Maybe cold outreach is already your #1 source of leads and sales, or maybe you’re looking to ramp up your outreach activity. Either way, it’s vital you select the best outreach solution for your business, and your search has brought you to two of the most popular tools on the market: Apollo and QuickMail.
Sure, we’re biased, but we truly believe QuickMail is the smart choice for most startups and SMEs — especially:
Professional services firms
SaaS platforms
Lead gen agencies
Recruiters
Business consultants
Read on and we’ll weigh up the key differentiators in the battle of Apollo vs QuickMail…
Why Use QuickMail?
QuickMail is an outreach solution that works with Gmail, Outreach, and any other inbox provider. While there’s no shortage of outreach platforms out there, QuickMail stands out from the crowd in three essential areas:
QuickMail is an outreach solution that works with Gmail, Outreach, and any other inbox provider. While there’s no shortage of outreach platforms out there, QuickMail stands out from the crowd in three essential areas:
Reliable Results
We’ve been industry leaders for nine years.
In that time, we’ve developed pioneering outreach technology like inbox rotation and free auto-warming, all with the goal of helping our users avoid the disruption and revenue loss caused by constant changes to the email ecosystem.
So we understand what it takes to generate consistent results from cold email, adapting our tools and processes to give your campaigns the greatest chance of reaching your prospects’ main inboxes.
That’s why we’ve got a 4.6-star rating on G2.
Learn how SaaS company Demio used outbound prospecting campaigns through QuickMail to help land 500 new customers in seven days.
Delightful User Experience
We’re confident that if you choose QuickMail, you’ll love our user experience.
We make it easy to manage multiple campaigns, scale your outreach activity by adding new inboxes, and access the clear, actionable analytics you need to improve results.
And if you need a helping hand along the way, you can reach out to our expert support team…
Expert Support
When it comes to customer support, some outreach solutions are all about closing tickets.
At QuickMail, we’re more concerned with actually solving problems.
We don’t bother with one-size-fits-all suggestions and boilerplate replies because we understand no other business has a workflow that’s exactly like yours. Instead, we take the time to dig into the challenge you’re facing and provide tailored guidance.
Whether you’ve got a basic question, a complex workflow, or an unconventional setup, our experts are ready and waiting to help you execute more successful outreach campaigns.
Of course, we don’t expect you to just take our word for it.
Not when our customer reviews do the job for us:
Best of all, you get the same quality support, whatever QuickMail plan you choose.
Not only that, but we’ve created various free educational resources to help everyone from beginners to seasoned veterans get more from cold outreach:
Apollo vs QuickMail At a Glance [Comparison Table]
Feature | QuickMail | Apollo |
---|---|---|
Email outreach | ✔ | ✔ |
Automated email sequences | ✔ | ✔ |
Email verification | ✔ | ✔ |
Email warmup | ✔* | - |
Add multiple inboxes at no extra cost on all plans | ✔ | - |
Add unlimited team members at no extra cost | ✔ | - |
Inbox rotation | ✔ | ✔+ |
CRM integration | ✔ | ✔ |
AI-powered email follow-up | ✔ | - |
A/B testing on all plans | ✔ | - |
Blacklist monitoring | ✔ | - |
Bounce detection | ✔ | - |
Try QuickMail for free by signing up for your 14-day trial today.
* Free AutoWarmer with MailFlow included with all QuickMail plans
+Each inbox is billed separately, inbox rotation only available on accounts paying for multiple senders
Why Do Businesses Choose QuickMail Over Apollo?
Now that we’ve listed the key features of each platform, let’s look at the areas in which QuickMail really impresses vs Apollo:
Deliverability
What Sets QuickMail Apart:
Email deliverability is our whole MO — that’s why we offer a free auto-warmer on every plan (unlike Apollo).
QuickMail provides proven, scalable deliverability, with some individual accounts sending 40,000+ emails per day.
With our inbox rotation functionality, you can spread your campaign across multiple inboxes, helping increase your daily send limit without sacrificing deliverability.
We use an approved Gmail API for email sending, reducing the chances of your emails ending up in spam.
By randomly generating metadata, we leave a minimal trace on emails, meaning they can’t be bulk-identified or bulk-blocked by inbox providers.
How Apollo Compares:
Apollo doesn’t do email warmup at all, so deliverability clearly isn’t their priority.
Without bounce detection, Apollo continues to send emails that harm sender reputation.
That’s certainly reflected by the experience of some of their customers, such as Avadel founder Dave Valentine, who said:
Apollo's deliverability was really poor. Our open rates went to a near-zero, our click-through rates were abysmal, and our booking rate was nonexistent.
Find out how Avadel added $347,000+ in MRR with QuickMail.
Scalability
What Sets QuickMail Apart:
We give you multiple sending inboxes, even on our entry-level plan, so you can scale campaigns by simply adding another inbox.
All our plans also allow you to add unlimited team members, allowing multiple reps to log in, check reports, and edit campaigns simultaneously.
Individual actions are tracked through our audit log, making it easy to share work across your team and identify learning opportunities if something goes wrong.
How Apollo Compares:
Apollo’s per-sender pricing is fundamentally unscalable (not to mention expensive) because you have to pay for a whole new account for every team member.
You only get multiple mailboxes per user at Professional level and above.
The platform prevents users from sharing logins, so if a colleague logs in while you’re in the middle of something, you’ll be kicked out — and lose your progress.
LinkedIn Automation
What Sets QuickMail Apart:
QuickMail offers true automation, not just tasks like Apollo.
Boost conversions by building omni-channel campaigns — view a prospect’s profile then send them a connection request, then follow up with an email 30 minutes later.
All of which means you’re not limited to a single channel or the quality of your email data (*cough* Apollo).
How Apollo Compares:
Apollo doesn’t do automated LinkedIn outreach; although you can add LinkedIn steps to sequences, they’re manual tasks.
That means you can’t effectively A/B test LinkedIn messages or run true omnichannel outreach campaigns.
Sender Reputation
What Sets QuickMail Apart:
Your sender reputation is the key to successful outreach campaigns, so we include access to the MailFlow Auto Warmer with all QuickMail plans.
Once you connect an inbox to the MailFlow Auto Warmer, it automatically sends emails to other addresses in your network and generates replies, helping you build a strong reputation.
Plus, if these emails get marked as spam, MailFlow will unmark and reply to them.
We also offer bounce detection as standard on all plans, so if your emails bounce, we’ll immediately stop the campaign — safeguarding your sender reputation.
How Apollo Compares:
Apollo basically has no deliverability features — no blacklist monitoring, no bounce detection, no DNS monitoring or setup support.
So you’re at constant risk of damaging your sender reputation and email deliverability.
Identifying Opportunities
What Sets QuickMail Apart:
With QuickMail, messages from prospects are automatically added to the Opportunities folder, even if the prospect reached out via a new email thread.
Replies to campaign emails get assigned to the inbox owner, and can be previewed, reassigned, and triaged — all without removing the bold “needs attention” indicator.
Status indicators show you how long each message from a prospect has been waiting for a reply, helping you keep on top of opportunities.
CC and BCC replies, snooze, and add labels for clearer accountability.
How Apollo Compares:
Apollo’s reply detection is less effective because it only captures replies in the same thread.
Plus there’s no centralized reply handling, making it difficult for team leaders to maintain oversight of individual opportunities.
Reporting and Analytics
What Sets QuickMail Apart:
We make it easy to access the email metrics that really matter by including email opens, clicks, replies, bookings, bounces, and more in our dashboard.
Send-day attribution helps you immediately identify delivery drop-offs and respond accordingly.
Optimize for impact, not vanity metrics, by tracking deals won or lost by campaign.
How Apollo Compares:
Apollo’s messy analytics screen makes it hard to make data-backed decisions.
We’ve sent lots of reviewers complain that the platform’s reporting and analytics features feel too lightweight:
Apollo vs QuickMail: Price Comparison
A one-person business consultancy has totally different needs to a SaaS startup or a large lead generation agency.
For that reason, QuickMail and Apollo offer a range of plans aimed at businesses of different sizes and at different stages of their growth journeys. Let’s dig into each platform’s pricing tiers and what you’ll get for your money.
(All pricing information correct at time of publication.)
Entry Level
QuickMail’s Basic Plan costs $49 per month, with no minimum-term contract. It includes up to 30,000 emails per month, up to five email addresses for sending, up to 10,000 prospects, and unlimited team members.
Customers can access all the essentials they need to run cold outreach campaigns, plus advanced features like A/Z testing and scheduling automation. They also get an account dashboard incorporating campaign-level stats — essential for optimizing performance.
Apollo’s entry-level Basic plan is more expensive, at $59 per seat per month. So adding five team members would set you back $295 per month. Plus each team member only gets a single inbox.
What’s more, Apollo imposes a send limit of just 250 emails per inbox per day (or 7,500 emails per month) on its Basic plan, which massively restricts your ability to scale campaigns.
Mid-Tier
Priced at $89 per month (again with no fixed contract), QuickMail’s mid-tier Pro Plan allows you to send up to 100,000 emails monthly to up to 50,000 active prospects from 20 different email addresses.
It includes all the same stuff as the Basic Plan, but with a bunch of additional functionality, including advanced analytics and native integrations with HubSpot and Pipedrive.
By contrast, Apollo’s Professional plan costs $99 per user per month. So if you have 20 people in your team, all of whom need access, it’ll cost you an eye-watering $1,980 per month. And each account only includes five mailboxes.
Premium
At the upper end of the scale, QuickMail’s Expert Plan costs $129 per month with no minimum term. For that money, you can send up to 300,000 emails a month, have 100,000 active prospects, and leverage 50 different email addresses.
While all our plans offer all the essential features you need to run high-performing outreach campaigns, our Expert Plan offers a bunch of advanced extras — including API access and automated follow-up campaigns launched by AI based on the recipient’s response.
Apollo’s Organization plan costs $119 per user, per month, with a minimum of five users — so the actual minimum cost is $595 per month. That’s not cheap. However, it at least offers some nice premium features, like advanced API access and customizable reports.
Apollo Users: Claim Your Free QuickMail Test Drive
Stuck in a contract with Apollo?
Sick of their sky-high prices and lack of scalability?
Don’t worry — there’s no need to wait for your annual renewal date, or even for the end of the month.
Just send us your last monthly or yearly invoice and we’ll credit the remainder of the contract to your new QuickMail account.
And you don’t even have to cancel your Apollo account; we actually want you to run both together.
That way, you can see which is best for your business.
(We’re pretty confident we’ll win.)
To claim your free test-drive, just sign up for a 14-day free trial and email us your Apollo invoice.
What Our Customers Say
“QuickMail allows me to communicate with my client base in bulk, while still coming right from my email address. Open rates and conversions are much higher because of this"
Hans Skillrud
Cofounder, Termageddon
"One of the most important technologies we use is QuickMail, as it allows us to build incredibly complex engagement campaigns simply and efficiently"
Ben Way
CEO, Rainmakers
"After trying the most popular email marketing tools out there & not being completely satisfied with any of them, I was directed to QuickMail. Best decision ever"
Fabi Mersan
Founder, ClinicBuzz
"I switched over to QuickMail.io in Sept and since then my business has exploded. Thanks!"
Marcel H.
Founder and CEO, G2 Review
“QuickMail helped me get the first paying clients for my business and it's still at the core of our lead generation.”
Maksymilian M.
Head of Technology, G2 Review
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