Apollo is where reps find contacts and send sequences. Ocean decides which accounts deserve the sequence, ranked from your own won and lost deals.
Used by teams at
ApolloContacts, sequences and a dialer in one low-cost platform.
Apollo is an all-in-one sales intelligence and engagement platform. It combines a large contact and company database with sequences, a dialer, AI lead scoring and an AI assistant, on a freemium, per-seat model. It’s now moving upmarket, with signal-based prioritization from its Pocus acquisition.
Deciding which accounts deserve the sequence, ranked from your own deals.
Ocean is contextual intelligence for go-to-market. It reads what every company actually does from its own website, learns what good looks like from your closed-won and closed-lost deals, and ranks your whole market against it, with the reason behind each score. The ranked accounts arrive in your CRM, your rep queue or your AI agents.
What buyers weigh, grouped by the job each part does. A green check marks the stronger side.
| Topic | Ocean.io logo Ocean | Apollo |
|---|---|---|
| Finding the right accounts | ||
| Lookalikes from your closed-won deals | Ocean is stronger here. Core of the product. Segments and models learned from your won and lost CRM deals. | AI lead scoring, plus signal-based prioritization from the Pocus acquisition. |
| Account prioritization | Ocean is stronger here. Ranks every account by fit to segments learned from your wins. | An Intelligence Layer that prioritizes accounts, announced in September 2026. |
| The reason behind each account | Ocean is stronger here. Segment, score, tier and matched signals on every account and every export. | A score on each lead. |
| How it understands a company | Ocean is stronger here. Reads what each company does from its own website. | Industry tags, headcount, technographics and keywords. |
| Contacts and data | ||
| Contacts | Verified emails and direct phones from a waterfall across 16+ data sources. Charged only when a contact is found, and exports are free. | Apollo is stronger here. A very large database: 240M contacts, by Apollo’s own count. |
| Company data | Ocean is stronger here. 85M+ companies, built from the open web. | 30M companies, by Apollo’s own count. |
| Workflow and pricing | ||
| Sequencing and dialer | Doesn’t send. Hands accounts and contacts to the sequencer you already use: Apollo, Instantly or Lemlist. | Apollo is stronger here. Sequences, a dialer, call recording and an AI assistant. |
| AI agents and MCP | MCP server, public API and a chat agent on the same data and lookalike engine. | An MCP integration, plus an app in ChatGPT and a Claude integration. |
| Pricing | Ocean is stronger here. Two ways to buy: a flat-rate plan with credits included, or a custom plan built around your deals and credit volume. No seats. | A free plan, then per-user plans plus credits. |
Reviewers rate it highly for price and breadth. The most common complaint is data accuracy.
4.7 out of 5
Apollo’s average on G2
The rating is from G2, from about 9,851 reviews. The themes come from G2 and practitioner write-ups.
Apollo lists its plans but not the seat prices, so the figures below are what third parties gather.
Apollo’s AI assistant and lead scoring are free for now under an introductory offer, and Apollo says availability and pricing may change. It also acquired Pocus in March 2026 and launched an AI GTM System in September.
A flat-rate plan with credits included, or a custom plan built around your deals.
Contacts are charged only when one is found. Exports are free.
See Ocean pricingApollo is where reps prospect and send. Ocean decides which accounts go in.
Choose Apollo if Ocean.io logo Use both ifFive steps. Most teams keep Apollo for sequencing and add Ocean to decide who goes in.
List your seats, plan and renewal date. Annual contracts get the best pricing.
Keep Apollo for sequencing if reps depend on it, and export the lists and filters your team uses today.
Connect HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive or Attio. Ocean reads your closed-won and closed-lost deals to learn what a good account looks like.
Ocean proposes segments and scores, with the reason on each. Correct anything that doesn’t match how you sell.
Scores, segments and matched signals go back to your CRM, or into Apollo, Instantly or Lemlist sequences.
The right alternative depends on what you use Apollo for. Here’s what each is built for and where Ocean starts.
ZoomInfoBuilt for Contact and direct-dial volume, with third-party intent, in one contract.
Where Ocean starts Ocean ranks accounts from your closed-won deals instead of selling a database.
ClayBuilt for GTM engineers who assemble custom enrichment and research workflows from many data sources.
Where Ocean starts Ocean starts from your closed-won deals and ranks the market, instead of a build.
LushaBuilt for Individual reps who need quick contact lookups from a browser extension.
Where Ocean starts Ocean decides which accounts to work, with a Chrome extension for company data as you browse.
CognismBuilt for Teams selling into Europe that need phone-verified mobile numbers and GDPR-focused data.
Where Ocean starts Ocean ranks the accounts first, then finds the contacts.
LandbaseBuilt for Teams that want natural-language audience search and outreach from one AI platform.
Where Ocean starts Ocean learns from your own closed-won deals and leaves outreach to the tools you already use.
Short answers on Apollo’s cost, what its new AI layer does, how Ocean compares and what switching takes.
Apollo has a free plan and paid Basic and Professional plans, priced per user, plus a custom plan. Third parties gather about $49 and $79 a user a month on annual billing, because Apollo’s pricing page doesn’t list seat prices.
Yes, with limited credits. The paid plans add credits, call recording and more AI features.
Apollo offers AI lead scoring and, since the Pocus acquisition, signal-based prioritization. It doesn’t describe a model learned from your closed-won deals. Ocean learns the ICP from your won and lost deals.
Yes. Apollo offers an MCP integration and an app in ChatGPT. Ocean has an MCP server and a public API on the same data and lookalike engine.
Yes. Keep Apollo for sequencing, and use Ocean to decide which accounts go into each sequence.
Ocean reads what each company does from its own website, learns from your closed-won and closed-lost deals, and returns ranked matches with the reason on each one.
Check your seats and renewal date, export your lists and filters, connect your CRM so Ocean reads your won and lost deals, review the segments and scores Ocean proposes, then send scored accounts to your CRM or to Apollo sequences.
