Best for
Best for outbound sales teams that want the contact data and the outreach tooling in the same place as the pipeline.
- Freelancers
- Small and mid-sized
- Enterprise
CRM Comparison
Apollo.io vs. Instantly
At a glance
At a glance
Best for
Best for agencies and outbound teams that send cold email at volume from many mailboxes.
- Freelancers
- Small and mid-sized
- Enterprise
Cataleo does not name a winner. Both statements come from the vendors themselves.
Full Comparison
| Criterion | Apollo.io | Instantly |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | Free plan; Basic $49 / month, Professional $99 / month Amounts as published in the plan data on the vendor's pricing page, billed monthly. Enterprise is on request. The free plan is called Starter elsewhere on that page and has no time limit. Plans are sold by seat, and paid-plan trials come with 50 credits and 5 mobile credits. | lower value From $37.60 / month Outreach Growth plan billed yearly, $47 billed monthly, for 5,000 emails and 1,000 uploaded contacts a month. Lead credits are a separate subscription from $37.60 a month billed yearly, and bundles of both start at $85 a month billed yearly ($94 monthly). |
| Free trial | Free plan with no time limit, plus trials of the paid plans | 14-day free trial, no credit card required |
| Users | More than 600,000 companies according to the vendor | Not stated |
| API | Yes, a REST API charged by consumption, with an official MCP server; the vendor lists API access for advanced integrations on the Custom plans | Yes, API v2 with webhooks, an official TypeScript SDK and an official MCP server |
| Hosting | Cloud (SaaS) | Cloud (SaaS) |
| Contacts and companies | Yes, records for people and companies drawn from Apollo's own B2B database, with more than 65 data points per lead and real-time enrichment | Yes, an All Leads view across lists and campaigns with bulk round-robin assignment to team members, plus a database of more than 450 million B2B leads with enrichment |
| Deal pipeline | Yes, deals tracked across stages with stalled-deal alerts, automatic conversion of high-intent leads into opportunities and deal analytics | Yes, Opportunities collect interested prospects from campaigns and lists, each with sales stages, notes, meetings and tasks, and a default opportunity value feeds revenue reporting |
| Email and calendar | Yes, email sequences with A/B testing and deliverability tools plus a built-in scheduler with inbound routing; non-Google and non-Microsoft mailboxes need a paid plan | Yes, unlimited email accounts with unlimited warm-up, and one master inbox for emails, calls, SMS and tasks; meetings are scheduled from the opportunity view |
| Workflow automation | Yes, workflow automation, inbound lead routing and lead scoring, with an AI assistant for research and outreach | Yes, advanced sequences and scheduling with A/Z testing, salesflows built from rules such as opens and replies, and AI agents for replies and sales |
| Reporting and forecasting | Yes, pre-built and custom reports and dashboards, sequence reports and conversation analytics from recorded calls | Yes, email and account analytics, plus CRM reports with monthly or quarterly sales goals and annualised value closed |
| Integrations and API | Yes, a consumption-based REST API for people, organisations and opportunities, an official MCP server, and integrations with Salesforce, HubSpot, Outreach, Salesloft and Marketo | Yes, API v2 with webhooks and an official TypeScript SDK, an official MCP server that exposes every endpoint as a tool, and connections to HubSpot and Salesforce |
| AI features | Yes | Yes |
| MCP-ready | Yes | Yes |
| Deployment | Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based | Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based |
| Support | more entries Email helpdesk, Community forum | Chat |
| Onboarding | more entries Documentation and knowledge base, Video tutorials, Guided onboarding | Documentation and knowledge base, Video tutorials |
| Company size | Freelancers, Small and mid-sized, Enterprise | Freelancers, Small and mid-sized, Enterprise |
| Integrations | more entries Salesforce, HubSpot, Outreach, Salesloft, Marketo, SendGrid, LinkedIn | HubSpot, Salesforce, Claude, Cursor, Perplexity |
Add a tool
Adds a column to the table, from the tools in this category.
Row where the values differ The small markers point at the lower number, the longer list or the stated feature. They describe the data, they are not a verdict.
The short version
Key Differences
- Starting price Apollo.io Free plan; Basic $49 / month, Professional $99 / month Instantly From $37.60 / month
- Free trial Apollo.io Free plan with no time limit, plus trials of the paid plans Instantly 14-day free trial, no credit card required
- Support Apollo.io Email helpdesk, Community forum Instantly Chat
- API Apollo.io Yes, a REST API charged by consumption, with an official MCP server; the vendor lists API access for advanced integrations on the Custom plans Instantly Yes, API v2 with webhooks, an official TypeScript SDK and an official MCP server
- Contacts and companies Apollo.io Yes, records for people and companies drawn from Apollo's own B2B database, with more than 65 data points per lead and real-time enrichment Instantly Yes, an All Leads view across lists and campaigns with bulk round-robin assignment to team members, plus a database of more than 450 million B2B leads with enrichment
Every line is one datapoint from the table above, picked automatically. Nothing here is written text.
The trade-offs
Strengths and Limitations
Apollo.io
Strengths
- Contact database, sequences, dialer, scheduler and pipeline in one tool
- Free plan with no time limit
- Two-way integrations with Salesforce, HubSpot, Outreach, Salesloft and Marketo
- Official MCP server drives the same workflows from ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity
Limitations
- Standard plans are licensed for internal business use only, so powering an external product or resharing the data needs a separate agreement
- Credits meter database exports, and unlimited plans are bounded by a fair use policy
- Connecting a mailbox outside Gmail and Microsoft requires a paid plan
- The vendor lists API access for advanced integrations on the Custom plans
Instantly
Strengths
- Unlimited email accounts and warm-up on every outreach plan
- No per-seat charge, so a whole team shares one subscription
- Built-in CRM with opportunities, calling and SMS next to the sending
- Official MCP server covering the full API
Limitations
- Lead data is a separate credit subscription on top of outreach
- Each plan caps monthly emails and uploaded contacts
- Outreach, credit and bundle plans are priced separately
Plans
Pricing
Apollo.io
- Free $0 Called Starter elsewhere on the pricing page. Basic access to the sales engagement tools and a limited contact database.
- Basic $49 Per month. Sales intelligence with contact access, CRM integrations and email automation.
- Professional $99 Per month. Adds sales automation, engagement tracking and AI-driven insights.
- Enterprise Not stated On request. Customizable platform with dedicated support, advanced analytics and API access.
Instantly
- Growth $37.60 Per month, billed yearly ($47 billed monthly). 5,000 emails and 1,000 uploaded contacts a month, unlimited email accounts and warm-up, chat support.
- Hypergrowth $77.60 Per month, billed yearly ($97 billed monthly). 25,000 uploaded contacts and premium live support.
- Light Speed $286.30 Per month, billed yearly ($358 billed monthly). 500,000 emails and 100,000 uploaded contacts a month, with server and IP sharding and rotation (SISR).
- Enterprise Not stated Custom price. Adds a dedicated account manager, a shared Slack channel and a private deliverability network.
What users say
Review Scores · opens after launch
Apollo.io
- Ease of use
- Not rated yet
- User interface
- Not rated yet
- Onboarding
- Not rated yet
- Support and service
- Not rated yet
- Value for money
- Not rated yet
- Features
- Not rated yet
No reviews yet. Nothing has been published here yet, and no score is shown. How a review is checked before it appears is described below.
Instantly
- Ease of use
- Not rated yet
- User interface
- Not rated yet
- Onboarding
- Not rated yet
- Support and service
- Not rated yet
- Value for money
- Not rated yet
- Features
- Not rated yet
No reviews yet. Nothing has been published here yet, and no score is shown. How a review is checked before it appears is described below.
How we check reviews
Reviews are not published yet. The form on a tool's page works and reaches us, but nothing from it appears on this site, so no score here is based on a review. The rules below are the ones that will apply once reviews go live.
Every review is read by a person before it appears. We require a working email address and use it to come back to the author, so a review has a reachable sender rather than being anonymous. We publish positive and negative reviews alike, we pay nothing and offer nothing for a review, and we accept none that was bought or incentivised.
What we cannot do is verify a purchase. There is no shop here and no account, so whether the author really used the tool rests on what they tell us, plus the plausibility of what they write. We say so rather than implying a check that does not exist.
A vendor cannot have a review removed, cannot buy one, and cannot have one changed. Paid placement and a paid listing have no effect on which reviews appear or on any score.
Where this comes from
Where this comes from
Apollo.io https://www.apollo.io · no check date recorded yet
Instantly https://instantly.ai · checked against the official source on 2026-10-03
This table lists factual criteria taken from information the vendors publish themselves. For how we put it together, see the methodology.