Apollo.io vs Cognism

Apollo.io

• Verified B2B contact and company database accessed via a credit system (1 credit per email, 8 credits per phone number)
• Outbound email/call sequences, with unlimited sequences and A/Z testing on paid plans
• Built-in US dialer with call recording, plus an international dialer and parallel/power dialer as paid add-ons
• AI Assistant, AI Research, and AI-based lead scoring built into every plan
• Chrome, Gmail, and Salesforce browser extensions for in-context prospecting
• Buying-intent topics and website visitor identification (company- and contact-level)
• Waterfall enrichment plus CSV, CRM, and API data enrichment with automated workflows
• Deal/pipeline management, meeting scheduling, and inbound lead routing

Cognism

• Phone-verified mobile numbers (Diamond Data) validated by a manual research team
• Buying-intent, hiring, job-change, and funding signals, including data partnerships with Bombora and CB Insights
• CRM enrichment that prioritizes data gaps by ICP segment and auto-enriches inbound leads
• Data-as-a-Service delivery via real-time API access or scheduled batch exports
• Automatic suppression against Do-Not-Call and TPS registries across 15+ countries
• Exports and integrations to Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive, and other CRM platforms
• Seat-based Standard and Pro plans, each including 5 seats, on a per-contact credit system

Apollo.io

• Publishes exact self-serve per-seat prices for its Free, Basic and Professional plans (US$0, $49 and $79 per seat per month billed annually, per its pricing page) rather than gating them behind a sales call
• Free plan includes real usage (900 credits/year, 2 sequences, a dialer with 150 call-recording minutes) rather than only a time-limited trial
• Combines contact data, email/dialer sequencing, and browser extensions for Chrome, Gmail, and Salesforce in one subscription
• States ISO 27001 certification, a SOC 2 report (via A-LIGN), and GDPR compliance as both a data processor and controller

• Feature access is metered by a credit system on top of the seat price, so heavy use of phone-number reveals (8 credits each) or enrichment can exhaust monthly/annual allowances
• On the free plan only Gmail accounts can be connected for email campaigns, per its pricing page

Cognism

• Certified for ISO 27001 and ISO 27701 (UKAS-accredited body) and attested for SOC 2 Type II, per its security page
• States GDPR/UK GDPR and CCPA compliance, plus Do-Not-Call/TPS suppression screening across 15+ national registries
• Phone-verified "Diamond Data" mobile numbers reviewed by a manual research team rather than automated verification alone

• No published self-serve pricing or numeric plan cost; the pricing page offers only a personalized quote
• No free trial is offered, only a free data sample, unlike some competitors' time-limited trials
• Standard and Pro plans both include only 5 seats by default, with additional seats presumably requiring a custom quote