Cold email pricing is a staircase with a very low first step. Of the 20+ sending tools checked on 4–5 October 2026, entry plans sit at $35–49/month, mid tiers at $77–188 and agency tiers at $299–600. Seat-based suites start where volume tools stop, at $90–150 per seat. Climb the staircase and the price of 1,000 emails drops from about $9 to under $1.
Nobody competes on headline price any more. The 2026 moves are bundles (Instantly), metered credits (Salesforge, Clay, Instantly) and resold infrastructure (Smartlead, Saleshandy, Snov, Woodpecker). Full data, with source links for every row, is in the pricing table.
The real price war is at the top tiers, where 500,000 emails cost $358–599 a month ($0.72–1.20 per 1,000). Entry prices are sticky because they work as a funnel. A newcomer's pricing story has to win at 100k–500k emails, not at $39.
The ladder, normalised
The effective price per 1,000 emails if a customer uses the full plan allowance. Monthly billing, as of October 2026.
| Tool | Entry | $/1k | Mid | $/1k | Top public | $/1k |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Instantly | $47 · 5k | $9.40 | $97 · 125k | $0.78 | $358 · 500k | $0.72 |
| Smartlead | $39 · 6k | $6.50 | $94 · 90k | $1.04 | $379 · 500k | $0.76 |
| Saleshandy | $41 · 6k | $6.83 | $99 · 100k | $0.99 | $189 · 200k | $0.95 |
| QuickMail | $49 · 5k | $9.80 | $99 · 100k | $0.99 | $299 · 500k | $0.60 |
| PlusVibe | $37 · 25k | $1.48 | $77 · 150k | $0.51 | from $497 · 500k+ | ≤$0.99 |
| Salesforge | $40 · 5k | $8.00 | $80 · 50k | $1.60 | — | — |
| lemlist | $69 · 50k | $1.38 | $109/user · unlimited | — | custom | — |
| Woodpecker | $35 · 8k | $4.38 | $188 · 160k | $1.18 | $1,354 · 1.6M | $0.85 |
| EmailBison | — | — | — | — | $599 · 500k | $1.20 |
| HubSpot Sequences Pro | $100/seat · ~11k* | ~$9.09 |
Sources: Instantly, Smartlead, Saleshandy, QuickMail, PlusVibe, Salesforge, lemlist, Woodpecker, EmailBison, HubSpot.
*HubSpot caps sequences at 500 sends per user per day. ~11k assumes 22 sending days, and excludes the $1,500 onboarding fee.
The per-email figure is a ceiling-use number. Most customers don't max out their allowance, and contact caps usually bind before email caps. Instantly's Growth plan, for example, allows 5,000 emails but only 1,000 uploaded contacts.
Instantly's Growth plan is $47 billed monthly and $37.6 billed annually as of October 2026. Many third-party reviews still quote "$37/month" as the monthly price; that is the pre-rise figure. IndustryLens dates the 27% rise to August 2026, a single source (Instantly). The same pricing page lists Hypergrowth at 125,000 emails on the monthly card and 100,000 on the annual card.
Price bands by buyer
| Band | Monthly | What you get | Typical buyer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry | $35–49 | 500–2,000 contacts, 5–8k emails, unlimited inboxes | Founders and small B2B teams testing outbound |
| Growth | $77–188 | 25–30k contacts or 10k contacted, 90–160k emails | Small agencies, in-house growth teams |
| Agency / scale | $299–600 | 100k+ contacts, 500k emails, client workspaces, dedicated IPs | Lead-gen agencies |
| Per-seat suite | $49–150 per seat, plus onboarding | CRM-centric sequences, calls, analytics | In-house SDR teams, Enterprise RevOps buyers |
| AI SDR | $499–5,000 | Agent prospecting + writing + sending | Buyers replacing an SDR hire (AI SDR layer) |
Per-seat examples: Apollo.io Basic $49 and Professional $99 per user (structured data on apollo.io/pricing). Mailshake $49 and $99 per user (Mailshake). Klenty $70 and $99 per user on annual billing (Klenty). GMass $29.95–59.95 per Gmail user (GMass). AI SDR examples: Salesforge Agent Frank $499/mo billed quarterly, and Reply.io Jason $500–5,000/mo.
Infrastructure prices
| Inbox type | Price per inbox/mo | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Google Workspace (resold, "fresh") | $2.99–5.00 | Saleshandy $2.99 annual, Mailforge $3, Zapmail $3.00–3.50, ScaledMail $3.50, Smartlead $4.5, Instantly $5 |
| Microsoft (per-domain bundles) | ~$2 effective | ScaledMail $50/domain for 25 inboxes |
| SMTP / private | $0.49–4.2 | Maildoso $0.49 at 1,000 inboxes, Smartlead SMTP via Mailreef $3.99 |
| Pre-warmed | ~$9 | Smartlead pre-warmed via Zapmail |
| Domains | $12–19 per year | Snov, Saleshandy, Mailforge, Smartlead |
| Standalone warmup | $19.5–49 | MailReach, lemwarm, Warmy |
| Verification | $4–8 per 1,000 | Bouncer, NeverBounce |
For comparison, a licensed Microsoft 365 Business Basic seat lists at $7/user/mo paid yearly. Resellers selling Microsoft inboxes at ~$2 are likely putting many mailboxes behind fewer licences. Check that against Provider rules: Google, Microsoft and the ESPs and Microsoft rules: Outlook.com and Microsoft 365 limits before copying it.
Discount and billing conventions
- Annual discounts run 17–33%. Smartlead 17%, Instantly ~20% ($47 → $37.6), lemlist 20%, Snov 25%, Hunter 30%, Woodpecker 33%.
- Free trials are standard. Typically 7–14 days; Saleshandy caps trial sending at 100 emails.
- First-month promos are appearing. Smartlead advertises "50% off on your first month on any plan".
- Currency: almost everything is USD-only. La Growth Machine prices in EUR (€60–120 per identity). Woodpecker offers 12 currencies at par with USD for EUR, GBP and CHF (pricing data).
2026 pricing moves worth noting
- Instantly sells bundles. Its pricing page now leads with "Bundles" that combine outreach and data credits (Starter $94, Scale $194 including the AI Reply Agent, Agency $555). Standalone plans sit behind a tab (Instantly).
- Smartlead's "Unlimited" tiers. Its plan names are now Base, Pro, Unlimited Smart and Unlimited Prime, with verified prospect emails bundled into every tier (Smartlead).
- Pricing written for AI agents. Saleshandy publishes a machine-readable pricing.md (updated 2026-08-18). Smartlead links "Are you an AI agent? Read our pricing". Salesforge advertises an MCP server and CLI on its Growth plan.
- Woodpecker's "Unlimited" package is priced at $9,999/month in its own pricing data (Woodpecker). It is a price anchor, not a plan anyone is meant to buy.
What this means for an entrant
- Don't undercut on the entry tier. $35–49 is already near the floor, and the low price doesn't change who signs up. Match it and compete on what the cap counts.
- Win the $/1,000 fight at 100k–500k emails. Agencies compare $0.72 (Instantly Light Speed), $0.76 (Smartlead Prime) and $1.20 (EmailBison). Landing below $0.60 per 1,000 with dedicated IPs included is a clear, checkable claim (see Sending architecture for what it costs to deliver).
- Publish infra at cost-plus with visible margin. Every competitor's inbox price is easy to find. A "same Zapmail inbox, our price $3.20" offer is credible only if you show the comparison.
- Price in EUR, invoice with VAT handled. For European buyers this is a real difference that only LGM offers today (Non-English markets).
- Ship a pricing.md and a pricing API. Agents are starting to choose tools. Being the easiest vendor to price programmatically is cheap distribution (Pricing strategy).