Apollo's native emails in their "Find people at company" integration are decent but not great. You're typically looking at 60-70% accuracy on the emails they surface directly, which means 30-40% bounce rates if you send without verification.
The bigger issue is Apollo tends to surface older, stale emails more often than dedicated email finders. Their database gets updated less frequently than tools like LeadMagic or FindyMail. I've seen cases where Apollo shows someone's email from a previous company or role that's 6+ months outdated.
Here's what most operators do with Apollo data in Clay: treat those emails as a starting point, not the endpoint. Run them through a verification waterfall using LeadMagic, Prospeo, or MillionVerifier. If Apollo's email fails verification, trigger backup email finding with FindyMail or Dropcontact.
Apollo's strength is the job title filtering and company data, not email accuracy. Their integration pulls decent contact lists, but you need that extra verification step to avoid deliverability issues.
If you're seeing good performance with Apollo emails as-is, you might have gotten lucky with your specific target segments. But for consistent outbound at scale, plan on verifying everything. The extra 2-3 cents per verification credit will save you way more in domain reputation and sender score.
Most Clay users I know treat Apollo as the contact discovery layer, then layer in proper email finding and verification on top.