Imagine running a sales team that operates beyond the basic outreach method of sending simple emails, manual follow-ups, and limited analytics.
For B2B professionals, building engagement and effectively scaling sales pipelines are essential for growth, and they require tools that deliver scalability, speed, and smart automation.
To guide you in your selection, this article highlights the top 5 cold email outreach software that streamline the outreach process for B2B sales teams.
Our top choice, Instantly, stands out with its user-friendly features and advanced services, making cold email outreach readily achievable and highly effective.
1. Instantly.ai – Best for Unlimited Scaling and Deliverability
Source: Instantly
Instantly is an all-in-one cold email platform that addresses the needs of sales teams and helps you stay on top of your cold email campaigns. By allowing users to:
- Connect with leads across various industries
- Warm up unlimited email accounts right from the Growth plan
- Manage all their sending accounts in one place
Trusted by over 30,000 clients, Instantly affordably accommodates B2B sales teams, companies, and agencies focused on cold email outreach. Few outreach software solutions build your reputation and supercharge your outreach instantly, without demanding huge fees.
Why Instantly?
- Sales Prospecting: Instantly helps you kick off outreach with a strong start by finding verified leads that fit your ICP and enriching contact information to support your outreach efforts.
- Automated Integration: This allows you to build targeted, filtered email lists and add them directly to active or new campaigns, or start long-term email campaigns.
- Unlimited Email Sending Accounts: With no limits on the email accounts you can create, Instantly is an ideal option for large sales teams, as they can easily connect and track multiple sending accounts from one convenient "Unibox" without any additional cost.
- Email Warm-Up: Instantly has a 99% deliverability rate, partly due to its embedded warm-up feature. After creating your email accounts, this feature provides IP addresses to help build your reputation and ensure your emails are delivered to the primary inbox rather than the spam or promo folder.
2. Hunter.io – Best for Simplicity and Prospecting
Source: Hunter
Hunter.io is an email platform with a large database of contacts that helps businesses find relevant prospects and gather information across different domains. It recently integrated campaigns that enable you to perform outreach directly without uploading the contacts to another CRM.
Pros of Hunter.io
- Hunter.io offers integrations with multiple marketing platforms, including Salesforce and LinkedIn, to achieve efficient functionality.
- The platform is user-friendly and easy to navigate.
- It offers a free version and affordable pricing plans tailored to different businesses.
Cons of Hunter.io
- Hunter.io does not offer advanced automation tools or email campaign features, such as A/B testing and email warm-ups.
- If you remove email addresses from a sequence or source, they will be automatically deleted from the platform.
3. Orum – Best for AI-Powered Cold Calling
Source: Orum
Orum is a parallel dialer platform built to help sales representatives reach more prospects faster by calling them with an automated dialing system. This dialer is AI-powered and can call multiple numbers simultaneously, only connecting when a real human answers.
Pros of Orum
- Orum uses AI to boost connect rates by detecting and skipping flagged numbers and voicemail boxes.
- It offers an intelligence tool that records, transcribes, and analyzes calls, which is useful for sales team training and quality assurance.
- Orum makes your calls appear to come from local numbers to increase pickup rates. However, this feature is available only in the U.S. and Canada.
Cons of Orum
- Orum's pricing plans are quite expensive, starting at $250 per month.
- International dialing is only included in the Ascend plan, which has custom pricing.
4. Klenty – Best for Analytics and Workflow Automation
Source: Klenty
Klenty is a sales engagement platform that helps B2B sales teams analyze their cold email outreach performance and get insight into future market conditions.
With detailed metrics, Klenty's analytical suite enables you to evaluate open rates, response rates, and other email metrics and make improvements that drive successful campaigns.
Pros of Klenty
- Klenty has an efficient customer support system.
- It aids team cooperation by allowing you to assign leads to different sales members via its internal routing system.
- It has a built-in database system to locate leads and store their contact information on a single dashboard.
Cons of Klenty
- Additional fees apply to access CRM integrations and other advanced tools.
- Its multichannel plans charge per user.
5. Apollo.io – Best for Data-Rich Prospecting
Source: Apollo
Formerly a sales intelligence tool, Apollo.io is a comprehensive sales platform popularly known for delivering accurate lead data.
With Apollo.io, you can find qualified leads, export their contacts to other tools, and automate workflows to run campaigns easily.
Pros of Apollo.io
- Apollo.io has an extensive database that helps you locate high-potential clients.
- It has a 'buying intent' filter that connects you directly with leads looking for your service.
- Apollo.io offers an AI writing assistant that writes and sends personalized cold emails.
Cons of Apollo.io
- It doesn't have outreach capabilities for big companies because you can't manage campaigns for multiple clients.
- The user interface has a steep learning curve, making it difficult for beginners to understand.
Choosing the Right Tool to Scale Cold Outreach
We hope this guide helped narrow your research and sharpened your understanding of the essential outreach capabilities for your sales team.
Ready to scale your outreach? Sign up with Instantly today to enjoy:
- Unlimited email sending,
- Smart scheduling, and
- Multiple CRM integrations to enable seamless team collaborations.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
1. How can sales teams ensure high deliverability in 2025?
Deliverability hinges on three 2025-critical practices:
- AI-Powered Warm-up: Tools like Instantly and Saleshandy use algorithmic warm-up to mimic human engagement patterns, gradually building sender reputation (critical for new domains).
- Bounce & Spam Shield: Platforms like Smartlead and Woodpecker automatically remove invalid emails and flag spam-trigger words (e.g., "free," "guarantee"), reducing bounce rates below 2%.
- Infrastructure Control: Dedicated IPs (offered by Instantly's Growth plan) and domain rotation prevent blacklisting. Avoid tools like Hunter.io that lack warm-up features.
Tip: 99% deliverability requires ongoing reputation monitoring—prioritize tools with real-time spam scores (e.g., Instantly’s SmartDelivery).
2. Which tools unify multichannel outreach?
While Instantly excels in email, it integrates cross-channel touchpoints:
- Lemlist: Automates LinkedIn steps (connection requests, messages) + email in one sequence.
- Klenty: Adds SMS, WhatsApp, and call steps triggered by email engagement (e.g., no open → SMS follow-up).
- Apollo.io: Combines email with manual LinkedIn tasks and intent data (e.g., tracking prospect job changes).
Warning: Tools like Hunter.io and pure email platforms (e.g., Mailshake’s base tier) limit response rates. 2025 data shows multichannel campaigns drive 7x more meetings.
3. What are the scalability limits of popular platforms?
- Client/Team Management: Instantly charges extra for granular client permissions ($77.6+/month). Saleshandy allows unlimited clients/teams from its $25 starter plan.
- Volume Caps: Low-tier plans restrict emails (e.g., Apollo: 2 sequences/month; Smartlead: 6K emails). Instantly’s Hypergrowth ($97) supports 100K emails but lacks Orum’s calling automation.
- Agency Pitfalls: Apollo.io can’t silo client data, forcing separate logins. Klenty bills per user for multichannel access, inflating costs.
Author Bio
Scarlett Wei is a tech and fintech enthusiast with a passion for leveraging data-driven strategies to drive innovation. As a seasoned content creator, she helps businesses strengthen their online presence through authoritative backlinks and high-quality content.
