Instantly vs Apollo: data platform or sending engine?
Apollo is a lead database with sequences and a dialer. Instantly is a cold email sender with unlimited mailboxes, and the two pair well.
from $47/mo
$65/seat/mo
- Apollo is a sales platform built on a database of 240M+ contacts, with sequences, a dialer and deal tracking. Paid plans start at $65 per seat a month, or $49 billed yearly.
- Instantly is a cold email sender. Every plan has unlimited mailboxes and warmup, and the bill follows emails sent, from $47 a month. Its lead database, SuperSearch, is a separate credits subscription.
- Choose Apollo if a few reps prospect, call and email from one tool. Choose Instantly if you send cold email at volume from many mailboxes.
- Verdict: they do different jobs and pair well, Apollo for the list and Instantly for the sending. Revbound then answers the Instantly replies and books the meetings. It does not connect to Apollo.
Instantly vs Apollo side by side
| Instantly | Apollo | |
|---|---|---|
| Price and trial | ||
| Entry paid plan | Growth, $47 / month: 5,000 emails, 1,000 uploaded contacts | Basic, $65 per seat a month, or $49 billed yearly |
| How you pay | By plan volume (emails and contacts), not by mailbox | Per seat, with every seat on the same plan |
| Free option | 14-day trial, no card, 1,000 emails | Free plan with 75 credits a month, plus a 14-day trial of Basic or Professional |
| Lead data | ||
| Lead database | SuperSearch, 450M+ B2B contacts, on a separate Instantly Credits plan from $9 a month | 240M+ contacts and 30M+ companies, credits included with each seat |
| Cost of a work email | About 1.5 credits per row | 1 credit per email, 8 per phone number |
| Sending and deliverability | ||
| Mailboxes | Unlimited on every plan | 1 per user on Free and Basic. Unlimited Google and Microsoft plus 5 SMTP per user on Professional |
| Sending limits | 5,000, 125,000 or 500,000 emails a month by plan | 250 emails a day on Free and Basic, unlimited under fair use from Professional |
| Warmup | Unlimited on every plan | Deliverability suite and warmup from Basic |
| Sequences | Email campaigns, full A/Z testing from Hypergrowth | Email, phone and social steps. 2 sequences on Free, unlimited from Basic |
| Calls, LinkedIn and CRM | ||
| Dialer | Calling and SMS in Hyper CRM, $97 a month | US dialer from Basic, paid in credits. Power and parallel dialing in a $149 a month add-on |
| LinkedIn actions listed in its CRM | Social steps in sequences, and a Chrome extension that works on LinkedIn | |
| CRM | Own AI CRM from $47 a month with unlimited seats. HubSpot and Salesforce through OutboundSync | Built-in deal management. Salesforce and HubSpot integrations from Basic |
| Reply inbox | Unibox, preview-only on Growth, replying from Hypergrowth | Unified inbox on every plan |
Monthly list prices and limits from each vendor's pricing page. Apollo's database size is the figure Apollo publishes, and Instantly's comes from Instantly's own pricing notes.
Lead data: Apollo's database vs Instantly SuperSearch
Data is Apollo's core product. It lists 240M+ contacts and 30M+ companies, and Apollo reports 98% email accuracy from its own verification. Credits come with every seat: 2,500 a month on Basic and 4,000 on Professional with monthly billing. An email costs 1 credit and a phone number 8. Credits are pooled across the team and do not roll over.
Watch the record selection limit. On Basic you can select 1,000 records in one action, 2,500 on Professional and 10,000 on Organization. Free stops at 25.
Instantly answers with SuperSearch, which it puts at 450M+ B2B contacts with waterfall enrichment from 5+ data providers. It runs on Instantly Credits, a separate subscription from the sender. Nano is $9 a month for 150 credits, and the Growth credits plan is $47 to $77 for 1,500 to 2,000 credits. Most enrichment costs about 0.5 credits a row, and a work email about 1.5. Unused credits expire 2 months after purchase on monthly plans.
Both database sizes are vendor figures, and neither is audited by a third party. Pull a small sample from your real target list in each tool and check the bounce rate before you commit a budget.
A licensing note for agencies
Apollo's pricing FAQ says its plans are for internal business use, and that sharing Apollo data with customers needs a separate agreement. If you build lists for clients, ask Apollo how that applies to you before you export.
Sending and deliverability
Sending is where they differ most. Instantly was built to send cold email from many inboxes. Apollo was built to give a rep a list and a sequence, and its sending rules follow the seat.
Instantly
Every plan includes unlimited email accounts and unlimited warmup. Instantly's warmup page puts its pool at over 1,000,000 real email accounts. Plans cap volume, not mailboxes: Growth sends 5,000 emails a month, Hypergrowth 125,000 and Light Speed ($358) 500,000. Go past a cap and you move up a tier, with no overage fee.
Hypergrowth adds a Deliverability AI Agent and blocklist triggers. Light Speed adds SISR, a dedicated server with IP rotation. You can also buy pre-warmed Google accounts at $10 a month and domains at $15 a year inside the app.
Apollo
Email campaigns are included on every Apollo account. The free plan connects Gmail only, and paid plans connect Microsoft or any other provider. Basic allows 1 mailbox per user and 250 emails a day. Professional lifts that to unlimited Google and Microsoft mailboxes plus 5 SMTP mailboxes per user, with unlimited daily sends under Apollo's fair use policy.
Basic and up include Apollo's deliverability suite with email warmup, plus domain and mailbox purchasing. Apollo's pricing page gives no warmup pool size, so the two networks can't be compared on published numbers.
If you are choosing between two pure senders instead, our Instantly vs Smartlead comparison covers warmup tiers, client workspaces and the reply inbox in more depth. For a wider field, see seven alternatives to Instantly ranked by price and limits.
Instantly vs Apollo pricing at 3, 10 and 25 mailboxes
The two tools bill in opposite ways. Instantly charges for volume and never per mailbox. Apollo charges per seat, and on Basic each seat carries 1 mailbox, so the mailbox count sets the seat count.
| Mailboxes | Instantly Growth | Instantly Hypergrowth | Apollo Basic | Apollo Professional |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | $47 / month | $97 / month | $195 / month (3 seats) | $99 / month (1 seat) |
| 10 | $47 / month | $97 / month | $650 / month (10 seats) | $99 / month (1 seat) |
| 25 | $47 / month | $97 / month | $1,625 / month (25 seats) | $99 / month (1 seat) |
Monthly billing. Instantly: one plan, any number of mailboxes. Apollo Basic: $65 per seat with 1 mailbox each. Apollo Professional: $99 per seat with unlimited Google and Microsoft mailboxes. With SMTP mailboxes (5 per seat), 10 mailboxes take 2 seats ($198) and 25 take 5 ($495).
The table makes Apollo Professional look like a bargain for mailboxes, and on paper it is. The catch is volume. Instantly Growth's 5,000 emails a month works out to 200 emails per mailbox across 25 mailboxes. Bigger senders need Hypergrowth and its 125,000 emails.
Data changes the math too. The Apollo prices include lead credits. The Instantly prices do not, so add an Instantly Credits plan if you want SuperSearch, or count the cost of your data source. On yearly billing Apollo drops to $49 for Basic and $79 for Professional, a 24% saving.
Replies and booking
Replies are where the meetings come from, and the two tools handle them differently.
Apollo
Apollo lists a unified inbox on every plan, and a meeting scheduler with 1 meeting event on Free, 3 on Basic and 6 on Professional. For a rep who runs their own sequences, reading replies and sending a booking link inside the same tool works fine.
Instantly
The Unibox collects replies from every connected mailbox and tags them with AI reply labels such as Interested or Not Interested. On Growth it is preview-only, so answering inside Instantly starts on Hypergrowth. The AI Reply Agent bills on Instantly Credits at 5 credits per reply, which means the $9 Nano plan covers 30 replies a month.
Where Revbound fits: the Instantly side
Revbound reads replies from Instantly, plus Smartlead, Email Bison, PlusVibe, SendKit and ArcSend, and puts them in one inbox. Its AI sorts each reply as interested, meeting requested, out of office, referral or not interested.
Revbound does not connect to Apollo. Replies to sequences you run inside Apollo stay in Apollo's inbox.
Answered and booked
For interested leads, Revbound drafts an answer for you to review or sends it on its own. It offers times that are free on your Cal.com or Google Calendar and books the meeting when the lead says yes.
Out-of-office leads get a follow-up when they return, referrals get contacted, and long follow-ups keep going for about two months.
What it costs and what it skips
Plans are Solo $49, Agency $99 and Connector $149 a month, month to month with the AI included, and every feature is open during a 3-day free trial. See Revbound plans and pricing.
Revbound does not find leads or send cold email, so it replaces neither tool. It does not handle LinkedIn replies or sync to a CRM, and it is newer and smaller than both, with fewer integrations.
Choose Instantly or Apollo
Choose Instantly if
- Cold email is your main channel and you send from many mailboxes
- You already have a data source, or SuperSearch credits cover you
- You want to add inboxes without adding seats
- You want warmup, pre-warmed accounts and domains bought in one place
Choose Apollo if
- Finding and enriching leads is the hard part of your outbound
- Your reps call as well as email
- You want a free plan to start, with 75 credits a month
- A small team sends modest volume, where 250 emails a day per seat on Basic is enough
- You want deal tracking next to the prospect list
Comparing more senders? Our best cold email software list ranks Instantly next to Smartlead, Email Bison, PlusVibe and three others. If you want one tool to research, write and send for you, see the AI SDR software rankings.
Using Apollo and Instantly together
Run together, Apollo owns the list, Instantly owns the sending, and Revbound picks up the replies on the Instantly side.
- DataApollo
Search, filter and enrich the list. Export the contacts you want to email.
- SendingInstantly
Upload the list, warm the mailboxes and run the sequence at volume.
- RepliesRevbound
Read the Instantly replies, answer the interested leads and book the call.
Build the list in Apollo
Filter by title, company size and industry, then save the people you want. Exporting emails uses Apollo credits, 1 per email, and your plan's record selection limit sets how many you can select at once.
Upload it to Instantly
Import the CSV into an Instantly campaign. Watch the uploaded-contacts cap: 1,000 on Growth and 25,000 on Hypergrowth.
Send from Instantly only
Keep those contacts out of Apollo sequences so nobody gets the same email twice. Plan the steps and spacing with our guide to building a cold email sequence.
Route the replies
Connect Instantly to Revbound. Replies land in one inbox, interested leads get an answer, and meetings go on your calendar.
Instantly vs Apollo questions
Is Instantly better than Apollo for cold email?
For sending cold email at volume, usually yes. Instantly includes unlimited mailboxes and warmup on every plan from $47 a month, while Apollo Basic allows 1 mailbox and 250 emails a day per seat. Apollo is the stronger pick for finding leads, calling and running a small team's sequences in one tool.
Can you use Apollo and Instantly together?
Yes. Build and enrich the list in Apollo, export it as a CSV, and upload it to an Instantly campaign for sending. Keep those contacts out of Apollo sequences so nobody gets emailed twice.
Which is cheaper, Apollo or Instantly?
For sending, Instantly is usually cheaper: Growth is $47 a month for any number of mailboxes, and Hypergrowth is $97. Apollo bills per seat, $65 a month on Basic or $99 on Professional, but those prices include lead credits. Instantly's lead data is a separate credits plan from $9 a month.
Does Instantly have a lead database like Apollo?
Yes. Instantly SuperSearch covers 450M+ B2B contacts, according to Instantly. It runs on Instantly Credits, a subscription separate from the sending plan, at about 1.5 credits per work email. Apollo lists 240M+ contacts, with credits included in every seat.
Does Apollo include email warmup?
Yes, on paid plans. Apollo Basic and up include a deliverability suite with email warmup and domain and mailbox purchasing. Instantly includes unlimited warmup on every plan and says its warmup pool has over 1,000,000 real email accounts.
Does Apollo have a free plan?
Yes. Apollo's Free plan costs $0 and includes 75 credits a month per seat, 2 sequences, 1 mailbox and 250 emails a day. Instantly's sending plans start with a 14-day trial that needs no card and includes 1,000 emails.
Does Revbound work with Apollo or Instantly?
Revbound works with Instantly, not Apollo. It reads replies from Instantly, Smartlead, Email Bison, PlusVibe, SendKit and ArcSend, sorts them, answers interested leads and books meetings on Cal.com or Google Calendar. Plans start at $49 a month with a 3-day free trial.
Instantly and Apollo are trademarks of their owners, and Revbound is not affiliated with either. Plans and prices can change, so confirm them on the Instantly pricing page and the Apollo pricing page before you buy.
Sending through Instantly?
Revbound handles the replies and books the meetings. Apollo is not a supported source. Month to month, with the AI included.