Apollo.io vs Clearbit (Breeze Intelligence) (2026): Data, Pricing and API Compared

Apollo is a contact database with a sales workspace, so it wins for reps and for anyone who needs to search for new people. Clearbit (Breeze Intelligence) is data enrichment inside HubSpot, so it wins for HubSpot teams who want records filled in. At 1M records a month, Apollo's list price is a large seat count and Clearbit has no public price at all.

Verdict

• Pick Apollo if you need to find people you do not have yet. It has a searchable database of 240M contacts and 30M companies, sequences and an API on every plan (Apollo pricing, September 2026).
• Pick Clearbit (Breeze Intelligence) if your contacts and companies already live in HubSpot and you want them filled in automatically (HubSpot docs, October 2026).
• Pick neither if you pull people and company data by API at volume. Seats and a CRM plan are both a poor fit there. LeadOcean is one option, covered below.

Side by side

Apollo figures were checked in September 2026. Clearbit and HubSpot figures were checked in October 2026. HubSpot renames and reprices often, so confirm before you buy.

Data and coverage

Apollo holds a database you can search, and Clearbit fills in records you already have. That difference matters more than any count. Apollo lets you filter for "VPs of Sales in fintech" and then spend credits on the contacts. Clearbit does not search.

HubSpot's docs say contact enrichment uses a first name, last name and work email, and company enrichment uses a domain (HubSpot docs, October 2026). The enrichable contact fields include job title, seniority, role, location and LinkedIn URL. The default list has no email or phone field for contacts (HubSpot docs, October 2026).

Clearbit's homepage lists 6-digit NAICS, GICS and SIC codes, parent and subsidiary mapping, and normalized role and seniority (Clearbit, October 2026). That is richer company data than most email finders hold. It is firmographics, not a list of people to contact.

Apollo prices a mobile number at 8 credits against 1 for an email (Apollo API pricing, September 2026). Neither tool publishes a phone count. Run a sample of your own list through both before you commit.

API and developer experience

Apollo has a public REST API on every plan. Clearbit has an API too, but you cannot read it without an account. Apollo's docs are open, so you can check a request before you sign up. Clearbit's are not.

Apollo, match a person by name and company domain. The key goes in the x-api-key header (Apollo docs, October 2026). Placeholders stand in for a real person.

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"

The call costs 1 to 9 credits: 1 for an email or demographics, plus 8 if a mobile is returned (Apollo API pricing, September 2026). Phones are off by default. To get one you set reveal_phone_number and supply a webhook_url, or set poll_only (Apollo docs, September 2026). Bulk enrichment takes up to 10 people per request.

Clearbit, no public request. Its API docs sit behind a sign-in, so we show no sample here (Clearbit docs, October 2026). Sign-ups since December 4, 2023 need a HubSpot account (Clearbit release notes, October 2026). Inside HubSpot, enrichment is a settings switch. A Super Admin turns on automatic enrichment, and it is off by default (HubSpot docs, October 2026).

Apollo limits are per team and per endpoint, across three windows at once. General endpoints allow 200 a minute and 2,000 a day on Basic and Professional. Enrichment reaches 1,000 a minute on paid plans, and over the limit returns 429 (Apollo rate limits, September 2026). Clearbit publishes no rate limit.

On MCP, Apollo's official server is a built-in connector in Claude, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Replit and Cursor. Enrichment through it spends the same credits (Apollo MCP docs, September 2026). HubSpot's remote MCP server reads and writes CRM records such as contacts and deals. We found no MCP server for enrichment itself (HubSpot MCP, October 2026).

Pricing

Apollo bills per seat, and each seat carries a monthly credit allowance. Clearbit bills nothing of its own, because enrichment sits inside a HubSpot plan. Apollo figures use the monthly list price first, with the billed-yearly price after it.

At 10,000 work emails a month

• Apollo: 10,000 credits at 1 credit per email. Basic gives 2,500 credits a seat, so 4 seats x $65 = $260 a month, or 4 x $49 = $196 billed yearly (Apollo pricing, September 2026).
• Clearbit: no per-record price. You pay the HubSpot plan, and data enrichment does not consume HubSpot Credits (HubSpot docs, October 2026). From an index page you enrich 100 records at a time, so 10,000 is 100 batches. Imports, segments and workflows take larger jobs (HubSpot docs, October 2026).

At 10,000 Apollo has a clear price and Clearbit does not. If your HubSpot plan already includes enrichment, it uses no HubSpot Credits. If not, the CRM is the cost.

At 1M work emails a month

• Apollo: 1,000,000 credits. Professional gives 4,000 credits a seat, so 250 seats x $99 = $24,750 a month. On yearly billing, 400 Basic seats x $49 = $19,600 a month ($235,200 a year) (Apollo pricing, September 2026).
• Clearbit: No public 1M price. HubSpot publishes no per-record rate to multiply, and no volume ceiling to size against.

Two caveats on Apollo. It prints no price for extra credits on the pages we read, so a seats-plus-add-ons mix cannot be priced. It also does not say whether a 250-seat self-serve account is allowed, so ask for a quote. Credits expire each cycle and do not roll over.

Phone numbers change the sums. At 8 credits each, 10,000 mobile numbers are 80,000 credits. That is 20 Professional seats x $99 = $1,980 a month, or 32 Basic seats x $49 = $1,568 billed yearly.

Where Apollo wins

• A searchable database of 240M contacts and 30M companies. You can find new people, not only fill in old ones.
• A rep workspace in the same product, so lists go straight to sequences and calls.
• An open API and an official MCP server on every plan, Free included.
• Documented rate limits, so you can plan capacity before you sign.
• A free plan with 75 credits a month.

Where Clearbit (Breeze Intelligence) wins

• Enrichment inside HubSpot. Automatic enrichment fills new records without anyone writing code.
• Richer company data: 6-digit NAICS, GICS and SIC codes, parent and subsidiary mapping (Clearbit, October 2026).
• Form shortening, so a form shows only the fields it cannot enrich (HubSpot docs, October 2026).
• No per-record price to track when you already own a HubSpot plan.

If you need volume through an API

LeadOcean is a data API and MCP server with no seats, no credits and no CRM in front of it. Pro costs $499 a month flat, with unlimited searches, enrichments and lookups, and the Free plan gives 1,000 records one-off with no card. Both plans get the same REST API and 12-tool MCP server, and POST /v1/exports returns up to 50,000 rows per request (LeadOcean exports docs, September 2026). It is not a sales workspace, so reps still need a sending tool. Compare it on a list you already know, then read the Apollo alternative and pricing.

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