Apollo.io alternatives for teams that mostly use it to send sequences

If you use Apollo mainly to send sequences, you have three kinds of alternative: a sales engagement suite (Outreach, Salesloft, HubSpot Sequences), a cold email tool (lemlist, Instantly, Reply.io), or a self-hosted engine such as OpenSequence. Most teams keep a contact data provider, which can be Apollo itself on fewer seats, and replace only the sequencer.

We build OpenSequence, so read this page with that in mind. We list it first, cover every other tool with the same sections, and end with the cases where you should stay on Apollo. All prices come from public pricing pages as of October 2026, except Outreach and Salesloft, which do not publish prices.

Why teams look past Apollo for sequencing#

Plenty of teams like Apollo. Its own pricing page cites 4.7 out of 5 across 9,690 reviews. Problems start when a team runs all of its outbound through a tool that charges for data.

Credits pay for everything. One credit buys an email address, eight buy a phone number, and the US dialer costs one credit per 30 seconds. Credits also pay for warmup, purchased domains and mailboxes, and AI research. Apollo pools them across the team, grants them at the start of the billing cycle, and resets them with no rollover. A rep who dials or warms up a mailbox draws from the same pool as the person building lists.

The cheaper plans limit sending. Basic costs $49 per seat per month, billed annually, and allows 1 mailbox per user and 250 emails per day. Multiple mailboxes and unlimited daily sends start at Professional, $79 per seat per month. The free plan caps you at 2 sequences per team.

Many deliverability problems come from defaults. Apollo sends through the mailbox you link, so the sending reputation belongs to your domain. The shared part is the default tracking domain for opens and clicks. Apollo's help center says a custom tracking subdomain protects your primary domain's reputation. If your Apollo emails land in spam, check that setting and your SPF, DKIM and DMARC records before you blame the tool. Changing sequencers will not fix a bad list. Our guide to cold email deliverability on your own infrastructure covers the checks.

Data and contract complaints are common. On Trustpilot, Apollo scores 3.1 out of 5 from 1,365 reviews, and 36% are one star. Recent reviews repeat the same complaints. Credits expire each cycle, annual plans cannot shrink mid-term, and reviewers say they cross-check the contact data against other sources.

Apollo does two jobs#

Apollo sells a contact database and a sequencer in one seat. The two jobs have different users inside your team. Someone in RevOps or an SDR lead builds lists and spends credits. Every rep sends sequences.

That split matters for cost. Ten reps on Professional, at $79 per seat per month, cost $9,480 a year. If only two people build lists, two Basic seats cost $1,176 a year and still come with 60,000 pooled credits. The other eight reps then need a sequencer, and that is the decision this page is about.

Whatever you pick, the handoff is a contact record. Your data tool exports the contact or returns it from an API, and your sequencer accepts the contact and enrolls it. In OpenSequence that is two requests:

curl -X PUT $SEQ/v1/contacts/p_7 -H "Authorization: Bearer $KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"first_name":"Dana","email":"dana@example.com","timezone":"Europe/London","attrs":{"source":"apollo"}}'
curl -X POST $SEQ/v1/sequences/$SEQ_ID/enrollments -H "Authorization: Bearer $KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"contacts":["p_7"],"sender":"u_42"}'

The alternatives#

OpenSequence (ours)#

OpenSequence is an open source sequencing engine, licensed Apache-2.0, that you run yourself. It ships as one Docker image and runs on a Postgres database you own. You define sequences as versioned JSON through a REST API, a TypeScript SDK or an MCP server, and you enroll contacts as a given rep. OpenSequence sends you a signed webhook when someone replies, books a meeting, bounces or opts out. Email goes out from each rep's own Gmail account, and follow-ups can reply in the same thread. Texts and calls go through Allo. LinkedIn steps become tasks for a person. The how it works page follows one contact from enrollment to exit.

It fits a team with an engineer and a CRM or internal tool where reps already work. There is no per-seat price. You pay for the container and the database.

It differs from Apollo in what it leaves out. It has no contact database, no warmup and no user interface, so your CRM or an internal tool is the UI. Email works only through Google Workspace today. SMTP and IMAP adapters are on the roadmap under "later", so a Microsoft 365 team cannot use it yet. It is pre-1.0, and the SDK and MCP packages are not on npm yet. We are still verifying the Allo and Attio adapters against real accounts. Each sender gets a default cap of 30 emails per day and 60 seconds between sends, and you can change both per channel (senders and limits).

Outreach or Salesloft#

These are the enterprise sales engagement suites. They bundle sequences, a dialer, call recording, forecasting and deal management, with a two-way Salesforce sync. They fit teams of 30 reps and up with a RevOps owner and a Salesforce instance.

Neither vendor publishes prices. Vendr puts the median Outreach contract at $45,600 a year, based on 919 purchases. For Salesloft, Vendr's median is $30,740 a year and its range for teams of 10 to 25 users is $60 to $100 per user per month. Both figures are third-party estimates from February 2026.

Compared with Apollo, both add a dialer, call recording, forecasting and deal management, and do nothing for list building. Expect a separate data provider, an annual contract and a sales process to buy them. Our Outreach vs Salesloft cost breakdown goes into the line items.

HubSpot Sequences#

Sequences are a feature of HubSpot Sales Hub, available from the Professional plan. They fit teams whose CRM is already HubSpot and who want enrollments, tasks and replies on the same contact record.

Sales Hub Professional is $90 per seat per month billed annually, plus a required one-time onboarding fee of $1,500 (HubSpot pricing). It allows 500 sequence emails per user per day. Enterprise is $150 per seat, with a $3,500 onboarding fee and 1,000 emails per user per day.

Compared with Apollo, there is no sync to set up, because the sequences run inside the CRM. HubSpot does not sell a contact database comparable to Apollo's, and LinkedIn steps need a Sales Navigator subscription.

lemlist#

lemlist is a cold outreach tool that sends email. Its Multichannel plan adds LinkedIn, SMS, calls and a WhatsApp add-on. It fits small teams and founders who run cold campaigns from a few mailboxes.

The Email plan is $55 a month billed yearly for unlimited users and up to 50,000 emails a month. Multichannel starts at $87 a month billed yearly and includes 5 senders per user (lemlist pricing). Contact data is an add-on. On yearly billing, $16 a month buys 2,000 credits, which is 400 emails or 100 phone numbers.

Compared with Apollo, lemlist's pricing does not tie sending to data credits. You can buy data from lemlist, from Apollo, or from neither. We wrote a longer piece on a self-hosted lemlist alternative.

Instantly#

Instantly is a high-volume cold email platform that sends from many mailboxes, rotates across them and warms them up. It fits agencies and outbound teams that send from dozens of secondary domains.

Growth is $47 a month, or $37.60 a month on yearly billing, for 5,000 emails and 1,000 uploaded contacts a month. Hypergrowth is $97 a month, or $77.60 yearly, for 125,000 emails and 25,000 contacts (Instantly pricing). Both list unlimited email accounts, and the price is per plan, not per seat.

Compared with Apollo, Instantly focuses on sending volume across many inboxes, and its sequences are email only.

Reply.io#

Reply.io is a multichannel sequencer with email, LinkedIn, calls, SMS and semi-automated WhatsApp. It fits teams that want one tool for everything, as with Apollo, but with more channels and no credit pool tied to sending.

Email Volume starts at $49 per user per month billed annually, with 1,000 active contacts a month and unlimited mailboxes under a fair use policy. Multichannel starts at $89 per user per month billed annually with 10 mailboxes and unlimited active contacts (Reply.io pricing). Both include 50 data credits a month.

Compared with Apollo, Reply.io charges for active contacts and channels instead of data credits. LinkedIn automation on the Email Volume plan costs $69 per account per month extra.

Comparison matrix#

Prices are for the lowest plan that includes sequences, billed annually, as of October 2026.

How to choose#

Three questions decide most cases: how many reps send, what you can spend per rep, and whether someone on the team can run a service.

The engineer question decides whether OpenSequence is on the list at all. Someone has to run Postgres and a container, register a Google OAuth client, and build or connect the screens reps use. The install guide lists every step. If nobody on the team wants that job, pick a hosted tool. If you are considering building your own, our guide to building your own sales sequencer lists the parts that take longer than expected. The migration guide covers moving live sequences without double-sending.

When to stay on Apollo#

Stay if your reps prospect and send in the same session. Searching, enriching and enrolling from one screen is Apollo's strongest feature. Split across two tools, that flow needs an export or a sync between search and send.

Stay if you have fewer than about ten reps and use most of your credits. At $79 per seat you get data, a dialer, warmup and sequencing on one bill. A separate data tool plus a separate sequencer often costs more.

Stay if your team is on Microsoft 365 and you were considering OpenSequence, since it sends only through Gmail today.

Stay if your problem is deliverability and you have not set a custom tracking subdomain, authenticated your domains and cleaned your lists. Those fixes are free and apply to every tool on this page.

FAQ#

What is the best free alternative to Apollo.io for sequences?#

HubSpot's free tier does not include sequences, and lemlist, Instantly and Reply.io charge after a trial. OpenSequence has no license fee because it is open source and self-hosted, so you pay only for the server and database. It needs an engineer to run and has no contact data.

Is there an open source Apollo alternative?#

For the sequencing half, yes. OpenSequence is an Apache-2.0 engine that runs email, SMS, call and LinkedIn task sequences on your own infrastructure. We do not know of an open source tool that replaces Apollo's contact database, since that data is the product.

Can I keep Apollo for data and use another tool for sequences?#

Yes, and it is often the cheapest setup. Keep Basic seats for whoever builds lists, since Apollo pools credits across the team. Export contacts, or call Apollo's API from your CRM. The sequencer then receives the contact and enrolls it.

Why do my Apollo emails go to spam?#

The usual causes are the default shared tracking domain, missing SPF, DKIM or DMARC records, new domains sending too much too soon, and stale lists that bounce. Apollo recommends a custom tracking subdomain for every sending domain. Fix those before you switch tools, because the same mailbox and list will behave the same in any sequencer.

How much does Apollo cost per user in 2026?#

As of October 2026, Apollo charges $49 (Basic), $79 (Professional) and $119 (Organization, minimum 3 seats) per seat per month on annual billing. Monthly billing costs more, since annual billing saves 24%. Each plan includes a yearly credit allowance per seat: 30,000, 48,000 and 72,000.