Ignaru vs Apollo: sales platform or growth engine?
Apollo is one of the best-known sales tools out there. It combines a large B2B contact database with sequences, a dialer, deal tracking, integrations and, more recently, AI agents that find leads and build sequences for you to review.
Ignaru is built differently. It's a growth engine in a box: a canvas of linked growth modules (lead finder, cold email, replies, approval and booked call, with LinkedIn, CRM and custom agent nodes coming soon) run by a deterministic engine. You see the whole loop at once, agent-built setup for your business is coming soon, and a person approves every message before it goes.
Who each is for
Apollo is for sales teams of any size who want prospect data and outreach in one platform, especially reps doing daily outbound across email, calls and LinkedIn tasks, and companies that already run a CRM like Salesforce or HubSpot.
Ignaru is for founders and small B2B teams who can't hire a growth person yet and want one loop, from finding leads to a booked call, that runs the same way every week with a human checking each send.
Side by side
| Ignaru | Apollo | |
|---|---|---|
| Setup | Starts from a working growth loop on a canvas. Agent-built setup for your business is coming soon. | Sign up, search the database, build lists and sequences. The AI assistant and agents can recommend and build sequences with you. |
| Credentials | AI nodes run on Ignaru's own keys, covered by credits. No key setup to start. | No API keys needed for its own data and AI. You connect your email accounts (Gmail on the free plan, other providers on paid plans). |
| Outbound focus | One growth loop: find, write, approve, follow up, book. CRM logging is coming soon. | Broad sales platform: prospecting, multi-step sequences across email, calls and LinkedIn touches, dialer, deals and pipeline. |
| Human approval | Every send waits for a person's yes. | Apollo's agents bring recommendations for you to approve, and you review a sequence before it launches. Once a sequence is live, it runs its steps. |
| AI agents | Custom agent nodes and agent-built setup are coming soon. | Agents for lead discovery, sequence creation and sequence optimisation run on a schedule and report back in Apollo or Slack. |
| Pricing model | 1,000 free credits to start, then credit packs: Starter 50,000 credits for $10, Growth 140,000 for $25, Scale 600,000 for $100. Bring your own AI key (Anthropic, OpenAI, OpenRouter or Gemini) and Iggy runs free; you pay your provider directly. | Free plan plus paid plans. All seats on an account share one plan, and credits are pooled across the team each billing cycle. |
When to pick Apollo
Pick Apollo if:
- you want a big contact database and outreach in the same tool,
- you have reps who live in sequences and calls every day,
- you need a dialer, call recording or deep CRM integrations,
- you want to start free and grow seat by seat.
Apollo is a mature, well-supported platform, and for a sales team with reps it's a sensible default.
When to pick Ignaru
Pick Ignaru if you're a small team without a sales function yet and want the loop run for you, end to end, with nothing reaching a prospect until you've said yes. You get one visible system rather than a set of features to assemble.
FAQ
Is Ignaru an Apollo alternative?
For early B2B teams that want a done-for-you growth loop with approval on every send, yes. If you need a large contact database, a dialer and a platform for a team of reps, Apollo covers more.
Does Apollo require approval before sending?
Apollo's agents ask you to approve their recommendations, and you review sequences before launch. After that, the sequence runs. In Ignaru, every individual send waits for a person's yes.
Does Ignaru need API keys or extra tools?
No key setup is needed for AI. Ignaru's AI nodes run on its own keys and draw from credits.
Can Ignaru handle LinkedIn and CRM too?
They're coming soon. Today Ignaru covers lead finding, cold email, replies, approval and booked calls on the same canvas, as one loop rather than separate tools.
How much does Ignaru cost?
You start with 1,000 free credits, enough to run your first loop. After that you buy credit packs from $10, or plug in your own AI key and Iggy runs free in Ignaru. A cold email draft is 10 credits.
See it running
Ignaru is a growth engine in a box. Built by the team behind Ignura (Cluely, Replit, Higgsfield work).