Every comparison of cold email tools lines up the sticker prices and calls it a ranking. That is the one thing you should not do here, because the tools are not selling the same unit.

Two of them charge per seat. Three charge per workspace with unlimited users. One does not price on emails at all. And across three independent vendors, the entry tier costs between five and twelve times more per email sent than the tier immediately above it.

TL;DR

Lemlist lists an Email plan at $69 a month for 50,000 emails with unlimited users, and a Multichannel plan at $109 per user per month. That per user wording is the single most important thing on the page, because a team of five on Multichannel is $545 a month while every other tool here includes unlimited users at the same price. On volume, the entry tiers across the category are dramatically poor value: Instantly's Growth plan works out at roughly $9.40 per thousand emails, Smartlead's Base at $6.50 and Saleshandy's Starter at $6.00, against $1.38 for Lemlist's Email plan, $0.78 for Instantly Hypergrowth and $0.66 for Saleshandy Outreach Pro. Stepping up one tier typically multiplies your sending allowance by fifteen to twenty-five times for roughly two to three times the price. Woodpecker sits outside the comparison entirely, charging $7.00 per 100 contacted prospects rather than per email or per seat. So the honest question is not which tool is cheapest, it is how many people need logins and how many emails you actually send.

The three things that decide this

Seats. Lemlist's pricing page lists the Email plan with "Unlimited users" and the Multichannel plan at "$109" per user per month with "5 Senders /User". Instantly, Smartlead, Saleshandy and Woodpecker all advertise unlimited email accounts, and Woodpecker states unlimited team members free.

Volume. Every tool caps monthly sends except Lemlist's Multichannel and Enterprise tiers, which state "Unlimited emails & messages/mo".

The billing unit itself. Woodpecker charges for contacted prospects, not emails. If your sequences are long, that is dramatically in your favour. If they are short and your list is enormous, it is not.

Everything else is a feature argument, and feature arguments in this category are decided by a two week trial rather than by an article.

Lemlist, so you know what you are leaving

Email plan at $69 a month. Includes "50,000 emails/mo", "Unlimited users" and "Unlimited Contacts", falling to "$55/month" on annual billing with a stated 20% discount, or 10% quarterly.

Multichannel at $109 per user a month. Falls to "$87/month" annually. Includes "Unlimited emails & messages/mo" and "5 Senders /User". Enterprise is custom with five or more senders per user.

A 14 day free trial with no card, and a credit system priced at "$10" for "1k credits", where a credit buys email verification at 5 credits per email and phone numbers at 20 credits each.

Which makes the Email plan quietly one of the better deals here, at $1.38 per thousand emails with no per-seat cost, and the Multichannel plan the one to model carefully before you commit a team to it.

Instantly

Growth at $47 a month. Instantly's pricing page lists "Unlimited Email Accounts", "Unlimited Email Warmup", "1000 Uploaded Contacts" and "5000 Emails Monthly".

Hypergrowth at $97 a month. Same unlimited accounts and warmup, with "25 000 Uploaded Contacts" and "125 000 Emails Monthly".

Lightspeed at $358 a month, with "500 000 Emails Monthly" and "100 000 Uploaded Contacts".

Annual billing takes 10% off, at $37.60, $77.60 and $286.30 a month respectively.

Note what happens between the first two tiers. The price roughly doubles and the sending allowance goes up twenty-five times. If you are on Growth and sending anywhere near the cap, you are paying the worst rate in this entire article.

Smartlead

Smartlead's pricing page lists Base at $39 a month, with "2,000 contacts", "6,000 Email sends" and "2,000 Verified Emails".

Pro at $94 a month, with "30,000 contacts", "90,000 Email sends" and "30,000 Verified Emails".

Unlimited Smart at $174 and Unlimited Prime at $379, both with unlimited contacts and 150,000 and 500,000 email sends respectively.

Annual billing takes 17% off, the largest annual discount in the set, at $32.50, $78.30, $144.50 and $314.60.

Unlimited email accounts are included on every tier at no extra cost, and email verification credits are bundled rather than sold separately, which is a real difference from the credit model.

Saleshandy

Saleshandy's pricing page lists Outreach Starter at $36 a month monthly, or $25 a month on annual billing, with 6,000 emails a month, 2,000 active prospects and unlimited email accounts.

Outreach Pro at $99 monthly, or $69 annually, with 150,000 emails a month and 30,000 active prospects.

Outreach Scale at $199 monthly or $139 annually, with 240,000 emails and 60,000 prospects, adding whitelabel and SSO.

Outreach Scale Plus at $299 monthly or $209 annually, with 300,000 emails and 100,000 prospects, adding a dedicated success manager.

Which makes Outreach Pro the cheapest email allowance in this article at roughly $0.66 per thousand emails on monthly billing, cheaper per email than plans costing three times as much.

Woodpecker, which prices differently on purpose

"$7.00 per 100 Contacted prospects". Woodpecker's pricing page uses a usage-based model rather than named tiers, with annual billing stated to save 33%.

Unlimited team members and unlimited email accounts are free, along with catch-all email verification.

The base calculator position includes 16,000 emails a month, 4,000 stored prospects, 4 warm-ups and 100 Lead Finder credits.

Add-ons are itemised, including LinkedIn outreach at "$29 /monthly per LinkedIn account connected", extra warm-ups at "$5 /monthly per email account", email addresses at "$6 /monthly" for Google or Microsoft and "$4 /monthly" for Maildoso or Mailforge, dedicated servers at "$59 /monthly per server" and an agency panel at "$27 /monthly" per active client.

Model this one on prospects, not emails. A five step sequence to 1,000 people is 1,000 contacted prospects and up to 5,000 emails, which is $70 here. The same activity is inside the entry tier almost everywhere else. Run your own numbers, because the answer swings hard on sequence length.

The number nobody publishes: cost per thousand emails

This is our arithmetic on their published figures, and here is the working. Divide the monthly list price by the monthly email allowance, then multiply by a thousand.

The entry tiers. Instantly Growth is $47 over 5,000 emails, or $9.40 per thousand. Smartlead Base is $39 over 6,000, or $6.50. Saleshandy Outreach Starter is $36 over 6,000, or $6.00.

The tier above. Lemlist Email is $69 over 50,000, or $1.38. Instantly Hypergrowth is $97 over 125,000, or $0.78. Saleshandy Outreach Pro is $99 over 150,000, or $0.66.

Which is the finding. Across three independent vendors the second tier gives roughly fifteen to twenty-five times the sending allowance for roughly two to three times the price. Instantly goes from 5,000 to 125,000 emails for a price increase of about 2.1 times. Saleshandy goes from 6,000 to 150,000 for about 2.75 times. Smartlead goes from 6,000 to 90,000 for about 2.4 times.

The practical read. If you are on an entry tier and using most of it, you are almost certainly better off one tier up, and the saving is not marginal. If you are on an entry tier and using a fraction of it, you are paying for headroom you will never touch.

A caveat that matters. These rates assume you use the full allowance, which almost nobody does. Compute yours on your real sending volume rather than on the cap.

Which one actually fits

One person, low volume. Almost any of them, and the entry tiers exist for exactly this. Pick on interface and move on.

One person, real volume. The step-up tiers, and this is where the per thousand arithmetic pays for the twenty minutes it takes.

A team, real volume. Check the seat model first. Lemlist Multichannel is the only one here that multiplies by headcount, and for five people that is $545 a month against $97 or $99 elsewhere.

Long sequences, modest lists. Woodpecker's per prospect model is worth modelling properly, because a long sequence costs the same there and more everywhere else.

And if the problem is deliverability rather than software, the tool is not the variable. Our deliverability guide covers what actually moves inbox placement, and our infrastructure roundup covers the layer underneath the sending tool.

What we do not publish here

Any deliverability or reply rate comparison between these tools. We have not run a controlled test with matched lists, offers and domains, and every public figure of that kind comes from one of the vendors.

An overall ranking. The unit differs by vendor, so a single ordering would be misleading by construction.

Negotiated or annual-only pricing beyond what each vendor publishes. Every figure here is the published list price.

Feature-by-feature tables. They go stale within a quarter and the two week trials are free.

Any claim about which tool is safest for your domains. That depends on your infrastructure and your sending behaviour, not on the vendor.

FAQ

What is the cheapest Lemlist alternative?

On headline price, Saleshandy Outreach Starter at $25 a month billed annually and Smartlead Base at $32.50 annually. On cost per email sent, Saleshandy Outreach Pro at roughly $0.66 per thousand and Instantly Hypergrowth at roughly $0.78. Those are different questions and they have different answers.

Is Lemlist expensive?

The Email plan at $69 a month for 50,000 emails with unlimited users is competitive, working out at about $1.38 per thousand emails with no per-seat cost. The Multichannel plan at $109 per user a month is where it becomes expensive for teams, because it is the only plan in this comparison that multiplies with headcount.

Which cold email tool is best for agencies?

Look at the workspace and client features rather than the send price. Smartlead offers a clients and workspace feature from the Pro plan, Saleshandy adds whitelabel and SSO from Outreach Scale, and Woodpecker sells an agency panel at $27 a month per active client. Those are the lines that matter at agency scale.

How much should cold email software cost per month?

For one person sending real volume, roughly $70 to $100 a month buys 50,000 to 150,000 emails across these vendors. Below that you are on an entry tier paying five to twelve times more per email. Above it you are buying headroom you should check you need.

Does Woodpecker work out cheaper?

It depends entirely on sequence length. At $7.00 per 100 contacted prospects, a long sequence to a modest list is cheap because you pay per person rather than per email. A short sequence to a very large list is not. Model your own numbers before deciding.

Should you switch tools to save money?

Only after computing your real cost per thousand emails on your actual volume, and only after checking the seat model. The most common saving available is not a switch at all, it is moving one tier up with your existing vendor.

Bottom line

Do not read the sticker prices as a ranking. Work out two numbers first: how many people need a login, and how many emails you actually send in a month. If you need seats, Lemlist Multichannel is the only plan here that charges by headcount and it should be modelled against the unlimited-user alternatives before you commit. If you send real volume, compute cost per thousand emails on your own figures, because the entry tiers across this category run five to twelve times the rate of the tier above and stepping up usually buys fifteen to twenty-five times the allowance for double the price. And if your sequences are long and your lists are modest, Woodpecker's per prospect model deserves a proper calculation rather than a glance. Everything else in this category is decided by a free trial.

Want the outbound run rather than the tool chosen? Book a call with GROU. We run outbound and lead generation inside B2B revenue engines across verticals.

We are GROU, a B2B pipeline agency that runs lead generation, outbound, and LinkedIn content for clients across manufacturing, fintech, iGaming, software, and professional services. Some links in this article are affiliate links, including Lemlist, Instantly and Woodpecker. Every price quoted is the published list price taken from each vendor's own pricing page and verified in August 2026, and the cost per thousand figures are our own arithmetic on those numbers. Prices change, so check before you buy.