We Tested 18 of the Best Cold Email Software Tools: See What Works for Automation & Outreach

Are you on a mission to break the ice with potential customers? You don’t need an ice saw—you need the right cold email software to get your message to the right inbox at the right time. 

The problem is most comparison articles just show a few sales outreach tools—often ones that paid to be on the list. That doesn’t give you the objective information you need to make the right decision. 

We took the time to dig deep and test 18 different cold email software tools to find out which ones really work, which ones are missing key features, and which ones might fit nicely into your allotted budget. The result? A complete guide to finding the right cold email automation tool for you. 

Must-Have Features of the Best Cold Email Software

Businesses use cold email tools to automate outbound email campaigns. Instead of sending 100 emails manually, the right cold emailing software automates the entire process for you. 

These platforms will help you customize emails, add a pinch of personalization, and get the conversations flowing. And the more conversations with the right audience, the more sales you’ll generate.

But what features you can’t miss out on in your cold email tool? Well, it will strongly depend on your use case. Here’s a list that should give you some food for thought:

1. Out-of-the-box automation: Built-in automation is key to staying efficient, keeping your cold emailing strategy consistent, and scaling your outreach. You can send personalized emails at scale, automatically follow up, and analyze your campaign performance.
2. Easy integration with the tools you use: To make the most of a cold email tool, it needs to play nicely with your email provider and collaboration tools. If there's any issue with the integration, it can cost you time, nerves, and money.  
3. Personalization features for bulk email: Personalization in cold outreach improves lead generation efforts. The right tool should dynamically insert names and relevant information into your emails.  
4. Follow-up and email sequence tools: Look for tools that give you follow-up and email sequencing options. It should be based on specific triggers and actions—the more chances you have, the better you can maneuver. 
5. Cold email template creation: Templates are the building blocks that help you build an entire sequence in minutes. Look for tools that either have templates to choose from or let you create your own. (Looking for ideas? Check out our free cold email generator tool.)
6. Essential reporting without fluff: One last thing is reporting. Look for metrics and data you need to track to track your and your team’s progress. And be careful here with the variety of data you can get. In most cases, the more straightforward dashboard with key metrics is better than a complex dashboard of vanity metrics.

18 Best Cold Email Software Options to Boost Response Rates in 2024

As much as inbound is popular, outbound sales are still in the game. So, outbound sales tools are still in demand. 

In fact, cold outreach is still an effective strategy for startups and small businesses looking to expand their reach and generate leads. In this section, you’ll see the most solid list of cold email software out there. 

1. Close: Cold Outreach at Scale for Startups and Small Businesses

Best for: Growing teams and small businesses that want to combine CRM and cold emailing under one roof.

While we’re undoubtedly a little biased, our 6,500+ happy customers agree Close is a powerful CRM software worth looking at. Close comes with advanced cold email automation options that save you time and help you reach more prospects. With our Smart Views, you’ll build segmented contact lists that you can later put into Workflows. A Workflow can also include calls, SMS, and tasks to add more touchpoints to your emailing efforts. 

With its user-friendly interface and various options to manage and engage leads, you’ll improve your cold outreach campaigns and drive more sales. 

Pricing: Close offers small-business-friendly pricing, starting with a Startup plan that costs $49 per month (billed annually). 

Best features for cold emailing:

• Customizable sales email templates for quick and personalized outreach
• Automated Workflows to create follow-up emails and nurture leads with drip campaigns
• Easily connect to your Gmail account or other email service providers for synced email sending and receiving
• Sales funnel report helps verify the outcomes of email outreach campaigns

What people are saying about Close:

• “Keeps all my information in one place. The integrations with different software work seamlessly. And whenever I need help, I get a reply from support within a few minutes!” (G2 review)
• “I absolutely like the Email sequence (now Workflows) feature where you can create and send a sequence of emails until the sequence finishes or the contact replies to your email. You can also pause the sequence manually.” (G2 review)

2. Outreach: Solid CRM + Cold Email Platform for Enterprise Companies

Best for: Big corporations that want to unlock seller productivity and make sales teams efficient 

Pricing: There are two tiers: Standard and Professional. The pricing is hidden. 

Outreach is best for enterprise-level companies that need a sales engagement platform. The tool combines CRM, sales forecasting, conversation intelligence, and sales coaching (among other aspects). On top of their CRM, they offer advanced features for emailing—sequencing, email templates, reply rates tracking, and advanced analytics.

Best features for cold emailing:

• Personalization tools that help better tailor messages to the recipients
• Automated follow-up sequences that help engage leads
• Analytics that let the sales team get insights about what content, workflows, and sequences lead to the best opportunities

 What people are saying about Outreach:

• “Easy to navigate set up and user interface, but prospecting platform still has lack of customization” (G2 review) 
• “It helps to keep track of your prospects, to have all your contact attempts in one place, automatic sequences, and snippets save you a lot of time.” (G2 review) 

3. Smartlead.ai: Cold Email Warmup and Deliverability With AI

Best for: Small businesses that want to improve cold email deliverability and warmup email accounts.

Smartlead.ai is a modern cold email software that uses AI to optimize email deliverability and help warm up email accounts. Thanks to Smartlead, you can improve your sender's reputation and email engagement. As a result, cold outreach campaigns should reach your recipients' main inbox more often (instead of landing in a spam folder).

Pricing: Basic plan starts at $33/month (billed annually).

Best features for cold emailing:

• Advanced email warming to improve deliverability
• AI-powered email analytics for detailed insights
• Automated email list cleaning to maintain a healthy sender score

What people are saying about Smartlead:

•  “[...] the unlimited emails, centralized master inbox, the AI-optimized sending, the email warmup features have significantly improved our results and the way we work.” (G2 review) 
• “Sometimes the UI isn't great, but it's an annoyance rather than a deterrent, and they have plans to fix it in the upcoming future.” (G2 review) 

4. Mailshake: Advanced Cold Email Outreach Software

Best for: Salespeople and marketers who want to improve their email outreach and cold emailing campaigns.  

Mailshake is an easy-to-use tool that offers advanced cold emailing features. Its personalization, A/B testing, and automated follow-ups are designed to help you improve your outreach activities.

The tool can pause a sequence when a prospect replies, unsubscribes, or bounces. With a customizable sending schedule, you can improve response rates, and with native integrations, your leads land in your CRM.

Pricing: Plan for sales folks starts at $83/month, billed annually (Sales Engagement Plan) 

Best features for cold emailing:

• Email sequencing to automate follow-ups
• Personalization tokens for individualized messages
• A/B testing to optimize email performance

What people are saying about Mailshake:

• “I like that I manually enter a contact in a campaign, and the email goes out directly. I also appreciate that we can create many segments in the campaign and send them for a long time.” (G2 review) 
• “It's very hard to customize the emails, and it's a very dated product with no roadmap.” (G2 review)

5. Mixmax: Advanced Email Automation and Scheduling

Best for: Helping account executives, SDRs, and customer success teams automate and schedule cold email campaigns.

Mixmax is a solid cold emailing software that offers automation and scheduling capabilities. Sales, customer success, and account execs can send personalized emails, track engagement, and automate follow-ups. You can do it all from within your Gmail inbox.

Pricing: The tool has five tiers; besides a Free Plan, the SMB Plan starts at $29 per monthly user (email campaigns). Sales automation is available in a Growth Plan for $49 per monthly user.

Best features for cold emailing:

• Customize any email with more individual messages within the sequence 
• Easy scheduling to send calendar invites, meeting notifications, and reminders
• Option to embed polls and surveys, track open rates, bounce rate, click tracking, and more

What people are saying about Mixmax:

• "The sequences are the best part of Mixmax, you can create a message to send to customers after a meeting and should there be no answer, it will send a follow up message you created previously.” (source) 
• “At first I thought it was quite complicated to understand because I was not used to seeing a new platform on which I would have to manage everything, so getting the hang of it seemed hard.” (source)

6. Drip: Effective Cold Email Marketing Software + Automation

Best for: E-commerce businesses and marketing campaign managers who want to use email marketing automation for cold and warm leads.

Drip is a marketing automation platform that helps grow e-commerce brands, drive repeat purchases, and increase conversion rates. You can create dynamic segments that engage customers with single emails or automated campaigns.

Pricing: Pricing depends on how many contacts are on the list. Their pricing starts at $39 for 2500 contacts. 

Best features for cold emailing:

• Automated workflows for targeted outreach
• Behavioral triggers to personalize cold emails
• Advanced email analytics for actionable insights

What people are saying about Drip:

• “I believe that Drip has the best in class library/collection of various types of templates and layouts for well suited for various types of campaign. It saves a lot of hassle designing specific templates from scratch.” (source) 
• “The learning curve for new users is quite complex and not that much straightforeward than other software.” (source) 

HubSpot: All-in-One Marketing Automation Solution

Best for: Sales and marketer teams that want to collaborate on the same platform.

HubSpot is a feature-rich marketing automation platform that offers a variety of tools to help businesses grow and engage with their audience. While HubSpot primarily focuses on inbound marketing, it also provides features that can be used for cold email campaigns.

Pricing: Sales Hub starting at $20 per month (billed annually). 

Best features for cold emailing:

• Personalization and segmentation for targeted outreach
• Detailed reporting and real-time tracking of email metrics for campaign optimization
• Email automation workflows for follow-ups

What people are saying about HubSpot Sales Hub:

• “HubSpot Sales Hub helps us manage all of our sales operations and automate workflows which helps us do more with less. It's easy to use, the deployment is quick and the results are powerful” (source) 
• “Since the level of customization is very high, the users have to be very familiar with the changes you make to the platform. Also, if you enable contact association by domain, the platform will create multiple company records that will need to be merge and that is a manual task.” (source)

Woodpecker: Automated Cold Email Outreach

Best for: Salespeople from SMBs that want to personalize and automate cold outreach.

Woodpecker is an automated cold email software that simplifies and optimizes your outreach campaigns. With its intelligent follow-up system and personalized email automation, Woodpecker helps you reach more prospects and increase your response rates.

The tool integrates well with Gmail and Outlook.

Pricing: Woodpecker offers pricing plans starting at $39 per month per email slot (without A/B testing and API and integrations).

Best features for cold emailing:

• Email verification to check for invalid email addresses before you send your campaign
• Condition-based campaigns that let you do customized follow-up sequences that automatically respond to prospect actions
• Templates to make your work easier and faster

What people are saying about Woodpecker:

• “It's intuitive, easy to use, has a great support team, organizes very interesting webinars... and, simple - Works perfectly!” (source) 
• “I enjoy my experience with Woodpecker. I would only add an option to customize not only the first message for a particular prospect but follow-ups as well. More granularity with reporting would also be an advancement.” (source)

Reply.io: Multichannel Outreach Automation

Best for: Sales and marketing professionals working for SMBs involved in outbound sales and email outreach.

Reply.io is the AI-first sales engagement platform that helps SDR teams find new prospects, engage them through multiple channels, and create new opportunities at scale while keeping every touchpoint personal.

Pricing: Reply.io offers four pricing plans. Besides a Free plan, the Starter Plan costs $60 per monthly user.

Best features for cold emailing:

• Emails with dynamic conditional and custom variables
• Advanced, multichannel sequences and many email templates 
• A/B testing for each email step

What people are saying about Reply.io:

• “Setting up email campaigns is incredibly easy. The UI is intuitive and easy to understand.” (source) 
• “[...] the limited ability to add data in bulk from their extensive database of clients can be a bit tedious. Having to add data in tranches of 25 leads per transaction can slow down the process, especially when compared to similar services that allow bulk additions.” (source)

Instantly: Cold Email Software

Best for: Sales and marketing teams working in small biz looking for personalized cold email outreach and follow-ups.

Instantly is an email outreach platform that helps businesses send personalized and automated cold emails to prospects and leads. They help you find the best leads, create campaigns, and automate workflows using AI.  

Pricing: The growth plan starts at $30 per month (paid annually).

Best features for cold emailing:

• Building a list of ideal prospects based on technology, headcount, and revenue
• Email personalization and customization
• Automated follow-ups and scheduling

What people are saying about Instantly:

• The range of features are pretty good.I like most things, from warmup to writing the emails, to then sending them to all of my leads. It's also great to have the tracking features that are included. (source) 
• “One potential limitation of Instantly, however, is its current inability to facilitate the addition of team members and assign varying levels of access to different email campaigns.” (source)

Customer.io: Email automation Tool with Built-in Behavior-triggered Emails

Best for: Businesses aiming to send behavior-based, targeted cold emails for customer engagement.

Customer.io is a customer engagement platform designed for marketing teams to create data-driven campaigns that reach people across all messaging channels. They have Journeys for messaging automation and Data Pipelines, a customer data platform connecting the entire stack.

Pricing: They have an Essential Plan that starts at $100 a month, billed monthly.

Best features for cold emailing:

• Behavioral targeting for highly personalized emails
• Automation based on user actions
• A/B testing and analytics to optimize campaigns

What people are saying about Customer.io:

• “Super useful to create flows and trigger-based campaigns. It's almost like playing with Legos where once you have enough building blocks set it, the entire flow or campaigns will work like magic.” (source) 
• “I'd love them to invest a bit more in the in-app popup feature that they launched this year, so I can also use customer.io for various in-app flows.” (source)

Overloop: Sales Engagement Platform Designed for Outbound

Best for: Sales teams (SMBs) looking for a platform to run multi-channel outbound campaigns. 

Overloop is an email outreach and engagement platform for sales teams, offering email tracking, email templates, and analytics. You can create ultra-personalized campaigns, mix cold emails, LinkedIn automation, and phone calls. They also support link-building activities. The product can be handy for agencies running campaigns for their customers.

Pricing: Just one plan with all the features for $150 per user per month. They also have an agency plan with hidden pricing. 

Best features for cold emailing:

• Email Finder that will find missing email addresses and automatically enrich contacts
• Cold emails send at scale from Google or Microsoft accounts 
• Templates and variables to send ultra-personalized messages to contacts

What people are saying about Overloop:

• “Data exportong facility is not much accurate and faster, needs some kind of improvement in it.” (source) 
• “Overloop allows me to create an automated sales outbound campaign using LinkedIn and email. Just had to set it up, sit back and watch the leads come in. Also, the Google Chrome extension allows you add contacts from LinkedIn on the spot.” (source)

Lemlist: All-in-one Outreach Solution

Best for: Sales and marketing professionals in SMB seeking a tool for personalized, creative cold email campaigns.

Lemlist is an advanced AI-powered sales engagement platform. They’re all-in-one, offering you prospect lists with details, discovering valid emails and organizing personalized multichannel campaigns. Emails in lemlist can have custom intro lines, images, and dynamic landing pages. 

Pricing: Email Outreach Plan costs $50 a month (billed annually).

Best features for cold emailing:

• Personalization that lets you customize intro lines, pitch, call to action, image variables, etc.
• Automated follow-ups with six to 12 touches (includes different follow-up methods and spaced steps)
• Gradually increase the number of emails sent from your account to protect your sender's reputation

 What people are saying about lemlist:

• “Its is extremely easy to use, great platform as well. The way sequencing works, is that it obliges you to fulfill every task before the next step is done in the sequence. This way, it helps you move forward very efficiently, and the only time you spend is with prospecting and phone calls (after you've created your campaign).” (source) 
• “Depending on your usage and feature requirement. Lemlist pricing can be expensive as a invidual and small business.” (source)

QuickMail: Cold Outreach Tool with Advanced Metrics and Great Deliverability 

Best for: Small to mid-sized businesses aiming to simplify cold email outreach and follow-ups. They also have options for agencies.

QuickMail is an email automation platform designed to help businesses send cold emails and follow-ups more efficiently. It’s designed to build a predictable sales pipeline by reaching out to cold prospects by email. It has what most best sales tools have: a follow-up option, custom tags, and email deliverability reports. 

Pricing: A Basic Plan starts at $49 per month with a limit of up to 30,000 mails and 10,000 active prospects.

Best features for cold emailing:

• Bounce detection that stops campaigns immediately 
• Automated follow-up sequences and contact management + segmentation
• Email deliverability report

What people are saying about QuickMail:

• “I really like the fact that it is incredibly easy and straightforward to use this tool. This is by far the best tool I've ever used to do cold email outreach. I also like the auto warmup feature which I believe is absolutely necessary in this space. The reporting on the campaigns is extremely detailed which makes it easier to take better data-driven decisions” (source) 
• “I dislike manually setting send schedules for each campaign. Running the math for # of inboxes, daily send limits, email steps, etc. is cumbersome. [...]” (source)

Constant Contact: Email Marketing and Automation Platform  

Best for: Small businesses, nonprofits, and individuals looking for an easy-to-use email marketing and marketing automation platform. They also offer Lead gen & CRM.

Constant Contact is an email marketing and marketing automation platform that simplifies the process of creating, sending, and tracking email campaigns. It offers various tools to help businesses engage with their audience through email. They’re a better option for smaller campaigns targeted at generic audiences.  

Pricing: Email & Digital Marketing plans have three tires: the cheapest is Lite and starts at $12 per month for one user, email templates, and basic reporting.

Best features for cold emailing:

• Email template library that offers a wide range of customizable templates
• Email list management that lets you segment your email lists 
• Automation to schedule tasks and analytics for detailed reporting

What people are saying about Constant Contact: 

• “Its user interface is incredibly intuitive; you barely need any "101" training as most of the features are so user-friendly and designed for the non-technical amongst us.” (source) 
• “I think the only thing I would suggest is to make the formatting of newsletters a little more user-friendly. Maybe I haven't found it yet but I would love to be able to save blocks and reuse on different campaigns.” (source)

InsideSales (formerly Xant): The Enterprise Sales Engagement Platform

Best for: Businesses operating in mid-market, enterprise and their sales teams that seek an advanced sales engagement platform for outreach and lead management

InsideSales offers a product called Playbook, an enterprise-level sales engagement platform rather than a cold emailing tool per se. With Playbook, salespeople can increase productivity, optimize customer interactions, and connect to the right buyers. They have sales engagement tools, including email outreach, lead scoring, and predictive analytics.

Pricing: Hidden pricing — to learn more about pricing you have to meet with their team. 

Best features for cold emailing:

• Automating administrative tasks, processes, workflows, data sync to CRM, email sends, etc.
• Tracking of email opens, clicked links, downloads, and forwards from multiple recipients
• Personalization in email content based on recipient data and behavior (dynamic content insertion)

What people are saying about InsideSales:

• “Lack of transparency for support and updates. Support tickets remain open for days. There is constant unexpected downtime with no resolution for days without identification of the root cause. Support documents are out of date, and they don't ever get updated.” (source) 
• “User Interface and ease of finding information on latest news updates. Provides insight on sales analtyics with historical trending of data. Configuration of snapshots can be done by end user without the need of IT support.” (source)

Yesware: Email Productivity Tool that Integrates with Popular Email Platforms

Best for: Sales and marketing professionals looking for advanced email outreach: email tracking, analytics, and templating. It’s for small and mid-sized businesses.

Yesware is an email productivity and analytics tool that integrates with popular email platforms. Suppose your team wants to drive more revenue through email outreach without complex enterprise-level software. In that case, the tool can be helpful. Yesware will help your sales team build a better pipeline and increase conversions.

Pricing: Free Plan with basic email open tracking and 10 monthly campaign recipients. The cheapest plan (besides a free option) is a Pro Plan, starting at $15 per user per month with 20 campaign recipients monthly.

Best features for cold emailing:

• Campaign tracking to know when prospects open emails, click links, view attachments, etc. 
• Emailing templates (reusable) that let you adjust communication and add personalization
• Campaign reporting and analytics that show daily and weekly performance and pinpoint the warmest leads

What people are saying about Yesware: 

• “[...] Here are some of my favorite elements: The ability to attach pdfs to emails that open in the browser for the client when clicked. The ability to capture when an email is opened, not only in my email client but this data is also captured as an activity in my salesforce opportunities. The Email Campaign Tool is great and has significantly increased my ability to get web demos set up.” (source)
• “Metrics are easy to see and allows you to benchmark each campaign (rates, clicks, replies). Exporting to .CSV requires practice, but once you have your KPIs clear it is a lot easier to use.” (source)

Streak: CRM for Gmail

Best for: Gmail users and small businesses looking for a CRM with email tracking and integration.

Streak is more of a CRM tool rather than cold emailing. It integrates directly with Gmail and offers email tracking and pipeline management. Sales teams can manage workflows inside Gmail, including sales, customer support, hiring, and projects. 

The tool makes collaboration easier by automatically sharing emails, notes, and call logs.

Pricing: They offer a free plan, and the cheapest paid option starts at $15 per user per month.

Best features for cold emailing:

• CRM integration within Gmail
• Email tracking and scheduling
• Pipeline management for sales and project tracking

What people are saying about Streak:

• “I started using streak about a year ago, I use the free plan and I find it useful to have a record of people reading my emails. With this tool I can be sure people read and open my emails and with this info I can have better control in my communication” (source) 
• “At times it happens that when I send an email to the client it doesn't land in their inbox but in spam due to streak extension, not sure why but if you can help with this it would be great.” (source)

Improve Your Cold Email Outreach With These Automation Tools

So many options, right? Well, wait for some extras from us. Let us explain why we include automation tools, too. 

Cold emailing software is just one puzzle piece. When pieced together with automation, it gives you a more complete picture (or tech stack in your case). 

Automation tools paired with cold emailing tools help you optimize and maximize the impact of the emails you send. This section will explore a few automation tools that can enhance your cold email strategy.

GMass: Free Email Warmup Tool

GMass is a tool that lets you send email campaigns inside Gmail. The tool helps warm up your email accounts, preparing them for successful cold outreach campaigns. 

GMass helps you avoid triggering spam filters or getting your emails flagged by gradually increasing the number of emails sent over time. This way, you can establish a positive sender reputation and increase deliverability rates, ensuring your cold emails reach the intended recipients.

As only some cold email tools come with an email warmup feature, GMass might be a great addition to your cold email strategy.

Apollo: B2B Database for Finding New Leads

If you’re looking to enrich your lead list, Apollo might come in handy. It offers a comprehensive B2B database that helps you identify and target the right contacts. With its vast collection of company profiles and contact information, you can find potential leads based on various criteria such as industry, location, company size, and more.

Its pricing is affordable for small and mid-sized businesses. 

Seamless: AI-Powered Prospecting

Seamless is an AI-powered prospecting tool that can improve your cold email strategy. Seamless helps you identify and prioritize the most promising leads by analyzing vast amounts of data. Their data quality is superior compared to their competitors. 

Its advanced algorithms can detect patterns and predict which prospects are more likely to engage with your emails. With such insights, you can craft cold emails that resonate even more with your audience.

Their user interface is pretty intuitive. Pricing isn't shown on their website.

Hunter: Email Address Finder Tool

Hunter is a great tool that helps you find the email addresses of potential leads or contacts. By simply entering a company's domain name, Hunter searches through the web to locate email addresses associated with that domain. 

This makes it easier for you to reach out to specific individuals within an organization. Also, it lets you personalize those cold emails a bit better. It’s simple — by having more accurate contact information at your fingertips, you can improve the effectiveness of your cold email outreach.

The tool’s pricing is suitable for small and mid-sized businesses. They offer good support and it’s very rare that the tool can’t find the contact.  

Dealfront (previously Leadfeeder): Turn Website Visitors into New Leads

Dealfront (previously Leadfeeder) is a tool that allows you to turn website visitors into potential leads. By integrating with your website analytics, Dealfront identifies the companies that visit your site and provides you with valuable information about their browsing behavior. 

It enables you to prioritize warm leads and tailor your cold email approach based on their interests and needs. Using the tool can significantly boost the efficiency and effectiveness of your cold email outreach.

They're mostly suitable for smaller businesses and have straightforward pricing plans. Sometimes, the tool can face challenges when integrating with other software.

SavvyCal: Easy Scheduling Integrated into Your Cold Emails

SavvyCal is a great addition to your cold outreach activities. It allows your prospects to schedule calls directly via those cold emails. It has a user-friendly interface, and recipients can easily choose a suitable time slot, eliminating the need for back-and-forth coordination.

SavvyCal has a powerful integration with Close, which makes the scheduling experience even smoother, as those leads can automatically land in your CRM. The tool is easy to configure, and users usually don't have any specific complaints.

Choose a Versatile Tool that Delivers Best Cold Email Campaign Results

Choosing the right cold email software for your business impacts your sales process and outreach efforts. By considering key factors such as deliverability rates, personalization features, and automation capabilities, you can ensure that your cold emails reach the right audience at the right time.

If you think Close solves two problems simultaneously; giving you robust CRM capabilities and great cold emailing options, why not give it a shot? The first 14 days of this cold emailing powerhouse are on us!