Apollo pricing for cold email starts at $49 a seat a month on the Basic plan, billed annually, and that single number hides how much of a cold outreach setup it actually buys. Domains, mailboxes and prospect data all draw from the same yearly credit pool, so the plan price alone does not tell you whether a real 10-domain, 20-mailbox cold email setup fits inside it.
This page checks every Apollo plan and credit cost against apollo.io/pricing and Apollo's own knowledge base, both opened today, then works out what a real cold email setup costs once domains and mailboxes are counted. For the wider map of what cold email software does by category, see our cold email software guide, which this page does not repeat.
What does Apollo's pricing page show for cold email?
Apollo sells four plans, priced per seat with a shared yearly credit allowance that pays for prospect data, domains and mailboxes together. Checked on apollo.io/pricing in October 2026, with annual billing selected:
| Apollo plan | Price/seat/month (annual) | Price/seat/month (monthly billing) | Credits/seat/year | Seat minimum |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | $0 | 900 | None |
| Basic | $49 | $65 | 30,000 | None |
| Professional | $79 | $99 | 48,000 | None |
| Organization | $119 | $149 (annual commitment only) | 72,000 | 3 seats |
Credits are granted upfront each year on every paid plan, not accrued monthly. Domain and mailbox purchasing, a Deliverability Suite and email warm-up are bundled in from Basic up, so the cheapest paid tier already includes the infrastructure pieces this page is pricing against a cold email setup.
Mailbox connection limits step up by plan too. Basic links up to 1 mailbox per seat. Professional opens unlimited Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 mailboxes plus up to 5 custom SMTP mailboxes per seat. Organization raises the SMTP allowance to 15 per seat.
What do Apollo domains and mailboxes cost in credits for cold email?
Domains and mailboxes bought through Apollo are not a separate subscription: they are charged out of the same credit pool that also pays for prospect data. Checked on knowledge.apollo.io in October 2026:
| Item | Credit cost |
|---|---|
| Domain registration | 1,500 credits per domain, per year |
| Apollo SMTP mailbox | 300 credits per mailbox, per month |
| Google Workspace mailbox | 800 credits per mailbox, per month |
| Microsoft 365 mailbox | 1,500 credits per mailbox, per month |
An Apollo-purchased mailbox is capped at 200 emails a day, per the same article. Apollo recommends running warm-up for a minimum of six weeks before using a new mailbox for cold outreach, confirmed on knowledge.apollo.io and on Apollo's bounce guard documentation.
One SMTP mailbox alone costs 3,600 credits a year, before a single domain is registered. Ten domains and twenty SMTP mailboxes would draw roughly 87,000 credits a year:
- 15,000 credits for the domains.
- 72,000 credits for the mailboxes.
That is well past the 30,000 credits a single Basic seat grants. It is still above the 48,000 a Professional seat grants. Building that setup through Apollo's own credit pool needs either more seats or credits bought on top, before any credits are left for prospect data.
What does Apollo's Bounce Guard do for cold email, and what is the default threshold?
Bounce Guard is Apollo's automatic sequence pause, and it is turned on by default for every team rather than something you have to configure first. Checked on knowledge.apollo.io in October 2026, Apollo evaluates a sequence's bounce rate once it has sent at least 200 emails in the past 7 days, the plan's minimum volume and time range by default.
Apollo uses a 4% warning threshold and a 6% auto-pause threshold by default, both adjustable down to 3% warning and 4% auto-pause. Crossing the auto-pause threshold stops the sequence; contacts stay enrolled while the underlying cause, usually list quality or a domain authentication problem, gets fixed. Apollo's pricing and knowledge base pages do not list a separate complaint-rate threshold alongside the bounce one.
Is Apollo a good deal for cold email at a 10-domain, 20-mailbox scale?
Apollo is a strong deal for a buyer who wants a large contact database with sequencing and infrastructure purchasing bundled into one seat price, provided their domain and mailbox volume fits the credit allowance. Where it gets expensive is scale: credits pay for prospect data and infrastructure from the same pool, so building out 10 domains and 20 mailboxes competes directly with the credits you would otherwise spend finding prospects.
A single Basic seat at $49 a month, billed annually, suits a buyer running a handful of domains and mailboxes alongside modest prospecting. A buyer who wants a full 10-domain, 20-mailbox cold outreach setup through Apollo's own infrastructure purchasing is looking at Professional or Organization instead. Extra credits get added on top, once prospecting is factored in alongside the domain and mailbox credit draw.
What are Apollo's cold email plans and prices, and what does Pipefire cost by comparison?
Pipefire, which we make, is a done-for-you cold email platform priced as one flat monthly fee rather than a seat-and-credit system. Its Standard plan, detailed on our pricing page, costs $497 a month. That single price includes 10 sending domains, 20 mailboxes, managed warm-up, prospecting, AI-drafted campaign copy, sending, and a reply inbox with AI categorization, with no credits to track or run out of.
Apollo is the better fit for a team that wants to search its own contact database and run sequences directly, with domains and mailboxes bundled into the seat price rather than sold as a separate line item. Pipefire is built for a buyer who wants the domains, mailboxes, prospecting and writing run for them as one job.
What does Pipefire include for cold email at the same price?
| What you are paying for | Pipefire⚡ Done for you | Apollo |
|---|---|---|
| Base monthly price | $497/mo, one plan | $49 to $119/seat/mo (annual), by plan |
| Sending domains | Included, 10 domains, no credits to track | Bundled from Basic up; 1,500 credits/domain/year, from the shared credit pool |
| Mailboxes | Included, 20 mailboxes, no credits to track | Bundled from Basic up; 300 to 1,500 credits/mailbox/month depending on type, from the shared credit pool |
| Warm-up | Included, automatic on every mailbox | Included from Basic up; Apollo recommends a minimum 6-week warm-up before cold outreach |
| Prospecting | Included, found fresh, never a shared database | Apollo's own contact database, searched by your team against the same credit pool |
| Campaign writing | Included, AI copy from a brief, you approve | AI Writing Assistant drafts sequence copy; not a brief-to-draft writing service |
| Bounce protection | Auto-pause at 3% bounces or 0.1% complaints | Bounce Guard, 6% auto-pause threshold by default (adjustable to 4%), after 200 sends in 7 days |
| Burned domain replacement | Automatic on Pro and Scale; manual recovery on Standard | Not listed |
| Who runs it | Pipefire's service | Your own team, inside Apollo |
Checked on apollo.io, October 2026.
A green tick means Pipefire does more on that row: no credits to buy, track or run out of, and prospects found fresh instead of searched against a shared pool. Apollo's real strength is bundling a large contact database with sequencing and infrastructure purchasing at a single seat price, a genuine advantage for a team that wants to run the whole thing themselves.
See Pipefire vs Apollo for the fuller head-to-head, and our Apollo alternatives guide for the wider field, including Instantly and Smartlead. For how Apollo's pricing compares against a dedicated sender rather than a done-for-you platform, see Apollo vs Instantly.
What does a real 10-domain, 20-mailbox cold email setup cost on Apollo?
A buyer running 10 domains and 20 mailboxes through Apollo's own infrastructure purchasing needs more credits than even a Professional seat grants, once prospecting is added. Here is the arithmetic, using October 2026 prices from apollo.io and knowledge.apollo.io.
| Line item | Annual credits | Why |
|---|---|---|
| 10 domains | 15,000 | 1,500 credits/domain/year |
| 20 SMTP mailboxes | 72,000 | 300 credits/mailbox/month, the cheapest mailbox type |
| Infrastructure subtotal | 87,000 | Before any credits spent on prospecting |
| Basic seat grants | 30,000/year | Covers about a third of the infrastructure alone |
| Professional seat grants | 48,000/year | Covers roughly 55% of the infrastructure alone |
| Organization seat grants (min 3 seats) | 72,000/seat/year | One seat alone matches the infrastructure total, with nothing left for prospecting |
Apollo figures checked on apollo.io and knowledge.apollo.io, October 2026.
Swapping SMTP mailboxes for Google Workspace mailboxes raises the mailbox line to 192,000 credits a year, at 800 credits per mailbox per month across 20 mailboxes, pushing the total infrastructure draw past 200,000 credits before prospecting.
A 10-domain, 20-mailbox Apollo setup realistically needs either Organization's 3-seat minimum, at $119 a seat a month billed annually, or extra credits bought on top of a lower plan. Prospecting still has to come from the same pool. That cost sits well above a single Basic seat's $49 headline price, which only covers one person's worth of credits.
Pipefire's Standard plan is a flat $497 a month for the same 10 domains and 20 mailboxes, with prospecting and campaign writing already included and nothing metered by credits. The two numbers are not a like-for-like comparison of one plan against another: Apollo's real cost at this scale depends on which seat count and mailbox type you choose, while Pipefire's is fixed regardless of how the infrastructure is used.
Should you pay Apollo monthly or annually for cold email?
Pay annually if you are confident in your seat count, since every Apollo plan costs noticeably less per month on annual billing. Checked on apollo.io/pricing in October 2026, Basic runs $49 a month annually versus $65 a month billed monthly. Professional runs $79 versus $99. Organization needs an annual commitment and a 3-seat minimum: $119 a seat a month billed annually, or $149 a seat a month on the monthly view.
Pay monthly while testing which plan's credit allowance actually covers your mailbox count and prospecting needs. Since credits are granted as a fixed yearly amount upfront rather than accruing monthly, switching plans mid-year to fix an undersized credit allowance is a bigger decision on Apollo than it would be on a tool billed purely by usage.
What does Apollo not include that a cold email buyer should check for?
Apollo's pricing page does not list a few things a cold email buyer running real campaigns usually wants:
- Automatic replacement of a burned sending domain.
- A published complaint-rate threshold alongside Bounce Guard's bounce-rate check.
Both are worth confirming directly with Apollo before relying on them, since neither is described on apollo.io or knowledge.apollo.io as of October 2026.
Apollo's DNS setup for a purchased domain, SPF, DKIM and DMARC, is handled automatically as part of domain registration, per knowledge.apollo.io. That is a genuine inclusion worth crediting: a buyer registering a domain through Apollo is not left to write those records by hand.
Apollo pricing cold email FAQ
How much does Apollo cost per month for cold email?
Apollo's Basic plan starts at $49 a seat a month billed annually, or $65 a month billed monthly, with 30,000 credits a seat a year. Professional costs $79 annually or $99 monthly, with 48,000 credits a seat a year. Organization costs $119 a seat a month billed annually, or $149 a seat a month on the monthly view, always on an annual commitment with a 3-seat minimum and 72,000 credits a seat a year. All figures checked on apollo.io in October 2026.
Does Apollo's price include sending domains and mailboxes for cold email?
Yes, domain and mailbox purchasing is bundled into every paid plan from Basic up. Each one is charged out of the same credit pool as prospect data: 1,500 credits per domain a year, and 300 to 1,500 credits per mailbox a month depending on type, checked on knowledge.apollo.io in October 2026. A 10-domain, 20-mailbox build draws roughly 87,000 credits a year at the cheapest mailbox tier, more than a single Basic or Professional seat grants.
Is Apollo cheaper than Pipefire for cold email?
Apollo's headline Basic price, $49 a seat a month, is cheaper than Pipefire's $497 a month Standard plan. The gap narrows once a real 10-domain, 20-mailbox setup is priced on Apollo, since the credits for that much infrastructure alone roughly match or exceed what a Professional or Organization seat grants, before any credits are left for prospecting. Pipefire's $497 covers the same domains and mailboxes, plus prospecting and writing, in one fixed price.
What is Apollo's Bounce Guard default threshold for cold email?
Apollo pauses a sequence automatically at a 6% bounce rate by default, after it has sent at least 200 emails in the past 7 days, adjustable down to a 4% auto-pause threshold. A separate 4% warning threshold, adjustable to 3%, flags a climbing bounce rate before the pause triggers, confirmed on knowledge.apollo.io in October 2026.
Can I buy just cold email domains and mailboxes on Apollo without a prospecting plan?
No. Domain and mailbox purchasing is a feature of Apollo's paid plans, from Basic up, charged against the same credit pool used for prospect data. There is no standalone Apollo product that sells only domains and mailboxes without a seat subscription.