The third perspective on Lusha vs Apollo
Lusha vs Apollo: both miss 13,549,104 US small businesses.
Lusha is the lightweight one-click reveal: a browser extension that surfaces an email or phone off a LinkedIn profile in a second, priced per seat plus credits. Apollo is the all-in-one: a 275M-contact database with a native sequencer, dialer, and conversation intelligence built into the seat. The choice is mostly scope.
We lose to both on the accounts they are built for. Both are profile-anchored, each starting from a person who already has a LinkedIn profile or an online footprint. That holds at the mid-market and enterprise company. It breaks at the single-location US small business. We win when your buyers are the SMBs neither tool maps at the company grain.
Three products, three jobs
Lusha is the reveal. Apollo is the all-in-one. Orbital is the row.
A comparison only helps when the tools do the same job. Lusha, Apollo, and Orbital overlap on the word data and little else. Read this before the table.
What Lusha is
A lightweight one-click contact reveal.
The browser extension surfaces an email or phone off a LinkedIn profile, billed per seat plus credits where 1 credit is an email and 5 is a phone. Pricing runs from Pro at $69.90 a month for about 7,200 credits a year and 2 users, up to Premium at $399.90 a month for about 40,800 credits and 5 users, with Scale custom.
Best for: reps who want a fast, low-lift way to pull a contact off a LinkedIn profile they already have in front of them.
What Apollo is
An all-in-one prospecting and outbound platform.
275M-plus contacts across 73M companies, with a native sequencer, A/B testing, a built-in dialer, and conversation intelligence in the seat. Pricing runs per user, month-to-month: Free, Basic $59, Professional $99, Organization $149 with a 3-seat minimum. G2 rates it 4.7/5 across 9,000+ reviews. Apollo publishes 97% email accuracy; independent tests put it closer to 85-90%.
Best for: teams that want one platform to find contacts and run the entire outbound motion, from list to sequence to dial.
What Orbital is
A map of every US small business at the company grain.
We start from Google Maps, Yelp, and Yellow Pages to build the company set, then run a 51-source agent (Better Business Bureau, corporate directories, legal filings, Dun & Bradstreet, Secretary of State, the business website, news) to find the owner. We find one about 80% of the time, then attach the custom signals you score on, per account. Emails are validated across providers; phones are validated against Twilio.
Best for: teams selling software to single-location US SMBs in field-service verticals, where the buyer is an owner with no LinkedIn page and no corporate directory entry.
The honest comparison
Nine rows. Lusha wins two. Apollo wins three. We win three. One tie.
We name a winner in every row, and concede the ones Lusha and Apollo win outright, up top. The rows we win sit lower, where the long-tail US SMB decides the deal.
| Dimension | Lusha | Apollo | Orbital | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| One-click reveal speed on a known profile | One-click extension, email or phone in a second | Reveal works, but inside a heavier platform | Bulk pull, not a per-profile reveal | Lusha |
| Lightweight rollout and ease of use | Per-seat extension, live in an afternoon | Full platform with a learning curve | Delivered as data, not a rep tool | Lusha |
| Total database size | Credit-gated reveal, no whole-database claim | 275M contacts across 73M companies | 13,549,104 US small businesses | Apollo |
| Native sequencing and dialer | Reveal only, no native send | Native sequencer, A/B, dialer, conversation intelligence | Not a sending tool | Apollo |
| All-in-one source-to-send workflow | Reveal, then export to your tool | Source, sequence, and dial in one seat | Data layer, bring your own sequencer | Apollo |
| Long-tail US SMB at the company grain | LinkedIn-anchored reveal | Thins out below mid-market | 13,549,104 mapped from Maps, Yelp, Yellow Pages | Orbital |
| Decision-maker contacts at single-location SMB | Needs a profile to reveal | Profile-anchored, mid-market and up | Owner found ~80% via 51-source agent | Orbital |
| Local-business signals (no website, no GBP, no LinkedIn) | Not a covered data type | Not a covered data type | Mapped per business | Orbital |
| Data on the shared mid-market set | On par where both cover it | On par where both cover it | On par where it overlaps | Tie |
Methodology: Orbital figures from a curated company-grain pull, April 2026, US sourced. Lusha and Apollo pricing from each vendor as of 2026-06, shown month-to-month so both sit on the same billing basis. Apollo’s 97% accuracy is its published claim; independent tests put it ~85-90%.
When to pick each
Three reads. Pick the one your pipeline depends on.
Pick the tool whose limits you can live with. Most teams selling into SMB end up running more than one.
Pick Lusha if
- You want a fast, one-click reveal on profiles your reps already have open.
- Ease of rollout matters more than a built-in sending motion.
- Your buyers have LinkedIn profiles, and you just need the email or phone behind them.
Pick Apollo if
- You want one platform to source contacts and run the whole outbound motion.
- You need a native sequencer, A/B testing, and a dialer in the same seat.
- You want the breadth of a 275M-contact database, and your buyers sit at mid-market and enterprise companies.
Pick Orbital if
- Your buyers are single-location US small businesses in field service.
- The owner is the decision-maker and has no LinkedIn page or corporate directory entry.
- You score accounts on signals nobody sells off the shelf, attached per account.
Where the long-tail row sits
Coverage Lusha and Apollo thin out on. The numbers, with sources.
companies across 5 live SMB verticals
Aggregate of the dental, HVAC, med spa, restaurant, and roofing pages. A subset of the 13,549,104 total Lusha and Apollo thin out on.
of US dental practices we track are single-location
54% run without a website. 74% have no decision-maker on LinkedIn. The shape of the long-tail SMB row a profile-built database does not have. See the dental TAM report.
of US restaurants we track are single-location
82% have no LinkedIn company page. Owner-operators reachable through direct sourcing, not the LinkedIn anchor Lusha and Apollo are built around.
Source: Orbital data, April 2026. The 1,366,523 figure aggregates small-business coverage across the live email-list verticals, a subset of the 13,549,104 total US small businesses Orbital maps. Vertical breakdowns also published in the Dental TAM report and the HVAC TAM report.
The argument
A row that does not exist in either database is not a row you can buy.
Lusha and Apollo are both built around the profile, and both are built well. Lusha starts from a LinkedIn profile and reveals the email or phone behind it in one click. Apollo starts from its 275M-contact database, surfaces the person, then sequences and dials them in the same seat. Both methods assume the person you want already has a profile to reveal or a record to pull. At a 200-person company, they do.
At a single-shop plumbing business, they do not. 74% of dental decision-makers have no LinkedIn presence at all. 54% of those practices have no website. There is no profile for Lusha's extension to reveal and no anchored record for Apollo to sequence. A one-click reveal cannot reveal a profile that was never created, and a 275M-contact database built from online footprints does not hold the owner who never left one. The row does not exist to be revealed.
Orbital builds the other way. We map the business first from Google Maps, Yelp, and Yellow Pages, then send a 51-source agent to find the owner behind it. We find that owner about 80% of the time. We do not have Apollo's native sequencer and dialer or Lusha's one-click extension. We have the 13 million US small businesses both reveal tools stop short of.
Questions
Lusha vs Apollo, and where a third option fits
Lusha vs Apollo, which is better?
It depends on scope. Lusha wins for a fast, lightweight one-click reveal on profiles you already have, live in an afternoon. Apollo wins for breadth and an all-in-one motion: a 275M-contact database with a native sequencer, dialer, and conversation intelligence in the seat. Neither is built for the long-tail US small business, which is where Orbital fits.
Which is the cheaper option?
It depends on volume. Lusha runs from $69.90 a month on Pro for about 7,200 credits a year and 2 users, up to $399.90 a month on Premium. Apollo runs per user, month-to-month, from Free to Basic $59, Professional $99, and Organization $149 with a 3-seat minimum. The honest comparison is which coverage matches your buyers, not which number is lower.
Do either of them cover the US SMB long-tail?
Not at the company grain. Both are anchored to a LinkedIn profile or an online footprint, so the single-location shop with no website and no LinkedIn page sits below both lines. Lusha needs a profile to reveal, and Apollo's database thins out below mid-market.
Where does Orbital fit between them?
Orbital is the US SMB layer neither one maps. We map 13,549,104 US small businesses at the company grain and find the owner about 80% of the time, including the 74% of dental decision-makers with no LinkedIn profile. Teams run Orbital alongside Lusha or Apollo, not instead of them.
Can I get a sample?
Yes. We will pull about 100 records in your vertical so you can check them against whatever Lusha or Apollo shows you today, before you commit.
See the data Lusha and Apollo do not have.
Pick a vertical and a US metro. We will pull roughly 100 single-location small businesses with the owner attached, and you can check them against whatever you have in Lusha or Apollo today. No seat, no contract, no commitment.
Get a free sample