COMPARE:
Instantly or lemlist for running an outreach sequence
A straight comparison of Instantly and lemlist for running a cold outreach sequence, answered on the same seven dimensions as every other compare page here. Mamba Labs builds the Apify actors here, Clay to Instantly Smartlead Push included, and the page says where it is the wrong answer.
The verdict
Instantly is an email sender with the deliverability stack attached. lemlist is a multichannel sequencer that happens to send email. Pick on whether the LinkedIn and call steps are real parts of your process or a slide in somebody's deck.
Dimension by dimension
| Instantly | lemlist | Clay to Instantly Smartlead Push | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it actually does | Sends cold email sequences from a pool of mailboxes and keeps those mailboxes warm. | Runs a multichannel sequence where one step is an email, the next a LinkedIn action, the next a call task. | Moves a finished list into an Instantly or a Smartlead campaign, with the rules applied on the way in. |
| Coverage and hit rate | Mailbox pool, warmup network, inbox placement testing and a shared blocklist, in one account. | Three channels in one timeline, plus warmup and a lead database sold on the same account. | Both senders, one payload shape, and a dry run that returns the exact body without sending it. |
| What it costs | Per plan, with mailbox counts and monthly send volume as the two things that move the price. | Per seat per month, in tiers, with the lead database and the warmup pool gated to the higher ones. | A cent per lead pushed, and nothing at all for a dry run. |
| How it fits a workflow | Campaigns take a CSV or an API push. Replies land in a unified inbox that a human can work. | Its own editor is the workflow. The API exists and is the thinner half of the product. | It is the step between the list and the sender, called from Clay or from a script. |
| Where the data comes from | It sends. The lead data is yours, and its own lead marketplace is a separate paid product. | It carries a contact database of its own, so a list can start inside the tool rather than outside it. | Your own rows. It adds no data and reads no provider. |
| What it takes to set up | Connecting and warming domains is the real work, and it takes two to three weeks before you send. | The multichannel steps need a connected LinkedIn account per sender, which is more to set up than email alone. | Paste the sender key, map your columns once, run the dry run, then turn it on. |
| Where it stops | It is a sender. Deciding who deserves the email is a job you do somewhere else. | Per seat pricing turns expensive the moment an agency runs it for several clients. | It does not send anything. Without a sender it has nowhere to put a lead. |
The same seven questions are asked on every compare page here, in this order, so two of these pages can be read against each other.
Where each one genuinely wins
- Instantly wins on coverage and hit rate, how it fits a workflow, what it takes to set up. A cold email sender with warmup and deliverability tooling in the same product.
- lemlist wins on where the data comes from, where it stops. A sequencer that runs email, LinkedIn and calls in one sequence, with its own lead database.
- Clay to Instantly Smartlead Push wins on what it actually does. Pushes a finished, scored list into whichever of the two you already send with.
- Nobody wins on what it costs. Instantly and lemlist give the same answer there, and we are not going to invent a difference.
Both products
What we would actually do
Most teams asking this send email and nothing else. If that is you, Instantly does the job for less money and gives you warmup and placement testing you would otherwise buy separately. lemlist earns its price when a rep genuinely works a LinkedIn step and a call task inside the same sequence, and when somebody is going to look at the reply timeline. Per seat pricing is the thing to check before you commit: an agency running lemlist across five clients pays five times, and Instantly does not work that way.
Some of the links on this page are affiliate links.