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

Apollo.io and Lusha both sell B2B contact data, but they sell it differently. Apollo charges per seat and grants credits with each seat. Lusha charges for credits in steps and adds a browser extension and buying signals.

Verdict

• Pick Apollo if reps need sequences, a dialer and pipeline tools next to the data, or if you want the lower price per email. Its email credit works out to about $0.02 to $0.03, and 1M records has a list price.
• Pick Lusha if your reps work in LinkedIn and your CRM, and you want a Chrome extension, native Salesforce and HubSpot apps and weekly buying signals. It also claims the larger contact base and publishes email and phone counts.
• 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 Lusha has no public 1M price. LeadOcean is one option: Pro is $499 a month, flat.

Side by side

Data and coverage

Lusha claims more contacts: 525M+ against Apollo's 240M. Company counts are close, at 29M+ for Lusha and 30M for Apollo. Both are the vendors' own numbers.

Only Lusha publishes how many contacts carry an email or a phone. It claims 165M+ emails and 117M+ direct dials (Lusha homepage, September 2026). That is about 31% and 22% of its contacts. Apollo prints no email or phone count, so you cannot compare coverage on paper.

Lusha also publishes accuracy figures. It states 98% email accuracy and 86% phone accuracy. It also reports a July 2026 test of 322 US contacts: a work email for all 322 and a mobile for 97.5% (Lusha homepage, September 2026). These are Lusha's own claims, from its own sample.

The products differ beyond the data. Apollo is a sales platform with sequences, a dialer and pipeline tools in the same account (Apollo pricing, September 2026). Lusha pitches itself as a data and intelligence layer with a Chrome extension, Salesforce and HubSpot apps and 26 buying signals refreshed weekly (Lusha homepage, September 2026).

Phones cost more at Apollo. A phone number is 8 credits against 1 for an email, and Lusha's is 5 credits (Apollo API pricing; Lusha API guide, September 2026).

Test on your own list before you buy. Both free plans are small: Apollo gives 75 credits a month and Lusha gives 40. Run the same 30 people through each and compare the match rate.

API and developer experience

Both are REST APIs, both include an API key on every plan, and both run an official MCP server. The differences are the credit rules and the rate limits.

Apollo authenticates with 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. 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).

Lusha's V3 API passes the key in an api_key header. Search takes a batch of contacts by name and domain, LinkedIn URL or email (Lusha API overview, September 2026):

curl --request POST \
  --url https://api.lusha.com/v3/contacts/search \
  --header "api_key: $LUSHA_API_KEY" \
  --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
  --data '{
    "contacts": [
      { "clientReferenceId": "my-ref-1", "firstName": "Jane", "lastName": "Doe", "companyDomain": "acme.com" }
    ],
    "options": { "includePartialProfiles": true }
  }'

Search returns matches. You then pass the returned contact id to the enrich endpoint, and that reveal is the step that spends credits (Lusha API overview, September 2026).

On cost per call, an email is 1 credit and a phone is 5. A bulk request adds 1 credit per 1 to 25 results and takes up to 100 contacts. One contact with email and phone is 7 credits through a single request (Lusha API guide, September 2026).

Lusha's docs disagree on misses. The API guide says a request costs at least 1 credit even with no data. The V3 billing FAQ says no credit is deducted for a no-match request (Lusha billing FAQ, September 2026). Ask Lusha support before you budget for misses. The older V2 API stays live until November 18, 2026 (Lusha migration guide, September 2026).

Rate limits scale in opposite ways. 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).

Lusha's are per key by plan. Free and Starter get 40 a minute and 100 a day, and Pro gets 50 a minute and 1,500 a day. Premium gets 300 a minute and 18,000 a day, and Scale gets 300 a minute and 50,000 a day. A separate page sets a default of 25 requests a second per account (Lusha rate limits, September 2026).

On MCP, both have official servers. Apollo's works on any plan, and enrichment through it spends the same credits. Lusha's has 50 tools and draws from the same credit pool as its REST API (Apollo docs; Lusha MCP docs, September 2026).

Pricing

Apollo charges per seat, and each seat comes with a fixed monthly credit grant. Lusha charges for credits in steps. Convert both to cost per record to compare them.

At 10,000 records a month

Take 10,000 work emails from Apollo. That is 10,000 credits at 1 credit each. On monthly billing, 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 (Apollo pricing, September 2026).

On yearly billing, Basic is $49 a seat. So 4 seats x $49 = $196 a month, or $2,352 a year. Apollo credits expire at the end of each billing cycle.

For Lusha, 10,000 work emails by bulk API is 10,000 email credits plus 10,000 / 25 = 400 request credits. That is 10,400 credits (Lusha API guide, September 2026).

The largest public step is Premium at 10,000 credits a month, $977.40 billed monthly, or 120,000 credits a year, $9,539.10 billed yearly (about $794.93 a month). So 10,400 credits is just above the top listed step (Lusha pricing, September 2026). Lusha's published rate per credit runs from about $0.0795 (Premium yearly, top step) to about $0.125 (Starter monthly), against Apollo's $0.02 to $0.03.

Phones change the sums. If every one of 10,000 contacts returns a mobile at Apollo, that is 9 credits each, or 90,000 credits. The cheapest monthly path is Organization: 90,000 / 6,000 = 15 seats x $149 = $2,235 a month. At Lusha it is 6 credits each plus the request credit, about 60,400 credits, far past the top public step.

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 ($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 Lusha: no public 1M price. The same pull is 1,000,000 email credits plus 40,000 request credits, or 1,040,000 credits. The top public step holds 10,000 credits a month, so 1M is 104 times the largest listed plan. Scale is custom, and Lusha gives no per-credit figure for it (Lusha pricing, September 2026). We do not multiply a rate out to 1M and call it a quote.

Where Apollo.io wins

• A workspace. Sequences, a dialer and pipeline tools sit in the same product as the data.
• A price you can read at 1M. It is a large number, but it is published. Lusha's is not.
• Lower cost per email. About $0.02 to $0.03 per email credit, against about $0.08 to $0.125 at Lusha.
• Faster enrichment limits. 1,000 enrichment requests a minute on paid plans, against 300 a minute at Lusha's Premium.
• Any-plan MCP. The server works on Free, and API access comes with every plan.

Where Lusha wins

• Cheaper phones. 5 credits for a phone number against 8 at Apollo.
• Published coverage. It states 165M+ emails and 117M+ direct dials, and a larger contact base.
• Reps in a browser. The Chrome extension and the Salesforce and HubSpot apps put a reveal one click from LinkedIn (Lusha homepage, September 2026).
• Signals and 50 MCP tools. Buying signals and enrichment are exposed to agents (Lusha MCP docs, September 2026).
• Bigger batches. 100 contacts per bulk request against Apollo's 10.

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 Lusha, keep it for that. See the Apollo alternative page for a line-by-line version.

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