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

Apollo is the better pick for most teams: it has a published API on every plan, an MCP server and a price you can multiply out. UpLead is a verified-contact lookup tool with a clean credit rule, but its API sits on a custom-quote plan. Neither publishes a way to buy 1M records at list price. This page compares them on data, API, MCP and cost, with the arithmetic shown.

Verdict

• Pick Apollo if reps work in the tool or you want API and MCP access without a sales call. Sequences, a dialer and a Chrome extension sit beside the data, and an email costs 1 credit (Apollo pricing, September 2026).
• Pick UpLead if you do small, accuracy-first lookups in its app and want to pay only for emails that come back Valid or Accept All. It states a 95% accuracy guarantee and refunds bounces (UpLead data page, September 2026).
• Pick neither if the job is bulk volume through an API at a fixed bill. Both meter by credit, and UpLead caps extra credit purchases at $2,000 a day. LeadOcean is built for that case. See the last section.

Side by side

Data and coverage

Apollo claims 240M contacts and 30M companies. UpLead claims 200M+ contacts with email addresses and 19M+ companies. Both are vendor numbers, and neither publishes how many records carry a phone.

The two differ on how they treat bad data. UpLead returns an email_status on every contact (Valid, Invalid, Unknown or Accept All) and deducts a credit only for Valid or Accept All. An unmatched enrichment row is refunded, and the same record is never charged twice (UpLead API docs, September 2026).

Apollo charges 1 credit per email and returns a match_confidence of high, medium, low or none on the person. Phones cost 8 credits, and they arrive by webhook or by polling, not in the same response (Apollo docs, September 2026).

Size is not reach. A fair test takes an afternoon. Pull 500 contacts from your own CRM that you know are good, across regions, seniority levels and company sizes. Run the same list through both tools and count how many return an email, how many of those bounce, and how many return a phone. Check the credit meter after each run to get the real cost per match. Apollo's Free plan and UpLead's 5-credit Test Drive are enough to start a smaller version of this.

API and developer experience

Apollo is the easier one to start with. You get a key on any plan, and enrichment is one POST. UpLead's API docs are tidy, but full access needs the Professional plan, so you talk to sales before you send a request.

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

curl --request POST \
  --url "https://api.apollo.io/api/v1/people/match?email=jane@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. Phones need a webhook_url, or poll_only=true. Bulk enrichment takes up to 10 people per request.

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

curl "https://api.uplead.com/v2/person-search?email=jane@acme.com" \
  -H "Authorization: $UPLEAD_API_KEY"

This is a GET with the key in an Authorization header. It returns the person, the email_status and your remaining credits. The Prospector Pro, Quick Search, Industries and Lists APIs are for Professional, Elite and Enterprise plans only.

On MCP, Apollo runs an official server that works on any plan and spends the same credits as the API. UpLead mentions none. If you want an agent to look people up, only Apollo has a first-party route.

On limits, UpLead allows 500 requests a minute across the API. Apollo splits its limits by endpoint type. Enrichment reaches 1,000 a minute on paid plans. Search endpoints allow 200 a minute and 50,000 a day.

Pricing

Apollo prices seats, and each seat carries a credit grant. UpLead prices a plan with a credit grant and charges a per-credit rate past it. 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.

• 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. Apollo's public pages do not say whether it sells 250 to 400 seats self-serve. Treat the figure as list arithmetic, not a quote. A phone number costs 8 credits, so a phone pull uses eight times the credits.

UpLead at 10,000 records a month

Plus is $199 a month with 400 credits, and extra credits cost $0.50 each (UpLead pricing, September 2026).

• Plus, monthly billing: 10,000 - 400 included = 9,600 extra credits x $0.50 = $4,800, plus $199 = $4,999 a month.
• Essentials, monthly billing: 10,000 - 170 = 9,830 extra credits x $0.60 = $5,898, plus $99 = $5,997 a month.

Extra credits are limited to $2,000 of purchases a day, so the $4,800 above takes at least three days (UpLead help center, September 2026). Plus and Essentials do not include the API, so this is an in-app route. The extra-credit rate on annual billing is not printed on the pricing page.

UpLead at 1M records a month

No public 1M price. The highest public tier is Plus, and the daily purchase cap decides the rest. $2,000 / $0.50 = 4,000 extra credits a day x 31 days = 124,000 extra credits. With the 400 included, that is about 124,400 credits for $62,199 in the month, an eighth of 1M. Professional is a custom quote, annual billing only, with custom seats and credits. Ask UpLead for one.

Where Apollo wins

• A published price at volume. You can do the seat arithmetic yourself. With UpLead you cannot get near 1M on public prices.
• Cheaper per email. 1 credit is about $0.02 on yearly Basic seats, against $0.50 for an UpLead extra credit.
• API and MCP on the Free plan. You can test both before paying.
• Higher throughput. 1,000 enrichment requests a minute on paid plans, against 500 across UpLead's API.
• 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 UpLead wins

• Pay only for usable emails. A credit is charged only for Valid or Accept All, and unmatched enrichment rows are refunded (UpLead API docs, September 2026).
• Plain, one-user plans. Essentials and Plus are one user at a flat monthly fee, and the credit rule is one line long.
• An accuracy guarantee. UpLead states a 95% accuracy guarantee and refunds bounces and poor data (UpLead data page, 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, at 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 UpLead against Seamless.AI and RocketReach, and Apollo against SalesIntel. If Apollo is your current tool, read the Apollo alternative page.

FAQ