Apollo promises a comprehensive sales intelligence suite containing various tools to streamline your prospecting and sales pipeline—including data enrichment automation, a wide range of search filters, and a large contact database.
Despite these useful features, Apollo isn’t without issues, which some customers have reported on popular review sites.
To help you decide if the common criticisms have merit, we’ve sifted through numerous Apollo.io reviews and compared them to valuable inputs from our team’s industry experts. We’ll showcase the most informative user experiences and help you determine if the platform is the best choice for your team.
After that, you’ll learn about an alternative tool that can massively improve the efficiency of your outbound campaigns.
Apollo—Key Features
Before delving into Apollo user reviews, we’ll briefly go over the platform’s primary capabilities. Apollo provides a broad scope of sales features, including functionalities like:
- Contact database for prospecting
- Data enrichment options
- Sales engagement tools
- Data analysis reports
One of the main ways Apollo helps users target key decision-makers is through a massive database of more than 270 million contacts—many of which include current job titles and confirmed email addresses. This database is especially valuable for prospect enrichment. If you provide a list of contacts with missing or outdated information, Apollo can automatically fill in the blanks with relevant data.
Once you have enough qualified prospects, the platform streamlines your sales engagement with various features, including the ones outlined in the table below:
In order to help you track the platform’s impact on your performance, Apollo provides several data analytics features. These include auto-generated visual reports on your ROI, rep activity, and messaging metrics.
If necessary, you can also build custom report templates in the platform and gain valuable insights into the specific aspects of your outbound efforts that interest you.
While such a wide range of features paints an attractive picture, some users have reported issues with how the platform works in practice. We’ll examine these accounts below.
Apollo Tool Reviews
For a breakdown of Apollo.io ratings on popular review websites, check out the table below:
Currently, Apollo isn’t accredited by the BBB with an official letter grade—the table only shows the average user score. The lack of an official grade could indicate that the company fails to meet BBB standards, but it could also mean that the BBB simply hasn’t reviewed Apollo yet.
While the average user rating for Apollo is 4.8 out of 5 on G2, note that most of the positive reviews have been labeled as incentivized and requested by Apollo. This casts some doubt on the platform’s high grade on G2, especially considering most organic reports highlight the same issues discussed by customers on BBB.
Most user reviews tackle the following aspects of Apollo:
- Security & data privacy
- Data accuracy
- Customer support & ease of use
🔒 Security & Data Privacy
Multiple customers claim that Apollo has shared their data with third parties without consent—resulting in spam and other forms of unsolicited marketing.
If these reports are true, they would mean Apollo is in breach of GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) and other applicable data privacy laws. It seems Apollo has developed a negative reputation due to such business practices, contributing to its middling score on some review platforms.
According to one of the above reviews, the company had shut down its Google Business profile because of a chronically low score. Supposedly, Google reviewers were complaining about Apollo’s data reselling as well.
In Illinois, residents have even filed a class action lawsuit against Apollo, accusing the company of illegally misusing their personal information.
🎯 Data Accuracy
Since Apollo provides all users with information from one contact database, the accuracy of the included information is far from ideal, as confirmed by users. Customers have reported outdated phone numbers that are no longer in use and missing email addresses.
This lack of reliability is problematic, considering the platform’s large database is one of its key selling points. When you pay for a prospecting platform, the last thing you want is inaccurate data that will waste your team’s time and decrease email deliverability.
Even when the contact information is up-to-date and genuine, the included email addresses are bombarded with marketing messages, and most end up in spam. The result is low email deliverability across the board.
👤 Customer Support & Ease of Use
Correcting overbilling and other mistakes has proven difficult due to communication issues with Apollo’s customer support. According to some users, the support staff was likely outsourced and unresponsive to their problems.
When users reported bugs, the support staff acknowledged complaints without indicating when the issues would be fixed, if at all. The platform’s support system seems inflexible and rigid, failing to assist even when customers simply wanted to upgrade to a higher subscription tier.
Still, most customers seem to be satisfied with the general user experience, often praising the platform’s interface and ease of use. Despite some reports of bugs, the platform’s various features generally function without issue.
💡 Bonus read: For firsthand user reviews of platforms similar to Apollo, check out our compilations for the following solutions:
Apollo Pricing
Considering the multiple issues noted by many users, Apollo’s cost-effectiveness is far from certain. Still, the platform’s pricing structure is fairly flexible, allowing you to choose from the following plans:
- Free
- Basic—$59 per user per month
- Professional—$99 per user per month
- Organization—$149 per user per month
For an overview of the features included in each tier, consult the table below:
💡 Bonus read: To compare Apollo with similar sales intelligence platforms, check out our pricing guides for:
Final Apollo.io Review Verdict—Should You Use It?
Based on its questionable business practices and cost-effectiveness, Apollo.io is a subpar choice for prospect enrichment. For all its data analytics and reporting tools that measure your performance, the platform has two major weaknesses:
- Inaccurate data
- Emails flagged as spam
At least partially, both issues are the result of Apollo’s limited contact database. Even with hundreds of millions of entries, this internal database is still the only source of information you get with Apollo.
As a result, cross-referencing information with other sources to eliminate incorrect data is practically impossible.
Although Apollo claims to refresh its list of contacts regularly, many users have reported their emails being flagged as spam. This occurrence likely stems from too many Apollo customers bombarding the same prospects with marketing emails.
Both issues will lower your email deliverability over time and negatively impact your outbound campaigns—the opposite of what you’d expect after paying for sales intelligence software.
If you’re looking for viable alternatives, check out Clay—the best automated outbound platform that respects your privacy and provides highly accurate prospect data. 🏆
💡 Bonus read: Check out our top picks for BeenVerified free alternatives!
Clay—Accurate Data Enrichment With AI
Clay is an AI-powered data gathering and enrichment platform that improves the efficiency of outbound campaigns without data privacy and accuracy issues or prohibitive expenses. Unlike Apollo, Clay collects data from over 50 sources, allowing you to create high-quality lead lists and minimizing the risk of outdated or inaccurate information through extensive cross-referencing.
Its waterfall enrichment goes through different sources one by one until you find the specific information you’re looking for. Since you’re browsing these databases through Clay, you don’t have to create additional accounts or sign contracts with each source—simply pay with Clay credits, and the platform will handle everything else.
AI-Based Automation & Hyper Efficient Outreach
Clay helps you reduce costs by automating outreach tasks with AI features, including:
- Claygent—An AI assistant that can process thousands of online sources and scrape them for any data you require based on your prompts 🖥️
- GPT-4 integration—With one of the world’s most famous AI models, you can summarize websites and extract info in mere seconds 🤖
- Automatic email drafter—AI tool that writes highly personalized emails that specifically target any contact based on previously collected data 🖊️
The platform’s AI tools can streamline your outbound workflow and free up time and resources you’d otherwise spend on menial tasks. As a result, you’ll need fewer sales reps and your outreach performance will be better than ever.
Since Clay integrates with over 100 other platforms besides GPT-4, you’ll have all the tools you need to reach your prospects anywhere.
If you want to check out Clay in action, the platform offers a free plan with all major features—the ideal way to test-drive various options without making a financial commitment.
Among Clay’s paid plans, you’ll find something suitable for any company size, and each subscription comes with a 14-day free trial.
For a practical demonstration of what you can achieve with Clay, check out the video below:
Get Started With Clay
For cost-effective and result-driven outbound campaigns, leverage Clay’s automation and data enrichment features. Getting started is easy and only requires a couple of steps:
- Go to the signup page ➡️
- Create an account 👨💻
- Start utilizing Clay’s numerous data sources and AI 📈
For more details on how the platform works, visit Clay’s Learn hub and check out its Slack community. There’s also a handy newsletter that provides valuable insights into the secrets of high-converting email campaigns.
Apollo promises a comprehensive sales intelligence suite containing various tools to streamline your prospecting and sales pipeline—including data enrichment automation, a wide range of search filters, and a large contact database.
Despite these useful features, Apollo isn’t without issues, which some customers have reported on popular review sites.
To help you decide if the common criticisms have merit, we’ve sifted through numerous Apollo.io reviews and compared them to valuable inputs from our team’s industry experts. We’ll showcase the most informative user experiences and help you determine if the platform is the best choice for your team.
After that, you’ll learn about an alternative tool that can massively improve the efficiency of your outbound campaigns.
Apollo—Key Features
Before delving into Apollo user reviews, we’ll briefly go over the platform’s primary capabilities. Apollo provides a broad scope of sales features, including functionalities like:
- Contact database for prospecting
- Data enrichment options
- Sales engagement tools
- Data analysis reports
One of the main ways Apollo helps users target key decision-makers is through a massive database of more than 270 million contacts—many of which include current job titles and confirmed email addresses. This database is especially valuable for prospect enrichment. If you provide a list of contacts with missing or outdated information, Apollo can automatically fill in the blanks with relevant data.
Once you have enough qualified prospects, the platform streamlines your sales engagement with various features, including the ones outlined in the table below:
In order to help you track the platform’s impact on your performance, Apollo provides several data analytics features. These include auto-generated visual reports on your ROI, rep activity, and messaging metrics.
If necessary, you can also build custom report templates in the platform and gain valuable insights into the specific aspects of your outbound efforts that interest you.
While such a wide range of features paints an attractive picture, some users have reported issues with how the platform works in practice. We’ll examine these accounts below.
Apollo Tool Reviews
For a breakdown of Apollo.io ratings on popular review websites, check out the table below:
Currently, Apollo isn’t accredited by the BBB with an official letter grade—the table only shows the average user score. The lack of an official grade could indicate that the company fails to meet BBB standards, but it could also mean that the BBB simply hasn’t reviewed Apollo yet.
While the average user rating for Apollo is 4.8 out of 5 on G2, note that most of the positive reviews have been labeled as incentivized and requested by Apollo. This casts some doubt on the platform’s high grade on G2, especially considering most organic reports highlight the same issues discussed by customers on BBB.
Most user reviews tackle the following aspects of Apollo:
- Security & data privacy
- Data accuracy
- Customer support & ease of use
🔒 Security & Data Privacy
Multiple customers claim that Apollo has shared their data with third parties without consent—resulting in spam and other forms of unsolicited marketing.
If these reports are true, they would mean Apollo is in breach of GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) and other applicable data privacy laws. It seems Apollo has developed a negative reputation due to such business practices, contributing to its middling score on some review platforms.
According to one of the above reviews, the company had shut down its Google Business profile because of a chronically low score. Supposedly, Google reviewers were complaining about Apollo’s data reselling as well.
In Illinois, residents have even filed a class action lawsuit against Apollo, accusing the company of illegally misusing their personal information.
🎯 Data Accuracy
Since Apollo provides all users with information from one contact database, the accuracy of the included information is far from ideal, as confirmed by users. Customers have reported outdated phone numbers that are no longer in use and missing email addresses.
This lack of reliability is problematic, considering the platform’s large database is one of its key selling points. When you pay for a prospecting platform, the last thing you want is inaccurate data that will waste your team’s time and decrease email deliverability.
Even when the contact information is up-to-date and genuine, the included email addresses are bombarded with marketing messages, and most end up in spam. The result is low email deliverability across the board.
👤 Customer Support & Ease of Use
Correcting overbilling and other mistakes has proven difficult due to communication issues with Apollo’s customer support. According to some users, the support staff was likely outsourced and unresponsive to their problems.
When users reported bugs, the support staff acknowledged complaints without indicating when the issues would be fixed, if at all. The platform’s support system seems inflexible and rigid, failing to assist even when customers simply wanted to upgrade to a higher subscription tier.
Still, most customers seem to be satisfied with the general user experience, often praising the platform’s interface and ease of use. Despite some reports of bugs, the platform’s various features generally function without issue.
💡 Bonus read: For firsthand user reviews of platforms similar to Apollo, check out our compilations for the following solutions:
Apollo Pricing
Considering the multiple issues noted by many users, Apollo’s cost-effectiveness is far from certain. Still, the platform’s pricing structure is fairly flexible, allowing you to choose from the following plans:
- Free
- Basic—$59 per user per month
- Professional—$99 per user per month
- Organization—$149 per user per month
For an overview of the features included in each tier, consult the table below:
💡 Bonus read: To compare Apollo with similar sales intelligence platforms, check out our pricing guides for:
Final Apollo.io Review Verdict—Should You Use It?
Based on its questionable business practices and cost-effectiveness, Apollo.io is a subpar choice for prospect enrichment. For all its data analytics and reporting tools that measure your performance, the platform has two major weaknesses:
- Inaccurate data
- Emails flagged as spam
At least partially, both issues are the result of Apollo’s limited contact database. Even with hundreds of millions of entries, this internal database is still the only source of information you get with Apollo.
As a result, cross-referencing information with other sources to eliminate incorrect data is practically impossible.
Although Apollo claims to refresh its list of contacts regularly, many users have reported their emails being flagged as spam. This occurrence likely stems from too many Apollo customers bombarding the same prospects with marketing emails.
Both issues will lower your email deliverability over time and negatively impact your outbound campaigns—the opposite of what you’d expect after paying for sales intelligence software.
If you’re looking for viable alternatives, check out Clay—the best automated outbound platform that respects your privacy and provides highly accurate prospect data. 🏆
💡 Bonus read: Check out our top picks for BeenVerified free alternatives!
Clay—Accurate Data Enrichment With AI
Clay is an AI-powered data gathering and enrichment platform that improves the efficiency of outbound campaigns without data privacy and accuracy issues or prohibitive expenses. Unlike Apollo, Clay collects data from over 50 sources, allowing you to create high-quality lead lists and minimizing the risk of outdated or inaccurate information through extensive cross-referencing.
Its waterfall enrichment goes through different sources one by one until you find the specific information you’re looking for. Since you’re browsing these databases through Clay, you don’t have to create additional accounts or sign contracts with each source—simply pay with Clay credits, and the platform will handle everything else.
AI-Based Automation & Hyper Efficient Outreach
Clay helps you reduce costs by automating outreach tasks with AI features, including:
- Claygent—An AI assistant that can process thousands of online sources and scrape them for any data you require based on your prompts 🖥️
- GPT-4 integration—With one of the world’s most famous AI models, you can summarize websites and extract info in mere seconds 🤖
- Automatic email drafter—AI tool that writes highly personalized emails that specifically target any contact based on previously collected data 🖊️
The platform’s AI tools can streamline your outbound workflow and free up time and resources you’d otherwise spend on menial tasks. As a result, you’ll need fewer sales reps and your outreach performance will be better than ever.
Since Clay integrates with over 100 other platforms besides GPT-4, you’ll have all the tools you need to reach your prospects anywhere.
If you want to check out Clay in action, the platform offers a free plan with all major features—the ideal way to test-drive various options without making a financial commitment.
Among Clay’s paid plans, you’ll find something suitable for any company size, and each subscription comes with a 14-day free trial.
For a practical demonstration of what you can achieve with Clay, check out the video below:
Get Started With Clay
For cost-effective and result-driven outbound campaigns, leverage Clay’s automation and data enrichment features. Getting started is easy and only requires a couple of steps:
- Go to the signup page ➡️
- Create an account 👨💻
- Start utilizing Clay’s numerous data sources and AI 📈
For more details on how the platform works, visit Clay’s Learn hub and check out its Slack community. There’s also a handy newsletter that provides valuable insights into the secrets of high-converting email campaigns.
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