/// Head to head

Hound vs Apollo

Apollo is a 275-million-contact database with sequences bolted on; Hound is a live search engine that goes and looks the moment you ask. If you sell to US enterprise inboxes at volume, Apollo's database and sending tools are mature and cheap for what they do. If you sell to UK businesses — especially local ones that were never in anyone's database — Apollo structurally cannot see them, and Hound was built for exactly that.

Choose Apollo if

·You prospect US enterprise contacts at volume and want sequences, a dialer, and CRM sync in one tool
·Your targets are salaried professionals with LinkedIn profiles — the people databases index well
·You want a huge free tier to experiment with

Choose Hound if

·You sell to UK businesses — Apollo's own figures put international accuracy near 60%
·Your best prospects are local businesses with no LinkedIn presence: the database blind spot
·You want leads found live at query time, not rows from a store that decays ~2% a month
·You want £ pricing and month-to-month billing

01 / side by side

The differences that matter

DimensionApolloHound

What it is

ApolloStatic contact database (275M+ claimed) with email sequences, a dialer, and CRM sync

HoundLive search engine: sweeps Google Maps, Companies House, Reddit, social, and the open web per query

Data freshness

ApolloPeriodic refresh; independent bounce tests report 65–80% real email accuracy vs 91–97% claimed

HoundEvery result fetched at query time with a found-minutes-ago timestamp — no stored rows to decay

UK coverage

ApolloUS-strongest; ~60% international accuracy by Apollo's own reporting

HoundUK-first: Companies House registry is a named primary source, FSA hygiene ratings, UK postcodes

Local businesses

ApolloNot covered — a café or plumber without LinkedIn simply isn't in the database

HoundCore use case: "restaurants in Manchester without a website" is one query

Buying intent

ApolloBombora third-party intent topics (paid tiers)

HoundReddit and open-web posts from people literally asking for your service, found live

Pricing

Apollo$49–149/user/mo, USD only, three separate credit currencies, no rollover

Hound£19–99/mo published, one credit meter, cost shown before every hunt runs

Sending

ApolloBuilt-in sequences and dialer — genuinely mature

HoundDrafts your opener; you send from your own tools. Deliberately not a sending platform

Track record

ApolloG2 4.7 vs Trustpilot 2.9; LinkedIn removed Apollo's page in March 2025 over scraping

HoundNo scraped contact stockpile by construction — results are found live, per query, from public sources

Competitor details compiled July 2026 from vendor pages, review platforms, and independent accuracy tests. Spotted something out of date? Email us and we'll fix it.

02 / straight answers

Common questions

Is Hound a good Apollo alternative for UK small businesses?

Yes — that's the segment Hound is built for. Apollo's database is US-centric (around 60% international accuracy by its own reporting) and doesn't cover local businesses without a LinkedIn footprint. Hound searches Google Maps, Companies House, and the open web live, so UK SMBs that no database has ever indexed still show up.

What does Apollo do better than Hound?

Sending. Apollo has mature multi-step sequences, a dialer, and deep CRM sync, and its US contact database is far larger than anything Hound stores (Hound stores nothing — it searches live). If your workflow is high-volume US outbound from a known contact list, Apollo is the stronger fit.

Can Hound find leads that aren't in Apollo's database?

That's the structural difference. Hound doesn't query a database — it runs a live search across maps, the UK company register, Reddit, and the web at the moment you ask. A business registered last week, or a tradesperson with no website, is findable by Hound and invisible to any static database.

03 / more comparisons

Hound vs Cognism Hound vs Hunter Hound vs Clay Hound vs Instantly Hound vs Origami Use cases

See the difference on your own city.

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