Cognism vs Apollo: Which is Better in 2025

Cognism vs Apollo.io is a popular matchup in B2B sales intelligence, with both platforms helping teams find leads, enrich contact data, and automate outreach. Apollo is often named among top Cognism competitors thanks to its vast database and built-in engagement tools, while Cognism stands out for its data accuracy and compliance focus.

In this comparison between 2025, we take a peek into the feature, pricing, integrations and user experience that Apollo.io and Cognism would have against each other that pulls a slither towards Apollo. You will be offered a useful introduction, which is, however, quite demanding, to be able to make an adequate choice of a tool for your business.

You can go to the b2b contact database provider on our website. There you can find and choose the best option for your business :)

TL;DR: Quick Verdict

Overview of Cognism

Cognism is a B2B sales intelligence platform that was founded in the year 2015, and it is based in London. The location gives access to more than 400 million global business profiles with brilliant records in Europe. As reliable with data, GDPR compliant, Cognism use its proprietary Diamond Data® to share phone-verified contacts and accurate lead information. Its key features are advanced search filters, intent data CRM integrations, contact verification.

Cognism uses a pay as you use licensing structure with a bulk prospecting that has an unlimited data access and no credit limit. It is quite appropriate for such teams. Although its cost is higher and requires the annual contracts, people talk about the platform in the terms of good quality of data available, and especially in Europe – responsive support. It’s the best for the firms which are accuracy and compliant focused and / or focus on the targeted outreach.

Features of Cognism

• Diamond Data®: Human-verified phone numbers with great precision that are perfect for direct dials.

• GDPR & CCPA compliance: In-built data privacy compliance with strong European focus.

• Unlimited data access: No credit limitation on watching and exporting contacts.

• Strong EMEA coverage: Very good data quality for Europe, particularly the UK, DACH, and Nordics.

• 16-step email verification: Ensures clean, deliverable email contacts.

• CRM integrations: Easily integrates with Salesforce, HubSpot, Microsoft Dynamics, Pipedrive, and so on.

• Intent data from Bombora: Find actively working companies, researching relevant topics.

• Advanced filtering: Thousands of filters for the accurate targeting of leads.

• Chrome extension: Reflect data directly from LinkedIn or from company websites.

• Dedicated support: High customer service which enjoys personal account managers.

The best choice for Cognism is businesses whose accuracy, compliance, and quality of outbound sales outreach is of the foremost importance, primarily in the regulated or international market.

Overview of Apollo.io

The Apollo.io is a B2B sales engagement platform which was built in the year of 2015 and its headquarters is located in San Francisco. Developed with startups/SMEs in mind, it offers a huge pool of contacts and inbuilt instruments for outreach.

With its more than 210 million contacts and email automation, dialer and the AI-based insights at its disposal, Apollo.io assists the teams with the lead generation and the simplification of the interaction process. It is popular with the sales teams in the US because of its low cost, self-service, and user friendly nature.

Apollo has a plan of credit based pricing with flexible month and annual plan. It offers free and cheap plans at $49/user/month. Apparently useful, and tampered with some of the features, sometimes the users complain about inconsistency of the data, bugs’ on the platform, and slow support. Apollo.io is fit for teams, who are growing, and they require a single tool to cover prospecting, i.e., outreach without breaking their banks.

Features of Apollo.io

• All-in-one platform: Puts a lead database, email sequencer, dialer, and task manager together in a single tool.

• Massive contact database: Availability of 210M+ contacts and 35M+ companies with exceptional representation in the U.S.

• Email and call automation: In-built tools of multistep outreach with the tracking, analytics, and A/B testing.

• AI-powered prospecting: Intelligent lead scoring and AI tools for drafting the outreach email.

• Affordable pricing: Free program for all the users can be utilized; paid programs start at $49/user/month.

• Credit-based system: Flexible usage with upgrade choices based on the lead volume.

• Strong segmentation tools: 65+ filters for the exact list building (e.g. technologies used, hiring trends).

• Chrome extension: Quickly locate contacts on LinkedIn or on any site.

• CRM and marketing integrations: Integrates with Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoho and via Zapier with more than 5,000 apps.

• Fast onboarding: Self-serve setup and intuitive UI means that small teams can get rolling with no problem.

Apollo.io is ideal for startups, SMBs, and developing sales teams that are looking for a low cost, easy to use, integrated prospecting solution.

Detailed Comparison Cognism vs Apollo.io

This comparison table provides a clear, side-by-side breakdown of Cognism vs Apollo.io across key factors such as platform type, data quality, compliance, outreach capabilities, integrations, pricing, and support:

Finally, Apollo.io is more valuable, faster to results, and more flexible of the two, and the most appropriate for the contemporary sales organizations in 2025.

You can go to the best intent data providers on our website. There you can find and choose the best option for your business :)

Integrations

Then both of Cognism and Apollo.io do feature limitless integrations with those of the common ones like Salesforce and HubSpot CRMs, where the data does not have to be transferred to the old school sales processes. Cognism also integrates with Microsoft Dynamic, Pipedrive, and Outreach and this ties in well with the enterprise sales stacks.

It’s meant to give you correct validated contact information which are directly integrated into your CRM or sales engagement platform without any loose ends in clean data enrichment and compliance.

Instead, Apollo.io allows you much more possibilities in terms of integrations. native and Zapier-integrated. With Salesforce, HubSpot and Zoho CRM, there are thousands of the apps that Apollo can connect to – Slack, Mailchimp and Google Sheets, to name a few, through Zapier. As Apollo is integrated with outreach abilities, the integrations, therefore, are not only for data syncronizing, but also complete outbound workflows.

This will make Apollo.io a good choice to teams who would need out-of-the-box automation and cross-platform coordination.

User Ratings

When to compare Cognism and Apollo.io on G2 with regards to the levels of satisfaction score, the two systems still have a high score. However, Apollo.io is a recurrent victor in such categories as ease of installation, value for money price, overall satisfaction from the product – primarily because it has an in-built outreach and a rather affordable price.

On the other hand, Cognism is rated well in data accuracy and customer services, especially to the enterprise buyers that seek quality and look to be on the right side of law.

Conclusion: Apollo.io is ahead in terms of user satisfaction, price, and easiness of configuration and Cognism exceeds Apollo.io in the field of support and quality of the data. Apollo.io is the one of choice for most dynamic sales teams of all the balances in terms of number of features, usability, and value for money.

Ease of Use

Apollo.io is better off in terms of usability. It has a user-friendly interface, simplistic navigation, and inculcated on-boarding mechanism such that a newly registered person can start prospecting, sending emails and managing workflows without having to spend hours on training. Not only the database, sequences, dialer and reporting are collected in one place but also the sale teams get an opportunity to work faster and more effectively at their disposal.

Easy going user experience of Apollo.io is mentioned as one of the major benefits of the tool, especially if it comes to the small team who doesn’t have the ops support.

Although clean and user-friendly on the other hand Cognism is more data oriented and it might need to do some more additional setup/integration in order to mimic the all-inclusive experience in Apollo.io. Its interface is convenient in the course of creating lead lists and during contact list exportation, although the users usually employ external tools while reaching out and interacting.

For teams, with the structured tech stack and with a flair for Data Quality rather than automation, Cognism is still a good although perhaps, not so vibrant journey.

Compliance and Data Privacy

Cognism is conscious about the privacy of the data element and compliance traits that make it a reliable source by the teams which carry out operation in the highly regulated environment. The platform has all requirements of the GDPR and CCPA standards and has in-built DNC (Do Not Call) screening in a number of countries. Its data is collated and validated to very strict levels of legal standards, hence, putting the users at ease doing outbound sales particularly in Europe.

There is also Apollo.io which is GDPR and CCPA compliant and compliance is not the thing in which it differentiates the most. Sides its adherence to the provisions of the law concerning data privacy and opt-out feature, Apollo still leans towards community-driven data collection model and, this model may leave the high-assurance compliance companies with a feeling of dis-ease.

When it comes to the businesses who need a robust compliance-first method and accuracy of their data, Cognism is a better option. on one hand, Apollo is more flexible and scalable.

You can also check out the comparison of Seamless.ai vs Apollo.io to find out which is the best data enrichment tool :)

Apollo.io vs Cognism – Why Apollo.io is Better

Both of these platforms are very effective, but for most sales teams, Apollo.io is the more whole-sale useful option. It has gathered a massive database of contacts along with powerful outreach qualities that include email sequences, a dialer, task management and AI-based workflows, all in one simple to use interface. This avoids the necessity to apply several tools and allows the teams to go faster, automate more, and scale efficiently.

Besides, Apollo has a nice free plan and pleasant payment plans that start at $49 per month, which makes it a good choice for SMBs and the people who cannot afford more.

While Cognism, in turn, is just crazy about data accuracy and compliance, which is wonderful for an enterprise team working on capturing EMEA markets, yet has no native outreach tools, is more expensive in terms of annual costs, and requires a contract. Apollo.io is better value for money and packaged with more features for flexible, fast, integrated workflows, and economical business life. therefore, the smarter investment into the contemporary B2B prospecting for 2025.

Conclusion

For most of the sales teams, especially SMBs and start ups, the more realistic option is Apollo.io. It integrates lead data, inbuilt outreach tools like email sequences, dialer, task management, and does it in an affordable price tag. Apollo is exactly what team seeking rapid scaling outbound but without having to pay for a number of platforms are in search of because of its free plan, easy setup, and low time to value.

Apollo is very functional and flexible considering the constant improvement in the data quality and further development of the platform for the current B2B sales in 2025.Cognism on the other hand is more suitable to enterprises and teams that are concerned with compliance and most importantly demand accuracy on data particularly in EMEA region.

Its phone-verified contacts, the GDPR-first strategy, and unrestricted access model will make it a good choice for the organizations with bigger budgets and stakes in the outreach. If being data reliable and legally confident are to be assumed as totally mission-critical, Cognism can be a game-changer – for most teams, however, Apollo.io lies in the right balance between the performance, ease of use and value.

I hope you found the solution that best suits your needs. If you're looking for more comparisons, feel free to check out our blog :)

FAQ

Last updated: 14.05.2025