Apollo.io vs. Customer.io

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Apollo.io
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Apollo is a sales intelligence platform with tools to help users engage with prospects. Sellers and marketers can use Apollo to discover more customers in market, connect with contacts, and establish a modern go-to-market strategy. Apollo's B2B Database includes over 220M contacts and 30M companies. Teams can leverage Apollo’s Engagement Suite to scale outbound activity and sequences effectively. Finally, Apollo's Intelligence Engine supports the user's go-to-market processes…
$59
per month
Customer.io
Score 8.6 out of 10
Small Businesses (1-50 employees)
Customer.io is a customer engagement platform that enables marketers to build sophisticated automated messaging campaigns. With access to real-time behavioral data, users can create personalized and relevant messages to engage and retain customers. This includes sending emails, push notifications, SMS, in-app messages, and more through a visual building experience. Built for scale, Customer.io boasts users among over 5,300 companies, sending over 17 billion messages per year.
$100
per month
Pricing
Apollo.ioCustomer.io
Editions & Modules
Basic
$59
per month per user
Professional
$99
per month per user
Organization
$1,188
per year per user
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Apollo.ioCustomer.io
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesYes
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalOptional
Additional Details20% discount for annual billing on the Basic and Professional plans.Essentials: For startups and small teams engaging customers on their mobile and web apps. - Up to 5,000 profiles*, Send Emails, Push, In-App, and SMS, Visual Workflow Builder, Segmentation, Two Workspaces, Email Support, Customer Community Premium: For high-growth companies looking for greater control over their messaging outcomes. - Everything in Essentials, Custom Data + Message Volume, Premium Product Features, Additional Workspaces, 90-day Onboarding Program, Premium Email & Chat Support, Managed Deliverability, Dedicated IPs, Parcel Pro Licenses, HIPAA Compliance Enterprise: For at-scale companies looking to create world-class customer experiences. - Everything in Premium, Managed Infrastructure*, Customer Success Manager, Quarterly Success Reviews, Technical Account Manager*, Audit Logging & Data Governance*, Parcel Business Licenses, Migration Support*, *Available by consultation.
More Pricing Information
Features
Apollo.ioCustomer.io
Prospecting
Comparison of Prospecting features of Product A and Product B
Apollo.io
7.7
17 Ratings
0% above category average
Customer.io
-
Ratings
Advanced search7.417 Ratings00 Ratings
Identification of new leads7.417 Ratings00 Ratings
List quality7.617 Ratings00 Ratings
List upload/download8.416 Ratings00 Ratings
Ideal customer targeting7.717 Ratings00 Ratings
Load time/data access8.017 Ratings00 Ratings
Sales Intelligence Data Standards
Comparison of Sales Intelligence Data Standards features of Product A and Product B
Apollo.io
7.3
17 Ratings
5% below category average
Customer.io
-
Ratings
Contact information7.217 Ratings00 Ratings
Company information7.617 Ratings00 Ratings
Industry information7.016 Ratings00 Ratings
Data Augmentation & Lead Qualification
Comparison of Data Augmentation & Lead Qualification features of Product A and Product B
Apollo.io
7.7
17 Ratings
4% above category average
Customer.io
-
Ratings
Lead qualification process7.914 Ratings00 Ratings
Smart lists and recommendations7.714 Ratings00 Ratings
Salesforce integration8.48 Ratings00 Ratings
Company/business profiles7.716 Ratings00 Ratings
Alerts and reminders7.114 Ratings00 Ratings
Data hygiene7.315 Ratings00 Ratings
Automatic data refresh7.415 Ratings00 Ratings
Tags7.010 Ratings00 Ratings
Filters and segmentation8.516 Ratings00 Ratings
Sales Intelligence Email Features
Comparison of Sales Intelligence Email Features features of Product A and Product B
Apollo.io
6.9
12 Ratings
7% below category average
Customer.io
-
Ratings
Sales email templates6.612 Ratings00 Ratings
Append emails to records7.111 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Apollo.ioCustomer.io
Small Businesses
Lead411
Lead411
Score 9.1 out of 10
Simplify360
Simplify360
Score 7.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Lead411
Lead411
Score 9.1 out of 10
Bright Pattern Contact Center
Bright Pattern Contact Center
Score 9.6 out of 10
Enterprises
D&B Hoovers
D&B Hoovers
Score 8.9 out of 10
Bright Pattern Contact Center
Bright Pattern Contact Center
Score 9.6 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Apollo.ioCustomer.io
Likelihood to Recommend
8.4
(36 ratings)
10.0
(9 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.7
(6 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
9.0
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Apollo.ioCustomer.io
Likelihood to Recommend
Apollo.io
For startups or companies who needs to get big amounts of data but at the same time have some insights about their prospects and leads is the best tool, it provides easy to use tools and interface that makes it simple to any user withut any level of experience, also great with data analysis for small companies.
Read full review
Customer.io
This tool is well-suited for companies looking to run email marketing campaigns or send out newsletters regularly to their users/customers. The workflow setup is especially useful for companies who want to send specific emails based on user behavior - i.e. they've not logged in recently, have bought a specific product, haven't opened any emails, etc. This could also be useful for freelancers like me since you can create different workspaces within Customer.io. I have configured it this way to handle email marketing for a few of my clients, and the software keeps everything organized and separate. This might not be the best tool for small businesses, considering the price. It may be better to start out with a cheaper email marketing tool, and then if/when necessary, scale-up with a tool like Customer.io.
Read full review
Pros
Apollo.io
  • Allows users to easily add new prospects to database without much manual effort at all
  • Allows you to make cold calls from different area codes that are relevant to where your prospect is located
  • Allows A/B testing for emails so you can figure out which ones are gaining the most traction
  • You can also find prospects based off of title, company, technologies, etc
Read full review
Customer.io
  • Managing users, attributes and events. You are easily able to modify any user, based on their ID, and add or remove attributes, assign events to them. That makes it very easy to segment later and to assign them to several campaigns based on behavior. Just a warning: this integration isn't so easy (at least it wasn't for us).
  • Creating workflows of campaigns is very easy. You can quickly create behavioral campaigns based on attributes, segments and add elements to the workflow. You can send an email, then wait, then send another, then exit the campaign if they converted, etc. The workflow is easy to configure and very powerful for automation.
  • We don't use many email templates (we make them in MJML) but it's very easy to add senders, to change templates and in general to test designs.
  • Deliverability works very well, at least for us. It sends emails pretty fast and without issues.
  • Exporting is very quick and easy. Importing wasn't a feature until recently, but it works well too.
  • Seeing activity it's also useful. In general, logs are awesome (be it of a customer, of activity on the site, email sends, etc.).
  • We don't use environments, but it might be very useful for a bigger company.
Read full review
Cons
Apollo.io
  • Their customer service is just terrible. You get an assigned account manager but 9/10 times they wouldn't know what you wanted and/or how the product works or how to fix it. Vast majority of the time it was a canned response that made you question if they read the message, or if they read it and did not understand a word.
  • The software was relatively buggy and lacked features that were promised upon signup. They seem to have some large corporate clients and if you aren't one none of your bug submissions, feature requests, or concerns will be addressed.
  • Their growing quickly so they seem to be very understaffed which I believe caused many of the issues above.
  • The data, while good, can quickly run out if you're looking for specific types of leads. If you're looking for something generic like Managers at companies between 10-5000 people, you can pull leads all day every day. However if you're looking for a specific industry, specific title, and specific location - don't count on having an endless supply of leads (or even really enough to use month after month).
Read full review
Customer.io
  • Push notifications are very rudimentary. Everything has to be done by hand unless you're sending an extremely simple message.
  • A bit too email centric.
  • Lacks an ability to schedule messages on a daily, weekly, etc. basis.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Apollo.io
Generally quite a reliable tool with decent data quality/availability. Pricing works well for our team and our use case
Read full review
Customer.io
No answers on this topic
Usability
Apollo.io
Apollo.io is very helpful for any sales team. It is a great way to create a large database of mostly accurate contacts. This has been very helpful for my sales team as we are constantly reaching out to prospects via phone and email and looking to be as strategic as possible which Apollo.io helps us with.
Read full review
Customer.io
It's user friendly and easy enough to use, but there are more polished tools available on the market
Read full review
Support Rating
Apollo.io
I received excellent support at any time I opened up a ticket. But I would add to it that the tool was very self-explanatory, so there wasn't much need for support. With Outreach, we have a closer relationship with our CSM because of the intricacy in things like SFDC task mapping.
Read full review
Customer.io
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Apollo.io
Apollo is inexpensive of all the above tools. Data accuracy of other tools like lintel and infotelligent is much much better but they are expensive also. One needs to be careful while using data from Apollo because email bounces can damage your domain reputation. I suggest you use a different SMTP server while sending mail.
Read full review
Customer.io
Customer.io was really the first pure, full-featured drip email program on the market and as far as I know, it's still the simplest and best overall for that specific function. SendGrid has also added drip campaign features, but I would seriously evaluate Customer.io against any other drip email provider because they really have all the key elements you need to make it work.
Read full review
Return on Investment
Apollo.io
  • Generated a lot of expectations that were not real when we needed them
  • The ROI was positive but we decided to stop using the tool
  • We loved how easy to use it was and how easy it was to interact with the Support team
  • There is room for improvement in the video tutorials - they were from old versions of the software that would not be useful for the version at hand
Read full review
Customer.io
  • Fast testing for new products to specific groups. It saves a lot of time and money.
  • Removed workload from marketing = more time to make it better.
  • Better contact with specific groups, seeing a increase in sales because of this.
Read full review
ScreenShots

Apollo.io Screenshots

Screenshot of Find every prospect. Uncover high-intent contacts in your market.Screenshot of Connect with every contact. Orchestrate multi-step sequences at scale.Screenshot of Optimize your sales strategy. Unlock efficiencies and opportunities across your entire workflow.Screenshot of Apollo B2B Lead Database - Access data on more than 250M people and companies.Screenshot of Apollo Engagement Suite - Automate personalized messages across your entire pipeline.Screenshot of Apollo Intelligence Engine - Improve your revenue strategy across your workflow and boost efficiencies.

Customer.io Screenshots

Screenshot of data-driven or manual segments that can be created in the no-code builder for recipient lists, campaign triggers, filters, and conversion goals.Screenshot of the code editor for email, that helps navigate code and iterate.Screenshot of account performance, visible at a glance from the Dashboard view.Screenshot of drag and drop messages, time delays, and branches where desired, to build cross-channel campaigns.Screenshot of triggered campaigns based on forms submissions, customer attributes, customer actions, and dates.Screenshot of localization for global audiences. One message can be delivered in multiple languages.