Sales is at the core of acquiring new customers and growing.
Choosing the best sales tools is 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:
- What are the pros?
- What are the cons?
- What makes them unique or special?
- What does the pricing structure look like?
Let’s dive into it.
What are the Best Cold Email Outreach Tools?
Pros
- Unlimited A/B testing variants
- Multi-channel support
- Advanced variables or conditions
- HTML code editor in emails
- Unlimited number of follow-ups
- Built-in Jason AI integration
Cons
- No image personalization
- Email validition takes very long
- Chrome extension is not working
Best or unique feature
- Free Data Search feature
Deliverability
Email Sequences & Follow-ups
Pricing & Trial
Prospecting & Email Verification
Multichannel Outreach
Personalization & Customizability
Analytics & Metrics
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.io pros
- User interface is smooth and looks great
- CRM integrations with Pipedrive, HubSpot, Salesforce, Close.com, Copper CRM and Zendesk Sell
- Messaging integrations with WhatsApp, LinkedIn, Sales Navigator and SMS and a lot of others via Zapier
- Video personalization integration with Vidyard GoVideo
- Validates phone numbers and email addresses
- The discovery feature allows to automatically find email addresses of contacts
- Keeps contact details up-to-date and tracks past activity
- Automated email workflows and email templates
- Email copy A/B testing to experiment with open rates and reply rates
- Scheduled tasks for cloud calling, LinkedIn connecting and messaging
- Automated and manual messaging for chat bots, email, WhatsApp, SMS, social media
- Email warm-up to increase deliverability and avoid being marked as spam
- Set email throttling and limits to avoid being marked as spam
- Set email scheduling rules (weekdays, time zones)
- See team's overview about tasks, performance statistics, and workload
- Email template performance (open rate, click rate, reply rate)
- Call statistics overview (outcome, duration, etc)
- Performance statistics for every sales rep
Reply.io cons
- Setup can take a bit of time, especially if you have an entire sales team and want to integrate with a CRM
- Can be difficult to edit and change the order on existing sequences
- Customer support prioritizes higher plans and therefore can provide shallow answers for lower tiers
- No automatic prospecting of new contacts
Reply.io unique or best feature
- Sentiment analysis on email content and metrics for likelihood of reply
- Very robust multi-channel analytics dashboard
Reply.io pricing
- The main "Sales Engagement" pricing package is $70/user/month for the Individual tier and includes 1000 contacts per month
- The “Agency” package includes $60/account/month and includes 5 users and unlimited contacts
- All the functionality included in the cheapest Sales Engagement package.
- Pricing will increase with usage - more contacts (Individual tier) or more teammates (Business tier)
- Has a free package for Email Search, which includes business email search, semi-automated LinkedIn tasks, WhatsApp and Cloud calls
- Includes a 14-day free trial
Pros
- Built-in HTML code support
- They offer a permanent free plan
- Hundreds of built-in customizable templates
- Unlimited number of follow-ups
- Powerful email finder
- Gmail tracker that tracks real-time email activities
Cons
- Lacks image personalization
- No multi-channel outreach
- A/B testing is an extra feature you need to purchase
Best or unique feature
- Best for prospecting and lead generation
Deliverability
Email Sequences & Follow-ups
Pricing & Trial
Prospecting & Email Verification
Multichannel Outreach
Personalization & Customizability
Analytics & Metrics
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.
Snov.io pros
- Beautiful and intuitive user interface and relatively easy to set up
- Visual workflow builder for drip campaigns
- Excellent built-in LinkedIn lead prospecting tool to gather business emails
- Smart email verification to make sure you’re only sending to valid recipients
- Many ready-made email templates are included
- Email A/B testing to improve email copy and open rates
- Sophisticated “unsubscribe from list” feature for compliance
- Integrates with CRMs like Salesforce, Hubspot, Zoho, Pipedrive, Asana, Close and more
Snov.io cons
- Can be a bit slow at time for power users
- The scraped and gathered emails can be incorrect at times
- Contact tagging feature could be improved
Snov.io unique or best feature
- Email finder extension allows to set your criteria to return work emails
- Technology finder identifies what apps are used on a website
Snov.io pricing
- All packages include CRM capabilities, technology finder, most features, unlimited users, unlimited campaigns and unlimited emails and follow-ups per day
- A great thing is that you can add as many users as you want without an increase in pricing
- The most basic “S” package includes 1000 domain searches and 1000 emails from LinkedIn, up to 5000 email recipients and will cost $39/user/month
- The “M” package includes more domain searches and email recipients. Additional features are email A/B testing, templates and recipients sharing and more. Starts at $99/month
- The “L”, “XL” and “XXL” packages includes increasingly domain searches, more email recipients, but not more additional features.
- They also offer a full-scale prospecting and outreach service
- There is a freemium package where you automatically get credits every month
Pros
- Fast and helpful customer service
- Comprehensive and helpful knowledge base articles
- Multi-channel outreach support
- Add conditions to message body
- Random interval sending to mimic human effort
- Cadence throttle to increase deliverability
Cons
- Open rate tracking is not reliable
- Analytics dashboard is not visually appealing
- Automatically logs out
Best or unique feature
- In-message conditions
Deliverability
Email Sequences & Follow-ups
Pricing & Trial
Prospecting & Email Verification
Multichannel Outreach
Personalization & Customizability
Analytics & Metrics
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 pros
- The user interface looks nice and the app in intuitive to use
- Integrates with CRMs like Salesforce, Pipedrive, HubSpot, Zoho, Affinity, Streak, Zendeks Sell, Salesflare, FreshSales, Snov.io, Monday.com
- Integrates with email tools like ActiveCampaign, Mailgun, GMail and Outlook 365
- Integrates with Stripe, Square, Slack, LinkedIn, Calendly, Zoom, Google Suite, Airtable and Zapier (API and Webhooks)
- Integrates with call tracking and SMS software like Twilio, Myphoner, Phoneburner, ClickSend SMS
- Integrates with webinar software like WebinarJam, EverWebinar, Livestorm, GoToWebinar
- To create forms, there are integrations with Typeforms, Gravity Forms, Google Forms, WPForms, Squarespace, Webflow, SurveyMonkey, Instapages, Leadpages, Jotform, Tally
- Personalized templates and tags in email builder
- A/B testing for outreach emails
- Domain blacklisting for contacts you don't want to send emails to
- Preview email sequence and add personalization before sending
- Set daily email limit, random intervals, throttling and average time interval between sending emails for better deliverability
- LinkedIn messages, SMS sending and calling
- Recipients can automatically opt out by unsubscribe or by replying (GDPR compliance)
- Private and shared inboxes and signatures
- Includes email link tracking for opens, CTR, replies
- Includes call reporting with duration, sentiment and contact outcomes
- Detailed reports on how your email outreach cadence performs
Klenty cons
- Can't import leads from LinkedIn with emails, names and company details
- Segmentation and contact management could be improved
- Can't make bulk changes to several email campaigns at once
- Hard limit on email cadence can slow down the outreach campaign
- Relies on 3rd party tools cold calling and SMS, which means paying for several tools
Klenty unique or best feature
- Set triggers to automate next actions based on prospect engagement
- Email intent scoring based on recipient actions to signal their buying temperature
Klenty pricing
- The cheapest “Startup” plan is €55/user/month and includes the most important features as well as integrations
- Deliverability reports are only available on the highest tier
- They are quite generous with discounts if you reach out to their support
- 14-day trial (no credit card required)
Pros
- Do Not Contact domains list
- Inbox rotation feature
- Custom domain tracking
- Preview text feature that shows after the subject line
- Unlimited A/B testing variants
- Permanently free plan with 3,000 emails per month
Cons
- No image personalization
- No email finder tool
- No email warmup tool
Best or unique feature
- Best for its inbox rotation feature and free solo plan
Deliverability
Email Sequences & Follow-ups
Pricing & Trial
Prospecting & Email Verification
Multichannel Outreach
Personalization & Customizability
Analytics & Metrics
Quickmail is an efficient email automation tool that streamlines and simplifies your email outreach operations. Quickmail delivers a user-friendly platform to help you reach your goals, whether you’re wanting to launch prospecting campaigns, follow up with leads, or communicate with existing clients.
With features like email sequencing, personalized templates, and multichannel outreach capabilities, Quickmail empowers you to create targeted and effective email campaigns. Its user-friendly UI and automated features enable you to save time and enhance your email outreach process.
Quickmail pros
- Do Not Contact domains list: Avoid contacting specific domains with a dedicated feature.
- Inbox rotation feature: Enhance email deliverability by distributing emails across multiple accounts.
- Custom domain tracking: Track email opens and clicks using your own domain for accurate data.
- Preview text feature: Engage recipients with a compelling snippet after the subject line.
- Unlimited A/B testing variants: Experiment with different elements of your campaigns.
- Permanent free plan: Access essential features without financial commitment.
Quickmail cons
- Quickmail does not offer the option to personalize emails with dynamic images that change for each prospect.
- Unfortunately, Quickmail lacks a built-in tool to help you find the email addresses of your prospects, requiring you to obtain this information through other means.
- Unlike some other platforms, Quickmail does not provide an integrated tool for warming up your email accounts, which can be useful for improving deliverability and avoiding spam filters.
Quickmail unique or best feature
- Best for its inbox rotation feature that automatically switch your email sender accounts once one account reach the daily sending limit
- The solo account for individual users is permanently free
Quickmail pricing
- The Solo Plan offers individuals and small teams a permanent free option to start their email outreach, granting access to essential features and the ability to launch campaigns without any financial commitment.
- The $100/month Agency Plan offers advanced features, comprehensive support, and powerful tools for larger teams and agencies to streamline outreach and achieve optimal results.
Pros
- Spam score assessment
- Enrich prospects with LinkedIn or Dropcontact
- Powerful LinkedIn email finder
- Image personalization
- Snippet template support
- Unlimited follow-ups
Cons
- Separate warm-up tool
- No dedicated prospect management feature
- Cold call feature requires a separate subsscription
Best or unique feature
- Prospect enrichment feature to automatically search for prospect data
Deliverability
Email Sequences & Follow-ups
Pricing & Trial
Prospecting & Email Verification
Multichannel Outreach
Personalization & Customizability
Analytics & Metrics
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 pros
- Automatic email warm-up with their lemwarm tool
- Flexible drip email and follow-up sequence builder
- Sending multi-channel sequences with cold email, cold calls and social selling
- Integrates with HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Axonaut
- Integrates with lead generation platforms like Uplead, Leadfuze, Leadcamp and others
- Has a custom API (with excellent documentation) for integrations and webhooks for Slack
- The Chrome extensions allows to import leads from LinkedIn with enriched data
Lemlist cons
- Support is not that helpful if you need a functionality improvement or a bug fix
- The customer support and the product seems to overuse emojis in messages and templates
- When you open your own email, it will track it as “open” for the analytics
- Cannot edit an email once it’s already queued
- Sometimes they don’t provide refunds when asked
Lemlist unique or best feature
- Liquid Syntax allows you to create multiple variants of outgoing messages by adding snippets that paraphrase your sentences. Liquid Syntax randomizes the combinations of these snippets.
- Allows to embed dynamic images and video personalization in emails
Lemlist pricing
- The cheapest package starts with $29/month and includes the email warm-up and deliverability booster
- Their “Email outreach” special package costs $50/month and includes a Cold Email masterclass course
- Their “Sales engagement” special package costs $83/month, includes everything in the previous packages + their Linkedin masterclass course
- Includes a 14-day free trial with no credit card requirement
Pros
- Multi-channel outreach support
- Analyzes the best time to send based on outreach data
- Fast and reliable customer service
- Detailed analytics and reports
- Available pre-made templates to help get started
- Built-in spam test feature
Cons
- No built-in email finder
- You cannot validate emails manually
- No image personalization
Best or unique feature
- Best for analytics and excellent customer service
Deliverability
Email Sequences & Follow-ups
Pricing & Trial
Prospecting & Email Verification
Multichannel Outreach
Personalization & Customizability
Analytics & Metrics
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 pros
- The software is simple to use and easy to set up
- Integrares with CRMs like HubSport, Pipedrive, Salesforce, Zoho
- Includes a robust API, but requests are limited according to pricing plan
- Schedule automated outreach campaigns with auto follow-ups
- Bi-directional contact sync with LinkedIn
- A/B testing with analytics included
- Auto-scheduling according to recipient’s time zone
- Email throttling and human-like sending
- Intelligent reply detection and follow-up pausing
- Can use different send and receive accounts
- Fast and super reactive customer support
- Clearly separate the campaigns and different teams working on them
SmartReach cons
- The user interface is a bit rough around the edges aesthetically
- Internal inbox is not great, better to use an external one
- App is not very mobile-friendly
SmartReach unique or best feature
- Sophisticated email warm-up tool Warmup Hero, which comes free with SmartReach
- Comprehensive spam test to assess deliverability
SmartReach pricing
- The cheapest plan out-the-box includes 1 user, starts at $24/month/user, which is very cheap. It also includes 1000 prospects, unlimited campaigns and follow-ups
- There are “Individual” and “Business” tier pricing plans. The main difference is that Business plans include 5 users out-the-box, more total prospects and are more expensive, but adding users is cheaper
- All packages include ProspectDaddy email finder credits to find leads
- On all plans, you can send up to 500 emails per day from one account
- The 14-day free trial includes 200 prospects and features in the Pro Plan. Trial does not require a credit card
Pros
- There is a free plan with 10 recipients per month
- Built-in meeting scheduler
- Prospect data enrichment feature
- Built-in Prospector tool to search for prospects
- Gmail extension to maximize your email effort
- Response insights can predict the reply rate based on your outreach email contents
Cons
- No built-in warmup tool
- No built-in A/B testing feature
- No image personalization feature
Best or unique feature
- Best for its powerful Chrome extension that expand the capability of Gmail emailing
Deliverability
Email Sequences & Follow-ups
Pricing & Trial
Prospecting & Email Verification
Multichannel Outreach
Personalization & Customizability
Analytics & Metrics
Yesware is a robust email productivity tool that can help you improve your email outreach operations. Yesware allows you to measure email opens and attachment views, schedule emails for later delivery, and even generate personalized email templates to save time.
One of its most notable features is its Gmail integration, which allows you to access Yesware directly from your Gmail inbox, making it extremely handy to use. Yesware provides you with the tools you need to improve your email performance and optimize your workflow, whether you’re a sales professional, marketer, or entrepreneur.
Yesware pros
- The forever free plan lets you use the platform at no cost
- It’s built-in meeting scheduler allows your prospects to easily find the perfect time for meetings
- It has a prospect data enrichment feature
- Response insights feature to predict the response rate base on your message
- Built-in Prospector tool to search for prospects right from the platform
- The powerful Gmail extension maximizes your email effort through Gmail platform
- You can easily get started with your campaign by customizing the built-in email templates
- It has comprehensive reports dashboard so you can easily keep track with your efforts
Yesware cons
- It does not support A/B testing with your emails
- It has no image personalization feature
- There’s also no built-in warmup tool to enhance your sender reputation
- The customer support team takes around 9 hours to respond
Yesware unique or best feature
- Best for its powerful Chrome extension that expand the capability of Gmail emailing
- The forever free plan allows you to utilize the software without any expenses
Yesware pricing
- Yesware offers a permanent free plan with basic features like email open tracking, attachment tracking, and a meeting scheduler, along with training webinars and email support, providing a cost-effective choice for testing the platform's suitability for your needs.
- Pro: You can access the essential features and tools to improve your email outreach for only $15 per seat per month.
- Premium: If you need more sophisticated features, the Premium plan is available for $35 per seat each month. It includes extra features to boost your email productivity.
- Enterprise: Do you need a more extensive solution for your larger team or organization? The Enterprise plan, which costs $65 per seat per month, includes complete functionality as well as personalized assistance to fit your individual needs.
Pros
- Excellent deliverability analytics
- High level of email personalization
- Sophisticated email sequence builder
- Multichannel outreach - calls and LinkedIn
- Easy-to-understand analytics dashboard
- Automatic pause when recipient replies
Cons
- No LinkedIn email finder
- No built-in email templates
- A/B testing feature costs extra
Best or unique feature
- Comprehensive and visualliy appealing analytics
Deliverability
Email Sequences & Follow-ups
Pricing & Trial
Prospecting & Email Verification
Multichannel Outreach
Personalization & Customizability
Analytics & Metrics
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 pros
- Beautiful and user-friendly flow and interface
- Email addresses on your list are tracked and validated in real-time
- Powerful conditional “if” logic and alternative follow-up sequences on workflows
- Automatically pause the email sequence if a prospect replies
- Integrates with CRMs like HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Close
- Integrates with prospecting tools like UpLead, LeadFuze, Leadpresso, Nerdwise, Hunter
- Integrates with webinar platforms like GoToWebinar, Zoom, Demio, ClickMeeting
- A/B testing for email outreach campaigns
- Multi-channel campaigns with LinkedIn, Twitter, Salesmsg and calling
- Helpful and fast reacting customer support
Woodpecker cons
- To change the order of a sequence, you have to copy-paste between fields
- The flexibility of formatting text and images in emails could be improved
- Can be slow at times, depending on the complexity of your campaign and internet connection
Woodpecker unique or best features
- Notify when an out-of-office auto reply is received, so you can re-schedule the sequence
- Built-in AI interested tracking and detailed campaign analytics on all pricing plans
Woodpecker pricing
- There is one single package, with pricing varying on the number of new monthly contacts
- The pricing is not based on number of users, but number of seats – “sender” email addresses
- The most basic package includes 1500 new monthly contacts and costs $39/month/slot
- The most expensive package had unlimited new monthly contacts and costs $49/month/slot
- Regardless of the number of contacts, you can either include API and integration support, which adds $5/month/slot
- E-mail warm-up and recovery included with every pricing package
- Features not included in basic package can be purchased separately with add-on
- Includes a 7-day free trial (or 50 cold emails)
Pros
- Image personalization
- Built-in ChatGPT integration
- Integrated meeting scheduler
- Powerful email finder tool
- Automatic email verification
- Integrated warm-up tool
Cons
- Email verification is not accurate
- Customer service is inactive
- No updated software documentation
Best or unique feature
- AI-powered template generator with ChatGPT
Deliverability
Email Sequences & Follow-ups
Pricing & Trial
Prospecting & Email Verification
Multichannel Outreach
Personalization & Customizability
Analytics & Metrics
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 pros
- Super easy sales outreach campaign setup flow
- Integrates with Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive, Zoho, Zapier
- Multi-channel outreach campaigns that includes emails, LinkedIn messages and calls
- Includes built-in calling with template scripts, call forwarding and recording
- Has a built-in meeting booking calendar widget
- Email warm-up tool enhances deliverability
- Built-in email A/B testing to improve subject lines and body
- Numerous pre-defined email templates save a lot of time
- The leads database helps to identify and reach out to competitors’ clients
SalesBlink cons
- The leads database size and filtering could be increased
- To search for leads, you need to know the contact’s name
- The process of setting up G Suite is slightly confusing
- No master or team lead account to manage all other accounts
SalesBlink unique or best feature
- Includes a built-in lead generation tool
- Sales commission calculator for teams
- SalesBlink can be considered a mini-CRM because of its rich features
SalesBlink pricing
- Cheapest “Email Warmup” plan includes auto email warm-up to boost deliverability and starts at $11/month/user
- The “Email Outreach” with email A/B testing, meeting scheduler, prospecting and email verification and CRM integrations starts at $29/month/user
- The highest “Sales Outreach” plan includes multi-channel outreach with integrated cold calling, LinkedIn outreach and multi-pipeline features and starts at $89/user/month
- Has a 14-day free trial without no credit card required
Pros
- Unlimited number of follow-ups
- Add as many A/B variants as you need
- Copy & Paste feature for importing prospects
- Best Time To Send feature
- Built-in HTML email editor
- Outbox feature to manage outgoing communications
Cons
- Too few deliverability features
- No image personalization
- Multi-channel outreach is only limited to email and call
Best or unique feature
- Analytics with the "Best Time to Send" feature
Deliverability
Email Sequences & Follow-ups
Pricing & Trial
Prospecting & Email Verification
Multichannel Outreach
Personalization & Customizability
Analytics & Metrics
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 pros
- Ability to personalize emails before sending them out
- Built in reply analysis and Out-of-office detection
- Integrates with CRMs like HubSpot, Pipedrive, Salesforce and Zoho
- LinkedIn integration allows to import leads directly into a campaign
- Gmail integration helps to build on top of your existing processes
- A/B testing for email body and subject line copy
- Includes calling feature (phone dialer) and call tracking
- Includes multi-channel approach with SMS and social
- Domain blacklisting
PersistIQ cons
- The navigation can feel a bit foreign at first
- Customer support is slow to reply at times
- Sometimes the “wait time” between emails is too long and causes delays
- The level of detail on the Reporting Card could be improved
PersistIQ unique or best feature
- With the free Chrome extension, you can import or create a lead from any website
- The Luka Chrome extension allows to pull all the contact details from a LinkedIn search and automatically find and verify their emails
PersistIQ pricing
- The most basic plan is $75/user/month (monthly billing) and gets you up to 300 emails/day with unlimited leads and campaigns, which is quite expensive
- The pricing page is a bit confusion to understand, because a higher tier package is cheaper than a lower tier one
- Includes a 14-day free trial on all packages
Pros
- Webhooks support for web integrations
- Attributes allow to add custom fields for each prospect
- Confidence score tells you how likely the email is valid
- Permanently free plan available
- Domain search finds prospect emails in any company
- Find a particular person's email address
Cons
- Limited to 5 follow-ups per campaign
- No built-in A/B testing feature
- No multi-channel outreach
Best or unique feature
- Best for prospecting and lead generation
Deliverability
Email Sequences & Follow-ups
Pricing & Trial
Prospecting & Email Verification
Multichannel Outreach
Personalization & Customizability
Analytics & Metrics
Hunter is an all-in-one cold email tool that most people associate with finding valid email addresses. Its accurate email finder and verifier are the most praised features Hunter offers, but there is more to that.
You can find and verify emails, add prospects to your lead lists, enrich data for later outreach, automate sending emails, track your campaign performance, and automate follow-ups.
What’s unique about Hunter is its Campaigns feature that allows everyone to send automated and personalized emails for free.
You can register for a free Hunter account and still automate sending up to 500 emails per campaign. It is a great option for people who are just starting out with outbound campaigns.
Hunter pros
- User friendly interface
- The free account offers 25 search and 50 verification credits + you can send up to 500 emails using Campaigns
- Domain search allows you to find all emails associated with a specific domain and apply additional filters to have a targeted search
- One of the most accurate email verification product on the market
- Bulk tasks enable you to find and verify email addresses from long lists in minutes
- Chrome extension that allows you to find valid email addresses from each website you are currently browsing
- Technology lookup comes in handy if you need to know what technologies prospects use on their websites
- Hunter for Sheets speeds up finding emails directly from spreadsheets
- Native integrations with popular CRM tools such as Hubspot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, and Zoho + multiple Zapier integrations.
Hunter cons
- There is no LinkedIn extension
- Campaigns lack A/B testing and advanced analytics
Hunter unique or best feature
- Bulk tasks enable you to find and verify 100s of emails in a bulk with a single click
- Campaigns are free which means that everyone can use full features and send emails to up to 500 recipients per a campaign
Hunter pricing
- A free package comes with 25 finder and 50 verification credits, along with Campaigns that allow you to send emails to up to 500 recipients per campaign
- The “Started” package starts at $49/month which gives you more flexibility, credits, and email accounts you can connect
- The “Growth” package includes everything from the previous package, but with more credits and a .csv export option that streamlines all processes
- The “Pro” package has everything from the previous package, but all the credits are ramped which means this is a great one for teams that do a lot of outbound.
- The 14-day free trial includes 200 prospects and features in the Pro Plan. Trial does not require a credit card
Pros
- Custom pre-header to boost open rates
- Free email warm-up tool included
- Built-in email verification tool
- Email sequence stop when recipient replies
- Comprehensive sales overview and reporting
- A/B testing with up to 26 variants
Cons
- No multichannel outreach features
- No tracking for email forwarding
- No feature for dynamic texts on images
Best or unique feature
- Best for ensuring high deliverability rate
Deliverability
Email Sequences & Follow-ups
Pricing & Trial
Prospecting & Email Verification
Multichannel Outreach
Personalization & Customizability
Analytics & Metrics
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 pros
- Intuitive user interface, fast and easy setup
- Overview of each recipient in an email sequence
- Built-in email list validation to keep your lists clean and improve deliverability
- Very responsive customer support
- Email A/B testing to tweak open rates and CTR
- Email health score
- Set up email sequences and workflows
- Find and add email address from LinkedIn
- Has a public API and integrations with Calendly, Google Sheets and Zapier
- Automated follow-ups based on recipient’s interaction (opened or clicked)
SalesHandy cons
- Cannot track if email was forwarded to someone else
- Lacks in open tracking when sending to multiple recipients
- Opening your sent email on another device counts as recipient opened it
SalesHandy unique or best feature
- Built-in email tracking integration with Outlook and Gmail
- Activity feed across all campaigns to help engage at the right time
SalesHandy pricing
- Has 2 plans – Cold emailing and Email tracking
- The cold emailing product has two plans: a pro plan for $25 per month per user and a customised agency plan
- The basic email tracking product has a forever free plan
- The regular email tracking plan is $9 per month per user
- The plus email tracking plan is $22 per month per user
- Discounts on bigger volume are available on demand
- All products have a 14-day free trial
Pros
- Easily add polls to your email campaign
- Permanently free plan
- Comprehensive analytics report
- Conditional and automated follow-ups
- HTML editor
- Spam Solver functionality
Cons
- Unpleasant user interface
- Poor template management
- Only available as a GMail add-on
Best or unique feature
- Comprehensive analytics and email polling
Deliverability
Email Sequences & Follow-ups
Pricing & Trial
Prospecting & Email Verification
Multichannel Outreach
Personalization & Customizability
Analytics & Metrics
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 pros
- Seamlessly connects with Google Sheets
- Automatic follow-up sequence stops once you get a reply
- Can add personalized tags, like first name to emails when that’s available
- A/B testing to find out which email variant performs the best
- Segmented campaigns allow to send a new campaign based on recipient’s behavior on previous campaign
- Includes unsubscriber management to ensure GDPR compliance
- Has a SMTP integration to bypass Gmail’s sending limit
- Includes a free email warm-up tool and email verifier
- Campaign Reports show a breakdown of open rates and click-through rate for links in the email body
- See stats of how many of your email are ending up in recipients’ spam folder
GMass cons
- No immediately available customer support
- Could start lagging a bit with large volumes and too small sending intervals
- Email validation sometimes gives false positives
- The reporting feature is a bit clunky
GMass unique or best feature
- Ability to continue using the familiar Gmail mailbox for outreach
GMass pricing
- Includes a free package with 50 emails/day and Standard package features are included
- The cheapest individual package starts at $19.95/month, but doesn’t include follow-up sequences
- The cheapest team package starts at $125/month and includes 5 team users
Pros
- Drag and drop automation builder
- Built-in email validation tool
- Email designer feature
- Unlimited number of follow-ups
- Comprehensive analytics feature
- Spintax feature to randomize variant combination
Cons
- No email finder tool
- No image personalization
- No multichannel outreach
Best or unique feature
- Personalization with the Spintax feature
Deliverability
Email Sequences & Follow-ups
Pricing & Trial
Prospecting & Email Verification
Multichannel Outreach
Personalization & Customizability
Analytics & Metrics
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 pros
- The onboarding process is easy to follow and helps to set up quickly
- Automated drip email follow-ups sequences
- Open rate, click rate and reply rate tracking
- Automatically stops sequences on reply
- Drop & drop email builder tool and includes email templates
- Sender reputation score tracking
- Very useful email spam assessment tool
- Has a public API, which can be used for building your own transactional emails
- Customer support and development team is very responsive and helpful
MailRush cons
- The email preview (as recipient would see it) could be improved
- The reporting dashboard is lacking in stats in some areas
- Setting up DNS records can be a bit complicated for non-techies
- Not very suitable for Gmail and other providers
- No native CRM integrations, only via Zapier
MailRush unique or best feature
- Outbound emails use Mailrush’s shared SMTP mailing IP, which is pre-warmed-up and ensures deliverability
MailRush pricing
- The cheapest “Starter” package starts at $19/user/month or $99/user/year, which is one of the cheapest options out there
- The “Starter” package includes 10,000 emails per month and 1,000 email validations
- All plans include unlimited email accounts and unlimited team members
- Includes a 14-day free trial and 1000 outbound emails
Read the full Mailshake review
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 pros
- Very simple and intuitive user interface, which makes it a breeze to use
- Integrates with CRMs like HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Zoho, Salesmate, AgileCRM and others
- Email copy A/B testing tool
- Emails from Mailshake never get tagged as Promotion
- Automatically scans prospect list for duplicates and validates emails
- Automatically pause the email sequence when a recipient replies
- Omnichannel outreach with browser-based calling and social selling on LinkedIn
- Ensured excellent deliverability with email throttling and sending interval randomizer
- They are sales experts and creating tons of valuable cold sales and outreach related blog posts, webinars and even a masterclass
MailShake cons
- Campaign performance metrics could be more detailed. Hard to compare results of different campaigns
- Image import buggy in some instances
MailShake unique or best feature
- Seamlessly integrates with Gmail and Right Inbox. You can use your Gmail aliases in outreach campaigns.
- AI email writing assistant SHAKEspeare can auto-compose a draft for you. Included with all packages.
MailShake pricing
- The cheapest “Email outreach” package starts at $59/user/month and includes most features
- CRM integrations included in both packages
- No free trial, but they promise a 30-day full refund guarantee
- Can get expensive as you’re scaling up and inviting more teammates
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
