Intentsly vs Apollo: Database and Sequences or AI SDR?

Intentsly vs Apollo is a choice between a platform and a specialist. Apollo is a B2B contact database with multi-channel sequences, a dialer, a Chrome extension and company-level buying intent, built for teams that run email outbound at volume. Intentsly watches LinkedIn for the people engaging with competitor and industry posts right now, scores them against your ideal customer profile, and its AI SDR sends the messages, answers the replies and books the meeting. Pick Apollo for the email machine; pick Intentsly for the LinkedIn conversation.

Everything about Apollo below comes from apollo.io and knowledge.apollo.io, opened on 28 October 2026, with a link on each claim. Everything about Intentsly comes from what the product does today, limits included. If you are weighing Apollo's intent topics against LinkedIn engagement and want the terms first, what intent data is and where it comes from explains the difference between company-level and person-level signals; this page compares the two products in depth.

Intentsly vs Apollo at a glance

Three rows decide most purchases here: where the leads come from, the LinkedIn steps row and the reply row. The next two sections take them in turn, starting with the jobs Apollo does and Intentsly does not.

Where is Apollo the better choice?

Apollo does a long list of things Intentsly does not attempt. If any of these is why you are shopping, Intentsly is the wrong pick.

You need a database to search. Apollo's core job is finding contacts by filter and revealing their email or phone, in the app or from a LinkedIn profile through its Chrome extension (Chrome extension on LinkedIn). Intentsly has no searchable database. It finds people from what they do on LinkedIn, so if nobody in your market is engaging this week, Intentsly shows you nobody.

Email is your main channel. Apollo sequences send automated emails, schedule manual ones, A/B test subject lines and ship with a "built-in deliverability suite" (sequences overview, sales engagement page). Intentsly's AI SDR sends LinkedIn messages and connection requests only. It does not send email at all.

You call. Apollo has a dialer in the same sequence as the emails, with calls logged to the CRM (sales engagement page). Intentsly has no calling.

You want company-level intent across thousands of topics. Apollo's buying intent draws on Bombora and LeadSift, with over 14,000 and over 1,600 topics respectively, scored per company and refreshed weekly (buying intent overview). That is the right tool for an account-based team that wants to know which companies are researching a category. Intentsly watches a fixed set of LinkedIn behaviours and tells you which people showed up, which is a narrower question.

Your CRM is Salesforce, or you need an API. Apollo's pricing page lists Salesforce, HubSpot, Outreach, SalesLoft, Marketo and Sendgrid, with API access on Custom plans, and its HubSpot CRM sync is bi-directional (pricing page, HubSpot integration). Intentsly integrates natively with HubSpot, Cal.com, Google Calendar and LinkedIn, and supports export; it lists no Salesforce connection and no API.

You want a free plan that never expires. Apollo's pricing page says the Starter plan "stays free with no time limit" and is meant for "founders and early-stage teams" (pricing page). Intentsly's trial is 7 days; the free part is /try-ai, which shows matching buyers without an account but is a preview, not a plan.

You export large lists. Apollo's pricing page states exports of "up to 10,000 leads in one click", and saved contacts export to CSV without spending credits (pricing page, export contacts). Intentsly exports the leads and signals it found; it is not a list-building tool.

Where is Intentsly the better choice?

The lead gets an answer without you. This is the row to weigh first. In Apollo, a reply is something you handle: its sequences documentation says to "use sequence rulesets to define what happens when a contact replies", which means stop messaging or keep them enrolled, and none of the Apollo pages opened today describes an AI answering the prospect (sequences overview, AI Assistant). In Intentsly, the AI SDR holds the LinkedIn conversation in your place and sends your Cal.com or Google Calendar link so the lead books the meeting. If your inbox is the bottleneck, this is the difference to weigh.

We ran this on ourselves at launch: our own signals and AI SDR, targeting founders who posted about cold outreach burnout, booked 14 qualified demos in 14 days with zero manual outreach, and the reply rate was 4x our previous cold campaigns. Most of those leads came from signals caught in real time rather than from a list.

Half of Apollo's LinkedIn sequence is a to-do list. Apollo's own LinkedIn tasks article is precise about this. Send Connection Request and Send Message run automatically. View Profile and Interact with Post open the LinkedIn page and mark the task complete; you do the viewing and the interacting. Send Message only works for contacts already in your network, and it is "not supported with an active Sales Navigator subscription" (LinkedIn tasks). A separate article adds that Apollo "reminds you when you should complete different steps" and "doesn't scrape, store, or sync your LinkedIn messages to your CRM" (LinkedIn messages). That is a fair design for a tool whose centre is email. Intentsly's centre is LinkedIn: the AI SDR sends the request, sends the message and carries the thread.

You want the person, not the company. Apollo's intent scores say a company is researching a topic. Intentsly's signals say a named person liked your competitor's post this morning, commented on a thread about the problem you solve, or started following a competitor's page. When you would otherwise be checking the competitor's post every morning and copying names out, LinkedIn signals is the feature that does that step for you. If you want to know which of those behaviours are worth chasing before you set any of this up, the free Buying Signal Playbook lists 12 worth chasing and 8 to ignore at /signal-playbook.

A ceiling with a number on it. Intentsly caps each account at 30 messages and 30 connection requests a day and recommends 15. Apollo publishes no number; its LinkedIn tasks article warns that executing too many tasks at once "can lead to your account being marked as a bot" and asks you to "restrict the number of invites you send" (LinkedIn tasks). Both tools agree that LinkedIn decides; the difference is who sets the daily number.

No credit meter. Apollo meters email reveals, mobile numbers, enrichment, AI research, API calls, extra warmup mailboxes and dialer minutes in credits that are "pooled across your entire team", granted at the start of each cycle, and that "expire at the end of each billing cycle and do not carry over" (pricing page, what are credits). Fair for a database, and it means someone on your team owns the meter. Intentsly's only limits are the LinkedIn caps above.

Four outreach languages. Intentsly monitors and writes in English, Romanian, German and Dutch. Apollo's pages opened today do not state supported languages for AI-drafted outreach, so ask before you assume either way.

You can see your buyers before you sign up. /try-ai shows people matching your profile who are engaging on LinkedIn right now, with no account. Apollo's trial is longer, at 14 days, but its own trial article says record selection "remains capped at 25 for the duration of your free trial" (free trial), so you see the shape of a list rather than the list.

What does each tool cost?

Apollo's pricing page is an app that renders in the browser, and the plan table did not come through when it was opened today, so no Apollo prices are quoted here. Open apollo.io/pricing for the figures. What the page's own text does say: there are four plans, Free, Basic, Professional and Custom. Free is for "exploring Apollo or very light usage", Basic is for "individual sellers doing regular outbound" and "includes email sequencing and core integrations", Professional is for "full-time reps needing higher credit limits, AI features, call recording, and advanced CRM integrations", and Custom is for "teams needing custom volumes, SSO, advanced security, and dedicated support". Annual billing is discounted and commits you to 12 months; monthly billing can be cancelled anytime; downgrades take effect immediately with no refund for unused time; features labelled "Unlimited" sit under a Fair Use Policy.

Three rules on that page change the real cost. Credits are pooled across the team and granted upfront each cycle. Unused credits expire and do not carry over. Add-on credits are recurring and charged immediately (pricing page). Free accounts can connect Gmail mailboxes only; other providers need a paid plan. The 14-day trial covers Basic or Professional, there is no trial for Custom, and you get one trial per customer (free trial).

Intentsly: see the pricing page. There is a 7-day free trial, setup is self-serve with no sales call, and you can cancel anytime.

The useful comparison is cost per booked meeting, not per seat. Apollo's seat price is the smaller part of its cost; the larger part is the credits you burn on reveals and enrichment, and the person who builds the sequences, completes the LinkedIn tasks and answers the replies. Price that person's time before you compare plans.

Can you use both?

On different jobs, yes, and this is the common setup. Apollo for the database, email sequences, the dialer and the CRM sync. Intentsly for the LinkedIn conversation: signals, scoring and the AI SDR from your own profile. Both connect to HubSpot, so the CRM stays the single record; Apollo's sync is bi-directional for contacts, accounts and deals (HubSpot integration).

On the same LinkedIn account, be careful. Both send from your profile and LinkedIn counts every action against one set of limits whichever tool took it. Intentsly's 30-a-day caps are per account for that reason, and Apollo's own article asks you to restrict invites and avoid running many tasks at once (LinkedIn tasks). If Intentsly runs on a profile, keep Apollo's Send Connection Request and Send Message steps off that profile and leave the email and call steps on.

How do you switch from Apollo to Intentsly?

You will probably not switch outright, because Intentsly does not replace Apollo's database, email or dialer. What moves is the LinkedIn part of your outbound. Apollo's docs describe CSV export of contacts, free for contacts you already saved, and a bi-directional HubSpot sync (export contacts, HubSpot integration). Before you turn off Apollo's LinkedIn steps:

1. Export the contacts who replied on LinkedIn, as CSV, so you know who is already in a conversation.
2. Write down which competitors, topics and hashtags produced those replies. These become your signal definitions in Intentsly.
3. Keep the HubSpot connection; Intentsly connects to the same HubSpot, so the record stays whole.
4. Pause the LinkedIn tasks in your Apollo sequences on the profile Intentsly will use. Leave the email and dialer steps running.
5. Finish any open LinkedIn threads yourself before the AI SDR starts, so nobody gets two voices.

Intentsly finds people from live signals rather than from an imported list, so step 2 carries over, not the export. Set up the same competitors, keywords and hashtags as LinkedIn signals, connect HubSpot, and the scoring runs against the profile you already know works. The seven-step signal-based outbound setup is the order to do it in.

Which should you pick?

If you need a searchable database, run email as the main channel, make calls, want company-level intent on thousands of topics, run Salesforce or need an API, or want a free plan with no time limit: Apollo. If your buyers are on LinkedIn, you want the person who engaged rather than the company that researched, and you want the reply answered and the meeting booked without you in the inbox: Intentsly. A team that runs both channels can run both tools, with a clear line about which one touches LinkedIn.

Still unsure? The shortest test is to see your own buyers. Open /try-ai, which shows matching people engaging on LinkedIn right now, no account needed. If the list is thin, your buyers are not where Intentsly looks and Apollo's database is the better bet. If it is full, start the 7-day trial and let the AI SDR take the first conversations. Other pairings are on the compare index.

FAQ

Does Apollo automate LinkedIn outreach?

Partly. Apollo's LinkedIn tasks article says Send Connection Request and Send Message run automatically, while View Profile and Interact with Post open LinkedIn for you to complete. Send Message only reaches existing connections and is not supported with an active Sales Navigator subscription (LinkedIn tasks). Intentsly's AI SDR sends requests and messages and carries the thread.

Does Apollo reply to leads for you?

Not on the pages opened today. Apollo's sequences overview says rulesets decide what happens when a contact replies, which is to stop messaging or keep them enrolled, and its AI Assistant page describes research, list building and sequence writing, not answering prospects (sequences overview). Intentsly's AI SDR continues the LinkedIn conversation and sends your calendar link when the lead is ready.

Is Apollo's buying intent the same as Intentsly's signals?

No. Apollo's buying intent is company-level: topics from Bombora and LeadSift, scored per company and refreshed weekly, used to filter which accounts to target (buying intent overview). Intentsly's signals are person-level: the individual who engaged with a competitor's post, a keyword post, a competitor page or a hashtag, scored against your ICP and handed to the AI SDR.

How do Apollo credits work?

Credits are the currency for revealing emails and mobile numbers, enrichment, AI research, API calls and more. Apollo charges only for verified, net-new emails and once per contact for phones. Credits are pooled across the team, granted at the start of each cycle, and expire unused at the end of it (what are credits). Intentsly has no credit meter; its limits are the LinkedIn caps.

Does Apollo have a free plan?

Yes. Apollo's pricing page says the Starter plan "stays free with no time limit", for exploring the product or very light use, and free accounts connect Gmail mailboxes only (pricing page). The 14-day trial of Basic or Professional caps record selection at 25. Intentsly offers a 7-day trial and a no-account preview of matching buyers at /try-ai.

Can I export my data from Apollo?

Yes. Apollo's docs describe exporting contacts to CSV from Search, with saved contacts exporting without credits and net-new contacts costing credits, and the pricing page states exports of up to 10,000 leads in one click (export contacts). Export the contacts who replied on LinkedIn and note which competitors and topics produced them; those become your signal definitions in Intentsly.