Apollo vs Salesforce
Which one do AI engines recommend, and how do they differ on price, fit and features?
The short answer
Apollo is the stronger AI pick in Sales Engagement: it has a visibility score of 51 versus 47.2 for Salesforce, and ranks ahead in 62% of the answers that name both.
Choose Apollo if…
- You want the brand AI engines rank higher (51 vs 47.2)
- AI answers describe it more positively (60% vs 21% positive)
- You need GDPR or CCPA or ISO/IEC 27001 or CASA Tier 2 or CPRA or EU-US DPF or PCI DSS coverage
- Large B2B contact database combined with prospecting and email sequencing
Choose Salesforce if…
- You need ISO 27001:2022 or ISO 27017 or ISO 27018 or SOC 1 or SOC 3 or HITRUST coverage
- You prefer a larger, established vendor (5,000+ employees)
- Powerful reporting, automation and customisation
- Market leader and gold standard CRM
AI visibility side by side
Latest weekly run · Nov 3
| Metric | Apollo | Salesforce |
|---|---|---|
| Visibility score | 51% | 47.2% |
| Change vs last week | down−2.8% | up+2.5% |
| Rank in Sales Engagement | #4 | #5 |
| Share of voice | 9.4% | 10.1% |
| Mentions this run | 59 | 62 |
| Positive in AI answers | 60% | 21% |
The stronger value in each row is marked with a ✓.
Visibility score trend
Weekly runs over the last 60 days
Apollo −2.799999999999997pp · Salesforce +2.6000000000000014pp over 1 weekly runs.
Engine by engine
Apollo leads on 1 of 3 engines
Head to head in AI answers
45 engine answers name both brands
Features, pricing & fit
| Dimension | Apollo | Salesforce |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Per seat | — |
| Entry price | Contact sales | — |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Deployment | Cloud platform | Cloud (SaaS) |
| Integrations | 200+ | — |
| Compliance | GDPR, SOC 2, CCPA, ISO/IEC 27001, CASA Tier 2, CPRA, EU-US DPF, PCI DSS | ISO 27001:2022, ISO 27017, ISO 27018, SOC 1, SOC 2, SOC 3, HITRUST |
| Support | Email support at support@apollo.io, Dedicated support on Custom plans, Sales team for Custom plan discussions | Phone, Trailblazer Community, Success Plans, Trailhead training |
| Founded | 2015 | 1999 |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, CA | San Francisco, California |
| Employees | 501–1,000 | 5,000+ |
| Funding | Series D · $250M raised | — |
| Best for | Sales and go-to-market teams that run prospecting, outreach and dialing and want data, AI and execution in one system | Businesses from small companies to large enterprises wanting sales, service, marketing and commerce on one CRM platform |
Plans side by side
Salesforce
Pricing not available.
Pros and cons
Themes from the AI answers that mention each brand
Apollo
- Large B2B contact database combined with prospecting and email sequencing
- Transparent self-serve per-user pricing with a free tier
- Strong all-in-one value for prospecting and outreach
- Affordable, reliable choice for small teams and startups
- Widely used and highly rated by reviewers
Salesforce
- Powerful reporting, automation and customisation
- Market leader and gold standard CRM
- Deep ecosystem and strong CRM integrations
- Built for large enterprises and scaling
- Free trial to test its features
- Requires a dedicated administrator to manage
- High enterprise pricing
- Heavy, slow implementation that suits large budgets
Data collected ·ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode·coverage 98.8%·next run
Cite as: SlateIndex, “Apollo vs Salesforce”, https://slateindex.ai/compare/apollo-vs-salesforce, data of Nov 3, 2026. Licence: CC BY 4.0.