The Apollo alternative for people who just want the data
A raw public data API for lists, billed only when it returns results.
What is Apollo good at?
Apollo.io earned its size. It bundles a big pre-built B2B contact database with email sequences, a dialer, enrichment, and deal tracking behind one login, and the free plan is real.
The catch is the plan shape: per-seat pricing, with pulls metered by your tier's credit allowance. A founder, recruiter, agency, or growth engineer who just needs fresh lists ends up paying for sequences and a dialer they never open.
How is CrustAPI different?
CrustAPI sells raw public data by the query: you send a request, we return clean JSON, and the list is yours to keep. No seat, no platform, and a query that returns nothing costs nothing.
Two data sources do the Apollo-style work. LinkedIn public people data covers the humans: people search (beta), profiles, companies, jobs, and posts, with verified emails on people results. Google Maps business records cover the accounts: 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: no sequences, no dialer, no CRM. You bring your own outreach tool or wire the data into Clay or n8n, and you get data pulled fresh at query time with per-result pricing.
People data with verified emails
The contact-record job runs through the LinkedIn public endpoints: people search (beta), 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 the Maps rate 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 never carry email addresses, and any page telling you they do is selling something. A common flow: maps for the account list, then people search (beta) for the decision makers at each one.
Apollo vs CrustAPI
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 | Google Search costs $1.00 per 1,000 successful requests at standard prices, down to $0.20 for the largest deposit. Empty and failed searches are free. Every eligible account gets $6 of free usage monthly. Paid funds never expire. |
| Deposit | 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 | $6 of free usage each month |
| 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. If that is your shape, Apollo is good at that job and an API will feel like extra work.
How much does CrustAPI cost?
Pay only for results at the applicable endpoint rate. Google Search bills per successful request and Maps per business returned. LinkedIn reads bill per successful request, People and Jobs per successful search, Refresh per accessible profile, and enriched People per full profile. Empty and failed requests are free. The pricing page lists every rate.
| Deposit | Google Search / 1,000 requests | Maps / 1,000 businesses | LinkedIn reads / 1,000 requests | People, Jobs, Refresh / 1,000 units |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $10+ | $1.00 | $1.96 | $6.00 | $1.96 |
| $149+ | $0.76 | $1.49 | $4.50 | $1.49 |
| $549+ | $0.56 | $1.10 | $3.30 | $1.10 |
| $1,999+ | $0.41 | $0.80 | $2.45 | $0.80 |
| $6,500+ | $0.33 | $0.65 | $1.95 | $0.65 |
| $27,500+ | $0.28 | $0.55 | $1.65 | $0.55 |
| $50,000+ | $0.26 | $0.50 | $1.50 | $0.50 |
| $100,000+ | $0.20 | $0.40 | $1.50 | $0.40 |
Every eligible account gets $6 of free usage monthly. Each deposit keeps its prices until spent; paid funds never expire. People and Jobs bill per successful search, Refresh per accessible profile. Full profiles in People use the read rate per full profile. See all billing details.
Larger deposits unlock lower endpoint prices. Each deposit keeps its prices until spent. See the full deposit table on the pricing page. Prices in USD, ex-tax.
Paid funds never expire, so a paused project keeps what you bought. All self-serve, no sales call.
How do you get started?
From zero to your first list in about two minutes:
- 1
Create a free account. Try it free, no card needed.
- 2
Run a search in the playground. A Maps search for your market, or a people search (beta) for your buyers.
- 3
Export the CSV, or copy your key and run the curl above. Same data, JSON or CSV.
Who switches from Apollo?
- Founders. Build the first prospect list without paying for seats and a dialer nobody opens.
- Recruiters. Pull public people data with verified emails and keep every row you export.
- Agencies. Fresh lists per client, billed per result, with no per-seat license to split.
- Growth engineers. Wire live people and business data straight into Clay, n8n, or your own stack.
Related: LinkedIn people search API · Google Maps scraper API · Proxycurl alternative · Google Reviews API
Common questions
No, and we would rather say so up front. Apollo bundles a contact database with sequences, a dialer, and deal tracking. CrustAPI is a raw public data API. If your team lives in Apollo's outreach tools, we will not replace that. If you mainly pay Apollo to build lists of people and companies, an API plus your own workflow does that job for less.
From the LinkedIn people endpoints. People results come with verified emails. Google Maps business records do not include emails (they carry name, address, phone, website, rating, reviews, categories, and hours), and we will not pretend otherwise. The usual flow is maps for the account list, then people search (beta) for the humans and their emails.
Google Search starts at $1.00 per 1,000 successful requests, Maps at $1.96 per 1,000 businesses, LinkedIn reads at $6.00 per 1,000 successful requests, and People, Jobs and Refresh at $1.96 per 1,000 billing units. Full profiles in People use the LinkedIn read rate per full profile. Each deposit saves its own prices until spent. Every eligible account gets $6 of free usage monthly; paid funds never expire.
No. There are no sequences and no sending here. CrustAPI returns data as plain JSON, and you plug it into whatever sends for you: your outreach tool, Clay, n8n, or a CRM. If you want finding and sending in one product, that is Apollo's job, and it does it well.
12 Google search types (web, maps, places, news, shopping, images, videos, scholar, patents, autocomplete, webpage, reviews) plus the LinkedIn public endpoints: people search (beta), profiles, companies, jobs, and posts. Everything returns plain JSON and works with MCP, n8n, LangChain, CrewAI, and Clay.
One person. I'm Dawson, I build and run the whole thing, and support@crustapi.com lands in my inbox. That is a real trade-off next to a company Apollo's size, and you should weigh it. The upside is that the person answering your email is the person who wrote the code.
Clay
Run one real query first
The free plan 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.
Try for free