Apollo.io API Alternative: The Same Data, Priced Per Search
Apollo pairs a huge B2B database with a full sales platform, sold per seat with credit tiers. If you only want the data (programmatic search, reveal, and enrichment), you can query the same database without buying seats.
Apollo.io sells per-user monthly plans whose credit allowances and API access scale with tier. 1Lookup accesses Apollo's B2B database through a per-call data-broker integration and resells it as flat-priced lookups on universal credits: 2-credit prospect searches with email-availability flags, success-billed contact reveals, and firmographic enrichment, with no seats and no plan tiers to outgrow.
Apollo's data layer, as flat-priced API calls
The response bodies even carry apollo_id fields: it is the same underlying database, restructured into per-lookup pricing with success billing.
People search
Prospect Search API
Filter Apollo's people database by title, seniority, location, and employer. Free when nothing matches; every row flags whether an email is available.
2 credits per search
Contact reveal & email credits
B2B Contact Append API
Reveal a searched row (via its apollo_id) or enrich directly from an email, LinkedIn URL, or name plus company: verified work email with confidence rating.
75 credits per match, free on a miss
Company search
Account Search API
Filter companies by headcount, revenue, location, technology, and keywords, with firmographics attached to every row.
75 credits, up to 100 companies
Organization enrichment
Company Firmographics API
A domain becomes a full company profile: industry with SIC/NAICS codes, headcount and 12-month growth, revenue, and tech stack.
75 credits per match, free on a miss
1Lookup vs Apollo.io: the same criteria, side by side
Both products measured on identical criteria, with Apollo.io’s numbers taken from its own published pricing.
| Criteria |  1Lookup |  Apollo.io |
|---|---|---|
| Contact-data coverage | EmailPhoneIP | EmailPhoneIP |
| Pricing model | Monthly plans with universal credits; core phone, email and IP lookups cost 1 credit, enrichment and intelligence products cost more | Per-seat SaaS subscription (Free / Basic / Professional / Organization, plus sales-quoted Custom plans) with a unified per-seat credit pool covering data access: 1 credit per verified email reveal, 8 credits per phone number, up to 9 credits per enriched record (pricing FAQ), 1 credit per Power-up/AI-research run, and dialer minutes billed in credits by region (2 credits/min US & North America, 10 Europe/APAC, 15 Central-South America, 35 Middle East, 45 Africa). Annual billing is the default display ('Save 24%'); Basic and Professional are also sold monthly at higher rates, Organization is annual-only. Recurring add-on credits are self-serve on paid plans at tiered per-credit prices ($0.025 falling to ~$0.015 at 250k/yr). Add-ons (Inbound, Advanced Dialer) are each $119 per team per month billed annually ($149 monthly) at introductory pricing. |
| Starting price | $99/mo for 20,000 credits ($4.95 per 1,000, down to $2.00 on Enterprise) | $49 per seat/month billed annually (Basic, $588/seat/yr) including 30,000 credits per seat per year granted upfront; $65/seat/mo billed monthly (2,500 credits/seat/mo). Professional is $79/seat/mo annually ($99 monthly, 48,000 credits/seat/yr); Organization is $119/seat/mo, annual billing only (72,000 credits/seat/yr) |
| Free option | Free single lookups via the online tools at 1lookup.io/tools, no account required | Free plan at $0: 900 credits per seat per year granted monthly (75/mo), AI Assistant (5-chat limit), 2 sequences per team, 25-record selection limit, 250 emails/day, 5,000 AI-writing words/mo, Gmail/Microsoft email integration only, website-visitor ID for 20 companies/mo. Free plans are limited to 1 seat after 100 days of active use, and the pricing FAQ says phone-number access is only for a limited time before it is disabled unless you upgrade |
| Free trial | 7-day free trial on every plan: $5 of credits on Starter, $20 on Growth, Professional, and Enterprise (card required, nothing charged up front) | 14-day self-serve free trial of Basic or Professional (from a free plan, activatable once per account; dialer only in Professional trials; no trial on Custom plans). KB-documented caps: 25-record selection limit, 20 phone numbers max, 60 total dialer minutes (10 min/call); non-Gmail/Microsoft mailboxes cannot be linked. Trial credit allowance is published inconsistently on Apollo's own pricing page: plan-card tooltips say 'Trial accounts are limited to 50 lead credits per user' (and that Professional trials 'do not include mobile numbers'), while the FAQ's unified-credit text says 100 credits (legacy text: 50 credits + 5 mobile credits) |
| Do credits expire? | Unused monthly credits roll over for 3 months; separately purchased credits last 1 year | Yes. Apollo's KB (updated Jul 23, 2026) states: 'Per our terms of service, unused credits expire at the end of your billing cycle and do not roll over to the next billing cycle,' and the about-credits page repeats it ('Credits do not roll over into the following billing cycle or upon renewal'). Paid annual plans unlock the full year's credits upfront at the start of the billing cycle; the Free plan's 900 credits/yr are granted monthly. Credits for Apollo-verified emails that bounce within 30 days (sent via Apollo) are refunded in the next cycle; phone-number credits are never refunded |
What Apollo.io costs at volume
| Volume | Apollo.io price | Per 1,000 |
|---|---|---|
| 30,000 credits/yr (Basic, 1 seat, annual) | $588/yr ($49/seat/mo billed annually); 1 credit = 1 email reveal, 8 credits = 1 phone number | $19.60 per 1,000 credits |
| 2,500 credits/mo (Basic, monthly billing) | $65/seat/mo billed monthly | $26.00 per 1,000 credits |
| 48,000 credits/yr (Professional, 1 seat, annual) | $948/yr ($79/seat/mo billed annually) | $19.75 per 1,000 credits |
| 72,000 credits/yr (Organization, per seat, annual-only) | $1,428/seat/yr ($119/seat/mo billed annually) | $19.83 per 1,000 credits |
Apollo is priced per user per month with annual credit allowances; 1Lookup is priced per lookup (2 credits per search, 75 per reveal, success-billed). If data volume, not rep count, drives your usage, compare a month of your actual searches and reveals against a seat bill.
Where Apollo.io wins
- All-in-one GTM platform: B2B contact/company database, sequences, dialer, enrichment (incl. waterfall), buying intent, workflows, and AI research in one per-seat price, with 500,000+ companies claimed as customers and G2 4.7/5 from 9,015 reviews shown on the pricing page
- Genuinely free forever plan (900 credits/seat/yr) plus a self-serve 14-day trial of Basic or Professional - low-friction entry compared with sales-gated competitors like ZoomInfo
- API access is included on ALL plans, including Free (per Apollo's knowledge base, July 2026), and per-plan API rate limits are published in the pricing page's plan-comparison chart - unusual transparency for the B2B-data category
- Credits refunded automatically when an Apollo-verified email bounces within 30 days (sent via Apollo), and requesting an email includes the office phone number at no extra credit cost
- Strong compliance posture stated on its own pages: GDPR-compliant, ISO 27001 and SOC 2 certified, EU-US Data Privacy Framework certified
Where 1Lookup wins
- No per-seat pricing: costs scale with lookups, not team size
- 2-credit searches with email-availability flags before you spend on reveals
- Success-billed enrichment: a no-match costs nothing, so messy lists don't inflate the bill
- One API and credit balance across prospecting, firmographics, SEO data, and validation
Apollo.io pricing and product facts verified against apollo.io as of July 2026. Prices change; always confirm on the vendor’s site. 1Lookup numbers come from the live rate card.
Who this is for
A quick, honest read on which tool fits your use case.
Choose 1Lookup if: you want the prospecting data without per-seat plans or credit tiers: flat-priced searches and per-contact reveals through one API alongside validation.
Consider Apollo.io instead if: you want an all-in-one sales platform where reps prospect, sequence, dial, and email inside the same seat-based tool.
Frequently asked questions
How is this different from buying Apollo directly?
Apollo is sold per user per month, with credit allowances, feature gates, and API access that vary by tier, the right shape when your reps live in its sequencing and dialer tools. 1Lookup sells the data layer only: every search or reveal is an individually priced API call from a shared credit balance, with no seats, so the cost tracks usage instead of headcount.
Is it really the same data as Apollo?
Prospect Search, Account Search, B2B Contact Append, and Company Firmographics query Apollo's database through a per-call data-broker integration, result rows carry apollo_id identifiers you can use to reveal specific people. 1Lookup adds normalization on top: seniority levels, email-confidence ratings, and standardized SIC/NAICS codes.
What does searching cost?
2 credits per prospect search regardless of how many matches return, and zero when nothing matches. Reveals and enrichments are 75 credits and success-billed, so a miss costs nothing. Exact per-plan economics are on the pricing page, and the dashboard shows the cost before every call.
When should I stick with Apollo?
If your team wants the all-in-one motion (prospecting, sequences, dialer, deals) inside one seat-based tool, Apollo's platform is the point, and its free tier is a genuinely easy way to start. 1Lookup wins when you are building your own workflow or product and just need the data through an API.
Can I bulk-enrich an existing list?
Yes. B2B Contact Append and Company Firmographics run in the bulk CSV pipeline: upload your list, and pay only for the rows that come back matched.