🇺🇸 United States · Apollo.io — AI Sales Intelligence and Prospecting
Status: 🟩 COMPLETE 🟦 LIVING Section: 10 — AI and LLMs
| Vendor | Apollo.io |
| Country/origin | 🇺🇸 United States (San Francisco) |
| Recommended for AUS? | ✅ Yes — US-based; standard enterprise controls; widely used in AUS B2B sales |
| Privacy summary | SOC 2 Type II; GDPR compliant; collects business contact data from public sources; CCPA compliant; opt-out available |
| Free tier | Yes — free plan with limited credits |
| Paid tiers | Basic ( |
| First released | Founded 2015; major AI features 2023–2024 |
| Last reviewed | June 2026 |
| Official site | https://apollo.io |
What it is
Apollo.io is a B2B sales intelligence and prospecting platform — a database of over 275 million business contacts and 70 million companies, combined with AI tools to help sales teams find, research, and reach potential customers.
If Gong helps you understand and improve existing sales conversations, Apollo helps you find who to talk to and start those conversations in the first place.
Core capabilities:
- Prospecting database: Search 275M+ contacts by industry, job title, company size, technology used, geography, and 200+ other filters
- Contact data: Business email addresses and phone numbers for sales outreach
- AI email writing: Generate personalised outreach emails for each prospect
- Sequence automation: Automated multi-step outreach (email → call → LinkedIn → follow-up email)
- AI recommendations: “Who should I contact at this company?” and “When is the best time to reach out?”
- CRM integration: Push prospects and activity into Salesforce, HubSpot, and others
- Intent data: Signal when companies are actively researching topics related to your product
- AI conversation intelligence: Basic call recording and analysis (not as deep as Gong)
Who uses Apollo.io
- SDRs (Sales Development Representatives) and BDRs (Business Development Representatives) who need to find and contact new prospects
- Account executives researching companies before outreach
- Marketing teams building targeted lists for campaigns
- Founders and small business owners doing their own outbound sales
How to sign up + first 5 minutes from Australia
- Go to https://apollo.io → Sign up free
- Sign up with work email (better data quality and more free credits than personal email)
- Connect your Gmail or Outlook for email integration
- Click Search → filter by: Job Title “Marketing Director”, Industry “Software”, Company size “50-200”, Location “Australia”
- Select contacts → add to a Sequence (automated outreach) or export
- Use the AI Email Writer: select a contact → click “Write email” → AI personalises based on their LinkedIn and company info
Free plan: limited email credits (10–20/month typically); enough to test.
What it costs
| Plan | Price | Email credits/month | What’s included |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 10 | Basic search; very limited |
| Basic | ~$49 USD/month | 50 | Email sequences; basic AI |
| Professional | ~$79 USD/month | 100 | All AI features; call recording |
| Organization | ~$119/seat/month | 150 | Team features; enterprise integrations |
Annual billing typically gives 20-25% discount.
How it compares to alternatives
| Tool | Best for | Database |
|---|---|---|
| Apollo.io | Best value; large database; AI prospecting; SMB-enterprise | 275M contacts |
| ZoomInfo | Most comprehensive enterprise data; highest accuracy | 300M+ contacts (higher quality, much more expensive) |
| Lusha | Browser extension; individual use; LinkedIn enrichment | 100M+ |
| Hunter.io | Email finding specifically; lightweight | 100M+ |
| Clay | Custom data enrichment; highly automated | Aggregates multiple sources |
| Outreach / Salesloft | Sales engagement platforms (less prospecting database) | Smaller |
Apollo offers excellent value — often described as “75% of ZoomInfo at 20% of the price.” For most B2B sales teams, Apollo is the right choice.
Privacy considerations — contact data
This is important: Apollo’s database includes business contact information — names, email addresses, phone numbers — scraped from public sources and user contributions. This raises questions under Australian privacy law:
- The Privacy Act 1988 generally allows processing of publicly available business contact information for legitimate business purposes (B2B prospecting). However:
- “Sensitive information” categories (health, religion, etc.) are excluded
- Collection must have a notice that data is collected and purpose of use
- Opt-out / correction right: People can request their information be removed from Apollo’s database (apollo.io/opt-out)
- For GDPR (EU contacts): EU contacts require a legitimate interest basis; consent is difficult in cold outreach contexts
- Australian spam law (Spam Act 2003): Cold email outreach in Australia must include an unsubscribe mechanism; must not be sent to people who have opted out; must correctly identify the sender
Practice: When using Apollo for Australian outreach, ensure all emails comply with the Australian Spam Act. Include an unsubscribe link. Honour opt-out requests.
Gotchas
- Data accuracy varies. Business contact data goes stale quickly — people change jobs, emails bounce. Expect 10–20% bounce rates on email lists unless data has been recently verified.
- The AI email writer produces generic outputs if you don’t give it context. Personalise beyond what the AI auto-generates — reference something specific about the company or person.
- Free plan credits are very limited. 10 email credits per month barely scratches the surface. Evaluate whether the paid plan makes sense for your volume.
- Australian contact data quality. Apollo is strongest on US/UK contacts; Australian contact data coverage is reasonable but less comprehensive than for major English-speaking markets.
- Compliance responsibility is yours. Apollo provides the tool; following spam laws, GDPR, and Australian privacy law is your responsibility.
- LinkedIn integration requires careful use. Using Apollo to scrape LinkedIn en masse violates LinkedIn’s terms. Work within rate limits.
See also
- gong-ai — revenue intelligence for calls and deals (complements Apollo)
- hubspot-ai — CRM that integrates with Apollo
- salesforce-einstein — enterprise CRM integration
- intercom-fin — customer service AI (once you’ve landed customers)
Sources
- Apollo.io product documentation: apollo.io
- Apollo.io privacy policy and opt-out: apollo.io/privacy
- Spam Act 2003 (Australia) — cold email compliance
- Australian Privacy Act 1988 — business contact data
- G2 reviews and comparisons of Apollo vs ZoomInfo vs Lusha (2024)
- TechCrunch coverage of Apollo’s growth (2023–2024)