Cold outreach is the most scalable, consistent, and cost-effective way for SaaS startups to find customers. But this strategy requires more than sending automation. You need tools for building the proper infrastructure for cold outreach.
How to Build Cold Outreach Infrastructure for SaaS
Cold outreach needs more than sending automation to succeed. Scalable and profitable campaigns demand an infrastructure that can handle your cold email outreach operations. For most startups, that means getting:
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Authentication and Technical Setups
- Never use your primary domain for cold outreach (e.g., CoolSaaSProduct.com).
- Buy alternate domains like:
- GetCoolSaaSProduct.com
- TryCoolSaaSProduct.com
- GoCoolSaaSProduct.com
Authenticate your domains by setting up DMARC, DKIM, SPF, and Forwarding. To improve deliverability, new domains must also be warmed before being used in campaigns.
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Alternate Domain Warmup
New domains warmup naturally by sending and receiving emails. If you want to scale, you must automate the process. Warmup tools place domains inside a pool with other domains, each sending and receiving positive emails to ensure high deliverability rates.
SaaS Cold Outreach Essentials: Best Tools for Scalable Growth
Cold outreach provides some of the highest ROI across all other growth vehicles. So, if you want to be proactive about growing your SaaS product, here are the essential tools you should have in your tech stack:
1. Saleshandy: The All-in-One Cold Email Outreach Tool
Saleshandy is an AI-powered, complete cold email outreach platform built to simplify prospecting, lead generation, and meeting booking for businesses and agencies of all sizes. It provides everything you need, from email automation and multi-step sequences to personalization, as well as deliverability tools designed to maximize inbox placement.
Saleshandy makes cold outreach simple. Once your campaigns are set up, you can add leads, create automated multi-step sequences, and track replies all from a single unified dashboard. It also offers agency-focused features, such as unlimited client management, Unified inbox, white-labeling, and centralized reporting, making it ideal for managing multiple clients efficiently.
What Saleshandy Offers:
AI Sequence Copilot for creating sequences with just one click
Automated multi-step email sequences with follow-ups
Personalization features using spintax, merge tags, and variable tags
Advanced deliverability suite with email warm-up, sender rotation, and sequence scoring
Unified inbox to manage and categorize all prospect replies
Reporting & analytics with real-time tracking and export options
Built-in email verification, A/B testing, and LinkedIn Chrome extension
Access to a 700M+ B2B contact database with 60+ profiles
API, webhooks, and native integrations
Pricing (Billed Annually):
Outreach Starter: $25/month
Outreach Pro: $69/month
Outreach Scale: $139/month
Outreach Scale Plus100k: $209/month
2. Instantly.ai: The Plug-and-Play Cold Email Outreach Tool
Only a handful can match the value you get from Instantly when it comes to cold outreach, specifically cold sales emails. It has everything you need from infrastructure set up, email automation, lead generation tools, and features built to ensure maximum deliverability.
Instantly makes cold outreach simple. After establishing your email infrastructure (for which they offer a DFY service), you only need to add leads to a campaign, create automated email campaigns, and monitor results. And if you’re a complete beginner, Instantly has all the learning resources readily available within the app, their website, and YouTube channel. Starting an account is free, and you get 100 leads from the Instantly B2B Lead Finder tool.
What Instantly Offers:
- Server and IP Sharding and Rotation (Cloud-based private servers and dedicated IPs)
- Unlimited warmups, domains, and sending accounts
- Pre-verified leads from Instantly B2B Lead Finder
- Automated custom personalization with AI prompts from the Instantly community
- Drip campaign automation with multiple email variations
- Auto-optimize campaign based on A/B testing results
Pricing (You get a 20% discount if you pay annually):
- Growth: $37/month. 10,000 contacts and 50,000 emails.
- Hypergrowth: $97/month. 25,000 contacts and 100,000 emails.
- Lightspeed: $358/month. 100,000 contacts and 500,000 emails (includes SISR).
- Enterprise: Custom pricing and access to a private deliverability network.
3. ColdSire: Bulk Google and Microsoft Domain Setup
Leads aren’t the only thing you should add to your campaigns. Scaling email volume also means adding more domains and sending accounts to your outreach tool of choice. But you’d have to do the authentication yourself for each domain. ColdSire automates this process in bulk.
It’ll take ColdSire about 30 minutes for your email accounts to be ready after purchase. It also connects seamlessly with tools like Instantly. Then, you can assign personas to the emails you bought through ColdSire’s dashboard.
What ColdSire Offers:
- Deliverability monitoring
- Centralized inbox management
- Automated DMARC, DKIM, and SPF setup
- Cold Email ROI calculator
- No subscriptions required
Pricing: Based on the number of alternate domains and email accounts you’re getting.
Let’s say you want to send 10,000 cold emails/month. A safe setup would be four alternate domains, each with three email accounts sending 30 emails daily. That would cost around $60.
4. Apollo.io: All-in-One Prospecting and Cold Email Platform
If you’re looking for a tool that does both lead sourcing and cold email outreach, Apollo.io makes a pretty strong case. It has a massive B2B contact database, built-in email sequencing, and CRM software integrations all under one roof.
What Apollo.io Offers:
- Access to 275+ million contacts with verified emails and phone numbers
- Built-in email sequencing and follow-up automation
- CRM integrations with Salesforce, HubSpot, and more
- Enrichment tools for contact and account data
- Activity tracking and analytics for email performance
Pricing (1 credit = 1 email address and 5 credits = 1 phone number):
- Free: Up to 250 emails per day. 100 credits per month
- Basic: $49/month. Unlimited sending volume (subject to fair use). 5,000 credits
- Professional: $99/month. 10,000 credits. Includes A/B testing and power dialer
- Organization: $149/month (minimum of 3 users). 15,00 credits and advanced features
Apollo is the go-to lead generation tool for many. However, users report that a good chunk of the contact information, especially phone numbers or job titles, can be outdated or incorrect. You’ll want to use a secondary verification tool before adding the leads to your campaigns.
5. Reply.io: Multichannel Outreach with AI-Powered Automation
Sales happen across multiple touchpoints and platforms. Reply.io centralizes these touchpoints to build cold outreach sequences that include LinkedIn, SMS, emails, and phone calls. No more jumping between platforms or losing track of follow-ups and conversations.
What Reply.io Offers:
- Combines email, LinkedIn, SMS, and calls in one sequence.
- Use AI to optimize messaging and timing.
- CRM Integrations: Integrate with Salesforce, HubSpot, and other CRMs.
- Tracks performance metrics across all channels
- Gradually increase sending volume to build sender reputation.
If you’re a startup that’s spread thin when it comes to sales outreach, Reply also has Jason, an AI SDR you can “hire.” It can do the following:
- AI-created ICP
- AI-generated sequences
- Real time B2B database
- AI personalization
- High-accuracy emails
- AI responses handling
- Evergreen sequences
- Co-pilot and Autopilot modes
Pricing for Agencies:
- $166/month: Email automation, unlimited emails, centralized inbox.
- Tailored Pricing: Includes Jason AI SDR.
Pricing for Sales Outreach (Depends on Active Contacts):
- Email Blast: $69/month. Email automation, warmups, and 100 lead credits
- Multichannel: $89/month. 10 inboxes, call and SMS automation, and 200 lead credits.
Key Takeaways
If you want to grow your SaaS startup’s customer base fast, the most scalable and cost-effective strategy you can use is cold outreach. To recap, here are the tools we recommend:
- Instantly.ai: Perfect for scaling growth through personalized cold emails
- ColdSire: Buy authenticated alternate domains and email accounts in bulk
- Apollo.io: Find, enrich, and contact B2B Leads in one platform
- Reply.io: Multichannel sales outreach option for email, SMS, LinkedIn, and phone calls