Apollo.io vs Lusha
 Apollo.io |  Lusha | |
|---|---|---|
| Sentiment | ||
| Score | 26/100 | 43/100 |
| Rank in category | #3 | #1 |
| Rated comments | 30 | 21 |
| Best for | Budget-conscious teams prospecting into the US; Small teams that want data and sequencing in one tool; Building large lists that will be verified separately | Individual reps doing occasional lookups on a budget; A secondary source alongside another database; Small teams starting on a free plan |
| Skip it if | Teams that need reliable direct dials for cold calling; Senders who cannot run a separate verification step; Prospecting outside the US or in niche verticals | Enterprise or Fortune 500 prospecting; Large list building with fine-grained filters; Teams that cannot absorb bounces from unverified emails |
| Starting price | $49/seat/mo | $37.45/mo |
| Pricing (vendor-stated) | Free plan with 900 credits per seat per year. Paid plans billed annually: Basic $49, Professional $79 and Organization $119 (minimum 3 seats) per seat per month; monthly billing costs more (the page says annual saves 24%). 14-day trial on Basic and Professional. Inbound and Advanced Dialer are paid add-ons. | Free plan with 40 credits per month. Paid plans per the pricing page's plan data: Starter $37.45/mo billed annually ($49.90 monthly) for 400 credits per month, Pro $52.45/mo annually ($69.90 monthly) for 600, Premium $299.95/mo annually ($399.90 monthly) for 3,400; Scale is custom. An email reveal costs 1 credit and a phone number 5. The page does not state whether prices are per user; teams above 5 users are sent to sales. No free trial beyond the free plan. |
Independent users treat Apollo as the budget default: far cheaper than ZoomInfo, with data and sequencing bundled in one place, and good enough for US prospecting if you accept extra cleanup. The recurring complaint is data freshness: users describe stale records, people who left years ago, wrong or switchboard phone numbers and bounce rates that stay high even after Apollo's own verification, plus renewals and credit changes that raised costs. About 40% of the Reddit mentions read as promotional, including a large, coordinated cluster of near-identical comments pitching Prospeo as the Apollo replacement, so this rests on roughly 30 independent opinions.
Users like
- Costs a fraction of ZoomInfo, and users who weigh price against quality call the data good enough for the money[1][2][3][4][5]
- Several users who had both Apollo and ZoomInfo preferred Apollo overall[1][2][3]
- Database, sequencing and dialing live in one tool, which users find simple for early-stage or low-volume outbound[1][2][3]
- Works without major issues for some users, particularly when targeting the US[1][2][3]
Users complain about
- Stale records: users find people who left months or years ago (one found a contact who died 20 years earlier still listed), with bounce rates around 9% even after running lists through a verifier[1][2][3][4][5]
- Phone numbers are a weak spot: inactive, wrong-person or HQ switchboard numbers returned instead of no result, and one user reports half the numbers were unreliable[1][2][3][4]
- Costs have crept up: a long-time customer's renewal tripled after a credit system change, and others say enrichment is expensive for what it returns[1][2][3]
- Coverage thins outside the US and in some niches: it lost to ZoomInfo and Cognism in one team's US and EMEA test, and a health tech team found it missed many people after leaving ZoomInfo[1][2][3]
Independent users see Lusha as a budget-friendly lookup tool that some find more accurate than Apollo for emails and phone numbers, useful as a second source or for one-off lookups. The trade-off is uneven accuracy (users report invented emails, invalid numbers and roughly 50/50 hit rates), thin coverage for enterprise and EMEA work, and weak filtering and credit terms. More than half of the Reddit mentions were promotional: one cluster of comments repeats 'Lusha for accuracy, Apollo for volume' in vendor terms, and many replies to Lusha complaints exist to plug alternatives (Bookyourdata, UpLead, ContactOut, FullEnrich and others), so this rests on about 21 independent opinions, most of them brief.
Users like
- Budget friendly, with free credits that make it easy to start and combine with Apollo[1][2][3]
- Some users find its emails and numbers more accurate than Apollo's or ZoomInfo's, though it returns fewer results[1][2][3][4]
- Phone numbers, including mobiles, work fairly well for some teams despite occasional misses[1][2]
- Useful as one of two sources: users pair it with Apollo, and one found it surfaced far more decision makers than Apollo for the same companies[1][2][3]
Users complain about
- Accuracy is unreliable for some: users report about 50/50 accuracy, invalid numbers that hurt domains, and one domain owner traced made-up email addresses sent to his company back to Lusha[1][2][3][4]
- Falls short against premium providers: it lost to ZoomInfo and Cognism in US and EMEA tests and was not enough for Fortune 500 IT prospecting[1][2][3]
- Filtering and user experience are weak, and one user calls the UX horrible enough to make it 2 to 3 times more expensive in practice[1]
- Credit terms frustrate users: no refunds for bad data, CRM saving gated on the first paid tier, and a search limit that appeared without notice[1][2]