Cleanlist vs Apollo.io

On the Cleanlist AI 500-Lead Enrichment Benchmark, 2026, Cleanlist AI returned a verified work email for 98% of a stratified 500-lead sample and a phone number for 85% of the same list. Every address is checked for syntax, then against DNS and MX, then over SMTP, and a catch-all or risky address is flagged rather than passed through as clean. Apollo publishes a 98% email accuracy rate for its seven-step verification on its data page, and its help center gives an 84% match rate with more than 90% accuracy for verified emails (apollo.io, read October 3, 2026).

Yes. Cleanlist AI Sequences come with every paid plan: email from your own Gmail or Outlook, and call tasks with an agent-written script. Sending costs no credits. Cleanlist AI has no built-in dialer; Apollo's starts on the Basic plan. If your team already runs Salesloft or Lemlist, Cleanlist AI pushes the enriched list there instead.

Per seat, yes. Cleanlist AI Starter is $49 a seat a month ($37 billed annually) and Pro is $89 ($67). Apollo is $65, $99 and $149 a seat on monthly billing, or $49, $79 and $119 billed annually, and Organization needs 3 seats on annual billing (apollo.io/pricing, read October 3, 2026). Apollo includes more credits a seat, 2,500 a month on Basic, at 1 credit an email and 8 a phone number, and its unused credits expire at the end of each cycle. Each Cleanlist AI Starter seat adds 750 credits to one shared balance that rolls over, at 1 credit a verified work email and 10 a phone number, and a lookup that finds nothing costs nothing.

Yes. Export your contacts from Apollo as a CSV and import them into Cleanlist AI for re-verification and enrichment. Rebuild your best sequence in Cleanlist AI Sequences, then tell Clu who you sell to and let an agent refill it every week. Some teams run Cleanlist AI alongside Apollo first and compare coverage on the same rows.

Waterfall enrichment sends each contact through several data providers in turn until one returns a verified result. Apollo added Waterfall Enrichment on its Basic plan and up: it fills each record with Apollo's own data first, then lets 20+ partners fill the rest (apollo.io, read October 3, 2026). Cleanlist AI runs every lookup through 25+ providers on every plan, Free included. On the Cleanlist AI 500-Lead Enrichment Benchmark, 2026, it returned a verified email for 98% of leads and a phone number for 85%.

Yes. Cleanlist AI ships a Chrome extension, rated 4.7 from 13 reviews on the Chrome Web Store. It opens as a side panel on any website. On a LinkedIn profile page it uses the profile URL as an identifier and asks Cleanlist AI's contracted data providers for that person's contact details, then drops the result into a Cleanlist AI lead list, where the waterfall enriches and verifies it. For a whole list, skip the browser and upload a CSV of leads you already hold, a CRM segment or a saved search.

Apollo lists Agents on its Professional and Organization plans, and an AI Assistant on paid plans that is free during an introductory offer (apollo.io/pricing, read October 3, 2026). In Cleanlist AI, Clu builds agents from one sentence on Pro at $89 a seat. Each agent runs on a schedule or a CRM trigger, searches, enriches, verifies, adds people to a sequence and posts the run to Slack.

When you want a built-in dialer (from the Basic plan), the most credits per seat (2,500 a month on Basic), buying intent topics, or an all-in-one tool your SDRs already know. Apollo's free plan also includes 2 sequences per team and its MCP server (apollo.io/pricing, read October 3, 2026).