#1Makelead
Best for: An AI SDR for LinkedIn and X that writes in your voice and answers replies
Makelead is a LinkedIn and X prospecting tool built around one constraint: a cap of 200 invitations a week per account that you cannot raise. It runs sequences that stop at the first reply, writes messages and posts in your voice, and its AI setter answers the prospects who reply.
Strengths
- A hard cap of 200 invitations per rolling week and 40 per day that no setting can raise. A newly connected account starts at 10 a day and ramps up gradually.
- Sequences with yes/no branches (the prospect has an email, is a 1st-degree connection, liked your posts) that stop automatically at the first reply.
- An AI setter on Growth and Business that replies to prospects who answer, in their language, qualifies the need and proposes your booking link.
- LinkedIn and X posts written in your own voice, so prospects have seen your work before your message arrives.
- Prospecting on X (follows and direct messages) in the same tool as LinkedIn.
- An MCP server to drive it from ChatGPT and Claude, a native HubSpot integration and signed webhooks for n8n, Zapier and Make. Data hosted in the EU.
Limitations
- Volume is capped by design: 200 invitations a week per account is too low for anyone who wants to send thousands of invitations from one profile.
- AI-written messages and the AI setter require the Growth plan (€59.99 a month) or above.
- Professional email finding is only on the Business plan, limited to 500 emails a month.
Price: Starter €29.99, Growth €59.99 and Business €99.99 per month, with 30% off on annual billing. AI-written messages and the AI setter start on Growth. The professional email finder (500 emails a month) is on Business.Checked on the vendor's public pricing page, October 2026.
#2Artisan
Best for: Companies that want an autonomous AI BDR for outbound email
Artisan sells an AI BDR called Ava, which finds leads in a built-in B2B database, writes personalised outreach and sends follow-ups on its own. It is one of the best-known names in the AI SDR category.
Strengths
- End-to-end autonomy: lead sourcing, writing and follow-ups
- A built-in B2B contact database
- Personalisation based on research about each lead
- Strong brand recognition in the AI SDR category
Limitations
- No public pricing: you need a sales call to get a quote
- Email-first: LinkedIn is not the core channel
- Full autonomy means less control over each message sent in your name
- No posts for your own LinkedIn or X presence
Price: No public price grid: pricing is quoted after a demo.Not recorded in our check: see the vendor's pricing page.
#311x
Best for: Mid-market and enterprise teams that want AI workers alongside their SDRs
11x builds AI workers for sales: Alice, an AI SDR that researches prospects and runs multichannel outbound, and Julian, an AI agent that handles phone calls. It targets sales organisations with an established outbound process.
Strengths
- A multichannel AI SDR covering email and LinkedIn
- An AI phone agent, which few tools in this category offer
- Designed for sales organisations with defined outbound playbooks
- Positioned for larger teams, with a sales-led onboarding
Limitations
- No public pricing and a sales-led buying process
- Sized for companies with a sales team, not for solo users
- Less control over individual messages than a tool you drive yourself
- No posts for your own LinkedIn or X presence
Price: No public price grid: pricing goes through the sales team.Not recorded in our check: see the vendor's pricing page.
#4Reply
Best for: Sales teams that want multichannel sequences with an AI SDR on top
Reply is a sales engagement platform that mixes email, LinkedIn and call steps in one sequence. Its AI SDR, Jason AI, drafts sequences, handles replies and helps book meetings, and a built-in contact database helps fill the pipeline.
Strengths
- Email, LinkedIn and calls in one sequence
- An AI SDR that drafts outreach and handles replies
- A built-in B2B contact database
- Mature CRM integrations
Limitations
- Email remains the core channel; LinkedIn steps are one part of the sequence
- English interface, billed in dollars
- Feature-rich, which means a longer setup
- No content generation for your own profile
Price: Public plans on reply.io. We did not record the amounts in our October 2026 check, so check reply.io/pricing before deciding.Not recorded in our check: see the vendor's pricing page.
#5lemlist
Best for: Teams whose main channel is cold email, with LinkedIn steps alongside
lemlist is one of the reference tools for cold email, with strong AI writing, deep personalisation and multichannel sequences that add LinkedIn steps. If email is truly your main channel, it is a solid choice.
Strengths
- Excellent assisted writing and deep email personalisation
- Email and LinkedIn steps in the same sequence
- An active community and a large library of cold email resources
- French company, which simplifies data processing questions for European buyers
Limitations
- Long setup before the first email: separate sending domain, SPF, DKIM, DMARC and several weeks of warm-up
- Per-user pricing, with enrichment credits on top
- Oversized if your real channel is LinkedIn rather than email
- No content generation for your own profile
Price: Email plan around $69 a month (about $55 billed annually). Multichannel plan around $109 per user per month (about $87 annually). Enterprise on quote. Enrichment credits are billed on top.Checked on the vendor's public pricing page, July 2026.
#6Clay
Best for: Revenue teams that want to enrich and research accounts before outreach
Clay is a data enrichment workspace. It combines many data providers in one table, runs waterfall enrichment to find emails and company data, and uses an AI agent to research accounts and write personalised lines that you then send through an outreach tool.
Strengths
- Many data providers in one place, with waterfall enrichment
- An AI research agent that reads websites and profiles to fill custom fields
- Very flexible tables for building and scoring lists
- Connects to outreach tools, including HeyReach for LinkedIn
Limitations
- Not a sending tool: you still need a LinkedIn or email tool to reach prospects
- A steep learning curve for non-technical users
- Credit consumption makes the monthly cost harder to predict
- No content generation for your own profile
Price: Credit-based plans published on Clay's website. We did not record the amounts in our October 2026 check, so check clay.com/pricing before deciding.Not recorded in our check: see the vendor's pricing page.
#7Apollo
Best for: Teams that need a large B2B contact database for email and phone outreach
Apollo is the most widely used B2B contact database among English-speaking sales teams: hundreds of millions of profiles, verified emails and phone numbers, filters by technology and intent signals, and built-in email sequences.
Strengths
- One of the largest B2B contact databases, with verified emails and phone numbers
- Filters by technology used and by intent signals
- Email sequences, calls and tasks in one place
- A free plan to test the product
Limitations
- LinkedIn automation is a secondary module that runs through an extension
- Built for high-volume cold email, which requires deliverability work
- The price multiplies with the number of seats
- Coverage of small European companies is thinner than LinkedIn itself
- No content generation
Price: Free plan with limited credits, then roughly $49 to $119 per seat per month on annual billing, in dollars.Checked on the vendor's public pricing page, September 2026.
#8Instantly
Best for: Agencies sending cold email at high volume
Instantly is built for people who send a lot of email: a high number of sending inboxes, warm-up shared between users, a unified inbox and domain reputation monitoring. The volume-to-price ratio is good.
Strengths
- A very high number of sending inboxes
- A shared warm-up network
- A unified inbox
- Domain reputation monitoring
Limitations
- Email only: no LinkedIn or X outreach
- Domains, warm-up and deliverability are yours to manage
- A volume-first approach, the opposite of careful one-to-one outreach
- No content generation
Price: From about $37 a month for the entry plan, billed in dollars.Checked on the vendor's public pricing page, August 2026.