Instantly vs. Smartlead for Agencies: Which Is Best?

Instantly and Smartlead are two of the most popular cold outreach platforms for lead generation agencies.

But which is best? And is there a better alternative (like QuickMail) out there?

To answer those questions, we’ve compared Instantly vs Smartlead for agencies, including:

• Key features

• Agency pricing

• Pros and cons

Let’s get into it…

Instantly vs Smartlead vs QuickMail: Compared

Instantly for Agencies: Is It Right for You?

What Is Instantly?

Instantly is a cold outreach solution with a built-in prospect database containing 280+ million B2B contacts (bear in mind the database carries an extra cost, as we’ll explain in the pricing section…).

Agencies mostly use Instantly for sending cold emails, including the ability to:

• Create customized emails

• Build automated follow-up sequences

• Track replies

However, the platform lacks some basic, agency-critical features like agency-level reporting, accurate deliverability monitoring, and omni-channel outreach.

How Much Does Instantly Cost for Agencies?

On the face of things, Instantly’s outreach plans look relatively cheap, with prices starting at just $37 per month. 

However, the Starter plan only includes 1,000 uploaded contacts and 5,000 monthly emails — nowhere near enough for agency users.

Realistically, all but the smallest agencies will have to choose the top-tier Light Speed plan ($358 per month). Even then, they’ll only get 500,000 monthly emails and 100,000 uploaded contacts. 

Then there are all the ways Instantly nickel and dimes you for features that should be included out of the box.

For instance, the unified inbox is an upcharge, while client portals are additional upcharges and are only available on the Hypergrowth plan and above. You’ll have to pay more for every 25k prospects you upload. And if you want to segment your clients into different workspaces so they can have a client portal, you’ll have to start a separate subscription for each workspace.

All of which makes Instantly an expensive choice for most agencies, as user reviews demonstrate

Pros and Cons of Instantly

Pros

• The intuitive user interface is a big help for cold email newbies (although this comes at the expense of more advanced features, like scalable personalization).

• Spread out your send volume by adding unlimited email inboxes.

Cons

• Instantly offers zero visibility over email deliverability (and no deliverability monitoring).

• Reporting is a headache for agencies, with no dashboard to manage all your accounts.

• Lack of essential features like click detection and the ability to add email signatures.

• Reporting is limited to basic account/campaign-level metrics — emails sent, opens, replies, and opportunities.

• The warmup email pool is largely made up of custom SMTP inboxes, so you’re not actually warming up with Google or Outlook.

Who Is Instantly Best For?

Let’s make one thing clear:

Most Instantly customers aren’t agencies. Instead, they’re businesses running outreach campaigns for themselves.

This becomes apparent when you consider some of the platform’s limitations, such as the lack of an agency dashboard containing performance data on all your client accounts (more on Instantly’s pros and cons in the next section…).

In other words, we wouldn't recommend Instantly as the best choice for lead gen agencies.

But that’s not to say it’s a bad fit for any business.

The platform’s clean, intuitive interface makes it easy to build and schedule email campaigns, while the pricing is affordable for lower volumes of leads/emails. Plus you can add unlimited email accounts on each plan, which helps you scale without sacrificing deliverability. All of which makes Instantly a solid choice for smaller businesses looking for a user-friendly outreach solution.

The built-in prospect database could be a nice bonus, too, if you don’t fancy shelling out for a separate LinkedIn Sales Navigator subscription (or some other lead gen source).

Learn more: Instantly vs QuickMail: Features, Pricing, and Performance 

Smartlead for Agencies: Is It Right for You?

What Is Smartlead?

Smartlead is a cold outreach solution used by 31,000+ businesses.

First and foremost, Smartlead is an email tool. But it also allows users to build multichannel campaigns encompassing SMS, X/Twitter, and WhatsApp. The more channels you can use to reach your prospects, the higher your chances of receiving a response.

Unlike many outreach platforms, it also offers scalable pricing for agencies (more on this in the agency pricing section…).

However, Smartlead has a few concerning characteristics that should make lead gen agencies think twice before signing up, such as a worryingly high amount of bugs:

*Quote from unaffiliated agency owner, March 2024

That’s the last thing you need when you’ve got demanding lead targets to hit.

How Much Does Smartlead Cost for Agencies?

Smartlead doesn’t have agency-specific price plans, which is a shame. Instead, it describes the top-tier Custom Plan as “perfect” for lead gen agencies.

But is it really perfect?

Pricing starts at just $174 per month, including unlimited email accounts and 60,000 total leads. There's an additional $80 upcharge for every additional 30,000 leads, plus you have to pay $29 per month for each additional client you work with.

So it starts out looking affordable, but the costs add up fast.

Pros and Cons of Smartlead

Pros

• Use the Smartlead API to build cold emails that are fully automated across each step of your sales process, from drip-feeding leads to managing meeting bookings.

• Set follow-up reminders and create automated follow-up sequences based on the prospect’s response to ensure you never miss a hot opportunity.

• Add unlimited team members to Smartlead and track each colleague’s performance using the dedicated dashboard.

Cons

• Smartlead only launched in 2021, and it’s still a little buggy (and slow).

• Costs increase rapidly as you add more leads and clients, so it’s not the affordable tool you thought you were buying.

• No way to organize your outreach into different clients — you can tag them or make folders, but it's a nightmare as you scale.

• The auto warmer mostly relies on custom SMTP inboxes rather than sending via Gmail or Outlook, so it’s not the most effective warmup solution.

• Reporting can be a pain for agencies, as you have to filter by client to narrow your view.

• You can’t create prospects manually, only upload them via CSV, and they can’t be added in bulk to new campaigns or verified within Smartlead.

• Smartlead doesn’t have any native integrations, so you’ll have to use Zapier to join the dots between your other platforms — which can be expensive and error-prone.

• Lacking analytics, no deliverability or blacklist monitoring

Who Is Smartlead Best For?

Smartlead has four distinct target audiences:

• Marketing agencies

• Lead gen agencies

• Sales leaders

• Recruiters

Price-wise, it’s a decent fit for any of those markets.

But the complete lack of native integrations, questionable auto warmer, and slightly buggy tendencies mean Smartlead is a risky choice for lead gen agencies. 

If your entire business relies on sending bulk emails with high deliverability, day in and day out, we’d recommend looking for a more robust solution.

Learn more: Smartlead vs QuickMail: Features, Pricing, and Performance 

QuickMail: The Best Alternative to Instantly and Smartlead for Agencies

Smartlead and Instantly are solid platforms. 

But QuickMail is built for lead gen agencies like you. We give you all the tools you need to reach, engage, and convert prospects at scale.

In short, QuickMail is the best choice for agencies that need a reliable cold outreach solution capable of maintaining high deliverability across thousands — or even tens of thousands — of email sends per day.

Here’s why:

5 Key Benefits of QuickMail for Lead Gen Agencies

Superior Client Management

Unlike many outreach tools, all of QuickMail’s agency plans include a free agency dashboard, so you can see all your clients and campaigns in one place.

So you don’t have to go clicking around to understand which clients are on target — and which need a little extra attention.

And, because we understand that collaboration and accountability are a key difference-maker in hitting challenging client targets, we allow you to add unlimited team members on every plan.

That’s right; no more sharing usernames and passwords across your team to keep costs down.

Plus you can track all actions taken across each account via our searchable audit log.

Agency-Grade Reporting

Most outreach tools focus on surface-level metrics. This might be fine for businesses doing their own outreach, but agencies need more depth.

That’s why our advanced analytics suite includes key cold email metrics like:

• Opens

• Clicks

• Replies

• Bookings

• Bounces

Plus you can break down any metrics by your email service provider or by your lead’s email provider, helping you get a clearer picture of what’s working (and what isn’t).

We’re also the first outreach solution to introduce send-day attribution.

With send-day attribution, results are tracked back to the day an email was sent. That way, you can instantly see any drop-offs in email deliverability, enabling you to react fast.

And because we know that your clients are just as data-hungry as you are, we make it easy to create white-labeled portals for each client, complete with customized dashboards featuring their most important numbers.

Effective Email Warmup

Outreach platforms with built-in auto warmers are a major red flag because they don’t comply with Google’s rules on bulk sending. That’s a big concern for agencies using Instantly and Smartlead, both of which rely on built-in auto warmup tools.

At QuickMail, we came up with a better solution. We give all our customers free access to MailFlow, one of the best auto-warmers on the market.

That way, you can add new email inboxes whenever you need them, safe in the knowledge that they’re already warmed up.

Learn more: How To Warm Up Your Cold Email Inbox

Advanced Deliverability Tools

Giving you free MailFlow access isn’t the only way we help you maintain sky-high email deliverability — far from it.

Whichever agency plan you choose, you’ll be able to leverage the power of Deliverability AI, our proprietary tool that automatically prioritizes sending emails from your top-performing inboxes.

That way, you don’t have to spend hours trawling through deliverability reports (or, worse, just cross your fingers and hope that your emails stay out of the spam folder).

And that’s not all.

You’ll also get access to:

• Inbox rotation

• Blacklist monitoring

• MX bounce protection

• Controls on time delays between email sends

• Controls on the maximum number of emails sent per day

In other words, if you care about email deliverability, QuickMail is the cold outreach tool of your dreams.

Learn more: Ultimate Guide to Cold Email Deliverability 

Agency-Friendly Pricing

The majority of outreach platforms get real expensive, real fast when you’re scaling up.

Once again, QuickMail does things differently.

Our dedicated agency plans include flat per-client fees. So you’ll never be surprised by a higher-than-expected invoice for adding more prospects or sending more emails.

Whichever plan you choose, you’ll also get unlimited seats, unlimited inboxes, and all the other agency-grade tools you need to generate more opens, replies, and conversions.

Want to learn more? Speak to us to find out about our agency plans.

Start Generating Better Client Results With QuickMail

Still not sure if QuickMail is the right choice for your agency?

We won’t try to convince you. We prefer to leave that to our clients; agency leaders like you who are achieving spectacular results with us in their corner.

Like LinkedHacker, which scaled to 200+ cold outreach clients with QuickMail.

Or LevelUp Leads, which served over 120 clients in three years through our platform while seeing open rates of up to 60% and reply rates up to 8% — even when outreaching to enterprise-level prospects.

For a full overview of how QuickMail can help your agency, speak with us.