10 Best Cold Email Software to Get More Customers

Cold emailing is an effective way of getting new customers, but it has to be done right. And to do it right, you need to use the right tools.

Of course, that’s where things get difficult, because the cold email software market is a saturated market. There are dozens of tools out there, and all claim to be the best.

Well, we tested 20 of them for a few weeks, and ran as many campaigns as we could to see if they really were the best. Not all of them made the cut, but we were happy with a select few.

Here, you’ll get a definitive list of the 10 best cold email software. By the time you reach the end of this article, you’ll have a good idea of the strengths and weaknesses of each, and you’ll know more or less which one is right for you.

The Best Cold Email Software — A Summary

How We Found the Market’s Best Cold Email Software

Automating cold emails is great, but a cold email software must go far beyond that to be truly effective. After all, sending out emails is like shouting into the void: you can wait for a response, but you don’t even know if your message has reached the other side. And even if it has, you don’t know if it’s resonating.

Here’s what we looked for in our search for the best cold email software:

• Personalization: Yes, creating messages that resonate with your prospects is hard when doing cold outreach at scale. Good tools come with AI capabilities, text variables, spintax, and even personalized images and videos.
• Deliverability: What’s the point of crafting beautiful, personalized messages if your email is going straight into spam? Warmup is a must.
• Multichannel Outreach: What if you are sending out perfect emails that do reach inboxes, but your competitors are already closing deals on LinkedIn? Your prospects are on many channels after all.
• B2B Lead Database: Subscribing to a separate lead database only means your costs will be adding up. This can be part of your cold email software.
• Analytics: You can’t know what’s working and what’s not working in your cold email strategy if you don’t get any insights on your results.
• Integrations: Your cold email software shouldn’t operate in a vacuum. It needs to connect with your CRM, lead database, and other sales tools to keep your data synced.

10 Best Cold Email Software

So, which tools get it right when it comes to the points we mentioned above? Here’s the full list.

1. lemlist

⭐⭐⭐⭐

G2 — 4.5 (265 reviews)

Capterra — 4.6 (388 reviews)

Ok, we may be somewhat biased. But the truth is, lemlist is one of the few cold email software out there that tick all the boxes.

• Personalization: No other tool offers the level of personalization that lemlist does. You get AI variables, text variables, spintax, personalized images and personalized videos.
• Deliverability: Any subscription plan to lemlist comes with the warmup tool, lemwarm, as well as the option to do inbox rotation. You also get verified email addresses thanks to lemlist’s waterfall enrichment method. This means using multiple providers instead of one to find and validate your prospects’ email addresses. Your emails, therefore, reach valid addresses instead of bouncing back.
• Multichannel Outreach: This is a strong feature of the platform as it has native integration with LinkedIn for automatic steps like profile visits, connection requests and chat messages. You can also make calls directly from the platform through VoIP. This feature allows you to buy local phone numbers, access call recordings, transcripts, and so on.
• B2B Lead Database: You get a list of 450M+ B2B contacts, and can filter through them depending on company size, job title, industry, location, and many other factors, to find your ideal prospects. But it doesn’t stop there. Remember the waterfall method? While a single provider gets you contact information with a 30-60% find rate, this method gets you email addresses with an 80% find rate.
• Analytics: You get key metrics like open rates and reply rates, customizable widgets, data based on sender, campaign, channel or lead actions, and the ability to perform A/B tests.
• Integrations: lemlist has native integration with popular CRMs like HubSpot and Salesforce, data enrichment platforms like Clay and Leadfuze, phone systems like Ringover and Aircall, and workflow software like Zapier and Make.

Pricing

lemlist plans start from $55 per month when billed annually. This gets you important features for email outreach like the lead database and email warmup.

To go multichannel, you need to move up to the next plan which costs $79 per month, and gets you call steps and LinkedIn automations.

There is also the free plan which is free forever. Here, you can use lemlist’s Chrome extension to export 100 emails and 25 phone numbers for free each month.

✅ Pros

• lemlist really has it all when it comes to cold outreach: personalization, deliverability, multichannel, lead database, analytics and integrations.
• LinkedIn steps are automated, and the platform offers native integration with LinkedIn rather than integration via a third-party tool.
• The platform has strong AI capabilities including personalization, segmenting your leads and generating entire outreach sequences in just a few seconds.
• The waterfall enrichment method gives you more contact details with higher accuracy compared to other platforms.

❌ Cons

• The multichannel option is available on the more expensive plan.
• The pricing is slightly higher than the other platforms (but given how comprehensive it is, this is expected).

For a more in-depth look at this cold email software, view our full lemlist review.

When it comes to multichannel outreach, lemlist is a number one tool because of its conditional rules and the ability to tailor the sequence based on leads’ behavior. It’s probably the only tool that allows you to run hyper-personalized LinkedIn and cold email outreach in the same sequence.

Stan Stojanovic

Founder @ frontBrick.io

2. Apollo

⭐⭐⭐⭐

G2 — 4.7 (8,146 reviews)

Capterra — 4.6 (359 reviews)

Though not as comprehensive in its offering as lemlist, Apollo has many strong functionalities that make it one of the best cold email tools out there.

• Personalization: Here, Apollo offers text variables and an AI writing assistant that adds personalization based on insights from your leads. One difference from lemlist is that Apollo doesn’t do personalized images or videos.
• Deliverability: The platform offers email warmup and inbox rotation. Like lemlist, it has waterfall lead enrichment, so it ensures that your emails go to valid email addresses.
• Multichannel Outreach: Apollo allowed us to set tasks for LinkedIn outreach and cold calls as well as emails. However, it didn’t carry out the LinkedIn tasks automatically. To do LinkedIn outreach, you need to visit profiles and send connection requests or chat messages manually.
• B2B Lead Database: For us, this was one of Apollo’s strongest features with a lot of advanced filtering options. Like in lemlist, you get waterfall enrichment, which means more accurate contact information.
• Analytics: A customizable dashboard and A/B testing options were available.
• Integrations: Apollo has native integration with popular CRMs like HubSpot and Salesforce, and many other tools.

Pricing

The subscription plans start from $49 per month when billed annually. This gets you advanced filtering on the database, CRM integrations and 2 sequences per month. If you would like to create more sequences, you will need to opt for the higher plans.

The free plan also offers 2 sequences per month, but it provides only basic filters for the lead database.

✅ Pros

• Apollo has a strong B2B lead database.
• You can personalize your messages or generate whole outreach sequences using AI.
• Like lemlist, it offers waterfall enrichment and can get you more accurate data on your leads.

❌ Cons

• You can’t set up automatic LinkedIn steps, so you need to do everything manually.
• If you want to set up more than 2 campaign sequences per month, you need to go for the higher plan, which is pricey compared to other platforms.
• We found the platform somewhat difficult to use, especially when writing AI prompts for personalization.

For a more in-depth look at this cold email software, view our full Apollo review.

3. Woodpecker

⭐⭐⭐⭐

G2 — 4.4 (80 reviews)

Capterra — 4.5 (33 reviews)

With its own lead generation database, email warmup, and multichannel sequencing, Woodpecker also had a lot to offer.

• Personalization: Woodpecker gives you the option to add text variables and spintax, or generate text using AI. However, there’s no option for image or video personalization.
• Deliverability: Here, you get both email warmup and inbox rotation. Woodpecker also gives its users free email verification through its built-in integration with Bouncer. This boosts deliverability and helps decrease your bounce rate.
• Multichannel Outreach: You can add both LinkedIn and call steps. Like lemlist, the LinkedIn steps are automatic, but they’re carried out through integration with a third party tool called Dux-Soup. You can’t call directly from within the platform unless you integrate with Aircall.
• B2B Lead Database: The lead database is actually a brand new feature. You get more than 1 billion contacts, but the filtering options aren’t as advanced as the other platforms. Unlike lemlist and Apollo, Woodpecker doesn’t use waterfall enrichment, so you’re relying on a single provider to get your leads’ contact information.
• Analytics: Woodpecker’s analytics were more basic than the other platforms. It didn’t have a separate dashboard, so we had to view campaign stats on the campaign page. It did, however, have A/B testing, which let us test a maximum of 5 versions of an email in one step.
• Integrations: Woodpecker has native integration with HubSpot and Pipedrive (its integration with Salesforce is not native). The tool also integrates with Uplead, Leadfuze, Calendly, Hunter, and other interesting platforms.

Pricing

The platform’s pricing changes depending on how many prospects you contact per month. Its cheapest subscription plan is the most budget-friendly one in the market, and gets you 6,000 emails and 2,000 stored prospects per month.

✅ Pros

• Woodpecker has Bouncer built in, so it verifies your prospects’ email addresses for free, and ensures that your emails don’t bounce back.
• Its A/B testing option allows you to test up to 5 versions of an email in one step.

❌ Cons

• The LinkedIn integration is via Dux-Soup.
• You can’t call your prospects directly from the platform.
• The platform could benefit from an analytics dashboard with further insights.

For a more in-depth look at this cold email software, view our full Woodpecker review.

4. Saleshandy

⭐⭐⭐⭐

G2 — 4.6 (659 reviews)

Capterra — 4.5 (125 reviews)

Though it doesn’t have multichannel outreach like most of the other platforms on this list, Saleshandy proved to be an excellent software for sending cold emails.

• Personalization: Options include text variables, spintax and variable tags like {{CurrentDate}}. You can also integrate the platform with third-party tools to personalize videos.
• Deliverability: Saleshandy offers email warmup, inbox rotation, and email verification to help with your deliverability. Email warmup is not a built-in feature, however. It’s done through integration with a tool called TrulyInbox.
• Multichannel Outreach: This is where Saleshandy falls behind as it only offers email sequences. The tool is perfect only if multichannel is not part of your strategy and you’re focusing on cold emailing.
• B2B Lead Database: Saleshandy gives you 700M+ contacts with useful filters that let you fish out your ideal prospects. However, without waterfall enrichment, the contact data you get for your leads is not as accurate as tools like lemlist and Apollo.
• Analytics: Saleshandy offers an interactive dashboard that lets you track how your campaigns or your teams are performing. It also has an A-Z testing feature that allows you to test up to 26 variants of an email.
• Integrations: You get integration with HubSpot, Pipedrive, Salesforce and Zoho CRM.

Pricing

Saleshandy’s subscriptions start at just $25 per month. This gets you 2,000 prospects, 10,000 emails, 100 lead finder credits and 2,500 email verification credits.

You can also get email verification as an add-on service for $75 per 25,000 recipients.

✅ Pros

• Saleshandy covers everything you need for your email deliverability with warmup, inbox rotation and email verification options.
• Its A/B testing feature gives you the option to create up to 26 variants of an email.
• It offers detailed analytics with its interactive dashboard.

❌ Cons

• Multichannel is not an option, so you can’t automate your LinkedIn outreach or make calls through the platform.
• You get limited credits for the lead finder and email verifier, and email verification can cost extra if you want to verify a certain number of email addresses.

For a more in-depth look at this cold email software, view our full Saleshandy review.

5. Snov.io

⭐⭐⭐⭐

G2 — 4.6 (444 reviews)

Capterra — 4.5 (213 reviews)

With its award-winning features for lead generation and email deliverability, Snov.io was an obvious choice for this list.

• Personalization: The tool offers text variables, dynamic content and AI features that let you personalize your messages. Like in lemlist, you also have the option of personalizing images and videos, though it can be a little complicated as it requires you to add custom fields to your prospects and adjust the email’s HTML code.
• Deliverability: Snov.io offers a robust solution that includes email verification, email warmup and inbox rotation.
• Multichannel Outreach: You can set automatic steps for LinkedIn including profile visits, connection requests and chat messages. Although you can set goals to call your prospects, you can’t make calls directly from the platform.
• B2B Lead Database: Snov.io’s lead finder gives you many options including database search, email search and domain search. You can conduct email or domain searches in bulk, or use the filters in the database to find your ideal prospects. That being said, Snov.io doesn’t use waterfall enrichment like lemlist or Apollo, so the data you get isn’t as accurate, and can lead to occasional deliverability issues.
• Analytics: Snov.io’s reports dashboard gives you statistics for both email and LinkedIn results. You get insights about your campaign performance, team performance and lead engagement. You also have the option of A/B testing, but this is only available on the more expensive plan.
• Integrations: Snov.io integrates with HubSpot and Pipedrive. It doesn’t have integration with Salesforce yet, but this feature is underway.

Pricing

The subscription plans start at $30 per month, offering you unlimited emails to 5,000 recipients, email warmup, bulk lead search and LinkedIn automation.

✅ Pros

• Snov.io offers budget-friendly subscription options.
• It has interesting lead search options, like bulk domain search, where you can instantly generate leads using company websites.
• It has a built-in CRM that lets you create pipelines.

❌ Cons

• It’s not possible to make calls from the platform.
• It doesn’t offer the level of prospection that tools with waterfall enrichment like lemlist or Apollo do.

For a more in-depth look at this cold email software, view our full Snov.io review.

6. Hunter

⭐⭐⭐⭐

G2 — 4.4 (562 reviews)

Capterra — 4.6 (678 reviews)

Like Saleshandy, Hunter only does cold emails, but it offers a robust solution, especially when it comes to finding and verifying email addresses.

• Personalization: You can use text variables to personalize your emails.
• Deliverability: For deliverability, Hunter verifies email addresses and offers inbox rotation. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have an automated email warmup feature.
• Multichannel Outreach: Like Saleshandy, Hunter doesn’t offer multichannel outreach, so it may not be a good choice if you are looking to reach out to prospects through LinkedIn and cold calling.
• B2B Lead Database: Hunter is a good platform when it comes to finding contacts and their email addresses. Similar to Snov.io, it has a domain search feature that lets you generate leads using a company’s domain name. You can filter leads depending on their department within the company. On the Discover tab, you also have the option to search for companies based on industry, size, technologies used, and so on.
• Analytics: Hunter has detailed campaign reporting that lets you view performance by campaign, team member, email account or email domain. Unfortunately, A/B testing is not an option.
• Integrations: Hunter offers native integration with HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, and many other popular CRMs. You can also connect the platform with spreadsheet software like Airtable and automation software like Zapier.

Pricing

Plans start from $34 per month when billed annually. This gets you 6,000 yearly searches and 12,000 yearly verifications. There is also the free plan if you can make do with 25 searches and 50 verifications per month.

✅ Pros

• This platform has a robust solution for lead generation and email verification.
• You can generate leads easily using the domain search feature.
• The dashboard is intuitive and easy to navigate.

❌ Cons

• There’s no email warmup feature.
• The platform has no multichannel capabilities—you can only send emails.
• Though the reporting dashboard is useful, A/B testing capabilities are missing.

For a more in-depth look at this cold email software, view our full Hunter review.

7. Klenty

⭐⭐⭐⭐

G2 — 4.6 (382 reviews)

Capterra — 4.6 (44 reviews)

Klenty is a cold email software that has powerful multichannel outreach features. We also enjoyed using its AI capabilities.

• Personalization: The platform gives you text variables, spintax and personalized videos. You can also use its AI writer, Kai, to create your messages.
• Deliverability: Klenty offers inbox rotation and validates your prospects’ email addresses to make sure that your emails don’t bounce back. Its email warmup feature has been discontinued, however. The tool currently offers no solutions for this.
• Multichannel Outreach: Klenty is a strong platform when it comes to multichannel outreach. It not only offers automated cold emails, LinkedIn steps, and calls, but also gives you the option to reach out to your prospects via SMS and WhatsApp.
• B2B Lead Database: Klenty has a decent lead database with advanced filtering options that let you dig out the best prospects for your business. Like lemlist and Apollo, it uses waterfall enrichment, bringing you more accurate results than most other platforms, although this is only available on the highest-paid plan.
• Analytics: You can view your performance by looking at metrics like email replies, email engagement, answered calls, and so on. The platform also lets you set prospect goals or activity goals for your team members, which you can easily track from the dashboard. The A/B testing option lets you create multiple variants of the same email.
• Integrations: Klenty integrates with Pipedrive, Salesforce, Zoho and HubSpot.

Pricing

Subscriptions start from $50 per month when billed annually. This gets you everything you need for cold email outreach.

To go multichannel and use CRM integrations, you need to get the Growth plan, which is more costly.

As for lead generation, the waterfall enrichment model is only available on the most expensive plan, billed at $99 per month.

✅ Pros

• For multichannel outreach, you get SMS and WhatsApp along with automated LinkedIn actions and calls.
• You can A/B test an email step with more than two variants.
• Klenty’s waterfall enrichment method gives you more accurate data about your leads, though it’s only available on the most expensive plan.

❌ Cons

• You can’t automate your email warmup with Klenty as this feature has been discontinued.
• The multichannel option is available on the more expensive plan.
• The pricing is on the more expensive side, but given what the platform offers, it can be worth it.

For a more in-depth look at this cold email software, view our full Klenty review.

8. Instantly

⭐⭐⭐⭐

G2 — 4.8 (3,611 reviews)

Capterra — no reviews available

Despite not having multichannel outreach options, like Saleshandy and Hunter, Instantly provides an excellent platform for cold emailing.

• Personalization: You get text variables, spintax and AI prompts to personalize your messages.
• Deliverability: Instantly offers email warmup and inbox rotation to help with your deliverability. The email warmup feature is unlimited, which means you can connect as many email addresses as you need from any provider.
• Multichannel Outreach: Here, Instantly doesn’t offer much as it only automates cold emails. We recommend it to businesses who don’t have a multichannel strategy.
• B2B Lead Database: Instantly has a lead database through which you can filter based on job title, location, company information like revenue, technologies used, and more. Though not as accurate as tools that provide waterfall enrichment, the contact information you get from Instantly’s database is useful.
• Analytics: Instantly shares key metrics like open rate, reply rate and click rate, but you can’t get into more detail than that. You can filter based on time period and the status of your campaigns. A/Z testing is possible, but it’s only available on the higher plan.
• Integrations: Instantly connects with popular CRM software like HubSpot, Salesforce and Pipedrive.

Pricing

The cheapest plan costs $30 per month when billed annually, and lets you send up to 5,000 emails monthly.

For further capabilities like advanced email warmup, A/Z testing and CRM integrations, you need to opt for the Hypergrowth plan, which can be costly.

✅ Pros

• The platform offers unlimited warmup, which means you can connect as many email addresses as you want.
• It has good personalization features including text variables, spintax and AI prompts.
• The A/B testing option allows you to create more than two variants of an email.

❌ Cons

• Multichannel outreach is not an option—you can only send emails.
• The data you get from the lead database is not as reliable as the data you get from other cold email tools.

For a more in-depth look at this cold email software, view our full Instantly review.

9. Reply.io

G2 — 4.6 (1,390 reviews)

Capterra — 4.6 (96 reviews)

With a strong multichannel approach, Reply.io was also a promising option as one of the best cold email software.

• Personalization: Reply.io lets you use text variables, spintax and AI variables to personalize your messages. The AI features were easy to use thanks to pre-made prompt templates.
• Deliverability: With email warmup, email verification, and inbox rotation, you get the full deliverability toolkit.
• Multichannel Outreach: Like Klenty, Reply.io’s multichannel capabilities go beyond email, LinkedIn and calls. The platform also offers SMS and WhatsApp messages.
• B2B Lead Database: Reply.io offers real-time data in its database. While this is a good thing for getting updated results, it does make the platform too slow. If you want fast results, you can use the legacy data tab, but this is much less extensive than the live B2B database.
• Analytics: The reporting section gives you all the statistics you need regarding channel efficiency, emails, LinkedIn, calls and team performance. With the A/B testing feature, you can create unlimited variations of an email.
• Integrations: The platform has native integration with major CRMs like HubSpot, Pipedrive and Salesforce. There are many other platforms that integrate with Reply, such as lead generation platforms, email finders and contact enrichment platforms, but a lot of these are third-party integrations.

Pricing

For cold email outreach, the pricing starts from $49 per month when billed annually, and allows you to contact up to 1,000 prospects per month.

To do multichannel automation, you need to go for the higher plan, which costs $89 monthly per user. This is more costly compared to other platforms.

✅ Pros

• Reply gives you the option of reaching out to your prospects via SMS and WhatsApp as well as email, cold calls and LinkedIn.
• It offers a good solution for deliverability and personalization.
• You can A/B test unlimited variations of an email.

❌ Cons

• The live B2B database is too slow, and while it’s good to get realtime data, the accuracy isn’t as high as cold outreach tools that offer waterfall enrichment.
• The multichannel option is only available on the higher plan.
• The pricing is slightly more expensive than the other cold email software.

For a more in-depth look at this cold email software, view our full Reply.io review.

10. Mailshake

G2 — 4.7 (288 reviews)

Capterra — 4.6 (116 reviews)

With a full package containing deliverability features, multichannel capabilities and a B2B lead database, Mailshake also has a lot to offer for your cold outreach efforts.

• Personalization: Mailshake lets you personalize your messages with text variables. It also has an AI feature that lets you create spintax, but you don’t have the option to create AI variables specifically for personalizing your emails.
• Deliverability: For deliverability, Mailshake offers a complete solution including email warmup, inbox rotation and email validation. Like Instantly, the email warmup feature is unlimited, which means you can connect as many email addresses as you like.
• Multichannel Outreach: With Mailshake, you can automate LinkedIn steps such as profile visits, chat messages and connection requests by integrating directly with LinkedIn. You can also add cold calling steps in your outreach sequences thanks to Mailshake’s powerful dialer features.
• B2B Lead Database: Though not as powerful as tools that do waterfall enrichment, Mailshake has a database that lets you search by company, job title, industry and location. It’s not as advanced as most other platforms as these are the only filtering options. On the cheapest plan, Mailshake gives you 50 monthly credits to use this database, but you have the option of purchasing it separately for $19 per month.
• Analytics: Mailshake gives you extensive reporting when it comes to your performance. In fact, the dashboard is a bit like Google Analytics. You can track lead engagement, call data, team performance and much more. You even get to see which section of your outreach sequence performed best. A/B testing is available with the option to create up to 10 variations of an email.
• Integrations: Mailshake integrates natively with Salesforce, HubSpot and Pipedrive. You also get 1,000+ integrations via Zapier. However, the integration option is not available on the cheapest plan.

Pricing

With 50 free data finder credits and the ability to send up to 1,500 monthly emails, the cheapest plan is $25 per month when billed annually. This pretty much gets you email warmup, cold email automation and A/B testing.

Next up, you have the Email Outreach plan that gives you the entire deliverability package as well as personalization and integration with other platforms.

To go multichannel, you need to opt for the most expensive subscription, which costs $85 per month when billed annually.

✅ Pros

• If you are willing to pay for the most expensive plan, Mailshake has an extremely powerful dialer, along with unlimited minutes to North American phone numbers, which is great for businesses that have cold calling as their focus.
• You get automatic LinkedIn steps, and the platform integrates directly with LinkedIn, which means no third-party involvement from software like Dux-Soup.
• The tool has robust deliverability features like unlimited email warmup, unlimited email verification, and inbox rotation, though the latter two come with the more expensive plan.

❌ Cons

• The B2B lead database is not as strong as most other platforms (especially those that offer waterfall enrichment), and gives few filters for users to work with.
• Lead generation is limited because a subscription gets you only 50 free credits to use the lead database. Even the most expensive plan only comes with a limited number of credits. Unlimited access to the database requires extra subscription.
• The multichannel outreach option is only available on the most expensive plan.

For a more in-depth look at this cold email software, view our full Mailshake review.

Key Takeaways

There you have it — the 10 best cold email software in the market right now. They all have something to offer when it comes to personalization, deliverability, multichannel outreach, lead generation, analytics and integration.

To know which one fits you best, you need to know your business strategy. How many prospects do you need to reach out to every month? Do you need to report on your team’s performance? Are you planning on contacting your prospects on multiple channels? Maybe you’re already subscribed to a great lead generation tool so you don’t need a platform that offers a perfect B2B database.

Understanding your needs will help you decide which cold email software offers you the best value for money. So go ahead and get thinking. And if you need a platform that ticks all the boxes, then your free 14-day trial at lemlist awaits.

Mihaela Cicvaric

Content Marketing Manager @ lempire | Sharing everything you need to get replies to your cold emails