The Best Cold Email Software Out of 21 We Tried [Results]

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January 8, 2025

This article is written by Bratislava, a content writer with 4 years of digital marketing experience. Her love for research, knack for analytics, and creativity make her writing both engaging and insightful.

Are you searching for the best cold email software to generate leads, drive sales, and scale your business? However, with so many tools claiming to be the best, knowing which ones actually deliver is not exactly a walk in the park.

Recognizing how hard it is to find objective information, we’ve decided to give you some. Thus, we’ve tried a total of 21 of the best cold email software, evaluated them according to several criteria, and are bringing you our findings.

And if this is TL;DR for you, here’s a table for quick comparison.

Tool ⚙️	Best for 🥇	User score ⭐(Capterra, G2 & Product Hunt)
Skylead	Salespeople looking for one tool that has it all	4.7 / 5
Smartlead	In-app email warm-up	4.3 / 5
Apollo	Its built-in lead database	4.5 / 5
Instantly	Its ease of use	4,6 / 5
Lemlist	Advanced personalization in email outreach	4,5 / 5
Reply.io	AI sales engagement	4.5 / 5
Expandi	ESP integration	4.3 / 5
Hunter.io	Email discovery and verification	4.4 / 5
Saleshandy	Email tracking	4,4 / 5
Snov.io	Its real-time sentiment analysis	4.7 / 5
Klenty	Video personalization	4.7 / 5
Woodpecker	Teams prioritizing email deliverability	4.7 / 5
Mailshake	Its AI email writer SHAKEspear	4.7 / 5
Outreach.io	Enterprise-level sales engagement	4.4 / 5
QuickMail	Its customizable Analytics	4.7 / 5
Close	Its CRM with basic cold email functionalities	4.7 / 5
Yesware	Automating cold email campaigns straight from your inbox	4.4 / 5
HubSpot Sales Hub	Its connection to HubSpot	4.5 / 5
GMass	Beginners	4.7 / 5
Mixmax	Teams after seamless email productivity tools	4.5 / 5
Salesforge	Outreach in 20+ languages	4.7 / 5

However, if you’re curious to see which cold email software we ranked as the best and why, be sure to check out our hands-on experience with each one.

Features overview table of the best email software

What is cold email software?

Cold email software is a type of tool designed to simplify and optimize the process of reaching out to prospects through email. It is commonly used by salespeople, marketers, recruiters, and agencies looking to connect with potential clients, partners, or candidates at scale.

What to look for in the best cold email software?

There are plenty of cold email software on the market, meaning the margin for error is high.

So, how do you choose the best cold email software out there?

It all boils down to the following:

1. Automation

Manual cold outreach is time-consuming, not to say exhausting. Thus, to save yourself more than 11 hours a week you’d spend on it, look for tools that do more than just send task alerts.

However, our advice is to go with a tool that has a Smart sequences feature, such as our Skylead. Smart sequences are outreach sequences that execute steps in a logical order according to the way your prospects' behave, thanks to if/else conditions. Using them, you can maximize touchpoints with leads to make sure your initial emails don't go to waste.

2. Deliverability

What good are your emails if they keep landing in spam?

That is to say, your software of choice should come equipped with features that ensure your emails make it to the Primary inbox. In other words, shop around for those with email warm-up, deliverability testing, blacklist monitoring, and similar functionalities.

3. Integration

For cold email software to be considered the best, it needs to work seamlessly with your existing tool stack (e.g., CRM, Slack, etc.). Otherwise, you are sure to experience workflow interruptions.

4. Personalization

Did you know that personalized email subject lines can see up to 20% higher open rates compared to those without personalized details?

For that reason, your best bet is to go with the software that lets you personalize your outreach. This may include the option to insert placeholders (a.k.a. variables) that auto-populate based on your leads’ information, such as first and last name and company name. The other handy feature is image and GIF personalization, which lets you personalize visuals with the text, logo, or name of your leads.

5. Analytics

You can’t know how good of a job the cold email software is doing without having insight into the data. Therefore, your go-to choice must have an Analytics dashboard that gives you the birds-eye-view of different metrics (e.g., open rate, click-through rate, reply rate).

6. Cost-effectiveness

The best cold email software for you is the one with the best price vs. feature ratio. In other words, a one-stop-shop tool that gives you the most value for your money. Simple as that.

Our testing methodology

So, you know what it is that makes a cold email software ‘’the best.’’ But you still need options. And options we’ll provide. Tried and tested ones, as a matter of fact.

But not before we’ve explained the criteria we used for the testing.

That said, we got hands-on with the most popular cold email tools to see what they’re really made out of, focusing on:

Ease of setup - We signed up for each tool, went through the onboarding process, and tested how easy it was to get everything up and running.
Key features - We poked around every feature to see if it actually worked as promised. Did the tools make life easier? Did they deliver on their big claims? We were bent on finding that out!
Deliverability - We run actual email outreach campaigns to see whether emails would land in the Primary inbox or spam.
User-friendliness - Some tools are so complicated they feel like they need a manual. Therefore, we made sure to assess how intuitive and easy-to-use each tool was.
Price vs. features - Finally, we compared pricing to what each tool actually delivered. Our goal was to identify which tool was the best value.

The 21 best cold email software we tried

Now that you know what makes a great cold email tool and how we tested them, let’s get to the main event.

We’ve rounded up the 21 best cold email software on the market, carefully evaluating each one based on the criteria we laid out earlier.

With this in mind, for each tool, we’ll cover:

User score
Key features
Pros
Cons
Pricing

And to keep it real, we’ll also share expert opinions—straight from the mouths (or keyboards) of actual users who’ve worked with these tools.

So, let’s dive in!

1. Skylead - Best cold email software for salespeople looking for one tool that has it all

The image of dashboard in Skylead, one of the best cold email software

User score: ⭐ 4.7 / 5

Well, hello there! This is us! 🙂

Skylead is a LinkedIn automation and cold email software that’s consequently your one-stop-shop tool for all your outreach needs.

Key features

Why do we say Skylead is a one-stop-shop tool?

Because it has everything you could possibly need for cold email outreach in one place and at one cost, including support for:

Unlimited email outreach to send tens of thousands of emails at no extra cost;
Email discovery and verification to reduce bounces and protect your domain;
Image & GIF hyper-personalization to increase your response rate up to 76%;
Email warm-up to keep your emails away from spam.

But what if we told you that, using our tool, you don’t have to settle for the email channel only?

Namely, Skylead is the 1st tool on the market to introduce Smart sequences. In other words, algorithms that combine if/else conditions with email and LinkedIn steps to form coherent outreach flows. Why? To find the fastest path to your leads.

The example of a Smart sequence, one of the features of the best cold email software Skylead

It’s all thanks to Smart sequences that you can combine email automation with cloud-based LinkedIn automation.

Yours is just to choose a lead source from one of these…

…build your Smart sequence using these LinkedIn and email steps…

…and define your messages. While at it, you can even A/B test up to 5 versions of your subject lines, message copies, or CTAs and for email, LinkedIn messages, and inMails.

Thanks to an advanced Reports page, you can also easily evaluate the performance of all your campaigns in 3 modes (table, graph, step-by-step).

Moreover, you can also review the performance of your A/B tests and see which version is performing best.

A/B testing in one of the best cold email software, Skylead

Here, you can also download reports in CSV and/or PDF. Or, you can push your leads’ data straight into your CRM of choice by integrating it with Skylead through Webhooks or API. The same goes for any other tool out there.

Finally, you don’t have to go back and forth between multiple mailboxes and LinkedIn accounts. You can keep track of all your messages in one place—our Smart inbox. This is also where you can write notes and label leads to, say, measure conversions and ROI.

Now, let’s get deeper into features that make Skylead one of the best, if not the best cold email software.

Unlimited email automation

With Skylead, you can connect as many mailboxes as you need, making it possible to send tens of thousands of emails a month at no extra cost.

There’s no cap on the number of active leads you can manage, either. That basically means you can reach out to as many leads as you want and expand your outreach without limits.

Curious how it’s possible to send so many emails? It’s all thanks to our inbox rotation feature, which alternates sending emails across multiple mailboxes that you connected (email accounts). This way, your email-sending volume is distributed evenly, which keeps your accounts within safe sending limits.

As a cherry on top, we have a handy guide that walks you through how to simply connect and set up your email account and get it ready for outreach.

Email discovery & verification

Using email discovery and verification, you can find and double-verify your leads’ email addresses to reduce the chances of bounces that could harm your deliverability and sender reputation. But the best part? It won’t interrupt your campaign creation flow.

Simply add the Find & verify business email step to your Smart sequence, and the tool will automatically locate and double-verify your leads’ emails.

Find and verify email step in one of the best cold email software - Skylead

What sets this feature apart is its exceptional accuracy—one of the highest on the market. Plus, it’s unlimited and included in your subscription at no extra cost. That means you can use it as much as you need without worrying about additional fees.

Infinite Email warm-up

Cold email software can only bring desired results if the accounts used for outreach are ready for it. But to make sure that happens, they need to be properly warmed up. Otherwise, the risk of your emails landing in spam runs high.

And since we know how important email warm-up is to the outreach process, we decided to partner up with the email warm-up tool, InboxFlare, to bring you infinite email warm-up.

And yes, this is another feature you can use as a Skylead user at no extra cost.

With InboxFlare, you can:

Warm up infinite mailboxes in 30+ languages
Choose your own warm-up topics
Perform regular deliverability testing
Monitor blacklists

Once you’ve activated your InboxFlare seat, you’ll be able to connect it to your mailbox(es), be they with Gmail, Outlook, or another ESP. InboxFlare also lets you add custom SMPT. Once connected, it will use AI to craft a unique warm-up strategy.

Skylead pros

Unlimited email outreach to send tens of thousands of emails per month at no added cost.
Built-in email discovery and verification to reduce bounces and protect your sender reputation.
Infinite email warm-up in more than 30 languages.
Smart sequences combining email and LinkedIn to maximize getting in touch with leads.
Image and GIF hyper-personalization to increase the response rate.
Advanced reporting with export options and integration capabilities via Webhooks or API.
Smart inbox to manage all email and LinkedIn conversations in one place.

Skylead cons

InboxFlare isn’t built directly into Skylead.
No native integrations with HubSpot, Salesforce, and other popular CRMs (integration is possible, though, through Zapier or API).

Pricing

Skylead is one of the few software that has one pricing plan to rule them all. That said, for just $100 a month per seat, you get all of the above features, plus a 1-on-1 onboarding call to get you started and a targeting support call.

What more could you ask for?

Expert opinion

‘’I’ve been using emails, InMails, and LinkedIn connection requests and messages altogether. But emails and LinkedIn messages are giving me the best conversion rate.’’

—Dennis Goyal, Co-founder & COO

‘’If/else conditions in Smart Sequences are also great. It's low code, so it's great because I'm not good at coding yet. I also like the Find & verify business email step, which finds email addresses most of the time. So you get, like, two ways you can get in touch with the client.’’

—Toine Boelens, Founder