8 Best Cold Email Software to Book More Meetings in 2025

Cold emailing still works in 2025, but you need the right tool to make it work.

And that’s exactly where things start getting confusing.

I often see people on forums saying they can’t find a cold email platform that actually fits their needs, and I get it.

Because every tool out there promises to be the best, and honestly, most of them flop once you try to run real campaigns.

That’s why I didn’t stop at reading G2 reviews or glancing at feature pages.

I went hands-on and tested 14 popular cold email software, ran live campaigns to check their core capabilities, and tracked the results for 4 weeks to see how well their claims held up.

In this blog, I’ll show you which ones stood out, what makes them worth paying for, where they shine, and where they fall short.

By the time you’re done, you’ll find exactly which cold email software can actually help you scale outreach and book more meetings.

Let’s get started!

Quick Overview of Top 3 Cold Email Platforms 👇🏼

If you’re in a hurry and want to find the right cold email tool without reading through everything, I’ve got you — these are my three personal favorites that truly stand out.

• Saleshandy → It’s the only tool on this list that gives you unlimited accounts, AI-assisted personalization, and advanced deliverability from the starter plan.
• Instantly.ai → A great platform for teams who want a simple setup for running cold email, an advanced deliverability tool, and AI for personalized content.
• Lemlist → You can create highly personalized multichannel outreach campaigns, with dynamic images and custom landing pages.

My Honest Review of Top 8 Cold Email Software

Here is the list of the best cold email software:

1. Saleshandy
2. Instantly.ai
3. Lemlist
4. Smartlead
5. Woodpecker
6. Apollo
7. Snov.io
8. Klenty

Let’s get into it!

1. Saleshandy

Saleshandy is a powerful AI-assisted cold email software.

You can scale your email outreach with unlimited mailboxes, a B2B database, hyper-personalized emails, premium deliverability tools, AI features, and a unified inbox, making it a solid all-in-one platform. 

I use it almost every day for launching both sales campaigns.

My favorite thing about Saleshandy is how easy it is to launch a campaign.

You can create an account, set everything up, and start sending emails right away, even if it’s your first time doing cold email outreach.

All I need to do is give my website URL, prospect list, and a simple textual prompt, something like:

“We help B2B SaaS companies improve cold email reply rates with better deliverability and AI-powered personalization.”

Then the AI analyzes the website and pulls the main value proposition and the problems it solves.

It also auto-detects and fills in details of your prospect, like their company name, and builds a full email sequence with personalized subject lines and icebreakers for every person on your list.

PS: No other cold email tool on this list is as cost-effective as Saleshandy for agencies running high-volume campaigns.

Because you can:

• Connect unlimited email accounts
• Add unlimited clients
• White-label the tool
• Use advanced client and team management features

And the best part?

You get all of this right from the basic $25/month plan with no hidden charges or forced upgrades.

Here Are the Core Capabilities of Saleshandy 👇🏼

• Trigger-Based Sequences: You can set up follow-ups that are automatically sent based on how your prospects interact with your emails, like if they open, click, or don’t respond
• Personalization: Saleshandy allows you to personalize your emails using text variables, AI variants, and spintax
• Multichannel Platform: You can create outreach tasks across multiple channels, like LinkedIn, calling, etc, and track their progress in one place
• Deliverability: This is one of Saleshandy’s strongest features. All plans include unlimited email warm-ups and inbox rotation.
  The platform also offers features like inbox placement testing, AI bounce detection, ESP matching, and a built-in lead finder that verifies emails in real time and shows only A-grade verified emails. This ensures 98%+ deliverability
• B2B Lead Database: You get access to one of the largest and most accurate B2B databases with 700M+ contacts.
  You can use filters like location, job title, and industry to build targeted email lists
• Unified Inbox: Saleshandy lets you manage and reply to all client conversations from one place.
  The AI reply detector automatically categorizes responses so you can focus on your most important leads
• Analytics & Reports: You get an intuitive dashboard with color-coded graphs to track key metrics and the ability to run A-Z tests
• Integrations: Saleshandy offers native integrations with popular CRMs like Zoho, Salesforce, and Pipedrive. You can also use Zapier, API, or webhooks  to integrate your favorite tool into the workflow

Also Read: Saleshandy Alternatives

Pricing Plans

Saleshandy’s plan starts at $25/month when billed annually, and you get access to all of its features right from the start. 

Get the detailed breakdown here.

What Other Users Have to Say?

2. Instantly.ai

Next cold emailing tool on my list is Instantly.

It is a sales intelligence platform that lets you launch outreach campaigns while helping your emails land in inboxes.

Just like Saleshandy, you can connect unlimited email accounts and run unlimited warm-ups.

The interface of Instantly is very easy to use. I was able to set up a test campaign in just a few minutes.

From uploading the prospect list to using its campaign builder to frame my email, everything felt simple and fast.

However, I couldn’t use any of its AI features, like the sequence generator or personalization, so I had to use custom variables to personalize emails, which felt pretty disappointing.

AI features aren’t available in the basic plan. You have to subscribe directly to the Hypergrowth plan to access them.

On the other hand, agencies have to pay $77.60/client/month to create a separate workspace.

Here are the Core Capabilities of Instantly👇🏼

• AI Sequence Writer: It generates complete email sequences based on your offer details, target audience, and case studies
• Lead Database: You can find and enrich leads from a database of 450M+ contacts
• AI Personalization: Instantly allows you to run custom AI prompts or use the web research agent to generate personalized content or fields
• Deliverability Toolkit: Along with giving unlimited email warm-up, it also gives you features like IP rotation, ESP matching, and inbox placement tests
• Integrations: Instantly doesn’t offer many native integrations, but with API and webhooks, you can integrate third-party tools.

Also Read: Instantly Alternatives

Pricing Plans

Instantly’s pricing starts at $30/month when billed annually. 

In the basic plan, you can connect unlimited email accounts and run unlimited email warm-ups, but you won’t get access to features like integrations, A/B testing, and advanced analytics.

To access those, you’ll need to move to one of the higher-tier plans.

What Other Users Have to Say?

3. Lemlist

Lemlist is one of the best multichannel outreach tools available.

You can launch personalized outreach campaigns across Email, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, and Calls.

When I was setting up my test campaign, I found Lemlist’s campaign builder unique and very intuitive.

It visualizes your campaign steps in a flow chart or branches. This is very helpful if you’re doing multichannel outreach because you can clearly see what’s coming next.

Where Lemlist really stands out among all the cold email tools is its personalization features. 

Apart from text-based personalization, you can also create custom landing pages and clickable images that grab attention and increase engagement.

That said, where Lemlist disappointed me was in its limited email deliverability capabilities compared to the other cold email platforms like Saleshandy.

Apart from email warm-up and inbox rotation, it has no other features to maximize deliverability.

If you’re an agency, you can use Lemlist’s Cockpit feature to add and manage clients, but it’s pretty expensive. 

As you have to buy a separate plan for each client you add through the Cockpit.

Here Are the Core Capabilities of Lemlist 👇🏼

• Email Outreach & Automation: You can run advanced email sequences with multiple follow-ups, either with AI or manually
• Prospecting: It gives you access to a 450M+ leads database for finding quality prospects
• Personalization Tools: The tool lets you create customized images, use text-based personalization, and add custom landing pages with tailored content
• Multichannel Outreach: You can do LinkedIn outreach, cold calling, and WhatsApp from one platform
• Analytics & Reporting: You can track key metrics, such as open rates, reply rates, and bounce rates, directly from the dashboard. The platform also offers an advanced reports section, where you can use customizable widgets to get the insights you need
• Integrations: Lemlist offers native integration with CRMs like HubSpot, Pipedrive, Salesforce, and other sales more

Also Read: Lemlist Alternatives

Pricing Plans

Lemlist’s pricing plans start at $55/month per user. If you want access to its multichannel outreach features, you’ll need to subscribe to the $79/month per-user plan.

Yes, Lemlist is quite expensive! 

What Other Users Have to Say?

Watch the Head-to-Head Comparison of the Top 3 Cold Email Tools 👇🏼

4. Smartlead

Smartlead.ai  is another popular cold email automation tool that lets you scale your campaigns with ease.

Where Smartlead really stands out is its deliverability features.

Tools like SmartDelivery, SmartServers, AI warm-up, unique IP rotation, and dynamic ESP matching all work together to help keep your emails in the primary inbox.

Even if you stick with the base plan, you still get a lot of value. 

It includes unlimited email accounts, warm-ups, and unique IP rotation, features that most other tools charge extra for.

While building my test campaign, though, I found Smartlead’s interface a bit outdated.

The purple and white theme wasn’t very appealing, and the campaign builder felt cluttered.

Another downside of Smartlead is personalization. Other cold email software on my list provides custom merge tags and AI-driven personalization, but Smartlead still offers only basic merge tags.

Here Are the Core Capabilities of Smartlead 👇🏼

• Personalization: The platform allows you to personalize your emails with merge tags and Spintax
• Unified Unibox: It centralises conversations from all inboxes and categorizes them 
• Automation & subsequences: You can use Behaviour-based flows, reply intent categorization, sub-sequences, and reminders 
• Integrations: Smartlead offers integrations with Clay, HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Zapier, Make, n8n, etc.
• Omnichannel options: You can automate email outreach and add manual steps for phone and LinkedIn outreach.

Also Read: Smartlead Alternatives

Pricing Plans

Smartlead’s basic subscription is priced at $32.50/month when billed annually.

Its advanced deliverability features, such as SmartSenders and SmartDelivery, are priced separately and charged at a premium.

If you want to add a client, it costs $29/client/month.

What Other Users Have to Say?

5. Woodpecker

Next up, we have Woodpecker.

A cold email software known for its ease of use and clean interface.

Many users on G2 have praised Woodpecker for its intuitive UI, and I’d readily agree. While exploring the platform myself, I felt the same.

It’s easy to create sequences, especially condition-based campaigns that let you send more personalized and targeted emails to your prospects. Plus, it offers free email verification for catch-all domains.

That said, Woodpecker’s pricing plans are quite complicated.

You have to pay additional fees for features that should be included in the base plan, for example, $5 for email warm-up, $20/mo integrations, and $5 for white-labeling.

Also, its LeadFinder is slow and often gives inaccurate results.

Here Are the Core Capabilities of Woodpecker 👇🏼

• Deliverability: Woodpecker has a good set of features, such as email warm-up, inbox rotation, adaptive sending, etc., to boost and maintain deliverability.
• Personalization: You can personalize your emails with dynamic custom tags and spintax.
• AI Interest level detection: It analyzes your client’s message and tells whether they are interest in your offer or not
• Integration: With Woodpecker, you can integrate many tools in your workflow, like Clay, Persana, two-way sync with HubSpot and Pipedrive, and many more.

Also Read: Woodpecker Alternatives

Pricing Plans

Woodpecker’s pricing plan starts at $20/month, but many of its features come as add-ons and are priced separately.

For example, integrations, email warm-ups, and several other features require additional payments.

What Other Users Have to Say?

6. Apollo

Apollo.io is primarily known for prospecting, but it also has strong multichannel outreach capabilities.

You can use the best outbound email software to find relevant prospects and engage them through multichannel sequences that include:

• Automated emails
• Manual emails
• Automated LinkedIn actions
• Phone calls
• and other manual actions

What I liked the most about Apollo is how its AI features and automation capabilities saved me hours of manual work.

All that said, there are trade-offs.

The accuracy of email addresses often drops to around 60–72% outside the US. 

Additionally, scaling cold email campaigns can become expensive due to the platform’s pricing structure.

Here Are the Core Capabilities of Apollo 👇🏼

• Lead Database and Prospecting: Apollo.io has a large database of over 210M contacts from 35M+ companies globally. You can use the 60+ filters to narrow down on the right prospects and quickly build targeted lists.
• AI-Assisted Sequence Creation and Personalization:  You can use Apollo’s AI to build tailored sequences quickly and also personalize messages at scale.
• Workflow Automation: You can automate the entire process of finding prospects and reaching out using personalized sequences.

Also Read: Alternative options to Apollo.io

Pricing Plans

Apollo has a forever-free plan and 3 paid plans. The basic one starts at  $49/month/user. 

What Other Users Have to Say?

7. Snov.io

Snov.io lets you find prospects and reach out to them through cold emails and LinkedIn.

You can connect unlimited email accounts to scale your outreach, which is a big plus for growing teams or businesses with high-volume needs.

However, it does restrict you to strict email sending limits, so it’s worth checking the plans carefully and choosing the one that suits you best.

While trying out Snov.io, I found its sequence builder straightforward.  You can create drip campaigns with automated follow-ups, use the AI Writer, and run A/B tests.

 I also liked how intuitive it was to personalize emails at scale and add conditions for follow-ups to optimize campaigns for the best results.

If you’re looking for simplicity mixed with solid cold email automation functionality, Snov.io does a decent job.

Snov.io also offers a Magic Pixel feature that allows you to track open rates safely. However, I wouldn’t recommend using it, as tracking pixels aren’t a best practice and can hurt your deliverability in the long run.

Here Are the Core Capabilities of Snov 👇🏼 

• Deliverability: Snov.io comes with some handy deliverability features, like email verification, warming up new email addresses, ESP matching, etc.
  You can also set sending limits for your email accounts to avoid getting flagged by email service providers.
• Drip Campaigns: The Snov.io email drip campaigns feature lets you nurture leads, build relationships, and guide prospects to enter the sales funnel using AI.
• Agency Portal: Snov.io has a separate pricing plan for agencies, in which you get unlimited seats and can add unlimited clients.

Pricing Plans

Snov.io starts at $29.25/month and allows you to add unlimited senders, follow-ups, and even build multichannel campaigns.

Some of its advanced features, such as Spintax, A/B testing, and campaign volume control, are available only in the higher-tier plans.

What Other Users Have to Say?

8. Klenty

The last tool on my list is Klenty.

It is an AI-powered sales engagement platform, but it has solid cold emailing automation capabilities and offers a completely different pricing plan for it. 

This makes it a good choice if you want to start with cold emailing and then expand your outreach efforts to other channels, such as cold calling, LinkedIn, SMS, and WhatsApp.

The feature that impressed me the most was its AI SDR. 

This powerful tool learns your value proposition and customer pain points, identifies prospects, researches them, and creates a personalized multi-channel outreach campaign.

Plus, it also offers a built-in tool to clean and enrich prospect data based on a specific target list. 

Here Are the Core Capabilities of Klenty 👇🏼

• AI Email Writer (Ask Kai): It helps you create hyper-personalized emails. You simply have to prompt for details about your business and prospects.
• Reply Detection: The AI reply management categorizes responses (e.g., Interested, Not Interested) to prioritize follow-ups.
• AI List Builder: It helps you find accounts that match your ICP and buyer persona and scores them based on your inputs. It also finds contact details with the waterfall enrichment method.
• Sales Engagement Workflows: You can build workflows that trigger actions based on prospect behavior so that no lead slips through your emails.

Pricing Plans

The Klenty Starter plan, billed at $50/mo, includes 75,000 emails per month, unlimited users, and inboxes. It also offers email personalization, automation, analytics, and 24/5 customer support.

What Other Users Have to Say?

So, Which Is the Best Tool for Cold Email Outreach?

If you’re here, I’m sure that you care about email outreach.

Here’s my take: Go with a cold emailing software that’s actually built to send outreach emails and centralize your outreach.

And for that, Saleshandy is the best pick. Here’s why:

• Quick sequence creation with AI Sequence Copilot
• Amazing email deliverability stack (unmatched)
• Unified inbox to manage all replies in one place
• Native CRM integrations to keep your pipeline updated

So, I will suggest that you take a leap of faith and choose a cold email outreach tool that best fits your needs.

FAQs

1. What is Cold Email Software?

It’s a tool that helps you send cold emails, manage replies, and automate most of the outreach process. These tools make it easy to scale your outreach while still keeping messages highly personalized.

2. Is Cold Emailing Legal?

Yes, it’s legal — as long as you don’t spam. Many people break compliance laws by sending mass, untargeted emails. The key is to create genuine, personalized campaigns.

3. How is Cold Email Software Different from Email Marketing Software?

Cold email software is for 1:1 sales outreach (personalized emails to prospects). On the other hand, email marketing software, like Mailchimp, is for bulk promotional campaigns to opt-in subscribers.

4. What’s the Best Cold Email Platform for Startups or Small Teams?

Startups usually look for affordability, deliverability, and ease of use. Tools like Saleshandy are popular because they combine AI-powered sequences, strong deliverability features, and CRM sync in one place.

5. Which Is the Best Free Cold Email Software?

Well, no tool will let you send cold emails forever for free. But almost all of the top cold email software on my list offer either a free-forever plan or a trial that gives you the key features you need to run outreach sequences..