CertLeads vs Apollo: established contacts or brand-new businesses?
Apollo is a sales platform built around a large B2B contact database. Sales teams use it to find named people at existing companies, then run email sequences and calls from the same place. If you already know the kind of company you want to sell to, Apollo is built to help you find the people inside it. CertLeads does one narrower job for web design, SEO and marketing agencies. We detect new websites within hours of going live. Each new business becomes a lead with its website platform, an SEO score and contact details where our contact rules allow. Each lead is delivered to at most 3 customers, with a 10-day cooldown between deliveries, so you are not one of hundreds sending the same pitch. The two answer different questions. Apollo answers "who works at the companies I already target?" CertLeads answers "which businesses just went live and probably still need help with their site, search visibility or marketing?" Plenty of agencies have a use for both.
| Capability | CertLeads | Apollo |
|---|---|---|
| How new the businesses are | Yes:New websites detected within hours of going live; released after 24h on Starter, instant on Agency | Partial:Mostly established companies; a business must exist for a while to be well covered |
| Buyers per lead | Yes:Each lead goes to at most 3 customers, ever, with a 10-day cooldown between deliveries | No:Shared database: the same records are open to every subscriber |
| Contact type | Partial:Owner-level contacts in 8 core markets; company contacts (info@, office lines) everywhere else | Yes:Named people by role and seniority at established companies |
| Where full contacts are available | Partial:Leads in 230+ countries; full contacts only in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, India and the UAE. Country-level only, no city or region | Yes:International B2B coverage; check Apollo for its per-country data rules |
| Filters | Partial:Country, industry, website platform, SEO score, contact type, freshness and contact quality. No company-size or revenue filters | Yes:Broad people and company search across a large database |
| Outreach tools built in | No:Leads and CSV export only; you send from your own tools | Yes:Email sequences and a dialer inside the platform |
| Pricing model | Yes:Published monthly plans from $39/mo | Yes:Per-user plans: $49, $79 and $119 per user per month billed annually; monthly billing costs more |
| Free option | Yes:Free directory browsing, a Free plan with 5 contact reveals, and a free sample | Yes:A free plan with a limited credit allowance |
| Size of the dataset | Partial:New businesses only — a far smaller dataset than a general B2B database, by design | Yes:Far larger: a general database of companies and people, not limited to new businesses |
When Apollo is the better choice
Apollo wins when your ideal client is an established company with a known decision-maker. If you sell retainers to firms with an in-house marketing manager, you need that person's name and role, and a large people database is the right tool for that search.
It also makes sense if you want prospecting and sending in one product. CertLeads hands you leads and a CSV; it does not send email or place calls for you.
- You target companies by size, role or seniority
- You need a large volume of contacts at existing businesses
- You want sequences and a dialer in the same tool as your data
When CertLeads is the better choice
CertLeads fits agencies whose best clients are businesses that have just launched. A business that went live this week is still choosing its web designer, its SEO help and its marketing, and a general database is built around companies that are already settled.
The cap on buyers matters here. A record in a shared database can be worked by any subscriber who finds it; a CertLeads lead stops at 3 deliveries. Each lead also carries its platform and an SEO score, which gives you a concrete opening line instead of a generic one. Read how the buyer cap works or browse the directory to see real leads first.
Using both
The tools do not overlap much, so running both is reasonable. A common split: use CertLeads to find businesses that just went live, and keep Apollo for prospecting established companies and running sequences. If your outreach already lives in Apollo or another sending tool, a CertLeads CSV export can feed it; check that tool's import options for the exact columns it accepts.
Which should you choose?
Choose Apollo if you sell to established companies and need named people by role, plus outreach tools in one place; its database is far larger than ours and covers businesses of every age. Choose CertLeads if your agency does its best work with businesses that just launched and you want leads that at most 3 customers will ever receive. The cheapest way to decide is to look: the directory is free to browse, and a free sample shows you real leads in your niche.