Lusha vs Apollo: the cost of one email and one phone number

Two ways of prospecting

Lusha and Apollo sell the same raw material (emails and phone numbers for business contacts) but fit different habits.

Lusha's centre of gravity is the browser extension. You are on someone's LinkedIn profile or a company website, you click, and Lusha shows their email and phone. It is a lookup tool for people you have already chosen.

Apollo's centre of gravity is the database search. You filter by title, industry, size and location, save hundreds of people, and run a sequence or call them from inside Apollo. It is a list-building and outreach tool.

Both do a bit of the other. But knowing which habit you have is most of the decision.

Side by side

Prices as of October 2026 from each vendor's pricing page. Apollo credit costs per item are third-party figures.

The cost of one email and one phone number

This is where the two differ most, so it is worth doing the sums.

Lusha Starter, monthly: $49.90 for 400 credits is 12.5 cents a credit. An email costs 12.5 cents. A phone number at 5 credits costs about 62 cents. On annual billing ($37.45 a month) that falls to about 9.4 cents a credit, 47 cents a phone.

Lusha Premium: $399.90 for 3,400 credits is about 11.8 cents a credit, so the per-credit price barely changes as you move up. You are buying volume, not a discount.

Apollo Basic, one seat: $49 a month billed annually is $588 a year for 30,000 credits, about 2 cents a credit. An email costs about 2 cents. A phone at 8 credits costs about 16 cents.

So per contact, Apollo's entry plan is several times cheaper on paper. Two things narrow the gap in practice:

1. Credits you do not use are not cheap. If you only need 50 contacts a month, Lusha's 400 credits (which roll over up to 2x) may suit you better than committing to a year of Apollo.
2. Accuracy is the real price. A 2-cent email that bounces costs more than a 12-cent one that lands, because bounces damage your sending domain. Apollo is reported at about 88% accuracy in the US and 60 to 73% internationally, with bounce rates of 15 to 35% in some third-party tests. Run your own sample before deciding. See cold email bounce rates.

What happens when nothing is found?

Both are fair in their main products: Lusha does not charge for a miss in the platform or CSV enrichment, and Apollo does not charge for contacts without a valid email.

The differences are at the edges. Lusha's API charges at least 1 credit per request even when there is no match, which matters if you plan to enrich a CRM automatically. Apollo's waterfall charges per source that returns data, including unverified emails found on the way. And Apollo refunds a verified email that bounces within 30 days. We wrote more on these policies in paying for lookups that find nothing.

Which fits how you work?

Pick Lusha if:

• You mostly look up people you have already found on LinkedIn or a company site.
• You need a small number of contacts a month and like monthly billing.
• Phone numbers matter and you want an extension that shows them in place.
• You want CRM integrations without paying for a higher plan.

Pick Apollo if:

• You build lists from filters rather than looking people up one by one.
• You want sequences and a dialler in the same tool.
• You need hundreds or thousands of emails a month and per-contact cost matters.
• You are happy paying annually for the lower rate.

A third option, briefly

Both tools assume you already know who to contact. If the harder part is deciding who, Sluice finds people from public signals (post engagers, competitors' reviewers, companies hiring) and scores each against your customer profile. Only people scoring 70 or more are revealed, at 5 cents each, and bounces are refunded exactly. It is new and much smaller than either. See Sluice vs Lusha and Sluice vs Apollo.