Attio vs Close vs Apollo.io
AI-first CRM for a small sales team: none of the three sticker prices is the bill. Scores from the RXed AI Periodic Table v1.0 — identical 20-element scale, deterministic overall. How we audit →
At a glance
Scope = elements of the AI stack in the tool’s stated scope (dashed = honestly out of scope, never a penalty). Quality = how well it scores on what it covers. No single number — both axes, always.
The verdict
All three ship a hosted MCP server; the difference is how you sell. Attio (Scope 15/20 · Quality 6/10) has the sharpest AI-native data model (Cx 8.5, Fc 8, Pc 8.5) and always-on revenue agents, free to 3 seats then ~€27 a seat annually — but paid plans are annual-only and AI runs burn credits that reviewers say need top-ups by month three. Close (Scope 12/20 · Quality 6/10) is the phone: dialers, coaching, Chloe on every plan from $9 a seat — but independent analysis puts a calling-heavy team near $175 per user against the $99 sticker. Apollo.io (Scope 15/20 · Quality 6/10) bundles a 230M-contact database, sequencer and dialer from ~€45 a seat, with real-world accuracy around 65–70% and weaker in Europe (In 3). Product-led software team → Attio. Reps on the phone all day → Close, budgeting minutes. US outbound on a budget → Apollo, verifying every contact; EU targets need a second, GDPR-native source.
Where the quality sits
Family mean over covered elements only — a dash means the family is honestly outside that tool’s scope.
| Attio Scope 15/20 · Quality 6/10 audited 2026-07-28 | Close Scope 12/20 · Quality 6/10 audited 2026-07-31 | Apollo.io Scope 15/20 · Quality 6/10 audited 2026-07-24 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vendor | Attio | Close | Apollo.io |
| Origin | UK | US | US |
| Pricing | Free (≤3 seats) · Plus ~€27/user/mo billed annually (~€33 monthly) · Pro ~€64/user/mo billed annually (~€79 monthly) · Enterprise custom | USD list, billed annually: Solo $9 · Essentials $35 · Growth $99 · Scale $139 per user/month (monthly billing $19/$49/$109/$149); no EUR price list. Chloe on every plan via included AI credits (500–2,000/user/month by tier), then usage-based. Calling billed per minute; AI Call Assistant add-on $50/month + $0.02/min | Free · Basic ~€45 · Professional ~€73 · Organization ~€110 per user/month billed annually (US list $49 / $79 / $119; monthly $59 / $99 / $149; Organization has a 3-seat minimum). Enrichment is metered in credits: 1 credit = 1 email, 8 credits = 1 mobile number. The AI Assistant is currently free on paid plans as an introductory offer, capped at 5 chats/month on Free. |
| Pr Prompts | 7 | 6 | 6 |
| Em Embeddings | 4 | — | 4 |
| Cx Context | 9 | 7 | 7 |
| Tr Tracing | 7 | 7 | 6 |
| Lg LLM | 5 | 5 | 5 |
| Fc Function calling | 8 | 6 | 8 |
| Vx Vector store | — | — | — |
| Rg RAG | 7 | 6 | 6 |
| Gr Guardrails | 7 | 7 | 5 |
| Mm Multimodal | 5 | 6 | 5 |
| Ag Agents | 7 | 6 | 6 |
| Ft Fine-tuning | — | — | — |
| Fw Frameworks & harnesses | 8 | 6 | 7 |
| Ev Evaluations | 3 | 3 | 5 |
| Sm Small models | — | — | — |
| Ma Multi-agent | 4 | — | 3 |
| Sy Synthetic data | — | — | — |
| Pc Protocols | 9 | 7 | 9 |
| In Interpretability | 5 | — | 3 |
| Th Thinking models | — | — | — |
Hover any score for the written reason. Full detail: Attio passport → · Close passport → · Apollo.io passport →