Firmable vs Apollo for Australian B2B Data (2026 Comparison)

Firmable and Apollo are the two names Australian agencies compare most when they need B2B contact data: one built around Australia and New Zealand, the other the global default. This guide sets out what each says about Australian coverage and pricing, then covers the part neither vendor's page shows: why a database count is only the ceiling for an Australian small-business list.

We haven't used Firmable hands-on. We had an Apollo account in 2024 but haven't run client campaigns from it. Everything below about the two tools comes from their own websites, read on 24 October 2026, and every claim is attributed to the vendor. Everything about Australian data comes from the lists we build for agencies every week.

You'll get a short answer, the coverage claims side by side, both price lists, the Australian data problems that no database fixes, a seven-step test to run before you pay for credits, and a short note on the law. It sits alongside our guide to the cold email tech stack we use and the wider playbook in cold email for marketing agencies in Australia.

Firmable vs Apollo: which is better for Australian B2B data?

It depends on who you need to reach. Firmable is built around Australian and New Zealand data and prices in AUD. Apollo is a global database that publishes no Australian contact count and offers a free plan. Neither page lets you check coverage of the small Australian businesses most agency lists target, so test both on 100 of your own ideal clients before you commit.

We won't name a winner, because we haven't tested either tool ourselves and a ranking built on a vendor's own pages isn't worth much. What we can do is show you what each vendor claims, what it costs, and how to test the claims against your own ICP.

What are Firmable and Apollo?

Firmable (firmable.ai) is a B2B sales data platform with a dedicated Australian site. Its pages list AI prospect search, lookalike search, work emails and mobile numbers, buying-signal monitoring, a technology search covering 75,317 technologies, a mobile app, an MCP connector, and integrations with HubSpot, Salesforce, Dynamics and Pipedrive. It prices in AUD.

Apollo (apollo.io) is a global B2B database with sales tools built in. Its pages list a contact and company database, email sequencing, waterfall enrichment, email warmup and a deliverability suite, people and company lookalikes (in beta), a Chrome extension and an API. It lists prices in dollars.

The practical difference is where each starts. Firmable starts from Australian and New Zealand records. Apollo starts from a global database and layers the sending tools on top. We send through Instantly (see Instantly vs Smartlead for agencies), so for us the question is only about the data.

What does each vendor claim about Australian coverage?

These are the vendors' own figures, quoted as at 24 October 2026. None is independently verified.

Three things to read carefully. First, Firmable's own pages disagree with each other on company counts: 1.5 million in its docs, 2 million-plus on its homepage and 2.2 million-plus in its comparison table, with New Zealand company counts of 228,000 on one page and 300,000 on another. When we need a figure, we use the lowest one.

Second, some Firmable pages also quote global totals and mention the US and Canada, so check which region a number refers to.

Third, Firmable says Apollo has smaller verified ANZ coverage, especially for small business. That claim sits on Firmable's comparison page and cites no independent data. Apollo's Australia page, for its part, gives no number to compare it against. Treat both sets of claims as marketing until your own sample says otherwise.

How much do Firmable and Apollo cost?

These are list prices from each vendor's pricing page as at 24 October 2026. They change often, so check Firmable's pricing and Apollo's pricing before you budget.

Firmable plans (AUD, per user per month, excluding GST)

Firmable has no free plan. Any plan can be trialled free for 14 days, and a separate test drive includes 25 profiles. A profile is used when a contact or company record is unlocked or exported.

Apollo plans (dollars, per seat per month, excluding taxes)

An email costs 1 Apollo credit and a phone number costs 8. Unused credits expire at the end of each billing cycle. The free plan has no time limit and connects Gmail accounts only. Paid-plan trials include 75 credits and most features of the chosen plan.

The units aren't the same, so the plans don't compare like for like. As rough list-price arithmetic: Firmable Individual is AU$960 a year for 1,200 profiles, or about AU$0.80 a profile if you use them all. Apollo Basic is $588 a year for 30,000 credits, or about 2 cents a credit, with an email at 1 credit. The number that matters is what it costs per usable, emailable contact on your ICP, and only a trial on your own list tells you that.

What Australian data problems does no database fix?

This is the part vendor pages don't show, and it applies to Firmable, Apollo or any other source. These numbers come from the Australian lists we build for agencies every week, using Discolike lookalike search and AnyMailFinder, not from either tool in this comparison.

The count is an upper bound. A number on a search screen is the most you could possibly get, not what you can email.

In Australia, a sharp sub-niche in one city is often 50 to 200 real businesses. Volume comes from more segments (cities, adjacent verticals, size bands), not from paging deeper into one query.

Headcount bands let through the wrong businesses. The "11 to 50 employees" band lets through many one-to-nine person shops and lead-generation microsites. In one build of Australian performance-marketing agencies, a batch seeded with the best earlier results yielded 5 usable companies from 50. If size matters, check it by hand on a sample, from team pages and directories, whichever database the band came from.

Location data mislabels Australian places. In the crawl data we use, WA firms were tagged "Tasmania" because a town called Perth exists in Tasmania, and "Melbourne" is often a metro label rather than the real suburb. Check a sample of locations before you trust a state filter.

Small businesses rarely publish a named decision maker. This is the real test of any "verified contacts" claim. When we ran AnyMailFinder, decision-maker emails were found far more often for larger companies than for small Australian ones:

That's an email-finder result, not a database result, but the lesson carries over: ask any vendor for its match rate on a list that looks like yours, not on its best-covered segment. For the small Australian businesses behind the bottom rows, a version of the campaign that opens "Hi," with no first name is how you still reach them.

Local registers matter for some verticals. Firmable lists NDIS and aged-care registers among its Australian data points, so if you target those providers, test whether the register data covers the businesses you want. We build NDIS and allied health lists from Google local results, directories and lookalike search instead.

How do you test a B2B data provider before you buy?

Run the same seven steps on any vendor. It's the method we use for our own lists:

1. Write the ICP in one paragraph, with include, exclude and borderline rules, before you open the tool.
2. Pull 100 records on a trial. Firmable's test drive includes only 25 profiles, so check how many its 14-day trial allows. Apollo's free plan has 900 credits a year and an email costs 1, but a phone number costs 8.
3. Grade every row YES, BORDERLINE or NO, and write down the evidence. When unsure, mark it BORDERLINE, never YES.
4. Verify every email and count the valid and risky ones separately.
5. Check headcount by hand on 10 rows, from the company's own site or a directory.
6. Compare the vendor's count with your YES rows. The YES rows are the ones you'd actually email.
7. Only then buy credits.

Judge the result against bounces. We treat a bounce rate around 1% to 2% as healthy, and a campaign well above that points to a list-source problem. A 5,000-row list bought from a contact database (neither tool in this post) bounced 8.8% in one campaign, against 1% to 3% on curated lists.

If you'd rather someone else ran this on your market, book a call.

What do we use for Australian lists instead?

We use Discolike lookalike and query search, Google local results city by city, tech-stack lists, then AnyMailFinder for emails, decision maker first and company inbox second. Lookalikes find businesses a database can miss, every row is graded before we pay for an email, and we only pay for verified ones. The full breakdown is in the cold email tech stack we use.

We have used a contact database for sizing. When we sized the Australian HubSpot-user market for an agency, an export showed about 2,500 businesses with over 20 employees, plus about 6,500 with 1 to 20. A count like that tells you whether a segment is worth building. It doesn't give you the list.

A database could fit if you need things we don't build lists around: filtering by ABN or ANZSIC code, mobile numbers for call follow-up, or title search across larger companies. Ask yourself whether those are real needs for your campaigns before you pay for them.

If you want the list built and graded for you, that's what our Australian cold email agency service does.

Is it legal to use a B2B database for cold email in Australia?

This is general information, not legal advice. A list gives you no consent. Under the Spam Act 2003 you stay responsible for having a valid basis to email every address you use, and ACMA's guidance warns you to take care when you buy or use a marketing list. The Act also bans using a list built with address-harvesting software, so ask any vendor how its data is collected.

Privacy law matters too. A named work email is personal information under the Privacy Act 1988. The small business exemption doesn't cover everything: the OAIC says it can be lost if a business discloses personal information for a benefit, so an agency that buys or sells lead data may not be exempt.

Read the ACMA guidance on avoiding spam and our guide to whether cold email is legal in Australia, and get legal advice for your own situation.