Apollo.io vs Lusha (2026)
The decision is whether you need to check the vendor yourself or need the vendor to have been checked. Apollo publishes what a buyer can verify without help: three named sourcing routes including a contributor network of more than two million people and the specific product features that turn a connected mailbox into shared inventory, five tiers with real numbers and real units from a usable free plan upward, broker registration in four named states, and a published notice to the individuals whose details it holds. Lusha publishes what outsiders have already verified: an audited service organisation control report alongside six international standards spanning information security, cloud security, cloud privacy, privacy information management, privacy by design and artificial intelligence management, annual independent privacy audits, two named auditor seals and a privacy management certification. Where each is weakest mirrors that. Lusha names not one supplying data broker and publishes prices its own materials contradict. Apollo names the models behind nothing and carries the index's first D on sending discipline.
- You need the notice duty discharged in a published artefact rather than promised. Apollo publishes a processing notice whose opening line tells the reader it has added their business contact information to its database, followed by the legal basis, the categories held and the rights available.
- You want a vendor that documents its own most common complaint. Apollo's knowledge base publishes entries explaining why third party verification vendors flag its verified emails as invalid, and why customers see high bounce rates from connected mailboxes, which is disclosure almost nobody in this index offers.
- Inferred data should be disclosed as such. The processing notice enumerates the categories held and states that Apollo makes inferences about those contacts, including their likelihood of interest in a customer's product, which is the category most brokers leave unmentioned entirely.
- You want privacy audited annually rather than asserted once. Privacy practices are audited annually by an independent third party, two named auditors provide seals, a privacy management certification is held, and a privacy practices white paper is published alongside a pre signed processing addendum.
- The categories collected should be bounded. The privacy notice limits what is held to what appears on a business card or an email signature block, which is a stated ceiling on scope rather than an open ended collection claim.
- You want the sending platform separate from the data. Lusha is a database first, consumed through an extension, a filtered application and a programmatic interface, so a buyer keeps whatever sequencing tool they already trust rather than inheriting one graded at the bottom of the deliverability axis.
Plain facts
| Apollo.io | Lusha | |
|---|---|---|
| Primary category | Data & Enrichment | Data & Enrichment |
| Founded | Not published | Not published |
| Headquarters | Not published | Boston, MA |
| Website | www.apollo.io | www.lusha.com |
Side by Side
| Axis | A Apollo.io |
L Lusha |
|---|---|---|
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AI Capability
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| AI Centrality | ||
| Autonomy and Oversight Model | ||
| AI Disclosure and Model Transparency | ||
| Operational and Outcome Evidence | ||
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Compliance and Risk
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| Outreach Compliance Posture | ||
| Data Privacy Posture | ||
| Data Licensing and Provenance | ||
| Platform Terms Exposure | ||
| AI Safety and Data Stewardship | ||
| Recipient Disclosure and Authenticity | ||
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Integration and Deployment
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| Ecosystem and Integration Depth | ||
| Deployment Model and Data Residency | ||
| Security Certifications and Trust Center | ||
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Commercial and Operational
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| Commercial Transparency | ||
| Exit and Data Portability | ||
| Deliverability and Sending Discipline | ||
| Segment and Market Coverage | ||
The short version of each
Apollo.io
Apollo.io is the default all in one prospecting and engagement platform for small and mid market buyers, combining a very large business contact database with search filters, multichannel sequencing, a parallel and international dialer, website visitor identification and buyer intent signals, sold product led with a usable permanent free tier. The GTM Tech Index grades it A on data privacy posture, the most complete privacy disclosure it holds: the vendor states plainly that it is compliant as both controller and processor and explains why, publishes a processing addendum at a stable address incorporated into its terms, and discloses in its processing notice that it makes inferences about contacts, which is the category most brokers leave unmentioned.
Source: GTM Tech Index, 2026
Lusha
Lusha is an established business contact and company data provider sold through a browser extension, a filtered web application and a programmatic interface, consumed on a credit model where an email address, a phone number and a recorded call each draw a different amount from one pool. The GTM Tech Index grades it A on data privacy posture, among the strongest in the index: the legal basis is named rather than implied, personal information notices go to European data subjects with an explicit right to opt out, a self serve privacy centre lets a non customer exercise rights directly, and privacy practices are audited annually by an independent third party with two named auditor seals.
Source: GTM Tech Index, 2026
Common questions
Is Apollo.io better than Lusha?
Whether you need to check the vendor yourself or need the vendor to have been checked. Apollo publishes what a buyer can verify without help: three named sourcing routes, five tiers with real numbers, broker registration in four named states and a published notice to the individuals it holds. Lusha publishes what outsiders have already verified: an audited service organisation control report, six international standards, annual independent privacy audits and two named auditor seals. Where each is weakest mirrors that.
Which one tells you where its data comes from?
Apollo, and the GTM Tech Index grades it A against B, the first A on that axis in the index. Three sourcing routes are named rather than behind multiple sources, a contributor network of more than two million people, publicly available sources and purchased lists, with the specific extracting product features named. Lusha names two source classes in its privacy notice, trusted data brokers and publicly available interfaces, and not one supplying broker, so the buyer inherits a supply chain they cannot inspect.
Which has the stronger security documentation?
Lusha, and it holds the broadest certification set in the index. A public trust centre enumerates an audited service organisation control report alongside international standards for information security, cloud security, cloud privacy, privacy information management, privacy by design and artificial intelligence management. Apollo publishes a service organisation control type two and an information security certification with the auditing firm named plus a tier two cloud application security assessment, and routes the complete report through a sales conversation rather than a trust centre request form.
How do Apollo.io and Lusha price?
Apollo, decisively, and the index treats it as the benchmark for this axis. Five tiers publish real numbers and real units, from a genuinely usable free plan through per seat pricing at forty nine, seventy nine and a hundred and nineteen dollars a month annually, with credit allocations, sequence limits and feature gates per tier. Lusha publishes prices its own materials contradict: independent reviews within months of each other report four different free tier credit figures, an entry tier spanning roughly twenty two to seventy dollars a user a month, and three different phone reveal costs.
Which one protects my sending domain?
Apollo carries the first D on this axis in the index, publishing no warmup, no placement testing, no domain health monitoring, no rotation policy and no bounce threshold, on a platform built for high volume sequencing from the customer's own connected mailbox. Lusha grades C: a sequence product exists and its sending discipline is undocumented in everything read, which matters because the same platform supplies the list and the sending mechanism, so a buyer can move from a filtered search to a live campaign without meeting a volume or quality gate.
How does the GTM Tech Index grade Apollo.io and Lusha?
Both are graded on the same seventeen capability and compliance axes from public sources, at documented depths of sixteen and seventeen. Both take A on data privacy posture. The GTM Tech Index grades Apollo.io A on outreach compliance posture, data licensing and provenance and commercial transparency, and D on deliverability discipline. Lusha takes A on security certifications, and B on data licensing, AI safety and stewardship, recipient disclosure, ecosystem depth, residency and segment coverage. The index publishes no composite score and declares no winner.
Related comparisons
Other published head to head assessments involving these vendors or their closest peers. The full set for this category is on the Sales Engagement & Outreach page.
Both vendors have built serious compliance machinery and neither has pointed any of it at the platform its extension actually operates on. Apollo holds a tier two cloud application security assessment for restricted mail scopes, which is a formal independently assessed conformance regime with a named platform and is precisely what this axis reserves its top band for, and it takes no published position at all on the professional network its extension pulls contact data from.
Lusha's version is starker because the apparatus is larger: broker registration, standard contractual clauses, annual independent privacy audits, seven certifications and a data subject rights portal, and nothing addressing the terms of the platform its most used entry point runs alongside. The two questions are genuinely separate and at both companies only one is answered.
Neither carries the aggravating patterns that take this axis lower, with no rotation, no proxying, no credential rental and no undetectability marketing anywhere, which is why both sit mid band rather than at the floor. The shared silence is what leaving costs.
At Apollo export is a purchased commodity rather than a right: export credits are allocated per tier as a commercial unit, ten a month on the free plan, so a customer's ability to leave with the records they have already paid to reveal is rate limited by the plan they are on, and a large book of enriched contacts cannot be extracted faster than the subscription permits.
At Lusha unused credits are widely reported not to survive the billing period with no refund and no carry forward, and the richest export path, full two way synchronisation with the major systems of record, is the one gated to the custom priced tier, so the buyers with the most accumulated data have the least native way to move it. Neither publishes a post termination retention period or a deletion timeline for the customer's own workspace.