Apollo Credits: What They Buy, Why They Run Out
By Umair Gujjar·2026-09-24
An Apollo credit is the unit Apollo charges you for pulling contact data. One credit buys one email address. A phone number costs eight. Your plan includes a fixed number of credits, they expire at the end of each billing cycle, and once they run out Apollo does not publish what buying more will cost you.
Every figure below was checked against Apollo’s own pricing page, its credits page and its pricing calculator on 24 September 2026. Apollo revises this model periodically, so if you are reading this much later, treat the numbers as a starting point and verify them at source.
What One Apollo Credit Buys
Credits are not priced per contact. They are priced per action, and the actions cost very different amounts:
| Action | Credits |
|---|---|
| Email address | 1 |
| Phone number | 8 |
| Data enrichment | 1–8 |
| AI research | 1 per run |
| US dialer | 2 per minute |
| International dialer | Varies by region |
The phone number line is the one that catches people out. A direct dial costs eight times what an email costs, so a list built for calling drains an allowance roughly eight times faster than the headline credit count suggests.
How Many Credits Each Apollo Plan Includes
| Plan | Published price | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 900 per seat per year, granted monthly |
| Basic | $49 per seat/mo, billed annually | 30,000 per seat per year, granted upfront |
| Professional | $79 per seat/mo, billed annually | 48,000 per seat per year, granted upfront |
| Organization | $119 per seat/mo, minimum 3 seats | 72,000 per seat per year, granted upfront |
Prices exclude applicable taxes, and the monthly figures are the annual-billing rate. Two paid add-ons sit outside the plans, Inbound and Advanced Dialer, each $119 per team per month on annual billing.
Three Rules That Decide How Fast You Burn Them
1. Credits expire, and they never roll over
Apollo’s credits page states it plainly: credits expire at the end of each billing cycle, and do not roll over into the following cycle or upon renewal. A quiet month banks nothing for a busy one, so uneven prospecting cycles mean sizing your plan for the peak and paying for that peak all year.
2. Annual plans hand you the whole year at once
On every paid tier the year’s credits are granted upfront rather than metered out monthly. That sounds generous, and for steady usage it is. The catch is that a heavy month quietly borrows from a later one instead of showing up as an overage on that month’s invoice. You find out in month seven, not month two.
3. A calling list burns eight times faster
Professional’s 48,000 credits buy 48,000 email addresses if that is all you take. Take an email and a phone number for each contact and you are spending 9 credits a head, which is 5,333 contacts for the year, about 444 a month. Phone numbers on their own would be 6,000 for the year.
What Happens When You Run Out
You buy more credits inside the app. Apollo confirms this is possible at any time on a paid plan.
What Apollo does not say is what they cost. As of 24 September 2026 there is no per-credit rate on the pricing page, none on the dedicated credits page, and the pricing calculator carries no figures at all. The only guidance offered is that you can add credits once you are signed in.
That matters more than it first appears. The published price is a floor rather than a forecast: you can work out what your plan costs, but not what your usage costs, until you are already inside a contract. For a team whose volume is predictable that is a minor annoyance. For a team whose volume moves, it is a budget you cannot build.
How to Make Apollo Credits Last
- Take emails first, phones second. Reveal a direct dial only for contacts someone is actually going to call. At 8 credits each this is the single biggest lever you have.
- Plan the year, not the month. Because annual credits arrive upfront, an aggressive Q1 is invisible until Q3. Decide the monthly ceiling in advance and track against it.
- Watch enrichment. At 1–8 credits it is the most variable line in the table, and the easiest to run in bulk without noticing.
- Remember dialer minutes are credits. US dialing spends 2 credits a minute, so a busy calling week competes directly with your data budget.
When a Credit Model Stops Making Sense
Credit pricing is not inherently bad. At low, steady volume it is perfectly reasonable, and Apollo’s platform does considerably more than serve contact records.
It stops working in two situations. The first is high volume, where the allowance runs out and the marginal cost is the part nobody published. The second is re-use: if the same decision-maker belongs in three campaigns, a metered model asks you to decide whether that is worth spending on.
That is the problem LeadsMiner was built around. We charge a flat $49.99 a month for 158M+ B2B contacts with verified emails and direct dials, with unlimited exports and no per-contact charge, so the data line on your budget is the same number every month regardless of what you export. If you want the arithmetic rather than the pitch, our Apollo pricing breakdown works the comparison through, and the feature-by-feature comparison covers what each tool does beyond the data.
Apollo Credits FAQ
Do Apollo credits roll over?
No. Apollo states that credits expire at the end of each billing cycle and do not roll over into the following cycle or upon renewal. Anything unused is not recoverable.
How many credits is a phone number?
Eight, against one for an email address. Data enrichment ranges from 1 to 8 credits depending on what is returned.
How many contacts do you get on Apollo Professional?
48,000 email addresses a year per seat if you take emails only. If you want a phone number for each contact as well, the same allowance covers 5,333 contacts, because each one costs 9 credits rather than 1.
What does it cost to buy more Apollo credits?
Apollo does not publish a rate. Additional credits are bought inside the app on a paid plan, and as of 24 September 2026 no per-credit price appears on the pricing page, the credits page or the pricing calculator.
Do Apollo credits reset monthly or annually?
On the Free plan the yearly allowance is granted monthly. On every paid plan the year’s credits are granted upfront. In both cases they expire at the end of the billing cycle rather than accumulating.