Apollo.io vs AI-Ark (2026): Data, Pricing and API Compared

Apollo.io is a sales platform with a data API attached, priced per seat. AI-Ark is a people and company database sold on credits, with every email checked at export. Apollo is for reps who work in a workspace. AI-Ark is for teams that want a clean, verified file and own their outreach stack.

All prices and limits below were checked in September 2026, each with its source link. Where a vendor publishes nothing, the page says so.

Verdict

• Pick Apollo if reps need one place for data, sequences, a dialer and a Chrome extension, and you can pay per seat. Its Free plan also lets one seller try all of it with no card.
• Pick AI-Ark if you want a bigger claimed database, lookalike search and emails verified at export. Its default API rate is 5 requests per second.
• Pick neither if you pull millions of records a month through code and want a bill that does not scale with each record. Both meter in credits. That case is covered near the end.

Side by side

Database sizes are vendor claims. Test both on your own filters before you trust either number.

Data and coverage

AI-Ark claims the larger database: 400M+ people and 70M+ companies against Apollo's 240M contacts and 30M companies (AI-Ark docs, September 2026; Apollo pricing, September 2026). Neither vendor publishes how many of those records carry an email or a phone number. Size alone says little. What matters is the hit rate on your own titles and countries.

The two handle email quality differently. AI-Ark checks every email in real time with BounceBan (SMTP and catch-all) when it is returned. If no valid email is found, you pay only the 0.5 credit profile cost (AI-Ark pricing, September 2026). Apollo charges 1 credit per verified email and never more than 1 per contact (Apollo API pricing, September 2026).

Refresh cadence favors AI-Ark on paper. It states a 30-day refresh cycle for the whole database (AI-Ark docs, September 2026). Apollo publishes no cadence on the pages we read.

API and developer experience

Both tools are REST APIs with a hosted MCP server. Apollo authenticates with an x-api-key header (Apollo docs, September 2026). AI-Ark uses an X-TOKEN header and a base URL of api.ai-ark.com/api/developer-portal (AI-Ark docs, September 2026).

Apollo's person enrichment is POST /api/v1/people/match. It costs 1 credit for an email, plus 8 if a mobile comes back, and 0 if nothing is found (Apollo docs, September 2026).

curl --request POST \
  --url "https://api.apollo.io/api/v1/people/match?first_name=Jane&last_name=Doe&domain=acme.com" \
  --header "x-api-key: $APOLLO_API_KEY" \
  --header "Content-Type: application/json"

AI-Ark's docs open with a company search. It costs 0.1 credit per returned company, and page and size are required (AI-Ark docs, September 2026).

curl --request POST \
  --url "https://api.ai-ark.com/api/developer-portal/v1/companies" \
  --header "X-TOKEN: $AI_ARK_API_KEY" \
  --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
  --data '{"account":{"location":{"any":{"include":["Germany"]}}},"page":0,"size":10}'

Search depth differs. Apollo's people search is free in credits but stops at a display limit of 50,000 records, at 100 per page (Apollo docs, September 2026). One AI-Ark search retrieves up to 10,000 records, and you re-run it with exclusion lists to go further (AI-Ark docs, September 2026).

On MCP, Apollo connects through OAuth 2.0, or an API key for headless clients, and enrichment spends the same credits (Apollo MCP docs, September 2026). AI-Ark puts the API key in the MCP URL query string (AI-Ark MCP docs, September 2026). A key in a URL can end up in logs, so treat that config file as a secret.

Rate limits matter at volume. Apollo allows 1,000 enrichment requests a minute on paid plans, and bulk people enrichment takes 10 people per request (Apollo rate limits, September 2026). AI-Ark's default is 5 requests per second, about 300 a minute, with custom limits for accounts above 450,000 credits a month (AI-Ark docs, September 2026).

Pricing

Apollo bills per seat. A seat carries a pool of credits: Basic 2,500 a month, Professional 4,000, Organization 6,000 with a three-seat minimum. Monthly list prices are $65, $99 and $149 a seat, and billed yearly they drop to $49, $79 and $119 (Apollo pricing, September 2026). Credits do not roll over. Add-on credits are bought in the logged-in Customize Credits slider, and Apollo prints no per-credit price on its public pages.

AI-Ark bills in credits. A person profile is 0.5 credit and a found, verified email adds 0.5, so one person with an email is 1 credit. A mobile is 5 more (AI-Ark pricing, September 2026). The page lists $49 a month for 5,000 credits and $2 to $4 per 1,000 credits on plans above 30,000.

At 10,000 records a month

Assume 10,000 people, each with a work email found: 10,000 credits on both tools.

• Apollo, monthly billing: Basic carries 2,500 credits a seat, so 10,000 / 2,500 = 4 seats x $65 = $260 a month. Professional is 3 seats x $99 = $297.
• Apollo, billed yearly: 4 Basic seats x $49 = $196 a month, $2,352 a year.
• AI-Ark: No public price for a 10,000-credit plan. The $49 plan covers 5,000 credits, and the $2 to $4 rate starts above 30,000 credits.

At this size Apollo is easy to price and AI-Ark is a quote. If you also want phones, Apollo costs 9 credits per person (1 email plus 8 mobile) and AI-Ark costs 6 (1 plus 5).

At 1M records a month

One million work emails is 1,000,000 Apollo credits.

• Apollo, monthly billing: Professional gives 4,000 credits a seat, so 1,000,000 / 4,000 = 250 seats x $99 = $24,750 a month. Basic is 400 seats x $65 = $26,000.
• Apollo, billed yearly: Basic gives 2,500 credits a month, so 400 seats x $49 = $19,600 a month, or $235,200 a year.
• AI-Ark: No public 1M price. The pricing page gives a range only above 30,000 credits, lists a 450,000-plus credit tier, and sends bigger volumes to Enterprise with custom terms.

The Apollo figure is list-price arithmetic. It assumes Apollo sells that many seats self-serve, which its public pages do not state. A real quote can differ, so ask both vendors for one at your volume.

Where Apollo wins

Apollo wins on the workspace. Reps get lists, sequences, a dialer and a Chrome extension in one login, and sequences are on every plan (Apollo pricing, September 2026). AI-Ark sells data and exports, so you bring your own sequencer.

Apollo also wins on predictability at small scale. Credit use per call is documented, and a miss costs 0 credits (Apollo docs, September 2026). Its enrichment limit is 1,000 requests a minute on paid plans, well above AI-Ark's default.

Where AI-Ark wins

AI-Ark wins on data you can send straight away. Emails are verified at export, and you pay once for a contact, with re-exports free (AI-Ark pricing, September 2026). It also has lookalike company search from up to 5 seed companies (AI-Ark docs, September 2026).

It wins on seats too. Credits pool across the team, and plans include 3 to 10 seats rather than a price per seat. Unused credits roll over up to 2x the monthly allowance (AI-Ark pricing, September 2026). Apollo credits expire each cycle.

If you need volume through an API

Neither tool fits a pipeline that pulls millions of records, because both bill by the credit. LeadOcean is a data API with a hosted MCP server and a flat price. Free gives 1,000 records one-off with no card. Pro is $499 a month flat, with 100 requests per second per key and POST /v1/exports returning up to 50,000 rows per request. It holds 693M people and 63M companies behind REST and MCP (pricing).

LeadOcean has no rep workspace, sequencer or dialer. It is the data layer only. Pair it with Apollo or any sequencer if your reps need one.

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