Sales · Outbound

Cold outbound

RecommendedFull motion: enrichment, deliverability, CRM

Apollo for the leads, Clay for the enrichment + per-row LLM, Smartlead to send at deliverability scale, Claude to write the copy, HubSpot to catch the meetings.

SALESINTERMEDIATEIntermediateFrom $120/mo
The stack
Apollo
Lead source

275M contacts. Filter by ICP, export to Clay.

Free · $49/mo Basic · $79/mo ProAlts: Clay
Clay
Enrichment + per-row LLM

Trigger-based personalization at scale. The competitive moat of modern outbound.

$149/mo Starter · $349/mo Explorer
Claude
Copy

Tighter, less salesy hooks than the alternatives. 4-line emails out-perform 8-line.

$20/mo Pro · API $3/M tokensAlts: ChatGPT
Smartlead
Send infra

Unlimited inboxes + warmup. The reason your sequences land in inbox not spam.

$39/mo Basic · $94/mo Pro

Free tier covers small teams. Sequences + meetings on the same record.

Free · $20/mo/seat Starter
Real monthly cost
small
$120/mo
Solo, 500 sends/mo
  • apollo$49
  • clay$0 trial
  • claude$20
  • smartlead$39
  • hubspotFree
medium
$340/mo
2 SDRs, 5k sends/mo
  • apollo$79
  • clay$149
  • claude$20
  • smartlead$94
  • hubspotFree
heavy
$1,150/mo
5 SDRs, 30k sends/mo
  • apollo$390
  • clay$349
  • claude$80 API
  • smartlead$179
  • hubspot$150 Starter
Workflow
  1. 1
    Define ICPApollo

    Apollo: filter to your tightest ICP. Export 1k contacts.

  2. 2
    EnrichClay

    Clay: pull tech stack, headcount changes, recent funding. One LLM call per row to write the hook.

    Prompt · Per-row personalization (Clay LLM column)
    You are writing a 1-line opener for a cold email. ONE specific reference, not two.
    
    Company: {{company_name}}
    Role of recipient: {{title}}
    Recent trigger (pick the strongest of these): {{recent_funding}} | {{headcount_change}} | {{tech_change}} | {{news_event}}
    
    Output ONE sentence (max 22 words) that:
    - references exactly one trigger by name
    - lands a small, accurate observation about what it means for them
    - does not flatter, does not say "I noticed", does not say "congrats"
    - ends in a period, not a question
    
    Output only the sentence.
  3. 3
    Write copyClaude

    Claude writes the 4-line email per persona. Test 3 hooks per ICP.

    Prompt · 4-line cold email by persona
    Write a 4-line cold email.
    
    Persona: {{title}} at {{company_size}} {{vertical}} companies.
    Pain we solve: {{1-line pain}}.
    Proof: {{1 specific outcome with a number}}.
    Soft CTA: {{e.g. "open to a 12-min look next week?"}}.
    
    Constraints:
    - Subject line: 3 to 5 words, lowercase, no clickbait. Output 3 options.
    - Body: exactly 4 lines (line 1 hook, line 2 pain, line 3 proof, line 4 CTA).
    - Total under 80 words.
    - No "I hope this finds you well", no "I'd love to", no "quick question".
    - One CTA only. No P.S.
    
    Output: subject options, then the email body.
    Prompt · 3 hook variants for A/B test
    Generate 3 distinct hooks for the email above. Each hook should test a different angle:
    1. Trigger-based (recent change at their company)
    2. Peer-based (a similar company already does this)
    3. Status-quo cost (what doing nothing costs them)
    
    Each hook is 1 line under 18 words. Output as a numbered list, no commentary.
  4. 4

    Smartlead, 30 sends/inbox/day, 6 inboxes per persona. Warmup always on.

  5. 5
    CatchHubSpot

    HubSpot sequences hand off to AE. Meetings booked = stop the sequence.

What it produced
B2B SaaS, $25k ACV

1.4% reply rate, 0.6% meeting rate at 4k sends/month. 5 closed-won in Q3 from outbound alone, $130k ACV pipeline.

Common pitfalls
Inbox burn

Send from inboxes you don't care about. One sequence's bad luck kills your real domain.

Over-personalized = creepy

Reference one trigger, never two. Two reads as stalking.

No follow-up = no replies

60% of replies come from email 3 or 4. Sequence ≥ 5.

Other ways to do Cold outbound
Curated by @alex-w
Updated weekly · last refresh: just now