Free
$0
Free
100 credits a month (1,200 a year), no card.
API included
Plan details
The app selects up to 25 records at a time. Unused credits roll over.
Comparison
AI Ark vs Apollo: which B2B data API fits your list builds?
Both sell B2B contact data by credits. Apollo prices per seat, adds a CRM and email sequences, and its people search costs 0 credits on paid plans. AI Ark is data only, priced per account: $49 a month for 5,000 credits, 1 credit per verified email found, unused credits rolling over, and bulk exports of up to 10,000 people per job.
Pick AI Ark if
- You only want data by API, priced per account rather than per seat
- You export large lists in one job: up to 10,000 people with verified emails, delivered to a webhook
Pick Apollo if
- You want data, a CRM and email sequences in one app
- You pull large people lists: search costs 0 credits on a paid plan, up to 50,000 records per query
AI Ark
Sourcing, Enrichment
Apollo
Sourcing, Enrichment
At a glance
AI Ark
- From
- $49/momonthly, $470/yr annual
- Free plan
- Yes$0, 100 credits/mo, no card
- Cost per unit
- 1 credit/email, 5/mobile, 0 if none
- MCP server
- Official
Apollo
- From
- $65/seat/momonthly, $49 annual
- Free plan
- Yes$0, 75 credits/seat/mo
- Cost per unit
- 1 credit, 8 more for a mobile
- MCP server
- Official
Where they differ
16 points side by side. Open a value for the full detail.
| What | AI Ark | Apollo |
|---|---|---|
| Credit-based B2B data APIA credit-based B2B data API over 400M+ people and 70M+ companies: people and company search (including lookalike), a low-cost preview, single-row email and mobile finders, and async export with verified emails. | Sales platform with CRM and sequencesA sales platform: a database of over 240 million contacts and 30 million companies, plus a CRM and email sequences in the same app and API. | |
| $49/mo monthly, $470/yr annualUsage-Based: $49 a month billed monthly for 5,000 credits, or $470 a year billed annually for 60,000 credits ($39.17 a month). Larger packages are priced in its credit calculator. Verified 2026-10-25. | $65/seat/mo monthly, $49 annualBasic: $65 per seat a month billed monthly, or $49 billed annually. Verified 2026-10-25. | |
| Credits per account, roll over up to 2xCredits per account, with seats by tier (up to 3 seats up to 30K credits a month). Unused credits roll over up to 2x the monthly allowance. Annual billing saves 20% and grants all credits on day one. Above 30K credits a month its FAQ quotes $2 to $4 per 1,000 credits. | Credits per seat, no rolloverPer seat, with credits per seat. Credits reset each billing cycle and do not roll over, including add-on credits. | |
| 1 credit/email, 5/mobile, 0 if none1 credit per valid email (0.5 profile plus 0.5 verified email) on the single-row and trackId finders, and 0 when no valid email is found. Bulk export charges 0.5 per person plus 0.5 per email found. A mobile costs 5 credits, 0 if none. | 1 credit, 8 more for a mobile1 credit for email and person data, 8 more if a mobile comes back, so up to 9. No charge when nothing is found. | |
| 0.5 credit/result, 10,000 per searchPeople Preview costs 1 credit per page of up to 100, with last names masked. People Search costs 0.5 credit per result and returns no emails. Company Search costs 0.1 per result. Up to 100 per page and 10,000 records per search through paging. | 0 credits on paid plans, 50,000/queryPeople search costs 0 credits on paid plans and returns ids and titles, not emails. Up to 100 per page and 50,000 records per query. Organization search costs 1 credit per page. | |
| $0, 100 credits/mo, no card$0 with 100 credits a month and no card. The app selects up to 25 records at a time, and unused credits roll over. | $0, 75 credits/seat/mo$0 with 75 credits per seat a month. On a Free account on 25 Oct 2026, people search over the API returned 403 and organization enrichment worked. | |
| Every plan, full APIAn API key is available right after signup. Its FAQ says every plan includes the complete API with no features held back; higher tiers add rate limits and seats. | Every plan; people search needs paidListed on every plan card. People search over the API needs a paid plan. Record create, update and list calls cost 0 credits. | |
| X-TOKEN headerX-TOKEN header with no Bearer prefix. Keys are created in the API Management dashboard. | x-api-key header or OAuth 2.0x-api-key header. A key is scoped to chosen endpoints or set as a master key. Partner apps use OAuth 2.0. | |
| 5 requests/sec per key5 requests a second per API key by default, then 429. Async jobs: up to 500 in flight per service, 10 processed at a time. Accounts using 450,000+ credits a month can ask for custom limits. | Enrichment 1,000/min, search 200/minPer team. Paid plans: enrichment 1,000 a minute with no hourly or daily cap; search 200 a minute, 6,000 an hour, 50,000 a day. | |
| 10,000 per async job, webhookExport People with Email takes up to 10,000 people per async job, delivered to a webhook or by polling. Webhooks retry up to 3 times, and a charged job that is not delivered is refunded within up to 10 hours. | 10 per bulk call, webhook URLBulk enrichment takes up to 10 records per call. Phone and waterfall results arrive at a webhook URL you pass, or by polling. | |
| YesOfficial hosted server at api.ai-ark.com/v1/mcp for API calls and documentation search. It takes the API key in the URL (?token=), so keep the config file private. | YesOfficial server at https://mcp.apollo.io/mcp over Streamable HTTP and OAuth. Covers search, enrichment, CRM records and sequences. | |
| Firmographics, verified emails, mobiles, personality profilesPerson profiles with company data (firmographics, technographics, funding, headcount by department), emails verified by BounceBan including catch-all, mobiles and DISC or OCEAN personality profiles. Its docs give a 30-day refresh cycle. | Email, mobile, firmographics, job postings, newsWork email with status, mobile on request, employment history; company firmographics, funding, technologies, job postings and news. No refresh cadence is published. | |
| Zapier, Make, n8n, ClayClay-compatible v2 endpoints that return HTTP 200 on misses. Its pricing FAQ lists Zapier, Make, n8n and Clay, and CRMs and sequencers by CSV or API; native CRM connectors are on its roadmap. | Salesforce, HubSpot, Outreach, SalesLoft, MarketoSalesforce, HubSpot, Outreach, SalesLoft, Marketo, Sendgrid, LinkedIn and the major email providers. | |
| GDPR policy, no SOC 2 namedPublishes a GDPR policy, and its terms include data processing terms for EEA and UK personal data. No SOC 2 or ISO 27001 report is named on its pricing, docs or legal pages. | ISO 27001 and SOC 2Certified under ISO 27001 and SOC 2, per its privacy policy. | |
| Internal use only, no resaleExported data is licensed for your internal sales, marketing, recruiting and outreach. No resale or redistribution, and no use to build, train or improve a competing database or tool. Its FAQ says agencies may use it for client work. | No resale, no LinkedIn automationsNo resale, no use of any API with LinkedIn automations, and AI training on contact data only for your own internal models. | |
| Market sizing and bulk verified-email exportSizing a market for 1 credit per preview page, then exporting up to 10,000 people with verified emails in one job, or enriching row by row and paying only when an email is found. | Data, CRM and sequences in one appTeams that want data, a CRM and sequences in one app, and free people search on a paid seat. |
No row matches in this view.
Pricing, plan by plan
US dollars as each vendor's page showed them on 25 Oct 2026. One panel per tool; switch each between monthly and annual billing (an annual price is the monthly rate when you pay for the year up front).
AI Ark
4 plans · API reviewUsage-Based (entry package)
$49/mo
billed monthly
$39.17/mo
billed annually
5,000 credits a month billed monthly, or $470 a year billed annually for 60,000 credits, all granted on day one.
API included
Plan details
Selects 10,000 records at a time. Rollover up to 2x the monthly allowance.
Larger credit packages
Usage-based
Priced in the credit calculator.
API included
Plan details
FAQ tiers: Starter up to 30K credits a month (up to 3 seats), Builder 60K to 300K (up to 5 seats), Scale 450K+ (10 seats); $2 to $4 per 1,000 credits above 30K a month.
Agency & Enterprise
Custom quote
Custom: partner program, enterprise back-office, white-label, multi-user management and a dedicated account manager.
API included
Plan details
Price on request.
Apollo
4 plans · API reviewFree
$0
Free
75 credits per seat a month.
API included
Plan details
People search over the API returned 403 on a Free account on 25 Oct 2026.
Basic
$65/mo
billed monthly
$49/mo
billed annually
Per seat. 2,500 credits per seat a month on monthly billing, 30,000 per seat a year on annual.
API included
Professional
$99/mo
billed monthly
$79/mo
billed annually
Per seat. 4,000 credits per seat a month on monthly billing, 48,000 per seat a year on annual.
API included
Organization
$119/mo
annual billing only
$119/mo
billed annually
Per seat, minimum 3 seats, annual billing only.
API included
Plan details
72,000 credits per seat a year.
Which one to pick
Choose AI Ark if
- You only want data by API, priced per account rather than per seat.
- You export large lists in one job: up to 10,000 people with verified emails, delivered to a webhook.
- You want unused credits to roll over (up to 2x the monthly allowance) instead of resetting each cycle.
- You want to size a market cheaply: a preview page of up to 100 people costs 1 credit.
- You need mobiles at 5 credits each, charged only when one is found.
Choose Apollo if
- You want data, a CRM and email sequences in one app.
- You pull large people lists: search costs 0 credits on a paid plan, up to 50,000 records per query.
- You want waterfall enrichment that tries other vendors for email and phone inside the same credits (Basic and up).
- You want native connections to Salesforce, HubSpot, Outreach and SalesLoft.
- You need ISO 27001 and SOC 2 certification on paper.
If neither fits: If you already hold a list and only need verified work emails, a pay-per-result email finder may be enough. The guide below compares every way to do it.
How to find a person's work email addressWant us to build it for you?
Choosing between AI Ark and Apollo, or moving from one to the other? Tell us your setup. We will show you how we would run it, and what we would check first.
Questions people ask
Is Apollo software free?
Apollo has a $0 Free plan with 75 credits per seat a month. On a Free account on 25 Oct 2026 the people search API returned 403 and said it needs a paid plan. AI Ark's Free plan gives 100 credits a month with no card, and its FAQ says the API key is available right after signup.
Which costs less per verified work email, AI Ark or Apollo?
Both charge 1 credit per email found and nothing on a miss for a single person. The credit price differs: AI Ark's entry package is $49 for 5,000 credits (about 1 cent each), and Apollo Basic billed monthly is $65 per seat for 2,500 credits (2.6 cents each). AI Ark's bulk export also charges 0.5 credit for each person without an email.
Does searching cost credits?
Apollo people search costs 0 credits on paid plans and returns no emails. AI Ark's People Search costs 0.5 credit per result and also returns no emails; its People Preview costs 1 credit per page of up to 100, with last names masked, so you can size a list before paying per person.
Do unused credits roll over?
AI Ark: yes, month to month, up to 2x the monthly plan allowance. Apollo: no, credits reset each billing cycle, including add-on credits.
Do AI Ark and Apollo have MCP servers?
Yes. Apollo's is at https://mcp.apollo.io/mcp with OAuth. AI Ark hosts one at api.ai-ark.com/v1/mcp that takes your API key in the URL, so keep that config file private.
Related
Read from ai-ark.com/pricing, apollo.io/pricing and each tool's API docs. Verified 25 Oct 2026.
