Smartlead vs Emelia at a glance
- Cold email from your own mailboxesYesYes
- Mailbox warm-up includedYesYes
- Email verificationYesYes
- Built-in B2B contact databaseYesNo
- LinkedIn automationNoYes
- Email and LinkedIn in one sequenceNoYes
- Native CRM integrationYesYes
- APIYesYes
Checked on October 6, 2026 on Smartlead’s own pages and on Emelia’s pricing page.
Prices that look attractive: let’s see what they hide
Smartlead promises unlimited mailboxes from $39 a month. The trap: connecting your mailboxes is the most tedious step, and only once they are plugged in do you discover the caps on contacts and emails. With 100 mailboxes connected, the Pro plan really runs only about 39, less than half. The Base plan, barely 3.
The yardstick: a mailbox normally sends to 35 new contacts a day, and 100 emails a day in all, follow-ups included. Over a month of 22 working days, one mailbox is therefore about 770 new contacts and 2,200 emails.
The Pro plan caps at 30,000 contacts and 90,000 emails a month: enough to run about 39 mailboxes. Beyond that, the connected mailboxes are useless.
At Emelia, Grow at $97 a month connects 50 mailboxes, with no limit on contacts or on emails sent. Scale, at $297 a month, goes up to 1,000 mailboxes.
What Smartlead looks like
What unlimited pricing hides
2,000 contacts ÷ 770 per mailbox ≈ 2.6; 6,000 emails ÷ 2,200 per mailbox ≈ 2.7: about 3 mailboxes before a cap stops you.
30,000 contacts ÷ 770 per mailbox ≈ 39; 90,000 emails ÷ 2,200 per mailbox ≈ 40.9: about 39 mailboxes before a cap stops you.
contacts unlimited; 150,000 emails ÷ 2,200 per mailbox ≈ 68.2: about 68 mailboxes before a cap stops you.
contacts unlimited; 500,000 emails ÷ 2,200 per mailbox ≈ 227.3: about 227 mailboxes before a cap stops you.
How we count
Contact cap ÷ 770 and email cap ÷ 2,200 per mailbox: the lower result wins. Smartlead counts the contacts stored in the account, and the counter never resets.
Monthly prices on Smartlead’s pricing page (https://www.smartlead.ai/pricing), checked on October 29, 2026.
When the cap is reached
The campaign is not over, but the tool stops. To add contacts, you have to delete others. You cannot prepare the next campaigns in advance. You find out once you are committed, and you have to move up a plan. An email cap does the same: either way, you are fighting the tool.
At Emelia
50 mailboxes for $97 a month on Grow, with no cap on contacts or on emails sent. Scale goes up to 1,000 mailboxes (fair use).
Example: 50 mailboxes sending at full pace.
$174/month- Unlimited Smart plan · $174
$97/month- Grow plan · $97
Shared warm-up networks: you get what the network is worth
Smartlead places mailboxes in warm-up pools according to the plan: Foundation on Base ($39), Growth on Pro ($94), Premium on Unlimited Smart ($174) and Unlimited Prime, and Ultra Premium for accounts that meet its criteria (free for now). Its help center describes Foundation as entry-level warm-up for low-volume sending (pricing page and help center, checked on October 29, 2026).
A shared warm-up network is only worth the mailboxes in it. When plans are cheap and mailboxes unlimited, one account paying a few dozen euros can warm hundreds of throwaway mailboxes in the same network, and customers on entry plans share that network: their warm-up can be weaker. At the other end, dedicated warm-up services such as MailReach (from $16 to $25 per mailbox a month, checked on October 18, 2026) charge more to keep a smaller, very clean network.
Emelia sits in between: every account pays a price consistent with its mailboxes (3 mailboxes on Start, 50 on Grow, then Scale), so there are no accounts warming thousands of throwaway mailboxes, and enough users to send at scale.
Smartlead API, MCP server and integrations with HubSpot, Clay and Zapier
Smartlead’s API opens on Pro and every plan above it, never on Base, and its reference lives on a developer site of its own, apart from the help center: api.smartlead.ai.
REST API and its documentation
Endpoints for campaigns, sequences, leads, mailboxes, warm-up, the master inbox, webhooks and analytics. Leads are imported up to 400 per request, and the key travels as a parameter in the URL: there is no OAuth.
From ProRate limits: two answers
The rate-limit guide of those docs lists 60 requests a minute for a "Standard" tier and 120 for "Pro", without saying which plan falls in which tier (no plan is called Standard). Its introduction and the help center say the limit depends on your plan and send you to support. Up to 25 admin keys can be created, all counted against that one limit. Emelia sets its own per plan: 100, 300 or 1,000 requests a minute.
MCP server for AI assistants
"116+ tools" in 6 categories let Claude Desktop or another assistant read and run campaigns, mailboxes and lead lists. The server runs on your computer through Node.js and starts with your API key. Smartlead’s setup guide calls it free with any paid plan, yet that key only exists from Pro.
From ProCRMs
HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Zoho CRM, Attio, GoHighLevel and Insightly. HubSpot is a native integration and Salesforce syncs both ways. The pricing page lists "CRM access" from Pro.
Lead data
Clay, Listkit, LeadMagic and Anymail Finder, to fill campaigns with leads found elsewhere.
Automation
Zapier, Make and n8n, plus webhooks for replies, bounces and unsubscribes from Pro.
Calls
CloudTalk and Dialpad as integrations, or SmartDialer, Smartlead’s own dialer, sold as an add-on on the pricing page, "included" according to Smartlead’s comparison with lemlist: from $9/month in credits, with US numbers from $1 a month.
Add-onWhat is Smartlead.ai? A sending platform built for agencies and high volume
Smartlead.ai is a cold email platform billed by sending volume. You connect as many Gmail, Outlook or SMTP mailboxes as you like, Smartlead warms them up and rotates them inside your campaigns, and your plan decides how many emails leave each month: 6,000 on Base, up to 5,100,000 on the largest tier of its price slider.
It is published by 521 Products Pty Ltd, an Australian company based in Sydney, and names Vaibhav Namburi as its founder. Smartlead claims "100,000+ businesses" as customers and cites Lovable, Replit, Brex, Clay and Superhuman among them. Smartlead, Smartlead AI and Smartlead.ai are the same product, sold on smartlead.ai.
Its pricing page and add-ons are written for agencies and high-volume senders: client workspaces under white label, dedicated sending servers, mailboxes and domains sold inside the app, inbox placement tests.
Smartlead in figures
- Publisher
- 521 Products Pty Ltd, Sydney (Australia)
- Founder
- Vaibhav Namburi
- Customers claimed
- 100,000+
- Billing
- By emails sent per month, in US dollars only, excluding tax
- Plans
- $39 to $379 a month, then volume tiers and Enterprise
- Mailboxes
- Unlimited on every plan
- Not native: through HeyReach, Aimfox and other tools
- Free trial
- 14 days, no card, 2,500 emails
- Trustpilot
- 2.9/5 from 140 reviews
Deliverability: warm-up pools by plan, sender rotation and placement tests
Warm-up is included on every plan, but the network your mailboxes warm up with depends on the plan you pay for.
Warm-up pools that follow the plan
Base warms up in the "Foundation" pool, Pro in "Growth", Unlimited Smart in "Premium". An "Ultra Premium" pool is described as a paid add-on, currently free for mailboxes that meet its criteria: age, SPF, DKIM and DMARC, bounce and reply rates.
Every planAutomatic sender rotation
A campaign spreads its emails across every mailbox you attach to it. An automatic setting keeps about 10 warm-up emails a day per mailbox running next to real sends.
Every planThe sending pace Smartlead recommends
For the mailboxes it sells, Smartlead’s help center suggests 15 to 25 emails a day, at least 15 minutes apart. Its mailbox store says most senders stay between 20 and 50 a day, with 2 to 3 mailboxes per domain.
Inbox placement tests (SmartDelivery)
Sold separately: $49/month for 120 tests on 50 seed accounts, $174 and $599 for unlimited tests on 200 and 500 accounts.
Add-onDedicated servers (SmartServers)
Sending servers with a dedicated IP, in the United States or the European Union, at $39 per server per month. Unlimited Prime includes 3.
Add-on, from ProMaster Inbox, spintax and SmartAssistant: the day-to-day features
Master Inbox
Replies from every mailbox land in one inbox, sorted into categories by AI, with assignment to a teammate, internal notes and a client view for agencies. Replies can be pushed to a CRM or to Slack.
Spintax, A/B tests and sub-sequences
Spintax varies the wording of each email so that no two are identical, A/B tests compare versions of a step, and campaigns can include sub-sequences.
SmartAssistant and SmartAgents
SmartAssistant, an AI assistant included in every plan and in the trial, builds campaigns and diagnoses problems in the account. SmartAgents run tasks described in plain language and connect to Slack, Google Sheets, Airtable, HeyReach and Aimfox.
A mobile app
Smartlead also has iOS and Android apps, listed on its pricing page.
Unlimited mailboxes, capped sends: how Smartlead counts your usage
Smartlead charges neither per user nor per mailbox. No plan limits how many mailboxes you connect, even if its fair use policy still quotes 100, 300 and 800 mailboxes for plan names Smartlead no longer uses. Each plan comes with three separate allowances, and the first one you use up is the one that limits you:
- Emails sent. Every email that goes out counts, follow-ups included. The counter resets each month on your billing date; when it reaches zero, nothing is sent until the renewal or an upgrade.
- Contacts stored. Each unique address in the account takes one lead credit, even when it sits in several campaigns. This counter never resets: you free space by deleting leads. 2,000 on Base, 30,000 on Pro, unlimited above.
- Verified emails. A monthly allowance of contacts from SmartProspect, Smartlead's lead database: one verified email for every 3 emails your plan can send. Included from Unlimited Smart, a paid option below according to the pricing page.
- Warm-up emails do not count toward the sending allowance, and a mailbox’s daily limit is shared between all the campaigns that use it.
- Two caveats from Smartlead’s own pages. The home page promises to "store unlimited leads", yet the pricing page, the pricing file and the help center all show these contact caps. And the home page, like Smartlead’s comparison with lemlist, counts verified emails as included from the entry plan, while the pricing page charges for them on Base and Pro.
Smartlead and LinkedIn: only through HeyReach, Aimfox and other tools
Smartlead has no LinkedIn automation of its own. Its integrations page says LinkedIn runs through SmartAgents with HeyReach and Aimfox, and lists Expandi, GetSales.io and Waalaxy as integrations. Each of these is a separate product, with its own subscription.
Keep that in mind when Smartlead describes itself as "email, LinkedIn, and calls unified in one platform": the LinkedIn steps are carried out by another tool, and calls go through SmartDialer, which the pricing page bills as an extra even though Smartlead’s lemlist comparison counts it as included.
Smartlead’s help center has an integration guide for HeyReach (and one for Aimfox); our HeyReach page explains how HeyReach bills.
Emelia takes the other route: LinkedIn accounts are part of every plan (1 on Start, 3 on Grow, 10 on Scale, then $29 per extra account per month), and LinkedIn and email steps sit in the same sequence.
Built for agencies: client workspaces, white label and dedicated servers
This is where Smartlead goes furthest. From Pro, each client gets its own workspace at $29 a month; Unlimited Prime includes 3. White label runs on the agency’s own subdomain and is switched on by Smartlead’s support. Each client can see the whole workspace or the replies only, with its own sending and lead quotas.
Team members are unlimited from Pro. Agencies can also buy mailboxes and domains inside the app (SmartSenders, from $3.99 per mailbox per month and $13 per domain per year) and rent dedicated servers.
One inconsistency to check in the app: Smartlead’s FAQ and its own comparison with lemlist mention one free client on Pro, while the pricing page charges $29 for every client workspace on Pro.
How much is Smartlead per month? Four plans, then volume tiers
US dollars, excluding tax, billed monthly; paying a year upfront takes about 17% off. Add-ons, the 33 volume tiers and a cost simulator are on the Smartlead pricing page.
Base
$39/month
$32.50/month billed yearly
- 6,000 emails a month
- 2,000 contacts stored
- No API, no CRM access
Pro
$94/month
$78.30/month billed yearly
- 90,000 emails a month
- 30,000 contacts stored
- API, webhooks, CRM, unlimited team members
Unlimited Smart
$174/month
$144.50/month billed yearly
- 150,000 emails a month
- Unlimited contacts
- 50,000 verified emails a month included
Unlimited Prime
$379/month
$314.60/month billed yearly
- 500,000 emails a month (510,000 on the price slider)
- 170,000 verified emails a month
- 3 client workspaces and 3 servers included
Above Unlimited Prime, the price slider goes up to 5,100,000 emails a month for $2,943, then Enterprise on quote. Whatever the plan, mailboxes are unlimited and warm-up comes with them. Smartlead marks Unlimited Smart as its most popular plan.
Smartlead or Emelia: which is cheaper at 3, 50, 200 and 500 mailboxes?
Each row starts from an Emelia plan and the mailboxes it covers. We count what those mailboxes send at Emelia’s quotas (35 new contacts and 100 emails a day each, over 22 working days): Smartlead charges for the tier that covers both its email cap and its contact cap, Emelia caps neither. The simulator applies the same rule. Both columns are in dollars, nothing is converted: Smartlead offers no other currency and Emelia’s dollar price is the same number as its euro price, so a row is marked for a euro visitor only when it holds whatever the exchange rate.
Cold email at full pace, billed monthly
3 mailboxes (≈ 6,600 emails and 2,310 new contacts a month)
50 mailboxes (≈ 110,000 emails and 38,500 new contacts a month)
200 mailboxes (≈ 440,000 emails and 154,000 new contacts a month)
500 mailboxes (≈ 1,100,000 emails and 385,000 new contacts a month)
Beyond the price
Contacts stored
API and webhooks
LinkedIn automation
Free trial
At full pace and for cold email alone, Emelia costs less on every row of the table (3, 50, 200 and 500 mailboxes): Smartlead moves up a tier as soon as its contact or email cap is reached, and its Pro plan keeps a cap of 30,000 stored contacts that never resets. Emelia caps neither. Monthly amounts, excluding tax; Smartlead’s prices as of October 6, 2026.
Do you prospect on LinkedIn too?
This section only concerns teams that also prospect on LinkedIn: for cold email alone, there is no second subscription to add. Smartlead does not automate LinkedIn itself; it hands LinkedIn steps to HeyReach, one of the two tools it connects to through SmartAgents, billed $79 per LinkedIn account a month ($59 each from 10 accounts; HeyReach’s pricing page, checked on October 6, 2026). At Emelia, LinkedIn accounts come with the plan: 1 on Start, 3 on Grow, 10 on Scale.
Email and LinkedIn at full pace, billed monthly
1 LinkedIn account, 3 mailboxes
3 LinkedIn accounts, 50 mailboxes
10 LinkedIn accounts, 100 mailboxes
Smartlead: the tier that covers its email and contact caps, plus HeyReach for the LinkedIn accounts. Emelia: the plan that covers the same mailboxes and accounts. Prices per month, before tax (Smartlead: price list of October 6, 2026).
With LinkedIn: 3 LinkedIn accounts and 50 mailboxes sending at full pace.
$411/month- Unlimited Smart plan · $174
- HeyReach, 3 LinkedIn accounts · $237
$97/month- Grow plan · $97
Smartlead’s claims, checked against its own pages
A few statements on smartlead.ai do not match what other Smartlead pages say. They are worth knowing before you rely on them. The pricing contradictions are on the pricing page.
- "Email, LinkedIn, and calls unified in one platform." LinkedIn depends on HeyReach or Aimfox. SmartDialer, the calling side, is priced as an add-on on one Smartlead page and described as "included" on another, its comparison with lemlist.
- SMS. The FAQ promises "email, social media, SMS"; we found no native SMS, only a Dialpad integration.
- Ratings. Smartlead says "4.6 stars on G2", and the structured data of its home page shows 4.8 from 100,000 reviews, which is the number of customers it claims. Trustpilot shows 2.9 from 140 reviews (details).
- Customers. "100,000+ businesses" across the site, 31,000 in the older FAQ.
- Support. A reply "within 24 hours" in the FAQ, live support around the clock on the warm-up page, business hours on business days in the terms of service.
Smartlead login, API, owner and other questions
The Smartlead web app is at app.smartlead.ai: the login page is app.smartlead.ai/login. Clients of an agency that uses white label log in on the agency’s own subdomain instead.
Yes, once an agency has white label switched on: its clients log in on the agency’s subdomain, with access to the whole workspace or to replies only. White label requires Pro, and each client workspace costs $29 a month.
Pro, Unlimited Smart and Unlimited Prime. The entry plan, Base, gets no API key and no webhooks, whereas Emelia opens both on Start, its first plan.
521 Products Pty Ltd (ACN 645 593 835), a private company based in New South Wales, Australia, with an Australian Business Number active since November 2, 2020. Smartlead names Vaibhav Namburi as its founder. It publishes neither its launch year, nor its headcount, nor any funding.
Yes. Smartlead, Smartlead AI and Smartlead.ai all refer to the same cold email platform, sold on smartlead.ai. Its AI assistant, SmartAssistant, is included in every plan.
The plans were renamed between December 2025 and February 2026 (Base, Pro, Unlimited Smart and a new Unlimited Prime). Pro now includes 90,000 emails a month, against 150,000 in November 2025, at the same price. An "API & Webhooks" row (Base excluded) and the SmartDialer add-on appeared on the pricing page between June 2026 and July 2026.
To go further: the alternatives to Smartlead and the Smartlead reviews.
Emelia features: Cold email · Email finder · Email warm-up · Emelia pricing
Emelia is a Smartlead competitor. We have tried to stay fair: every figure about Smartlead comes from its own website or public review sites.
