Apollo.io vs Cognism 2026: Which Wins on Price & EU Data?

Apollo.io is a combined contact database and sales engagement platform starting at $49/user/month with 275M+ contacts, but its EU mobile coverage lags US data, per Landbase's 2026 Apollo.io pricing breakdown. Cognism is a data-only provider starting near $15,000/year with phone-verified UK and EMEA mobile numbers and GDPR compliance built into how records are sourced. Pick Apollo for volume and built-in sending. Pick Cognism for compliant EU/UK dialing.

Apollo.io vs Cognism 2026: Price, Database, and Coverage at a Glance

Apollo wins on price and self-serve access. Cognism wins on data quality for European mobile dialing and compliance documentation. Neither wins outright, the right pick depends on where your accounts live and whether you already own a sequencer.

Axis	Apollo.io	Cognism
Starting price	$49/user/month (Basic, billed annually)	~$15,000/year (Grow plan, custom quote)
Database size	275M+ contacts, 30M+ companies	Not publicly disclosed; 10M+ phone-verified mobiles in Elevate tier
Geographic strength	US-heavy coverage	90%+ coverage of EU decision-makers; strongest in UK, DACH, France, Benelux, Nordics
Compliance approach	Standard opt-out sourcing	GDPR legitimate-interest basis, checked against 15+ country DNC lists
Built-in sending	Yes, sequences included from Basic plan	No, exports into Salesloft, Outreach, or HubSpot instead
Best-fit team size	Solo reps through 100+ seat sales orgs	Mid-market to enterprise teams selling into Europe

How much does Apollo.io cost vs Cognism in 2026?

Apollo.io runs $49/user/month for Basic, $79 for Professional, and $119 for Organization, all billed annually, per Landbase's 2026 Apollo.io pricing breakdown. Cognism publishes no price list. Grow (its renamed Platinum tier) starts near $15,000/year and Elevate (renamed Diamond) starts near $25,000/year, plus $1,500 to $2,500 per seat, per Cleanlist's 2026 Cognism pricing guide. A 5-seat Apollo team on Basic runs about $2,940/year. A 5-seat Cognism Grow team runs closer to $22,500/year, per the same Cleanlist breakdown. That gap only makes sense if you actually need what Cognism sells: verified EU mobiles and compliance paperwork, not just names and emails.

Which has better data: Apollo's volume or Cognism's verified EU mobiles?

Apollo has more total records. Cognism has fewer records but each Elevate mobile number is manually call-verified at a claimed 98% accuracy rate, per multiple 2026 Cognism pricing reviews. If your list is US-heavy SaaS accounts, Apollo's 275M+ contact base and 30M+ company graph gets you further per dollar. If you're cold-calling procurement directors in Munich or Amsterdam, a smaller pool of numbers that actually connect beats a bigger pool that bounces on the first dial.

Does Apollo or Cognism handle compliance better?

Cognism builds compliance into the product. Every record is sourced under GDPR's legitimate-interest basis and cross-checked against 15+ country Do Not Call registries, per Cognism's compliance page. Apollo doesn't publish an equivalent compliance framework, it's built for volume prospecting rather than regulated EU dialing. Neither vendor should be treated as a substitute for your own legal review, but if a compliance officer is going to ask questions about your data source, Cognism has more paperwork ready.

Apollo.io pros and cons

• Cheapest entry point in the category at $49/user/month, per Landbase's 2026 breakdown
• Sequences, dialer, and data live in one platform, no separate sales engagement tool needed
• 275M+ contact database covers US and global accounts at volume
• Credit overages and per-seat add-ons can push real cost to 2 to 3x the advertised price, per multiple 2026 Apollo pricing audits

Cognism pros and cons

• Phone-verified EMEA mobiles with a claimed 98% accuracy rate
• GDPR legitimate-interest sourcing and 15+ country DNC checks built into the product
• No published pricing, every deal is a custom quote starting near $15,000/year
• No built-in sequencer, you still need Salesloft, Outreach, or HubSpot to actually send

If you're a founder-led team prospecting US accounts on a tight budget, Apollo is the better $49 spent. If you're an enterprise team dialing into the UK or DACH and a compliance officer signs off on vendors, Cognism's verified mobiles are worth the five-figure jump. Most teams we work with don't need either at full price, they need the data matched to the geography they're actually selling into.

Frequently asked questions

By Rishabh Ambasta, Founder, Modern Inbound.

Picking the tool is the easy part. Running 500+ personalized touches a week across US and EU lists without your domains getting flagged is the part most teams underestimate. That's what Modern Inbound handles end to end, from data to inbox. See our pay-per-lead pricing or get in touch if you'd rather skip building this stack yourself.