Our picks in short
- Email + LinkedIn, fixed price
- Emelia, from €37/month for the whole account, unlimited sending included.
- Very high email volumes
- Instantly or Smartlead, built for agencies sending from dozens of mailboxes.
- LinkedIn first
- Waalaxy to get started, HeyReach to run many LinkedIn accounts.
- Calls, SMS and WhatsApp
- Reply.io, the closest equivalent to lemlist's multichannel.
- Data first
- Apollo.io, for its large B2B database with sequences on top.
Why look for a lemlist alternative?
lemlist is a good tool. Teams that leave it usually do so for one of these reasons:
See the full breakdown in our lemlist pricing guide.
- LinkedIn is billed per user. You need the Multichannel plan at €109 per user per month: €327 for 3 LinkedIn accounts.
- The cheapest plan is email only. At €69/month, the Email plan has no LinkedIn and no credits, and is capped at 50,000 emails per month.
- Add-ons pile up. Extra senders, WhatsApp, phone numbers and credits are all billed on top, and yearly discounts do not apply to them.
- No refunds. Unused fees are not refunded, even pro rata.
- More than you need. Calls, SMS, WhatsApp, intent signals: many teams pay for a platform when they only use email and LinkedIn.
The 8 best lemlist alternatives and competitors
Sorted by use case. We only show prices we have verified; for the others, check the vendor's pricing page.
- 1
Emelia
Best for: Email + LinkedIn on a budgetCold email and LinkedIn in the same sequences, with unlimited sending, warm-up, finder and verifier included. The price is per account, not per user: 3 LinkedIn accounts and 50 mailboxes for €97/month. No built-in dialer, SMS or WhatsApp.
from €37/monthSee Emelia pricing - 2
Instantly
Best for: Very high email volumesDesigned to send large volumes of cold email from many mailboxes, with warm-up and a lead database. A strong choice for agencies focused on email, less so if LinkedIn matters to you.
- 3
Smartlead
Best for: Agencies and white labelAnother email-volume specialist, with mailbox rotation, a unified inbox and client management for agencies. LinkedIn is not its core.
- 4
Waalaxy
Best for: Getting started on LinkedInA French tool that makes LinkedIn automation simple, with a Chrome extension and email as a second channel. Ideal for freelancers and small teams starting out, more limited for serious cold email.
- 5
La Growth Machine
Best for: Multichannel, made in FranceEmail, LinkedIn and X sequences with a strong focus on LinkedIn and lead enrichment. A good fit for sales teams that live on LinkedIn.
- 6
HeyReach
Best for: Many LinkedIn accountsBuilt to run outreach from many LinkedIn accounts at once, often used by agencies. Email is handled through integrations.
- 7
Reply.io
Best for: Calls, SMS and WhatsAppThe closest match to lemlist's multichannel: email, LinkedIn, calls, SMS and WhatsApp in one sequence, with its own contact database and an AI agent.
- 8
Apollo.io
Best for: Data firstA very large B2B contact database with sequences and a dialer on top. Great for finding leads; its sending and LinkedIn features are less advanced than dedicated tools.
How to choose the right alternative
Answer these four questions and the choice becomes obvious.
1. Which channels do you really use?
If 90% of your results come from email and LinkedIn, you do not need a platform with a dialer, SMS and WhatsApp. Pick a tool that does those two channels very well, at a fixed price.
2. How many people will prospect?
With per-user pricing, every new salesperson adds a full seat to the bill. If your team is growing, compare the price for 3 and 10 LinkedIn accounts, not just for one.
3. How much do you send?
For tens of thousands of emails per month, check the sending caps and the price of extra mailboxes: they often cost more than the plan itself.
4. Where do your leads come from?
If you already have lead sources (Sales Navigator, CSV files, CRM), you do not need to pay for a huge built-in database. If you start from zero, data-first tools like Apollo make sense.
lemlist vs Emelia at a glance
1 LinkedIn account, 3 mailboxes
3 LinkedIn accounts, 15 mailboxes
Email only, 50 mailboxes
Calls, SMS, WhatsApp
Built-in lead database
Monthly billing, excluding VAT. Full comparison on our lemlist overview.
lemlist alternatives FAQ
It depends on your needs. For email + LinkedIn at a fixed price, Emelia (from €37/month). For very high email volumes, Instantly or Smartlead. For LinkedIn first, Waalaxy or HeyReach. For calls and SMS, Reply.io.
For email and LinkedIn together, Emelia starts at €37/month for the whole account, versus €109 per user at lemlist.
Serious cold email and LinkedIn tools are paid. Most of them, including lemlist and Emelia, offer a free trial without a credit card instead of a free plan.
Emelia, Waalaxy and La Growth Machine are French companies, like lemlist.
Agencies usually look for per-account rather than per-user pricing and many mailboxes. Emelia, Instantly and Smartlead are built for that; HeyReach for agencies running many LinkedIn accounts.
Yes. You can export your leads from lemlist as CSV and import them into the new tool. Sequences usually need to be rebuilt, which is also a good time to clean them up.
Emelia is a lemlist competitor. We have tried to stay fair: every figure about lemlist comes from its own website or public review sites.
