Sales engagement platforms (SEPs) are a top-rated technology in terms of ROI, with 92% of sales development organizations ranking them as critical to their team’s success. But choosing the right SEP can be a challenge with so many options out there.
If you’re considering whether Outreach is the right choice for your business or you’re already looking for an alternative, then this list is for you. In this article, we’ll be covering:
- Why consider an alternative for Outreach
- The three major drawbacks of the platform
- And the top Outreach alternatives that may be the best fit for your business
Ready to take your outreach to the next level by looking beyond Outreach? Let’s begin!
Why Look For an Outreach.io Alternative
When considering a SEP for your business, it’s not always a matter of which one is better or worse than the other, but rather which one fits your sales team and goals best. Outreach has many positive features that make it an ideal choice for plenty of enterprises large and small.
However, there are a number of key points that make it an unideal option for some businesses. Below are the top reasons why you should consider an alternative to Outreach.
Outreach.io Is Expensive
In comparison to other SEPs in the market, Outreach is definitely on the higher end of the price spectrum. They do not share their pricing online but their base model subscription at the very least starts at $100/user per month (likely more as prices change worldwide).
With a small sales team, you can find yourself easily paying $500 to $1000 per month, making it an expensive option for startups and small businesses.
The User Interface Is Complicated
One could argue that a complicated UI for a SEP is an indication of how powerful it is (a common belief among some salespeople), but other powerful SEPs with intuitive UIs prove otherwise.
The problem with a complicated and unintuitive UI is that sales reps will have to spend more time learning the ins and outs of the program, making onboarding, training, and even migration a timely process.
Lacks Google Sheets Syncing and Integration
That’s right, for a premium SEP service, Outreach does not support mail merge syncing with Google Sheets. Some third-party apps and services fill in this gap at an additional monthly cost, which shouldn’t be the case for a simple feature on a premium sales platform.
Google Sheets is becoming the primary spreadsheet app of choice across the globe, including among sales teams. The lack of Google Sheets support is perhaps the biggest drawback of Outreach, making mail merge and email personalization frustrating to deal with.
Top 10 Outreach.io Alternatives and Competitors to Consider in 2024
So what are the top alternatives to Outreach that will help take your sales outreach to new highs? Here are our top 10 picks.
Instantly.ai
Instantly.ai is a SEP that fills all the gaps when it comes to optimizing your sales outreach. The platform is designed to scale your email campaigns with unlimited accounts for sending emails, smart AI email warm up, and powerful automation tools that save countless hours.
The key highlights that put Instantly as the best Outreach alternative are:
- Instantly’s automated email warm up feature gets accounts ready to send bulk campaigns at scale without landing in spam.
- Users can import leads and implement email personalization with Google Sheets and CSV files.
- A range of automation tools that allow users to schedule campaigns, follow-up sequences, and reminders.
- Access to in-depth analytics such as open rates, reply rates, bounce rates, and more to help teams adjust their campaigns and scale up.
- Simple drag-and-drop email editor.
- Cost-effective and offers users a 14-day free trial.
Instantly provides the necessary email tools where Outreach falls short along with an intuitive and visual dashboard that is as easy to use as plug-and-play.
If you’re looking for the best sales outreach platform that will give you the most bang for your buck, click here to learn more about why Instantly ranks number one.
Apollo.io
Apollo.io is a popular Outreach alternative and a SEP that includes a suite of features for businesses of all sizes. Apollo.io combines sales engagement with sales intelligence, the main difference between it and Outreach.
The sales intelligence feature allows sales teams to pinpoint which leads they should prioritize and how to approach them. Another major difference from Outreach is the extensive database of contacts across multiple industries within the Apollo.io platform.
Most integrations sales teams need can be found in Apollo.io, such as with Salesforce, Hubspot, and Zapier. Different pricing packages are available and are around half the cost of Outreach’s prices per user.
Key highlights:
- Range of email automation and optimization features
- Track client interactions
- Schedule follow-ups and sequences
- Detailed analytics
Gong.io
Gong is a SEP best for cold outreach with multi-platform support. The highlight of Gong is its Revenue Intelligence platform that tracks interactions across phone, email, and web conferences to provide detailed insights to sales teams.
The team behind Gong is always looking for ways to upgrade its platform. Like Instantly, they regularly process user feedback and do a great job addressing customer questions and concerns.
Regularly reviewing and assessing sales performance is crucial to developing sales teams and is where Gong is strongest. The ability to track interactions and analytics to break down what went right and what went wrong is a great feature that helps teams always improve.
Key highlights:
- Provides a full 360 view of client interactions
- Detailed analytics and AI-powered assistance
- Easy to use with good customer support
- Automatic call transcription
Close.io
Another customer relationship management (CRM) and SEP on the list, Close offers a range of tools for email automation, phone calls, web conference scheduling, and even SMS. Similar to Gong, Close collects data from interactions to give teams insights on which channels to prioritize based on overall engagement.
Each step taken is logged into the CRM platform, recording a detailed history of the sales process and buyer’s journey for each deal closed or in the pipeline.
Close boasts its platform is an affordable choice for businesses of all sizes while providing top-level sales features and tools.
Key highlights:
- Set reminders and make calls with ease
- Send email in bulk
- Lead management with detailed reporting
- 2-way email sync
Groove
Built primarily to work with Salesforce, Groove offers multi-channel automated sequences across platforms such as LinkedIn, by phone, and email. Users can easily create templates from the best-producing emails for use in future campaigns.
Like Outreach, Groove easily integrates with Salesforce to sync data and campaign records. Standard SEP tools like email tracking, open rates, and analytics are all included in the platform.
Their pricing model is based per user like Outreach but comes at a fraction of the cost, starting at $12/user per month for their starter package.
Key highlights:
- Multi-channel support across LinkedIn, email, and phone
- Easily export Salesforce data to Gmail or Outlook
- CRM automation that allows teams to easily update lead details
- Includes a free trial
Revenue.io
Revenue.io, formerly known as RingDNA, presents itself as a sales acceleration engine for inside sales teams using Salesforce. It’s similar to Close and Apollo.io in many respects, with AI-powered sales assistance that helps sales reps make more informed decisions in their outreach campaigns. However, Revenue.io has limited email outreach and tracking tools.
Sales reps that focus on outbound cold calling can connect with 4 times the number of prospects with automated voicemails, prospect data collections, and call logging. As a result, sales managers are provided with actionable reports from these automated systems.
Key highlights:
- Built for inbound and outbound sales calling
- Is user-friendly with call recording, tracking, and logging
- Includes conversational AI tools
Freshsales
Freshsales is a great entry-level CRM platform for sales teams on a budget. It offers most tools a salesperson needs for attracting quality leads, closing deals, and nurturing customer relationships.
Freshsales also provides AI-powered insights with Freddy AI that highlights the best deals and prospects to go after. Freddy AI also provides revenue predictions and sales forecasting that help teams predict growth.
Free plans are available but with limited features and no reports. Paid plans include more advanced features and are very affordable. Starting at $70/month, their enterprise plan per user is cheaper than Outreach’s most basic plan.
Key highlights:
- Free plans available
- AI-powered sales forecasting and assistance tools
- Mobile integration on all plans
- Affordable and suitable for all businesses
Right Inbox
Right Inbox is a Gmail extension that offers a range of email tools such as scheduling sequences and sending bulk email campaigns. Users can create personalized email templates with mail merge attributes and save email sequences for later use.
Unlike Instantly, Right Inbox does not include an email warm up feature to boost users’ deliverability and sender reputation. Since features are limited to Gmail, users are limited to Gmail’s sending restrictions. It is an affordable tool for solopreneurs or small businesses interested in light cold email outreach.
Key highlights:
- Simple to use and set up
- Includes mail merge tools
- Affordable and suitable for small teams and startups on a budget
SmartReach.io
SmartReach.io is an email automation SEP built primarily for cold email outreach. Like Instantly, it is a suitable platform for sales teams, B2B sales, marketing, and link-building.
Users can automate workflows, boost productivity, and reduce manual email tasks with email automation tools. SmartReach.io also includes native integration with most CRM platforms like Hubspot, Zapier, Zoho, and Salesforce.
The interface is not as intuitive and easy to use as Instantly’s, but overall it is an effective tool for cold email outreach. There is also no drag-and-drop email editor for building and editing email templates.
Key highlights:
- Built-in email verifier
- Sync prospects from CRMs and lists
- Email list cleaning
- Detailed email analytics
Hubspot Sales Hub
Hubspot is a popular CRM and SEP that is used extensively worldwide. It combines all kinds of tools with multi-platform support under one hub, making it a comprehensive solution suitable for medium to large enterprises.
Hubspot gives teams a detailed overview of sales pipelines, tracking every step of the way and logging interactions. Sales reps can know where a prospect stands in the sales process and take the right steps to move deals forward.
Most social media platforms and CRMs can be integrated with Hubspot to centralize outreach and sales engagement across all channels. Sales teams get a detailed report of engagement across social media, email, and phone.
Key highlights:
- Robust platform with powerful tools suitable for medium to large enterprises
- Detailed metrics across all outreach channels
- Extensive database of email templates with proven track records
- Exceptional customer support and knowledge base
Key Takeaways
While Outreach is a popular SEP with a range of positives, there are plenty of alternative options that are far more cost-effective and with a similar set of tools. With this list of the top 10 Outreach alternatives, you now have a better idea of what options to consider out there.
When deciding on the right SEP or CRM, it helps to have:
- Free trials and versions to test out the platform.
- Smart AI-powered automation tools like smart email warm up and personalization.
- Intuitive UI that makes onboarding, tracking, organizing campaigns, and analytics easy to do
- Templates, sequences scheduling, and automation features that will save you countless hours
- Detailed email analytics to help sales teams track and optimize their email outreach campaigns
Instantly provides all of the above and offers a 14-day free trial to help you decide if it is the right platform for you. Click here to learn more!
