SalesQL alternatives: Apollo, Lusha and RocketReach compared
Price and results first: what each one costs per email next to SalesQL, and what came back when we ran the same 40 people through SalesQL, Apollo and Lusha.
We make SalesQL, and we ran the test ourselves. Every fact links to a public source and a date, and we say where each alternative is the better pick. How we compared
Results
The same 40 people in SalesQL, Apollo and Lusha: what came back
40 professionals from the US, Europe, Latin America and India, picked from public web pages (company team pages, appointment news, event speaker lists), not from LinkedIn or our database. Each tool got the same name, company and domain.
Found a personal email
Gmail, Outlook and other webmail
SalesQL found nearly three times as many as Apollo. Lusha found none. By its own policy, Apollo doesn't return personal emails for contacts in the EU, the UK and Switzerland, and 10 of the 40 people were in Europe.
Found a work email
On the current company's domain
Apollo found a few more. The gap is within the margin of a 40-person test.
Found the person
Any record of them
5 of Apollo's 34 were records it built during the lookup.
Test run on Nov 13, 2026. Apollo and Lusha ran on their free plans; SalesQL ran on our own account. With 40 people the margin is about ±15 points, so we only call out large gaps. Lusha's free account held back 6 US contacts for compliance reasons. Not in this test: RocketReach.
Price
What 1,000 emails cost
At list price, over each vendor's paid plans, billed monthly or yearly.
Side by side
SalesQL and 3 alternatives side by side
1 credit each
1 credit, per seat
1 credit
1 lookup; yearly plans per export
1 credit; few direct numbers
1 + 8 credits
1 + 5 credits
Pro and Ultimate only
6 US contacts held back
2,000 credits a month
Per seat · 2,500 credits a month
400 credits a month
100 lookups a month, email only
Sources: each vendor's English pricing page, in US dollars, checked Nov 12, 2026; results from our test of Nov 13, 2026.
No single winner
Pick another tool if…
Apollo
1.6× per emailYou mostly need work emails: in our test Apollo found a few more (26 vs 23 of 40), within the margin. It also has email sequences and a dialer add-on in the same tool.
Lusha
7× per emailYou want phone numbers on a free plan: Lusha's free plan includes them, at 5 credits each. Unused monthly credits roll over on Pro and Premium.
RocketReach
12× per emailYou need the API on the cheapest plan, or phone numbers: RocketReach includes the API from Essentials and phones from Pro up.
SalesQL vs RocketReach
Stay with SalesQL if…
- You want personal emails: in our test SalesQL found one for 17 of 40 people, nearly three times as many as Apollo.
- You want the lowest price per email: $7–20 per 1,000.
Where SalesQL falls short
Limits on our pricing page, and what SalesQL users mention in public reviews.
No phone numbers on Free
The Free plan has 50 credits a month, without phone numbers or exports.
The API starts on Professional
Basic ($39/month) doesn't include the REST API; Professional ($79/month) does.
Few direct phone numbers
Phone numbers are our weak spot: few profiles come with a direct number.
Our test ·
One seat on Basic
Teams need Professional (3 seats) or Premium (5 seats).
Some emails are outdated
The complaint we see most in reviews: an address that worked once and no longer does.
About 15 reviews on Capterra and G2 · Mar – Oct 2026 · Capterra reviews read in June 2026
Read the reviewsA lighter toolset for bulk work
List building, bulk enrichment and CRM sync are simpler than in sales suites that bundle more tools.
4 reviews on G2 and Capterra · Jan – Jun 2026
How we compared
We make SalesQL, and we ran the test ourselves, so read this as a vendor's comparison.
Price. Prices and credits come from each vendor's public pricing page in English, in US dollars before tax, on the date shown. Price per email = plan price ÷ credits in the plan × credits for one email, over each vendor's paid plans. Some plans are sold as “unlimited” under a fair-use policy the vendor sets; we don't count that as an allowance and divide by the exports the plan allows, unless the vendor's terms state a monthly credit limit, which we use instead. The multiplier compares the average of a vendor's plans with the average of ours, monthly with monthly and yearly with yearly, and shows the lower of the two, rounded down.
Email + phone per 1,000 contacts adds the credits for one phone number, on the plans that include phones.
Our test (Nov 13, 2026). 40 professionals, 10 per region, from public company team pages, appointment news and event speaker lists. Each tool got the same name, company and domain. When the first lookup found no one, we also searched SalesQL and Lusha by name and enriched the person found; in Apollo we ran one match per person. We sorted the emails ourselves, not by each tool's label: a work email is on the person's current company domain; a personal email is a webmail address such as Gmail or Outlook. We counted emails found, not whether they deliver. 5 of Apollo's records were built during the lookup, with a pattern-based email; we counted them as found. The margin is about ±15 points.
Reviews. Complaints come from public reviews, linked with their dates. The examples leave out reviews that quote prices or credits.
What we didn't test. Accuracy, for any tool, ours included. Not in our test: RocketReach.
Sources.
Something out of date? Write to support@salesql.com and we'll fix it and say what changed.
Try it on your own list
Run the same LinkedIn profiles through SalesQL and the tool you use today, and compare what comes back.