Apollo.io vs Instantly
Three of fourteen models named Apollo.io first on the direct prompt; zero named Instantly. Apollo.io was named by thirteen of the fourteen models and Instantly by seven and Apollo.io carries 33 labels and Instantly 10, so the shares are not directly comparable.
San Francisco, United States, founded 2015. Named in twenty-six categories this edition.
founded 2019. Named in eight categories this edition.
Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts over all fourteen 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
Apollo.ioFirst choices, of fourteen modelsInstantly
Every model, every framing
| Model | Direct | Paraphrase | Comparative | Budget-constrained | Scale-constrained | Negative |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | | | ||||
| GPT-5.4 mini | | | | | ||
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | | |||||
| Perplexity Sonar | | | | |||
| Grok 4.1 Fast | | | | | ||
| Mistral Small | | |||||
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | ||||||
| Llama 4 Maverick | | |||||
| Qwen 3.7 Flash | | | | | ||
| Kimi K2 | | | | |||
| GLM 4.7 FlashX | | |||||
| MiniMax M2.5 | | | ||||
| GPT-6 Luna | ||||||
| Muse Glimmer 30B | | | |
Apollo.io Instantly first choice named as an alternative argued againstblank: not namedEach cell is one answer, Apollo.io on the left and Instantly on the right.The direct prompt
Apollo.io first, Instantly not the choice
3 of 14 modelsInstantly was named in the answer but not as the choice, or not at all.Neither was the first choice, one was named
3 of 14 modelsThe answer put something else first and named one of the two as an alternative.Neither was named
8 of 14 modelsThe answer made no first choice from these two in this category.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
Apollo.io32%#1 of 9Instantly0%#7 of 9Apollo.io24%#1 of 12Instantly4%#6 of 12Apollo.io0%#11 of 11Instantly0%#– of 11What the models said about Apollo.io
Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. One of one in this category shown.
“Best for budget-conscious teams wanting database + outreach in one tab, giving high-end AI power to small teams who don't have a $5,000 monthly budget” Claude Haiku 4.5 · budget prompt · first choice
What the models said about Instantly
Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Four of four in this category shown.
“Avoid if you want an *agent* that thinks and responds; this is just a high-volume sender.” Qwen 3.7 Flash · negative prompt · hard negative
“a stack like Instantly.ai (~$30/mo) + open-source LLMs for basic personalization, but lacks full autonomy” Grok 4.1 Fast · budget prompt · soft negative
“Starts at $47/month flat... Instantly lets you connect unlimited email accounts, includes free automated warm-up, and offers modular AI agents” Gemini 3.5 Flash · budget prompt · first choice
“Apollo or Instantly as your starting point - both offer generous free tiers and affordable entry plans” MiniMax M2.5 · budget prompt · first choice
Comparisons are drawn for the top eight products in each category, each against each. The output is the models' output; nothing here is a recommendation by the index.