---
title: "Apollo alternative for phone data: what the credits actually cost"
description: "Apollo publishes 98% email accuracy and no phone accuracy figure at all. Its credits page shows the mobile price as a blank. Here is what the docs say instead."
canonical: "https://listar.fr/en/apollo-alternative"
updated: "2026-11-11"
published: "2026-11-11"
---

# Apollo alternative for phone data: what the credits actually cost

> Most teams do not leave Apollo. They keep it for email, where it is good value, and add something else for mobile numbers. That is usually the right call, and this page is about why.

> Apollo publishes a 98% accuracy figure for email and **no accuracy figure at all for phone numbers**, on any page. Its customer-facing credits page shows the cost of a phone number as a blank. Its API documentation prices a mobile at eight times an email, while its marketing page says every verified number costs the same. All of that is on Apollo's own site, and it is the reason the phone side of Apollo is hard to budget for.

## What Apollo publishes, and where it contradicts itself

| Question | On the credits page | In the API documentation |
|---|---|---|
| Cost of an email | "Email = - credit", the figure is blank in the served HTML | 1 credit |
| Cost of a mobile | "Phone number = - credits", also blank | 8 credits, or "1 credit for demographics or email, plus 8 credits if a mobile phone is returned" |
| Do all numbers cost the same? | "This includes mobile, direct, office extensions, and more, each verified number costs the same" | A mobile carries an 8-credit premium over a 1-credit email |
| Waterfall cost | Not stated | "Phone waterfall enrichment typically uses 8 to 25 credits, but some configurations may result in 45+ credits" |

The blanks are not a rendering glitch on our end: the placeholder dashes are in the page source where the numbers should be. We mention it because it is the page Apollo points customers to when they ask what a phone number costs.

The more consequential item is the contradiction. If a mobile costs eight credits and an email costs one, then "each verified number costs the same" is true only within the category of phone numbers, which is not how the sentence reads next to a credit table. Budget from the API docs, not from the marketing page.

One further detail that catches teams out: email and mobile draw on **separate credit balances**, so running out of mobile credits does not stop your email enrichment and buying more email credits does not help your callers.

## What Apollo does well, and it is worth saying

Three things, because a page that only criticises is not useful.

**Its credit rules on failed lookups are the clearest of any large vendor we examined.** The API documentation states that a request consuming no credit-returning data consumes zero credits, that a demographic credit is not charged when match confidence is none, and that endpoints which create or update records cost nothing. Calls that ring out, are busy or fail use zero credits. Several competitors do not publish this at all.

**Its contract terms are published in full**, which is more than Cognism or ZoomInfo manage. Auto-renewal with a 30-day non-renewal notice, monthly plans cancellable at any time, subscription fees non-refundable during the term, and credits that expire at the end of each billing cycle with no rollover. You may dislike the terms, but you can read them before signing.

**98% email accuracy on a seven-step verification process** is a real claim and email is genuinely where Apollo earns its place in a stack. The method is not published and neither is the denominator, so treat the figure as directional, but the product behind it works.

## What Apollo does not publish

- **Any phone or mobile accuracy figure.** None, anywhere. The 98% is email only.
- **What "real-time phone verification" consists of.** Apollo states that phone numbers are verified in real time when requested, with no description of the check: no dialling claim, no carrier lookup, no line-type check, no name match.
- **List prices.** The pricing page names Free, Basic, Professional and Custom with no per-user figure; charges are "in your Apollo account".
- **Plan-level credit allowances**, for email or mobile.
- **Any data refresh interval.** Only "regularly refreshed", plus a trigger on job change.
- **Any per-region or per-country coverage figure.** The FAQ defers this to in-product search after you sign up.
- **Whether a credit is charged on an unsuccessful phone lookup in the self-serve interface.** The public credits page states the no-charge rule for emails only; the API docs cover the general case.

## The compliance detail worth knowing before you dial

Apollo's do-not-call screening is a customer-side setting, not a database-level scrub, and Apollo publishes that credits are charged either way: "Apollo charges credits for every new direct dial request, regardless of whether you enable DNC screening."

The countries covered are the United States, the United Kingdom including both TPS and Corporate TPS, Germany, France, Canada and Australia. Only the two UK registries are named specifically. Apollo also states plainly that it is at your discretion to decide whether you have a legitimate need to dial a flagged number, which is an accurate description of where the liability sits.

If you are calling UK or US mobiles at volume, read that alongside our pages on [UK screening obligations](https://listar.fr/en/uk-b2b-cold-calling-pecr-ctps) and [TCPA exposure](https://listar.fr/en/tcpa-b2b-cold-calling-mobile).

## Where Listar differs

We do not compete with Apollo on email, on sequencing, or on being an all-in-one platform. We are a mobile-number product.

What we publish that Apollo does not: a price of €0.50 excluding VAT per mobile falling to €0.20 at volume, in money rather than credits, with no commitment; a right-person rate of 95% on delivered mobiles, from 10,000 real calls across 100 separate files of 100 numbers each, between May and September 2026, internal, not audited, with numbers delivered as the denominator; and a description of what our verification actually does, which is a waterfall across more than 35 sources followed by four verification layers including a WhatsApp attachment check.

Where Apollo is ahead: breadth, the sequencer, the free tier, and email economics. Most of our French customers run both, and that is a sensible configuration rather than a compromise.

## How to settle it on your own data

Apollo's 14-day Professional trial includes five free mobile credits, which is enough to sanity-check a handful of records but not to measure anything. For a real comparison you need a few hundred.

Take 300 to 500 contacts from your own target list, run them through Apollo and through us on the same day, call with one scoring grid, and compare cost per usable contact rather than price per number.

[Download the test kit (.xlsx)](https://listar.fr/downloads/listar-data-provider-test-kit.xlsx)

No form, no email required.

## FAQ

**How accurate are Apollo's phone numbers?**
Apollo does not publish a phone or mobile accuracy figure on any page. Its 98% figure applies to email addresses and is produced by a seven-step verification process whose steps are not enumerated.

**How many credits does an Apollo phone number cost?**
Apollo's API documentation states 8 credits when a mobile is returned, against 1 credit for an email, and 8 to 25 credits for phone waterfall enrichment with some configurations exceeding 45. The customer-facing credits page shows the figure as a blank.

**Am I charged when Apollo finds nothing?**
Per the API documentation, no: a request that returns no credit-consuming data consumes zero credits. The public credits page states this for email only, so if you work through the interface rather than the API, confirm it for phone lookups.

**Can I cancel Apollo monthly?**
Monthly plans are described as cancel anytime, with cancellation effective at the end of the current term. Annual plans auto-renew unless you give 30 days' written notice, fees are non-refundable during the term, and mid-cycle downgrades on annual plans are not permitted.

**Do Apollo credits roll over?**
No. Credits expire at the end of each billing cycle and do not roll over into the next term.

**What is the best Apollo alternative for mobile numbers?**
The question to lead with is whether a vendor publishes a right-person rate with its method and denominator, and a price you can compute without converting credits. Then test it on your own list, because a vendor's figure on their sample tells you nothing about yours.

## Sources

All first-party Apollo pages, consulted 11 November 2026.

- [Apollo credits page](https://www.apollo.io/pricing/about-credits), where the per-unit figures appear as blanks
- [Apollo API pricing documentation](https://docs.apollo.io/docs/api-pricing) and [people enrichment reference](https://docs.apollo.io/reference/people-enrichment), for the credit costs and the no-charge-on-miss rule
- [Apollo B2B data](https://www.apollo.io/product/b2b-data), for the 98% email figure and the real-time verification claim
- [Apollo terms](https://www.apollo.io/terms), for auto-renewal, notice period and credit expiry
- [Apollo DNC screening](https://knowledge.apollo.io/hc/en-us/articles/19207906524557-Enable-Do-Not-Call-DNC-Phone-Screening), for the countries covered and the credit rule
- [Apollo free trial](https://knowledge.apollo.io/hc/en-us/articles/5288168088205-Access-a-Free-Trial-of-Apollo), for the trial length and mobile credit allowance

## Read next

- [B2B data providers: who actually holds the data](https://listar.fr/en/b2b-data-provider-comparison)
- [What "verified phone number" actually means from a data vendor](https://listar.fr/en/verified-phone-number-meaning)
- [Cost per usable contact: what B2B mobile data really costs](https://listar.fr/en/cost-per-usable-contact)