Instantly vs Smartlead
Instantly or Smartlead? Here is how they compare on price, free plan, platforms and the jobs each does best, from each vendor's own pages.
| Compared on | Visit | Visit |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Cold email platform with unlimited sending accounts and warmup, priced by emails sent and contacts uploaded | Cold email platform with unlimited mailboxes and warmup, priced by sends and stored contacts, not seats |
| Free plan | No | No |
| Cheapest paid plan | $37.60/mo billed annually (Growth)Instantly pricing | $32.50/mo billed annually (Base)Smartlead pricing |
| What it covers | Outreach plan: 5,000 emails a month, 1,000 uploaded contacts, unlimited email accounts and warmup. Lead data and AI agents need a separate Instantly Credits plan; the cheapest, Nano, is $9 a month for 150 credits. | 2,000 stored contacts, 6,000 email sends and 2,000 verified prospect emails a month, unlimited email accounts; $390 a year on annual billing. No CRM, API or webhooks on Base. |
| Free trial | 14-day free trial, no card needed, with 250 uploaded contacts and 1,000 emails | Free trial on every plan, no card needed; length not stated |
| Platforms | Web, API | Web, API |
| Integrations (vendor's figure) | Not stated | Native connections with Clay, HubSpot, Zapier, Slack, Salesforce and 18+ more |
| Open source | No | No |
| Made by | Foo Monk, LLC | 521 Products Pty Ltd |
Choose Instantly if…
- The job is sending cold email from many mailboxes without per-inbox fees.
- The job is agencies running high-volume campaigns for several clients.
Choose Smartlead if…
- Price matters: its cheapest paid plan is $32.50/mo against $37.60/mo.
- The job is agencies sending high volumes across many mailboxes.
- The job is running client campaigns in separate whitelabel workspaces.
Still weighing it up?
If neither is quite right, Instantly and Smartlead are also compared with their other rivals: Instantly vs lemlist, Apollo.io vs Instantly and lemlist vs Reply.io.
What Instantly does
- Unlimited sending accounts and automated warmup on every outreach plan
- Multi-step email sequences with scheduling, A/Z testing, a global block list and bounce detection
- Unibox: one inbox for replies from every connected account, with AI reply labels
- Warmup with a slow ramp, read emulation and a deliverability dashboard
- Lead Finder (formerly SuperSearch) database of 450M+ B2B contacts with waterfall work-email enrichment, on credits
- AI Sequence Writer, Copilot, AI Reply Agent and AI Sales Agent; the agents run on Instantly Credits
Watch out for
- Growth caps sending at 5,000 emails and 1,000 uploaded contacts a month; going over a plan's volume means upgrading, not paying overage
- Lead data and AI agents need a separate Instantly Credits subscription
- Webhooks and full in-app Unibox replies start on Hypergrowth
What Smartlead does
- Unlimited email accounts on every plan, with automatic sender rotation across mailboxes
- Warmup from a private, reward-based pool; the pool tier depends on the plan
- Master inbox that sorts replies by intent, with a Kanban deal board and CRM sync
- SmartProspect lead finder that earns one verified prospect email for every three emails sent
- SmartAgents and SmartAssistant: AI that builds prospect lists, writes sequences, monitors warmup and classifies replies
- Whitelabel client workspaces for agencies
Watch out for
- Base has no CRM, API or webhooks and caps stored contacts at 2,000
- Verified prospect emails cost $59 a month extra on Base and Pro
- Dedicated servers and client workspaces are paid add-ons below Unlimited Prime
Questions
Is Instantly or Smartlead cheaper?
On published entry prices, Smartlead is cheaper: $37.60/mo billed annually (Growth) for Instantly against $32.50/mo billed annually (Base) for Smartlead. What each plan includes differs, so compare the limits too.
Do Instantly and Smartlead have free plans?
Neither has a free plan. Instantly offers a 14-day free trial, no card needed, with 250 uploaded contacts and 1,000 emails. Smartlead offers a free trial on every plan, no card needed; length not stated.