These four tools all send cold email, but they bill for different things. Instantly and Smartlead charge per workspace and let you connect unlimited sending inboxes. Apollo charges per seat and meters its lead database in credits. Lemlist splits the difference — and adds LinkedIn. The right choice depends less on the sticker price than on which of those three meters runs fastest for you: inboxes, seats, or data.
Outreach Growth, billed annually. Monthly billing is $47/mo. Lead data is a separate subscription.
Base plan, billed annually. Monthly billing is $39/mo. Mailboxes themselves are bought separately.
Basic plan, per seat, billed annually. Monthly billing is $65/seat. A free plan exists.
Email plan, billed annually (flat price, unlimited users). Monthly billing is $69/mo. Multichannel is priced per user.
| Instantly | Smartlead | Apollo | Lemlist | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Best for | Teams sending high email volume from a list they already have | Agencies and operators running many inboxes and client workspaces | Reps who need prospect data and outreach in one subscription | Small teams that personalize heavily or combine email with LinkedIn |
| What you are billed for | Workspace + monthly send volume and uploaded contacts. No per-seat charge | Workspace + monthly send volume and stored contacts. No per-mailbox or per-seat charge | Per seat, plus a shared credit pool for data reveals | Email plan: flat per workspace. Multichannel: per user. Data credits on top |
| Sending inboxes | Unlimited connections on every paid outreach plan — you supply the mailboxes | Unlimited connections on every plan — mailboxes are not included; buy your own or via its SmartSenders marketplace (from about $4.50/mailbox/mo) | Sending runs from mailboxes connected per user; the product is database-first, not an inbox-scaling tool | Email plan lists unlimited senders; Multichannel includes 5 senders per user |
| Entry paid plan | Growth $47/mo ($37.60 annual): 5,000 emails/mo, 1,000 uploaded contacts | Base $39/mo ($32.50 annual): 6,000 emails/mo, 2,000 contacts | Basic $49/seat/mo annual ($65 monthly): 30,000 credits/seat/year | Email $69/mo ($55 annual): 50,000 emails/mo, unlimited users |
| Mid-tier reference | Hypergrowth $97/mo ($77.60 annual): up to 125,000 emails/mo, 25,000 contacts | Pro $94/mo ($78.30 annual): 90,000 emails/mo, 30,000 contacts, API/CRM | Professional $79/seat/mo annual ($99 monthly): 48,000 credits/seat/year | Multichannel $109/user/mo ($87 annual): unlimited emails, LinkedIn automation, calls, SMS |
| Lead data | Sold separately: Credits plans or bundles on top of sending (database marketed at 450M+ contacts) | Prospect data is an add-on on Base/Pro; included allowances start at the Unlimited Smart tier | Built in — the database is the core product; reveals draw from the credit pool | Built-in database access; finder/enrichment beyond included amounts uses credits |
| Warm-up | Unlimited warm-up included on paid outreach plans | Warm-up included, but the pool tier varies by plan — premium pool positioning differs between Base/Pro and the Unlimited tiers; confirm at signup | No separate warm-up pool product; deliverability features sit inside the sequencing plans | Lemwarm included in paid plans |
| Channels beyond email | Email only | Email only | Email sequences plus a dialer (calls use credits/minutes) | Email + LinkedIn + calls + SMS on Multichannel; WhatsApp as an add-on |
| Free option | No free plan — 14-day trial | Trial available; no permanent free plan | Yes — free plan with a small monthly credit allowance | 14-day trial; no permanent free plan |
| Trade-off to know | The entry plan's 5,000 emails / 1,000 contacts run out quickly, and lead data costs extra — most active senders land on Hypergrowth plus a data subscription | The plan price buys zero mailboxes. Mailbox and domain costs, and possibly a premium warm-up add-on on lower plans, sit on top | Every new rep adds a full seat price, credits expire each cycle, and phone numbers cost 8 credits each — call-heavy teams burn the pool fast | Pricing was restructured in 2026 and older per-user figures still circulate; Multichannel's per-user pricing scales linearly with headcount |
Prices checked November 2026 — USD, before tax, as published by the vendors. Instantly's own pages show two figures for Hypergrowth sending (100,000 on one table, 125,000 on the plan card); we show the higher one and flag it here. Lemlist rebuilt its plans in 2026, so prices from older reviews may describe plans that are no longer sold. Plans change — always confirm the current price, limits and what's included on the vendor's site before you buy.
"Unlimited inboxes" means the platform stops charging you per inbox — it does not make inboxes free, and it does not remove the per-inbox sending limits that mailbox providers and basic deliverability practice impose. Once a plan is flat per workspace, the platform cost per inbox is just the plan price divided by how many inboxes you run: on Instantly Hypergrowth at $77.60/mo billed annually, that is $7.76 per inbox at 10 inboxes, $2.59 at 30, and $0.78 at 100. The real marginal cost of inbox number 31 is not the platform — it is the mailbox itself. Using Smartlead's published SmartSenders price for a fresh Google/Outlook mailbox ($4.50/mailbox/mo) as a transparent market reference, here is one concrete workload priced out:
| Workload: 20 inboxes · 50,000 emails/mo · annual billing | Platform | 20 mailboxes × $4.50 | Total / month | Total / year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Instantly (Hypergrowth) | $77.60 | $90 | $167.60 | $2,011.20 |
| Smartlead (Pro) | $78.30 | $90 | $168.30 | $2,019.60 |
| Lemlist (Email plan) | $55 | $90 | $145 | $1,740 |
| Apollo (Basic, 1 seat) | $49 | — | $49 | $588 |
Assumptions, so you can re-run the math: platform prices are the annual-billing rates above; the mailbox line uses the published $4.50/mailbox/mo fresh-mailbox price as a reference and excludes domain purchases (roughly $13–19 per domain per year in the same marketplace). Apollo is not priced into the mailbox line because it is not built around running 20 sending inboxes — read its row differently: its $49/seat includes the lead data the other three charge extra for. If Smartlead's premium warm-up pool is an add-on on the plan you pick, add $59/mo to its row ($227.30/mo in this scenario). Full calculation notes are in our methodology summary below.
Where the totals flip. If your leads come from Apollo's database and your volume fits inside its credit pool — on Basic, 30,000 credits per seat per year, roughly 2,500 email reveals a month — Apollo's single seat price can undercut a sending tool plus a separate data subscription: Instantly's entry bundle that pairs light sending with 1,500 lead credits a month is $85/mo billed annually, before you outgrow either allowance. But the moment sending volume, inbox count, or team size grows, the flat workspace tools pull ahead: a five-person team pays 5 × $49 = $245/mo on Apollo Basic ($435/mo on Lemlist Multichannel at the annual per-user rate), while an Instantly or Smartlead workspace stays at its flat plan price no matter how many inboxes or teammates you add. In short: few seats + data-hungry → the database-included model wins; many inboxes + send-hungry + your own list → the flat sending model wins.
Instantly's pitch is simple: connect as many sending accounts as you want, warm them up automatically, and pay for send volume and uploaded contacts rather than seats or inboxes. Growth ($47/mo, $37.60 billed annually) covers 5,000 emails and 1,000 uploaded contacts a month — a testing tier more than an operating one. Hypergrowth ($97/mo, $77.60 annually) is where most active senders land: up to 125,000 emails and 25,000 contacts, with webhooks and team features. Light Speed ($358/mo) raises volume to 500,000 emails and adds dedicated sending infrastructure. Lead data is a separate purchase: its SuperSearch database (marketed at 450M+ contacts) is sold through Credits plans, or bundled with light sending from $94/mo ($85 annually) with 1,500 credits a month. A unified reply inbox (Unibox) is part of the platform.
Smartlead takes the same unlimited-mailbox approach and aims it at agencies: client workspaces, white-label options, API/webhooks and CRM access from the Pro plan up, and granular controls for operators running many campaigns at once. Base ($39/mo, $32.50 annually) covers 6,000 emails and 2,000 contacts. Pro ($94/mo, $78.30 annually) covers 90,000 emails and 30,000 contacts. Unlimited Smart ($174/mo) removes the contact cap at 150,000 emails and starts including prospect-data allowances; Unlimited Prime ($379/mo) reaches 500,000 emails. Two cost details matter more than the tiers: no plan includes the mailboxes themselves — Smartlead sells them separately through its SmartSenders marketplace (fresh mailboxes from about $4.50/mailbox/mo, pre-warmed about $9, plus per-domain fees) — and sources differ on whether the premium warm-up pool is included or a $59/mo add-on on the lower plans, so confirm that line before you commit.
Apollo inverts the model. It is a B2B prospect database with search filters, enrichment and intent signals, with email sequencing attached — you find the people and contact them in the same subscription. Pricing is per seat: a genuinely free plan (about 75 credits a month), Basic at $49/seat/mo billed annually ($65 monthly), Professional at $79 ($99 monthly) and Organization at $119 with a three-seat minimum. Every seat adds credits to a shared, team-wide pool: Basic includes 30,000 credits per seat per year. Revealing a verified email costs 1 credit; a phone number costs 8. Credits expire at the end of each billing cycle — they do not roll over — and every seat on an account must sit on the same plan, so team costs scale head by head.
Lemlist built its name on personalization — dynamic variables and custom images inside cold emails — and on Lemwarm, its warm-up network, which is included in paid plans. Its pricing was rebuilt in 2026, and older per-user figures in many reviews no longer describe what's sold. The current entry is the Email plan at $69/mo ($55 billed annually): a flat price with unlimited users, up to 50,000 emails a month, database access and warm-up included. The Multichannel plan ($109/user/mo, $87 annually) switches back to per-user billing and adds LinkedIn automation, calls, SMS and unlimited messages, with five senders per user. Data and enrichment beyond the included allowances run on credits, which expire at the end of the billing period.
Already have lists — from a CRM, events, or another data provider? A flat sending tool (Instantly / Smartlead / Lemlist Email) is enough. Need the database itself? Apollo includes it; the others charge for data on top of sending.
Your send volume divided across inboxes sets your plan tier, but the mailboxes and domains are a separate, per-unit cost everywhere here. Price the full stack — platform + mailboxes + domains + data — not the plan card.
Per-seat tools (Apollo, Lemlist Multichannel) grow linearly with headcount; per-workspace tools don't. Model your team at the size it will be in six months, and remember Apollo and Lemlist credits expire each cycle.
Anti-spam law differs by country (for example CAN-SPAM in the US, GDPR/ePrivacy rules in much of Europe, and Japan's Act on Regulation of Transmission of Specified Electronic Mail), and mailbox providers set their own bulk-sending requirements. Whatever you pick, you need a lawful basis or consent model where required, working opt-outs, and authenticated domains (SPF/DKIM/DMARC). No tool on this page makes an unlawful campaign lawful.
It depends on the vendor's meter. Instantly and Smartlead charge nothing per inbox — you pay per workspace for send volume, and the inboxes themselves (mailbox subscriptions and domains) are a separate cost you pay to a mailbox provider or marketplace. Apollo charges per seat, not per inbox. Lemlist's Email plan is flat, while Multichannel is per user. When a tool advertises a low monthly price, ask which of those meters your usage will hit first.
No. Each plan still caps monthly sends and contacts, and each individual mailbox has practical daily limits — vendors' own guidance and documentation put sensible per-mailbox sending in the range of a few dozen new-contact emails a day, with warm-up traffic sharing the same daily capacity. Spreading volume across more inboxes is how these tools are designed to be used; it is not a way around mailbox providers' rules.
Warm-up networks simulate ordinary email engagement (opens, replies, moving messages out of spam) to build a new mailbox's sender reputation before and during campaigns. Instantly includes unlimited warm-up, Lemlist includes Lemwarm, and Smartlead runs tiered warm-up pools. None of the vendors can guarantee inbox placement or replies — treat any deliverability or reply figure a vendor publishes as its own marketing claim, not a promised outcome. List quality, relevance and volume discipline matter at least as much as the tool.
It depends on where you and your recipients are, and this page is general information, not legal advice. The US CAN-SPAM Act regulates commercial email with requirements such as accurate headers, honest subject lines and a working opt-out. Much of Europe applies GDPR and ePrivacy rules that are stricter about B2B outreach, and Japan has its own Act on Regulation of Transmission of Specified Electronic Mail. On top of the law, Google and Microsoft enforce bulk-sender requirements (authentication, spam-rate and unsubscribe rules) as a condition of using their mailbox services. Check the rules for your recipients' countries and your providers' terms before you send.
It depends on why you're switching. For the same flat-fee, unlimited-inbox sending model with more agency tooling, Smartlead is the closest like-for-like option. If your real cost problem is paying separately for lead data, Apollo folds the database into a per-seat price. If you want LinkedIn steps and heavier personalization in the same sequences, Lemlist's Multichannel plan is the different-shaped option. Compare them on the total-cost math in this guide, not on entry prices.
Because this guide is compiled from publicly available vendor information, not hands-on testing. We don't present campaigns we didn't run. Where a judgment appears — for example, that a plan's contact cap bites before its email cap — it is arithmetic on the published limits, shown next to it so you can check it yourself. Prices checked November 2026; confirm current terms on the vendor's site before buying.