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AI SDR agents · September 2026 Edition

Apollo.io vs Artisan

One of twelve models named Apollo.io first on the direct prompt; two named Artisan. Apollo.io was named by eleven of the twelve models and Artisan by twelve and Apollo.io carries 23 labels and Artisan 36, so the shares are not directly comparable.

Apollo.io

accepted challenger

San Francisco, United States, founded 2015. Named in twenty categories this edition.

Artisan

criticized challenger

Named in one category this edition.

First-choice share20%13%Of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, 0 to 100.
Negative rate4%42%Negative labels as a share of the product's labels, 0 to 100.
Rank in category#1#2A position in a field of 11; printed, not drawn.
Labels2336A count; the two differ.
The two percentage rows are drawn on one 0 to 100 track, Apollo.io reading right to left. Rank and label count are printed, not drawn.Reply.io was named alongside these two in seven of the twelve direct answers. Apollo.io vs Amplemarket · Artisan vs Amplemarket

Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts over all twelve models, for a mid-market B2B company; rank is within the category; every quote names the model and the prompt it came from. Both figures come from the AI SDR agents page.

By framing

How many of the twelve models made each the first choice, per way of asking, and how many argued against it.
Apollo.ioFirst choices, of twelve modelsArtisan
Direct121 against Apollo.io · 3 against Artisan
Paraphrase44
Comparative01
Budget-constrained404 against Artisan
Scale-constrained002 against Artisan
Negative006 against Artisan
Bars are first choices, 0 to 12 each sideModels that argued againstA model can name both, so the two sides of a row do not sum to twelve.

The direct prompt

The plain question, one answer per model, grouped by where Apollo.io and Artisan stood in it.

Apollo.io first, Artisan not the choice

1 of 12 modelsArtisan was named in the answer but not as the choice, or not at all.
Grok 4.1 FastApollo.io alternatives: Amplemarket, Reply.io

Artisan first, Apollo.io not the choice

2 of 12 modelsApollo.io was named in the answer but not as the choice, or not at all.
Gemini 3.5 FlashArtisan alternatives: Clay, Regie.ai, Reply.io
GLM 4.7 FlashXArtisan alternatives: 11x, AiSDR, Regie.ai, Salesforge

Neither was the first choice, one was named

3 of 12 modelsThe answer put something else first and named one of the two as an alternative.
Claude Haiku 4.5RocketSDR alternatives: Apollo.io
Mistral SmallAmplemarket Duo Copilot alternatives: AiSDR, Artisan, Salesforge
DeepSeek V4 FlashAmplemarket alternatives: 11x, AiSDR, Artisan, Reply.io

Neither was named

6 of 12 modelsThe answer made no first choice from these two in this category.
GPT-5.4 miniQualified alternatives: Reply.io
Perplexity SonarAmplemarket Duo alternatives: AiSDR, Artisan Ava
Llama 4 Maverickno first choice
Qwen 3.7 FlashAmplemarket alternatives: AiSDR, Reply.io
Kimi K2Amplemarket, Reply.io alternatives: AiSDR
MiniMax M2.5Amplemarket, SalesTools.io alternatives: Agent Frank, AiSDR, Reply.io

Bold names in an answer are the products the judge labeled a first choice; a model naming several gives each of them that label. The full answer text for every row is in the record.

By buyer segment

The same question asked on behalf of a different buyer. Each standing is computed within its segment and they are never added together. The figures above are the mid-market standing, which is the one the category orders by.
Small business
Apollo.io leads by twenty-four points.
Apollo.io24%#1 of 8
Artisan0%#7 of 8
The full small business standing →
Mid-marketThe figures above
Apollo.io leads by seven points.
Apollo.io20%#1 of 11
Artisan13%#2 of 11
The full mid-market standing →
Enterprise
The order flips: Artisan leads at enterprise.
Artisan7%#6 of 11
Apollo.io2%#10 of 11
The full enterprise standing →

What the models said about Apollo.io

No label in this category carried a quote.

What the models said about Artisan

Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Six of eight in this category shown.

“Avoid fully autonomous AI SDRs with annual lock-in contracts, no trials, and documented quality problems (Artisan, 11x.ai especially)” DeepSeek V4 Flash · negative prompt · hard negative
“Artisan - LinkedIn restricted their automated outreach in early 2026... G2 rating of 3.8/5 (lowest among reviewed platforms)” MiniMax M2.5 · negative prompt · hard negative
“Artisan was temporarily banned by LinkedIn in late 2025/early 2026 due to platform compliance and data-scraping violations.” Gemini 3.5 Flash · negative prompt · hard negative
“unless your team specifically wants an AI SDR that books meetings more autonomously, in which case Artisan is the better fit” Perplexity Sonar · paraphrase prompt · first choice
“Artisan"s AI agent, Ava, is highly regarded for mid-market companies that want a fully autonomous out-of-the-box solution.” Gemini 3.5 Flash · direct prompt · first choice
“or Artisan/Ava if you want more autonomous outbound prospecting with built-in contact data.” Claude Haiku 4.5 · paraphrase prompt · first choice
Also compared
Apollo.io vs AmplemarketArtisan vs AmplemarketThe full AI SDR standing

Comparisons are drawn for the top three products in each category. The output is the models' output; nothing here is a recommendation by the index.