lemlist vs Apollo.io (2026): LinkedIn Steps, Team Pricing and the Cost of 1,000 Contacts a Month

Apollo’s LinkedIn steps are reminders: its help center says a person has to open LinkedIn and do each one. lemlist runs profile visits, invites and messages for you, from its Chrome extension and your logged-in LinkedIn session, but only on Multichannel (lemlist’s help center and checkout call it Multichannel Expert), its per-user plan, or on Enterprise. That difference, more than the headline prices, decides what the same month of outreach costs on each.

Who runs the LinkedIn steps: lemlist, or you?

lemlist does, on Multichannel and Enterprise: its plan guide² lists “Auto LinkedIn visits/invites/messages” for Multichannel, and its LinkedIn steps guide⁵ adds InMail steps (from a LinkedIn Premium sender) and voice-message steps, with audio you record or upload. Those actions run from your browser: lemlist’s guide to connecting LinkedIn profiles⁹ says they “depend on the correct browser session (cookies + the Chrome extension)” and tells you to stay logged in to LinkedIn in the Chrome profile you use for lemlist. On Apollo you do: its help center¹² says LinkedIn tasks “need to be manually completed” and that Apollo “doesn’t automatically complete LinkedIn tasks for you.” The Email plan, lemlist’s cheaper option, has no LinkedIn actions at all.

The same thing shows up inside the product. When a draft sequence was built on Apollo’s Free plan in our own account on September 27, 2026 (an AI browser assistant made the clicks), the step menu offered four LinkedIn actions: send a connection request, send a message, view a profile and interact with a post. All four were listed as manual tasks for a person to complete (what else that check found). Apollo’s help center describes the routine: open the task, copy the prepared message, click through to the profile, act on LinkedIn, then mark the task complete.

Automation doesn’t remove LinkedIn’s own ceiling, and that ceiling is small next to 1,000 new contacts. lemlist’s LinkedIn limits guide⁶ suggests about 20 invites, 30 messages and 30 profile visits a day, and says LinkedIn caps invitations at roughly 100 per rolling week.

• Invites: about 430 a month from one profile (100 a week × 52 ÷ 12), under half of 1,000 new contacts.
• Profile visits: about 660 a month at 30 a day over 22 sending days.
• Messages: only to first-degree connections, so a message step reaches people who accepted an invite; everyone else needs InMail or an invite first.

Those limits belong to the LinkedIn profile, so they apply on Apollo too, where every step is also a task someone does by hand. So on either tool, plan LinkedIn steps for a slice of the list and let email carry the rest. Take a profile visit and an invite for your 200 best-fit accounts: that’s 400 actions a month and 200 invites, inside the ceiling above. On Apollo, those 400 tasks come to about 18 per sending day. lemlist’s Multichannel limits are compared with Instantly’s in how lemlist handles LinkedIn, calls and SMS.

What does a second sender add to the bill?

On lemlist’s Email plan, nothing: users are unlimited and the price follows monthly email volume. On lemlist’s Multichannel, another $109 a month, because it’s priced per user. On Apollo, another seat: $65 on Basic or $99 on Professional, billed monthly.

From lemlist’s pricing page¹ and plan guide and Apollo’s warmup guide, checked October 2, 2026, and Apollo’s pricing page¹¹ plan cards, checked September 30, 2026. Monthly billing. Vendors change plans often.

Three rules decide how a small team is set up:

• lemlist won’t mix its two plans in one team. The plan guide says “The Email plan and Multichannel Expert plan cannot be used in the same team,” and switching between them goes through support. If one person needs LinkedIn steps, the others can’t stay on the cheaper Email plan in the same team. If that per-user cost rules lemlist out, see what replaces lemlist when LinkedIn is your main channel.
• Apollo Basic gives each person one mailbox. One person sending 3,000 emails a month from one mailbox is about 136 a day: inside Basic’s 250-a-day cap, but above the 50 to 100 a day Apollo’s own sending-limits guide¹³ recommends. More mailboxes means Professional or another seat. Apollo warms one mailbox per seat on paid plans, and each extra one takes 200 credits every 30 days from the seat’s data credits, according to its warmup guide¹⁴ (how that budget works: how Apollo credits work).
• lemlist counts volume per provider, not per mailbox. Its sending-limits guide⁴ starts a mailbox at 30 emails a day, keeps total output “under 70/day per provider,” and says more volume means scaling “across providers, not mailboxes.” It adds that six Google mailboxes share one Google-side reputation, “not six independent budgets.” More on pacing in how many cold emails a mailbox can send a day.

One month, 1,000 new contacts: what each setup bills

For email only, one sender pays least on Apollo Professional ($99) and two senders on lemlist’s Email plan with a 5,000-credit add-on ($118). Once LinkedIn steps should run automatically, only lemlist’s column has an answer. Each cell shows monthly billing first, then yearly billing per month; quarterly prices and lemlist’s larger Email tiers are in every lemlist plan and billing period.

List prices in US dollars before tax, lemlist’s checked October 2, 2026 and Apollo’s September 30, 2026: Apollo says its prices exclude any applicable taxes, and lemlist’s pricing overview¹⁰ says VAT is added at checkout based on your billing address. Inputs for every row: 1,000 new contacts a month, three emails each (3,000 emails, about 136 a day over 22 sending days), and a work email found for every contact. Mailboxes follow each vendor’s per-mailbox guidance: five on lemlist at 30 a day, two on Apollo at about 68 a day each. lemlist figures include its 5,000-credit add-on; Apollo figures include warmup for mailboxes beyond one per seat. Mailboxes and domains aren’t included (see what the sending layer adds). Vendors change pricing often.

• Headcount flips the email-only answer. One sender pays $19 less on Apollo Professional than on lemlist. A second sender adds a $65 Basic seat on Apollo and nothing on lemlist’s Email plan, so lemlist ends up $12 a month cheaper ($4 on yearly billing).
• Automated LinkedIn is priced per person. Each sender who needs it adds $109 a month on lemlist. The 5,000-credit add-on is still needed with two users: their 800 included credits plus the 2,000-credit add-on come to 2,800, short of the 5,000 that 1,000 found emails take.
• Yearly billing narrows the one-sender gap: Apollo Professional $79 against lemlist $94.

Should you buy contact data from Apollo for lemlist campaigns?

Only if you also want lemlist’s LinkedIn automation: Apollo Basic for data plus lemlist Multichannel is $174 a month, $16 more than lemlist with its own credits, and buys far more phone numbers. For email only, the pair costs more than Apollo alone.

The gap comes from credit prices. lemlist charges 5 credits per email found and 20 per phone number, only when a result comes back, and its add-on credits roll over while the add-on stays active (lemlist’s credits guide³); each pack’s price is in what lemlist credits cost per found email. Apollo charges 1 and 8, and its plan guide¹⁵ says unused plan credits expire at the end of each billing cycle; its per-contact cost on each plan is worked out in Apollo’s real cost per contact.

Same inputs as the month above; list prices checked October 2, 2026 for lemlist and September 30, 2026 for Apollo.

After the 1,000 emails, the first pair leaves about 1,500 Apollo credits, enough for up to 187 phone numbers; lemlist alone has 400 credits left, enough for 20. The second pair is $35 a month more than Apollo Professional for a setup Apollo can run by itself, so it only makes sense if you want lemlist’s sending features specifically. The same pairing with Instantly as the sender is priced in Apollo plus Instantly, from 1 to 10 mailboxes.

Getting contacts from Apollo into lemlist takes one of two routes. You can export a CSV from Apollo, which its export guide¹⁶ says “may require export credits, depending on your Apollo plan.” Or you can connect your own Apollo account in lemlist under Settings > Integrations; lemlist’s enrichment guide⁸ says it will then use your provider credentials first when enriching, but it doesn’t say which plans allow this or whether lemlist credits are still charged.

FAQ

Do I need a lemlist seat for every person on my team?

Only on Multichannel, which is $109 per user and requires every connected sending address to belong to that one person. The Email plan has unlimited users and senders, so a whole team shares one $69 plan, up to 50,000 emails a month.

Is there a free trial of lemlist’s Email plan?

No. lemlist’s plan guide says the 14-day trial is only available on Multichannel, and its trial guide⁷ caps it at 50 emails a day, so an email-only team tries features it won’t pay for. What you keep when the 14 days end is covered in lemlist’s free trial and Freemium plan compared.

Can a 1,000-contact month run on a trial or a free plan?

No. lemlist’s 14-day trial sends at most 50 emails a day with 200 credits, once. Apollo’s trial¹⁷ runs 14 days with 100 credits and caps phone numbers at 20, and its Free plan gives 75 credits a month. Each is enough to build a sequence and check data for your niche, not to run the month.

How should a new or quiet LinkedIn account start on lemlist?

Lower than the usual 20 invites a day. lemlist’s LinkedIn guide says to lower every LinkedIn limit by hand for the first two to three weeks, then raise it gradually while engagement stays healthy. On a free LinkedIn account, invites with a personal note are limited to 3 a month.

Can I send from an SMTP mailbox instead of Google or Microsoft?

On lemlist, yes: its comparison table lists Google, Microsoft and SMTP. On Apollo, it depends on the plan: its pricing FAQ says free plans connect Gmail accounts only, paid plans can connect Microsoft or any other email provider, and what a trial can connect may depend on the plan and trial setup. Its plan comparison lists 5 SMTP mailboxes per user on Professional, on top of unlimited Google and Microsoft ones.

Sources

1. lemlist pricing — lemlist, accessed October 2, 2026
2. lemlist plans: how to choose the right one — lemlist Help Center, accessed October 2, 2026
3. Credits: how they work — lemlist Help Center, accessed October 2, 2026
4. Understand sending limits in lemlist — lemlist Help Center, accessed October 2, 2026
5. How to add LinkedIn steps to your sequence — lemlist Help Center, accessed October 2, 2026
6. LinkedIn connection requests: limits, best practices & avoiding restrictions — lemlist Help Center, accessed October 2, 2026
7. lemlist free trial: what’s included and how it works — lemlist Help Center, accessed October 2, 2026
8. Enrich leads with finder, verifier, and phone — lemlist Help Center, accessed October 2, 2026
9. Connect and manage multiple LinkedIn profiles in lemlist — lemlist Help Center, accessed October 2, 2026
10. lemlist plans and pricing: overview — lemlist Help Center, accessed October 2, 2026
11. Apollo.io Pricing Plans — Apollo.io, accessed October 2, 2026 (plan cards and plan comparison: September 30, 2026)
12. Complete LinkedIn Tasks in a Sequence — Apollo Knowledge Base, accessed October 2, 2026
13. Configure Email Sending Limits — Apollo Knowledge Base, accessed October 2, 2026
14. Use Email Warmup to Improve Deliverability — Apollo Knowledge Base, accessed October 2, 2026
15. Customize and Manage Your Apollo Plan — Apollo Knowledge Base, accessed October 2, 2026
16. Export Contacts to a CSV — Apollo Knowledge Base, accessed October 2, 2026
17. Access a Free Trial of Apollo — Apollo Knowledge Base, accessed October 2, 2026