Instantly vs Smartlead vs lemlist: which cold email tool for a small business?

Instantly vs Smartlead is a comparison many people make when they start sending cold email from more than a couple of mailboxes, and lemlist is the third name that comes up, especially in France. All three send sequences of emails, stop a sequence when someone replies and warm up new mailboxes. They differ in two ways that matter to a small business: how they charge, and which channels they are built for.

I use Instantly for the campaigns I run, including those for Pilotech, an air conditioning installer near Paris. I have not run campaigns on Smartlead or lemlist, so what I say about them comes from their pricing pages and documentation, and I say so where it applies. Prices are those published at the time of writing (October 2026).

This article answers one question: which sending tool to pay for. For the campaign as a whole, from the list to the follow-ups, start with my B2B cold emailing guide.

Instantly vs Smartlead vs lemlist at a glance

The last row is my experience; the others come from each tool’s pricing page and documentation.

In one sentence each: Instantly is a straightforward way to run email-only campaigns from many mailboxes, Smartlead does the same job with more for agencies, and lemlist is built for prospecting on several channels at once.

How they charge: flat plans or per user

This is the difference that decides most budgets. Cold email does not go out from a single mailbox: to keep each one at a modest daily volume, you spread the sending over many addresses on secondary domains. The Pilotech campaigns I run go out from 30. So the useful question is what the 30th mailbox costs.

Instantly and Smartlead answer: nothing. Every plan includes unlimited mailboxes and unlimited warm-up, and the price depends on how many contacts you upload and how many emails you send each month. lemlist uses two models: its Email plan has a flat price, while its Multichannel plan is charged per user, with five sending addresses for each user.

The prices below are in US dollars, as shown on the pricing pages I checked; the pound figures are approximate and move with the exchange rate. On all three tools, annual billing saves about 17 to 20 per cent.

Instantly’s Outreach plans

An Enterprise plan is quoted on request. Lead data (SuperSearch) and the CRM are sold separately. Instantly’s pricing page has the current figures.

Smartlead’s plans

Older price guides still give Pro 150,000 emails a month; Smartlead’s own pricing page and help centre now say 90,000. Lead data (verified prospect emails from SmartProspect, Smartlead’s lead database) is a $59 (about £44) monthly add-on on Base and Pro, and is included on the two Unlimited plans. Smartlead’s pricing page has the current figures.

lemlist’s plans

Several 2026 price guides give the Email plan a cap of 50,000 emails a month: check it on lemlist’s page before you count on it. Contact data from lemlist’s lead database is paid for with credits. Older articles still show lemlist’s former plan names and prices (Email Pro and Multichannel Expert), so trust lemlist’s pricing page over any review, this one included.

What 30 mailboxes cost on each

Take a set-up like Pilotech’s: 30 mailboxes, each sending about 30 emails per working day once warmed up, the figure Instantly’s own guides suggest. That makes about 900 emails a day, or roughly 19,000 a month. With three emails per prospect, that is about 6,300 new contacts a month, so check the contact limits as well as the email limits.

• Instantly: 19,000 emails is well over Growth’s 5,000, so Hypergrowth, at $97 (about £73) a month, whatever the number of mailboxes.
• Smartlead: well over Base’s 6,000, so Pro (90,000 emails a month), at $94 (about £71) a month, also whatever the number of mailboxes.
• lemlist Email: $69 (about £52) a month, the lowest of the three on paper. The 50,000 emails a month that several price guides give the plan would cover this volume; confirm the figure on lemlist’s pricing page before you rely on it.
• lemlist Multichannel: at five sending addresses per user, 30 mailboxes means paying for six users, about $654 (about £490) a month on monthly billing, unless lemlist sells extra senders separately. Ask before you sign.

For an owner or a small team sending email from many mailboxes, the flat plans cost less.

Instantly: the tool I use, and why

Instantly was the first cold email tool I used, and I have found no reason to change. It has the settings that keep emails out of spam, and what I like most is how straightforward it is once you have found the right recipe.

What matters for campaigns like mine, all documented in Instantly’s help centre:

• Warm-up for every mailbox, included on every plan.
• Text-only sending: a campaign option sends the emails as plain text with no HTML, which is how all my emails go out.
• Tracking you can switch off: open and click tracking are campaign options, and mine stay off, since my emails contain no links.
• A daily sending limit for each mailbox, and a slow ramp that starts each mailbox at 2 campaign emails a day and adds 2 a day until it reaches that limit (about two weeks for a limit of 30).
• The Unibox, a single inbox that gathers the replies from every mailbox.

I also test variants of the copy. Over the life of a campaign, responses usually rise, because I keep what worked and drop what did not.

For Pilotech, the campaigns went to architects, the main focus, and to Paris restaurants, offices and shops: three plain-text emails at most, no links, and a phone number with an invitation to call. The first results usually come within 36 hours of a launch, and in a year the campaigns brought 15 new clients.

Instantly has its limits too. Growth’s 1,000 contacts and 5,000 emails a month go quickly once you send from more than a handful of mailboxes, so budget for Hypergrowth; lead data and the CRM cost extra; and it is built around email, so if your sequences must mix in LinkedIn steps, lemlist is designed for that. My Instantly tutorial covers the set-up click by click, and Instantly campaign setup covers the sequence itself.

Smartlead: the closest alternative, built for volume and agencies

On paper, Smartlead is Instantly’s closest match: unlimited mailboxes and warm-up on every plan, campaigns that rotate their sending across many mailboxes, and flat monthly plans priced on contacts and emails. I have not run campaigns on it, so this section rests on Smartlead’s documentation.

What it adds is mostly for agencies:

• A white-label client portal: each of an agency’s clients follows its campaigns in a space that carries the agency’s name rather than Smartlead’s. Check what it costs on Smartlead’s pricing page before you plan around it.
• An API, to connect campaigns to a CRM or to your own tools (Instantly has one too).
• A cheaper entry plan: Base costs $8 a month less than Instantly’s Growth and allows 2,000 contacts and 6,000 emails a month, against 1,000 and 5,000.

Smartlead suits an agency running campaigns for several clients. For a small business sending its own campaigns, the gap with Instantly is narrow, and the choice comes down to the plan that fits your volume and the interface you find clearer.

lemlist: multichannel prospecting from a Paris company

lemlist is made by lempire, a company based in Paris, and it is often the first tool French businesses hear about. Its strength is the sequence that mixes channels: an email, then a LinkedIn invitation, then a call, all in one campaign. I have not used it for my campaigns either; this is what lemlist documents:

• On Multichannel, LinkedIn, call and SMS steps sit in the same sequence as the emails, with five sending addresses per user.
• lemwarm, lemlist’s own warm-up, comes with the Email, Multichannel and Enterprise plans, but not with the free trial.
• A lead database for finding contacts and their details, paid for with credits.

lemlist suits a sales team whose prospects are active on LinkedIn, where each salesperson prospects from their own profile and the per-user price buys a seat that is used every day.

It is not what my campaigns need. In them, the phone is how prospects answer: my emails carry a phone number, and architects in particular called instead of writing back, as I describe in my cold email case study. A call step in the tool would add little to that. If your buyers answer on LinkedIn instead, lemlist fits your campaigns better than it fits mine.

Instantly vs Smartlead: which one for email-only campaigns

For a small business that prospects by email only, the real choice is Instantly vs Smartlead. Here they are side by side, on what you will use every week:

My verdict: if one of them already works for you, stay with it. If you are starting, both cover what an email-only campaign needs, on paper at least. Pick Instantly if you want the set-up my tutorials cover step by step, and Smartlead if you run campaigns for clients who should follow them in a portal under your agency’s name.

As for lemlist vs Instantly, lemlist earns its place when LinkedIn or calls made by your own team are part of the plan. For email alone, its Email plan competes on price on paper, but its strengths lie on the other channels.

The tool matters far less than what goes into it: the domains and mailboxes, the list and the copy. How many mailboxes and domains you need, and what each can send in a day, is the subject of my guide to cold email infrastructure.

Before you pay: the shiny-tool trap

Cold email tools change their plans, names and features often, and every launch makes the tool you have look old. Falling for new shiny tools is easy, especially when you run a small business or a small team: that is shiny object syndrome. What brings clients is the channel you already run, done a little better each month. I started with Instantly and stayed because it works.

The same caution applies to deals. On AppSumo, the only thing I bought that I use every single day is Reoon, the email verifier I clean my lists with. The marketplace is a bit like a casino: everything looks cheap, so you end up spending a lot, not everything is worth it, and some tools stop working eventually. A sending tool that stops mid-campaign stops your sequences with it. My AppSumo review has the rules I follow before buying anything there.

Three habits keep tool spending under control:

1. Pay monthly for the first month or two, and switch to annual billing only once a campaign on the tool has brought replies.
2. Export your leads and your do-not-contact list regularly, so a change of tool never means starting from zero.
3. Count the whole stack: domains, mailboxes, list verification and lead data come on top of the sending tool. My guide to small business marketing tools lists what I use every day and what it costs.

How to choose in five minutes

1. List your channels. Email only: Instantly, Smartlead or lemlist’s Email plan. Email plus LinkedIn and calls made by each salesperson: lemlist Multichannel.
2. Size your volume. Multiply your mailboxes by the emails each sends per day and by the working days in a month, then pick the plan whose limits cover the result.
3. Decide who the campaigns are for. Your own business: Instantly or Smartlead both do the job, and Instantly is the one I use. Several clients: Smartlead’s client portal.
4. Price per-user plans honestly: the number of users, or on lemlist Multichannel your sending addresses divided by five, times the price per user.
5. Read the current pricing page on the day you buy. Plan names, limits and prices change, including those in this article.

Then set things up properly before the first email goes out: secondary domains, authenticated mailboxes, a few weeks of warm-up and a verified list. If you would rather hand all of that over, it is what my cold email practice, MLK Leadhunters, does for clients: everything except the replies, which stay with you.