Apollo.io vs Salesforce Sales Cloud comparison

Apollo.io and Salesforce are both solutions in the Opportunity Management category. Apollo.io is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.6, while Salesforce is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.2. Apollo.io holds a 17.6% mindshare in OM, compared to Salesforce’s 13.2% mindshare. Additionally, 71% of Apollo.io users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Salesforce users who would recommend it.

Apollo.io

Read 6 Apollo.io reviews

585 Views
360 Comparison Views

71% willing to recommend

Salesforce Sales Cloud

Read 115 Salesforce Sales Cloud reviews

584 Views
350 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

Apollo.io

Salesforce Sales Cloud

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 2, 2025

Salesforce Sales Cloud and Apollo.io compete in the CRM and sales automation space. Salesforce Sales Cloud appears more robust due to its extensive features and integrations, while Apollo.io gains an edge with its modern interface and affordability.

Features: Salesforce Sales Cloud provides customizable workflows, advanced analytics, and seamless integration with various third-party applications. Apollo.io focuses on lead generation and sales intelligence, offering data enrichment, email automation, and a user-friendly interface.

Room for Improvement: Salesforce Sales Cloud could improve its cost-effectiveness for small businesses, the steep learning curve, and the complexity of customization options. Apollo.io could enhance its integration capabilities, expand its feature set to match larger competitors, and improve its scalability for growing businesses.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Salesforce Sales Cloud offers both cloud-based and on-premise deployment options, providing extensive support and training resources. Apollo.io features a straightforward cloud-only deployment with responsive customer support but fewer customization options than Salesforce.

Pricing and ROI: Salesforce Sales Cloud generally has higher upfront costs but aims for long-term value through scalability and extensive features. Apollo.io offers a lower-cost entry point with a focus on rapid ROI through essential sales functionalities, making it more accessible for smaller businesses.

To learn more, read our detailed Apollo.io vs. Salesforce Sales Cloud Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Apollo.io vs. Salesforce Sales Cloud

April 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 851,491 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Apollo.io

Ranking in Opportunity Management

4th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

8.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Salesforce Sales Cloud

Ranking in Opportunity Management

1st

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

115

Ranking in other categories

CRM (1st), Sales Force Automation (1st), Conversation Intelligence Software (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Opportunity Management category, the mindshare of Apollo.io is 17.6%, up from 11.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Salesforce Sales Cloud is 13.2%, down from 14.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Opportunity Management

Featured Reviews

Vaibhav Patil

Digital Marketer at DigiLiterate

It makes finding your target audience easy, has a verified contact details feature, and its customer support is helpful and always available

My company used Seamless AI and Hunter.io, but I found Apollo.io more affordable based on the number of leads it gives versus what other products provide. Apollo.io has around one hundred fifty industries you can target, so it has a more extensive lead database than other products. The tool also has a more user-friendly interface and is easy to use versus other tools. You first need to learn how to use Apollo.io, which becomes pretty easy. Other advantages of Apollo.io over other products include more filters you can use to find your target audience. It also shows you verified emails and has mass email and cold call features which you can't find in other tools.

Read full review

Richard Mottershead

Enterprise Architect at a non-profit with 501-1,000 employees

Infinitely customizable, good end-to-end sales and customer management processes but lacks good documentation

Essentially, it's the CRM solution for managing customers and leads. The features that had the most significant impact on our sales efficiency include flexibility, regular updates, and very good end-to-end sales and customer management processes. AI and machine learning are on the agenda for next year. Initially, it will be very silo-based, but eventually, we'll be integrating MIBI data into our solution. Sales Cloud's reporting and analytics capabilities influenced our sales strategy quite a lot. We can build every report as a dashboard, and there are various sorts of things. We are using Tableau as our MIBI analytic solution, which is also owned by Salesforce these days.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"It is a scalable solution."

"What I like most about Apollo.io is it lets you find your target audience. The tool also helps you find verified contact details, apart from allowing you to send bulk emails to people you're looking to contact."

"I like the tool's UI. Its user experience is clear."

"Apollo is very user-friendly."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is the intent data it provides our company. I find it really interesting how Apollo.io can detect the intent of companies looking for your company's solution."

"The product's most valuable feature is its ease of use, especially for beginners."

"I would recommend Sales Cloud for anyone who has a sales team that needs to be optimized and for any size of enterprise."

"I would rate Salesforce Sales Cloud's scalability as very good. We have scaled from 30 to 150 within three years without a glitch."

"The performance is good, and it is easy to use."

"The solution can scale massively. I've been quite impressed."

"CRM solution that performs well. It's multifeatured, so you can use it for different activities such as managing opportunities, managing revenue, reviewing leads, etc."

"Contact records are most valuable."

"The features of Sales Cloud most useful for testing and running email campaigns are highly valuable."

"I can see activity per customer. I can find out quickly and easily who was the last person I talked to, when it was, and what we were talking about."

More Salesforce Sales Cloud pros

Cons

"What's missing in Apollo.io is a proper CRM and pipeline management system. The tool is excellent at finding contact information, but it has room for improvement in sending emails and tracking the sales pipeline."

"The solution's initial setup process could be better."

"They should provide a larger number of free emails."

"The solution sends callouts when not in maintenance mode, which is a headache for the people involved."

"Sometimes we get the wrong information on Apollo. They should improve the emails because we are connecting all the emails and logging on to Apollo.io."

"Apollo.io still needs to work on the CRM part because it has started building some CRM infrastructure for companies to use and track their sales activities."

"I need to do a lot of customization to implement an ERP solution for an energy and utilities client versus a BFS client. Salesforce should look at the common customizations each client wants and see how much of that can be standardized into industry-specific specific solutions. That would speed up implementation, so we don't need to go through the same steps a hundred times. Salesforce could do it once and put it out for the rest of the clients to use it."

"Salesforce Sales Cloud is not as simple to use as Zoho. It requires some level of expertise before you can use it. However, you can easily learn how to use the solution as you go along."

"It might be easier if there were better integration with other sales systems or clouds that are not powered by Salesforce. For example, when we work with partners, such as Amazon or any other major tech company, sometimes we collaborate to develop a sales lead."

"I think the user experience could be improved. I would like the user interface to be a bit more user-friendly and modern."

"Salesforce Sales Cloud needs a more user-friendly interface."

"Salesforce is a powerful tool and you need specialists to create or to develop new functionalities. It is a difficult platform to learn to manage and you need years to know the whole product."

"One area where the solution could improve is with handling feature requests."

"The solution's scalability has some limitations."

More Salesforce Sales Cloud cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Apollo.io is more affordable than its competitors. I'm on an unlimited plan that costs $19 monthly. Nowadays, Apollo.io has a $99 plan that gives you ten thousand emails monthly. Other products would cost $2,000+ annually."

"The solution's price is reasonable."

"With my idea about the pricing aspect of Apollo.io, I feel that the solution's pricing model is super good and a steal for what the product offers."

"Paid versions are likely to provide more accurate information and offer more convenience to users."

"Pricing is reasonable."

"The tool's pricing is based on the number of users. It has a different pricing for 0-100 and another for 100-500 users."

"We must pay for the licenses."

"The price of the product is very high. I rate the product price a ten on a scale of one to ten, where one means low price, and ten means expensive."

"Sales Cloud is quite expensive."

"My understanding is that Salesforce is a little bit expensive, but in terms of the efficiencies, automation, and visibility, I think it's definitely value for money."

"Its license is expensive. It is probably a lot more than smaller solutions. It is around £500 a month, but I don't know how many licenses we have."

"It is a premium product, so it is not the cheapest solution. I think if it's implemented well, and you're getting the soft cost benefits, the efficiencies, it's justified. But not if you're looking at just apples for apples as a subscription, without the complexity that you can achieve. It can deal with complex business requirements. Some other CRMs can't. But you certainly pay, so it's a premium-charged solution. It's one of the more expensive ones."

More Salesforce Sales Cloud pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Opportunity Management solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

851,491 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

20%

Financial Services Firm

16%

Comms Service Provider

Healthcare Company

Educational Organization

69%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Apollo.io?

The product's most valuable feature is its ease of use, especially for beginners.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Apollo.io?

We are using the free version of the solution.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Apollo.io?

Sometimes we get the wrong information on Apollo. They should improve the emails because we are connecting all the emails and logging on to Apollo.io.

See all answers

What do you like most about Salesforce Sales Cloud?

The features of Sales Cloud most useful for testing and running email campaigns are highly valuable.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Salesforce Sales Cloud?

Improving system performance and processing speed would enhance productivity and allow for even smoother workflows according to my view. Additionally, introducing faster data retrieval and real-tim...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Salesforce Sales Cloud?

My primary use case for Salesforce is to streamline sales strategies, define key sales parameters, and manage focus areas effectively. I leverage Salesforce to record, track, and optimize our sales...

See all answers

Comparisons

Pipedrive vs Apollo.io

Compared 73% of the time

monday.com vs Apollo.io

Compared 19% of the time

Salesgear vs Apollo.io

Compared 8% of the time

More Apollo.io Competitors

Microsoft Dynamics CRM vs Salesforce Sales Cloud

Compared 28% of the time

SAP CRM vs Salesforce Sales Cloud

Compared 27% of the time

Oracle CX Sales vs Salesforce Sales Cloud

Compared 6% of the time

Oracle CRM vs Salesforce Sales Cloud

Compared 4% of the time

Camunda vs Salesforce Sales Cloud

Compared 4% of the time

More Salesforce Sales Cloud Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Opportunity Management

May 2025

Download Apollo.io product report

Buyer's Guide

Salesforce Sales Cloud

April 2025

Download Salesforce Sales Cloud product report

Also Known As

No data available

Sales Cloud, SFDC, Salesforce

Overview

The sales intelligence and engagement platform to crush your sales numbers every quarter. Use our data of over 220 million contacts and 30 million companies to find and engage your future customers at the right time with the right message in our all-in-one platform.

Apollo.io

Salesforce Sales Cloud is a comprehensive CRM platform designed for efficient lead management, sales forecasting, and customer engagement, offering extensive customization and cloud-based accessibility.

Aimed at enhancing business efficiency, Salesforce Sales Cloud supports core business processes like CRM, lead and opportunity management, sales forecasting, and customer engagement. Its robust integration capabilities allow seamless connectivity with ERP systems and various applications. The platform offers pipeline tracking, process automation, and advanced sales cycle management. Users appreciate its cloud-based accessibility, allowing teams to operate remotely and manage sales operations effectively. However, users highlight concerns about its complexity, cost, and the need for a more intuitive interface.

What features does Salesforce Sales Cloud offer?

Customization: Tailor the CRM to meet specific business requirements.
Robust Reporting: Comprehensive analytics and data insights.
Lead Management: Efficiently manage and convert leads.
API Integration: Seamless connectivity with multiple applications.
Cloud Accessibility: Work from anywhere with cloud-based access.

What benefits should be evaluated in Salesforce Sales Cloud reviews?

Enhanced Productivity: Streamline sales processes with automation.
Improved Collaboration: Facilitate team coordination and client engagement.
Accurate Forecasting: Make informed decisions with reliable sales forecasts.
Flexibility: Accommodate diverse industry needs with ease.
Legacy System Integration: Efficiently update and integrate with existing systems.

Salesforce Sales Cloud is widely implemented across industries such as finance, healthcare, and retail, supporting sales teams in tracking and managing sales operations. Its use extends to reporting, collaboration, and enhancing client interactions, allowing companies to tailor Salesforce to meet industry-specific requirements efficiently.

Salesforce

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Coca-Cola Enterprises, Kuoni Global Travel Services, Financial Times, Just Eat, Jobsite, H.R. Owen, PlayerLayer, O2, DMGT, Philips, Xtreme.ie, Business Stream, Remote Asset Management, Dialogue Group

Buyer's Guide

Apollo.io vs. Salesforce Sales Cloud

April 2025

Free Report: Apollo.io vs. Salesforce Sales Cloud

Find out what your peers are saying about Apollo.io vs. Salesforce Sales Cloud and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

851,491 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Apollo.io vs. Salesforce Sales Cloud report.

See our list of best Opportunity Management vendors.

We monitor all Opportunity Management reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.