Alekshi
December 18, 2023
Instantly is one of the most reputable email campaign management tools out there. With the power of AI, Instantly helps its users to scale their outreach campaigns through features like smart automation, unlimited warmup, and unlimited sending accounts.
However, despite Instantly being a great outreach tool, you may want to consider an alternative for several reasons. Instantly doesn’t provide its users with any multi-channel outreach features. On top of that, it does not come up with that many integration options.
According to the Content Marketing Institute’s 2020 B2B Content Marketing Trends, 85 percent of B2B marketers are adding email marketing software to their sales process.
We would like to help you out by suggesting our top Instantly alternatives. We made a list of tools that are as good as Instantly, if not better. These sales engagement platforms provide the same features as Instantly. In total, we identified 9 email campaign management tools to give you a lot of options.
Best Instantly Alternatives
Before we discuss all the tools in detail, we would like to provide you with our top 3.
Even though these 3 are our top picks, the rest of the alternatives mentioned in our list are great in their own right. Let’s have a look at the details now!
Apollo
Our Rating: 5/5
Capterra Rating: 4.6/5
G2 Rating: 4.8/5
Price: Starts at $49/month (Free version available)
If you don’t want to spend a lot of time manually prospecting leads in your industry, then Apollo is your best friend. Apollo’s contact database is one of the largest in the world, and you can take full advantage of it while launching a new campaign.
What sets Apollo apart from its other competitors is its ability to seamlessly connect to your CRM platform. If you are already using your prospect database and want to use Apollo’s built-in features as well, the integration allows you to avoid contacting the same lead twice.
Apollo gives you more than cold-email outreach. If you prefer cold-calling alongside emailing, Apollo is a great pick for you. Apollo allows you to make direct phone calls from the tool, and you can even change your location while making the call.
Key Features
Email campaign automation
Massive contact database
Active tracking and analytics
Built-in phone call features
CRM integration
Dedicated customer success manager
Reply
Our Rating: 4.5/5
Capterra Rating: 4.6/5
G2 Rating: 4.6/5
Price: Starts at $60/user/month (Free version available)
Reply is our best pick when it comes to multi-channel marketing. Reply allows you to run your outreach campaign through emails, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, SMS, and even calls. You can also create a multi-channel sequence for optimizing your campaigns.
Another feature we like about Reply is its ability to create email cadences. It streamlines the follow-up process according to the actions of the recipients. It helps sales teams automate tasks while maintaining effective personalization.
AI-powered sales engagement, Reply is one of the best players in the industry. Especially, smaller companies benefit a lot from these features without breaking the bank, as there is no need to make yearly commitments while purchasing a plan.
Key Features
Multi-channel sales engagement
AI-generated sequences
Advanced analytics
Cloud calls and SMS
Contact data sourcing
A/B testing
MailChimp
Our Rating: 4.5/5
Capterra Rating: 4.5/5
G2 Rating: 4.3/5
Price: Starts at $13/month (Free version available)
When it comes to making a list of the best email campaign tools, we simply can’t leave MailChimp out of it. Being one of the oldest players in the industry, MailChimp is still one of the most advanced and reputed tools out there.
Over the years, MailChimp has added a lot of new features to its arsenal, like the newly updated Email Builder. It comes with a lot more prebuilt layouts, improved AI suggestions, and drag-and-drop options. While it doesn’t have any generative AI features yet, we hope it will be introduced soon enough.
Despite being one of the biggest players in the industry. MailChimp is still one of the most affordable options for startups and small businesses. That’s why we had to keep the industry veteran in our top three.
Key Features
Campaign manager
Email builder
Content optimizer
Creative Assistant
Behavioral targeting
Customer journey builder
Advanced reporting and analysis
ProsConsBeginner friendlyNot that great of a generative AIBuilt-in conversion toolsImports data from platforms like Salesforce, Squarespace, and ShopifyAffordable pricingEasy contact segmentation
SalesHandy
Our Rating: 4.4/5
Capterra Rating: 4.5/5
G2 Rating: 4.6/5
Price: Starts at $25/month
If you run your email campaigns only through Gmail and Outlook, then SalesHandy can be a great alternative to Instantly. Despite being limited to only these two email clients, SalesHandy edges Instantly in terms of lead generation, contact management, and email automation features.
SalesHandy’s email analytics, email personalization, and sales engagement features are more advanced compared to Instantly, while the segmentation options are not as good. SalesHandy’s CRM integration features are better for sales teams that deal with a lot of contacts.
Key Features
Email campaign management
Event-triggered actions
Customer segmentation
Contact database
Campaign analytics
Appointment scheduling
CRM integration
ProsConsAdvanced tracking and analytics featuresLimited to Gmail and OutlookDrip email campaigns and automated follow-upsDecent contact databaseA/B testing capabilities
Smartlead
Our Rating: 4.4/5
Capterra Rating: N/A
G2 Rating: 4.8/5
Price: Starts at $33/month
If your sales team consists of experts, then Smartlead can be a great addition to your business. Smartlead has a steep learning curve, but with more advanced features. It’s not the most beginner-friendly tool, but it does the work better than most competitors.
The best part about Smartlead is its ability to identify premium leads for your business. This is a very useful feature for teams that deal with hundreds of leads daily. On top of that, it helps you find new leads as Smartlead can scour social media platforms to identify prospective customers.
Smartlead has an advanced generative AI that can create human-like follow-up sequences to warm your cold leads. For Instantly, you need to manually set up the follow-up sequence.
Key Features
Unlimited email warmups
Customized white labelling
Powerful APIs and automation
Generative email follow-ups
Social media lead sourcing
ProsConsManages and organizes leads in a centralized systemSteep learning curveGreat generative AINo limit on email sendingOpt-in email warmupEfficient customer support
LemList
Our Rating: 4.3/5
Capterra Rating: 4.6/5
G2 Rating: 4.6/5
Price: Starts at $50/seat/month
If your email marketing campaigns rely heavily on segmentation and personalization, then LemList can be a better pick than Instantly. LemList has dynamic content, lead scoring, and behavioral triggers that are not available in Instantly. For greater efficiency, you can integrate LemList with other marketing tools like LinkedIn Sales Navigator.
LemList also provides its users with more detailed email deliverability insights, making it much easier for you to optimize your campaigns. In addition, you can create personalized landing pages to increase the conversion rate of your campaigns. LemList’s dedicated support team is a cherry on top that helps beginners.
Key Features
Automated email campaigns
Email AI assistant
CRM integration
Custom text and image personalization
Email warm-up
Unlimited email sending
ProsConsMassive lead databaseCan be overwhelming for new usersMulti-channel campaignsA bit expensiveSeamless integrationGreat customer supportDetailed email insights
QuickMail
Our Rating: 4.3/5
Capterra Rating: 4.6/5
G2 Rating: 4.8/5
Price: Starts at $59/month
QuickMail enhances the deliverability of your emails more efficiently than most other cold outreach tools in the market. It allows you to automate importing your Google spreadsheet whenever you make changes to it. With QuickMail, you can make your merging tag and characteristics. This allows effective A/B testing to get more responses.
QuickMail’s advanced auto-warmer technology gives it an edge over Instantly. It also comes with API integration, which you won’t have access to if you are using Instantly. It’s priced higher than Instantly, but the extra bucks are worth it if you need an upgrade.
Key Features
Drop upload contacts
Lead verification
Hyper personalization
One-click inbox rotation
Email tracking and analytics
CRM and API integration
ProsConsEfficient campaign automationA follow-up sequence is difficult to set up for new usersGreat scalabilityEasy-to-implement split testingCollaborative contact managementGreat support and resources
Emelia
Our Rating: 4.2/5
Capterra Rating: N/A
G2 Rating: N/A
Price: Starts at $20/month
If you are open to giving a newcomer a chance, then Emelia can be one of the best tools with a lot of potential. Emelia was developed by a marketing agency that has hands-on experience in managing marketing campaigns. With their deep understanding of the needs of a sales team, they included some really good features in Emelia.
Emelia is as simplified as it gets, with no gimmicky features that you won’t ever use. Even though Emelia does not have an automation system of its own, it integrates with major automation tools like Make, Zapier, Integromat, and N8N.
Emelia’s anti-spam spin text is quite impressive too. It allows you to avoid words and phrases that may send you to the spam folder of your prospects. Other than that, we were amazed to see how good the A/B testing features are in this newcomer.
Key Features
Email tracking
Integration with automation tools
Spintext
A/B testing
API integration
ProsConsSimple, easy to useThe features are basicAffordable pricingNewcomer in the industrySeamless integrationGreat for avoiding spam
Gmass
Our Rating: 4.1/5
Capterra Rating: 4.8/5
G2 Rating: 4.8/5
Price: Starts at $20/month
If Gmail is the only email client you use for your campaigns, then Gmass is definitely worth having a look. Out of all the tools in our list, Gmass is the simplest of them all, as it is basically a Chrome extension.
Gmass enables you to distribute your campaigns through multiple email accounts, for a single price. While Instantly does the same, Gmass is more secure and simple. Setting up email accounts takes less than a minute in Gmass, while Instantly can be a bit complicated.
Gmass also has instant bounce detection, which allows users to stop sending emails from an account as soon as it hits the Gmail limit. This will make sure your accounts don’t get flagged as spammers.
Key Features
Mass emails in Gmail
Merges with Google Sheets
Email reporting analytics
Personalization
Automated follow-ups
Reply management
List builder
ProsConsSimple and easy-to-useLack of advanced featuresEasy campaign monitoringOnly works with Chrome and GmailEfficiently schedules multiple campaigns at the same timeInstant bounce reportAffordable pricing