Apollo.io vs Lockley: which suits UK prospecting?

Apollo.io and Lockley solve different problems. Apollo is a large contact database with email sequencing built in, so it suits a team that already knows which companies to target and needs people to contact. Lockley is a UK research service that tells a small team which companies to call this morning and shows the public record that says why now. Lockley does not sell contact lists, so the two can sit side by side.

What Apollo.io does well

Apollo combines a searchable database of people and companies with sequences, a LinkedIn extension and a Gmail extension. According to independent pricing reviews, it offers four plans in 2026: Free, Basic at $49 per user per month, Professional at $79 and Organization at $119 on annual billing, with monthly billing costing roughly 20 per cent more. The same reviews say the Free plan includes email credits each month but only a handful of mobile credits, and that a unified credit system governs data actions, so real spend can differ from the headline price.

For a team that wants to build a list by job title and industry, then send outreach from the same tool, that is a coherent package. It is priced in dollars and per user, which matters for UK teams budgeting in sterling and adding seats.

What Lockley does differently

Lockley reads UK public registers and postings every night: Companies House officers, charges and filings, Contracts Finder and Find a Tender, job postings from Adzuna, planning registers and each company's own website. Each morning it gives a small B2B sales team a short list of companies to call, each with the record that says why now.

Every finding links to the record it came from, so a seller can check it before calling. Lockley starts with a free scan of the buyer's own website, which builds a private page of companies worth calling for that buyer. A 9am email brief carries the top three companies in full, with Call, Tomorrow and Pass working from the email. Lockley does not send email on a customer's behalf and covers the United Kingdom.

Apollo.io and Lockley side by side

Who each suits

Choose Apollo if your problem is volume of contacts and you already have a target list. Its free tier makes it easy to try, and sequencing is built in.

Choose Lockley if your problem is knowing who to call and what to say. A new director, a new charge, a public contract ending or a first hire in a function is a reason to open a conversation, and Lockley surfaces those from the record rather than from an inferred score. It fits a small UK team that makes a handful of well-judged calls a day rather than thousands of cold emails.

Some teams will use both: Lockley to choose the company and the reason, a contact tool to find the person. Check each tool's current pricing and terms before deciding, because both can change.

How to test them fairly

Take ten UK companies you called last month. For each tool, ask whether it would have told you anything specific and checkable about that company that week. With a contact database, you may get a name and an email. With Lockley, you should get a record and a date. Which of those wins your first conversation is the real test.

Questions