Sales · Outbound

Cold outbound (solo)

Solo founder: skip Clay, Smartlead, HubSpot.

When you're a one-person team sending under 500 emails a month, you don't need Clay enrichment or Smartlead infrastructure. Apollo basic for leads, Claude for the email, Gmail for delivery.

· 5 months ago
SALESBEGINNERBeginnerFrom $26/mo
ApolloApolloClaudeGmail
The stack
Apollo
Apollo
Lead source + light enrichment

Free tier or $49 Basic gives you the contacts plus what little enrichment you need at solo scale.

Free · $49/seat/mo Basic · $79/seat/mo Professional (annual billing)
Claude
Per-lead copy

Solo volume means you can hand-personalize. Claude drafts from a 1-line trigger you write yourself.

Free · $20/mo Pro · $100/mo Max 5x · $200/mo Ultra · Sonnet API $2/$10 per M tokens (input/output)Alts: ChatGPT
Gmail
Send

Use one secondary domain inbox, hand-send. Skip Smartlead until you exceed 500 sends/month.

Free · $7/user/mo Workspace Starter (annual)
Real monthly cost
small
$26/mo
100 sends/mo, hand-sent
  • apolloFree
  • claude$20
  • gmail$6 Workspace
medium
$75/mo
300 sends/mo
  • apollo$49 Basic
  • claude$20
  • gmail$6 Workspace
heavy
$105/mo
500 sends/mo (max before Smartlead)
  • apollo$79 Pro
  • claude$20
  • gmail$6 Workspace
Recent changes to this stack
featureOCT 29

Usage and Cost Analytics API launched in beta to track token consumption and costs

Anthropic released the Usage and Cost Analytics API in beta, enabling organizations to monitor token usage and costs across Claude API consumption with filtering and grouping by dimensions like model, workspace, and API key. The API provides /v1/organizations/analytics/usage and /v1/organizations/analytics/cost endpoints. Legacy usage reporting endpoints remain supported.

docs.claude.comagentaffects Full-stack with Lovable, Cloud IDE with Replit, UI-first with v0 +31
featureOCT 23

Claude Tag API released in beta for Claude Enterprise organizations on Slack

The Claude Tag API is now available in beta for Claude Enterprise organizations, providing endpoints to read and configure Claude Tag settings on Slack channels and workspaces with Access bundle support. The API requires Admin API keys with read:claude_tag or write:claude_tag scope. This feature is exclusive to Claude Enterprise.

docs.claude.comagentaffects Full-stack with Lovable, Cloud IDE with Replit, UI-first with v0 +31
Workflow
  1. 1
    Build a tight listApollo

    Apollo: filter to your tightest ICP. Cap the export at 100 contacts. At solo scale, list quality beats list size.

  2. 2
    One trigger per lead

    For each contact, jot one specific trigger (recent post, funding, hire, product launch). 30 seconds per lead.

  3. 3
    Draft each emailClaude

    Paste the trigger + ICP into Claude. One email per lead.

    Prompt · Hand-personalized cold email
    Write a 4-line cold email.

Recipient: {{first_name}}, {{title}} at {{company}}.
Trigger I noticed: {{1 specific thing, e.g. "their post about hiring 3 SDRs in Berlin last week"}}.
Pain we solve: {{1 line}}.
Proof: {{1 specific outcome with a number}}.
CTA: open to a 12-min look next week?

Constraints:
- Subject: 3 to 5 words, lowercase. Output 2 options.
- Body: 4 lines (hook with the trigger, pain, proof, CTA).
- Under 80 words.
- No "I noticed", no "I hope this finds you well", no "quick question".

Output: subject options, then the email body.
  4. 4
    Send + follow up by handGmail

    Send from your secondary inbox. Two follow-ups: +3 days (1 line, sharper hook), +7 days (1 line, breakup). Stop there.

What it produced
Solo founder, ProServ B2B

300 sends over 6 weeks: 8.4% reply rate (high, because hand-personalized), 14 booked calls, 3 closed at $4k average. Total tooling cost in that window: $90.

Common pitfalls
Gmail send limits + spam triggers

Hard cap at 30 sends/day from a single inbox. Past 500/mo, deliverability collapses. That's when you graduate to the recommended stack.

Skipping the trigger

Without the per-lead trigger this stack falls apart. The whole reason it works at solo scale is that each email earns the open. Don't paste-and-blast.

Other ways to do Cold outbound
Cold outbound Recommended
Full motion: enrichment, deliverability, CRM
$108/mo
ApolloClaySmartlead
View stack
Weekly changelog

What changed in AI tools and the stacks that ship. One email a week.

Spotted something off?
Wrong price, dead link, stale tool — anything. We review every fix.
Suggest a fix to this stack