Cold email software: AI tools by price, mailboxes, warm-up and leads

How each cold email tool bills

These four tools charge for different things, so a headline price compares badly. A mailbox is one sending address, such as sales@yourdomain.com. Cold senders spread volume across many of them so each address keeps a low daily send count. That is why “unlimited email accounts” matters more here than in newsletter software.

Instantly and Smartlead charge for contacts and sends and give mailboxes away. Apollo charges per seat, and lemlist’s Multichannel plan per user; lemlist’s Email plan is one flat price for unlimited users.

What each tool costs at your list size

At 2,500 contacts, Apollo’s Basic seat and lemlist’s Email plan cost the least of the four; at 10,000, lemlist’s Email plan does. Apollo publishes no single price at 10,000.

Smartlead costs less than Instantly at every list size, and at 50,000 contacts it costs less than half. Apollo’s figure is per seat, so a three-person team pays it three times.

Contacts here means prospects uploaded or stored. lemlist leaves contacts uncapped and limits the Email plan to 50,000 emails a month. A three-step sequence to 50,000 people is about 150,000 emails, above the only volume tier the page shows. Apollo bills lookups in credits; past its seat’s pool, extra credits are bought on a slider that shows no monthly total.

The cold email tools, one by one

Instantly: flat plans with every mailbox included

Instantly’s Outreach Growth plan costs $47 a month with “Unlimited email accounts & warmup”, 1,000 uploaded contacts and 5,000 emails a month (Instantly pricing).

Hypergrowth, $107 a month, raises that to 25,000 contacts and 125,000 emails. Instantly pricing covers every plan.

Lead search and the AI agents sit on separate Credits plans, from $9 a month for 150 credits. Users report features sold separately, which lifts the bill above the headline plan (3 of 17 sources: Trustpilot, Trustpilot). Cancellation, refund and double-charge disputes are the largest complaint group (7 of 17: Trustpilot, Trustpilot).

Best for

Teams running many mailboxes that want one flat sending price: Growth allows unlimited email accounts for 1,000 uploaded contacts and 5,000 emails a month.

Skip it if

you want lead search and AI agents in one price: both draw on a separate Instantly Credits plan billed on top of Outreach.

Smartlead: no contact cap from Unlimited Smart

Smartlead’s Base plan costs $39 a month for 2,000 stored contacts and 6,000 sends a month. Pro, $94 a month, stores 30,000 contacts, and Unlimited Smart, $174 a month, removes the contact cap. The pricing page says “All plans include unlimited email accounts at no extra cost.”

The card shows yearly prices; the monthly prices above are higher. Verified prospect emails cost $59 a month extra on Base and Pro. One r/coldemail thread comparing it with Instantly finds deliverability about equal once DNS, warm-up and lists are clean (r/coldemail). Others report burned mailboxes and warm-up pool problems (4 of 20: r/coldemail, r/coldemail).

Best for

Agencies and senders with many mailboxes and clients: every plan has unlimited email accounts, and Pro adds API, webhooks and paid client workspaces.

Skip it if

you expect to cancel within a few months: 5 of 20 user reports say cancelling only pauses the plan, and billing resumes.

lemlist: email and LinkedIn in one sequence

lemlist’s Email plan costs $69 a month for 50,000 emails a month, with unlimited users and senders (lemlist pricing).

The card shows yearly billing, with the monthly price struck through. Multichannel, $109 a month per user, adds LinkedIn and SMS automation and a dialer. Each Multichannel user gets 5 senders and unlimited emails and messages. lemlist pricing sets out both plans.

The FAQ says “lemwarm and built-in deliverability protections are included in all plans.” Lead data is a separate add-on, $20 a month for 2,000 credits. Fast, thorough support is the most frequent theme in lemlist’s reviews (13 of its 20 latest Trustpilot reviews: Trustpilot, Trustpilot).

Best for

Small teams that mix email with LinkedIn and calls in one sequence: the Multichannel plan has unlimited emails and messages, priced per user.

Skip it if

you send email only, at high volume: the pricing page shows one Email tier, 50,000 emails a month, and no price above it.

Apollo: the lead database and the sender on one seat

Apollo’s Basic seat costs $65 a month with 2,500 credits a month, pooled across the team. One credit is one lead lookup.

The card shows annual billing, so its seat price sits below the monthly one above. The pricing page says credits give access to “emails, phone numbers, email warmup, domains & mailboxes”, and Free sends from Gmail accounts only.

Users credit the large, easy-to-search contact database and the free tier (7 of 17 sources: Trustpilot, Trustpilot). Out-of-date contact data is a recurring complaint (3 of 17: Trustpilot, r/coldemail).

Best for

Teams that want leads and sending in one tool: the 240M contact database and sequences come with every plan; Free gives 75 credits a seat.

Skip it if

you keep customer lists out of AI training: Apollo’s AI Policy says it may use Customer Data to train its internal models.

What an AI cold email generator does in these tools

An AI cold email generator writes the sequence from a short brief about your offer and the prospect. Smartlead and lemlist also sort replies by intent, and lemlist personalises lines from lead data. Each feature sits on a plan, or on credits. AI features in email tools lists them for every email platform.

Instantly lists the AI Sequence Writer and an AI spam words checker on Outreach Growth. Its AI Reply Agent spends 5 credits per reply generated. On the Email plan card, lemlist lists lemAgent and its messaging AI agents, and lemlist says its AI Copilot runs on Claude (lemlist AI).

Apollo’s AI Assistant drafts email content; Free allows 5 chats, and the paid plans state no chat cap. Smartlead describes seven SmartAgents, and its pricing page names no plan for them.

Does your cold email tool train AI on your prospects?

Apollo says yes. Its AI Policy says Apollo “may use Customer Data … as inputs to train these internal models” (Apollo AI Policy).

Instantly’s terms 4.3 say it is not responsible for third-party AI providers’ handling of your inputs, “including for use in their model training”. Smartlead’s clause 12 lets it use your data to “develop other services”.

lemlist’s article 12 limits its use of your data to providing the service. No lemlist clause names AI training. Does your email tool train AI? reads the same clauses across email platforms.

What US and EU law ask of every cold email

In the US, the CAN-SPAM Act covers business email too: “The law makes no exception for business-to-business email” (FTC). Every message needs your valid physical postal address and a clear way to opt out. You must honour an opt-out within 10 business days.

In the EU and UK, GDPR Article 21 lets anyone object to direct marketing at any time. Their data then stops being used for it (GDPR Article 21). So put a working unsubscribe line and your address in every sequence step.

In the UK, PECR also requires consent before a marketing email to an individual, sole traders included, while limited companies need none (ICO). Several EU countries set similar ePrivacy consent rules, so the rule depends on the country you send to.

Left out, and why

Reply.io, Woodpecker, Saleshandy, Hunter and Mailshake also sell cold email sending. They have no row in our email price data. Tools that replace Instantly are compared on the Instantly alternatives page.

Every AI email marketing page, sorted by job, is in the AI email marketing hub →