Signado vs Apollo
The Apollo.io alternative that tells you when to reach out, not just who
Apollo gives you 275+ million contacts. Signado monitors your target companies for real buying signals: funding rounds, key hires, executive changes, and partnership announcements. It generates AI-personalized outreach the moment a buying window opens.
What Apollo gets right
Apollo is the default prospecting tool for B2B sales teams, and for good reason. A database of 275+ million contacts with 65+ search filters lets you build targeted lists by job title, seniority, industry, company size, and technology stack in minutes. The Chrome extension pulls contact data directly from LinkedIn profiles without switching tabs. Built-in sequences handle multi-step email outreach with automated follow-ups, and native CRM integrations push data into Salesforce and HubSpot without manual imports.
The free plan is genuinely usable: 1,200 credits per year with access to the core prospecting and sequencing features. Paid plans start at $49/user/month billed annually. Over 500,000 companies use Apollo. It solved the contact sourcing problem.
The question it doesn't answer: once you have the email address, how do you know when to send it?
Where static data breaks down
Apollo's database refreshes quarterly at best. In practice, contact data decays at roughly 30% per year: people change jobs, companies restructure, email addresses go stale. A list exported in January is measurably less accurate by April.
But the deeper problem is timing. Apollo gives you no mechanism to detect when a company enters a buying window.
Your list says Sarah is VP of Sales at Company X. What it doesn't say is that Company X closed a $40M Series B last week, posted 8 sales roles this month, and just hired a new CRO. Those three events happening together mean Company X is actively building a revenue org and has budget to spend. That's the difference between a cold email and a relevant one.
Apollo's sequences let you schedule outreach on a cadence: Tuesday at 9am, follow up Thursday, follow up next Monday. The timing is based on your calendar, not on anything happening at the prospect's company. The result: generic emails arriving at random moments, competing with 50 other SDRs who pulled the same list and wrote the same "I noticed your company is growing" opening line.
Feature-by-feature comparison
| Feature | Apollo | Signado.io |
|---|---|---|
| Data Source | Static Database (275M+ contacts) | Real-time buying signal monitoring |
| Update Frequency | Quarterly / Monthly | Daily (Priority) · Weekly (Watchlist) |
| Trigger Context | Job title and firmographic filters | 7 signal types: Funding, Hiring, Leadership Changes, Company News, Product Launches, Executive Activity, Partnerships |
| Email Writing | Template sequences | AI-personalized outreach referencing the specific buying signal detected |
| Pricing Model | $49–$119/user/month (annual) · $59–$149/user/month (monthly) | $149–$649/month flat rate · No per-user fees |
What changes when you add buying signal detection
Without signal detection, outbound follows a predictable pattern. Export a list of 500 contacts from Apollo. Write a 3-step email sequence. Send on a Tuesday cadence. Get 8–12 replies. Most say "not the right time." Repeat next month with a new list.
The list is fine. The copy is fine. But 490 of those 500 contacts had no reason to care about your email that week.
With signal detection layered on top, the workflow changes. Import your contact list into Signado. The platform extracts every company from that list and begins monitoring: daily for your priority targets, weekly for your watchlist. When a real event happens (a funding round closes, a VP of Sales is hired, an expansion is announced) Signado surfaces that company with the specific signal, a relevance score, and an AI-generated outreach message that references the event directly.
You stop emailing 500 people hoping 10 care. You email 30 people who gave you a verifiable reason to reach out this week. The reply rate changes because the relevance changed.
Don't email a ghost.
Databases like Apollo decay by ~30% every year. People change jobs, companies pivot, and budgets freeze. Signado doesn't give you a static list. Signado only surfaces a company when a verified buying event is detected: a funding round, a leadership hire, an expansion announcement. No event, no alert.
Context beats Volume.
Apollo gives you the email address. We give you the opening line. Our AI reads the signal (e.g. a funding press release) and writes a specific icebreaker for that lead.
Saw you just raised a $50M Series C.
Usually that means you're scaling outreach and need better signal on who to contact first..."
See 11 ready-to-run outreach playbooks, each triggered by a specific buying signal
What each platform actually costs
Apollo charges per user. Signado charges per workspace: your whole team uses one account at a flat monthly rate.
| Apollo Free | Apollo Basic | Apollo Professional | Signado Free | Signado Starter | Signado Growth | Signado Scale | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly price | $0 | $49/user/mo (annual) | $79/user/mo (annual) | $0 forever | $149/mo | $349/mo | $649/mo |
| Per-user fees | — | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| 5-person team cost | $0 | $245/mo | $395/mo | $0 | $149/mo | $349/mo | $649/mo |
| Contact database | 900 credits/yr | 30,000 credits/yr | 48,000 credits/yr | — | — | — | — |
| Signal monitoring | No | No | No | 9 companies (lifetime) | 75 companies | 150 companies | 300 companies |
| AI-personalized outreach | No | No | No | 12 messages (lifetime) | 75/mo | 150/mo | 300/mo |
| Buying signal detection | No | No | No | All 7 signal types | All 7 signal types | All 7 signal types | All 7 signal types |
Competitor pricing shown is from 2025 and subject to change. Please verify current pricing on their website.
The tools do different things, so the comparison isn't apples-to-apples. Apollo is a contact database: you pay for access to email addresses and phone numbers. Signado is a signal monitoring layer: you pay for real-time event detection and AI-generated outreach on contacts you already have.
A 5-person team on Apollo Professional pays $395/month for contact data with no signal detection. The same team on Signado Growth pays $349/month for 150 monitored companies, daily buying signal detection, and 150 AI-personalized messages, but brings their own contact data from Apollo or CSV.
Most Signado users keep Apollo for sourcing and add Signado for timing. The combined cost for a 5-person team: Apollo Basic ($245) + Signado Starter ($149) = $394/month for both contact data and signal intelligence.
Which tool fits your workflow
Stay on Apollo if:
Your primary need is building prospect lists from scratch. You don't have a target account list yet and need access to a large contact database to identify companies and decision-makers by industry, size, title, and technology stack. Apollo's filters and database are purpose-built for that job. If you're a solo SDR doing volume-first outbound (500+ emails per week, optimizing for top-of-funnel coverage) Apollo handles the full workflow from list building to sequencing.
Add Signado if:
You already have a contact list from Apollo, LinkedIn, CSV exports, or your CRM, and your problem isn't finding people. Your problem is knowing when to reach out and what to say. Your reply rates sit below 5%. Your SDRs spend hours researching companies before writing a first line. Your sequences fire on a calendar cadence with no connection to what's actually happening at the prospect's company. Signado adds the timing layer: it monitors your target companies for buying events and generates outreach when those events are detected. You keep your existing tools. You add the intelligence that makes them work harder.
How to add signal detection to your Apollo workflow
Build your list in Apollo
Use Apollo's filters to create a targeted list: industry, company size, seniority, job title. Export as CSV.
Import into Signado
Upload the CSV. Signado extracts every unique company from your contact list and deduplicates automatically.
Set monitoring priority
Designate your highest-value targets as Priority (monitored daily) and the rest as Watchlist (monitored weekly). Signado begins scanning for 7 buying signals: funding rounds, hiring activity, leadership changes, company news, product launches, executive LinkedIn activity, and partnership announcements.
Act on signals, not schedules
When a buying event is detected, Signado surfaces the company with the specific signal, a relevance score, and an AI-generated outreach message referencing that event. Export the message to Instantly, Smartlead, Lemlist, or CSV, and send while the signal is still fresh.
Common questions
What's the difference between Signado and Apollo.io?
Apollo.io is a contact database with 275+ million profiles, offering email addresses, phone numbers, and outreach sequences. Signado is a buying signal detection platform that monitors your target companies for real-time events (funding rounds, key hires, executive changes, expansion news) and generates AI-personalized outreach when a buying signal is detected. Apollo answers 'who should I contact?' Signado answers 'who should I contact right now, and what should I say?'
Can I use Signado and Apollo together?
Yes. Signado is designed as an Apollo enhancement layer, not a replacement. Many users import contacts sourced from Apollo into Signado for signal monitoring. When Signado detects a buying signal at a target company, it generates a personalized outreach message you can export to your existing email platform.
How is Signado different from Apollo's buyer intent signals?
Apollo's buyer intent feature tracks anonymous website visitor behavior: which companies visited your site or read related content. Signado monitors verified public business events: a specific funding round amount, a named executive hire, a job posting in a specific department. Intent signals indicate browsing curiosity. Buying signals indicate organizational readiness to purchase.
Does Signado provide contact data like Apollo does?
No. Signado is not a contact database. We assume you already have contacts from Apollo, LinkedIn, or another source. Signado monitors those contacts' companies for buying signals and generates personalized outreach when events are detected. Think of Signado as the intelligence layer that sits on top of your existing contact data.
Keep Apollo for the emails. Use Signado for the intelligence.
You don't have to rip and replace. Export high-intent leads from Signado directly into your existing stack.