- Stay with Apollo if you search by job title across companies nationwide and want sequences in the same tool; its Free plan gives 900 credits per seat a year.
- Pick VendBuddy (our product) if you want real local businesses near a ZIP and the person who decides there, paying per reveal instead of per seat.
- Hunter, Lusha, RocketReach, Snov.io, Prospeo and LeadMagic fit narrower jobs: email lookup, phones, one-off names or API enrichment.
- Prices were checked on each vendor's own page on 2026-10-08; confirm before you buy.
The best Apollo.io alternatives depend on what you actually do with Apollo. If you sell software to companies anywhere and live in sequences and filters, you may not need to leave. If you are a small business or a one-person shop looking for local buyers, such as the property manager at the apartment complex down the road or the owner of a gym, a few cheaper or more focused tools do the job. Prices below were checked on each vendor's own page on 2026-10-08.
Part of our complete guide: how to find vending machine locations.
The short answer
- Pick VendBuddy if you need real local businesses near a ZIP code and the person who decides there: apartments, offices, gyms, medical offices, schools. You pay per contact reveal instead of per seat. VendBuddy is our product.
- Stay with Apollo if you search by job title across companies nationwide, want sequences and a dialer in one place, or need the free plan to test the water. Its database is far larger than a local-first tool can match.
- Pick Hunter if you already have the company website and just need the email (50 free credits a month). Pick Prospeo or Snov.io for cheap credit-based email lookups.
- Skip all of them if you only need ten names this month. Our guide to finding business owner contact information covers the free route.
VendBuddy is our product. The button opens the free search; no card is needed and you start with 5 free credits.
To be clear about our bias: VendBuddy is our product and we earn from it, and we also earn a commission on the Apollo and Smartlead links in this post. Neither changes the table. We say where Apollo is simply better, because for many buyers it is.
Why people look for Apollo.io alternatives
We are not going to invent complaints. These are the reasons that follow directly from Apollo's own pricing page.
- Price is per seat. Basic is $49 per seat a month billed annually, Professional $79, and Organization $119 with a minimum of three seats. For one person that is fine. For a small team it adds up fast.
- Credits are a meter. The Free plan gives 900 credits per seat a year, granted monthly, and a record selection limit of 25. Credits are the thing you spend to reveal or export, so you plan around them.
- It is built for B2B titles, not places. You filter by industry, size and job title. If your question is "who runs the buildings within ten miles of my house", that is a different search.
How we checked
On 2026-10-08 we opened each vendor's own pricing page (and, for VendBuddy, our pricing page, homepage and ZIP-search page) and copied plan names, prices and limits into the table. This is a pricing and fit comparison from those pages, not a hands-on lab test, so we give no scores and no accuracy or deliverability numbers. Where a page did not say something, we left it out. Vendors change plans often, so confirm on their page before you pay.
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Start building free →Side-by-side table (checked 2026-10-08)
| Tool | Free plan | Paid plans from | Best for | Main limit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apollo.io (affiliate link) | 900 credits per seat a year | $49 per seat a month, billed annually | B2B title search plus sequences | Per-seat; paid prices billed annually |
| VendBuddy (our product) | 5 credits, no card | $49 a month (150 credits) or packs from $32 | Local businesses near a ZIP and who decides there | US only; no outside CRM sync listed; built for vending |
| Hunter | 50 credits a month | $49 a month, or $34 yearly (2,000 credits a month) | Email from a company website | You must bring the company |
| Lusha | 40 credits a month | $37.45 a month billed yearly (4,800 credits a year) | Phone numbers (5 credits each) | Phones use credits fast |
| RocketReach | 5 lookups | $399 billed annually (shown as $33 a month) | One-off lookups of named people | CRM integrations start on Pro |
| Snov.io | 50 credits trial | $39 a month (1,000 credits) | Cheap lookups plus outreach | Credit pool is small at the entry plan |
| Prospeo | 100 credits a month | $49 a month ($37 yearly) | Verified emails, low entry price | Mobile numbers cost 10 credits |
| LeadMagic | None on the page | $99 a month ($990 a year) | API-style enrichment, pay only on found | Highest entry price in this list |
Free plans and trials are the fastest way to compare. Every tool above except LeadMagic lets you try before you pay.
The alternatives, one by one
VendBuddy (our product)
Best for: finding local businesses near a ZIP code (apartments, offices, gyms, medical offices, schools) and the person who decides there. Per our own site; apply the usual discount to a company describing itself.
Price (checked 2026-10-08): Free account with 5 credits and no card. Starter is $49 a month for 150 credits, or $39 a month billed yearly ($470, with 240 bonus credits). Pro is $79 a month for 300 credits ($63 a month yearly). Credit packs are $32 for 50, $119 for 200 and $295 for 500 (plus 100 bonus), and pack credits never expire.
This is the one place Apollo is not trying to compete. Apollo asks you to build a list from titles and company filters. VendBuddy starts from the map: a ZIP, a distance, the kinds of buildings you care about, and a free list of every match with its address and website. You spend a credit only on a business you picked. A free "Verify Business" check (open or closed, Google rating, website) runs up to 50 a day, which saves a credit on places that have closed. There are also four static outreach templates, free to generate, and 2 credits to have a pitch written for a specific building.
On your website: once you have a few machines placed, a small site with your own photos and a request-a-machine form is what a property manager clicks before they call. Wix or Base44 will draft one from a description in an evening; our AI website walkthrough covers the pages that matter. Affiliate link, so we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
Skip it if: you sell to businesses nationwide by job title, need technographics or intent data, or need a big export. See the full list in the section below.
Hunter
Best for: getting an email address when you already know the company website.
Price (checked 2026-10-08): Free with 50 credits a month. Starter is $49 a month, or $34 a month billed yearly (2,000 credits a month). Growth is $149 ($104 yearly, 10,000 credits). Scale is $299 ($209 yearly, 25,000 credits). Enterprise is custom.
Hunter is the closest thing to a one-job tool on this list. The Free plan includes 50 credits a month, basic database filters, one connected email account and 500 recipients per sequence, per the pricing page. It is a sensible add-on if Apollo is more than you need. Our full comparison is in Hunter.io alternatives.
Skip it if: you do not yet know which companies to target; Hunter will not hand you a local list of buildings.
Lusha
Best for: direct phone numbers for people you have already identified.
Price (checked 2026-10-08): Free with 40 credits a month. Starter is $37.45 a month billed yearly (4,800 credits a year). Pro is $52.45 a month billed yearly (7,200 credits a year). Premium is $299.95 a month billed yearly (40,800 credits a year). Scale is custom.
Lusha's page lists what credits buy: a verified email is 1 credit, a phone number is 5 credits, and exporting 1 to 25 results to CSV is 1 credit. If calls are your main channel, do that math before you buy. See Lusha alternatives for more.
Skip it if: you mostly want emails; the phone credit rate is where the plan runs out.
RocketReach
Best for: looking up specific named people, with CRM integrations on higher tiers.
Price (checked 2026-10-08): Free with 5 lookups and no card. Essentials is $399 billed annually (shown as $33 a month). Pro is $899 a year ($75 a month). Ultimate is $1,699 a year ($142 a month). The page lists 100, 250 and 1,000 lookups a month on monthly billing and "unlimited" on annual billing, with a fair-use FAQ linked.
The Pro plan lists Salesforce, Outreach, HubSpot, Salesloft and Bullhorn integrations, and Ultimate adds intent data and healthcare data. Annual billing is the cheap route here too. More in RocketReach alternatives.
Skip it if: you want sequences in the same product; it is a lookup tool first.
Snov.io
Best for: a low monthly price for email lookups with outreach on the same account.
Price (checked 2026-10-08): Trial at no cost (50 credits, 100 recipients, 1 warm-up slot). Starter is $39 a month (1,000 credits). Pro is $99 a month (5,000 credits). Custom Ultra starts at 200,000 credits.
The trial includes 100 recipients and one email warm-up slot, so you can test outreach as well as lookup. The entry plan has 1,000 credits a month, which suits someone doing a few dozen contacts a week.
Skip it if: you need a huge database or a dialer; this is a lean tool.
Prospeo
Best for: verified business emails at a low entry price.
Price (checked 2026-10-08): Free with 100 credits a month, no time limit. Paid plans are listed at $49, $99 and $249 a month, or $37, $74 and $187 a month on yearly billing.
Per the page, one credit gives one verified business email, and a direct mobile number costs 10 credits. The Free plan has no time limit, which makes it easy to test.
Skip it if: your list depends on mobile numbers; at 10 credits each they go quickly.
LeadMagic
Best for: enrichment by API when you only want to pay for results found.
Price (checked 2026-10-08): No free plan on the page. Essential is $99 a month or $990 a year (5,000 credits a month). Growth is $249 a month (20,000). Professional is $499 a month (50,000). Ultimate is $849 a month (100,000). The page says credits are deducted only on a successful enrichment, and that failed lookups are free.
The entry price is the highest on this list, which tells you who it is built for: teams feeding enrichment into their own workflows.
Skip it if: you are a solo operator doing a few contacts a week; the price will not pay back.
When you should stay with Apollo
Apollo is the default for good reasons, and it is genuinely better than most of these in three ways. It has the biggest search by job title and company size of anything in this list. The Free plan is real: 900 credits per seat a year, with sequences capped at 250 emails a day and one mailbox. And the paid plans bundle the whole workflow, with unlimited Google and Microsoft mailboxes and unlimited daily sends from Professional up, plus call recordings with AI insights (4,000 minutes on Professional). If your buyers are companies and titles, and you want finding and sending in one place, an all-in-one is cheaper than stitching three tools together.
Affiliate link: VendBuddy may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
The honest test: write down the last five people you wanted to reach. If they were "the facilities manager at a building near me", Apollo is the wrong shape. If they were "a director of operations at a mid-size logistics company", Apollo is the right one.
Pricing math for a small buyer
Take a stated case: one person who wants about 100 named decision-makers a month, for twelve months. This is arithmetic on the sticker prices above, not a quote.
- Apollo Basic: $49 x 12 = $588 for one seat, billed annually, with 30,000 credits a year. The page does not say in what we read how many credits one reveal uses, so check that before relying on the number.
- Hunter Starter: $408 billed yearly ($49 x 12 = $588 if paid monthly), 2,000 credits a month.
- Snov.io Starter: $39 x 12 = $468 for 1,000 credits a month.
- VendBuddy: Starter at $49 x 12 = $588 monthly, or $470 billed yearly for 2,040 credits including the bonus. If you only need a burst, two 50-credit packs are $64 once, with no subscription.
VendBuddy's pay-per-reveal model is the main difference. On Starter, 150 credits for $49 works out to about 33 cents a reveal; the packs run from 64 cents a credit (50 for $32) down to 49 cents (500 plus 100 bonus for $295), and pack credits do not expire. There is no seat licence. The 7-day money-back guarantee applies to a first subscription payment if you have not used a credit, and renewals and credit packs are not refundable, per the pricing page.
The cheapest option is whichever one you actually use. A $588 plan that you open twice is more expensive than $64 of credits that find you one signed location.
Where VendBuddy is a good fit, and who should not use it
VendBuddy is our product. It starts from a place instead of a title: you enter a US ZIP, pick property types (the site lists 79, including apartment communities, offices, gyms, medical offices, schools and warehouses) and get every nearby match with address, category, website, employee count and the usual decision-maker title. The pricing page shows one real search: 44 locations within 10 miles. Searching and exporting the company list is free, and one credit reveals the best contact on file for one business you pick (see the pricing page).
Apollo is the better tool if your buyers are companies filtered by title. Reveals draw on outside data providers; we do not own a contact database and we publish no accuracy rate, so judge it on the 5 free credits. The product was built for vending operators, so the revenue rating and the pitch extras are vending-specific.
Who should not use VendBuddy:
- Anyone who needs Apollo-style sequences, a dialer and a nationwide title search in one product.
- Enterprise sales teams that need intent data, technographics, 100,000-contact exports or an outside CRM sync (the pricing page lists a built-in pipeline CRM only).
- Anyone searching by job title nationwide, or outside the US: search starts from a US ZIP and a distance.
Finding the contact is half the job: sending
Apollo bundles sending. Most of the alternatives do not, or do it lightly. If you find contacts with a lookup tool and want a dedicated sender with inbox warm-up, Smartlead is built for cold email sending (affiliate link; not tested by us, so judge it on its own trial). Keep first messages short and one-to-one, as in our cold email scripts for vending contracts. For calls, a separate number keeps your personal phone out of it; see business phone for vending business.
See Smartlead's free trial options
Affiliate link. We earn a commission if you sign up through it, at no extra cost to you. It does not change which tool we recommend.
Compare in more depth
This post is one of a set. Our overview is the best lead generation tools for small business guide. Related alternatives pages:
- ZoomInfo alternatives for small business
- RocketReach alternatives
- Lusha alternatives
- Seamless.AI alternatives
- Hunter.io alternatives
- How to find business owner contact information: the free and manual methods that work before you pay for any tool.
- Cost per lead: vending locator vs lead list: what a contact really costs across the options.
- How to find apartment complex owner contact info and how to find a hotel general manager: two common local targets.
- Cold email scripts for vending contracts: what to write once you have the name.
If you want to see the local-first approach before you spend anything, the free search is at VendBuddy. Type a ZIP, look at the list, and only then decide.
VendBuddy is our product. 5 free credits, no card.
Sources (all checked 2026-10-08)
- Apollo.io pricing
- Hunter pricing
- Lusha pricing
- RocketReach pricing
- Snov.io pricing
- Prospeo pricing
- LeadMagic pricing
- VendBuddy pricing
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best alternative to Apollo.io?
It depends on the job. For local businesses near a ZIP and the person who decides there, VendBuddy (our product) charges per reveal instead of per seat. For emails from a known company website, Hunter has a free plan with 50 credits a month. For wide B2B title searches, Apollo itself is hard to beat. Prices were checked on each vendor's page on 2026-10-08.
Is there a free alternative to Apollo?
Several tools have free plans: Hunter (50 credits a month), Lusha (40 credits a month), Prospeo (100 credits a month, no time limit), RocketReach (5 lookups), Snov.io (a 50-credit trial) and VendBuddy (5 credits, no card). Apollo's own Free plan gives 900 credits per seat a year, granted monthly, so it is also a strong free option.
How much does Apollo.io cost?
Per its pricing page on 2026-10-08: Free at $0, Basic at $49 per seat a month billed annually, Professional at $79, and Organization at $119 with a minimum of three seats. Paid plans are shown billed annually.
Is VendBuddy a replacement for Apollo?
Only for one job: finding local businesses and the decision-maker at each. It does not offer the nationwide title search, intent data, technographics or outside CRM sync that Apollo does, and it was built for vending operators. If your buyers are companies filtered by title, keep Apollo.
Does VendBuddy have its own contact database?
No claim of that kind is made on the site, and we do not make one here. Reveals draw on outside data providers. Use the 5 free credits on businesses in your area to judge the results yourself.
What is selling, which buildings say yes, and the numbers before you buy a machine. Free, confirm from your inbox, unsubscribe in one click. Refer one friend and get 25 VendBuddy credits.
General information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Rules change, so check the official source. Revenue and income figures are examples, not promises. See our terms.