The short version
Yes, Apollo.io has an MCP server, and it is the most action-heavy one in sales data. It runs at mcp.apollo.io/mcp, signs in with OAuth, and works in Claude, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Cursor, Claude Code and other MCP clients. From a chat it can search people, enrich them, create contacts and add them to sequences. Apollo says any plan qualifies, including free, at no extra cost; enrichment spends your normal Apollo credits. This review is about Apollo.io, the sales platform, and not Apollo GraphQL's MCP server for APIs. We make Cleanlist, which also ships an MCP server, so read this as a vendor's review.
Facts checked October 1, 2026. Every Apollo fact below comes from Apollo's own developer docs (last updated September 29, 2026), its MCP product page, its Claude announcement and its pricing page, each read on October 1, 2026. We did not run a prospecting project through Apollo's MCP for this review, so there are no accuracy numbers here.
Does Apollo have an MCP?
Apollo.io has an official, hosted MCP server. Apollo's docs give the endpoint as https://mcp.apollo.io/mcp over Streamable HTTP, with browser-based OAuth for people and an X-Api-Key header for headless setups. Apollo announced a beta connector for Claude on February 24, 2026, and has since listed built-in apps for ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Replit and Cursor. Its docs also cover Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, VS Code with GitHub Copilot, Claude Desktop and any other MCP-compatible client.
Two names collide on this search. Apollo GraphQL, a different company, publishes an open-source "Apollo MCP Server" that turns GraphQL operations into MCP tools for developers. It has nothing to do with sales data. If you want leads, contacts and sequences, you want Apollo.io's server, which is the one this page reviews.
What can the Apollo MCP server do?
Apollo's MCP server covers almost the whole Apollo app, which is what sets it apart from data-only servers. Apollo's docs group the tools like this:
- Search: people, companies, contacts, deals, lists, sequences, email campaigns, conversations, tasks and custom objects.
- Enrichment: people enrichment and company enrichment, single and bulk, plus company job postings.
- Records: create, update and bulk create contacts and accounts; create deals and custom objects; add or remove records from lists; manage labels.
- Outreach: create or update a sequence, add or remove contacts from sequences, send one-off emails, list your email accounts.
- Work management: create, complete or skip tasks; read conversation insights, transcripts and recording links; query analytics; track website visitors.
- Admin: browse or buy sending domains and mailboxes, check SPF, DKIM and DMARC, read API usage and credit stats.
Apollo's product page sums it up as searching a database it puts at 240M+ contacts and 30M+ companies, enriching with verified emails and phone numbers, and enrolling prospects in sequences from the chat.
How do you connect Apollo to Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor?
Apollo connects through each AI client's own connector or app store, then an OAuth sign-in in the browser. There is nothing to install locally. In Claude you add the Apollo connector, sign in with your Apollo account, and Claude can call the tools in any chat. In Cursor, Claude Code or VS Code you add https://mcp.apollo.io/mcp as a remote MCP server and complete the same sign-in.
Two setup rules are easy to miss. First, Apollo "prohibits AI model training with Apollo MCP integrations" and asks you to confirm model training is off in your AI client before connecting. Second, the headless API-key path needs a master API key; Apollo's docs say scoped keys are rejected with 403 API_INACCESSIBLE. A master key reaches every tool Apollo ships, so treat it like an admin password.
Is Apollo AI free?
Apollo's MCP connection itself is free on every plan. Apollo's product page says "Any Apollo plan qualifies, including free," with no separate MCP subscription. Apollo's February announcement described the Claude connector as available on all paid plans; the current product page and docs are wider than that.
There is a catch for free users. Apollo's docs say free accounts "registered with a personal email address can't use people or company search and enrichment actions." Sign up with a work email if you want to prospect from a chat. Apollo's free plan carries a small credit allowance (our Apollo pricing guide covers the numbers), so it works as a trial of the workflow more than a production setup. Paid plans start at $49 a user a month for Basic and $79 for Professional on annual billing, as recorded in our pricing ledger on September 1, 2026; the pricing page renders its figures in the browser and served none to us on October 1.
What does a prospecting session cost on Apollo MCP?
Apollo MCP costs the same credits as the Apollo app, and most actions cost nothing. Apollo's docs list the credit-consuming actions as company search, company enrichment, company job postings, people enrichment and conversation insights. People search, contact and list management, sequences, tasks and analytics are free to call.
Apollo's docs do not print a per-tool credit table for the MCP server. Apollo's pricing page lists 1 credit to reveal an email and 8 credits for a phone number, and 2 credits a record for bulk enrichment of a list you bring (captured August 7 and September 1, 2026). At those app rates, a session that finds 25 people, enriches all 25 with an email and adds them to a sequence costs about 25 to 50 credits. Ask for mobile numbers too and the same 25 people cost about 200 credits more. People search returns names and titles without full contact details, so enrichment is where the credits go.
What are the limits of Apollo's MCP server?
Apollo's MCP server inherits every limit of your Apollo account, and its docs name a few of their own:
- One database. Every record comes from Apollo's own data. There is no waterfall across other providers, so a contact Apollo lacks or has stale stays missing.
- Phones are expensive in credits. At 8 credits a number, a dial-led team spends its allowance eight times faster than an email-led one.
- No destructive bulk actions. Bulk delete is not supported, which is sensible for an AI client.
- Paginated search. Large result sets come back in pages, so big list builds take several calls.
- Tool availability varies by plan, workspace, client and rollout status, per Apollo's docs.
- No published rate limit for the MCP server on the pages we read.
The write access is a strength and a risk. The same chat that can enrich a contact can add it to a live sequence or send a one-off email, so decide who on the team gets OAuth access before you connect it.
Who is the Apollo MCP server good for?
Apollo's MCP server is the best pick for a small sales team that already sends from Apollo and wants one chat to go from "find me 30 VPs of Finance at Series B fintechs" to an enrolled sequence. No other server in this category covers search, enrichment, CRM records, tasks and sequences in one place. It also suits founders testing AI-driven outbound, because the MCP connection costs nothing extra on any Apollo plan.
It fits less well if you mainly need phone numbers, if your bottleneck is data coverage beyond a single database, or if you run your sequences in another tool. In those cases you pay for an execution layer you will not use.
How does Apollo MCP compare to ZoomInfo, Clay and Cleanlist MCP?
The four servers below are the ones B2B buyers ask about most. Facts come from each vendor's own docs, read October 1, 2026.
| MCP server | Endpoint | Writes back | Search cost | Enrichment cost | Plan needed | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apollo.io | mcp.apollo.io/mcp | Contacts, accounts, deals, sequences, tasks, emails | Free for people; company search uses credits | Apollo credits (app rates: 1 per email, 8 per phone) | Any plan, including free (work email needed to search) | Teams that sequence from Apollo |
| ZoomInfo | mcp.zoominfo.com/mcp | Read-only data; audiences and GTM context only | Free | 1 data credit per new record, up to 10 per call | Free signup (1,000 data credits, once) or a subscription with bulk data credits | Enterprise research, intent and signals |
| Clay | api.clay.com/v3/mcp | Through Functions your ops team builds | Free | 20 to 100 credits per interaction (Clay's estimate) | Any Clay plan; admin controls on paid plans | RevOps-governed custom workflows |
| Cleanlist (ours) | mcp.cleanlist.ai/v1/mcp | Lead lists and export | Free | 1 credit per verified work email, 10 per direct dial | Starter ($79 a month) and up | Verified emails and direct dials from a 25+ provider waterfall |
For the full field, including CRM and sequencer servers, see our list of the best MCP servers for sales and GTM. Our ZoomInfo MCP server review and Clay MCP server review cover the other two in the same depth.
Where does Cleanlist's MCP server fit next to Apollo?
Cleanlist publishes this page, so treat this section as a disclosed vendor entry. Cleanlist runs a remote MCP server at mcp.cleanlist.ai/v1/mcp with 30+ tools for people and company search, enrichment (verified work email and direct dial), lead lists and export, with names such as search_people, enrich_list and estimate_cost. Search is free. A verified work email costs 1 credit and a direct dial 10, the same as in the app, and each lookup runs a waterfall across 25+ data providers, so a miss costs nothing. Our own 500-lead benchmark measured 98% verified work email and 85% direct dial.
MCP is included from Starter at $79 a month; the 14-day trial and the Free plan do not include it. Today you add Cleanlist in Claude as a custom connector and paste the OAuth client ID Cleanlist gives you into the connector's advanced settings, because Cleanlist is not yet listed in the Claude or ChatGPT directories. There is no built-in sequencer today, so Cleanlist cannot enroll anyone in a sequence from the chat.
Pick Apollo if you want search, enrichment and sequencing in one chat and you already send from Apollo. Pick Cleanlist if the job is the list itself: verified emails and direct dials per row, paid per result, exported to the sequencer you already use. The Cleanlist MCP product page shows the setup, and our plans are on the pricing page.
Frequently asked questions
Is Apollo the same as Apollo GraphQL?
No. Apollo.io is a sales intelligence and engagement platform. Apollo GraphQL is a separate company that makes GraphQL developer tools, and its "Apollo MCP Server" exposes GraphQL APIs to AI agents. Both rank for "apollo mcp."
Is Apollo a CRM system?
Apollo.io is a prospecting and sales engagement platform with CRM-style features: contacts, accounts, deals, tasks and pipeline tracking. Its MCP server can create deals and update records, and many teams still sync it to HubSpot or Salesforce as the system of record.
Does Apollo MCP return phone numbers?
Yes. Apollo's product page says the MCP server enriches contacts with verified emails and phone numbers. Phones use Apollo credits at the plan's phone rate.
Can the Apollo MCP server send emails?
Yes. Apollo's docs list tools to create sequences, add contacts to sequences and send one-off emails. This is the main difference from data-only MCP servers.
Sources
- Apollo.io, Apollo MCP developer docs, page updated September 29, 2026, read October 1, 2026
- Apollo.io, Apollo MCP product page, read October 1, 2026
- Apollo.io, Apollo Now Powers Outbound Execution in Claude, read October 1, 2026
- Apollo.io, Apollo Delivers GTM Outbound Execution to Claude, announced February 24, 2026
- Apollo.io, Pricing, credit ladder captured August 7 and September 1, 2026; plan names re-read October 1, 2026
- ZoomInfo, ZoomInfo MCP docs, read October 1, 2026
- Clay, MCP in Clay, read October 1, 2026
- Clay and Apollo.io, OAuth protected-resource metadata naming
api.clay.com/v3/mcpandmcp.apollo.io/mcp, requested October 1, 2026
Run your own contacts through Cleanlist
Take the contacts you would hand any other vendor, run them through the multi-provider waterfall, and compare the match rates yourself. 250 credits, 3 seats, 14 days.
250 credits, 3 seats, 14 days.