TL;DR: Apollo's headline prices look reasonable until you factor in export credits, enrichment limits, and the features locked behind higher tiers. This breakdown covers every Apollo plan in 2026, the hidden costs most buyers miss, and why a growing number of founders are switching to a flat-rate alternative instead.

Ghost is the all-in-one GTM platform for B2B founders and small revenue teams: an AI SDR, a 600M-contact database, LinkedIn + email outreach and a built-in CRM on one plan. Before we dig into Apollo's pricing architecture, it's worth understanding why so many teams end up paying significantly more than they expected.

Why People Search for Apollo Pricing

Apollo pricing is the per-seat cost of Apollo.io's sales intelligence and engagement plans: free, then $49, $99 and $149 per seat per month on annual billing, before credit top-ups and add-ons.

Apollo's credit system is genuinely confusing — and it's designed to be. You sign up on the free plan, start building lists, and then hit a wall the moment you try to export or enrich contacts at any meaningful volume.

The most common complaint we hear from founders who've used Apollo: "I thought I was on a $49/month plan. My actual bill was $180." That's not a bug — it's how the model works. Credits run out, you buy more, and the per-seat pricing compounds once your team grows.

This article exists to give you the full picture before you commit.

Apollo Plans in 2026: What Each Tier Actually Costs

Apollo currently offers four plans: Free, Basic, Professional, and Organisation. Here's what each one looks like in practice — not just the headline number.

Free Plan

  • Price: $0/month
  • Export credits: 50 mobile numbers and 100 email exports per month
  • Sequences: Limited to 2 active sequences
  • Integrations: Basic CRM sync (Salesforce, HubSpot) locked behind paid tiers
  • Enrichment: Manual only — no bulk enrichment
  • Who it's actually for: Testing the database UI, not running real outbound

The free plan is genuinely useful for a single founder validating a list of 50 contacts. The moment you want to run a real campaign, you'll hit the ceiling within a week.

Basic Plan

  • Price: $49/month per seat (billed annually) — approximately $59/month billed monthly
  • Export credits: 1,000 email credits and 200 mobile credits per month
  • Sequences: Unlimited active sequences
  • A/B testing: Not included
  • Intent data: Not included
  • Advanced filters: Partial — job change alerts and buying intent signals require Professional
  • Who it's actually for: Solo founders doing low-volume email outreach with no need for intent signals or advanced personalisation

At $49/month this looks affordable. But 1,000 email credits disappears fast if you're prospecting seriously. A single campaign targeting 500 contacts with one follow-up uses your entire monthly allowance.

Professional Plan

  • Price: $99/month per seat (billed annually) — approximately $119/month billed monthly
  • Export credits: 2,000 email credits and 500 mobile credits per month
  • Sequences: Unlimited, with A/B testing
  • Intent data: Included (limited — 6 intent topics)
  • Advanced filters: Full access including job changes, funding signals, and technology filters
  • LinkedIn steps in sequences: Included
  • Who it's actually for: SDRs and small sales teams running multi-channel outbound at moderate volume

Apollo Professional pricing is where most growth-stage teams land. It's the first tier that actually functions as a proper outbound tool. But 2,000 credits per seat still runs out — and you're paying $99/month per person, not per team.

Organisation Plan

  • Price: $149/month per seat (billed annually, minimum 3 seats) — floor price of $447/month
  • Export credits: 4,000 email credits and 1,000 mobile credits per seat per month
  • Intent data: Full access (up to 12 intent topics)
  • Custom fields, advanced reporting, SSO: Included
  • Who it's actually for: Sales teams of 5+ with a dedicated RevOps function

The minimum 3-seat requirement means the Organisation plan starts at $447/month before you've bought a single extra credit. For a small team, that's a meaningful commitment.

The Hidden Costs Most Buyers Miss

The credit system is where Apollo's real cost lives. Here's what doesn't make it onto the pricing page headline:

  • Credit top-ups: When you exhaust your monthly export credits, you can buy more. Apollo charges approximately $0.01–$0.04 per additional email credit depending on volume. At scale, this adds up quickly.
  • Mobile number credits: Mobile credits are rationed far more tightly than email credits. On Professional, you get 500/month. If your ICP requires direct dials, you'll burn through this in a single campaign.
  • Enrichment credits: Bulk enrichment (uploading a CSV and filling in missing fields) consumes credits separately from export. Many users don't realise this until they've run their first enrichment job.
  • Per-seat scaling: A 3-person SDR team on Apollo Professional costs $297/month. Add a fourth person and you're at $396/month. Apollo's per-seat model compounds with headcount in a way flat-rate tools don't.
  • Annual commitment lock-in: The advertised prices require annual billing. Month-to-month pricing is 15–20% higher, and cancellation mid-year doesn't typically generate a refund.

Founder's Take: I've spoken to dozens of founders who budgeted for Apollo's advertised price and ended up paying 2–3x more within 90 days. The credit model isn't predatory — it's just misaligned with how most small teams actually prospect. You don't use 1,000 contacts uniformly across 30 days. You run a campaign, exhaust your credits in a week, and then either wait or pay more. Ghost's flat $99/month with no credit system exists specifically because I was one of those founders.

Apollo vs Ghost: Side-by-Side Comparison

To make this concrete, here's how Apollo Professional (the most popular paid tier) stacks up against Ghost across the dimensions that matter most to founders and small revenue teams.

Pricing

  • Apollo Professional: $99/month per seat, billed annually. A 3-person team pays $297/month. Credits are capped and top-ups cost extra.
  • Ghost: $99/month flat — one price for the whole platform, no per-seat fee for small teams, no credit system, no add-ons. Everything included.

For a solo founder or a 2–3 person team, Ghost is significantly cheaper in practice. For a 10-person SDR team, the comparison shifts — but so does the feature set you're comparing.

Features

  • Contact database: Apollo has ~275M contacts. Ghost has 600M verified contacts — more than double, with business emails and LinkedIn URLs, no credit system, no per-lookup fees.
  • Email sequences: Both platforms include native email sequences. Apollo's are more mature for pure cold email at high volume. Ghost's are integrated with LinkedIn steps in a single unified flow.
  • LinkedIn outreach: Apollo added LinkedIn steps to sequences on Professional and above. Ghost was built LinkedIn-first — LinkedIn invite, message, and email steps are native and co-ordinated in one builder.
  • Intent signals: Apollo offers third-party intent data (Bombora-style, account-level) from Professional tier. Ghost tracks first-party intent at contact level — every like, comment, and profile visit on your own content, scored across 5 dimensions.
  • Content creation: Apollo has no content features. Ghost includes an AI content engine that generates LinkedIn posts trained on your brand voice and schedules them.
  • AI campaign builder: Apollo has AI-assisted sequence writing. Ghost's Agentic Campaign Creator finds contacts, writes the full sequence with Claude, builds the campaign, and enrols prospects end-to-end in under 90 seconds.
  • Email warmup: Not included in Apollo. Included in Ghost.
  • ICP comment engagement: Not available in Apollo. Ghost surfaces comments from your ICP on your posts and competitor posts and suggests on-brand replies.

Use Case Fit

  • Apollo is the better fit if: You have a dedicated SDR team running high-volume pure cold email (10,000+ contacts/month), you're deeply integrated into Salesforce with custom objects, or you need enterprise-grade reporting and SSO at scale.
  • Ghost is the better fit if: You're a founder or small revenue team running warm, content-led outbound. You want to combine LinkedIn presence with targeted prospecting. You want one flat price with no credit anxiety. You want the contact database, sequences, content, and intent signals in a single workflow — not stitched together from four different tools.

Where Apollo Wins

Apollo is genuinely excellent at a few things that Ghost doesn't prioritise.

High-volume cold email infrastructure. If you're sending 50,000 cold emails a month across multiple domains with complex deliverability routing, Apollo's email infrastructure and deliverability tooling is more mature for that use case.

CRM depth. Apollo's Salesforce and HubSpot integrations are deep — custom field mapping, bi-directional sync, and workflow triggers. If your RevOps team has built complex CRM logic, Apollo plugs in more cleanly.

Enterprise team management. The Organisation plan includes SSO, advanced permissions, and multi-team reporting. For a 20-person sales org with a dedicated RevOps function, Apollo's admin layer is more robust.

Where Ghost Wins

Ghost wins on the dimensions that matter most to founders and small teams building pipeline in 2026.

The full chain, not just the database. Apollo gives you data and sequences. Ghost gives you content → engagement → intent scoring → warm outbound → reply tracking — all connected. That chain is what turns cold contacts into warm conversations.

First-party intent at contact level. Apollo's intent data is third-party and account-level. Ghost's intent signals come from your own content — the person who liked your post about HR automation software yesterday is a warmer prospect than someone flagged by a Bombora topic cluster. Ghost surfaces that person by name, scores their engagement, and lets you trigger outreach immediately.

No credit anxiety. This is underrated. The mental load of managing credit budgets, rationing exports, and timing campaigns around monthly resets is real. Ghost's flat $99/month removes that entirely.

Bigger database, no extra cost. Ghost's 600M contact database is included at the same price. You're not paying more for access to more contacts.

Content as a pipeline engine. A founder selling HR software who posts consistently on LinkedIn, engages with ICP comments, and then triggers warm outreach to people who engaged with their content will outperform a founder running cold sequences from a list. Ghost is built for the former.

Honest Caveats

Ghost isn't the right tool for every situation, and I'd rather tell you that upfront.

If you're running pure cold email at 50,000+ contacts/month, Apollo's email infrastructure and deliverability tooling is more battle-tested for that specific use case. Ghost is built for quality over raw volume.

If you need deep Salesforce custom object mapping with complex bi-directional workflow triggers, Apollo's CRM integration is more mature. Ghost has CRM-lite functionality — it works well for most small teams, but it's not a full Salesforce middleware replacement.

If you're managing outbound for 20+ clients as an agency, Apollo's multi-workspace architecture may suit your operational model better. Ghost's current architecture is optimised for single-company GTM teams, not large multi-client agencies.

Outside of those three specific scenarios, Ghost covers the ground — and then some.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does Apollo actually cost per month?

Apollo's paid plans start at $49/month per seat (Basic, billed annually) and go up to $149/month per seat (Organisation, minimum 3 seats). However, the real monthly cost is typically higher once you factor in credit top-ups for exports, enrichment, and mobile numbers. A 3-person team on Apollo Professional pays a minimum of $297/month before any additional credit purchases.

What are Apollo's export credits and why do they matter?

Apollo uses a credit system to control how many contacts you can export or enrich each month. On the Professional plan, you get 2,000 email credits and 500 mobile credits per seat per month. When those credits run out, you either wait until the next billing cycle or purchase top-ups at additional cost. This system means your effective prospecting volume is capped regardless of your plan tier.

Is Apollo's free plan worth using?

Apollo's free plan is useful for validating the database and testing the UI with a small list of 50–100 contacts. It's not viable for running real outbound campaigns — you're limited to 2 active sequences and 100 email exports per month. Most founders exhaust the free plan within their first week of serious prospecting.

What does Apollo Professional pricing include that Basic doesn't?

Apollo Professional adds A/B testing for sequences, full advanced filter access (including job change alerts, funding signals, and technology stack filters), intent data (up to 6 topics), LinkedIn steps in sequences, and higher credit limits (2,000 email, 500 mobile per seat). Basic is effectively an email-only outbound tool with limited targeting. Professional is the first tier that functions as a genuine multi-channel outbound platform.

How does Ghost's pricing compare to Apollo Professional?

Apollo Professional costs $99/month per seat. Ghost costs $99/month flat — for the whole platform, with no per-seat fee for small teams, no credit system, and no add-ons. A solo founder pays the same on both. A 3-person team pays $297/month on Apollo vs $99/month on Ghost. Ghost also includes a 600M contact database, AI content creation, first-party intent signals, and email warmup — none of which are included in Apollo Professional.

Does Apollo include LinkedIn outreach?

LinkedIn steps are available in Apollo sequences from the Professional plan upwards. However, Apollo was built as an email-first tool and LinkedIn was added later. Ghost was built with LinkedIn and email as co-equal channels from day one — LinkedIn invite, message, and email steps are co-ordinated in a single unified sequence builder rather than treated as an add-on.

What is the difference between first-party and third-party intent data?

Third-party intent data (used by Apollo and tools like Bombora) tracks account-level signals across the wider web — which companies are reading articles about a topic. First-party intent data (used by Ghost) tracks individual contact-level signals on your own content — which specific people liked, commented on, or visited your profile after seeing your posts. First-party intent is more precise, more timely, and directly actionable for outreach because you know exactly who engaged and when.

Can I switch from Apollo to Ghost without losing my existing contact data?

Yes. Ghost's 600M contact database means you can rebuild your prospect lists natively without importing from Apollo. If you have existing CSV exports or CRM data, Ghost supports contact imports. Most teams that switch from Apollo to Ghost find they can replicate their entire ICP search in Ghost's database within an hour, often finding more contacts than their Apollo exports contained.

Ready to Stop Managing Credits and Start Building Pipeline?

Apollo is a powerful tool. But if you're a founder or a small revenue team, you shouldn't be spending mental energy managing credit budgets, per-seat costs, and monthly export limits. You should be spending it on conversations with prospects.

Ghost gives you a 600M contact database, AI-powered LinkedIn content, multi-channel sequences, first-party intent signals, and an AI SDR that builds campaigns in under 90 seconds — all on one flat plan at $99/month. No credits. No per-seat fees. No surprises on your invoice.

Try Ghost free for 7 days — no credit card required. Start building your first campaign today.