Recommended tools

Best cold email software

The cold email tools we recommend, compared on price, monthly limits and what each one is best at.

Prices from each company’s own pricing page in October 2026, billed monthly. Annual plans cost less. Prices change, so check before you buy.

What to look for

Unlimited inboxes. Safe cold email means about 30 emails per inbox a day, so you need many inboxes. Pay per plan, not per inbox.
Built-in warm-up. New inboxes need about three weeks of warm-up. Paying for it separately adds up fast.
Enough emails a month. Entry plans cap monthly sends. Work out your number with the cold email calculator before you compare prices.
Inbox rotation. Each campaign should spread across all your inboxes automatically.

The three we recommend

Tool	Cheapest plan	Emails a month	Warm-up	Best for
Smartlead	$39	6,000	Included	Starting cheaply, agencies
Instantly	$47	5,000	Included	High volume on one plan
lemlist	$69	50,000	Included (lemwarm)	Email plus LinkedIn steps

All three connect Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 inboxes, send multi-step sequences and stop when someone replies. The differences are price, monthly limits and extras.

Cheapest way to start

Before your first campaign

Buy separate sending domains and never send from your main one.
Set SPF, DKIM and DMARC on every domain and check them with the full domain scan.
Warm up new inboxes for three weeks. Compare options in the best email warm-up tools.
Clean your list before you send, so bounces stay low.

Some links on this page are partner links: if you buy, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. It never changes what we recommend. How partner links work.