Instantly alternatives compared: price and features
One row per tool from this page, Instantly first for reference: who it suits, its entry price for the same need (cold email) and what it does. The sections below explain each choice.
for reference
Email and LinkedIn on one plan
The same volume model
A database first
Per-user plans with LinkedIn
Email by volume, LinkedIn per user
LinkedIn-led sequences per senderMonthly prices, billed monthly unless stated, excluding VAT, read on each publisher’s site (checked between October 6, 2026 and October 14, 2026). Emelia’s prices follow your currency; tools billed in dollars only stay in dollars, and those billed in euros only stay in euros. –: not offered, or not checked for this need.
Smartlead: the same model, also priced by sending volume
Smartlead works like Instantly: warm-up included, a price set by emails sent, US dollars, no native LinkedIn, and mailboxes sold as unlimited. That "unlimited" comes with a footnote: Smartlead’s fair use policy still names caps of 100, 300 and 800 mailboxes, tied to older plan names. Its entry plan gives more volume for less: Base sends 6,000 emails a month and stores 2,000 contacts for $39, against 5,000 emails and 1,000 contacts for $47 on Instantly Growth. Base has no API or webhooks; Pro, at $94, sends 90,000 emails and stores 30,000 contacts, and contacts are unlimited from Unlimited Smart.
For agencies, Smartlead sells client workspaces under white label at $29 each a month from Pro, where Instantly asks for one set of subscriptions per workspace. Its FAQ and its comparison with lemlist promise one client free on Pro, whereas its pricing page puts a price on every workspace. A banner on smartlead.ai, seen since September 21, 2026, offers 50% off the first month; it may not last. Refunds depend on which Smartlead page you read: the help center returns the full amount within 7 days of a new subscription (3 after a renewal, if the account went unused), the terms call every fee non-refundable, and SmartProspect, servers, mailboxes, domains, tests, verification and calls are excluded either way.
Plan by plan and volume by volume, the two are compared in Smartlead vs Instantly.
If you also prospect on LinkedIn: Emelia, lemlist, Reply.io, La Growth Machine
Instantly has no LinkedIn steps in its sequences; its own blog describes it as "Email + CRM + Calling/SMS", and the request for a LinkedIn integration on its feature board is still open. Four tools put LinkedIn and email in the same sequence, billed per plan, per user or per identity:
Instantly’s automations also push leads to Aimfox, Expandi, HeyReach, Valley and La Growth Machine, and HeyReach names Instantly among its email partners: HeyReach’s Growth plan costs $79 per LinkedIn account a month, $59 from 10 accounts, on top of your Instantly plans, with a second inbox for LinkedIn replies.
- Emelia bills per plan: 3 mailboxes and 1 LinkedIn account for $37 a month, 50 and 3 for $97, unlimited mailboxes and 10 accounts for $297, then $29 per extra account. Teams with dozens of mailboxes keep them.
- lemlist puts LinkedIn on its Multichannel plan, $109 per user a month, with 5 sending mailboxes per user; its Email plan, billed by volume like Instantly, has no LinkedIn.
- Reply.io adds LinkedIn on its Multichannel plan, $99 per user a month with 1 LinkedIn account; more accounts cost extra.
- La Growth Machine bills per identity (one sender with their LinkedIn account and addresses), from $70 a month, with 1 email address per identity on Basic and up to 10 on Ultimate.
Data and sending on one bill: Apollo.io
Instantly is a sender that sells its data as a separate credits plan. Apollo.io is built the other way round: a database of 240M contacts according to its site, with sending added, a free plan, and paid plans billed per licence (Basic $65, Professional $99 a month), with 2,500 or 4,000 credits per licence a month; a verified email costs 1 credit. Basic allows 1 mailbox per licence and 250 emails a day; LinkedIn stays a manual task.
Apollo is built for teams that spend more time building lists than sending at volume, while Instantly prices sending by volume across many mailboxes. The two are compared in Instantly vs Apollo.
Instantly alternatives compared on four points: billing unit, LinkedIn, main limit, free trial
For reference, Instantly bills by emails sent and contacts loaded (1,000 on Growth, 25,000 on Hypergrowth, never reset), has no LinkedIn steps, and offers a 14-day trial without a card.
- 1
Best for: Email and LinkedIn on one planBilling: per plan, by mailboxes and LinkedIn accounts. LinkedIn: 1 / 3 / 10 accounts included. Limit: mailboxes (3 / 50 / unlimited); contacts are unlimited. Trial: 7 days, no card, plus 20 free credits at sign-up with a work email. Same figure in euros and dollars. Versus Instantly: LinkedIn included, no cap on contacts, and emails and phone numbers found in credits, charged only when found.
- YesPhone number finder
- NoBuilt-in B2B contact database
- YesCold email from your own mailboxes
- Price
- from $37/month
- Who it’s for
- Teams adding LinkedIn to their cold email who want mailboxes and accounts priced by plan.
- 2
Best for: The same volume modelBilling: by emails sent, US dollars. LinkedIn: through other tools. Limit: emails sent, and contacts stored on Base (2,000) and Pro (30,000). Trial: 14 days, no card, 2,500 emails. Versus Instantly: the same logic, with SmartProspect as its paid database option.
- YesCold email from your own mailboxes
- YesMailbox warm-up included
- YesBuilt-in B2B contact database
- Price
- from $39/month
- Who it’s for
- Senders happy with Instantly’s volume model who want a close equivalent.
- 3
Best for: A database firstBilling: per licence, every licence on the same plan, US dollars. LinkedIn: manual tasks only. Limit: 1 mailbox per licence and 250 emails a day on Free and Basic; unlimited Google and Microsoft mailboxes on Professional. Trial: a permanent free plan, and a 14-day trial of Basic or Professional. Versus Instantly: data comes with each licence instead of a separate subscription, but sending is limited on the cheaper plans.
- YesPhone number finder
- YesCold email from your own mailboxes
- YesEmail finder
- Price
- free plan, then from $65/month per licence
- Who it’s for
- Teams that need a contact database first and accept per-licence pricing.
- 4
Best for: Per-user plans with LinkedInBilling: per user and by active contacts a month, US dollars; users become unlimited from 10,000 active contacts. LinkedIn: included in Multichannel, $69 a month per account on Email Volume. Limit: active contacts per month on Email Volume (unlimited on Multichannel). Trial: 14 days, no card; LinkedIn not included but can be bought during it. Versus Instantly: LinkedIn, calls and SMS in the sequence, at a per-user price.
- YesPhone number finder
- YesCold email from your own mailboxes
- YesLinkedIn automation
- Price
- from $59/month per user
- Who it’s for
- Teams that want LinkedIn in their sequences and can work with per-user plans.
- 5
Best for: Email by volume, LinkedIn per userBilling: per team by volume (Email) or per user (Multichannel), same figure in euros and dollars. LinkedIn: Multichannel only. Limit: emails per month on Email (50,000 at entry level). Trial: 14 days, no card. Versus Instantly: LinkedIn and calls on Multichannel and lemwarm included, but a per-user bill for those channels.
- YesPhone number finder
- YesCold email from your own mailboxes
- YesLinkedIn automation
- Price
- from $69/month
- Who it’s for
- Teams that want a built-in database and LinkedIn steps billed per user.
- 6
Best for: LinkedIn-led sequences per senderBilling: per identity, with different euro and dollar prices. LinkedIn: every plan. Limit: email addresses per identity (1 on Basic, 10 on Ultimate). Trial: 14 days, no card, 1 identity. Versus Instantly: LinkedIn at the core and enrichment included, but only a few email addresses per identity.
- YesPhone number finder
- NoMailbox warm-up included
- YesCold email from your own mailboxes
- Price
- from $70/month per identity
- Who it’s for
- A few senders who lead with LinkedIn and follow up by email.
What cancelling Instantly costs you: its domains, your unexported data, the paid months
- Export before the plan ends. Instantly’s help center says an expired account cannot export its data without subscribing again.
- Done-for-you domains stay with Instantly. For Google and pre-warmed accounts, it keeps ownership and admin access of the domains, and those mailboxes only work inside Instantly: plan new domains and mailboxes, warmed up, before you move. Cancelling them is immediate; their Unibox history is erased after 24 hours.
- Cancel each subscription separately, in the settings, tab by tab (Outreach, Credits, CRM and Inbox Placement), and the add-ons through the chat before the renewal date. Outreach and Credits stay active until the paid period is over, whereas CRM and Inbox Placement stop the moment you cancel, mid-period included, provided another subscription is still running; if none is, they too last until the period ends.
- No refund for the time left. Under Instantly’s terms, nothing already paid comes back (section 5.3) and a month or year that has started is not prorated (section 5.1(b)), whether the money went on credits, add-ons, done-for-you mailboxes or the VIP service.
Free plans, three mailboxes, euros: choosing an Instantly alternative
For a few emails from a database, possibly; for sending at volume from many mailboxes, no. Apollo’s Free plan gives 75 credits a month, 1 mailbox and 250 emails a day. The detail is in Instantly vs Apollo.
For the same need, three mailboxes sending cold email: Emelia Start costs $37 a month and adds 1 LinkedIn account; Smartlead Base $39; Instantly Growth $47. Instantly charges in dollars alone, whereas Emelia’s price is the same number in euros.
Emelia and lemlist show the same figure in euros and in dollars; La Growth Machine has separate euro and dollar prices. Instantly, Smartlead and Reply.io bill in US dollars only.
Emelia Scale: unlimited mailboxes (fair use up to 1,000) and 10 LinkedIn accounts for $297 a month.
Emelia features: Cold email · Email finder · Email warm-up · Emelia pricing
Emelia is an Instantly competitor. We have tried to stay fair: every figure about Instantly comes from its own website or public review sites.
