Instantly: Cold Email Outreach With a Built-In Lead Database

What is Instantly?

Instantly is a cold email outreach and sales engagement platform, founded in 2021 by Raoul Kaevand and Nils Schneider. It started as an internal tool built for their own lead generation agency, after the pricing on existing tools scaled up rather than down as they grew.

The company is fully bootstrapped with no outside venture funding, has grown to roughly 200 employees, and reports over $38 million in annual revenue. Instantly has expanded well past basic email sending into a 450M+ B2B lead database, an AI Sales Agent, an AI Reply Agent, and a built-in CRM, positioning itself as a full outbound stack rather than just a sending tool.

What is Instantly used for?

The most common use case is finding leads, writing outreach, and sending it all from one platform instead of stitching together a separate database tool, a copywriting workflow, and a sending tool. Instantly's Lead Database lets you filter 450M+ B2B contacts by 13+ criteria, including keywords and lookalikes, without a separate data provider.

A solo consultant searches the database for a specific job title and company size, exports the list directly into a campaign, and lets the AI Email Writer Agent draft personalized first-touch emails using research pulled from each lead's public profile. A founder running multiple outreach angles uses the Unibox to see every reply across every mailbox in one shared view, with an AI Reply Agent flagging which replies are worth a human response.

Instantly AI (Copilot) can also build an entire campaign from a single prompt, "WARP Mode" finding leads, writing copy, and launching the sequence with minimal manual setup.

Instantly Capabilities

Unlimited Email Accounts and Warmup

Every Outreach plan, even the cheapest, includes unlimited connected mailboxes and unlimited automated warmup at no extra per-account cost.

450M+ B2B Lead Database

Search and filter contacts by 13+ criteria including keywords and lookalikes, with waterfall enrichment pulling from 5+ data providers to fill in missing details. Only available on Bundle or standalone Credits plans, not the Outreach-only plans.

AI Sales Agent and AI Reply Agent

The Sales Agent researches and drafts personalized outreach; the Reply Agent classifies and prioritizes responses so hot leads surface first. Both are gated to Bundle plans (Reply Agent specifically requires Scale and up).

Unibox

A single shared inbox for every reply across every connected mailbox and campaign, removing the need to check accounts individually.

Bring Your Own LLM Key

On Credits and Bundle plans, you can connect your own API key for OpenAI, Anthropic, or other providers instead of relying solely on Instantly's included model access.

Who uses Instantly?

Founders & Executives

Sales & Outreach

Marketers & Advertisers

Freelancers & Solopreneurs

Small Agencies

Who Gets Real Value From Instantly

Primary fit

Solo founders who want lead sourcing, AI-assisted outreach drafting, and sending infrastructure in one subscription rather than stitching multiple tools together.

Secondary fit

Founders who only need reliable sending and warmup without the lead database, better served by the standalone Outreach-only Growth plan at $47/month rather than a Bundle.

Instantly Features

Sending & Deliverability

Unlimited email accounts, unlimited warmup, advanced warmup capabilities, global block list, A/Z testing, reputation protection and bounce detection, SISR dedicated IP/server system (Light Speed and up)

Outreach Automation

Advanced sequences, advanced scheduling, email and account analytics, API, webhooks, and integrations

Lead Generation

450M+ B2B lead database, 13+ filters including lookalikes, waterfall enrichment (5+ providers), job posting/news/technology/funding enrichment, export to major CRMs

AI & Agents

AI Sales Agent, AI Reply Agent, Instantly Web Researcher Agent, AI Email Writer Agent, access to 5 major LLMs, bring-your-own API key, 100+ community AI templates, WARP Mode (prompt-to-campaign)

Team & Support

Invite team members, chat support (Growth), priority/premium live support (Hypergrowth and up), dedicated account manager and shared Slack channel (Enterprise)

About Instantly Pricing

Growth (Outreach Only)

$47 /month

Hypergrowth (Outreach Only)

$97 /month

Light Speed (Outreach Only)

$358 /month

Free Plan: Not available as a permanent tier. Instantly offers a free trial with no credit card required.

Outreach-Only Plans (sending and warmup, no lead database):

Growth — $47/month (monthly) / $37.60/month (billed annually): Unlimited email accounts and warmup, 1,000 uploaded contacts, 5,000 emails/month, chat support.
Hypergrowth — $97/month (monthly) / $77.60/month (billed annually): Unlimited accounts and warmup, 25,000 contacts, 100,000 emails/month, premium live support.
Light Speed — $358/month (monthly) / $286.30/month (billed annually): Everything in Hypergrowth, plus 500,000 emails/month, 100,000 contacts, and the SISR dedicated IP/server system.

Bundle Plans (Outreach + Lead Database + AI Agents combined):

Starter — $94/month (monthly) / $85/month (billed annually, "save 10%"): 5,000 emails/month, 1,000 contacts, 1,500 Instantly credits, access to the 450M+ lead database, AI Sales Agent.
Scale — $194/month (monthly) / $175/month (billed annually), marked "Most Popular": Everything in Starter, plus 100,000 emails/month, 25,000 contacts, 5,000 credits, AI Reply Agent, Unibox replies, advanced deliverability, premium live support.
Agency — $555/month (monthly) / $500/month (billed annually): Everything in Scale, plus 500,000 emails/month, 100,000 contacts, 10,000 credits, and the SISR system.
Enterprise / VIP: Custom pricing for both the platform (Enterprise) and a fully managed, done-for-you setup service (VIP) with a dedicated GTM engineer.

Annual vs. Monthly: Annual billing saves roughly 10% across Bundle plans and roughly 20% across standalone Outreach and Credits plans.

If You Cancel: No lock-in mentioned for standard plans; standard cancellation applies at the end of the current billing period.

⚠️ Worth knowing: Instantly sells three separate pricing tracks (Outreach-only, Credits-only, and Bundles), and the same plan name (like "Growth") appears in more than one track at a different price and with different inclusions. Confirm you're looking at the right tab before comparing prices, since it's genuinely easy to price-compare the wrong plan against a competitor.

Prices last verified August 2026. Check Instantly's pricing page directly, since figures shift between the Bundles, Outreach, and Credits tabs.

What Instantly Replaces in Your Stack

✓ Can Replace

A separate lead database subscription like Apollo or ZoomInfo, since the 450M+ contact database is bundled into the Bundle plans rather than sold as a standalone product elsewhere.

Manually researching each lead before writing outreach, since the AI Web Researcher Agent pulls context automatically before the Email Writer Agent drafts the message.

Checking multiple mailboxes for replies separately, replaced by the Unibox consolidating everything into one shared view.

→ Sits Alongside

Your CRM. Instantly exports to major CRMs and outreach providers rather than fully replacing a dedicated CRM for complex deal management.

Your actual email mailboxes. Instantly is the sending, warmup, and automation layer, not the email provider itself, so you still need Google Workspace, Outlook, or SMTP accounts underneath it.

Honest Note

A dedicated deliverability specialist for the highest-stakes campaigns. Instantly's SISR system (Light Speed and up) automates IP and server rotation, but it sits alongside, not replaces, a human's judgment on domain strategy for very large-scale sending.

Frequently Asked Questions

Possibly, and largely because of the three-track pricing structure. A solo founder who only wants sending should stay on standalone Outreach Growth at $47/month; anyone who also wants the lead database and AI agents needs a Bundle plan instead, starting at $94/month.

About 30-60 minutes to connect a mailbox and start warmup. Real deliverability improvement from warmup takes 1-2 weeks before sending at full volume, regardless of how fast setup itself is.

Yes, on every Outreach and Bundle plan, the software connection itself is unlimited with no per-account fee. You still need the actual Google, Outlook, or SMTP mailboxes underneath, which are a separate cost from Instantly's subscription.

Not for the core outreach and lead database features, both are guided through the interface. Using your own LLM API key or building custom automations through the API benefits from more technical comfort, though it's optional.

Both include unlimited mailboxes on their base plans. Instantly's differentiator is the bundled 450M+ lead database and AI agents built into one subscription; Smartlead leans more purely into sending infrastructure and deliverability, with lead sourcing sold as a separate, differently structured add-on.

If you only need reliable sending, the $47/month Outreach-only Growth plan is simple and comparable to competitors. The complexity shows up if you want the lead database and AI agents too, where it's worth reading the Bundle tab carefully rather than assuming the cheapest advertised price applies to what you actually need.

What Is Instantly?