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

Apollo is the better pick for most teams that want one workspace and a clear price per email. RocketReach is a narrower contact finder with bigger claimed coverage and no public API price. Neither is built for a 1M-record month. This page compares them on data, API, MCP and cost, with the arithmetic shown.

Verdict

• Pick Apollo if reps work in the tool: sequences, a dialer and a Chrome extension sit beside the data, and an email costs 1 credit. API and MCP access come with every plan, Free included (Apollo pricing, September 2026).
• Pick RocketReach if you look people up one at a time and want a bigger claimed index. It bills only for emails graded A or A-, and a lookup that finds nothing is free (RocketReach FAQ, September 2026).
• Pick neither if the job is bulk volume through an API at a fixed bill. Both meter by credit, and neither publishes a price at 1M records. LeadOcean is built for that case. See the last section.

Side by side

Data and coverage

Apollo publishes a 240M contact and 30M company count. RocketReach claims 700M+ professionals. Both are vendor claims, and neither gives a count of records with an email or a phone.

Size is not the same as reach. A larger index can hold more stale profiles. Only a test on your own list shows the real match rate.

A fair test takes an afternoon. Pull 500 contacts from your own CRM that you already know are good, with a spread of regions, seniority levels and company sizes. Run the same list through both tools and count three things: how many return an email, how many of those emails bounce, and how many return a phone number. Check the credit meter after each run so you know the real cost per match. The free tiers are too small for 500: Apollo Free gives 75 credits a month and RocketReach Free gives 5 lookups (G2, September 2026). Budget one paid month on each.

Email quality is where they differ in practice. RocketReach grades each email A, A-, B or F. It charges only for A and A-, and it charges nothing when the grade is B or F (RocketReach FAQ, September 2026). Apollo charges 1 credit per email and returns a match_confidence of high, medium, low or none on the person (Apollo docs, September 2026). It does not charge a demographic credit when the confidence is none.

Phones cost more on both. Apollo charges 8 credits for a mobile, and RocketReach charges 6. On Apollo the phone comes back by webhook or by polling, not in the same response (Apollo docs, September 2026).

API and developer experience

Apollo is the easier one to start with. You get a key on any plan, and enrichment is one POST. RocketReach's docs tell you to email the API team to set up an API plan.

Apollo's person match, from its docs (Apollo docs, September 2026):

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 need a webhook URL, or poll_only=true. Bulk enrichment takes up to 10 people per request.

RocketReach's person lookup, from its docs (RocketReach docs, September 2026):

curl "https://api.rocketreach.co/api/v2/person/lookup?linkedin_url=https://www.linkedin.com/in/jane-doe" \
  -H "Api-Key: $ROCKETREACH_API_KEY"

This is a GET, and the lookup can answer with a status of progress. You then poll the status endpoint or register a webhook to get the verified emails.

Both servers speak MCP. Apollo's runs on any plan and spends the same credits as the API. RocketReach's exposes 9 tools, including person_lookup and email_verify, behind OAuth 2.1.

Pricing

Apollo prices seats, and each seat carries a credit grant. RocketReach prices plans, and the API spends Universal Credits it does not put a dollar price on. The examples below count one work-email lookup as one record.

Apollo at 10,000 records a month

Credits needed: 10,000 emails at 1 credit each is 10,000 credits. Seats are the unit that holds credits.

• Monthly billing, Basic: 10,000 / 2,500 credits = 4 seats x $65 = $260 a month.
• Monthly billing, Professional: 10,000 / 4,000 = 2.5, so 3 seats x $99 = $297 a month.
• Yearly billing, Basic: 4 seats x $49 = $196 a month equivalent.

Source: Apollo pricing, September 2026.

Apollo at 1M records a month

Credits needed: 1,000,000.

• Monthly billing, Professional: 1,000,000 / 4,000 = 250 seats x $99 = $24,750 a month.
• Yearly billing, Basic: 1,000,000 / 2,500 = 400 seats x $49 = $19,600 a month equivalent ($235,200 a year).

Apollo prints no price per extra credit, so a cheaper seats-plus-add-ons path cannot be priced. No Apollo page we read says whether self-serve allows 250 to 400 seats, or how fair use applies at 1M credits. Treat the figure as list arithmetic, not a quote. A phone number costs 8 credits, so a phone pull uses eight times the credits.

RocketReach at 10,000 records a month

RocketReach monthly list prices are Essentials $69, Pro $119 and Ultimate $209, reported by G2 because rocketreach.co/pricing blocks automated reads (G2, September 2026). Ultimate carries 1,000 exports a month, and G2 shows 500 in one paragraph, so 1,000 is the working figure.

Seat route, our own arithmetic and not a published price: 10,000 / 1,000 = 10 Ultimate seats x $209 = $2,090 a month. API route: a professional email is 2 credits, so 10,000 emails is 20,000 Universal Credits. RocketReach publishes no dollar price for a credit, and its docs say to email api@rocketreach.co for an API plan (RocketReach rate limits, September 2026).

RocketReach at 1M records a month

No public 1M price. The API has no published dollar price per credit, and the highest published person-lookup cap is 200,000 a month. At that cap, 1M lookups is five months of allowance. In credits, 1M professional emails is 2,000,000 Universal Credits (RocketReach credits, September 2026). Ask the API team for a quote.

Where Apollo wins

• A published price at volume. You can do the seat arithmetic yourself. With RocketReach you cannot.
• Cheaper per email. 1 credit against 2 for a professional email.
• API and MCP on the Free plan. You can test both before paying.
• Higher enrichment throughput. 1,000 requests a minute on paid plans, against 10 a second for RocketReach as a whole.
• A workspace. Sequences, a dialer and a Chrome extension sit next to the data, so a rep can prospect and send in one place (Apollo pricing, September 2026).

Where RocketReach wins

• Pay only for good emails. No credit is charged for a B or F grade, or when no data is found. Re-lookups of the same profile are free while the plan is active (RocketReach FAQ, September 2026).
• Cheaper phones. 6 credits against 8 for Apollo.
• A larger claimed index. 700M+ professionals against 240M contacts. Test it on your own list before you trust it.
• Phone on a mid-priced plan. RocketReach lists email-only Essentials at $69 and email-plus-phone Pro at $119 a month, reported by G2 (G2, September 2026).

If you need volume through an API

Both tools meter by credit and neither publishes a price at 1M records a month. LeadOcean is a data API with one flat price. Pro is $499 a month with no credits and no seats, and the Free plan gives 1,000 records, one-off, with no card. You get 693M people and 63M companies over REST and over a 12-tool MCP server on every plan, with 100 requests per second per key. Bulk export is POST /v1/exports at 50,000 rows per request, up to 500,000 rows a day, so a 1M-row pull takes two days (LeadOcean docs, September 2026). See pricing.

If you are also weighing other contact finders, we compared RocketReach against UpLead, SalesIntel and LeadIQ. If Apollo is your current tool, read the Apollo alternative page.

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