The Apollo.io alternativefor teams whose market is the dealership
Apollo.io is a strong self-serve platform: prices printed on the page, a free tier that never expires, 240M+ contacts, 65+ filters, and sequencing and dialing built in. What it does not have is a dealership shape. Here a contact is fixed to one store, its OEM franchises and the group that owns it, across more than 27,000 US and Canadian rooftops - and adding a teammate costs nothing.
Is there an Apollo.io alternative built for automotive retail?
Yes, though most teams should treat it as a companion rather than a swap. Apollo.io indexes companies of every kind, so a dealership arrives in it as one more small business described by industry and headcount. Hermes Data organizes around the store: a record names the rooftop, the OEM franchises that rooftop holds, its live inventory count and its parent dealer group, which is what makes a list by franchise or by group possible. The billing shape differs too. Apollo prices per user with a credit allowance attached to each seat; Hermes Data holds one balance for the whole account at 1 credit per contact, so headcount never changes the bill.
Hermes Data vs Apollo.io
| Feature | Hermes Data | Apollo.io |
|---|---|---|
| Organizing unit | The dealership rooftop, with franchises, group and inventory attached | The company record, modeled the same way for every industry |
| Cost of another user | Nothing - one wallet, any number of people spending from it | Plans are priced per user, each seat carrying its own credits |
| Automotive depth | 270,000+ verified decision-makers across 27,000+ North American stores | 240M+ contacts and 30M+ companies spanning every market |
| Building a territory | Filter on OEM franchise, dealer group, role and state, then take it whole | 65+ attribute filters, shared across every vertical at once |
| Getting started free | $0.99 unlocks 20 credits; there is no standing free allowance | A Starter plan their FAQ calls free forever, no card needed |
| Scope of the tool | A data source - the CSV feeds whatever you already send from | A full outbound platform with sequences, dialer and AI research |
The rooftop is the record
Every contact ships fixed to a specific store, alongside the OEM franchises that store carries and the group that owns it. That context decides whether a pitch lands: a single-point Kia store and a 40-rooftop group buy very differently, and a generic company record cannot tell you which one you are emailing.
Credits, not licenses
Nothing here is sold by the seat. The account keeps a single balance, anyone can draw on it, and one verified contact costs one credit. Plans open at $99 a month for 150 credits, Growth and Scale simply raise the allowance, and a new SDR can pull lists on day one without a purchase order.
What Apollo does that we do not
Apollo runs the whole outbound motion in one place - sequences, a dialer, mailboxes, AI research - and its free-forever Starter plan lets a team test the data before spending anything. It also reaches every industry on earth. If your prospects are not all dealerships, that breadth is worth more than our depth.
Keep the stack you already run
Migration is not part of this. Exports arrive as UTF-8 CSV with a header row and load cleanly into Apollo.io, Outreach, HubSpot or Salesforce, so sequencing stays where it is and only the automotive slice of your target list changes.
Frequently asked questions
Is there an Apollo.io alternative for selling to car dealerships?
Hermes Data is one, and it is narrower on purpose. Apollo.io serves outbound teams in every market from a 240M+ contact index; Hermes Data holds only automotive retail, at more than 270,000 verified decision-makers across more than 27,000 franchised and independent stores in the United States and Canada. Because the dataset is dealership-shaped, you filter by OEM franchise, dealer group and rooftop instead of approximating those with industry codes.
How is a dealership record structured differently here?
Each contact is attached to the store where that person actually works. The row carries the store's address, website, live inventory count and OEM franchises alongside the person's name, title, verified work email, phone and LinkedIn URL - 15 columns in all, identical on every plan. Parent-group roll-ups, including rooftop counts and group inventory, come from our separate Dealer Groups product at 5 credits a group.
Do I have to stop using Apollo.io?
No, and most teams should not. Apollo.io is a platform for running outreach; Hermes Data is a place to source automotive rows. Export the dealership list you need as a CSV, import it into whatever you already send from, and let the two sit side by side.
Does Hermes Data charge per user?
It does not. Billing is per record: one credit for one verified contact, spent from a balance the whole account shares. Apollo's paid plans are priced per user with credits allocated to each seat, so the two scale in opposite directions - their bill grows with headcount, ours grows only with how many contacts you actually buy.
More on dealership contacts
Try Hermes Data for $0.99
Self-serve access to the automotive data your business runs on. The $0.99 trial gives you 20 credits to spend across Contacts, Dealers, and Dealer Groups. Then auto-upgrade to Starter ($99/mo) — or cancel any time.
Contacts, Dealers, and Dealer Groups are all self-serve on one credit wallet — spend your trial credits on any of them. Vehicle Listings is live too, on its own API subscription (separate from the credit wallet). Explore Listings.