7 Best Smartlead Alternatives That Users Prefer

Smartlead is a good (probably) cold email software. But it costs a lot.

And you don’t have unlimited resources to pour into this, right?

Also, if you are throwing your reserves at Smartlead, then you should get a proper functioning platform that saves your time.

But according to Smartlead’s users, they are facing difficulties with,

• Frequent email disconnection
• Occasional bugs and glitches
• Poor UI/UX
• Excessive pricing

Even if Smartlead is proactive in resolving these issues, it is still frustrating to reach out to support every time.

There’s more, but since you are set on finding a better alternative to Smarlead, let’s get on with it.

In a Hurry? – Here’s A Quick Comparison of the Top 3 Smartlead Alternatives

My Suggestion for Top 7 Smartlead Alternatives & Their Comparison

Why should you trust what I say?

Because I have filtered these tools strictly based on the following criteria,

• Alternatives should match the features provided by Smartlead (non-negotiable)
• It should perform like Smartlead (if not better)
• Have a helpful support
• Should justify its pricing

And most importantly, I’ll keep it short, sweet, and to the point.

1. Saleshandy
2. Instantly
3. Woodpecker
4. QuickMail
5. Lemlist
6. Yesware
7. Mailshake

1. Saleshandy

I have not kept Saleshandy at the top randomly. I have solid reasons.

• First – Saleshandy covers all the features provided by Smartelad
• Second – It has a lead database of 700M+ verified professionals
• Third – A proactive support team that is just one message away

And the best part is that you can automate your whole email sequence so that you can focus on what you are best at.

User Rating

• G2 – 4.6⭐/5 based on 645+ reviews
• Capterra – 4.5⭐/5 based on 125+ reviews

How Saleshandy Outperforms Smartlead

The biggest selling point of Saleshandy is its variety of helpful features that ensure that your cold email campaign is a success.

Here’s how.

Before you start any email campaign, you need a list of prospects you can target.

For that, sales reps usually waste a lot of time in finding potential leads and their emails.

Saleshandy helps you avoid this headache by giving you a list of 700M+ verified professionals from over 60M+ organizations throughout the world.

You can simply filter and find contact details. It’s that easy!

But this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Saleshandy helps you avoid spam filters with the help of an AI writing assistant and spam checker. 

It also gives your overall email sequence a spam score (which is something unique and no Smartlead alternative provides).

Also, if you have used Smartlead, then you would know that there is a frequent email disconnection issue. To make things worse, it is very difficult to reconnect email accounts.

But this is different for Saleshandy. You can literally reconnect your email account in just 2-3 clicks. That’s it!!

FYI: Saleshandy is GDPR & SOC 2 Type II compliant. (Unlike Smartlead, which keeps its users wondering about its privacy policy)

Pricing

Pricing is where Smartlead cannot win against Saleshandy because it is way too expensive.

On the contrary, Saleshandy’s pricing plan starts from $25 per month, which is minimal compared to the value it provides.

Now, if you are handling clients, then I would like to tell you that Saleshandy is heaven for you.

Why? Because it does not ask you to pay anything extra for adding clients (unlike Smartlead).

Let’s talk about numbers. For example, you are handling lead generation for 10 clients. Smartlead charges $29/client/month. That means you will have to pay $290 extra every month.

In comparison, Saleshandy allows you to add unlimited clients and gives all the basic features from the basic plan itself.

2. Instantly

Instantly is a sales outreach platform that nicely covers the use cases of Smartlead and stands as an all-in-one kind of competitor.

It comes with a lead database that can help you find prospects and is good with its core cold emailing features.

User Rating

• G2 – 4.5⭐/5 based on 1070+ reviews

How Instantly Outperforms Smartlead

Talking about the performance, Instantly functions very well and comes with a better UI as compared to Smartlead.

Instantly is a great alternative for you if you want to get ready to use setup and want to get started immediately.
(Note: This costs extra because Instantly does this separately for you)

One of the best features of Instantly is that it analyzes your leads and allows you to personalize your emails by finding relevant insights.

This helps you improve your conversion rate and overall ROI of your cold email campaign.

If you are handling multiple clients, then Instantly provides separate workspaces for you to manage campaigns for each client.

But you have to pay separately for each client.

If you need a detailed comparison, then we have covered Instantly vs Smartlead separately.

Pricing

Instantly’s basic plan starts from $30/month if you bill annually. 

In case you want to handle clients, then you need to purchase their Hypergrowth plan (costs around $77/month) for each of your clients.

This can look a bit costly as compared to Smartlead, but it makes managing costs for each client much easier. This is one of the major reasons why I kept Saleshandy at #1.

3. Woodpecker

Woodpecker is like a collection of tools that help you do outreach better. You get a huge pool of 1 billion+ lead database along with cold emailing features that help you ensure that you get returns out of every dollar you spend.

User Rating

• G2 – 4.3⭐/5 based on 65+ reviews
• Capterra – 4.5⭐/5 based on 30+ reviews

How Woodpecker Outperforms Smartlead

From the perspective of functionality, Woodpecker focuses on the overall outreach experience, whereas Smartlead primarily focuses on the quality of cold email outreach.

One issue with Woodpecker is that it does not provide unlimited email warmups. I mean, it is something very important, and in this case, Smartlead gets the upper hand (since it gives unlimited email warmups).

But that’s it. Woodpecker is much better in all other aspects.

User experience? Woodpecker kills it. It’s so intuitive that you won’t have to check guides or ask for their support. You can navigate around easily on your first try. (I’m saying this from my personal experience)

For example, if you are trying to create an email sequence with conditions, then it looks something like this. (It’s free from typical jargon)

So, Woodpecker is a good alternative if you want to do cold emailing better. It costs more for warm-ups, but the quality is good. 

In case you want tools better than Woodpecker, then we have a list of those too.

Pricing

Woodpecker’s pricing is amazing. It comes with a free plan (with limited features), and its starter plan starts from $20/month only. Which is like half of what Smartlead charges.

But, if you are an agency, then Woodpecker will be as costly as Smartlead. You will have to pay $27/client/month, which is a huge pain. In this case, other alternatives like Saleshandy are a better option.

4. QuickMail

QuickMail is a dedicated cold email software that helps you set up cold emails with automated follow-ups so that you don’t have to waste time doing so.

User Rating

• G2 – 4.6⭐/5 based on 85+ reviews
• Capterra – 4.9⭐/5 based on 25+ reviews

How QuickMail Outperforms Smartlead

QuickMail and Smartlead are both popular tools, and QuickMail is a pretty decent choice for sales reps who prefer to automate and scale their cold outreach campaigns.

Talking about functionality, QuickMail tries to ensure that your emails land in the primary inbox (instead of the dreaded spam folder). 

This is possible because it comes with important deliverability features like inbox rotation and email warm-up. (Which is pretty much similar to Smartlead)

I personally like the way they have set up their analytics dashboard. Just one glance, and you will know how your campaign is performing. (Check out the screenshot of their reports below)

Since QuickMail is a dedicated cold emailing platform, it does not come with an inbuilt database or CRM. Hence, they provide native integration with Hubspot and Pipedrive. 

However it still fails to cover the gap of the lead database when we compare QuickMail with other Smartlead competitors. This is one of the reasons why people opt for QuickMail alternatives.

Pricing

According to QuickMail’s users, the pricing is very high. It costs a lot just for the basic plan – $49/month.

Which is a rip-off. And this is one of the main reasons why I have not kept QuickMail in the top three.

5. Lemlist

Lemlist is like a swissknife in the industry of cold outreach. Why? Because it helps you target your prospects across various channels including LinkedIn.

User Rating

• G2 – 4.5⭐/5 based on 260+ reviews
• Capterra – 4.6⭐/5 based on 380+ reviews

How Lemlist Outperforms Smartlead

Lemlist overpowers Smartlead in nearly all aspects. Its tools and features will help you with every stage of lead generation.

If you are having trouble with finding potential prospects, then Lemlist has a verified database of 450M+ professionals (which can keep you busy for a decent amount of months, even after rigorous outreach).

The best feature of Lemlist – Multichannel outreach. (FYI: It’s not available in Smartlead)

With Lemlist, you can create a fully automated cold outreach sequence where you can send cold emails, reach out via LinkedIn, and set manual tasks for cold calls.

It looks something like this.

This ensures that you extract that last drop of lead that can slip away due to a lack of persistence (without being annoying, of course).

Multichannel outreach and other features of Lemlist can sound like you will need time to learn, but they have invested in making their UI/UX intuitive.

So you can throw the worry aside as you will take no time to understand and navigate around.

For more details, check out my detailed review on Lemlist.

Pricing

Lemlist’s paid plans start from $55/month. This can come as a bit costly, but it’s worth the investment because you are getting such amazing features out of it.

I would say that out of all the Smartlead alternatives that I’ve listed here, Lemlist stands out as one of the most value for money type tools.

6. Yesware

Yesware is a sales engagement platform that helps you do cold email outreach better.

It focuses primarily on improving your cold emails by allowing you to track your outreach performance, testing, and giving relevant insights.

User Rating

• G2 – 4.4⭐/5 based on 810+ reviews
• Capterra – 4.3⭐/5 based on 175+ reviews

How Yesware Outperforms Smartlead

Yesware helps sales teams to connect with their potential prospects by giving them a suite of tools that surpass Smartlead in some areas.

But more importantly, it does the work that Smartlead does, that too with minimal costing.

One of Yesware’s biggest advantages is its seamless integration with your existing workflow. 

It works as a Gmail and Outlook add-on and eliminates the need to switch between platforms. 

According to Yesware’s users, it’s quite convenient for them to use the extension and it also minimizes the disruption in the work.

There are a few drawbacks also. One of the biggest issues with Yesware is that it does not provide email warm-ups like Smartlead. Hence, you will have to rely on a third party email warm-up tool to cover it up.

But you won’t need warmups if you are not planning for mail blasting to a lot of recipients.

If you feel that Yesware is fitting your needs but lacks in certain areas, then check out these Yesware alternatives that have the potential of covering up these flaws.

Pricing

Yesware’s pricing gives its users a big breather. It costs very little ($15/month) and helps you send emails and track their performance.

Again, it’s a low-budget and low-value kind of tool, but it is best if you want a Smartlead lite kind of alternative.

7. Mailshake

Mailshake is an AI-powered sales engagement platform that helps users manage their email and LinkedIn outreach in one place.

User Rating

• G2 – 4.7⭐/5 based on 280+ reviews
• Capterra – 4.6⭐/5 based on 110+ reviews

How Mailshake Outperforms Smartlead

If you want me to be concise, I would say that Mailskake is like Smartlead + Lead Database + LinkedIn automation but a little ok-ok in terms of lead quality.

So, if you want to have every part of outreach in one place (Lead finding + outreach), then Mailshake is a great alternative to Smartlead.

Mailshake comes with unlimited email warmups along with a database size of 100M+ (which is less than Saleshandy and Lemlist). 

Also, Mailshake has a cool and helpful feature of email AI email writers. So all you need to do is give prompts along with your unique selling points, and you can create multiple email variants with just one click.

If you compare the user experience of Mailshake and Smartlead, you will find them somewhat similar (of course, with different approaches to setting up cold emails).

Pricing

Mailshake’s pricing starts from $25/month, which is pretty decent compared to Smartlead. But you won’t get LinkedIn in the lower plans. For that, you need to opt for its Sales Engagement plan, which costs around $85 per month. (Which is somewhat costly)

Do check out Mailshake alternatives if you are looking for better features and pricing.

Choose the Best! Forget the Rest!

Want to know the reason?

It’s because Saleshandy is ensuring that any of the users’ query gets sorted ASAP and they get a long term solution for it.

I’ll share one example with you.

Earlier, Saleshandy used to face a similar issue to Smartlead (regarding frequent email disconnection).

But now, we have found a solution, and even if there is an issue, users can reconnect their email accounts with just 2-3 clicks instead of approaching the support team like Smartlead).

So, what’s stopping you from taking a 7-day FREE trial of Saleshandy?

FAQs

1. What are some limitations of Smartlead?

One of the limitations that you may face as a user of Smartlead is that it is costlier than other tools in the market. If you are an agency, then you’ll have to pay an additional fee for every new client you onboard. This can be a very huge drawback if you have a lead generation agency business.

Also, many users of Smartlead complain that their emails get disconnected very frequently (which wastes a lot of time to reconnect them again manually).

2. Which is the best Smartlead Alternative in the market?

Saleshandy is the best and one of the most trusted Smartlead alternatives in the market. Why? Because it is reasonably priced and offers more features and value compared to Smartlead.

3. Does Smartlead have a free version?

Smartlead does not have a free version, but it does offer a 14-day free trial.