What is Apollo MCP?
Apollo MCP is Apollo.io's official MCP server. MCP (Model Context Protocol) is an open standard that lets AI assistants use tools inside other apps. Once Apollo is connected, you can ask Claude or ChatGPT something like "find 50 VPs of marketing at US fintech companies with 50 to 200 employees" and the assistant runs that search in your Apollo account, instead of you clicking through filters.
Apollo MCP at a glance
Server URL: https://mcp.apollo.io/mcp
Sign-in: OAuth in your browser (a master API key also works for headless setups)
Works with: Claude, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Cursor, Codex, Claude Code, VS Code and other MCP clients
Cost: no separate fee; actions follow your Apollo plan, and search and enrichment spend credits
What Apollo MCP can do
Apollo exposes most of its product through the MCP server. According to Apollo's docs, the tools fall into four groups:
| Area | What you can ask the AI to do |
|---|---|
| Search and enrichment | Search people, contacts and companies; enrich people and companies one at a time or in bulk; pull a company's job postings |
| Records | Create and update contacts and accounts; work with deals, lists and custom objects |
| Outreach | Create and update sequences; add or remove contacts from sequences; list sequences and email accounts; send one-off emails |
| Tasks and analytics | Search, create, complete or skip tasks; query analytics; review conversations and transcripts |
Prompts that work well:
- "Find heads of sales at Series A SaaS companies in Texas and save them to a list called Q4 Texas."
- "Enrich these 20 contacts and tell me which ones are missing a verified email."
- "Add everyone on the Q4 Texas list to my Founder Outreach sequence."
- "Which of my sequences had the best reply rate last month?"
How to set up Apollo MCP
In Claude (web or desktop)
- Open Settings, Connectors.
- Find Apollo in the connector directory, or click Add custom connector and paste
https://mcp.apollo.io/mcp. - Sign in to Apollo when the browser window opens and approve access.
- Start a new chat and ask for something small first, like "show me my Apollo sequences."
In Claude Code
Add the server from your terminal, then finish the sign-in in your browser:
claude mcp add --transport http apollo https://mcp.apollo.io/mcpIf the session expires, run /mcp inside Claude Code to sign in again.
In ChatGPT and Perplexity
Apollo is listed in the ChatGPT apps directory and in Perplexity's connectors. Connect it there and sign in with your Apollo account.
Headless or server-side setups
Clients that can't open a browser can send an Apollo master API key in an X-Api-Key header. Scoped keys are rejected with a 403, so this only works with a master key, and that key is workspace-level rather than tied to one user.
Two settings worth changing
Apollo recommends setting credit-spending tools to "Approval required" in your AI client, so the assistant asks before it spends credits. Apollo also prohibits model training on MCP data, so turn off training in your AI app's privacy settings.
Plans and credits
- Plans: Apollo's product page says any plan qualifies, including free. There is no separate MCP subscription.
- Free accounts with a personal email: Apollo's docs say these can't use people or company search, enrichment, full record retrieval, contact matching or adding people to prospects. You need to register with a work email for those.
- Credits: people and company search, enrichment (single and bulk), job postings and some conversation insights spend credits. Most other actions don't.
Limits to know before you use it for cold email
Apollo MCP is a capable connector. The limits show up when you use it to actually send cold email, because the MCP inherits everything about Apollo's data and sending:
- Data accuracy: reviews report Apollo's data accuracy around 65%, with bounce rates commonly between 15% and 35%. An AI assistant pulling leads faster doesn't make those leads more accurate.
- Sending limits: Apollo recommends keeping daily volume to about 50 emails per mailbox, runs on shared IP pools, and has no native warmup.
- No deliverability checks: there is no inbox placement testing or blacklist monitoring for the assistant to check before it adds people to a sequence.
- Guardrails depend on your AI app: approvals are whatever you configure per tool in Claude or ChatGPT. The server itself blocks destructive actions like bulk deletes, but it won't stop a sequence change you didn't mean to make if the tool is set to "Always allow."
Apollo MCP vs AutoMailer MCP
AutoMailer also has an MCP server. It covers the same prospecting jobs on a bigger verified database, then handles the sending with deliverability built in.
| Apollo MCP | AutoMailer MCP | |
|---|---|---|
| Database | 210M+ contacts | 300M+ profiles, 143M verified work emails |
| Email accuracy | Reported around 65% | 98% verified, refreshed weekly; only verified emails are saved |
| Connect | OAuth; Claude, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Cursor, Codex | One URL with an API key; Claude, Claude Code, Codex |
| Sending | Sequences; about 50 emails a day per mailbox recommended | Unlimited sends from warmed-up mailboxes |
| Deliverability checks | None | Healthy-mailbox check, spam word check, inbox placement testing, blacklist monitoring |
| Launch guardrails | Per-tool approval settings in your AI app | Campaigns start as drafts, launch needs the exact campaign name, credits need a yes |
| Ready-made playbooks | Plugin for coding tools | 20 free skills |
| Plan | Any plan (limits on free personal-email accounts) | Paid plans, from $29/mo |
When Apollo MCP is the better fit: you want Apollo's CRM features (deals, tasks, call transcripts) in the same chat, or you mainly work in ChatGPT or Perplexity today.
When AutoMailer MCP is the better fit: your goal is cold email that lands. You get prospecting on verified data and the sending in one connection, with checks that stop Claude from launching from a bad mailbox or with spammy copy. See how AutoMailer works inside Claude, or read the full AutoMailer vs Apollo comparison.
Sources: Apollo MCP docs, Apollo MCP product page, Apollo G2 reviews, AutoMailer Lead Finder. Details as of October 2026.