Apollo vs Attio
Run both unless your motion is simple enough that Apollo's own object model will hold, which it does for a small team doing ordinary outbound. Attio is the answer when what you sell does not fit a contact and a deal, because its objects and attributes are defined through the API rather than configured around. Apollo is the answer when you do not yet know who to contact, which is a problem Attio does not address at all. The limits tell the same story: Attio publishes a flat 100 reads a second and Apollo meters credits against three windows at once.
Where they actually differ
Every value comes from the same record that drives the Enrichment APIs listing, so this table cannot disagree with the cards. Accented tags are data one provider returns and the other does not.
| Compare | Apollo API | Attio API |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Search, enrich and sequence from one credit balance | A CRM whose data model you define in code |
| Entry price | $49/seat/mo | $44/user/mo |
| Unit cost | $0.02 per credit | Not sold by the unit |
| Billing model | Per seat Credit packs Free tier | Per seat Subscription Free tier |
| Free tier | Free plan with API access, 900 credits per seat per year granted monthly, so 75 a month | Free plan with full API access, 100 seat credits a month |
| GTM motion covered | Source Enrich Engage Sync | Sync |
| Data returned | Work emailMobile phoneFirmographicsTechnographicsJob postingsIntent and newsLinkedIn profileCRM records | CRM recordsWork emailFirmographics |
| MCP server | Yes https://mcp.apollo.io/mcp | Yes Part of the Attio developer platform |
| Interfaces | REST API MCP server Webhooks Bulk or async Native in Clay n8n node | REST API MCP server Webhooks n8n node |
| Auth | API key in the x-api-key header | Bearer token or OAuth 2.0 |
| Rate limits | 200 req/min, 2,000/day on Basic. Enrichment gets 1,000/min with no daily cap. | 100 requests/s for reads, 25/s for writes, across the whole API |
| Coverage | Global | Global |
| Compliance | GDPR DPA SOC 2 Type II CCPA | GDPR DPA SOC 2 Type II |
| Best for | Best all-in-one GTM API | Best API-first CRM |
Pick each one when
Apollo API
- You need contact data, which Attio does not sell.
- Sequencing and sending should sit behind the same key as the data.
- Your object model really is contacts, companies and deals.
Attio API
- Your motion runs on something that is not a contact and a deal.
- An engineer owns the schema and wants to define it in code.
- You want a free plan with full REST access to prove the model on.
These two do different jobs, so the useful question is not which one wins but whether you need both. Run the same 500 rows through the broader product on its own, then through the specialist as a second pass, and count the rows the second pass actually adds. If you can count them on one hand, the broader product is the whole stack.
What each one costs, tier by tier
Both publish a full rate card, so this comparison runs on numbers rather than on adjectives. Apollo API lists 4 tiers and Attio API lists 4. Every figure is read off the vendor's own pricing page, and the pages they came from are listed at the foot of this one.
| The short version | Apollo API | Attio API |
|---|---|---|
| Cheapest paid plan | Basic, $49 | Plus, $44 |
| Tiers published | 4 | 4 |
| Free tier | Free plan with API access, 900 credits per seat per year granted monthly, so 75 a month | Free plan with full API access, 100 seat credits a month |
| Unit cost at entry | $0.0196 per credit | Not sold by the unit |
The cheapest paid plan is rarely the plan you end up on, because what moves you up a tier is usually volume rather than a feature. The two rate cards below are what you are choosing between.
Apollo API
Apollo API publishes 4 tiers, one of them free, and the paid ladder runs from $49 to $119.
Free
- Full API access, not a trial of it
- Granted monthly, so 75 credits a month in practice
- 2 sequences and basic filters
Basic
- US$588 a seat a year, credits granted upfront and pooled across the team
- 2,500 credits a month, at $0.0196 each
- Annual billing saves 24% against paying monthly
Professional
- 4,000 credits a month, at $0.0198 each
- AI lead scoring and multi-touch outreach
Organization
- 72,000 credits a seat a year, so 6,000 a month
- $0.0198 a credit, so the rate is flat across every paid tier
- The three-seat minimum makes US$357 a month the real floor
Attio API
Attio API publishes 4 tiers, one of them free, and the paid ladder runs from $44 to Custom.
Free
- Full REST API access
- 100 seat credits a month
- 250 workspace credits a month
Plus
- 500 seat credits a month
- 1,500 workspace credits a month
- Billed monthly or annually
Pro
- 1,000 seat credits a month
- 10,000 workspace credits a month
- The tier Attio marks as popular
Enterprise
- 2,500 seat credits a month
- Custom workspace credits
What Apollo and Attio cost at your volume
Put your own volume in. The model picks the cheapest published plan that covers it on each side, which is the question a rate card cannot answer and the one that decides the bill.
Apollo API
Priced on the volume you use, so the plan that covers a normal month is the one that decides the bill.
Attio API
Priced per seat, so the bill moves with headcount rather than with volume.
Plans are read from each vendor's own pricing page and the model picks the cheapest one that covers you, so these are list prices before any discount you negotiate and before annual billing, which most of these vendors discount.
What a year costs at three volumes
The same plan-fit arithmetic as the model above, run out to a year, because an annual number is what a budget actually asks for. Attio API is priced per seat, so that column does not move with volume. The figure shown is 3 seats for a year.
| A year at | Apollo API | Attio API |
|---|---|---|
| 1,000 a month | $588 Basic | $1,584 Plus |
| 10,000 a month | $2,352 Basic | $1,584 Plus |
| 50,000 a month | $11,760 Basic | $1,584 Plus |
2 of the 2 providers here publish enough to be put in this table. These are list prices on the published plan that covers each volume, so they are the number before you negotiate and before annual billing, which most of these vendors discount by between a fifth and a half.
How this plays out once it is running
Apollo is a database that grew a CRM so its sequences had somewhere to write. Attio is a CRM that treats the schema as yours: custom objects and attributes are created through the API itself, so if the thing your revenue motion runs on is a workspace, a vehicle, a property or a clinic rather than a contact and a deal, you say that in code once instead of bending it into a custom field forever. Neither overlaps the other's core, which is why the honest answer to this comparison is usually both.
The metering could not be more different and it is worth reading before you design anything. Apollo bills credits at $0.0196, granted 30,000 a seat a year on Basic, and enforces 200 requests a minute and 2,000 a day per team with enrichment on its own 1,000 a minute window. Attio bills seats, $44 a user a month or $35 annually, and publishes one flat ceiling: 100 requests a second for reads and 25 a second for writes across the whole API. Sizing a job on Apollo is three divisions and a careful read; on Attio it is one.
What each one is genuinely good at
Not a feature list. These are the things that make somebody keep paying after the novelty has worn off, which is a different question from what the marketing page leads with.
Apollo API
It holds the data, which Attio does not
People and organization search across Apollo's own index, enrichment at one credit an email, job postings at one credit for up to 10,000 results. Attio stores whatever you bring it and sources nothing. If the problem on your side is not knowing who to contact, only one half of this page speaks to it at all.
Free search and free writes
People search costs nothing, a failed enrichment costs nothing, and the sequence, contact, deal and task endpoints are all 0 credits. The orchestration is free and only the data is metered, which is the right way round and means the cheap pattern is to filter aggressively before enriching.
Sending is in the box
Apollo sequences from the same credential that found the contact, and ships an MCP server at mcp.apollo.io/mcp over the same surface. Attio is a record system and a developer platform with no sending engine, so an Attio-centered stack needs a sequencer bought separately and wired in.
Attio API
The schema is something you write, not something you configure around
Custom objects and attributes are defined through the API, so the model matches your business instead of the vendor's idea of a sales process. That is the single reason teams move here, and it is not a preference: a motion that does not fit contacts and deals accumulates custom-field debt in any CRM that will not let you declare the object.
One flat rate limit, published
100 requests a second for reads and 25 a second for writes, across the whole API. No per-endpoint token cost, no daily pool, nothing shared with apps a colleague installed. Sizing a migration is one division, which against Apollo's three simultaneous windows is a real reduction in the amount you have to hold in your head.
A free plan with full REST access
The free tier carries the whole API plus 100 seat credits a month, so the data model can be proved before anything is bought. Paid starts at $44 a user a month or $35 annually. Apollo's free plan carries API access too, but metered at 900 credits a seat a year, which is 75 a month.
Where each one falls down
Every provider on this site has a case it handles badly, and the people who find out are the ones who bought it for that case. These are the ones worth knowing before you sign rather than after.
Apollo API
The CRM is thin on purpose
Apollo's object model exists to support its own sequencing. There are no user-defined objects, so anything your business runs on that is not a person, a company or a deal has to be forced into a custom field. That is survivable for a year and compounds afterwards, which is exactly the debt Attio is sold against.
Credits are per seat per year, and the limits are per team
30,000 credits on Basic is 2,500 a month per seat, and Organization adds a three-seat minimum at US$357. The request limits are enforced per team rather than per key, so another integration on the same account spends your allowance without telling you.
Three windows at once
200 requests a minute, 2,000 a day on Basic, and a separate 1,000 a minute for enrichment with no daily cap. People size a backfill against the minute figure and meet the daily pool a few hours in. Both numbers have to be read before a load is planned.
Attio API
No contact data at any price
Attio sources nothing. Every row arrives from somewhere else, which means choosing Attio does not remove a vendor from your stack, it moves one. The comparison that actually matters is Attio plus a data provider against Apollo alone.
Per-user pricing with no usage allowance to offset it
$44 a user a month, or $35 annually, and there is no credit allowance bundled because there is nothing to meter. For a team of ten that is $440 a month before any data is bought, against Apollo's $490 that includes 25,000 credits a month. Count the seats before assuming the developer-platform story is also the cheaper one.
No sequencer, so the motion needs a third vendor
Attio carries CRM, work email and firmographic fields and a developer platform around them. Sending lives elsewhere, which means an Attio stack is at least three contracts: data, CRM and sequencing. Apollo collapses those into one at the cost of being weaker at each.
Using Apollo and Attio together
A two-way comparison assumes the answer is one of them. On this pairing it often is not, and the arrangement below is what teams actually end up running.
The arrangement that works is Apollo as the source and Attio as the record, and it is a cleaner join than it sounds because both sides are free at the point of writing. Apollo spends no credits on a write and Attio's free plan carries full REST access, so the pipeline between them costs nothing and the only metered thing in the stack is the enrichment itself.
Define the objects in Attio first and let the enrichment fill them, rather than mirroring Apollo's model and regretting it. The entire argument for Attio is that the schema matches your business, and a migration that copies a contact-and-deal shape across because that is what the source returns throws the advantage away on day one. Write the object you actually sell to, then map Apollo's fields onto it.
Where this gets expensive is seats, and it is worth modelling before you commit. Apollo charges per seat for credits and Attio charges per seat for access, so every person who needs both is counted twice. A common fix is to keep Apollo seats to the handful of people who actually prospect and let everybody else live in Attio, which works because Apollo's API credits follow the seats rather than the humans using them.
Apollo or Attio, for you
Five questions, answered from the same records as the rest of this page. Nothing is sent anywhere and there is no result to email yourself.
Each answer leans one way. The recommendation appears here once you have picked at least two.
A tool like this can only weigh what is on the page. It does not know your segment, and the one test that does is the bake-off further down: real rows, cheapest entry on each side, spend divided by survivors.
Where an answer leans on a certification or an integration, it means that vendor publishes it on the pages this directory read, which is not the same as the other one lacking it. The sources are listed at the foot of the page.
Where the data comes from, and what you may do with it
The question that arrives late and expensively is not how good the data is, it is who is allowed to hold it. These are the fields each one returns, the coverage it claims and the compliance it publishes.
| Provider | Fields returned | Coverage | Compliance | Redistribution |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apollo API | Work email, Mobile phone, Firmographics, Technographics, Job postings, Intent and news, LinkedIn profile, CRM records | Global | GDPR DPA SOC 2 Type II CCPA | Not stated |
| Attio API | CRM records, Work email, Firmographics | Global | GDPR DPA SOC 2 Type II | Not stated |
None of these states a redistribution position on its pricing or docs pages. Internally that never matters. Put the rows in something your customers can see and it becomes the question your legal team asks first.
Two practical notes that apply to every provider on this page. A compliance badge describes the vendor, not your use of it, so a GDPR DPA does not give you a lawful basis for the outreach you send. And every one of these vendors runs its own opt-out, which means a person who asks you to delete their record has to be removed from your copy as well as from theirs.
Moving between Apollo and Attio
Most readers of this page are already on one of these two. A swap is four hours of code and a month of watching, and the order below is the one that catches the expensive mistakes while they are still free.
Measure the thing you are about to lose
Run 500 rows you already have through Apollo API and record the match rate, the fields that came back populated and the cost. Without that number a migration cannot be judged, because every provider looks cheaper per unit than the one you are paying for today.
Check the fields, not the field count
Attio API does not return Mobile phone, Technographics, Job postings, Intent and news and LinkedIn profile, which Apollo API does. If anything downstream reads mobile phone, that is a change to your pipeline and not just to your vendor.
Rewrite the auth and the limits, in that order
Apollo API authenticates with API key in the x-api-key header. Attio API uses bearer token or OAuth 2.0.
The limits are the part that bites later. Apollo API rate: 200 req/min, 2,000/day on Basic. Enrichment gets 1,000/min with no daily cap.
Attio API rate: 100 requests/s for reads, 25/s for writes, across the whole API. A loop tuned to the first will either crawl or get throttled on the second.
Run both for one billing cycle
Keep the old key live and route a slice of real traffic to the new one. A month is the shortest honest test, because credit expiry, rollover and the overage rate only show up at renewal and those are where the surprises live.
Cancel on the renewal date, not before
Credits on most of these plans do not survive a downgrade. Check what happens to the balance you have already paid for, and time the switch so you are not buying the same records twice.
The step people skip is the first one, and it is the only one that cannot be done after the fact. Once the old key is off you have nothing to compare the new match rate against, so a provider that is quietly worse on your segment looks like a provider that is fine.
What practitioners say about Apollo
The one part of this page that is not a vendor claim. Quotes are transcribed as written, linked to the thread, and nothing here is the only source for a figure in the tables above. Where a comment makes its point in crude words, we summarize it in our own words instead of quoting it.
The rate limit, not the credit price, is what people actually hit
In our words: A practitioner building on the API says the rate limits are what their team hit, that they got past them by routing requests across three Apollo accounts, and that Apollo charges per request even when a lookup returns nothing.
r/gtmengineering · May 2026 · summarized rather than quoted
Two halves worth separating. The limit is real and it is on this page: 200 requests a minute and 2,000 a day on Basic, with enrichment on a separate 1,000 a minute and no daily cap, which is why a bulk job and a per-row loop feel like different products.
The charge-on-no-output half needs care, because Apollo publishes 0 credits when nothing is found and that matches what we read. What a miss does spend is a request against the rate limit, and when the limit is the binding constraint that is the cost you feel. Pooling accounts to get round a published limit is a terms question before it is an engineering one.
The answer to the limit is the bulk endpoint, and it gets missed
Are you using bulk enrichment? You should be able to compress 10 enrichments per call, and based on the documentation I'm reading, the limit should be 600 calls, so that's 6000 total contacts per hour. If you have more, you can write some code to stagger them with 60 minute delays per 6000.
r/gtmengineering · May 2026 · 1 point
This is the right instinct and it is the same one the batch endpoints exist for: ten records in one call is one request against the limit rather than ten. The arithmetic here is this person's reading of Apollo's documentation rather than ours, so check the current bulk limit on Apollo's own reference before sizing a job around 6,000 an hour. The shape of the advice holds whatever the number is.
11 threads read on 13 October 2026, searched by vendor name. Scores and dates are the comment's own. Nothing here is the only source for a price or a limit on this site: every figure in the tables above comes from a vendor's own page.
Where each one sits in a working pipeline
Neither of these is bought in isolation. These are the worked stacks on this site that use one or both, with the cost run end to end.
Waterfall email enrichment
$0.0364Four providers chained cheapest-first, each taking only what the last one missed, then verification routed per source.
Hiring signal to outbound
$0.13A company hiring three SDRs has already decided to spend. Turn that job posting into a sequenced contact inside a day.
Inbound speed to lead
<60sForm submission to enriched, verified, routed and sequenced in under a minute, with no human in the path.
The wider field for both
A two-way comparison assumes the answer is one of these two. Often it is not, and the reason you are comparing them at all points somewhere else entirely: Apollo alternatives and Attio alternatives both start from the reason people leave.
Apollo API alternatives
6Apollo's credit is level with the specialists once you read the period on it. What sends teams looking is the seat it is attached to, the license, or a European list.
See the alternatives →Attio API alternatives
4A CRM for people who want to define the schema themselves. Not everybody does.
See the alternatives →Everything in Source
13The full category these two sit in, filtered by data returned, billing model and entry price.
Browse the category →Related comparisons
The 26 providers behind every pairing here are in the main listing.
Pairings that share a side with this one: Apollo vs People Data Labs, Attio vs Twenty and Apollo vs ZoomInfo.
And: Attio vs folk and Apollo vs RocketReach. Every comparison in the directory is on the compare hub.
Apollo API vs Clay
One key for the whole motion against a router sitting in front of 150 vendors.
Compare them →Apollo API vs People Data Labs
A go-to-market license at two cents a credit against a license written for redistribution.
Compare them →Apollo API vs LeadMagic
A seat license with 30,000 credits against a published per-operation rate card.
Compare them →Comparison pages end at the rate card. Your list does not.
We run the bake-off on your actual data, pick the provider order, and build the pipeline behind it: waterfall routing, credit ceilings and the write-back that puts a verified contact in front of a rep the same day.
Worked with 300+ companies. A senior operator runs your account.
Apollo and Attio, answered
Read from the same records that drive the table above.
Is Apollo or Attio cheaper?
On the entry plan it is Attio, $44/user/mo against Apollo at $49/seat/mo. The entry price is the comparable figure, because they do not meter the same thing.
Can I try Apollo and Attio for free?
Apollo: Free plan with API access, 900 credits per seat per year granted monthly, so 75 a month. Attio: Free plan with full API access, 100 seat credits a month.
What are the rate limits on Apollo and Attio?
Apollo: 200 req/min, 2,000/day on Basic. Enrichment gets 1,000/min with no daily cap. Attio: 100 requests/s for reads, 25/s for writes, across the whole API.
Do Apollo and Attio both have MCP servers?
Both do. Apollo: https://mcp.apollo.io/mcp. Attio: Part of the Attio developer platform.
Which is better, Apollo or Attio?
Run both unless your motion is simple enough that Apollo's own object model will hold, which it does for a small team doing ordinary outbound. Attio is the answer when what you sell does not fit a contact and a deal, because its objects and attributes are defined through the API rather than configured around.
Can you use Apollo and Attio together?
The arrangement that works is Apollo as the source and Attio as the record, and it is a cleaner join than it sounds because both sides are free at the point of writing. Apollo spends no credits on a write and Attio's free plan carries full REST access, so the pipeline between them costs nothing and the only metered thing in the stack is the enrichment itself.
Can I migrate from Apollo to Attio without losing data?
Not without losing a field. Attio does not return mobile phone, technographics, job postings, intent and news and LinkedIn profile, which Apollo does, so anything downstream that reads it has to change. Either way, measure your match rate on 500 rows before you switch, because that number is the one you cannot recover afterwards.