Apollo.io is the default B2B prospecting database for most outbound teams in 2026. 275 million contacts, 73 million companies, deep filter coverage, and a pricing model that works for everyone from a single operator to a 50-seat sales organisation. Used well, Apollo replaces a dozen other tools in the outbound stack. Used badly, it is a messy export factory that burns an afternoon a week on list cleanup.
This guide covers the Apollo playbook we use at Borks across client campaigns. Plan selection, filter stacking, the export limits and how to work around them, and the enrichment pass that turns Apollo data from decent into excellent.
Plan selection: the tier that makes sense for most operators
Apollo sells four tiers: Free, Basic, Professional, and Organisation. Pricing has shifted several times but the relative positioning is stable. For most operators, the sweet spot is Professional at roughly 99 dollars per user per month.
What each tier unlocks
- Free. 10,000 credits per month. Enough for occasional one-off lookups. Not enough for campaign-scale list building.
- Basic. 50 dollars per month. Still credit-limited. Missing technographic and advanced filters.
- Professional. 99 dollars per user per month. Unlimited email credits for most use cases, technographic filtering, advanced filters, and the Clay-style data enrichment.
- Organisation. 149 dollars per user per month and up. Advanced integrations, dedicated IP, and multi-user admin. Overkill for most teams under 10 users.
Almost every outbound operator should start on Professional. The Basic tier runs out of credits faster than most users expect, and the upgrade path mid-cycle is annoying.
The filter stack that produces a clean list
Apollo has 50 plus filters available on the People search. Most users apply three or four and wonder why the list is mixed. The right approach is to stack filters in order of narrowest to broadest signal, checking the count after each one.
The primary stack (apply in order)
- Industry. Use the narrowest sub-industry available. 'B2B SaaS' is broad. 'B2B SaaS serving Marketing teams' is specific.
- Employee count. Tight band matching your ICP. 10 to 50, 51 to 200, 201 to 500.
- Revenue. Optional but useful. Apollo coverage on revenue is lumpy so expect to lose 30 to 50 percent of records to 'unknown' values.
- Location. Country at minimum. Specific metros if you are running locally compliant campaigns.
- Seniority plus department. Director plus in Sales, or VP plus in Marketing, or Founder for sub-50 employee targets.
The power filters most users miss
- Technographic. Filter on technologies the company runs. Massive list narrowing with minimal effort.
- Headcount growth rate. Filter on companies growing 20 percent plus year over year. High-intent buyers.
- Founded date. Useful to filter out old companies that tend to move slowly.
- Job postings in last 90 days. Proxy for active hiring and budget movement.
Working around the 25,000 export cap
Apollo's Professional plan caps a single export at 25,000 records. For most campaigns this is plenty. For large programmatic outbound operations, you need to work around it. The approach is to segment the export into smaller queries and stitch them together.
Segmentation strategies that work
- By geography. Run one export per state or per major metro. For a US list, 50 state-level exports get you deeper coverage than one national export.
- By employee count band. Split a 10 to 500 headcount list into 10 to 50, 51 to 200, 201 to 500 as three separate exports.
- By industry sub-category. Split by sub-industry to stay under the cap and segment the list at the same time.
Segmenting at export has a hidden benefit. The sub-lists are already pre-segmented for copywriting, which means the list build and the campaign design compound. No wasted step.
The enrichment pass that turns Apollo data into campaign-ready list
Apollo returns verified email on 60 to 75 percent of records in a typical pull. The other 25 to 40 percent need waterfall enrichment through additional providers. Without that pass, you leave a quarter of the list on the floor.
The waterfall we run on Apollo exports
- Apollo export with Enrich option enabled. First pass coverage 60 to 75 percent.
- Residual records run through Prospeo. Coverage lift to 78 to 85 percent.
- Residual records from Prospeo run through Contact Out. Coverage lift to 85 to 90 percent.
- Final residual through FindyMail or Lead Magic. Coverage lift to 88 to 93 percent.
- Full list verified through NeverBounce and MillionVerifier. Scrubby on catch-alls.
Apollo base email coverage
60 to 75%
After full waterfall
88 to 93%
After verification
85 to 90%
Cost per verified contact
$0.06 to $0.12
Apollo mistakes that waste credits and time
- Exporting without enrichment enabled. Costs you the enriched records on the first pass. Always toggle it on.
- Filtering by specific job title only. Use seniority plus department instead. Captures the same buyers with title variation.
- Relying on Apollo revenue filter alone. Coverage is spotty. Cross-reference with ZoomInfo or Crunchbase if revenue is a critical filter.
- Not de-duplicating against previous campaigns. Every Apollo export should be cross-referenced against your sent-list to avoid re-emailing burned contacts.
- Skipping technographic filtering because "it is too complicated." It is one click. Add it and watch the list quality improve.
Apollo done right replaces 80 percent of the B2B prospecting work that teams used to do across multiple tools. The Professional plan at 99 dollars per user is the cheapest practical entry point into industrial-grade outbound data. Every B2B operator should have the filter stack above dialled in on their own Apollo account. It is the foundation every other piece of outbound builds on top of.