Outreach and sales engagement platforms help sales professionals build and nurture relationships with leads and customers. They can also keep teams organized for more efficiency and a better sales workflow.
Outreach.io is one such popular sales enablement platform. It helps companies track their leads across multiple channels like email, social media, among others. The platform also lets users create custom email outreach campaigns to help nurture leads and retain existing customers.
While an all-around sales software, Outreach.io, is expensive. It costs around $100 per month per user. There’s also an annual commitment.
For a new business, that may not be an option. The good news is, there are Outreach alternatives you can use. Here is a list of the ten best sales enablement software solutions your sales team can use in their outreach efforts and other campaigns to help you.
What Should You Look for from an Outreach Alternative?
If you’re looking for a viable alternative to Outreach.io, there are many. Here’s a list of some key features that should be non-negotiable when searching for sales enablement software:
Prospect Tracking
Your sales enablement tool needs prospect tracking. You want notifications in real-time when a lead opens and views emails and clicks through on a link or opens an attachment. The software should also have a dashboard that provides insights such as the average view times of the presentation and engagement statistics.
Data like this is important to sales pros and even to marketing teams. With that information, you can better understand the buyer’s interest and use this new information to modify their presentations and personalized emails for better engagement.
Campaign Organization
You need good campaign organization. The software should allow sales managers to organize email campaigns, cold email campaigns, and email templates, among others, into customizable folders. That information should be shareable. That way, your team can share the data with sales reps who are part of your outbound sales teams and even with your customer success team.
Effective campaign organization will help streamline workflow and ensure proper task management. Essentially, your team will be more productive whether they’re running an email sequence, drip campaigns, or doing their cold outreach.
Email Scheduling
Look for sales engagement platforms that allow sales managers to schedule follow-up emails, send personalized emails, and create advanced sales sequences. Automating the sending of emails is a big time saver.
With email automation, your sales managers can focus on other aspects of running sales organizations, such as sales growth and sales operations.
Best Outreach Alternatives
That should give you an idea of what to look for from a sales enablement platform. Here’s let’s a list of some of our recommended options.
| Software | Starting From | Best Thing About It | Biggest Problem |
| Mailshake | $44 per user per month billed annually | All-around sales tool for outreach and engagement | Campaign reports can be improved |
| Hubspot Sales Hub | $45 per month for billed annually | Allows for great customization | Expensive |
| Yesware | $15 per user per month billed annually | Easy to use | Lack of email template customization |
| Salesforce Sales Cloud | $25 per user per month billed annually | Powerful | Steep learning curve |
| Zendesk Sell | $19 per user per month billed annually | With mobile app | Email templates not available in the basic plan |
| Salesloft | Pricing is not available on the website | Has paid plans for each stage in the buyer’s journey | Mobile functionality can be improved |
| Klenty | $35 per user per month billed annually | Advanced email personalization | Can be buggy |
| Reply | $50 per user per month | Offers a 14-day free trial | Focus is only on email outreach |
| Zoho CRM | $14 per user per month billed annually | Flexible free trial | UI could be improved |
| InsideSales | Pricing is not available on the website | Data-backed recommendations on when and how to reach out | Some users report crashes |
Let’s look at the options one at a time:
1. Mailshake
Mailshake is a sales enablement platform that allows a salesperson to connect with prospects and book meetings. You can send personalized emails at scale and manage your campaigns from one dashboard. You also get access to email templates.
Mailshake allows sales experts to engage with prospects via email, social media, and phone. You can also automate follow-up sequences according to how a prospect engages with your messaging. There’s also an A/B testing feature to optimize your flow. That allows you to test multiple versions of your emails and improve campaign conversions.
Key Features
- Advanced scheduling & throttling
- Automated email sequences
- Lead catcher
- A/B testing
- Email template management
Cons
- The basic plan doesn’t include sales engagement features
- Limited support options (no live chat)
Pricing
Mailshake offers two paid plans–the Email Outreach plan at $45 per user per month, and the Sales Engagement Plan, at $75 per user per month. The Sales Engagement Plan allows users to utilize the phone dialer and create custom tasks.
2. Hubspot Sales Hub
Hubspot Sales Hub is a sales CRM software solution. You can use it for lead generation, tracking, sales automation, and lead scoring.
Regarding email marketing, Hubspot allows you to track the emails you sent and see when a lead or a customer opens the message. That feature is great when you’re sending emails out in bulk to prospects.
Hubspot allows you to make calls easily to prospects too. The tool has a conversation intelligence feature to help you understand why some calls don’t convert. That’s a great feature for sales team training.
Hubspot Sales Hub is also a powerful sales CRM software solution.
Key Features
- Email templates
- Email tracking
- Document management and tracking
- Call tracking
- Conversation intelligence
Cons
- Expensive
- Plans are not flexible
Pricing
The Hubspot Sales Hub has three paid pricing plans. The Starter plan costs $45 per month for 1,000 marketing contacts. The Professional plan costs $800 per month for 2,000 contacts. The Enterprise plan starts at $3,200 per month.
3. Yesware
Yesware helps sales teams improve outreach. You can use the software to automate many elements of your campaign. You’ll see when each prospect or customer reads or clicks on links in your message through the dashboard.
Yesware also reveals what messages drive leads down your sales pipeline. You can save your best-performing emails as a template for team members to use.
The software is easy to use. You can set up email tracking in an hour or less. As a beginner, you will quickly get to grips with how the tool works.
Key Features
- Email tracking
- Shared campaigns
- Email templates
- Email scheduling
Cons
- Lack of email template customization
- Customer support could be better
Pricing
Yesware offers three paid plans: the Pro, Premium, and Enterprise plans. The Pro plan costs $15 per user per month, including unlimited email tracking and unlimited attachment tracking. The Premium plan costs $35 per user per month. You get the Salesforce integration with the Enterprise plan that costs $65 per user per month.
4. Salesforce Sales Cloud
Salesforce Sales Cloud is a powerful sales CRM software solution. Sales teams can use the software to send outreach emails and track them. You can monitor campaigns from the dashboard.
With Salesforce Sales Cloud, teams can set up automatic lead scoring and routing. That way, sales reps can follow up immediately on a hot lead. You can track communication history as well, which is useful for customer retention campaigns.
Salesforce can help you run your business even after your outreach. It allows for sales forecasting with its AI-powered features so you can make informed business decisions.
Key Features
- Contact management
- Email monitoring
- Email campaign sharing
- Email integration with Gmail or Outlook
- Mobile sales platform
Cons
- Steep learning curve
- Can be expensive
Pricing
Salesforce Sales Cloud offers four pricing plans: Essentials, Professional, Enterprise, and Unlimited. The Essentials plan costs $25 per user per month and has what you need for basic email outreach. If you want lead scoring, you’d need to avail of at least the Professional plan, at $75 per user per month. That also includes the AI-powered features for collaborative forecasting.
5. Zendesk Sell
Zendesk Sell allows your sales reps to send emails, make calls, and schedule meetings. You can also check a prospect’s deal history, which is useful when planning a campaign/ responding to a customer. You can access the data and manage campaigns through the dashboard.
Zendesk Sell has lots of integrations. That means sales teams can access relevant data through third-party tools. It’s useful if you want tools in your tech stack to work together.
Key Features
- Email tracking
- Real-time notifications
- Email automation with sales engagement
Cons
- Email templates not available with the basic plan
- Can be complicated
Pricing
Zendesk offers three paid plans. The Sell Team plan costs $19 per user per month and is billed annually. That includes email integration, up to three paid users, and the mobile CRM. For unlimited email templates and personalized bulk emailing, you need to avail yourself of the Sell Professional or the Sell Enterprise plan. That costs $49 per user per month and $99 per user per month, respectively.
6. Salesloft
Salesloft allows sales teams to build relationships and engage with prospects and customers effectively. It offers email automation, so you don’t have to send messages manually. You get real-time notifications when a prospect or a customer opens an email.
Sales professionals can use Salesloft to gain insights into campaigns so you can optimize your results. There’s also a handy mobile app so you can monitor campaigns on the go.
Key Features
- Analytics and reporting
- Email automation
- Mobile app
Cons
- Mobile functionality can be improved
- Salesforce integration could be better
Pricing
Salesloft has three paid platforms: Sell, Engage, and Enterprise. The cost of each plan, however, is not displayed on the website. You need to request a quote.
7. Klenty
Klenty lets you send automated emails to prospects and customers. You can personalize your emails easily. You can adjust subject lines, add a person’s name, and include previous contact history in your template if you choose. You can even experiment with video in your content.
Customizing email sequences with Klenty for better engagement is easy as well.
You also get access to comprehensive tracking data through the dashboard. For example, you can see which emails have been opened and which haven’t.
Key Features
- Video personalization
- Liquid templates
- Intent-based playbooks
Cons
- Can be buggy
- Expensive
Pricing
Klenty has three paid plans teams can use, depending on their focus. Teams focusing on email outreach, for instance, can avail of the Startup plan at $35 per user per month. The Growth plan, at $60 per user per month, is for those that want multichannel sales engagement. The Enterprise plan, meanwhile, is for big teams that need advanced reporting and access control. It costs $100 per user per month.
8. Reply
Reply helps sales teams build relationships with prospects. You can search for prospects on LinkedIn and add them to your outreach sequence with the outreach tool. The LinkedIn integration is a great feature, especially for B2B companies that use the platform for prospecting.
You can use Reply to run multichannel prospecting campaigns via email, LinkedIn, SMS, and WhatsApp. Multichannel marketing can improve engagement rates, which can boost the chances of a conversion.
Reply uses AI for email prospecting. The AI scores the quality of your email, so you can make improvements before hitting the send button.
Key Features
- LinkedIn integration
- Multichannel prospect engagement
- AI-backed text quality scoring
Cons
- Focus is only on email outreach
- Can be expensive
Pricing
Reply’s paid plans allow users to engage with an unlimited number of contacts. The $50 per user per month plan is for teams with a minimum of ten users. Those with a minimum of five users can avail of the $60 per user per month plan. The $70 per user per month plan is for teams with a minimum of three users.
9. Zoho CRM Social
Zoho CRM social allows you to connect with customers or prospects via email, social media, telephone, or live chat. The tool offers real-time notifications, so you can track engagement.
You can also monitor customer interactions and measure the effectiveness of the teams’ communication using the sales engagement platform. The Zia, the AI-powered assistant, can help you identify leads that are more likely to make a purchase too.
Key Features
- Real-time notifications
- AI-backed actionable insights
- Automation
- Multi-channel communication
Cons
- The UI can be improved
- Limited dashboard customization
Pricing
Zoho CRM Social has four paid plans to choose from Standard, Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate plans. The paid plans start at $14 per user per month billed annually. Each plan, however, comes with a free trial.
10. InsideSales
InsideSales helps sales teams manage communication with prospects and customers. The tool collects lead data so you can better understand your audience. You can track prospect interactions and conduct profiles analysis.
It’s a great tool for sales managers since you can see monitor team performance. You can also track campaign performance, allowing you to adjust your sales team’s approach based on what’s working best.
Key Features
- Email templates
- Email tracking
- Multichannel communication
- Actionable reporting
Cons
- No email threading
- Some glitches
Pricing
InsideSales doesn’t specify how many plans it has on its website. The website doesn’t specify the pricing either.
Wrapping Up
If you want to succeed as a business, you need an outreach and sales engagement platform like Outreach.io. The tool should allow your teams to build and nurture relationships with prospects and customers effectively. The more engaged they are, after all, the more likely they’ll convert.
Those who can’t afford to use Outreach.io don’t need to worry. This article specified the best alternatives to the tool in the market. While all of them are good, if I had to pick one, though, I’d pick Mailshake because of its all-around outreach and sales engagement capability. The A/B testing feature is also useful since it can help teams optimize campaigns for better results.
Identify your business needs and pick a tool that addresses them. You’ll see a more productive and efficient sales team in no time.
