Apollo vs ZoomInfo: Which B2B Contact Database Is Worth It? (2026)

Prices and features checked on each vendor’s own site on 19 October 2026. Neither vendor paid for or reviewed this article.

What is the difference between Apollo and ZoomInfo?

Both sell B2B contact data. The difference is what comes with the data and how you buy it.

Apollo is a database plus a full outreach tool. You find a hiring manager, reveal the email, and drop them into a sequence with email, calls and tasks, all in the same app. Its Apollo homepage claims 240M+ contacts, 30M+ accounts and more than 600,000 companies as users.

ZoomInfo is an enterprise data and intelligence platform. It goes deeper on phone numbers, company hierarchies, buying intent and alerts, and it leans on partners like Salesloft and Outreach for heavy sequencing. Its ZoomInfo data page claims 500M+ professional profiles and 122M+ company records. You buy it through a sales rep, on a quote.

How do Apollo and ZoomInfo compare side by side?

This table uses each vendor’s own pricing, product and docs pages. Database sizes and accuracy rates are vendor claims, not independent tests.

How much do Apollo and ZoomInfo cost in 2026?

Apollo publishes every self serve price. ZoomInfo publishes features by package but no seat prices. Here is everything that is public on each vendor’s own site.

Sources: the Apollo pricing page, the ZoomInfo pricing page and the GTM.ai pricing page. Monthly billing costs more; Apollo’s page shows only annual rates.

What do ZoomInfo contracts really cost?

ZoomInfo will not say, so the best public number comes from buyers. The Vendr ZoomInfo benchmark, built from 1,577 purchases, puts the median at $33,500 a year, with deals running from $7,240 to $156,042. Vendr says contracts run 1 to 3 years and often auto renew with 5% to 10% yearly increases.

These are third party estimates. Others, such as Cleanlist’s GTM.ai breakdown, cite entry contracts around $14,995 a year with a three seat minimum. That figure also traces back to Vendr data, so it is a guide, not a quote.

What does each one cost per year by team size?

This is a Work Insiders calculation from Apollo’s published annual rates. Organization is priced at the 3 seat minimum for teams under 3. ZoomInfo has no public seat price, so the last column shows how the Vendr median compares.

The Vendr median is not tied to a seat count, so treat it as a reference point. It still buys 35 seats of Apollo Professional for a year.

How do Apollo credits work for emails and mobile numbers?

Apollo now gives each plan one pooled credit allowance, shared across the team; paid plans get it upfront. Credits pay for email reveals, phone numbers, waterfall enrichment, AI research, email warmup and more. The Apollo credits page says an email never costs more than 1 credit per contact, and you are only charged for emails Apollo can verify.

Mobile numbers cost more. Apollo’s own credits page did not display the rate when we checked, and its plan walkthrough says only “several credits per contact”. Docket’s pricing guide puts it at 8 credits per phone number. Check the rate in your account before a calling campaign.

What are the gotchas with Apollo credits?

• Unused credits expire at the end of each billing cycle, including add on credits you bought.
• Add on credits are charged at once and renew automatically every cycle until you set the slider back to zero.
• Older guides describe separate email, mobile and export credits. Apollo’s credit usage guide says export credits now apply only to some plans or legacy setups.
• Every seat must be on the same plan. You cannot put one heavy user on Professional and the rest on Basic.

How do ZoomInfo credits work?

On a ZoomInfo contract, one credit equals one exported contact or company profile, whether it goes out from the web app, the Chrome extension or a CRM integration. ZoomInfo’s pricing FAQ says packages come with a set number of monthly credits, and that its CRM and sales tool integrations “typically have a base cost” plus a minimum purchase of bulk credits. Vendr warns that overage fees can be steep, so negotiate the credit count before you sign.

GTM.ai is different. Search and lookup are free, a data credit enriches one record, and credits expire 12 months after they are granted. The catch for callers: GTM.ai lists mobile phone data only on Enterprise packages.

Which has more accurate contact data?

No neutral head to head test exists, so these are vendor claims. Apollo’s Chrome extension page claims 98% email accuracy from a 2 million contributor data network. ZoomInfo claims 96% email deliverability, 87% mobile accuracy and 72% direct dial hit rates, plus human researchers who validate records.

ZoomInfo also published a benchmark called GTM Bench in July 2026 that scored ZoomInfo 77 and Apollo 47. ZoomInfo designed, ran and scored that test itself, so read it as marketing until someone independent repeats it.

On Apollo’s Capterra page it scores 4.5 from 398 reviews; ZoomInfo’s Capterra page shows 4.1 from 322. ZoomInfo’s own G2 badge reads 12,823 reviews on its pricing page and 8,905 on its homepage, so do not lean on badges.

The practical answer for most buyers: ZoomInfo’s phone data is the bigger reason to pay up. If your desk lives on cold calls to hiring managers, test phones first in both trials. If you mostly email, Apollo’s coverage is usually enough.

Which is better for intent data and buying signals?

ZoomInfo, clearly. It tracks 4,500+ intent topics and 85M+ weekly signals, plus funding rounds, executive moves, office openings, job postings and website visitor identification in the US. Buyer intent starts on Copilot Advanced. Real time and custom intent sit on Copilot Enterprise, and ZoomInfo sells Streaming Intent as a usage priced add on.

Apollo’s intent is lighter and capped by plan: 1 topic on Free, 6 on Basic and Professional, and 12 on Organization. It also shows job changes, website visits and job postings as signals.

Can Apollo or ZoomInfo run your email sequences?

Apollo can, and this is its biggest edge for small teams. Per its sales engagement page, it runs multi step sequences across email, calls and LinkedIn tasks, with a deliverability suite, AI writing, a dialer and a meeting scheduler. Paid plans get unlimited sequences. Professional lifts the daily send cap from 250 to unlimited and adds more mailboxes per user.

ZoomInfo’s packages include AI email writing, workflows for automated outreach and intelligent dialing, but its pricing page highlights exporting emails to Outreach or Salesloft. Its old Engage product page now redirects to a ZoomInfo plus Salesloft page. If you buy ZoomInfo for an SDR team, budget for a separate sequencing tool unless your rep confirms what is included.

Sending matters as much as data. Our guide on how to cold email covers domains and volumes.

Do the Chrome extensions, CRM integrations and MCP servers differ?

Which Chrome extension is better?

Apollo’s extension is free on every plan, including Free, and Apollo says it has 1M+ installs and a 4.7 rating from 2,200+ Chrome Web Store reviews. ZoomInfo includes its extension and mobile app in the Professional package, and each export from it uses a credit.

Which CRMs do they connect to?

Both sync with Salesforce and HubSpot, the two CRMs most agencies use. Apollo also lists Outreach, Salesloft, Marketo and SendGrid. ZoomInfo’s integrations directory lists 190 integrations.

One Apollo mismatch to check: its pricing FAQ says API access is available on Custom plans, but its API help article says API access is on all plans, with limits and credit costs by plan. Ask in the trial before you build anything on it.

Do Apollo and ZoomInfo have MCP servers?

Yes, both run official MCP servers, so you can search and enrich from Claude or ChatGPT. Apollo’s works on any plan, including Free with a business email; our Apollo MCP guide covers setup and safety settings. ZoomInfo’s server needs a ZoomInfo license or a GTM.ai account, and its ZoomInfo MCP docs ask you to turn off model training in your AI tool first.

MCP actions spend the same credits as the app, so set approvals before your team connects.

Who should choose Apollo?

• Solo recruiters and small agencies doing their own business development.
• SDR teams that want data, sequences and a dialer for one published per seat price.
• Anyone who needs to start today, by card, with no sales call.
• Teams that want to test on a free plan before they spend anything.

Who should choose ZoomInfo?

• Recruiting or sales teams inside a company that already pays for ZoomInfo.
• Desks that live on the phone and need the deepest mobile and direct dial data.
• Account based teams that need org charts, hierarchies and real intent signals.
• Teams already running Outreach or Salesloft that only need the data layer.

What are the best alternatives to Apollo and ZoomInfo?

If neither fits your budget or workflow, these contact data tools solve the same problem in different ways. Each listing has current pricing.

Tool	What it does differently	Best for
Cognism	Phone verified contacts with strong European coverage	Teams calling into the UK and EU
Lusha	Simple Chrome based email and phone lookup	Recruiters who only need contact details
ContactOut	Emails and phones from LinkedIn profiles	Recruiters sourcing candidates and hiring managers
Lead411	B2B emails and direct dials at a smaller scale	Budget teams that mainly need phones
Clay	Waterfall enrichment across many data providers	Teams that find one database too thin

See every tool we list in the contact data category and the lead generation category.

How should you trial Apollo and ZoomInfo?

Start the ZoomInfo trial second, because it typically lasts only 7 days. Before either trial, pull 50 real targets from your niche: hiring managers at companies you want as clients, with names you already know are correct.

Run the same 50 through both and score verified emails, mobile numbers that reach the right person, and bounces once you send. Then price the difference. Get the ZoomInfo quote in writing, with credits, term length and renewal increases.

Quick answers