Apollo.io vs Lead411 (2026): Data, Pricing and API Compared

Apollo.io and Lead411 both sell B2B contact data, but they charge for it in different ways. Apollo prices per seat with a monthly credit grant. Lead411 prices by plan, with a cap on exports.

Verdict

• Pick Apollo if reps need sequences, a dialer and a Chrome extension next to the data, or if you want an API and an MCP server on every plan. It is also the only one whose 1M cost you can work out from list prices.
• Pick Lead411 if you sell in the US, Canada or northern Europe and want verified emails from $49 a month, with direct dials from Ignite ($150 a month) and Bombora intent on annual plans. It fits small volume and teams that work in its app.
• Pick neither if you need volume through an API at a price you can read. Apollo at 1M records is hundreds of seats, and Lead411 has no public 1M price. LeadOcean is one option: Pro is $499 a month, flat.

Side by side

Data and coverage

Neither vendor publishes a number you can verify for emails or phones. Apollo claims 240M+ contacts and 30M+ accounts with 98% email accuracy (Apollo, October 2026). Lead411 says "millions" of records and 97% verified emails (Lead411, October 2026). Both are marketing claims, and Lead411 footnotes its figure as an average for optimized verified emails.

Geography is where they differ most. Lead411 lists 13 countries: the United States, Canada, the UK, Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand and Sweden (Lead411 FAQ, September 2026). We did not find a country list on Apollo's data page. If you sell into Germany, France or Spain, test both on your own sample first.

Phones are priced differently. Apollo charges 8 credits for a mobile number, on top of 1 credit for an email (Apollo API pricing, September 2026). Lead411 includes direct dials on Ignite and Blaze and leaves them out of Spark (Lead411 pricing, September 2026).

Signals also differ. Apollo adds buying signals such as job changes and website visits (Apollo, October 2026). Lead411 sells Bombora intent, but only on annual plans. It is not in annual Spark and is an add-on on annual Ignite (Lead411 pricing, September 2026).

API and developer experience

Apollo has the simpler path for a developer. Every plan includes API access, and the key goes in an x-api-key header (Apollo developer FAQ, September 2026; Apollo docs, September 2026). Enrichment is POST /api/v1/people/match.

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, plus 8 if a mobile comes back. Phone reveal needs a webhook URL or poll_only. People search costs 0 credits but returns no emails or phones, and stops at 50,000 results (Apollo docs, October 2026; search docs, October 2026).

Lead411 has a V3 API with an OpenAPI 3.1 spec and a Postman collection. It takes an X-API-KEY header, a bearer token or email and password login (Lead411 API docs, October 2026). Looking up one employee is a POST.

curl -X POST "https://api.lead411.com/v3/employee/getEmployeeInformation" \
  -H "X-API-KEY: $LEAD411_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"email": "jane.doe@acme.com"}'

Unlocking a record is a separate call, POST /employee/unlock_employee_record, and it draws down an unlock_quota. The docs do not say how a record reveal maps to the "exports" the pricing page sells, so ask Lead411 before you size a plan.

For agents, Apollo is easier to adopt. Its MCP server is built into Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and others, and any plan can use it, with the same credits. Lead411's server answers 401 until Lead411 Support enables it on your account, and its docs do not list the tools.

Pricing

Apollo is the cheaper path for a small, steady number of lookups, and you can work out its list price at every size. Lead411 is cheaper at the very bottom and has no public price once volume rises. Prices below are monthly list first, billed-yearly figures after.

Apollo plans (Apollo pricing, September 2026): Basic is $65 a seat a month with 2,500 credits, or $49 billed yearly. Professional is $99 with 4,000 credits, or $79 billed yearly. Organization is $149 with 6,000 credits, or $119 billed yearly, with a three-seat minimum. Credits are pooled across the team and expire each cycle.

Lead411 plans (Lead411 pricing, September 2026): Spark is $49 a month for 1,000 exports, or $490 billed yearly. Ignite lists from $150 a month, or $1,500 billed yearly, with "1000+" exports. Blaze is unlimited and priced by quote. Lead411 says Ignite varies by team size.

10,000 records a month

Take 10,000 work-email lookups, which is 10,000 Apollo credits at 1 credit each.

• Apollo on monthly billing: 4 Basic seats hold 4 x 2,500 = 10,000 credits, so 4 x $65 = $260. Professional needs 3 seats, 3 x $99 = $297.
• Apollo on yearly billing: 4 Basic seats cost 4 x $49 = $196 a month equivalent. Professional is 3 x $79 = $237.
• Lead411: Spark stops at 1,000 exports a month. Ten times that means Ignite, from $150 a month, and the page shows no cap beyond "1000+". We cannot give an exact 10,000 price.

Phones change the Apollo math. Each mobile returned adds 8 credits, so a list that needs phones burns credits nine times faster.

1M records a month

Apollo needs 1,000,000 credits, and the cheapest list-price route is Professional on monthly billing. That is 1,000,000 / 4,000 = 250 seats, and 250 x $99 = $24,750 a month. On yearly billing, Basic gives 2,500 credits a month, so 1,000,000 / 2,500 = 400 seats, and 400 x $49 = $19,600 a month. Apollo prints no per-credit price for add-on credits on its public pages, so a cheaper seats-plus-add-ons path cannot be priced. Apollo also does not say whether 250 to 400 seats is available self-serve.

Lead411 has no public 1M price. The highest public tier is Ignite, and its cap is shown only as "1000+". Unlimited exports sit on Blaze, which is by quote. Get that quote before you compare.

Where Apollo wins

Apollo wins on workspace and on a price you can read. It is an app reps live in: sequences, a dialer, a Chrome extension, lists and tasks, all next to the data.

It also wins for developers. API access and MCP come on every plan, Free included, and the rate limits are published. Apollo's Free plan, 75 credits a month, lets an individual test the real product with no card.

Where Lead411 wins

Lead411 wins on cost at the bottom and on direct dials. Spark is $49 a month for 1,000 exports, which is cheaper than an Apollo Basic seat billed monthly at $65, with an app, a Chrome extension and verified emails included.

It also wins on intent and CRM sync. Lead411 sells Bombora intent on annual plans and syncs to more than 25 CRMs in one click (Lead411 FAQ, September 2026). If you sell into the 13 countries it lists, its focus is a feature, not a limit.

If you need volume through an API

Both tools get expensive or opaque once you move from a rep's list to a pipeline. LeadOcean is a data API with a hosted MCP server, and nothing else. The Free plan gives you 1,000 records, one-off, with no card. Pro is $499 a month, flat, with no seats and no credits.

It covers 693M people and 63M companies over REST and MCP, at 100 requests per second per key on every plan. POST /v1/exports returns up to 50,000 rows per request, and the app has an Exports page with a filter builder and a price preview. A very large month is paced down rather than cut off, and one email to support raises the headroom. It has no sequencer, dialer or intent feed.

FAQ