Disclosure: we build Prospectio. Apollo is upstream of us in most of the stacks we see, so this is less a head-to-head than a map of where each one fits.
What each one is
Apollo.io is a contact database with sequencing, a Chrome extension, a light CRM and enrichment, sold as one self-serve platform. Its filters are excellent: headcount, technology used, funding, hiring signals, department size. It became the default starting point for a generation of startup sales teams.
Prospectio is a LinkedIn outreach tool. It reads each profile against your ideal customer profile and skips the poor fits, sends a personalised message in your cloned voice or on video, and uses an AI responder to reply through to a booked meeting. It runs in the cloud on a residential IP per account.
Side by side
| Prospectio | Apollo.io | |
|---|---|---|
| Core job | LinkedIn outreach that books meetings | Finding and filtering contacts |
| Contact database | No | Yes, very large |
| LinkedIn automation | Yes: connections, messages, voice, video | No; extension helps manual browsing |
| Email sequences | Yes, as steps | Yes, the main sending channel |
| ICP check per prospect before sending | Yes | No; filters narrow the list, nothing reads each profile |
| AI replies and meeting booking | Yes | No |
| Data quality in Europe | Not applicable | Weaker than North America; verify first |
| Free tier | No | Yes |
| Price (at time of writing) | $99 per seat per month, annual | Free tier, then self-serve credit-based plans; check apollo.io |
Where Apollo is the better choice
You need contacts, not conversations. Nothing we do replaces a database.
Email is your channel. Apollo’s sequencer works, and many teams move serious volume to a dedicated email platform later anyway.
You sell mainly into North America, where Apollo’s coverage and accuracy are strongest.
Where Prospectio is the better choice
LinkedIn is where your buyers answer. Apollo gives you the list and stops there.
Your list is broad and you are wasting sends. In our dataset an identical sequence replied at 13.0 percent on a list built from job titles and 51.9 percent where fit had been verified per person. Apollo’s filters get you to job titles. Prospectio does the per-person check.
Replies are going cold. Replies answered within 24 hours converted to a meeting at 21.4 percent; after 48 hours, 3.6 percent. Apollo leaves the inbox to you.
Running them together
The setup we see most often: search and filter in Apollo, export the list, import it into Prospectio as a CSV, and let Prospectio decide who actually gets a message on LinkedIn. Apollo is good at breadth. The ICP check is what turns breadth into a list worth contacting.
If you sell into Europe, verify Apollo’s emails before any email step. Bounces cost domain reputation, and that is slow to rebuild.
Method and sample sizes for every figure on this page are on the 2026 outbound benchmarks page.