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Cognism vs Apollo.io

How is Cognism different from Apollo.io?

  • Unrestricted access to a global cell phone numbers database*.
  • 2x more cell phone numbers than other providers. 
  • 47 million mobiles in the US alone.
  • Manually-verified cell phone database with 98% accuracy.
  • Research and verification service on demand.
  • 16-step email verification process.
  • Coverage in the US and a leader in EMEA.
  • CCPA & GDPR compliance (including broader DNC list cleaning and notified email database).
  • Intent data powered by Bombora.

*Within our fair use policy

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Apollo.io vs Cognism overview

In an independent survey of Pavilion members who compared sales prospecting tools, both Apollo.io and Cognism registered top scores.

Cognism was praised for its high-quality cell phone numbers, UK/EU market data, GDPR compliance, and seamless integration. Apollo.io was praised for its affordable pricing and large contact database.

Scroll down to learn more differences between the two providers.

Data quality and coverage

Both Apollo and Cognism provide emails and cell phone numbers. Apollo’s dataset and compliance are mainly US based. Cognism is CCPA & GDPR compliant, has great data coverage in the US and is an industry-leading EU dataset.

Cognism vs Apollo.io Comparison

Cell phone numbers

The main differentiator between Cognism and Apollo is the availability of cell phone numbers in their packages. 

Cognism doesn’t limit users’ access to mobile data, whereas Apollo caps mobile credits in every plan. Apollo offers only 125 mobile credits/month in its highest Organizational plan. 

With Cognism, you don’t have to worry about not finding a prospect’s mobile number—our global database has 2 times more mobiles than any other provider. We’ve collected 47 million cell phone numbers in the US alone and are working on expanding our database even further.

Verified cell phones: Diamond Data®

The main difference between Apollo and Cognism is that Cognism offers a premium human-verified cell phone numbers database (Diamond Data®). The Cognism data research team checks the numbers’ accuracy by calling the prospects. The result?

  • 98% accuracy.
  • 20% connect rate (vs 3% industry standard).
  • 5x increase in reach.
  • 7x increase in connect rate.
diamond data conversations

Diamonds on Demand®

Can’t find the correct cell phone number for your high-value lead? 

The Cognism research team will work to source and verify that information on demand.

It ensures you can access phone numbers you wouldn’t have found otherwise.

Cognism defeated all the other lead generation providers by a huge amount. Its database had an 80% accuracy rate and the highest coverage of mobile numbers
Drift
Michael Iannuzzi, Director of Marketing & Sales Developmentcompetitor
80%
data accuracy
4000
leads enriched
Read Full Case Study

Emails

Apollo has a 7-step email verification process, while Cognism uses 16 steps to verify emails. Apollo mentions verification via data contributor networks, public data crawling, and third-party data providers. 

At Cognism, the process includes proprietary technology, third-party data providers, publicly available sources, manual research and strategic partnerships.

Apollo’s looser email verification process may produce more email addresses than Cognism. But we recommend testing a data sample from both providers to check their accuracy.

Where does Apollo gather its data?

Apollo openly admits to ”scraping from hundreds and millions of websites”. On top of that, they “use machine learning algorithms and utilize a proprietary data network of contributors”.

According to Apollo.io’s T&Cs, Apollo’s customers grant Apollo a “perpetual and irrevocable licence” to access and use, share, sublicense, display, copy, publish and distribute any customer-submitted data. 

This means that by connecting your CRM to Apollo’s software and using its services, you’re adding data to their database.

In contrast, at Cognism, your customer data stays with you.

Compliance status

Cognism’s compliance status is straightforward—we’re CCPA and GDPR compliant. 

Cognism collects only B2B emails and notifies its database. And you can hide contacts that are on do not call lists, giving you complete confidence in the legality of your outreach.

If you’re comparing Cognism vs Apollo.io, you should know Cognism checks all mobile numbers against: 

  • TPS/CTPS lists in the UK.
  • Do-Not-Call lists in the USA, Canada, Australia and European countries, including Germany, France, Spain, Ireland, Belgium, Croatia, Portugal and Sweden.

  • If a number is marked as TPS or DNC, it means that the user has opted out from receiving unsolicited phone calls by applying to the national do-not-call registry. 

Grafik zu internationalen Datenschutzgesetzen und -normen, deren Anforderungen Cognism erfüllt.

Apollo.io, on the other hand, claims their “compliance is complicated”.

Apollo claims CCPA and GDPR compliance. The vendor has recently started checking DNC lists in the UK & US (the feature is in Beta). vs Cognism checking lists in 12 countries.

Another difference between Apollo.io and Cognism is that Apollo Apollo charges a credit if a phone revealed is on a DNC list, claiming it is at the users' discretion to decide if they use it or not. On the other hand, Cognism's licence model ensures you don't waste credits on DNC numbers.

Why is DNC cleaning important?

The Information Commissioners’ Office (ICO) has issued fines totalling £180,000 for two companies that made more than 480,000 unlawful marketing calls to businesses signed up with the UK’s “Do not call” register.

If data compliance is one of your top priorities, we recommend you study Apollo.io’s Terms of Service.

Get more information on Cognism’s compliance status courtesy of this video with our Head of Legal, Aksa Kalam.

Partnering with a fully-GDPR compliant data vendor was a key requirement in the vetting process. From the get go, our Managing Director was far more confident with Cognism because of its compliant reputation and ISO 27701 accreditation.
Evalian
Joe Allsopp, BDM
67%
opportunity win rate from outbound sourced deals
10
monthly meetings booked per rep
Read Full Case Study

Cognism vs Apollo.io pricing

With Cognism, you get full access to emails and phone numbers in all packages. Whereas Apollo.io gives you unlimited access to emails but limits access to mobiles. Here’s a more detailed breakdown of Cognism vs Apollo pricing.

Cognism’s licences are priced per user, and their cost depends on your required workflow. Cognism offers two licence types:

  • Licence to support individual prospecting allowing for unrestricted views and individual & page-level exports of contact information (no credits are used in this process).
  • Licence for large organisations that require list-building and bulk-exporting data.

In addition to this, you can add intent data (powered by Bombora) and Diamonds-on-Demand® (Cognism’s research-on-demand service) to your package.

On the other hand, Apollo’s pricing includes three paid plans that are set per user, per month: $49, $79, and $99.

Apollo’s plans have unlimited emails and a set number of credits for exporting data. There is also set number of credits for accessing mobile numbers on all but the Free and Basic plans. The higher up your plan, the more advanced features you get, like sequencing.

With Apollo.io, buying an extra 1,000 add-on mobile credits costs $170/mo, and extra 1,000 export credits cost $50/mo. If you’re a heavy dialer, Apollo.io can be more expensive than Cognism.

Is Apollo.io cheaper than Cognism?

Unlike Cognism, Apollo offers monthly subscriptions starting at $49 per user that appeal to companies with tight budgets or companies that don’t want to commit to annual plans. 

However, Apollo’s credit-based system, with very limited access to mobile credits, may lead to unexpected costs.

Cognism’s pricing model was created to overcome the scarcity mindset and allow teams to prospect without worrying about credits. Cognism doesn’t restrict access to mobiles and emails. With Cognism, users can view as many contacts or companies as they want, without incurring additional costs.

For accurate pricing, please contact your preferred data provider.

The sales managers used to make 100-150 calls per day. Now they can achieve their targets by making 30 calls per day because they are calling prospects who actually pick up the phone. That’s more results, less calls.
Ultima
George Mckenna, Head of Cloud Sales
8
saw ROI in 8 weeks
70%
achieved target with 70% fewer calls
Read Full Case Study

Intent data

Cognism and Apollo.io source intent data but from different providers. Cognism partnered with the industry leader Bombora, while Apollo uses LeadSift. 

LeadSift uses contact and account intent, custom search terms and public web scraping. 

intent data email-1

Unlike LeadSift, Bombora’s intent data isn’t scraped. It’s consent-based and collected from a cooperative of 5,000 B2B sites, where B2B buyers actively research a topic when they’re ready to make a purchase. 

  • It considers the historical baseline or typical content consumption when calculating intent.
  • It considers the context and the length of each interaction.
  • Bombora’s dataset is 70% exclusive.

Combining Bombora’s buyer intent with Cognism’s contact data, you can find, prioritise, and connect the right prospects at the right time. It shortens the sales cycle, improves targeting, and creates a more relevant buyer journey. 

I generate the data in the WebApp on behalf of the BDMs using the staffing and RPO intent topics. In the search, I can see what topics are surging alongside the surge number. Once I've refined the contacts according to their surge number, I sync the lists into our Bullhorn CRM and assign the contacts from each vertical to an individual BDM. The BDM will then contact the desired prospects within the surging accounts with a personalised message.
Kelly Services
UK Sales Enablement Lead
28K
contacts generated with intent data
Read Full Case Study

Why do companies choose Cognism over Apollo.io?

Cognism is one of the best Apollo.io alternatives with the biggest mobile coverage in the US (2x than other providers) and the most complete data in the EMEA. 

Even better, it’s the only data provider actively phone-verifying mobile numbers, making it a great choice for global B2B prospecting.

Cognism prides itself on being a compliant B2B data provider that easily integrates with your existing workflows and systems to flatten the adoption curve.

"Firstly, we trialled Apollo using a test data sample which didn’t produce adequate results. We proceeded to evaluate ZoomInfo but found the data to be too US-centric. This didn’t fit our ICP of targeting UK companies."

“The SDRs have pulled data from Cognism for every demo booked. For every deal closed, the AEs have used the database to pull relevant contact details to influence the deal.” 

“Overall, 60% of our deals have come from the team pulling a number from Cognism.” 

 

Did we mention integrations?

Systems that don't talk to each other don't make it past a business case.

Send leads to the platforms you use with two clicks with Cognism.

Cognism integrates with Salesforce, Hubspot, Outreach, Salesloft and more. Turning lead generation into a job that takes minutes, not hours.

Integrations illustration

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