, Lusha publishes contact counts per country, Kaspr claims more than 200 million European contacts and Vainu builds its Nordic company data from the national business registers. Checked on 15 October 2026.
We found no independent test of Apollo's data in Europe. The pages that AI answers cite for this question say Apollo is weaker outside the US (Tomba: "EMEA mobile coverage is thinner"), but they are written by companies that sell competing data, and none of them publishes a test. One thing is public: a main source for Apollo is its Data Contributor Network: customers who share their business contacts while using Apollo, over two million of them according to the same help center article. A database built that way is likely to be strongest where its users are (our assessment). Lusha, which publishes a count for every country it covers, shows how uneven coverage can be: 132 million contacts in the US against 103.1 million in all of Europe, and no Italian contact data.
| Tool | European coverage, per the vendor | Phones and mobiles | GDPR and do-not-call (DNC), per the vendor | Price from | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cognism | "90%" of director-level and above contacts in Europe and the US; no figures per country | Phone-verified mobiles ("Diamond Data"); over 10 million phone-verified contacts globally | Legitimate interest; notifies contacts "within GDPR timeframes"; DNC registers in 12 named countries, Sweden included | Not published; Standard and Pro include 5 seats | data, compliance, pricing |
| Dropcontact (France) | No database: finds and verifies emails from a name and a company website | Not in Starter or Growth; the CRM suite adds mobiles from signatures in your own email | "No personal information is stored or resold"; processing on EU-based servers | €79 a month (500 credits); 50 free credits | site, pricing |
| Kaspr (owned by Cognism since 2022) | "200 million + European B2B contacts" | Phone credits: 5 a month free, 100 a month on Starter | Legitimate interest; the customer is an "independent controller"; notifies "over 50,000 contacts per day"; DNC not published | Free; Starter €45 per user a month billed annually (€59 monthly) | data, pricing, 2022 deal |
| Leadfeeder (called Dealfront until 24 March 2026) | 60 million companies and 400 million contacts globally, based on national trade registers and other public sources | Verified emails and phones from the Activate plan; says it has "fewer personal phone numbers and mobile direct dials than others" | Legitimate interest; a source link on each data item; checks "public do-not-call (DNC) lists in many countries" | Free Lite plan; contact data from €369 a month billed annually | name change, GDPR, pricing |
| Lusha | 103.1 million contacts in Europe, published per country (Sweden 3.1 million); no Italian contacts | 117 million verified phone numbers globally; 5 credits per number | "GDPR certified by ePrivacyseal"; hides numbers on UK and US DNC lists, Scale plans only | Free (40 credits a month); Starter $49.90 a month or $449.10 a year | data, pricing, DNC |
| Vainu | Nordics only: 5.1 million companies and 10.5 million decision-makers; company data from the national registers | A phone number field for contacts in Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark | Legitimate interest; the source recorded on every field; DNC not published | Reach from €250 a month billed annually | data, pricing |
| Apollo (reference) | 240 million contacts and 30 million companies globally; no figures per country | Emails and phone numbers on credits | Legitimate interest; emails new contacts in the EU, UK and Switzerland; DNC screening in six countries, in Europe the UK and Germany | Free; Basic $49 per user a month billed annually | pricing, privacy, help center, archived, DNC |
Listed alphabetically, with Apollo last as the reference. Every figure is the vendor's own; none is an independent test.
What the vendor terms mean. "Phone-verified" (Cognism) is a mobile number that has passed extra manual and automated checks. "DNC-checked" means the number has been compared with a national register of people who do not want sales calls, such as the UK's TPS. It concerns phone calls, not email. A "notified" database means the vendor has sent GDPR article 14 notices to the people it holds data on. That does not cover your own duties: Kaspr writes that its customers are controllers of the data and may need to notify the people themselves. This is not legal advice; see legitimate interest for B2B email and cold email to Germany.
How to choose. Calling into the UK, Germany or France: Cognism, for phone-verified mobiles and DNC screening in the most named countries (France's Bloctel list closed on 11 August 2026, so there is no French list left to screen against), or Kaspr if you want a self-serve plan with a published price. The Nordics: Vainu for register-based company data, or Lusha for Nordic contact counts (more in Nordic B2B data tools and Apollo vs Vainu). Companies already visiting your website: Leadfeeder. Before you sign an annual contract, run the same 50 companies you know well through two tools and count the correct names, emails and mobiles. And if the real problem is that nobody has time to work the list, more European data will not fix it; the agents below do the outreach for you.
7 Apollo alternatives 2026
1. ZoomInfo. The enterprise option. "The all-in-one AI GTM platform" per their press material, with Copilot and GTM.AI, launched in June 2026. Pricing is not public. External estimates (Landbase, March 2026) put it at $30,000 to $60,000 per year for most teams. Right choice for a larger sales organisation with RevOps and budget, wrong choice for a team of three.
2. Clay. The workshop. Clay does not give you lists but flows: you build enrichment from many sources, custom tables and GTM plays that a GTM engineer maintains. Free tier, Launch from $185 per month ($167 billed annually) and Growth from $495 ($446 billed annually) per their site. One step up in flexibility and one step up in the need for a technical person. The full list is in Clay alternatives.
3. Unify. "Outbound agents for every rep". Sequences, LinkedIn and a click-to-call dialer with "Plays" triggered by intent signals. Per the pricing page: free up to 3 seats, Base $20 per seat per month, Pro $60 per seat with 2,400 credits. Close to Apollo in model, more agent thinking. Check the credit economics against your volume.
4. lemlist. Multichannel outbound: email, LinkedIn, calls, WhatsApp and SMS in one flow. The Email plan costs $69 per month billed monthly ($55 billed annually), Multichannel $109 per user per month ($87 annually), 14-day free trial. Stronger than Apollo on the sequence, weaker on the database. Instantly from $47 per month fills the same role for those who only want email and warmup.
5. Amplemarket. All-in-one for teams with several reps: sequences across email, LinkedIn and phone plus the AI agent Duo. The Startup plan costs $600 per month on an annual term per their site, the rest on quote. Fits when you want copilot support without changing how you work.
6. Gojiberry. Y Combinator spring 2026, "AI Go-To-Market agents for B2B teams". Finds people who engage on LinkedIn and reaches out on LinkedIn and email. Per their site (checked 14 October 2026), Pro costs $99 per month for 2 agents and up to 1,800 prospects. Right if your ICP is active on LinkedIn, otherwise not.
7. Leo (Revexa), AI GTM agent. Our own product, so weigh it. The difference from Apollo is who does the work. Leo reads your website, builds the ideal customer profile, watches buying signals like hiring, funding and system changes, reaches out in your voice on LinkedIn and email, handles the replies and books the meeting with a Lead Brief beforehand. Leo does the work, you approve, until you switch on autonomous mode per channel. GDPR-native, with a data processing agreement in the product. €89, $99 or 999 SEK per month, 7 days free, no commitment. Wrong choice if you want a raw database to export from. The full picture is on /en/gtm.
Comparison table
| Alternative | What it is | Price from | Fits |
|---|---|---|---|
| ZoomInfo | Enterprise data and Copilot | Not public, $30,000 to $60,000 per year per external estimates | Larger sales organisations with budget |
| Clay | Workshop for data and GTM flows | Free, Launch $185 ($167 annual) | Teams with a GTM engineer |
| Unify | Outbound platform with agents | Free, Pro $60 per seat | Reps who run it themselves |
| lemlist | Multichannel sequencing engine | $69 per month | Teams that want better sequences |
| Amplemarket | All-in-one with AI copilot | $600 per month on annual term | Several reps who want a copilot |
| Gojiberry | LinkedIn signal agent, LinkedIn and email | $99 per month (2 agents) | ICP that is active on LinkedIn |
| Leo (ours) | AI GTM agent that finds, reaches out, books and learns | €89, $99 or 999 SEK per month, 7 days free | Small B2B teams without RevOps |
| Apollo (stay) | Database plus sequences plus dialer | Free, Basic $49 per user | Teams that work the list themselves |
When you should stay in Apollo
Stay if any of this is true:
- You have reps who live in the sequences every day and have time to manage mailboxes and lists.
- You need a cheap, broad database to export from into other tools.
- Coverage on your ICP held up when you tested it.
Then Apollo is probably the best value in its class. Do not switch because an agent sounds more fun. Switch when the sequences stand still because nobody has time to run them.
Start Leo for free
If you want the meetings instead of the database, the order is simple: enter your website, connect LinkedIn, start Leo. He finds the first buy-ready companies and puts the drafts in front of you for approval. Judge on real replies. Start Leo for free, 7 days, no commitment. If you want to see the whole field first, read AI GTM tools compared 2026.
Head-to-head comparisons: Apollo vs ZoomInfo, Lusha vs Apollo, Clay vs Apollo, Apollo vs Instantly vs lemlist, Apollo vs Vainu for the Nordics, Nordic B2B data tools and what 30 sales tools cost.
Related: Best B2B data providers 2026 and Best email finder tools 2026.
Common questions
What is the best Apollo alternative for small teams?
It depends on what is missing. If you only want a better sequencing engine, lemlist or Unify. If the problem is that nobody has time to run the sequences, an agent that does the outreach, such as Gojiberry or Leo (ours).
Is Apollo free?
Yes, there is a free tier with 900 credits per year per Apollo's own pages. Paid plans start at $49 per user per month billed annually.
Does Leo replace Apollo?
For teams that want meetings instead of a database, yes. If you want to export large lists into other tools, Apollo is still right. The two can be combined: Apollo as the data source, Leo for the outreach.
Does Apollo work for Nordic B2B companies?
Apollo sells globally and states over 600,000 companies as customers. How good the coverage is on your specific ICP you only know once you have tested. Run the free tier against companies you already know before you decide.