The Apollo alternative for people who just want the data
CrustAPI is a different kind of Apollo alternative: a raw public data API you build people and business lists with, billed only when a query returns results. It is cheaper for that one job and wrong for some others. This page covers both sides.
What Apollo is, and where it fits
Apollo.io earned its size. You get a big pre-built B2B contact database and the outreach layer in the same product: email sequences, a dialer, enrichment, and deal tracking behind one login. The free plan is real, and it is enough to test the whole workflow before you pay. For a sales team that wants to find a contact and have an email in their inbox the same hour, that bundle is the whole point. Those are real strengths and we are not going to pretend otherwise.
The catch is the shape of the plan. Apollo is priced per seat, and what you can pull is metered by the credit allowance on your plan. That model fits a team that lives inside the platform all day. For a founder, a recruiter, an agency, or one growth engineer who just needs fresh lists flowing into their own stack, you end up paying for sequences and a dialer you never open. That is usually where the search for an alternative begins.
A platform you sit in vs an API you build with
CrustAPI sells raw public data by the query. You send a request, we return clean JSON, and the list you build is yours to keep. There is no seat, no platform, and no database subscription. You are only charged when a query returns results; failed or empty queries cost nothing.
Two data sources do the Apollo-style work. LinkedIn public people data covers the humans: people search, profiles, companies, jobs, and posts, with verified emails on people results. Google Maps business records cover the accounts: every local business matching a search, with name, address, phone, website, rating, review count, categories, and hours. Around those two sit 12 live Google search types, including web search, news, shopping, and reviews.
The trade-off is real: there are no sequences, no dialer, and no CRM here. You write the queries and bring your own outreach tool, or wire the data into Clay or n8n. What you get instead is data pulled fresh at query time, per-result pricing, and no lock-in.
People data with verified emails
The contact-record job, the one you actually pay Apollo for, runs through the LinkedIn public endpoints. Search people by keywords, pull full public profiles, companies, jobs, and posts. People results come with verified emails, so the row you export is one you can write to.
Add enrich=true to get the full public profile for every match in one call. The full parameter set lives in the docs, and you can run every endpoint from the playground without writing code. For the whole LinkedIn surface, see the LinkedIn scraper API page.
One request, real response
This is the account-list side. One maps query returns the businesses that match, billed 1 credit per business returned. This exact request came back in about a second.
Here is the CSV view first, one row per business, then the same records as JSON below.
Notice what is missing: an email. Maps records carry name, address, phone, website, rating, reviews, categories, and hours. They do not carry email addresses, and any page telling you Google Maps returns emails is selling something. The emails come from the people side, above. A common flow: maps for the account list, then people search for the decision makers at each one.
Apollo vs CrustAPI, plainly
These are different animals, so the fair comparison is by job: whether you pay for an all-in-one sales platform or for the data itself.
| Apollo | CrustAPI | |
|---|---|---|
| What you buy | A sales platform: pre-built contact database plus sequences, a dialer, and deal tracking | An API that pulls fresh public data on demand |
| Pricing model | Per-seat plans with credit allowances | Prepaid credits: $49 for 25k queries, up to $1,999 for 2.5M |
| Credits | Metered by your plan tier | Never expire; only charged when a query returns results |
| Seats | Licensed per seat | No seats. One key, use it anywhere |
| Free tier | Yes, a real free plan | 3,000 queries a month, no card |
| Emails | Contact records from its database | Verified emails on LinkedIn people results |
| Data freshness | Pre-built database, refreshed on their schedule | Pulled live from public pages at query time |
| Outreach | Built in: sequences, dialer | None. Bring your own sending tool |
| Local business data | Company records | Full Google Maps records: phone, website, rating, reviews, hours |
| Integrations | Native CRM integrations | MCP, n8n, LangChain, CrewAI, Clay, plain JSON everywhere else |
| Support | A support org | One person. Email Dawson at support@crustapi.com |
The Apollo column describes their public product and pricing model in general terms as of July 2026. We put their strengths in the table on purpose. Check their site for current specifics.
When Apollo is the better pick: you want one tool that finds the contact and sends the email, your SDR team shares sequences and a dialer all day, or you would rather browse a database with filters than write queries. And if the free plan already covers your volume, staying put costs you nothing. If that is your shape, Apollo is good at that job and an API will feel like extra work.
Pay for results, keep the rest
No seat, no plan tier, no renewal date. Prepaid packs: 25k for $49 · 100k for $149 · 500k for $549 · 2.5M for $1,999, self-serve, ex-tax. One credit is one successful result. A query that returns nothing costs nothing, and credits never expire, so a paused project keeps what you bought. The free tier resets to 3,000 queries every month with no card.
Related: LinkedIn people search API · Google Maps scraper API · Proxycurl alternative · Google Reviews API
Common questions
Clay
Run one real query first
3,000 free queries covers a real test: search the people you would actually contact, pull a business list for your market, and look at the JSON before you spend a dollar.
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