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

Apollo.io and LeadIQ both sell B2B contact data to sales teams, but they price it differently. Apollo prints a price per seat with credits included. LeadIQ prints a credit slider that stops at 6,750 credits a month, then says Enterprise.

Verdict

• Pick Apollo if you want a list price you can work out at any size, an API on every plan with published rate limits, and an MCP server that works on the Free plan. It also runs sequences and a dialer next to the data.
• Pick LeadIQ if your reps prospect from LinkedIn. It centres on a Chrome extension, job-change tracking and Salesforce export, and it publishes an 85% mobile match rate (its own claim).
• Pick neither if you need volume through an API at a price you can read. Apollo at 1M records is 250 to 400 seats, and LeadIQ has no public price past 6,750 credits a month. LeadOcean is one option: Pro is $499 a month, flat.

Side by side

Data and coverage

LeadIQ claims the larger database. It says 750M+ professional profiles, refreshed monthly, against Apollo's 240M contacts and 30M companies (LeadIQ pricing, October 2026; Apollo pricing, September 2026). Both are vendor claims, and neither says what counts as a contact.

Neither publishes an email count. Only LeadIQ publishes a phone number: an 85% global mobile match rate, 70% in EMEA, and over 90% accuracy on verified numbers. All three are LeadIQ's own figures, and the page does not say what the match rate is measured against (LeadIQ pricing, October 2026).

Phones also cost differently. Apollo charges 1 credit for an email and 8 for a phone number, so a person with both is up to 9 (Apollo API pricing, September 2026). On the MCP connector, LeadIQ charges 1 for an email and 10 for a phone, so a person with both is 11 (LeadIQ docs, October 2026).

LeadIQ's GraphQL API runs on its own ratesheet, which the docs say does not charge profile fields separately. Exact rates vary by plan, so the MCP numbers are a guide, not a quote.

The products differ beyond the data. Apollo is a workspace with sequences, a dialer and pipeline tools. LeadIQ is built around the Chrome extension, champion job-change tracking and CRM sync.

Test on your own list before you buy. Apollo Free gives 75 credits a month and LeadIQ Free gives 50 credits. Run the same 30 people through each and compare the match rate and the email status.

API and developer experience

Both have an API and a hosted MCP server. Apollo is REST with a key in a header. LeadIQ is GraphQL, with search and enrichment as queries.

Apollo takes the key in an x-api-key header. The enrichment call is POST /api/v1/people/match:

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"

The call costs 1 to 9 credits: 1 for an email, plus 8 if a mobile comes back. A request that finds nothing credit-consuming costs 0. Phones are off by default. You set reveal_phone_number and give a webhook URL, and the phone arrives there later (Apollo docs, September 2026).

LeadIQ takes one GraphQL endpoint, https://api.leadiq.com/graphql. Its docs show this paged people search, from the developer reference:

query {
  flatAdvancedSearch(input: {
    companyFilter: {
      locations: [
        { country: "United States", areaLevel1: "California" }
      ]
    }
    limit: 50
  }) {
    totalPeople
    people { id name title }
    after { key value }
  }
}

Send it as a POST body to the endpoint. The developer reference leaves authentication to a separate Public API Guide, so read that guide for the auth header before you build. For a known person, searchPeople finds one by name and company, LinkedIn profile or email (LeadIQ developer docs, October 2026).

Paging works differently. LeadIQ offset paging stops at 10,000 results. Past that you use a cursor, passing the after value back unchanged. Apollo's bulk enrichment takes 10 people per request (LeadIQ developer docs, October 2026; Apollo rate limits, September 2026).

Rate limits are the clearest gap. Apollo's are per team and per endpoint, across three windows at once. Paid plans get 1,000 enrichment requests a minute with no hourly or daily cap, and 200 search requests a minute (Apollo rate limits, September 2026). LeadIQ does not publish one in its developer reference.

On MCP, both use OAuth. Apollo's server works on any plan, and enrichment through it spends the same credits. LeadIQ's has 23 tools and a free account can connect. It also saves prospects into lists and exports them to Salesforce, which Apollo's docs do not describe (Apollo docs, September 2026; LeadIQ developer docs, October 2026).

Pricing

Apollo charges per seat, and each seat carries a fixed monthly credit grant. LeadIQ charges one monthly price for a credit pool that all users share. Credits are the only unit you can compare across the two. Monthly list price comes first below, then the billed-yearly figure.

At 10,000 records a month

Take 10,000 work emails, at 1 credit each. At Apollo, Basic gives 2,500 credits per seat at $65, so 4 seats x $65 = $260 a month. Professional needs 3 seats for 12,000 credits: 3 x $99 = $297. On yearly billing, Basic is $49 a seat, so 4 x $49 = $196 a month (Apollo pricing, September 2026).

At LeadIQ, 10,000 credits a month is above the slider. The largest self-serve step is 6,750 credits a month at $290.25, or $217.69 a month billed yearly (25% off). Past that, the page says Enterprise, with no price (LeadIQ pricing, October 2026). So there is no public price at 10,000.

Compare at a size both publish. At 2,500 credits a month, LeadIQ is $113.50 and Apollo Basic is $65 for one seat. At 6,750 credits a month, LeadIQ is $290.25, and three Apollo Basic seats give 7,500 credits for $195. Apollo is cheaper per email credit at both points. The exception is the LeadIQ API, whose ratesheet is not public.

Add phones and the sum moves. If all 10,000 contacts return a mobile, Apollo is 9 credits each, or 90,000 credits. Then 90,000 / 4,000 = 22.5, so 23 Professional seats x $99 = $2,277 a month. On the MCP rate, 6,750 LeadIQ credits buy 613 people with both an email and a phone (6,750 / 11).

At 1M records a month

For Apollo, 1,000,000 work emails is 1,000,000 credits. On monthly billing, Professional gives 4,000 credits per seat, so 1,000,000 / 4,000 = 250 seats x $99 = $24,750 a month. On yearly billing, Basic gives 2,500 a month, so 400 seats x $49 = $19,600 a month, or $235,200 a year (Apollo pricing, September 2026).

Two caveats apply. Apollo prints no price for add-on credits, so a cheaper seats-plus-add-ons path cannot be priced. Whether Apollo allows 250 to 400 self-serve seats is also not stated.

For LeadIQ: no public 1M price. The same pull is 1,000,000 credits, and the slider stops at 6,750 a month. Enterprise is a quote. We do not multiply a slider rate out to 1M and call it a price.

Where Apollo.io wins

• A price you can work out. It is a large number at 1M, but every input is on the pricing page. LeadIQ's is not.
• A real free plan. 75 credits every month, with API access and MCP on Free.
• Published rate limits. 1,000 enrichment requests a minute on paid plans. LeadIQ lists none in its developer docs.
• Cheaper per email credit. $65 for 2,500 credits a month at Apollo, against $113.50 at LeadIQ for the same credits.
• Synchronous enrichment. One call, one answer, with phones by webhook.

Where LeadIQ wins

• The LinkedIn workflow. A Chrome extension, job-change tracking and Salesforce export, aimed at reps who prospect one person at a time.
• A bigger claimed database. 750M+ profiles, against Apollo's 240M contacts.
• A published mobile claim. An 85% global match rate. Apollo prints no coverage number.
• A fuller MCP server. 23 tools, including list management and Salesforce export. A free account can connect.
• A cheap start. Pro begins at $20 a month for 200 credits with 5 users included (LeadIQ pricing, October 2026).

If you need volume through an API

We build LeadOcean, so weigh this section accordingly. LeadOcean holds 693M people and 63M companies, reachable over REST and an MCP server with 12 tools. Free is 1,000 records, one-off, with no card. Pro is $499 a month, flat, with no credits and a limit of 100 requests per second per key (LeadOcean pricing, September 2026).

For bulk work, POST /v1/exports returns up to 50,000 rows per request. The app also has an Exports page with a filter builder and CSV download (LeadOcean exports docs, September 2026). There is no sequencer, dialer or Chrome extension. If your reps live in Apollo or LeadIQ, keep it for that.

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