12 Best Cold Email Software
for Sales Outreach in 2023

Best Cold Email Outreach Tools - featured image

Sales is at the core of acquiring new customers and growing. Choosing the best sales tools are essential for making it happen. 

In this article, we’ve reviewed and ranked the best cold email outreach software, along with our top picks for different sizes and use cases, so that you can pick the one that suits your needs best.

Our Top Picks for the Best Cold Email Software

Best for entrepreneurs and one-man teams

Entrepreneurs who work solo or with a small team, the go-to option would be Woodpecker. They are super affordable and include great personalization options. Email warm-up and deliverability is their bread and butter. 

Best for mid-sized sales outreach teams

For sales outreach teams that want to use LinkedIn for lead generation and truly hone in on the omnichannel approach, SalesBlink is the top pick. It includes calling and SMS outreach and multi-channel automated workflow builder.

Best for agencies and scale-ups

Tons of integrations, automated outreach workflows, emails content feedback analysis, sophisticated campaign and team management make Reply one of the best cold email tools for agencies and larger businesses.

How to Choose the Best Cold Email Software?

Sending cold emails at a massive scale and at the same time making sure your emails actually land on the primary inbox, adding a personalized touch and measuring your results can be daunting.

Managing large sales outreach campaigns and following up without getting hit with the “Spam hammer” is a task where sales teams are struggling. 

Moreover, the best cold outreach software has high email deliverability metrics as well. A key functionality is to discover verified email addresses of prospective clients, execute on a cold outreach campaign and reach their primary inbox. 

Another thing that a cold outreach email software must do is create automated email sequences for follow-ups. Simply because the first email rarely gets you to the sale. 

Lastly, your cold email outreach platform should have detailed email tracking features, so you can measure the open rates and reply rates. This helps you determine the success of your email campaigns. 

Luckily, some of the best cold email software tools help you achieve all that with relative ease. 

In this article, we’ll look at the best outbound sales software, look in depth:

Let’s dive into it. 

What are the Best Cold Email Outreach Tools?

Overall Rating

5/5

Reply.io is a cold sales outreach platform that features multi-channel outbound campaigns with email, LinkedIn, texts and cold calling. It has a built-in email finder Chrome extension to pull prospects from LinkedIn. 

One of the more unique features of Reply.io is its email sentiment analysis tool, which tells you feedback on your email length, reading level, question count and positivity sentiment

It also includes team analytics and stats. All this makes it one of the best outbound platforms for sales agencies. 

reply intent scoring
reply email intent scoring

Reply.io pros

Reply.io cons

Reply.io unique or best feature

reply io analytics
reply.io analytics

Reply.io pricing

Overall Rating

5/5

Snov.io is a powerful prospecting and cold outreach platform. With the powerful lead finder and email verification it actually doubles as a CRM.

You can easily merge your cold outreach with your marketing automation workflows. With this software, you can really build an all-round outreach and lead nurturing campaigns. This feature set really unlocks several other use cases like drip emails for onboarding and educational email campaigns.

snovio automation builder2
snov.io automation builder

Snov.io pros

Snov.io cons

Snov.io unique or best feature

snovio email finder
snov.io gmail tool

Snov.io pricing

Overall Rating

4.5/5

SalesBlink is a full-stack cold outreach platform for dedicated sales teams. The outreach automation workflow builder allows you to set up email sequences.

With its built-in leads database, meeting scheduling and outreach automation builder, it can be considered as a mini-CRM. Although, it integrates with the most popular sales CRMs too.

SalesBlink sequence builder 800
salesblink sequence builder

SalesBlink pros

SalesBlink cons

SalesBlink unique or best feature

SalesBlink leads database
salesblink leads database

SalesBlink pricing

Overall Rating

4.5/5

Klenty is one of the best sales outreach tools for small and medium sized businesses. This outbound sales software really helps to automate, personalize, measure and improve on your cold outreach campaigns. 

Klenty can handle even the most complex sales automation sequences, reply handling and personalization touches. Their multi-channel outreach tools equip you with everything you need to approach your leads from all different angles. Their pricing is very flexible and support scaling up. 

klenty crm integrations
klenty crm integrations

Klenty pros

Klenty cons

Klenty unique or best feature

klenty cadence
klenty cadence

Klenty pricing

Overall Rating

4.5/5

Woodpecker email outreach software is ideal for small scale cold email outreach campaigns. It boasts with sophisticated automated email workflow builder, numerous integrations and a robust API on top of it.

It’s one of the best cold email outreach tools because it automates sending cold emails, while allowing for personalization. This greatly increases the likelihood of positive responses from your prospects.

Woodpecker has excellent customer support and knowledge base, as they publish handbooks, practical blog posts and webinars.

woodpecker campaigns
woodpecker campaigns

Woodpecker pros

Woodpecker cons

Woodpecker unique or best feature

woodpecker email analytics
woodpecker email analytics

Woodpecker pricing

Overall Rating

4/5

SalesHandy is a cold email outreach tool for sales teams that are looking to automate their sales outreach at scale. They allow you to send highly personalized emails with automated trigger-based follow-ups

The cold email outreach software works seamlessly with Gmail, Outlook, and other SMTP accounts since connecting your account with different email service providers is easy.

Saleshandy-Campaign-Performance-Report
saleshandy campaign performance report

SalesHandy pros

SalesHandy cons

SalesHandy unique or best feature

SalesHandy Activity Feed
saleshandy activity feed

SalesHandy pricing

Overall Rating

4/5

Lemlist is a sales outreach platform and the best thing that came out of France since they invented the metric system. I’m exaggerating. But in all seriousness, Lemlist does have a flexible automated email sequence builder, custom landing pages and even video prospecting

In addition to that, Lemlist has a large and active Facebook community with 20k+ members and an active and helpful customer support. 

lemlist email stats
lemlist email stats

Lemlist pros

Lemlist cons

Lemlist unique or best feature

lemlist email personalization
lemlist email personalization

Lemlist pricing

Overall Rating

3.5/5

MailShake allows you to send personalized cold emails at scale and engage with prospects over multiple additional channels like phone and social media. The multi-channel sequence can all be included into one email campaign. 

It’s a simple, yet effective cold outreach platform for smaller teams. It’s also very suitable for small businesses who are running sales and marketing campaigns. However, Mailshake has no agency package yet.

mailshake sequence
mailshake sequence

MailShake pros

MailShake cons

MailShake unique or best feature

mailshake analytics
mailshake analytics

MailShake pricing

Overall Rating

3.5/5

GMass is a super simple Gmail extension that allows you to connect your gmail account and set up automatic follow-up email sequences straight from your Gmail mailbox. It’s an ideal sales outreach tool if you’re a solo team or if all your processes are within the G-Suite

GMass is specifically designed to make your emails land in the primary inbox without causing Gmail to flag your emails as spam and without flagging your sender account. 

You can simply import your contact list and send out bulk emails. To your recipients, it will appear as if the email was sent normally from your gmail account.

gmass mail merge
gmass mail merge

GMass pros

GMass cons

GMass unique or best feature

gmass setup
gmass setup

GMass pricing

Overall Rating

3/5

PersistIQ is a cold emailing software that enables you to send out mass emails, but still add a touch of personalization before pulling the trigger. This sales outreach tool helps to ramp up and scale your outbound sales efforts. 

The features include personalized cold email sequences, email tracking, A/B testing for cold email subject lines and much more.

persistiq analytics
persistiq analytics

PersistIQ pros

PersistIQ cons

PersistIQ unique or best feature

persistiq luka
persistiq luka

PersistIQ pricing

Overall Rating

3/5

SmartReach is a sales enablement software that specializes in email deliverability and drip campaign management. This cold outreach tool is best suited for agencies and larger teams

This sales engagement platform is used around the globe by sales, marketing and recruitment teams for cold sales, hiring, link building and PR outreach.

smartreach campaigns
smartreach campaigns

SmartReach pros

SmartReach cons

SmartReach unique or best feature

SmartReach spam test report
smartreach spam test report

SmartReach pricing

Overall Rating

3/5

MailRush is a very helpful cold email outreach tool. It’s especially effective for email warm-up for new domains, which can be challenging. Sales and marketing teams use MailRush for outreach and email marketing.

The main differentiator is that the SMTP mailing IP is shared with MailRush, so the sending IP is pre-warmed up. Also, you can set up your own DNS records for it.

mailrush sequence
mailrush sequence

MailRush pros

MailRush cons

MailRush unique or best feature

mailrush ip warmup
mailrush ip warmup

MailRush pricing

Frequently Asked Questions About Cold Email Campaigns and Tools

What is the Best Free Cold Email Software?

In my experience, Snov.io is the best cold email marketing software if your volumes are relatively reasonable. There is a free plan and you get your credits topped up each month.

Although, it must be said that most of the cold email tools have a free trial available, so you can test out the features and usability before you commit to a long-term plan. 

Do Cold Email Tools Have Ready-Made Outreach Templates?

The best cold emailing tools have built-in cold email outreach templates. So, you can set up your cold email campaigns with minimum effort. 

However, if you want to create custom email templates, then that is certainly possible as well. With all of the above mentioned cold email tools you can create custom email templates. 

Ideally, you would want to create personalized cold email campaigns, where your email templates include shortcodes for personalization. We got you covered. Check out these cold email templates for inspiration. 

Can I Use an Email Marketing Tool for Cold Emailing?

Using your email marketing software for cold email campaigns is not a great idea. 

Email marketing software is designed to engage your existing audience – those who have opted-in to receive your newsletters, updates, and other communication. 

Cold email outreach, on the other hand, is about reaching out to prospects who you don’t have any prior relationship with. It requires different functionalities that allow you to personalize your message, manage your contacts, and track your outreach efforts. 

So, if you want to be effective in your cold email outreach, it’s best to use a cold email tool that is specifically designed for that purpose. Trust me, it’ll save you a lot of time and headaches in the long run! 

Final Thoughts on the Best Cold Email Software

Most of the best cold email software tick the main “commodity” boxes, like integrating with your CRM, e-mail warm-up tools, sending out bulk emails and building automated follow-up sequences.

The cold emailing tool should definitely have features to send personalized email campaigns. Personalization can really boost your open rates and reply rates. 

Ultimately, choosing the right cold email software for your specific needs comes down to which features are important to you and which area you really want to focus on

Is it email personalization at scale?

Go with Klenty

Is it multi-channel workflows with LinkedIn messages and cold calling?

Go with SalesBlink

Is it helping you craft the highest converting email copy?

Go with Reply.io

Is it having the most affordable price?

Go with MailRush

Is it having a detailed analytics dashboard with your email tracking stats across your entire sales team?

Go with Woodpecker