THE APOLLO ALTERNATIVE FOR DATA

A Database Ages. Live Data Doesn't.

Apollo bundles a contact database with outreach tools. Datamagnet does one thing at API depth: current people, company and post data, fetched at the moment you request it.

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Datamagnet
Apollo
What it is
Live data API
Sales platform + DB
Data freshness
Fetched at request
Refresh cycles
Post & engagement data
Priced by seat
Credits only
From $49/user/mo (annual)
Sequencing & dialer
Apollo's entry paid seat, billed annually
$49/user/moApollo's entry paid seat, billed annually
Per live Datamagnet profile, no seat required
1 creditPer live Datamagnet profile, no seat required
Credits on signup, no card
10 freeCredits on signup, no card

Datamagnet vs Apollo: the short answer

Apollo.io is an all-in-one sales platform: a stored contact database with emails, phone numbers, sequencing and a dialer, sold per seat from $49 per user per month on annual billing. Datamagnet is a data API only — you POST a public LinkedIn URL and get the profile as it exists at that moment, for 1 credit, with no seats anywhere in the pricing. Choose Apollo if reps log into one tool that finds the contact and sends the outreach. Choose Datamagnet if code consumes the data and needs current profiles, post engagement and job-change signals inside your own product or pipeline.

Our verdict

Apollo is a strong platform and an average data API. If the consumer of the data is a rep who also needs the email address, the mobile number and the sequence, Apollo does all of that in one subscription and Datamagnet does none of it. But Apollo's API is an extension of a seat-based product: your plan decides which endpoints you can call and what each call costs, credits expire at the end of every billing cycle, and each record returned is one Apollo already held. Datamagnet is the better fit when the consumer is a service and what it needs is the profile as it stands today.

Which one should you pick?

Straight guidance, including the cases where we're the wrong answer.

Choose Datamagnet if

  • The thing calling the API is your product, a data pipeline or an agent — not a rep in a browser tab
  • You need the profile as it is right now — title, employer, headline, recent posts — rather than a stored record of unknown age
  • You want post content, commenters, reactors and reposters as structured data
  • You want ICP search, live people search, or the ability to POST a Sales Navigator search URL
  • You want job-change and engagement signals delivered to an HMAC-signed webhook
  • You do not want to buy per-seat licences for machines

Choose Apollo if

  • Your team needs verified work emails and mobile numbers — Datamagnet returns neither
  • You want sequencing, a dialer and an inbox in the same subscription as the data
  • Your reps prospect from a Chrome extension inside Gmail, Salesforce and HubSpot — Datamagnet has no extension
  • You need IP-based website visitor identification to de-anonymize inbound traffic
  • You want buying intent topics attached to accounts inside the same platform
  • You would rather license one platform per rep than assemble a data layer and an outreach stack

Datamagnet vs Apollo, feature by feature

What each tool actually returns, how fresh it is, and what it costs to run.

Data & API coverage

Data & API coverage: Datamagnet compared with Apollo, feature by feature
FeatureDatamagnetApollo
Data collected at the moment of request YesDatabase refresh cycles
Live people search25/page live · 50/page databaseDatabase search
Sales Navigator search URL as an API input YesChrome extension, not the API
ICP search with include/exclude logic YesPlatform filters
Post content & stats Yes No
Post engagement (commenters, reactors, reposters) Yes No
Company funding rounds5 credits, accepts a domain Yes
Job-change & engagement signals via API6 signal typesPlatform signals & alerts
HMAC-signed webhooks for signals YesPlatform integrations
Usable without buying seats YesSeats from $49/user/mo
Unused credits keep their valuePAYG credits valid 12 monthsExpire each billing cycle
Bundled contact database with emails No Yes
Built-in email sequencing & dialer No Yes
Chrome extension for in-browser prospecting No Yes
Website visitor identification No Yes

Apollo capabilities are summarized from their public documentation and pricing pages, last checked July 2026. Products change — verify against their current offering before you buy.

Seats or requests — the unit you buy decides the bill

Apollo's credit allowances are large: 30,000 a year on Basic, and a credit there reveals a record Apollo already holds. A Datamagnet credit triggers a fetch. The two units are not comparable, so the honest comparison is not per credit but per job. If the job is a rep working a list all day, seats and stored records are the cheaper shape. If the job is a service enriching records continuously, per-seat licensing prices a machine like a person, and you pay for reveal capacity you cannot use.

  • Apollo Basic — $49 per user per month billed annually, 30,000 credits a year, credits reset and do not roll over
  • Datamagnet Starter — $39 a month for 1,000 credits, no seats; pay-as-you-go packs start at $10 for 200 credits and stay valid 12 months
  • Apollo's API credit cost varies by call — its docs list 1 to 9 credits per person enriched and 1 per organization, with waterfall email and phone enrichment costing considerably more; a Datamagnet person or company profile is always 1
0 seats
Datamagnet has no per-seat pricing anywhere. A service calling the API is not a licence.

Pricing, side by side

What you pay Apollo versus what you pay us, for the same work.

Apollo.io

Per-seat subscriptions with an annual credit allowance. Prices below are the annual-billing rates published on Apollo's own site; credits reset each billing cycle and do not roll over.

Free900 credits/year
$0
Basic30,000 credits/year
$49/user/mo
Professional48,000 credits/year · US dialer
$79/user/mo
Organization72,000 credits/year · 3-seat minimum
$119/user/mo

Datamagnet

Credits, not seats. Charged only on successful requests, and 10 free credits to test before you pay anything.

FreeOn signup, no card
10 credits
Starter1,000 credits/mo
$39/mo
Pro10,000 credits/mo
$99/mo
Scale25,000 credits/mo · webhooks + bulk export
$199/mo
Pay-as-you-go200 credits $10 → 100,000 credits $2,000
from $0.02/credit

API access comes with an Apollo plan rather than separately: Apollo's docs state that your plan determines which API endpoints you can use, the rate limits and the credit cost. Its published fair use policy also caps non-paying accounts on unlimited-credit plans at 10,000 credits per account per month. Competitor pricing is taken from their public pricing page and was last checked July 2026; list prices change and negotiated rates differ. See Datamagnet pricing for our current plans.

Where each tool genuinely wins

No tool wins everywhere. Here's the honest split.

Where Apollo wins

  • Verified work emails and mobile phone numbers at scale — Datamagnet returns neither, and for most outbound teams that is the whole job
  • A complete outreach stack in the same subscription: sequences, dialer, inbox and meeting booking, so data and execution never leave one tool
  • A Chrome extension that surfaces contact data inside Salesforce, HubSpot, Gmail and company websites — the in-browser workflow most SDRs live in, and one Datamagnet has no answer for
  • IP-based website visitor identification: account-level matching, and named contact-level reveal for US visitors with the Inbound add-on
  • A large stored database — Apollo cites 230M+ contacts and 30M+ companies — that is instantly searchable and filterable without writing any integration
  • Buying intent topics on accounts from the Basic plan up, plus CRM sync and a deep integration ecosystem that Datamagnet deliberately leaves to your stack
  • Buying-signal intelligence deepened by its acquisition of Pocus, which Apollo describes as an enterprise revenue intelligence platform that turns buying signals into prioritised action
  • Large credit allowances per dollar on paid seats — 30,000 a year on a $49 Basic seat — and a free tier at 900 credits a year to start on

Where Datamagnet wins

  • Every profile fetched live at request time rather than served from a stored record of unknown age
  • Post content, commenters, reactors and reposters as structured data — not something Apollo's API returns
  • ICP search, live people search and Sales Navigator URL search, all through the API
  • Six job-change and engagement signal types delivered by HMAC-signed webhook or email digest
  • No per-seat pricing anywhere: you buy requests, and machines do not need licences
  • Charged only on successful requests, with 10 free credits and no card to test first
  • Pay-as-you-go credits stay valid for 12 months instead of expiring at the end of a billing cycle
  • Flat, published per-endpoint credit costs — a person or company profile is always 1 credit

Datamagnet vs Apollo: FAQ

Apollo is an all-in-one sales platform — a stored contact database with sequencing, dialer and email tools built around it, sold per seat from $49 per user per month on annual billing. Datamagnet is a pure data API: you POST a public LinkedIn URL and it fetches that person, company or post live at request time, priced in credits with no seats, for you to build into your own product, pipeline or agent.

Apollo's published plans, billed annually, are Free at $0 with 900 credits a year, Basic at $49 per user per month with 30,000 credits a year, Professional at $79 per user per month with 48,000 credits, and Organization at $119 per user per month with 72,000 credits and a three-seat minimum. Every figure here is the annual-billing rate Apollo publishes itself, and credits reset at the start of each billing cycle rather than rolling over.

Structurally, yes. Apollo serves records from a stored database — its own site cites 230M+ contacts — refreshed on a cycle, so any given record has an age you cannot see. Datamagnet fetches the public profile at the moment of your request, so title, employer, headline and recent posts reflect the profile as it stands today. Apollo's coverage is far broader; Datamagnet's records are never stale.

No to all four, and deliberately. Datamagnet returns structured public data — profiles, companies, posts, engagement and signals — and nothing else. It does not find or verify email addresses, does not supply mobile numbers, and has no sequencer, dialer or inbox. Apollo bundles all of them. Teams typically pair Datamagnet enrichment and webhooks with the outreach stack they already run.

Not really. Apollo's API ships with an Apollo subscription rather than as a standalone product: its documentation states that your Apollo plan determines which API endpoints you can use, the rate limits and the credit cost. Apollo's published fair use policy also caps non-paying accounts on unlimited-credit plans at 10,000 credits per account per month. Datamagnet sells API credits directly, starting at a $10 pay-as-you-go pack of 200 credits with no subscription underneath.

When your users are reps rather than services. If you want an out-of-the-box prospecting tool people log into — searchable database, verified emails, mobile numbers, a Chrome extension, sequences and a dialer in one subscription — Apollo is built for exactly that, and Datamagnet does none of it. Datamagnet is the better fit when you are building your own workflows or product and need current profile data through an API without seat-based pricing.

Sources

Every competitor claim on this page traces back to one of these.

  1. 1.Apollo.io — Pricing page (fair use credit policy, plan FAQs) — checked July 2026
  2. 2.Apollo.io — Apollo vs ZoomInfo (plan prices, credit allowances, 230M+ contacts) — checked July 2026
  3. 3.Apollo.io — Apollo vs Cognism (same plan prices and allowances, intent topics by plan) — checked July 2026
  4. 4.Apollo.io — About Apollo Credits (credits reset each cycle, no rollover) — checked July 2026
  5. 5.Apollo docs — API Pricing and Credits (1–9 credits per person, 1 per organization) — checked July 2026
  6. 6.Apollo docs — API overview (your plan determines endpoints, rate limits and credit cost) — checked July 2026
  7. 7.Apollo.io — Website visitor identification (company and contact-level reveal) — checked July 2026
  8. 8.Apollo.io — Chrome extension (emails and phone numbers in-browser) — checked July 2026
  9. 9.Apollo.io — Apollo acquires Pocus (230M+ contacts; "Apollo hasn't changed its pricing") — checked July 2026

Try Datamagnet against Apollo on your own data

10 free credits, no credit card. Run the same lookups through both and compare the JSON yourself.

  • Live data at request time
  • Charged only on success
  • No seats, no annual contract
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