Lusha vs Apollo.io: Cheaper Phones or More Credits per Seat

The short answer: for a two-person team that mostly needs direct dials, Lusha Pro at $69.90 a month covers both seats and 600 credits, which is 120 phone numbers at 5 credits each; Apollo.io charges 8 credits a number, but two Basic seats at $65 each bring 5,000 credits, enough for 625 numbers, plus sequences and a dialer, per the Lusha and Apollo pricing pages, monthly billing, checked on 26 October 2026. Up to 120 phones a month, Lusha is the cheaper door. Well past that, Apollo's credits go further.

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Do the sum first:

1. Phones, priced both ways. For example, 300 direct dials a month: in Lusha 300 x 5 = 1,500 credits, more than Pro's 600 and inside Premium's 3,400 at $399.90 with five seats; in Apollo 300 x 8 = 2,400 credits, inside one Basic seat's 2,500 at $65, on the Lusha and Apollo pricing pages. Lusha's own rates come from its credits article: 1 for an email, 5 for a phone, up to 6 for both.
2. Start with the accounts your reps already call. Pick ten people at accounts in your CRM and reveal the same ones in each tool. Lusha shows a last-updated date on every email and phone, per its homepage; note it beside each number.
3. Measure on the phone, not the screen. Dial the twenty numbers and count connections and wrong numbers per tool. That count beats any coverage claim.

Lusha is a contact and company data platform built around the reveal: in the browser extension, in LinkedIn, in the CRM or through its API and MCP server. Apollo.io charges more credits per phone, then gives each seat far more credits, with a database, sequences, a dialer and AI agents in the same login.

The documented differences

Where the money and the work go

What one phone number costs

Five credits against eight is the headline, and it holds per number. The plan sizes reverse it. Lusha Pro's 600 credits a month for two people cost $69.90; Apollo's 2,500 per Basic seat cost $65, on the Lusha and Apollo pricing pages. A team that reveals a few dozen numbers a week fits Lusha. A team that reveals hundreds runs out of Lusha credits first.

Seats included, or seats billed

Lusha's Pro plan includes two seats and Premium five, so a manager and a rep share one subscription. Apollo bills every seat and puts every seat on the same plan, per its pricing FAQ. Add a third light user and Apollo's bill moves by a full seat; Lusha's does not move until you need more credits.

What happens after the reveal

Both list email sequences. Apollo adds a dialer on paid plans, billed in credits per connected call, per its dialer overview. Lusha's pricing page lists call recordings with AI insights and a do-not-call list, and no dialer. A rep who calls from Lusha calls from another tool.

The opt-out list is your job

Buying from a database vendor brings a duty that outlasts the purchase. Under Article 21 of the GDPR, a person may object at any time to processing for direct marketing, after which the data may no longer be processed for that purpose, and the right must be brought to their attention explicitly, at the latest at the first communication (GDPR on EUR-Lex).

Both vendors hand the downstream clean-up to you. Lusha relies on legitimate interest, does not collect opt-in consent for third-party outreach, and makes customers responsible for their legal basis and their opt-outs, per its compliance article. Its opt-out reports reach an admin as a CSV, typically monthly, list only people who opted out since the last report, and have no API to rebuild history, so you keep every report or log the webhook. Apollo shows a rolling 30-day list of removal requests from people whose data your account accessed, through saved contacts, CSV enrichment, the API or MCP, recommends exporting it about every 30 days, and calls you an independent controller who deletes those people unless you have a separate legal basis, per its removal article.

Questions for counsel, with your setup in front of them:

• Whether a removal request made to the vendor obliges you to stop as well, or only an objection made to you.
• How little you may keep about a person who objected, so the suppression list still works.
• Whether your first email's opt-out line meets Article 21(4) as written.

One agent step, with the suppression list in the loop

Lusha's MCP server exposes 50 tools to Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, Gemini CLI and n8n, from enrichment to pushing records into a CRM, on the same API key and credit pool as the REST API, per its MCP overview. In n8n, an agent with the Lusha tools enriches each new target contact; before anything is pushed, an IF node drops every email on the suppression sheet that Lusha's opt-out webhook keeps current; then a person reads the remaining rows and approves the push. The agent finds. The sheet and the person decide.

Prices on 26 October 2026

Lusha, per month on its pricing page: Free, $0 for 40 credits and one seat; Starter, $49.90 monthly or $37.45 billed yearly for 400 credits a month; Pro, $69.90 or $52.45 for 600, two seats; Premium, $399.90 or $299.95 for 3,400, five seats. Yearly billing takes 25% off and grants the year's credits upfront.

Apollo.io, per seat a month on its pricing page: Free, $0 for 75 credits; Basic, $65 monthly or $49 billed annually for 2,500 credits a month; Professional, $99 or $79 for 4,000.

Apollo's annual plans take 24% off, and an annual plan cannot be downgraded mid-cycle, per the same pricing FAQ. The discount buys Apollo a year of your seat count.

Free before paid

Lusha's Free plan gives 40 credits a month with no card, and Apollo's Professional trial allows up to 20 phone numbers over 14 days, per its trial article. For example, ten direct dials on Lusha use 10 x 5 = 50 credits, so reveal eight there (40 credits) and the same eight on the Apollo trial, then make the sixteen calls. A free afternoon answers the question the pricing pages cannot.

Choose Lusha if

• Your job is revealing direct dials one at a time inside LinkedIn and the CRM, for a small team.
• Two to five people share one subscription and do not need a dialer from the data vendor.
• You want unused monthly credits to carry over.

Choose Apollo.io if

• Your job is calling and emailing hundreds of prospects a month from one place.
• One or two seats will reveal most of the numbers.
• You want the dialer, the sequences and the data in a single account.

Each on its own: the Lusha entry and the Apollo.io entry.

FAQ

Which is cheaper per phone number?

Lusha, at 5 credits against Apollo's 8, per Lusha's credits article and the Apollo pricing page. Per dollar, it depends on volume, because Apollo's seats carry far more credits.

Does revealing the same contact twice cost twice?

Not in Lusha: re-viewing a revealed contact costs nothing, even across sessions, per its credits article. In Apollo, adding a contact you already saved to a list costs nothing either, per its lists article.

Do Lusha credits roll over?

On monthly Pro and Premium plans, up to twice the monthly allowance; annual credits that remain at the end of a contract do not carry into the renewal, per the credits article.