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Cold email software does three jobs: it sends your emails from your own inbox in a natural rhythm, follows up automatically until someone replies, and protects your domain so you don't land in spam. The writing is still up to you.
Our short answer: Apollo if you also need to find contacts and want to start free, Instantly if you send at volume across many inboxes, and lemlist if you want highly personal, multichannel sequences.
Top pickApollo.io
Best for: Finding contacts and sending first sequences from one tool, on a budget
- Large contact database with email and phone data
- Usable free plan for one rep
- Sequences, dialer and a light CRM included
- Credits run out fast if you reveal many phone numbers
- Data quality varies by country and industry
From $0, then $49 a month
Visit Apollo.io ↗Instantly
Best for: Sending at volume across many inboxes without paying per seat
- Unlimited email accounts on every plan
- Warm-up and inbox rotation included
- Flat pricing, not per user
- Email only; LinkedIn and calls need other tools
- Easy to over-send and hurt your domain if you're careless
From $37.60 a month
Visit Instantly ↗lemlist
Best for: Personalised, multichannel outreach: email, LinkedIn and calls in one sequence
- Strong personalisation, including custom images and landing pages
- LinkedIn steps and call tasks in the same sequence
- Email warm-up (lemwarm) included
- Priced per user, which adds up for bigger teams
- More than you need if you only send plain emails
From $69 a month
Visit lemlist ↗Side by side
| Apollo.io | Instantly | lemlist | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Type | Prospecting and email | Cold email | Cold email |
| Best for | Finding contacts and sending first sequences from one tool, on a budget | Sending at volume across many inboxes without paying per seat | Personalised, multichannel outreach: email, LinkedIn and calls in one sequence |
| Free plan | Yes, with limited credits | No | Only for finding emails, not sending |
| Try it | Free plan | Free trial | 14 days, no card needed |
| Price | Basic $49 a user a month on annual billing (about $59 monthly), Professional $79 (about $99 monthly) | Growth $47 a month ($37.60 annual) for 5,000 emails, Hypergrowth $97 ($77.60 annual) for 125,000 emails. Unlimited sending accounts | Email Pro $69 a user a month, Multichannel Expert $99 |
| See Apollo.io pricing ↗ | See Instantly pricing ↗ | See lemlist pricing ↗ |
What to look for
- Warm-up. New inboxes need a few weeks of gentle, automatic sending before they can do real outreach. Instantly and lemlist include it.
- Inbox rotation. Spreading sends across several inboxes keeps each one under the radar. Instantly makes this cheap with unlimited accounts.
- Reply detection. Sequences must stop the moment someone answers, including out-of-office replies.
- CRM sync. Replies and meetings should land in your CRM, not stay trapped in the email tool.
- Pricing model. Per-user pricing (lemlist, Apollo) suits small teams; flat pricing (Instantly) suits one person running many inboxes.
Apollo: data and sending in one place
Apollo's big advantage is the contact database: you can find the right people, get their email addresses and add them to a sequence without leaving the tool. The free plan is enough to test the waters. The weak spot is credits: revealing phone numbers uses them up fast.
Instantly: built for volume
Instantly charges a flat monthly fee and lets you connect as many sending inboxes as you like. That makes it the cheapest way to send thousands of emails a month safely. It does email only, so pair it with a data tool such as Apollo.
lemlist: personal and multichannel
lemlist is the most creative of the three. You can add personalised images, video thumbnails and landing pages, and mix LinkedIn visits, messages and call tasks into the same sequence. It's priced per user, so it costs more as the team grows.
The tool is the easy part
Most cold email fails because of the message, not the software. Before you pay for anything, read our cold email guide: short emails, one clear ask, and a reason why you're writing to this person now. Then send 50 by hand. Once you know what gets replies, a tool lets you do it at scale.
Two rules keep you out of trouble in the US: include your real company address and an easy way to opt out (both required by the CAN-SPAM Act), and send outreach from a separate domain so your main one stays clean.