Instantly vs. Lemlist vs. QuickMail: Which Is Best?

Instantly and lemlist are two popular cold email platforms, and both can help you generate more leads with cold emails.

However, these aren’t the only cold email tools on the market.

This article will give you an overview of how Instantly and Lemlist can help you, including the pros and cons of each. You’ll also learn more about QuickMail, a platform for smart teams that want to leverage advanced personalization and analytics combined with superior email deliverability.

Let’s jump right in with a quick overview of each platform.  

Instantly vs. lemlist vs. QuickMail: Compared

Next, let’s look at each option in detail to help you decide which platform is right for you.

What Is Instantly?

Instantly is a cold email platform with a suite of tools to help with your prospecting and email-sending process. 

Instantly’s customers primarily use its cold email tools, which include all the features you would expect, such as the ability to customize emails, schedule follow-ups, and track replies. However, it’s not ideal for advanced teams sending cold emails as it does lack some basic tools such as click detection and the inability to add email signatures.

If you want access to both the email sending and lead database, you need to pay extra, as  Instantly bills for those tools separately.

Who Is Instantly Best For?

Instantly has a few core value propositions.

One of those value propositions is Instantly offers a prospecting database. That means it’s a good fit for anyone who doesn’t use an existing prospecting platform like UpLead or BuiltWith. 

When it comes to email outreach, Instantly is for anyone who needs a simple, easy-to-use tool to send basic cold emails. Reviewers on G2 say that the UI is easy to use and intuitive. That means it won’t take long for you to build email campaigns and schedule them. 

Good UX is always nice, but the downside is that there’s a trade-off. Instantly lacks tools for advanced personalization and there are minimal campaign customization options. For example, there’s no option to add multi-channel steps like LinkedIn outreach, SMS, or cold calls, like there is in QuickMail — all of which are powerful ways to improve your reply rates.

Additionally, Instantly includes an email warm-up tool in the platform. Unfortunately, the advanced warm-up tools—such as a feature that sends a random number of emails daily to emulate human behavior—are only available to users on the more expensive Hypergrowth plan. 

However, this feature could be removed at some point because Google has banned email warming tools from using its API. Since Instantly’s email warm-up process isn’t compliant with Google, that could cause complications for users in the future. QuickMail users don’t need to worry about this obstacle, though, because they get to utilize MailFlow’s Google-approved email warm-up tools for free, even on the Basic plan.

On Instantly’s basic Growth plan, which starts at $37 per month, you can send up to 5,000 emails to 1,000 leads. If you only need to send a low volume, it’s a good option. If you need more, you’ll be limited on this plan and need to upgrade to their $97/month plan.

It’s not ideal for agencies, either. There’s no agency-level performance reporting or dashboard to see a clear picture of every campaign your team is working on. If you run or work at an agency, QuickMail is the better option (more on this below).

What's Missing from Instantly?

Instantly is a solid starter platform for sending cold emails. However, there are a few things that QuickMail customers love, which Instantly doesn’t have.

The first is that QuickMail allows collaboration by default. Instantly only lets you invite extra team members on the Hypergrowth plan ($97 per month), making it cost-prohibitive for some users. Teams often switch from Instantly to QuickMail because having to share logins impedes their workflow. 

On QuickMail, you can add unlimited team members to any account at no extra cost, making collaboration a breeze.

Another consideration is that previous Instantly users have reported that the unified inbox (which isn’t available on the basic plan) is tricky to use and the reply detection is unreliable. You’ll still have to monitor individual inboxes to ensure you don’t miss any interested prospects. 

Instantly Unibox also lacks some basic features for teams, such as being able to assign team members to conversations or being able to detect if a prospect CCs someone to the email thread.

On QuickMail, all users have access to the shared Opportunities inbox so anyone on your team can jump in and manage your pipeline of replies. Every reply is tracked, even if it’s from someone CC’d into a conversation.

Finally, improving your email deliverability on Instantly can be tricky if you’re on the basic Growth plan. While you can use the standard warm-up tools, the advanced features are restricted to users on the Hypergrowth plan.  

Finally, Instantly doesn’t currently send emails through a Gmail-approved API, which will damage your email deliverability rates.

Email deliverability is critical to success with cold email, and it’s not an area where you want to cut corners. QuickMail users regularly send 40k+ emails per day without any deliverability concerns. If scale matters, QuickMail is the better option.

Pros and Cons of Instantly

Pros

• Intuitive UI makes it easy to use for people new to cold email. However, this comes at a cost, as Instantly lacks advanced features like personalization for sending emails at scale.

• You can use merge tags to personalize emails for every prospect.

• On the most expensive plan, you can access a group inbox to manage replies.

• Send emails from multiple inboxes to help you scale volume.

Cons

• You must be on the Hypergrowth plan to add multiple team members and collaborate.

• Doesn’t track basic analytics such as click-through rate.

• The shared inbox, A/B testing, and integrations are only available on the most expensive pricing plan.

• The built-in email warm-up tool breaches Google’s API use policy which exposes Instantly to platform risk and harms your email deliverability.

• The Hypergrowth plan is limited to 100,000 emails per month unless you pay for more. Compared to other platforms, such as QuickMail, that allow up to 300,000 emails per month across inboxes, this is relatively low for businesses like lead generation agencies with multiple client campaigns running at the same time. If scale matters, QuickMail is the more affordable option.

• Reviewers on G2 say that the lack of integrations can make it difficult to automate the whole outreach process.

What Is lemlist?

Another cold email tool on the market for several years is lemlist. Currently, the company pitches itself as an “all-in-one outreach solution.”

With a LinkedIn extension to help you save qualified prospects to a list, an email finding tool, and cold email and LinkedIn messaging tools, lemlist is a solid all-in-one option.

Who Is lemlist Best For?

The focus of lemlist’s core platform is email outreach, and it’s ideal for individuals, solopreneurs, or businesses with a small sales team. 

The platform charges per seat, starting at $59/seat per month on the most basic plan. If you need multiple team members using lemlist to collaborate on campaign setup or reporting, it could quickly get expensive.

Unlike Instantly, lemlist does give you access to features like A/B testing on the Standard email outreach plan without needing to pay extra, which is a positive.

However, lemlist also lacks features for larger teams or agencies, such as a centralized conversation log for managing replies across inboxes or inbox rotation for improved deliverability and send management.

There’s also no built-in email warm-up tool like you get with QuickMail and Instantly, though the company does offer a reduced price on the subscription to their warm-up tool called lemwarm.

What's Missing from lemlist?

Lemlist is a good tool for businesses that want to send cold emails from one inbox. However, it has some limitations.

Though it does have integrations with most major CRMs, lemlist doesn’t have integrated tools for handling email replies across multiple inboxes and campaigns, which can be a big drawback.

QuickMail users find having a built-in shared inbox boosts productivity. Your team can easily access an overview of the prospects who have replied across all campaigns, then quickly jump in and respond. However, if you use lemlist to send emails from one inbox, this may not be an issue. 

It’s also worth considering the price. 

Source: G2

With tools like QuickMail, you can add unlimited users to your account, even on the Basic Plan. For teams, this is a big advantage because you can have one person in charge of importing prospects and preparing lists. Another team member can add email templates and run copy reviews. Another can handle replies as soon as they come in.

Since lemlist charges per seat, you may have to share logins and can’t see which users made changes to critical business campaigns if you’re unable to give everyone individual access. This means the pricing scales directly with your team, turning it into an expensive option for medium-large-sized teams.

Pros and Cons of lemlist

Pros

• There’s lots of flexibility when it comes to email personalization.

• There’s no limit on the number of emails sent per month.

• A built-in AI writing assistant can help you write effective cold email opening lines.

Cons

• It’s expensive if you want to collaborate with multiple team members due to the pay-per-seat pricing model.

• There’s no built-in shared team inbox for tracking replies.

• You need to pay extra to access lemlist’s email warm-up tool.

• Reviewers on G2 mention that the reporting tools aren’t always granular enough.

QuickMail: The Best Alternative to Instantly and lemlist

If Instantly or lemlist aren’t suitable options for you, consider QuickMail.

QuickMail is the only platform you need to generate more sales conversations and grow your business with cold outreach.

Once you connect your inbox, it only takes minutes to build personalized cold email campaigns, schedule them, and start tracking your results with advanced analytics.

If you’re unsure whether QuickMail is right for you, you can test it with a risk-free 14-day trial. If you’re ready to replace your current cold email tool, QuickMail will even pay you to switch.

Who Is QuickMail Best For?

QuickMail is ideal for anyone who wants to use cold email as a growth channel in their business. It’s perfect for any small to medium-sized business, as you can add multiple team members to the platform on any plan. 

QuickMail also includes dedicated tools for agencies that want to manage campaigns for multiple clients at one time.

Plus, every QuickMail customer has access to a dedicated technical support team who are experts in the platform. You won’t be waiting for a response from someone who may be unable to solve your problem.

Let’s see what makes QuickMail unique compared to Instantly and lemlist.

5 Key Benefits of Using QuickMail for Your Cold Outreach

1. Send Personalized Emails that Start Conversations

With QuickMail, you can send fully personalized, multi-touch campaigns with ease.

When writing emails, you can customize each template using attributes. 

Even if you’re sending a campaign to 500 prospects, every email can have unique elements, including: 

• Your prospect’s name

• Their company name or job title

• A fully personalized opening line

Personalization is a powerful way to get more replies, and it’s easy with QuickMail. 

To find the best performing copy variations, you can tap into QuickMail’s A/Z testing features.

This allows you to test multiple email copy variations at once and see which variation gets the best results.

QuickMail tracks the open, click, and reply rate for every variation so you can make better decisions when it comes to creating your email templates in the future.

2. Boost Engagement with Multi-Channel Campaigns

Sometimes, you need to go the extra mile to get a response. If a prospect isn’t replying, you can add multi-channel steps, including LinkedIn connection requests with an introductory note, or make a cold call to prospects using QuickMail’s Aircall integration.

As with your cold email steps, you can schedule a LinkedIn connection request and send it at a specific time in your campaign. You can set custom rules and add a personalized connection message to boost engagement.

QuickMail also integrates with Zapier, so you can build almost any custom workflow and give your business the best chance of success with cold outreach.

3. Land in the Primary Inbox with Powerful Email Deliverability Tools

QuickMail includes email deliverability features to ensure your campaigns never land in the spam folder.

Firstly, the sending API that QuickMail uses is Google-approved and the email footprint is untraceable. This means email service providers can’t block your emails going through and you’ll see more emails landing in the inbox compared to Instantly or Lemlist.

On top of that, all inboxes on QuickMail have real-time deliverability scores that track sending performance. If you see an issue, you can pause the inbox and send the campaign from other inboxes that aren’t facing issues. Once the problem is resolved, you can restart your campaign and start generating more leads.

To help you improve email deliverability at scale, QuickMail includes Inbox Rotation on all pricing plans.

Inbox Rotation allows one salesperson to act like eight. You can add multiple email addresses to your account, and when you start a campaign, you can choose which inboxes you want the campaign to send from.

This ensures none of your inboxes exceed send limits or ever face unnecessary deliverability challenges.

4. Track Performance with Advanced Analytics

QuickMail’s advanced analytics help you get detailed data on what is and isn’t working so you can improve those campaigns.

QuickMail has smart tools in addition to the metrics you would expect:

• Track open rates by when your emails were sent and opened.

• Learn why people unsubscribe from your campaigns with sentiment analysis.

• Run split tests with unlimited variations to compare different value propositions, words, and call-to-actions.

By going beyond vanity metrics, you’ll always have the information you need to make the best decisions to boost your cold email performance. 

5. Handle the Full Conversation in One Place

Rather than connecting your cold outreach platform to multiple tools through integrations that don’t always work, QuickMail allows you to manage your whole conversation with prospects from end to end. 

For example, if you’re sending emails from multiple email addresses, you’d usually have to jump between inboxes to monitor replies on each one.

With QuickMail’s shared Opportunities inbox, every reply lands in the same place. 

If a prospect CCs someone else or starts a new thread, QuickMail automatically detects it and adds the new conversation. This feature saves you hours each week and ensures you never miss an interested prospect’s response.

QuickMail also includes tools to help you sort responses. You can assign conversations to specific team members, and employees can use the shared inbox to reply to leads on behalf of other team members. That ensures you maintain a smooth workflow if people are out of the office.

Start Sending Cold Emails That Get Replies Today

QuickMail makes it easy to send personalized cold emails and start conversations with qualified decision-makers.

You can tap into advanced personalization features to boost response rates and use detailed analytics with sentiment analysis to benchmark the performance of every email in your campaign. On top of that, QuickMail’s powerful deliverability tools ensure your cold emails land in a prospect’s primary inbox, giving you the best shot at getting a response.

When you’re ready to send your first campaign, sign up for a free 14-day trial.