Comparing Cognism vs Apollo.io in 2025

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. 

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. 

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.

Yes, Cognism is an excellent alternative when comparing Apollo.io competitors. 

Cognism provides highly accurate and up-to-date contact information that helps sales and marketing teams find the information they need to make fewer calls, contact the most relevant people, and hit quota faster. 

Furthermore, Cognism has received overwhelmingly positive reviews from its users. In particular, many users praise its user-friendly interface, accurate data and excellent customer service.

Cognism is one of the best Apollo.io alternatives, with leading data in EMEA.

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.

We interviewed Marc Parsons, SDR Team Lead at OneUp Sales, to discover why he chose Cognism over Apollo.io. He said:

“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.” 

And Dan Richards, Lead SDR at Hire Genius, had this to say:

“It’s not just about getting contact numbers. I’ve used Apollo and Lusha, and the numbers are ok, but Cognism beats them every time.”

“But the deciding factor for me is the data entry abilities of Cognism. I can export contacts from LinkedIn to our CRM in just a few clicks, eliminating a huge amount of data entry for me.”

👉Give Cognism a try with a free data sample tailored to your ICP.

Cognism is the better choice for businesses looking for a sales intelligence platform that offers up-to-date, accurate data in an easy-to-use interface.

The quality of its verified mobiles and B2B emails are unmatched by Apollo.io, as are its extensive features and excellent customer service. 

So, if you’re looking for the best tool to help you reach out to potential leads and target customers, Cognism is the clear winner.

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. 

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.

Cognism is a sales intelligence platform that is one of the best Apollo alternatives. Be it sales, marketers, RevOps, or GTM leaders, this B2B data provider prides itself on its global data coverage and compliance, data accuracy, and the best integrations with leading CRMs and sales engagement tools.

Cognism offers a premium phone-verified cell phone numbers database (Diamond Data®), so you don’t have to worry about not finding a prospect’s mobile number. The solution has 47 million cell phone numbers in the US alone and is working on expanding the database even further.