October 26, 2026
AI Ark pricing · Free credits against Usage-Based billing, and Apollo compared
AI Ark Free gives 100 credits a month for $0. Usage-Based is $49 a month billed monthly or $470 a year billed yearly. A found email costs 1 credit and a mobile costs 5.
The short answer
AI Ark is a cheap database of business contacts. You search it to build a list, find lookalike companies, ones that look like your best customers, and export verified emails. A credit is the unit it charges you for each contact you find.
Free gives you 100 credits a month for $0. Usage-Based costs $49 a month billed monthly for 5,000 credits, or $470 a year billed yearly for 60,000 credits.
Pick Free if you only want to test a short list. Pick Usage-Based, billed yearly, once you know you will buy credits every month.
What a credit buys
A credit is the unit AI Ark charges for contact data. In a person export, each person costs 0.5 credits, and a found email adds 0.5 more, so a found email costs 1 credit in total. A miss costs 0.5 credits. A mobile number, a cell phone number, costs 5 credits.
The math: 1,000 people exported with 700 emails found cost 1,000 × 0.5 + 700 × 0.5 = 850 credits. At $49 a month billed monthly for 5,000 credits, one credit is $0.0098, so 850 credits is $8.33, about $0.012 per found email.
A mobile costs 5 times what a found email costs: 5 credits against 1 credit. If your list needs mobiles, budget for that before you pick a plan. A list that only needs emails stretches the same credits much further.
Monthly against yearly billing
The math: 12 months at $49 a month billed monthly comes to 12 × $49 = $588 a year. Usage-Based billed yearly costs $470 a year. That leaves a gap of $118 a year in favor of yearly billing.
The credits come out the same: 5,000 credits a month × 12 = 60,000 credits a year, the same count the yearly plan gives. So yearly billing buys the same credits for $118 less.
When Free is enough, and when to pay
Free fits a first test. Use your 100 credits a month, $0, to search for your real ideal customers before you commit any spend. If the list AI Ark returns matches who you sell to, that is your signal to move up a plan.
Pay once 100 credits a month runs out, or once your list leans on mobiles, which burn through credits at 5 each. Start with Usage-Based billed monthly, $49 a month, if you are not sure you will keep using AI Ark past one month. Move to billed yearly, $470 a year, once you know you need credits every month.
Where AI Ark sits next to Apollo
AI Ark is the best Apollo alternative for cheap list building. Apollo finds people too, and you spend credits to see an email or a mobile number.
Apollo Basic costs $49 per seat a month billed yearly for 30,000 credits a year, or $65 per seat a month billed monthly. Apollo’s credits do not roll over, so whatever you do not spend in the period disappears at renewal.
AI Ark’s credits and Apollo’s credits are not the same unit, so do not compare the two tools by credit count alone. Compare by what you need found: a cheap bulk list of lookalike companies and verified emails points to AI Ark, a single login that also sends sequences points to Apollo.
Thibault Garcia of Reachly wrote:
“The lead source layer is upstream of Clay. AI Ark handles top-of-funnel prospecting because its lookalike company discovery surfaces accounts that match the profile of a client’s best-converting customers...” Thibault Garcia, Reachly, April 28, 2026
What to do next
Run your list through AI Ark Free first. Spend the 100 credits a month on your real target accounts, then count the emails and mobiles that came back before you pick a paid plan.
Sources · AI Ark pricing, October 26, 2026 · Apollo pricing, October 26, 2026