Updated August 3, 2026

TL;DR: Switching from Artisan to Instantly requires a structured manual migration, not a one-click API sync. Export your contacts as CSV, recreate your sequences in the campaign builder, configure DNS records, and start warmup before you send a single campaign email. The critical path is a 4 to 6 week domain warmup period. Rushing it is the fastest way to crash your sender reputation. Instantly.ai's flat-fee model with unlimited email accounts removes volume-based pricing penalties, and Inbox Rotation keeps individual inbox volume safe as you scale.

Note: this guide is about the Artisan AI SDR platform, not other unrelated software using the same name.

This guide is written for the Sales Leader or RevOps owner who is accountable for the migration decision, the domain setup, and the team rollout.

The biggest migration risk is not losing your templates. It is crashing your sender reputation by moving too fast and skipping warmup.

This guide walks you through every stage of that migration: exporting your data, rebuilding sequences, configuring DNS, running warmup, and syncing your CRM. Your offer, copy, and target list carry over directly. What changes is the infrastructure beneath them, the sending accounts, warmup network, and CRM sync that determine whether your emails land in the primary inbox or the spam folder.

Artisan vs. Instantly: key differences

Before you start the migration steps, here is how the two platforms compare on the decisions that affect your infrastructure, budget, and timeline.

Key records to extract during Artisan migration

There is no pre-built migration importer between Artisan's AI SDR platform and Instantly, so you will export your data manually. This step is not a limitation. It is a forced list hygiene pass that protects your new sending infrastructure before a single email goes out.

Export the following before you touch anything in Instantly:

• Contact lists in CSV format (email, first name, last name, company, job title, LinkedIn URL)
• Email copy and subject lines for each active sequence
• Open rates, reply rates, and bounce rates per campaign (your performance baseline)
• Custom variable mappings (note every merge field in use today)
• Any active CRM field configurations

Migrating verified contact records

Start by preparing your contact CSV with a mandatory email column. Instantly's CSV import auto-maps up to 50 custom variables and supports predefined fields including email, first name, last name, job title, company name, personalization, phone, website, location, and LinkedIn. Column names are capped at 20 characters, and the file must be UTF-8 encoded.

Before you push any imported list into a live campaign, run lead verification. Instantly charges 0.25 credits per lead to classify each address as valid, invalid, or risky. Contacts you source through SuperSearch arrive pre-verified, but CSV imports from external platforms do not. Skipping verification is a direct path to a bounce rate that triggers auto-pause at 5% after 200 sends.

Exporting email copy and flow logic

Copy every subject line, email body, and follow-up variant into a local document before you begin. Once you have the raw text, review each email against benchmark data: according to Instantly's 2026 benchmark report, emails under 80 words generate the highest reply rates. If your current copy runs long, trim it now rather than migrating bloated templates into a new system.

Auditing past campaign effectiveness

Before you migrate, export your historical campaign data from Artisan and record your baseline metrics. Document your average open rate, reply rate, and hard-bounce percentage per campaign. The benchmark report, covering data from Jan 1 to Dec 18, 2025, puts the platform average reply rate at 3.43%. Top-quartile senders reach 5.5%+. If your Artisan campaigns were above 3.43%, you have a clear target to protect. If they were below, this migration is also a reset opportunity.

Standardizing custom field mappings

List every merge field your sequences use. Common examples include {{first_name}}, {{company}}, {{job_title}}, and any custom personalization variables. Map each one to its Instantly equivalent before you rebuild sequences. Instantly's CSV import auto-maps columns by name, so matching your CSV headers to the variable names you plan to use in copy keeps the import clean. You can store up to 50 variables per campaign.

Mapping Artisan sequences to your new workflow

You will rebuild each sequence step by step inside the Instantly campaign builder. This manual process lets you apply benchmark insights from day one: 4 to 7 steps, under 80 words per email, and A/Z testing on every step.

Mapping Artisan workflows to Instantly

Recreate each sequence step inside the campaign builder. The benchmark report shows the optimal sequence length is 4 to 7 steps. First-touch emails generate 58% of all replies, with follow-ups contributing the remaining 42%. If your Artisan sequences ran 10+ steps, trim them to the 4 to 7 range before rebuilding. A/Z testing is available on Growth and above. Hypergrowth and above support up to 26 variants per step.

Elements preserved during migration

Your core offer, target audience, and positioning transfer directly. The value proposition you tested in Artisan does not need to change. What changes is the infrastructure beneath it: your sending accounts, warmup network, DNS configuration, and CRM sync. Keep your best-performing subject lines and opening lines. Focus the migration effort on the technical setup, not the message.

Required manual setup processes

DNS configuration is the first technical task. Instantly requires MX, SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records for every sending domain. DKIM and SPF must authenticate for at least 48 hours before you enable DMARC. After DNS is live, set up a Custom Tracking Domain by creating a CNAME record with host inst pointing to prox.itrackly.com. This isolates your sender reputation from shared tracking URLs.

DNS propagation takes 24 to 48 hours per domain. The mandatory minimum warmup period before any campaign email goes out is 2 weeks, and full ramp to safe sending volume takes 4 to 6 weeks. During this window, your new accounts are active and building reputation inside Instantly's deliverability network, but you are not yet sending campaign volume. Plan this window into your calendar before you cut over.

For account connections: Google Workspace accounts use OAuth, personal Gmail accounts require app passwords, and Microsoft 365 accounts need SMTP enabled plus OAuth, connected one at a time. To add multiple non-Google accounts in bulk, use the bulk import via CSV option.

Expected downtime during your move

There is no sending downtime if you plan correctly. DNS propagation (24 to 48 hours) and warmup (2 weeks minimum before campaign sends, 4 to 6 weeks to full ramp) are calendar events, not outages. New accounts warm continuously inside Instantly's 4.2M+ account deliverability network during this period. Overlap your Artisan sends with your warmup window so pipeline does not pause.

Preserving sender reputation during your move

Your sender reputation is built through consistent, low-volume sending over time and can be damaged in days if you move platforms without respecting pacing rules.

Safeguarding domain health during migration

New domains with no warmup history trigger spam filters if you send campaign volume on day one. Start warmup at a low daily volume and ramp gradually over 4 to 6 weeks. Your health score (the percentage of warmup emails landing in inbox vs. spam over the trailing 7 days) must reach above 90% before an account is campaign-ready. Warmup covers both SMTP and IMAP, so engagement signals build on send and receive.

If you currently send 150 emails per day across five accounts on Artisan, do not start 150 sends per day on new Instantly accounts from day one. New accounts with no warmup history are invisible to email providers. Sending high volume from a cold inbox triggers spam filters immediately.

On Hypergrowth plans and above, the Deliverability AI Agent runs an automated audit every 24 hours. It monitors DNS health, blocklist status, warmup scores, bounce rates, and campaign copy. When it finds a problem, it surfaces recommended fixes including pausing at-risk accounts, rebalancing providers, and flagging copy issues.

"It doesn't treat cold email as a separate task. Instead, it pulls sending accounts, warmup, leads, campaigns, replies, CRM activity, and automations into a single flow that's much easier to manage." - Miguel F. on G2

Managing volume during migration

The rule is firm: do not exceed 30 campaign emails per single inbox per day. Instantly's Inbox Rotation handles scale by distributing sends across every account assigned to a campaign. With 10 inboxes assigned, each sends 30, giving you 300 campaign emails per day total while keeping each sender within behavior patterns that email providers treat as normal.

Instantly's flat-fee model with unlimited email accounts is the structural difference from Artisan's volume-based pricing, which scales cost with the number of leads contacted per year. On every Instantly Outreach plan, you connect unlimited sending accounts at a fixed monthly rate. There is no extra charge as you add inboxes to protect volume at scale.

Re-mapping your CRM and integrations

Clean CRM handoffs keep your pipeline visible during a migration. The risk is not losing deals. The risk is creating duplicate records or breaking the status updates your AEs depend on to prioritize follow-ups.

Mapping CRM data for migration

HubSpot is the recommended CRM path. Connect via Settings, then Integrations, then HubSpot OAuth. From there, the Automations builder handles event-driven workflows: Instantly reply events can create HubSpot contacts, tasks, and notes automatically, and HubSpot contact changes can trigger Instantly actions. The Automations builder handles full bidirectional activity logging into HubSpot timelines, including opens, replies, and status changes.

Managing webhook and API migrations

Instantly's API v2 doubles the available endpoints from v1 and adds API Scopes for per-key permissions. API v1 was deprecated on January 19, 2026. If any of your current integrations were built against a v1-style API, rebuild them in v2. Native webhooks are available on Hypergrowth and above. Zapier supports a range of trigger events including email sent, bounced, opened, clicked, lead replied, and campaign completed. For teams not on Hypergrowth, Zapier is a reliable alternative for event-driven CRM updates. See the Zapier integration guide for current trigger options.

Testing integration health post-migration

Before you send any campaign volume, run a manual test using one lead record. Check that lead status updates flow through to HubSpot correctly, that reply events create the right tasks or notes, and that bounce events mark the contact appropriately in the CRM. A five-minute test here prevents a week of data reconciliation after go-live.

Retraining reps for the new email architecture

The fastest route to adoption is simplicity. Reps who can't find their replies or understand their send limits will revert to old habits.

Adjusting to the new rep dashboard

Unibox v2, released March 12, 2026, gives reps a centralized reply workspace with an "Others" folder for non-lead emails, bulk actions, team-visible notes, and auto-refresh. Emails stay in the system even after campaign deletion. Reps no longer hunt through individual account inboxes to find replies. For teams coming from fragmented reply management in legacy platforms, Unibox v2 is the biggest quality-of-life improvement in the new stack.

Configuring admin and security roles

Use the Global Blocklist to protect your sending infrastructure workspace-wide. You can add blocked domains or emails manually, via CSV (max 5 MB), or through a live Google Sheets sync with "Blocked" as the Column A header. This prevents reps from accidentally importing competitors, existing customers, or opted-out contacts into a campaign. Admin-level workspace controls standardize the sending rules across every rep from day one.

Mapping data to your CRM

Use Automations to build the CRM triggers your reps depend on. A basic example: when a lead replies with an interested status, create a deal in HubSpot and assign it to the owning AE. Copilot can build these workflows from a plain-language request, converting it into a node-based automation that you review and activate. Reps see clean handoffs in their CRM queue without manual entry.

Expected ramp time by role

• Your technical setup owner needs to cover DNS configuration, account connection, campaign builder orientation, and integration
• testing before reps are onboarded. Once accounts are live and warmup is running, brief reps on Unibox v2 navigation, daily send limits, campaign status indicators, and the reply classification workflow. The systems-first design means reps learn one flow rather than three disconnected tools.

Preserving your core sales infrastructure

Infrastructure continuity means your reply handling, bounce protection, and sequence variation perform at least as well on day one in Instantly as they did in Artisan.

Maintaining sequence logic during migration

Use Spintax to rebuild copy variation from your existing templates. The syntax is {{RANDOM | option1 | option2}}, and the AI Spintax Writer (found in Sequence Editor, then AI Tools) generates Spintax variants from your existing copy automatically. This replaces any manual copy rotation you were running before and keeps per-lead variation high without maintaining separate sequence variants.

Ensuring inbox placement consistency

BounceShield (also known as BounceProtect) is enabled by default and automatically skips known high-risk recipients based on real-time and historical bounce data. The high bounce auto-pause feature kicks in when bounce rate exceeds 5% after a minimum of 200 sends, pausing the campaign automatically. Keep your target bounce rate below 2% for sustained inbox placement health. Instantly's Inbox Placement product (available on its own Hypergrowth tier at $97/mo) runs automated tests continuously. It is a standalone subscription, not a feature bundled into your Outreach plan.

Managing incoming prospect replies

The AI Reply Agent handles incoming replies in under 5 minutes and costs 5 Instantly Credits per reply. It runs from the Instantly Credits subscription, which is separate from Outreach plans and starts at $9/mo with a free trial available. The agent operates in Human-in-the-Loop mode (you approve before send) or Autopilot mode for high-volume reply handling. Unibox NLP auto-classifies replies by sentiment and intent across 50+ languages, giving reps a triage view without manual tagging.

Migrating to Instantly: 30-day success plan

Before you start week one, run your team size and monthly send volume against Instantly's plan limits. Instantly's 2026 benchmark report shows a platform average reply rate of 3.43%, with top-quartile senders at 5.5%+ and the top 10% reaching 10.7%+. These are the performance targets your 30-day ramp should aim for.

As the owner of this migration, use the checklist below to assign tasks and track progress across your team.

Migration readiness checklist:

1. Configuring Artisan migration workflows

Week 1 covers the foundation. Connect your domains, configure all DNS records, set up Custom Tracking Domains, and enable warmup on every account. Run the DNS test inside the Instantly Email Accounts dashboard to confirm records are propagating correctly. Do not start campaign sends this week. Warmup needs to run without campaign load while your health score builds.

Validating workflows with pilot reps

In weeks 2 and 3, run your migrated sequences with a small group of pilot reps only. Start campaign sends at low volume (10 to 20 per inbox per day) while warmup is still ramping. Use this period to test CRM sync end-to-end: verify that a reply in Instantly creates the right task in HubSpot, and that bounced leads mark correctly in both systems. Catch data mapping errors here, not during the full team rollout.

Week 4: scaling to the full team and stabilizing send volume

By week 4, warmup health scores on new accounts should be above 90%. Onboard the remaining reps, increase daily campaign sends toward 30 per inbox, and activate the full sequence across your contact lists. Monitor the Deliverability AI Agent dashboard for early warning signals on DNS health or bounce rate creep.

Consistent, stable sending patterns produce 15 to 20% higher reply rates compared to erratic sending, according to Instantly's benchmark data. Erratic volume is one of the fastest ways to drop below the platform average. Ramp steadily. Hold the pattern. The pipeline catches up faster with a steady system than with a sprint.

Continuity planning for your Artisan migration

The goal is zero dropped conversations and zero pipeline gaps. Archive before you cut over, run both platforms in parallel for a short window, and monitor domain health throughout.

Archiving Artisan records and managing dual platform operations

Export every lead record, campaign result, and reply thread from Artisan before you cancel or reduce your subscription access. Store these CSVs in your CRM or a shared drive. You will reference them for compliance if a prospect claims they were contacted without consent, and for historical benchmarking as your Instantly campaigns mature. Use the export function in Instantly after you migrate to keep your records archived on a regular basis.

Run both platforms in parallel for a transition window. During this period, active conversations started on Artisan stay on Artisan. New outbound volume starts on Instantly accounts finishing warmup. Once no active conversations remain in Artisan, cancel without risk.

Protecting domain reputation during migration

Keep bounce rates below 2% throughout the transition. The high bounce auto-pause at 5% is a safety net, not a target. The Deliverability AI Agent on Hypergrowth plans monitors bounce rate as part of its 24-hour audit cycle and alerts you before you approach the threshold. Pair this with BounceShield (also known as BounceProtect) enabled and a verified contact list, and your bounce rate stays well below the danger zone.

Estimated time to full migration

Your migration timeline is paced by the mandatory warmup period, which runs 4 to 6 weeks. DNS propagation is 24 to 48 hours. Minimum warmup before first campaign sends is 2 weeks. Full ramp to 30 emails per inbox per day across a multi-account setup completes by week 4 to 6, with CRM sync confirmed by week 3.

What a clean migration delivers

A well-executed migration changes your infrastructure, not your strategy. The offer you refined in Artisan, the copy that generated replies, and the contact data your team built all move with you. What improves is the foundation: flat-fee pricing with unlimited accounts, built-in warmup, BounceShield, and a centralized reply workspace your reps can manage in one place. Run the 30-day plan, hold the warmup timeline, and your pipeline continues without a gap.

Start your migration today

Your sender reputation does not wait. Every day you delay warmup is a day added to your critical path. Start your 14-day free trial today (no credit card required, includes 250 uploaded contacts and 1,000 emails) and initiate domain warmup immediately. Compare Instantly's full outreach capabilities against your current stack before you commit.

FAQs

Does Instantly have a one-click import from the Artisan AI SDR platform?

No direct API migration path exists between Artisan and Instantly. Export your contacts as a CSV from Artisan and import them via CSV into Instantly, mapping each column to its corresponding variable.

How long does warmup take before I can send campaign emails?

The minimum warmup period is 2 weeks, and full ramp to safe campaign volume takes 4 to 6 weeks. Your account must also reach a health score above 90% before it is eligible for campaign sends.

What happens to my bounce rate if I push cold lists from Artisan without verification?

Unverified contacts carry unknown risk. If your bounce rate exceeds 5% after 200 sends, Instantly auto-pauses your campaign to protect your domain. Run every imported CSV through lead verification (0.25 credits per lead) before sending as it is cheaper than rebuilding sender reputation.

Is Instantly's pricing a flat fee or volume-based?

Instantly's Outreach plans are flat-fee with unlimited email accounts and warmup included on all tiers. The Growth plan starts at $47/mo. You add sending accounts to scale volume without paying extra per inbox. See Instantly pricing for current plan details.

Which CRM integrations does Instantly support?

HubSpot is the recommended native integration path, with bidirectional activity logging handled through the Automations builder. Pipedrive, Clay, Airtable, Attio, and other platforms are supported via the Automations builder and Zapier connector.

Key terms glossary

Warmup: The process of gradually increasing daily email volume from a new inbox (5 to 10 per day) to campaign-ready levels (30 per day) over 4 to 6 weeks while building positive engagement history with email providers.

Sender reputation: A score email providers assign to your domain and IP based on bounce rates, spam complaints, engagement patterns, and authentication health. Health scores below 90% increase the risk of spam folder placement.

Inbox Rotation: Instantly's method of distributing campaign sends across multiple connected email accounts so no single inbox exceeds 30 emails per day while total campaign volume scales.

Bounce rate: The percentage of emails that fail to deliver (hard bounces from invalid addresses or soft bounces from full inboxes). Keep below 2%. Instantly auto-pauses campaigns at 5%.

BounceShield (also known as BounceProtect): Instantly's default feature that skips known high-risk recipients based on real-time and historical bounce data, protecting domain health before a bad send occurs.

Read next

• How to fix email deliverability issues in your outbound sales platform: A step-by-step troubleshooting guide covering DNS records, bounce rates, and sender reputation recovery for teams running cold email at scale.
• AI SDR qualification guide: is it right for your team?: A practical framework to help sales leaders assess whether an AI SDR fits their team size, pipeline goals, and outbound process before committing.
• How to integrate your AI SDR with your CRM: setup guide: A setup walkthrough for connecting your AI SDR to HubSpot and other CRM platforms so reply events, lead status changes, and deal creation flow automatically.