Best AI SDR Software in 2026: Published Prices, With Sources
In short
The best AI SDR software depends on what you want it to own. Apollo, Instantly and Smartlead sell the data and sending layer from $39 to $119 a month; 11x Alice sells an autonomous agent from $3,750 a month billed annually; Artisan publishes no price. Paramount Exposure sells no SDR software; it builds and runs outbound for clients on top of these tools, consent-first.
The best AI SDR software depends on what you want it to own. Apollo, Instantly and Smartlead sell the data, the mailboxes and the sending layer from $39 to $119 a month and leave the judgment to you; 11x sells an autonomous agent that researches, writes and sends on its own from $3,750 a month billed annually; Artisan sells the same idea and publishes no price. I run Paramount Exposure, which sells no SDR software at all. What it sells is outbound built in a client's own accounts and run for them, on top of tools like these, so I am a buyer of this category as well as a neighbour of it, and I rank nobody.
Every price below was read from the vendor's own pricing page on 2026-10-14 and the page is linked in the row. Where a vendor publishes nothing, the row says so instead of repeating a figure from a review site. That rule matters more in this category than in most, because the pages ranking for this query print undated "starting at" numbers that the vendors' own sites no longer show.
What an AI SDR actually does
A sales development representative does five things: finds the people, finds out something about them, writes the first message, follows up until there is an answer, and hands the interested ones to someone who can hold a meeting. "AI SDR software" is any product that does some of those five with a model instead of a person. The honest question is which of the five a given product does, and which it leaves to you.
The market sorts into three tiers.
Tier one: data and sequencing tools with AI features. Apollo, Instantly, Smartlead and Clay. They hold the contact data, verify the addresses, manage the mailboxes and send the sequences; the AI writes drafts, enriches records and triages replies. A human still decides who to contact and what to say. These are the cheapest products on the page and the ones many outbound teams actually run on.
Tier two: autonomous agents. 11x Alice and Artisan Ava. You describe the customer, the agent builds the list, writes the messages, sends them from mailboxes the vendor manages and surfaces replies. The pitch is a digital employee; the price is a salary-sized number.
Tier three: managed outbound. A firm runs the whole thing for you on whatever stack it prefers. MyNewStaff's Growth Engine is one; Paramount's Outbound Engine is another; Instantly and Smartlead both sell managed tiers by quote. This tier is labour, not software, and belongs on the page because the buyer searching for "AI SDR software" is usually choosing between buying the tool and buying the result.
The six criteria
Who owns the sending infrastructure. Domains, mailboxes and their reputation are the asset. 11x manages Gmail mailboxes on your behalf; Instantly and Smartlead let you bring your own or buy from them; Paramount builds them in your name. If the vendor owns them, leaving means starting warm-up again from zero.
Where the data comes from and whether it is verified. Bounces burn domains. Ask what verification runs before a send and what the bounce rate was on the last ten campaigns the vendor will show you.
Consent and compliance tooling. Postal address in every email, one-click unsubscribe, suppression lists, and a hard stop on automated calls and texts to numbers without written consent. The legal section below is the checklist.
Reply handling. The product that sends 20,000 emails and misses the three replies that mattered has done nothing. Ask how fast an interested reply gets an answer and who writes it.
Reporting honesty. Delivered, bounced, complaints, unsubscribes, replies, positive replies, meetings held. A dashboard that shows only "leads" is hiding the denominator.
Exit terms. Annual contracts are common in tier two. Know what you keep when you leave.
The options, with published prices
Prices checked 2026-10-14. Each figure is from the vendor's own page that day, linked in the source column. "Not published" means the page prints no number. The fuller write-ups are in 11x alternatives and MyNewStaff alternatives; the voice platforms are in best AI cold calling software for agencies, the managed tier in done-for-you AI lead generation, and every head-to-head is on the comparisons hub. Rates change; confirm before you sign.
| # | Option | Tier | Published price (checked 2026-10-14) | Best for | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Apollo | Data and sequencing | Free $0; Basic $49, Professional $79, Organization $119 per seat per month billed annually ($65 and $99 monthly; Organization needs 3 seats, annual only); Custom quoted; dialer add-on $119 per team per month annual | Teams that want contact data, sequences and a dialer in one seat | apollo.io/pricing |
| 2 | Instantly | Sending, data, AI agent | Outreach Growth $47, Hypergrowth $97, Light Speed $358/mo; Credits $47, $97, from $197/mo; Bundles $94, $194, $555/mo; Enterprise and VIP managed quoted | High-volume cold email with unlimited sending accounts | instantly.ai/pricing |
| 3 | Smartlead | Sending and infrastructure | Base $39, Pro $94, Unlimited Smart $174, Unlimited Prime $379/mo (yearly 17% off); mailboxes from $3.99/mo; managed SmartServices quoted | Agencies and teams that want unlimited mailboxes and white-label workspaces | smartlead.ai/pricing |
| 4 | Clay | Enrichment and GTM workflows | Free $0; Launch from $60/mo; Growth from $205/mo; Enterprise quoted; the card headline, "starts at" line and FAQ disagree on both tiers | RevOps teams building their own research and enrichment layer | clay.com/pricing |
| 5 | 11x Alice | Autonomous agent | Growth from $3,750/mo billed annually (2,000 new prospects a month, 11x-managed mailboxes, no setup fee); Pro and Enterprise quoted; the FAQ also says "$36,000 per year", which does not reconcile | Mid-market teams putting a digital worker on outbound for the first time | 11x.ai Alice pricing |
| 6 | Artisan Ava | Autonomous agent | Not published; Team (about 2,500 leads contacted a month), Scale (about 6,000) and Enterprise all "pricing scoped on your plan" | Teams that want an agent with a CRM-native workflow and will take a sales call to price it | artisan.co/pricing |
| 7 | 11x Julian | Inbound agent | Voice Growth $5,333/mo, Chat Growth $2,417/mo, billed annually; Pro and Enterprise quoted | Capturing inbound calls and chats the outbound agent creates | 11x.ai Julian pricing |
| 8 | MyNewStaff Growth Engine | Managed | $8,500/mo; Franchise Scale from $25,000/mo; free ScaleX diagnostic; "cancel anytime"; no as-of date on any price | Founders who want content, scraped leads, outreach and ads run as one retainer | their pricing page |
| 9 | Paramount Exposure, the company I run | Managed, built in your accounts | Outbound Install $2,500 once, 14 days; Outbound Engine Pilot $2,500/mo, Scale $5,000/mo; three-month minimum; rate card published for usage above the tier | Firms that want outbound run for them and want to own every asset. Limit: not software; a new line of work with no outbound results history yet | paramountexposure.com/services/ai-sdr |
What we checked, and when
Nine options, one of them mine. For each vendor I opened the public pricing page on 2026-10-14 and recorded the plan names and figures as published; Apollo, Artisan and Instantly render their prices client-side and were read in a browser. Where a page disagreed with itself, 11x's $3,750 a month against its "$36,000 per year" FAQ and Clay's three different Launch figures, the table records the discrepancy rather than choosing silently. Nothing comes from a review site, a sales call or memory. Paramount appears once, at the prices on its AI SDR service page, with its limits stated.
Software or a service: how to decide
The tier-one tools cost less than a lunch a month per seat and assume you have the seat. If you have a person who will build lists, write sequences and read replies every morning, Apollo plus Instantly or Smartlead is the stack many outbound teams run on, and nothing in tiers two or three will beat it on cost. The hard costs of a working email stack from the table: Smartlead from $39, Instantly from $47, Apollo from $49 a seat, mailboxes at $3.99 to $9 a month each, a Clay seat from $60 if you need enrichment logic. Under $200 a month before data credits.
Tier two makes sense when the seat does not exist and will not be hired, the deal size carries a $45,000-a-year agent, and you are comfortable with the vendor holding the mailboxes. 11x is the only autonomous-agent vendor on the page that publishes an entry price, which is itself a reason to start there.
Tier three is for firms that want the result and not the tool. The question to ask every managed vendor is the same: what do I own when I leave? MyNewStaff's pricing page does not say. Paramount's answer is written into the offer: domains, inboxes, numbers, lists, consent records, sequences, scripts, recordings and CRM data, all yours from day one.
The law an AI SDR has to obey
Not legal advice; have counsel review before launch. The rules bind whichever tier you buy, and the FTC is explicit that they cannot be contracted away to a vendor.
Cold email in the US is lawful under CAN-SPAM, with conditions. No false headers, no deceptive subject lines, the message identified as an ad, a valid physical postal address, a working opt-out honoured within ten business days, and the FTC notes that "the law makes no exception for business-to-business email". Each non-compliant email carries a penalty of up to $53,088, and "both the company whose product is promoted in the message and the company that actually sends the message may be held legally responsible" (FTC CAN-SPAM guide). An AI SDR that drops the postal address to look personal is non-compliant on every send.
Mailbox providers add gates of their own. Google's sender guidelines require SPF, DKIM and DMARC for bulk senders, one-click unsubscribe on marketing mail, and a spam rate kept below 0.10% and never reaching 0.30% (Email sender guidelines). Not law, but mail that ignores it does not arrive.
Calling and texting are a different statute. If the AI SDR also dials or texts, the FCC's February 2024 ruling makes an AI-generated voice an "artificial or prerecorded voice" under the TCPA (FCC 24-17); marketing calls and texts with it to a cell phone need prior express written consent, and the statute has no B2B exception. Opt-outs by any reasonable means must be honoured within ten business days (FCC 24-24). Each client needs its own Do Not Call Registry subscription (FTC DNC Q&A).
Outside the US. In the UK, email to limited companies needs no consent but email to sole traders does (PECR regulation 22), every named person has an absolute right to object to direct marketing (GDPR Article 21), and the ICO expects a documented legitimate-interests assessment (ICO B2B guidance). Canada's CASL allows cold email only where the address was conspicuously published and the message is relevant to the recipient's role (CRTC FAQ). Any AI SDR sending abroad needs a country classifier on every contact.
Results claims. A vendor that promises a lead count has to hold the evidence before making the claim (FTC substantiation policy), and the FTC's guides say any ad that mentions a money-back or similar guarantee should disclose its material limitations and conditions clearly and prominently (16 CFR 239.3). Read any "or we work free" line for its definition of a lead.
Where Paramount fits, honestly
Paramount Exposure is an AI development and software agency. It does not sell SDR software. The outbound work it does is described on the AI SDR service page, the AI appointment setting page and the AI lead generation page, and it comes in two parts.
The Outbound Install is $2,500, delivered in 14 days: a written ICP, the first 1,500 verified contacts, the compliance pack (registry and wireless scrub, suppression list, CAN-SPAM footer with your postal address, one-click unsubscribe, AI-disclosure script, opt-out propagation across every channel), three secondary domains and nine to ten inboxes with SPF, DKIM and DMARC and warm-up started, one phone number with branded caller ID, four-step sequences per segment in your voice, and an AI reply handler that answers interested replies in under 60 seconds and sends them to your booking link. The Outbound Engine runs it: $2,500 a month for 1,500 new contacts, about 6,000 sends, up to 1,000 AI voice dials to business landlines and consented numbers, and the weekly report; $5,000 a month for 5,000 contacts, about 20,000 sends, up to 4,000 dials and two presenter-format films a month. Three-month minimum, then month to month; usage above the tier at a published rate card ($0.25 a voice minute, $40 per 1,000 contacts, $12 an inbox); a 45-day exit. The Install credits in full toward an AI Revenue System within 90 days.
Two things said plainly. We have run this engine for no client yet; the first client will be Paramount itself, and the weekly numbers from our own campaign will be published, misses included, at /outbound/proof. AI voice calls go only to business landlines, after a wireless and Do Not Call scrub removes every cell number, and to people who gave prior express written consent; the agent says it is an AI in its first sentence. And we guarantee inputs, not outcomes: contacts verified to the stated count, emails delivered under the published complaint and bounce gates, replies answered in under 60 seconds, scrubs logged before every batch, with any missed month credited. No meeting count, no pipeline figure.
If the leak is inbound rather than outbound, the right purchase is smaller: the $497 AI Lead Responder answers website inquiries in under 60 seconds and sends people to your booking link; it never books. The free Intake Index tells you which leak you have in six questions. The outbound tiers are published on the AI SDR service page; the responder is on the pricing page.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best AI SDR software?
For a team with a person to run it, Apollo ($49 a seat billed annually) for data and Instantly ($47 a month) or Smartlead ($39 a month) for sending is the stack many outbound teams use, as checked 2026-10-14. For a team that wants an autonomous agent, 11x Alice is the only vendor publishing an entry price, $3,750 a month billed annually; Artisan quotes. For a team that wants the result rather than the tool, compare managed services on what you own at exit.
How much does AI SDR software cost?
Published entry prices on 2026-10-14: Smartlead $39 a month, Instantly $47, Apollo $49 a seat billed annually, Clay from $60, 11x Alice $3,750 a month billed annually, MyNewStaff Growth Engine $8,500 a month, Paramount's Outbound Engine $2,500 a month after a $2,500 install. Artisan, Instantly VIP and Smartlead's managed tiers publish no price.
Can an AI SDR replace a human SDR?
Parts of the job: list building, research, first drafts, follow-up cadence and reply triage. Not the discovery call, the negotiation or the relationship, and not the decision about who to contact at all, which is where most outbound fails. The arithmetic is in Can AI replace your SDR team?.
Is AI cold email legal?
In the US, yes under CAN-SPAM if every message carries a true header, an honest subject, an ad identification, a postal address and a working opt-out honoured within ten business days; penalties run to $53,088 per email (FTC guide). The UK, EU and Canada are consent-first for individuals, and automated calls or texts need written consent everywhere.