Apollo.io vs BlitzAPI (2026): Data, Pricing and API Compared

Apollo.io is a sales platform with a data API attached, priced per seat. BlitzAPI is a data API priced as one flat monthly fee. Apollo is for reps who work in a workspace. BlitzAPI is for engineers who pull verified work emails at volume.

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 sequences, a dialer and a Chrome extension in one workspace, or if you want an official MCP server that returns records on any plan. At small volumes it is also the cheaper way to buy emails.
• Pick BlitzAPI if you mostly need verified work emails for LinkedIn profiles from code, at a bill you can predict. One flat fee and no credits. New accounts run at 5 requests per second; accounts opened by September 30, 2026 keep 50.
• Pick neither if you want volume through an API, an MCP server that returns records and a CSV export on one flat plan. Apollo scales by seat, and BlitzAPI's MCP server only reads its docs. LeadOcean is one option.

Side by side

All figures checked September 2026.

Data and coverage

BlitzAPI lists the bigger database on paper, but the counts are not like for like. Apollo lists 240M contacts and 30M companies (Apollo pricing, September 2026). BlitzAPI lists 550M+ profiles and 65M+ companies (BlitzAPI docs, September 2026).

Email is where the units differ. Apollo publishes no count of contacts with an email. BlitzAPI counts 65M+ verified work emails, proven against live mail servers and re-tested at least every 30 days. An address it cannot prove comes back as not found (BlitzAPI pricing, September 2026).

Phones favor neither tool outside the US. Apollo publishes no phone count and charges 8 credits per number. It delivers the number by webhook or poll, not in the same response (Apollo docs, September 2026). BlitzAPI holds 45M+ phone numbers, all in the US, and only on the $599 Full plan (BlitzAPI pricing, September 2026).

BlitzAPI also lists 100M+ job postings. Apollo's pricing page lists job change enrichment and intent topics on paid plans (Apollo pricing, September 2026).

Test both on your own list before you buy. Run the same 50 LinkedIn URLs through each free plan (Apollo Free carries 75 credits a month) and compare the hit rate. Match rate depends on the input: a LinkedIn URL or work email matches far better than a name alone (Apollo docs, September 2026).

API and developer experience

Both are plain REST APIs with an x-api-key header. Apollo gives you more endpoints and more ways to match a person. BlitzAPI gives you fewer inputs and a simpler answer.

Apollo enriches one person with POST /api/v1/people/match. It costs 1 to 9 credits: 1 for an email or demographics, plus 8 if a mobile comes back. If nothing credit-consuming is found, the call costs 0 (Apollo docs, September 2026). The request, with a placeholder profile:

curl --request POST \
  --url "https://api.apollo.io/api/v1/people/match?linkedin_url=https://www.linkedin.com/in/jane-doe" \
  --header "x-api-key: $APOLLO_API_KEY" \
  --header "Content-Type: application/json"

Phones are off by default. Set reveal_phone_number and give a webhook URL, or set poll_only. Bulk enrichment takes up to 10 people per request.

BlitzAPI's work email lookup takes a LinkedIn URL. It returns found, the verified email and an all_emails array. It counts one record on the trial and nothing extra on a paid plan (BlitzAPI docs, September 2026).

curl -X POST "https://api.blitz-api.ai/v2/enrichment/email" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "x-api-key: $BLITZAPI_API_KEY" \
  -d '{"person_linkedin_url":"https://www.linkedin.com/in/jane-doe"}'

Rate limits shape how each one scales. Apollo limits are per team and per endpoint, across three windows at once. Free gets 600 general requests a day. Paid plans get 1,000 enrichment requests a minute and 200 search requests a minute (Apollo rate limits, September 2026).

BlitzAPI limits are per endpoint and per second. Accounts opened by September 30 run at 50 requests per second. The standard rate is 5 (BlitzAPI pricing, September 2026).

For agents, only Apollo helps. Its MCP server uses OAuth or an API key, works on any plan and spends the same credits as the API (Apollo docs, September 2026). BlitzAPI's MCP server answers questions about its docs and cannot search people (BlitzAPI docs, September 2026).

Pricing

Apollo charges per seat, and each seat brings a fixed monthly credit grant. BlitzAPI charges per month, whatever you pull. To compare them, convert Apollo to cost per record.

At 10,000 records a month. One email is one credit, so 10,000 emails is 10,000 credits. A Basic seat carries 2,500 credits a month. So 10,000 / 2,500 = 4 seats, and 4 x $65 = $260 a month on monthly billing. Billed yearly, 4 x $49 = $196 a month, or $2,352 a year (Apollo pricing, September 2026).

BlitzAPI at 10,000 lookups needs Plus, because Core has no verified emails. Plus is $499 a month. Only emails it finds count as results, so 10,000 lookups return at most 10,000 (BlitzAPI pricing, September 2026).

At this size Apollo is cheaper: $499 - $260 = $239 a month on monthly billing. Phones change the sum. At 8 credits each, 10,000 phone numbers take 80,000 credits (Apollo API pricing, September 2026).

At 1M records a month. One million emails is 1,000,000 credits. On monthly billing, Professional gives 4,000 credits per seat, so 1,000,000 / 4,000 = 250 seats, and 250 x $99 = $24,750 a month. Basic needs 400 seats and costs $26,000, so Professional is the cheapest (Apollo pricing, September 2026).

Billed yearly, a Basic seat is $49 and carries 30,000 credits a year, or 2,500 a month. So 400 x $49 = $19,600 a month, or $235,200 a year. That assumes every lookup returns an email, and credits expire each cycle.

Apollo prints no price per extra credit on its pricing page or docs. Extra credits are bought inside the app (Apollo pricing, September 2026). So a cheaper seats-plus-add-ons path cannot be priced here. Apollo's public pages also say nothing on buying 250 to 400 seats self-serve. Get a quote at your volume.

BlitzAPI at 1M is $499 a month for an account opened by September 30, 2026. 1,000,000 results sit under that account's 15,000,000 a month fair use line, so one Plus plan covers it: $499 x 1 month = $499 (BlitzAPI pricing, September 2026). That is about 50 times less than Apollo on monthly billing.

One caution on BlitzAPI. The 50 requests per second and the 15,000,000 fair use line belong to accounts opened by September 30, 2026. The offer closed to new accounts after that day. The pricing page still lists $399, $499 and $599 but no fair use volume for later accounts (BlitzAPI pricing, October 2026). The standard rate is 5 requests per second (BlitzAPI Terms, September 2026).

Time matters at 1M too. On Apollo, bulk enrichment of 10 people per request is 100,000 requests. At 1,000 a minute that is 100 minutes (Apollo rate limits, September 2026). On BlitzAPI, 1,000,000 / 50 per second is 20,000 seconds, about 5.6 hours. At 5 per second it is about 2.3 days.

For more BlitzAPI matchups, see BlitzAPI vs Wiza, BlitzAPI vs Snov.io and BlitzAPI vs Kaspr. For Apollo's own plans, see Apollo pricing and the Apollo alternative page.

Where Apollo wins

• Workspace. Reps get sequences, a dialer and a Chrome extension in the same tool as the data (Apollo pricing, September 2026).
• MCP. An official server that returns records, on any plan including Free, and built into Claude, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Replit and Cursor (Apollo docs, September 2026).
• Small volumes. At 10,000 emails a month it costs $260 against BlitzAPI's $499, and the Free plan includes API access.
• Phone access. Any plan can buy a phone number at 8 credits. BlitzAPI sells phones only on the $599 Full plan, and only for the US.

Apollo's weak points are its bill at volume and its credits. Cost scales with seats, and unused credits, including purchased add-ons, expire at the end of each cycle (Apollo API pricing, September 2026).

Where BlitzAPI wins

• Predictable cost. A flat monthly fee, no credits and no overage line.
• Cost at volume. $499 against $24,750 at 1M work emails, for accounts opened by September 30, 2026.
• Verified work emails. Tested against mail servers and re-tested at least every 30 days.
• Speed. 5 requests per second per endpoint on standard accounts (300 a minute), 50 for accounts opened by September 30, against Apollo's 200 search requests a minute.

BlitzAPI's weak points are US-only phones, no documented bulk export and an MCP server that only reads docs. Core, Plus and Full carry no SLA (BlitzAPI docs, September 2026).

If you need volume through an API

We build LeadOcean, so weigh this section accordingly. It has a free plan with 1,000 records, one-off, no card. Pro is $499 a month, flat, with unlimited searches, enrichments and lookups, and no credits or per-record price (LeadOcean pricing, September 2026).

It holds 693M people, 366M with an email and 166M with a phone number, plus 63M companies. The same REST API and a hosted MCP server with 12 tools run on every plan, and the MCP server searches, enriches and exports records (LeadOcean MCP docs, September 2026).

For bulk pulls, POST /v1/exports returns up to 50,000 rows per request, or you can use the Exports page in the app. 1M rows is 20 requests over two days (LeadOcean exports docs, September 2026). See pricing for the detail.

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