Top 5 Apollo.io alternatives in 2023

To succeed in business today, you need business strategy that aims to align the sales, marketing, and customer success teams with the goal of optimising revenue growth. RevOps and attribution tools are fast becoming integral for any sales and marketing team to ensure a thorough understanding of their outreach strategy’s successes and weaknesses. For this reason, SaaS companies rely on a variety of tools such as Apollo.io to support their revenue-generating strategies.

Apollo.io is a San Francisco, California-founded technology company offering a platform for sales, marketing, and customer data management. It combines over 250 million contacts (10 million company profiles) and a range of sales engagement and automation tools in one platform to help sales and marketing professionals streamline their processes.

The platform offers a range of features, including contact and company search, lead scoring and prioritisation, email and social media outreach, data enrichment and segmentation, and analytics and reporting. Apollo.io uses sales triggers and intent data to offer sales professionals a competitive edge. Its platform integrates with popular CRM and marketing automation tools, including Salesforce, HubSpot, Marketo, and Pardot.

But Apollo.io is not for everyone and with many rivals in the arena, we’ve taken a look at some of its steepest competition to see how they all stack up.

1. Selligence

Selligence is a SaaS market intelligence provider. Supporting the sales, marketing, and recruitment industries, Selligence provides high-converting B2B leads and prospects, saving its users hours of research and admin.  As the industry-leading provider of trackable sales triggers, its users can benefit from 3-5 times higher outbound success rates than other lead gen tools.

As an all-round solution, Selligence offers hours of time back to its users - rather than spending time on prospecting, admin, and research, the platform automates the process, delivering high quality leads straight into the user’s CRM. It also offers a Chrome extension, meaning users can access company and contact data in their browser, anywhere they browse.

Providing international coverage across a range of major industries, users have access to a wealth of intelligence helping them to close deals and scale into new markets. Selligence focuses on sales triggers, a type of pre-intent data, allowing sales professionals and companies to act on the very first triggers in the buying cycle, months ahead of their competition.

Features:

• Event Prospecting – an industry leading range of sales triggers (116) to support an automated research and qualification process, saving hours of admin and lead gen time every day
• Job Changes Tracker - identifying newly appointed executives to fill your pipeline with ICP buyers who have budgets to spend
• Contact and Company Database – extensive database offering millions of refined contacts
• Chrome Extension – providing sales trigger leads, account and contact-level data, all provided directly in your Chrome Browser
• Data Enrichment - update company and contact-level data inside your existing tools, directly with Selligence

Sales triggers tracked:

Selligence focuses on sales triggers as pre-intent data. Currently tracking 45 unique sales trigger events, it has also refined these individual triggers to recognise a further 71 sub-types. That’s a whopping 117 sales triggers that are trackable for Selligence users. Covering everything from Funding Rounds to ESG and Corporate Responsibility Updates, to Warning Letters and Vacancies, there’s a sales trigger here for everyone.
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Integrations:

• Bullhorn
• HubSpot
• Salesforce
• Vincere
• Pipedrive
• Loxo
• Google Chrome
• Gmail
• Microsoft 365
• (and many other major brands)

Pricing:

From a free 7-day trial to customisable packages, Selligence offers a range of plans to suit the individual user or team alike. The professional plan is based on an individual seat at £160 per month, per user, but there are options here for all budgets.

2. ZoomInfo

What they do:

ZoomInfo is a provider of data and intelligence for more than 30,000 companies worldwide, allowing its users in B2B sales, marketing, operations, and recruitment access to a range of data cover, including company and contact information. Through its integrations, ZoomInfo can help support its users’ growth. ZoomInfo is also a registered data broker within the states of California and Vermont.

Offering four solutions, they can support sales teams in “hitting their number” with a focus on intent data, recruitment professionals find their prospective candidates, operations teams inform their strategies, and marketing teams turning leads into pipeline.

Features:

ZoomInfo offer a range of features which focus around three central points. Intelligence, Engagement, and Orchestration. In summary, it offers features including:

• Lead Generation – enablingusers to prospect by identifying companies that fit specificcriteria, such as size, industry, or location
• Search – allowing users tosearch their contact and company database to view a company'sorganisational structure, employee information, and recent news and events
• News/People Alerts – usingintent data to flag a company’s interest and buying readiness
• Reporting - providingdetailed analytics that report on the effectiveness of campaigns, leadgeneration, and sales efforts
• Account-Based Marketing – enabling users to targetspecific accounts with personalised messaging and content

Sales triggers tracked:

ZoomInfo focuses on “foundational data and buying signals” and only tracks nine actual sales triggers. It focuses on intent data, and boasts it processes 1.5 billion data points daily, with 130 million of these being business profiles.

Integrations:

ZoomInfo integrates with popular CRM and marketing automation platforms to streamline workflows and increase user efficiency. It currently works with:

• Slack
• Salesforce
• HubSpot
• Zoho
• Dynamics
• Pipedrive
• JobDiva
• Bullhorn
• Marketo Engage
• Outreach
• Salesloft
• HireEz
• Sugar CRM
• Snowflake
• Nerdwise
• Capacity
• Oracle Eloqua
• Qualified
• Squirro
• Leadspace

Pricing:

Unfortunately, Zoominfo does not include any pricing information on its website, so understanding what you’ll be paying here is no simple task. With different payment plans for its sales, recruitment, and marketing customers, there are a number of variables beyond that too.

While you can enjoy a free trial, annual pricing will be determined by how many licenses, how many credits, and which functions you want to be using. To give you a ballpark figure, ZoomInfo packages tend to start around $15,000 per year.

3. Cognism

What they do:

Cognism, headquartered in London, provides a suite of B2B sales and marketing solutions. Cognism's main product is a sales acceleration platform that helps businesses to automate and streamline their sales processes. The platform includes features such as prospecting, email outreach, and data enrichment.

Cognism's data services also provide businesses with access to a global database of B2B decision-makers and companies, allowing its users to build targeted lists for their sales and marketing campaigns. Its focus is on contact data, but it also provides firmographics, technographics, sales trigger events, and intent data, alongside its business emails and mobile phone numbers.

Features:

• Prospecting – allowing users to search and filter intent data for potential leads
• Email Verification – verify email addresses to reduce the risk of bounced emails
• Data Enrichment – enrich existing customer data with additional information
• Analytics and Reporting – analytics and reporting tools allow users to track their sales performance
• GDPR Compliance – ensuring businesses can use the platform without breaching data protection regulations

Sales triggers tracked:

The Prospector tool is Cognism’s answer to business development. The platform uses seven sales triggers to provide rudimentary cover of what’s happening at each company - funding rounds is the main focus here. So, with less of a focus on business intelligence, and more on sales intelligence, Cognism relies more on its intent data than sales triggers to support its users. This is a process dependent on reps running reports, rather than the real-time live data being fed to the sales rep as with sales triggers.

Integrations:

With the benefits of a working relationship with Zapier, Cognism’s list of integrations are lengthy. If we believe all that we’re told, Zapier promise integrations with “5,000+ apps”.

Here are some that we know about:

• Salesforce
• HubSpot
• Microsoft Dynamics
• Pipedrive
• Marketo
• Outreach
• SalesLoft
• Slack
• Zoominfo
• DiscoverOrg
• Eloqua
• FreshSales
• Clearbit

Pricing:

Similar to ZoomInfo, getting to the bottom of Cognism’s pricing plans takes a bit of work. What it does offer are a few different licences that are based per user, which will give unrestricted access to the data in that package. The features an individual user wants access to will dictate the pricing. But there’s also a flat platform fee that allows users access to Cognism’s Web App and Chrome Extension, as well as its integrations with selected CRMs and Sales Engagement Tools.

4. Lusha

What they do:

Lusha also focuses on supplying contact information to revenue teams. It offers access to over 100 million profiles, including direct-dial phone numbers, boasting an accuracy rate of 81%. Lusha also has a browser extension that allows users to extract contact details while browsing LinkedIn, as well as CRM integrations for quick and efficient data transfer. It also offers services to enrich customer lists and prevent data deterioration, all while ensuring compliance with GDPR and CCPA regulations.

Features:

If contact details alone are what you’re after, then Lusha may well have the answer. However, they have dipped a toe into some other waters too. Here’s what else Lusha clients can expect:

• Contact and Company Search – offering 100 million company profiles
• Lists – turn your searches into exportable lists of data you can deal with another day
• Dashboard Analytics – enabling a whole’s team performance to be monitored and tracked to provide usage insights
• Prospecting – a designated prospecting platform will help you improve your outreach by streamlining your search criteria to help users find, target, and connect with their ideal customers
• Team Management – allot the credits as you see fit. One size does not always fit all, so users can distribute credits to suit their individual team’s needs

Sales triggers tracked:

Nope, not here. With a laser focus, Lusha is all about the contact details, so if you’re after a leg up with prospecting, you’d best weigh your options with some of these other competitors.

Integrations:

Having partnered with workflow automation tool Zapier, the integration options here are similarly endless to Selligence (Tray.io) and Cognism (also Zapier). Lusha promises that you can “integrate with any tool in 60 seconds”.

Pricing:

Yes, a free plan is a rare option here, but do note: you’ll run through those five credits quicker than you can dial those all-important contact numbers. There are some transparent pricing plans on offer here and Lusha are one of the few to offer a monthly plan. With a $29 per month, per user plan (billed annually), as well as a “premium” option that will set you back $51 per month, per user (also billed annually), you’ll have a few choices to consider. Think you’ll need a little more? There’s still the option of a customisable plan too; just get in touch to see how big a hit the company card will have to take!

5. Bombora

What they do:

Bombora (claiming to be the “leading provider of intent data for B2B sales and marketing”) specialises in providing intent data to help businesses identify potential customers who are actively researching products or services in their industry. Bombora's platform allows businesses to use this intent data to improve their sales and marketing efforts by identifying prospects who are actively interested in their products or services at that time.

This data can also be used to enhance account-based marketing (ABM) campaigns, allowing businesses to deliver personalised messaging to specific target accounts based on their level of intent. Bombora also offers a range of other B2B data services, including audience segmentation, data cleansing, and data enrichment.

Features:

• Intent Data – providing real-time insights into the online behaviour of potential customers such as the topics they are researching, the content they are consuming, and the search terms they are using
• Data Co-op – a network of over 4,000 B2B websites that contribute data to their platform
• Audience Segmentation – segment your target audience based on their level of intent, then tailor your marketing and sales efforts to specific groups
• Account-based marketing (ABM) – enhance ABM campaigns, allowing businesses to deliver personalised messaging to specific target accounts based on their level of intent
• Data cleansing and enrichment – helping businesses to ensure that their data is correct and up to date

Sales Triggers tracked:

Again, Bombora is focusing mainly on intent data while letting sales triggers slide by. While not tracking sales triggers, Bombora sources its Data Co-op within a consent-based framework that respects and protects the privacy of all its members. The Co-op consists of data from over 4,000 B2B websites, of which 70% are exclusive to Bombora.

Integrations:

It’s a lengthy list at Bombora too, but Bombora Company Surge Intent Data aims to integrate with all of the market’s leading B2B software and service providers. With a handy search function on its website, you can check for those already in your tech stack too.

Pricing:

As long as you don’t mind waiting two days for an answer from them on this, Bombora offer all user-packages on a customisable basis. Prices will be determined on volume of data needed, which integrations you’re interested in, and how much hand-holding your team will need to get off the ground with Bombora’s services. While all of Bombora’s packages are offered on a 24-month subscription basis, they do offer the option to pay annually.

Take away points

When deciding on the right platform for you, it really boils down to this: what level of business or sales intelligence do you need? Where are your current pain points, and how soon do you want the data or actionable intelligence?

If contact data is all you’re after, then any of our top selection here will do the job nicely for you. More interested in intent data? Again, plenty of choice here too, but budget and individual integration needs are more likely to impact a choice in this one.

Need to get ahead of your competition and close more deals? Then sales triggers are the way forward. Fortunately, the choice here is much easier with Selligence being the clear leader of the pack with an industry leading 45 unique sales triggers available to track.

So, your first step needs to be understanding what your company really needs. Be it simply contact numbers to get dialling or to get your team months ahead of their competition, there are plenty of alternatives to Apollo for you to consider.

For an all-round solution that will put you months ahead of the competition, providing pre-intent, sales trigger data, a database of refined contacts, and integrations with your existing tech stack, Selligence can help. To find out how else you can save time and increase billing, get in touch for a demo of the platform.

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