Lemlist vs. Instantly: Which is the Best Cold Email Tool

Struggling to choose between Lemlist or Instantly? 

Well, both are great cold email software. 

While Instantly is much more affordable, Lemlist has some advanced features that might be worth the extra bucks. 

However, these are not the only cold email tools in the market. 

If you’re looking for a solution that strikes a balance, offering advanced features at cost-effective prices, Saleshandy can be the perfect choice.

This blog post will provide a detailed teardown comparison of Lemlist vs. Instantly, focusing on their cold email outreach capabilities. You will also learn how Saleshandy stands out and proves to be a superior alternative to both tools. 

With this comparison, I aim to help you to choose the best tool for your requirements. 

Lemlist vs Instantly- Table of Contents

• Lemlist vs. Instantly vs. Saleshandy: Compared 
• Lemlist vs. Instantly In-depth Comparison
• Lemlist vs. Instantly: Which is Best for Cold Email Outreach
• FAQs

Lemlist vs. Instantly vs. Saleshandy: Compared

Lemlist vs. Instantly In-depth Comparison

Drawing from firsthand experience and extensive research, I’ve prepared a detailed analysis of both tools. This will help you make an informed decision by exploring their features and what you can expect once you purchase them.

You will also learn about Saleshandy, a highly scalable cold email tool with advanced automation and personalization features used by growing B2B teams & lead generation agencies to book more meetings. 

Here’s a quick video on Lemlist Vs. Instantly Vs. Saleshandy:

Let’s explore the features of each tool in detail! 

1. Sequence Creation: Lemlist vs Instantly

When selecting a cold email tool, it’s crucial to consider the user interface, experience, and ease of use of the sequence-building functionality. You should always prefer tools that allow you to create, edit, and customize sequences easily without the long learning curve involved. 

Let’s compare the sequence builder feature of Lemlist and Instantly in detail: 

Lemlist

Lemlist allows you to create complex multi-channel sequences in an easy-to-understand flow chart. You can also build campaigns manually, with the help of AI, or duplicate best-performing campaigns from your library or Lemlist’s template hub. 

With Lemlist, you can automate your cold email and LinkedIn outreach, whereas for cold calling, you need to set up an API manually. If you want to add other outreach channels, you must add them as reminders. 

Moreover, you can build your campaigns based on systematic steps or run triggered-based campaigns.  (Which is  impressive!) 

G2 Review: “Its use of AI and organization to perfect sales sequences is second to none. The AI is very good at creating effective and bespoke campaigns, and it is easy to get an overview of your team’s performance, what’s working, and how to streamline your sequences to be the best they can be.” 

Instantly

Instantly has a very easy-to-use sequence creator, you can create your sequences in a linear pattern.  Moreover, with the email preview feature, you can see how your emails will land in your prospect’s inbox.

However, unlike Lemlist, you can’t create multichannel or condition-based sequences.

Moreover, Instantly has native integration with Open AI; hence, you can use its AI Generator and Template Hub to create unique email copies.

G2 User review: “It’s really easy to connect email accounts and set them up for use; email sequences are also really easy and fast to set; you just have to complete the text you want to use, and you can add variables with no issues.” 

Who Has the Best Sequence Creation Functionality? 

It’s difficult to conclude which tool has the best sequence creation functionality, as both stand out.    

If you want to do multichannel outreach, you should undoubtedly use Lemlist. However, please note that you must subscribe to its $79/mo plan to create multichannel sequences with Lemlist. 

In both low-tier pricing plans, you can only build cold email sequences. Moreover, if you’re looking to scale cold email campaigns, this price tag allows you to connect only 5 sending emails. (Yes, scaling your cold outreach with Lemlist comes with a hefty price tag!)

On the other hand, with Instantly, you can connect unlimited email accounts even in its starter plan (priced at $30/mo) and use its simple & easy-to-use sequence builder to create your campaigns.

Hence, you should choose:

• Lemlist if you want to run multi-channel campaigns (though not scalable) and have a high budget.
• Instantly, if you want to run cold email campaigns, connect unlimited email accounts, and use advanced automation features at a much more affordable price.

Also Read: Apollo vs. Instantly.ai: Which Cold Email Tool Wins? (2024)

2. Client & Team Management: Lemlist vs Instantly

You’ll require collaboration features and role-based access control if you run multiple campaigns for your clients and need to involve various team members to cater to different client needs.

These features will help you handle everything smoothly and run scalable campaigns.

Hence, your cold email software needs client and team management features.

Lemlist

Lemlist is not the ideal solution for growing and scaling teams because it has a per-person pricing plan. Even with its highest-paid pricing plan, Outreach Scale charged at $129/mo/user limits you to 15 sending emails. 

Hence, investing in Lemlist is not worth it if you run vast email campaigns at scale. 

G2 User Review: 

“I WISH WISH WISH they had unlimited email accounts.

That’s the only thing I don’t like about it: it caps you at five email accounts (15 with the pro plan).

Which isn’t terrible, but only having 5 is quite rough. I hope one day they come out with more.”

Instantly 

Instantly offers agency-friendly features like adding unlimited clients & team members, but it COMES WITH AN EXTRA COST. You will get this functionality in its hyper-growth plan, priced at $77.6/mo for one workspace. If you want to create another workspace, you need to subscribe to the hyper-growth plan again! 

Instantly Workspaces are not shared or bundled under a single subscription, so if you have multiple workspaces, you have to pay for each separately. (Ouch!!) 

This is not apt for lead generation agencies running cold email campaigns on a larger scale. 

G2 User Review: “It costs extra to add another workspace for clients to manage their campaigns.” 

Who Has the Best Client & Team Management Functionality? 

Well, both Instantly & Lemlist are not ideal solutions if you are looking for advanced client and team management functionalities at cost-effective prices. 

That’s where Saleshandy comes into play! 

Saleshandy

Saleshandy offers a competitive edge to Lemlist and Instantly when it comes to offering team and client management functionality. With Saleshandy, you can add and manage unlimited email accounts, clients, and team members WITHOUT PAYING ANY ADDITIONAL COST. 

Moreover, you can manage all your clients’ campaigns from a single interface. This centralized approach allows you to quickly access important campaign metrics and act proactively to achieve client goals.. 

You can start adding unlimited clients at $25/mo from its starter plan. 

G2 User Review: “Running multiple cold email campaigns for clients can be difficult and costly for an agency. But with Saleshandy, we can do it quickly and cost-effectively. It works well for running outreach campaigns and provides the flexibility to handle multiple campaigns – something that would typically cost thousands of dollars elsewhere. So, go ahead and take it for a spin -you won’t be disappointed!” 

 What Makes Saleshandy a Cost-Effective Cold Email Solution for Agencies?

Unlike Instantly, you don’t have to pay extra to create more workspaces with Saleshandy. There is no concept of workspace with Saleshandy’s agency portal. You can add UNLIMITED CLIENTS and run as many campaigns as you want. (It’s a win-win scenario for agencies!) 

3. Unified Inbox:  Lemlist vs Instantly

A unified inbox lets you track all replies from different sequences and email accounts in one central location. This functionality significantly saves time and effort by eliminating the need to review each reply from your prospects manually. It allows you to identify and prioritize responses from important leads quickly.

Lemlist

Well, Lemlist is already out of the race here because it DOESN’T offer a unified inbox feature! 

Also Read: 8 Lemlist Alternatives for Effective Cold Email Outreach

Instantly

Instantly has a unibox that allows you to track, reply, and forward all the replies from your leads. 

But here is the catch with its starter plan: you can ONLY preview replies but cannot send replies directly from Unibox. To have the functionality to reply to your leads’ emails directly within Unibox, you need to upgrade to the Hyper Growth or Light Speed plan.

G2 User Review: I don’t like the unibox that much, and also when you delete the leads instantly, they don’t end up in your main unibox anymore, so you have to use a big email account and organize them.

However, there are mixed reviews of the Unibox feature on G2. Some users have said that it is buggy and slows down the updating of data, which can easily hamper the overall experience and cause a hassle in organizing the data manually. (imagine all the time that would go into it) 

Who Has the Best Unified Inbox? 

Well, among Lemlist & Instantly, only Instantly offers unified inbox functionality; hence, we compared its unibox with Saleshandy’s unified inbox, and we have concluded that Saleshandy has the best-unified inbox feature. No, we are not being biased.

Here is how we have arrived at this decision:

Saleshandy 

You can also get a unified inbox feature with Saleshandy, which is much more advanced and stable than Instantly’s unibox. 

With Saleshandy’s unified inbox, you will get the basic functionality of replying to and managing all client conversations from one place. However, you will also get advanced functionalities like AI outcome categorization. 

The AI Outcome categorization feature by Saleshandy categorizes all the replies from your prospects and marks them as interested, not interested, meeting booked, not now, etc.

By using this feature, you can save a lot of time that would go into going through each reply. 

Apart from this, you will also get comprehensive filters to find the right data and convenient bulk email selection functionality that allows you to perform actions in bulk. 

G2 User Review: It is the unified inbox where I can track all the replies that I get from different email accounts, as we have been using many email accounts.

4. Personalization Features: Lemlist vs Instantly

Personalization is the most effective way to achieve high open rates; therefore, it is important to look for a cold email tool that helps you send personalized emails at scale. 

Lemlist 

When it comes to personalization, Lemlist offers various options, such as adding custom variables like first name, last name, signature, linkedin url, ice breakers, etc., and liquid syntax. Moreover, you can also add customized images, videos, landing pages, and gifs to your emails. 

Lemlist also allows you to create icebreakers with AI. All you have to do is give your prospect’s LinkedIn URL, and it will scrape all the data from it and give you a personalized icebreaker. 

G2 User Review: “Lemlist is a great tool for us to send Cold Emails in bulk with image personalization. I really like the Image Personalization feature, which helps us insert dynamic images inside cold emails.” 

Instantly 

Instantly, personalization features are not limited to custom variables. You can use its native integration with Open AI to create personalized and unique content.  

Apart from that, you can also add images and emoticons to make your emails more engaging. 

G2 User Review: “Another impressive aspect is the personalization tools. Instantly enables users to customize emails with dynamic content, ensuring each message feels unique and relevant to the recipient. This level of personalization increases the likelihood of engagement and positive responses.” 

Who Offers the Best Personalization Feature? 

For me Instantly simply beats Lemlist because of its integration with OpenAI that can help you to create personalized email copies at scale. 

5. A-Z Testing:  Lemlist vs Instantly

A-Z testing or multivariate testing is an advanced testing functionality that allows you to test various variants of your email copies, subject lines, and CTAs.

You can use this to identify and double down on the best-performing variation. 

Lemlist 

Well, again, Lemlist has to be out of the race because it does not offer Multi-variant testing. It only supports A/B testing, in which you can create 2 versions of your sequence and test them. 

Instantly

Conversely, Instantly offers A-Z testing functionality, which allows you to test unlimited variations of your email copies, CTAs, and subject lines. 

Moreover, it also offers an auto-optimized A/Z testing feature that uses Instantly’s algorithm to analyze multiple variants of an email based on metrics like click, reply, and open rates to determine which version performs better. 

Important Note: A-Z testing functionality is not available in the starter plan. To use this feature, you need to subscribe to the hyper-growth or above-pricing plan. 

Who Has the Best A-Z Testing Capabilities?

Well, it goes without saying Instantly is the winner in offering A-Z testing features.  Just be informed that you have to subscribe to Instantly’s higher pricing plans to use multivariate testing in your sequences. 

6. Email Deliverability: Lemlist vs Instantly

You need cold email software that allows you to build a robust sender reputation. Otherwise, all your emails will land in a spam box, and there is no denying that.

Hence, while you are in the selection process, make sure you give importance to email deliverability features. 

Lemlist 

To help you maintain high deliverability rates, Lemlist offers integration with Lemwarm, an email warm-up tool.

This amazing tool mirrors human-like outreach efforts with a premium network of 10,000 users to build your domain credibility. 

G2 User Review: “Lemlist also includes Lemwarm, which is a great email warm-up tool that works!”

Important Note: Lemwarm is not available in the starter pricing plan. You have to subscribe to Email Pro and the above pricing plans to use it 

Instantly 

When it comes to Instantly, it has an in-built email warm-up functionality and allows you to do unlimited email warm-ups in all its pricing plans; however, users are not happy with it. 

G2 User Review: “They suggested minimum 2 weeks warmup before sending emails. We wanted to send out big email campaigns, so added 25+ emails(Google workspace), let them warm up for 2 months, came back to see they’ve reset warmup progress a week ago and started from 0 again(not throttled, literally started from 0). Now the emails are at 7 warmup emails per day. They can’t detect bounced email properly and resend a campaign to that bounced address in sequence – making your bounces 200%.”

Apart from giving warm-up services Instantly also has a “check deliverability score” feature which is a basic feature that gives you an overview of your technical email set up and is only available in Hyper-growth pricing plan and above. 

Who Has the Best Email Deliverability Features?

To be honest, I believe none of these tools offer the best email deliverability features. Although Lemlist’s email warm-up functionality is great, the pricing is too high as Lemwarm is not available in the starter plan. Whereas Instantly lacks advanced email deliverability features. 

Enter: Salesandy 

Saleshandy collaborates with TrulyInbox, a great email warm-up tool that mimics human-like email sending behavior to build solid sender reputation and is available in its starter plan as well. 

Moreover, to maximize your email deliverability rates, Saleshandy offers a sequence score feature that is much more advanced than Instantly’s deliverability score feature.

With Saleshandy’s sequence score feature, you can get actionable insights on email set-up, sequence set-up, and email writing that you can consider to improve the success of your cold email campaigns. 

7. Analytical Dashboard: Lemlist vs. Instantly

The success of your cold email campaigns lies in monitoring their performance. It is crucial to find cold email tools with advanced analytics capabilities to identify potential leakages and bottlenecks during the entire process and remove them to achieve the best results. 

Lemlist

I simply loved Lemlist’s super customizable and advanced dashboard. It provides a detailed overview and specific key metrics for different channels, sequences, and lead actions. These actions can help you analyze your outreach efforts in depth and identify ways to improve for maximum results. 

Lemlist’s reporting feature is divided into 3 parts: Overview, Campaign & Email.

Instantly

Compared to Lemlist, Instantly has a very decent and intuitive dashboard with which you can track basic metrics like open, reply, bounce rate, etc. Its dashboard is divided into 2 parts: Campaign & Accounts analytics. 

Who Has the Best Analytical and Monitoring Capabilities?

Lemlist stands out because of its super customizable and advanced analytical capabilities. 

8. Native Integrations: Lemlist vs Instantly

Every tool cannot have everything! And it is a fact! 

This is where Integrations play a pivotal role. They help you integrate your favorite sales tool with your cold email software to boost productivity. 

Lemlist

With Lemlist, you can expect 3 native integrations with popular CRMs. Moreover, it also provides 8 data enrichment and 33 workflow management tools to enhance your overall sales cycle. 

Instantly 

On the other hand, it instantly lacks the ability to provide integration capabilities. You can natively integrate with 3 CRMs; for the rest of them, you would need an API Key. 

Who Offers the Best Native Integrations?

Though Lemlist and Instantly offer various integrations through APIs and webhooks, they lack native integrations with CRMs, which are important for streamlining your sales process. 

Saleshandy offers native integrations with popular CRMs, such as Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive, and Zoho. These integrations allow you to update your prospect’s data in real-time and boost your sales team’s productivity.  

Apart from that, Saleshandy also offers powerful Zapier, APIs & Webhooks integrations. 

9. Lead Database: Lemlist vs. Instantly

A B2B Database is not an essential feature you should look for in a cold email tool, but yes, with growing trends in automation, it has become a necessity.

You need a B2B database to do prospecting and outreach from one platform and eliminate the hassle of transferring data from one tool to another. 

Both Lemlist and Instantly have their own lead databases. Let’s compare them to see which one stands: 

Lemlist 

Lemlist has an AI-powered B2B database of 450 million+ contacts and has extensive

The list of filters is divided into 4 sections:

•  General (Current job title, revenue, country, etc.);
• Signals & Intent (company size growth, Current company hiring, technologies, etc) ;
• Company information (Size, name, type, etc.) 
•  Contact information ( Full Name, City/State, Interests, etc.). 

Instantly

Instantly has a database of 160 million and offers a set of filters like Job Titles, Location,

Industry, Employees, Revenue, Keyword Filter, Lookalike domain, etc. Moreover, you can also use Instantly’s B2B lead finder to enrich data. 

Who Has the Best Lead Database?

Well, Neither of them because they won’t give you a free trial, nor will you get any free credits to test the accuracy of their Lead Finder. 

You can try Saleshandy’s B2B Lead Finder. It has a much larger database of 700M+ profiles and 60M+ contacts compared to both Lemlist and Instantly. It offers advanced filters and gives you 5 credits for free when you sign up for the first time. 

Hence before subscribing to Saleshandy’s Lead Finder, you can explore it and test the contact information of 5 leads and directly import it into the sequences. 

Lemlist vs. Instantly: Which Is Best for Cold Email Outreach

To settle down the heat around Lemlist vs. Instantly, it would be safe to say that the choice ultimately depends on your business goals and requirements.

Lemlist allows you to do multi-channel outreach and create sequences in a flow chart manner. It also offers advanced personalization features but is not cost-effective. 

Instantly allows you to add and warm up an unlimited number of email accounts. However, it lacks native integrations and many advanced features.

We have given an in-depth review on Lemlist & Instantly. If you want to learn more about their features, you can check them out.  

However, it is optional to choose between these two tools! 

You can also consider Saleshandy.

Saleshandy is an all-in-one cold email software that allows you to send hyper-personalized emails with optimum deliverability scores to close more deals.

Here is why you should choose Saleshandy: 

• Add unlimited email accounts and team members.
• Manage and add unlimited clients WITHOUT PAYING ANY ADDITIONAL COST. 
• Mimics Human-like outreach efforts to ensure high email deliverability rates. 
• Advanced Unified Inbox functionality
• A-Z testing 
• Automatic email follow-up functionality. 
• AI-enabled Reply Categorization 
• Powerful Integrations, APIs, and Webhooks

FAQs

1. Which Cold Email Tool Offers the Best Value for Money?

Well, if you are looking for a cost-effective cold email tool that offers advanced features, Saleshandy is the best choice. It allows you to connect unlimited email accounts, add unlimited team members, and manage all your clients in one single dashboard at no additional cost. 

2. Are There Any Trial Versions Available, and What Do They Offer?

Obviously, all three cold email tools mentioned in our blog—Lemlist, Instantly, and Saleshandy—offer free trials. Lemlist and Instantly offer a 14-day free trial, whereas Saleshandy provides a 7-day free trial. These time durations are enough to evaluate the tools and their features, decide, and ensure they are the best solution for your needs.  

3. Will These Tools Integrate With My Existing Marketing Tools?

 Yes, these cold email software can seamlessly integrate with your marketing tools. They offer native integrations with popular CRMs and APIs and Webhook capabilities that allow you to integrate many tools with cold email software to boost your productivity.