Vatsal Shah Smartlead is a good cold email software, but it’s not the best out there!
I used Smartlead for a couple of months, and this is what I found:
- It’s a bit expensive compared to other tools in the market
- The UI and overall experience feel outdated
- Email accounts sometimes disconnect without warning, pausing your entire campaign
- Agencies need to pay an extra $29/month for every active client.
- Smartlead’s email warmup sometimes ends up hurting your deliverability instead of improving it.
For me, these were clear dealbreakers.
That’s why I tested other platforms and put together this list of the 5 best Smartlead alternatives that actually perform better.
Keep reading to find the one that best fits your cold emailing needs.
Smartlead Alternatives – TOC
5 Best Smartlead Alternatives For Better Cold Emailing in 2025
I tested multiple tools and evaluated them on four key factors:
- Cold email automation and deliverability features
- Customer support
- Ease of use
- Cost
And these were the tools that are worth trying in 2025 for cold emailing:
1. Saleshandy
First on my list is Saleshandy.
It is an all-in-one AI-powered cold email software.
With Saleshandy, you can easily set up and scale your outreach in a cost-effective way.
Why Saleshandy is The Best Smartlead Alternative
The main reason I put Saleshandy at the top is because it covers the entire cold email process end-to-end, something Smartlead falls short on.
With Saleshandy, you can:
- Set up your cold email infrastructure.
- Warm up your new (or existing) email accounts.
- Find relevant leads for your outreach (not available in Smartlead).
- Create personalized sequences with hyper-targeted sub-sequences that trigger based on prospect behaviour.
- Test inbox placement to know exactly where your emails will land.
- Track and monitor key metrics like open rates, reply rates, and overall campaign performance.
Moreover, you get more advanced features at a more affordable cost.
- Saleshandy’s base plan – $25/Month (billed annually)
- Smartlead’s base plan – $32.5/Month (billed annually)
And unlike Smartlead, Saleshandy doesn’t charge you for client accounts. You can add and manage an unlimited number of clients at no extra cost.
You can also:
- Connect unlimited email accounts at no additional cost
- Create complete cold email sequences from scratch using the AI Sequence Copilot
- Use Saleshandy Lead Finder to find relevant prospects from a database of 700M+ professional contacts from 60M+ companies globally.
- Invite unlimited team members to collaborate and manage campaigns.
So, if you’re looking for a Smartlead alternative that is highly scalable, focused on deliverability, and cost-effective, Saleshandy is the best choice.
Saleshandy Pricing (Billed Annually)
Saleshandy has 4 pricing plans.
- Outreach Starter – $25/Month
- Outreach Pro – $69/Month
- Outreach Scale – $139/Month
- Outreach Scale Plus – $209/Month
2. Instantly.ai
Next on the list is Instantly.ai.
It is a sales engagement and lead enrichment platform that primarily focuses on helping you generate leads through cold emailing.
It’s your ideal Smartlead alternative if you’re a high-volume sender (~500K+ emails/month).
Why Instantly.ai is Better Than Smartlead Alternative
Instantly.ai outperforms Smartlead if you are sending over 200K emails a month.
Also, Instantly’s warm-up feature is more reliable than Smartlead’s.
Instead of randomly hurting deliverability (something I experienced with Smartlead), Instantly’s system steadily builds sender reputation and keeps inbox placement consistent.
Coming to the UI/UX, Instantly feels far more modern and intuitive.
Aprat from these, you can also:
- Connect unlimited email accounts to scale your campaigns
- Find relevant leads from Instantly.ai’s in-built database
- Use the built-in AI to create complete sequences and research your prospects for better personalization.
All that said, the only drawback for me is the cost, especially for agencies, as you have to buy separate workspaces for all your clients
Instantly.ai Pricing
Instantly.ai has 4 paid plans:
- Growth – $30/Month
- Hypergrowth – $77.6/Month
- Lightspeed – $286.3/Month
- Enterprise – Custom
Also check: Instantly.ai Alternatives for Cold Emails
3. Lemlist
If you’re heavy on personalizing your cold emails, Lemlist is the tool for you.
You can create and use personalized images, videos, and even landing pages.
This makes your outreach stand out and feel more human compared to the standard cold emails you’d send with Smartlead.
Why Lemlist is Better Than Smartlead Alternative
After using Lemlist, I found it to be far more reliable than Smartlead in terms of deliverability and campaign stability.
My emails were consistently delivered, and I had no random email account disconnections.
Lemlist also offers a separate product called Lemwarm, dedicated entirely to warming up your email accounts. In my experience, Lemwarm was far more reliable than Smartlead’s warm-up.
What really stood out to me is the condition-based visual sequence builder, which lets you design campaigns based on prospect behavior.
For example, you can send one follow-up if a prospect opens your email, but a different one if they don’t.
All this said, Lemlist does come with its own drawbacks.
Scalability in Lemlist comes at a huge cost!
The platform restricts you to 3 sending email accounts per user, and if you need more, you’re charged an extra $9/month per email account.
This makes scaling campaigns expensive compared to Smartlead and other alternatives that allow unlimited accounts.
Lemlist Pricing
Lemlist has 3 paid plans, one for email sending only, and the other two for multichannel:
- Email Pros – $55/Month/User
- Multichannel Expert – $79/Month/User
- Enterprise – Custom
4. SmartReach
If you’re looking for a Smartlead alternative like Lemlist that offers scalability at a cost-effective price, SmartReach is a strong choice.
It is a sales engagement platform that has been picking up popularity on communities like Reddit and LinkedIn.
Apart from cold emailing, you can also use it for multichannel outreach, including LinkedIn, WhatsApp, and SMS.
Why SmartReach is Better Than Smartlead Alternative
The main reason why I have SmartReach on this list is because of the cost and scalability.
Unlike Smartlead, which charges agencies extra per client, SmartReach offers dedicated agency plans that let you manage multiple clients under one account without hidden fees.
On top of that, you get multichannel outreach (email, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, SMS) and automation workflows that scale as your campaigns grow.
So, overall, SmartReach gives you more value at a lower price point than Smartlead.
SmartReach Pricing
SmartReach has separate plans for businesses and agencies:
- Email Outreach
- Outreach Basic – $29/Month
- Outreach Plus – $89/Month
- Outreach Pro – $199/Month
- Outreach Scale – $499/Month
- Agency
- Outreach Pro – $199/Month
- Outreach Scale – $499/Month
5. Woodpecker
Last on my list is Woodpecker.
It is a cold email software that is apt for freelancers, solopreneurs, and small businesses.
Why Woodpecker is Better Than Smartlead Alternative
There are three main reasons why Woodpecker stands out as a better option than Smartlead:
- Plan flexibility
- Advanced safety checks to improve deliverability
- Add-on options
With Woodpecker, you can choose how many prospects you want to contact in a month. Based on this, the pricing adjusts to your outreach needs.
Woodpecker also performs multiple checks like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC before sending, making sure your technical setup is correct and your emails don’t end up in spam.
On top of that, the add-on model lets you pay only for the features you need, like:
- Agency panel
- Email Warm-up
- Lead Finder Database
- Domain and emails
- And more
This level of flexibility makes Woodpecker a smarter choice for smaller teams and agencies that don’t want to overpay for bundled features they’ll never use.
Woodpecker Pricing
Woodpecker has 4 paid plans:
- Starter – $20/month
- Growth – $126/month
- Scale – $903/month
- Max – $6,666/month
Send More Cold Emails With The Right Platform!
That’s it — I’ve broken down the best Smartlead alternatives you can use in 2025. Each tool comes with its own strengths:
- Saleshandy → Overall best for deliverability and scalability at cost-effective pricing
- Instantly.ai → Best for high-volume sending at flat pricing
- Lemlist → Best for advanced personalization like images, videos, and custom landing pages
- SmartReach → Best for scalable, multichannel outreach at an affordable cost
- Woodpecker → Best for freelancers and small teams who value safety and flexibility
At the end of the day, the right platform depends on your goals.
So, choose the one that matches your cold emailing needs, and you’ll see better inbox placement, more replies, and more deals closed.
Smartlead Alternatives – FAQs
1. Why Users Are Looking for Smartlead Alternatives
While Smartlead is a capable cold email platform, many users are starting to look for alternatives because of recurring issues like:
- Higher cost compared to similar tools in the market.
- Outdated UI/UX that feels clunky and slows down campaign management.
- Email accounts disconnect randomly, causing campaigns to pause.
- Extra charges for agencies, with $29/month per client workspace.
- Warm-up issues, where instead of improving deliverability, Smartlead’s system sometimes hurts inbox placement.
These dealbreakers push users to explore tools that are more reliable, affordable, and scalable.
2. What should you look for in a Smartlead alternative?
It purely depends on your business needs. But the most important factors are deliverability, pricing, and ease of use.
3. Which Smartlead alternative is best for agencies?
Saleshandy is the best option for agencies, as you can add and manage unlimited clients at no additional charge.
