Smartlead pricing in 2026: plans, cost per email and real monthly bills
Smartlead costs $39 to $379 a month. What each plan is for, what counts toward its limits, cost per 1,000 emails, add-ons, refunds and cheaper alternatives.
Smartlead costs $39 to $379 a month: Base $39, Pro $94, Unlimited Smart $174 and Unlimited Prime $379, or 17% less if you pay for a year. Every plan includes unlimited mailboxes and warm-up. What separates the plans is how many contacts and emails you can run through them, and whether you get the API, the CRM and client workspaces. Most real bills end up higher than the plan price because of add-ons, mainly new mailboxes.
All figures below come from Smartlead’s pricing page and its help center, checked on 12 October 2026.
Smartlead per month–
Prices from Smartlead's pricing page, checked 12 October 2026. Mailpitcher doesn't sell mailboxes: you connect the ones you already have.
Smartlead prices at a glance
| Plan | Monthly | Billed yearly | Active contacts | Emails a month | Verified prospect emails a month |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Base | $39 | $32/mo ($390 a year) | 2,000 | 6,000 | 2,000 |
| Pro | $94 | $78/mo ($939.60 a year) | 30,000 | 90,000 | 30,000 |
| Unlimited Smart | $174 | $144/mo ($1,734 a year) | Unlimited | 150,000 | 50,000 |
| Unlimited Prime | $379 | $315/mo ($3,775.20 a year) | Unlimited | 500,000 | 170,000 |
Every plan comes with unlimited email accounts and Smartlead’s warm-up pool. Higher plans get a higher warm-up tier: Foundation on Base, Growth on Pro and Premium on the two Unlimited plans.
Monthly or yearly?
Yearly billing saves 17%, which is about two months free: $78 on Base, $188.40 on Pro, $354 on Unlimited Smart and $772.80 on Unlimited Prime over a year. The catch is the refund policy. A new subscription can be refunded within 7 days, but after that you are committed for the year, and a yearly renewal is only refundable within 3 days if unused and for a valid reason. Pay monthly until you know which plan you will stay on, then switch.
Which plan is for whom
The four plans are not just bigger versions of each other. Each one adds features, and each one has a point where it stops being enough.
| Feature | Base | Pro | Unlimited Smart | Unlimited Prime |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| API and webhooks | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| CRM | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| White-label client workspaces | No | $29 each | $29 each | 3 included |
| Dedicated IP servers | No | $39 each | $39 each | 3 included |
| Extra verified prospect emails | $59/mo add-on | $59/mo add-on | No | No |
| Private OAuth email network | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Calls with a customer success manager | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Dedicated manager and private Slack channel | No | No | No | Yes |
Base ($39): one person testing cold email
Base suits a founder or freelancer running their first campaigns from a few mailboxes they already own. 6,000 emails a month is roughly 200 a day, which is plenty for a careful start.
Where it stops being enough: at 2,000 active contacts, and the moment you want Smartlead to talk to another tool. Base has no API, no webhooks and no CRM. If you plan to push replies into HubSpot or trigger campaigns from Clay or Zapier, Base is a trial run, not a home.
Pro ($94): the real starting price for most teams
Pro multiplies the limits by 15 (30,000 contacts, 90,000 emails) and adds the API, webhooks and the CRM. It is also the first plan that can sell white-label workspaces, at $29 each, so a small agency can start here.
Where it stops being enough: at 30,000 active contacts. That cap allows only three emails per contact a month at full sending, so agencies with many client lists live at once can run out of contacts while sending is still spare.
Unlimited Smart ($174): agencies with big lists
Smart removes the contact cap, raises sending to 150,000 emails and adds Smartlead’s private OAuth email network plus calls with a customer success manager. Smartlead marks it as its most popular plan.
Where it stops being enough: at 150,000 emails a month, or when the $29 per workspace and $39 per dedicated IP start adding up. Three of each cost $204 a month on top of the plan.
Unlimited Prime ($379): high-volume agencies
Prime raises sending to 500,000 emails and includes three white-label workspaces, three dedicated IP servers, a dedicated manager and a private Slack channel. If you would buy those six add-ons on Smart anyway, Prime costs only about $1 a month more than Smart with them ($174 + $204 = $378).
Where it stops being enough: rarely on volume. It is a bad fit if you don’t need the extras, because you pay for them either way.
What Smartlead actually counts
Smartlead meters three different things, and it helps to know which one you will run out of first.
- Active contacts (lead credits). Smartlead’s pricing FAQ defines a lead credit as a unique email address stored in your account. So the same person in two campaigns should count once, while old lists you leave in the account keep counting.
- Emails sent (email credits). Every individual email in any campaign is one credit, so a three-step sequence to 1,000 people can use 3,000.
- Verified prospect emails. A separate monthly allowance for finding and verifying new prospects inside Smartlead. Base and Pro can buy more for $59 a month.
What isn’t counted: mailboxes. Connecting 5 or 500 of your own email accounts costs the same.
A quick way to size a plan: multiply your contacts by the number of steps in your sequence. 1,500 contacts with a four-email sequence is up to 6,000 emails, which exactly fills Base. 10,000 contacts with three steps is 30,000 emails, which needs Pro.
Cost per 1,000 emails, plan by plan
Dividing each plan’s price by its sending allowance gives a rough cost per 1,000 emails, assuming you use the whole allowance.
| Base, monthly | $6.5, $39 / 6,000 emails |
|---|---|
| Base, yearly | $5.42, $390 a year / 72,000 emails |
| Pro, monthly | $1.04, $94 / 90,000 emails |
| Pro, yearly | $0.87, $939.60 a year / 1.08M emails |
| Unlimited Smart, monthly | $1.16, $174 / 150,000 emails |
| Unlimited Smart, yearly | $0.96, $1,734 a year / 1.8M emails |
| Unlimited Prime, monthly | $0.76, $379 / 500,000 emails |
| Unlimited Prime, yearly | $0.63, $3,775.20 a year / 6M emails |
Plan price divided by emails per month. Yearly rows use the yearly total divided by 12. Prices checked on smartlead.ai, 12 October 2026.
Base is by far the most expensive per email: $6.50 per 1,000 on monthly billing, more than six times Pro’s $1.04. From Pro upward the price per email barely moves, between $0.63 and $1.16. Unlimited Smart is actually a little dearer per email than Pro, because you are paying for unlimited contacts rather than for more sending.
The same sums for contacts tell a similar story. Base costs $19.50 per 1,000 active contacts a month; Pro costs about $3.13.
These figures only hold if you send the full allowance. A team on Pro that sends 20,000 emails a month pays $4.70 per 1,000, closer to Base than to Prime. Pick the plan for your contact count and integrations, not for the cheapest per-email number.
What real teams pay
Here is what three common setups cost per month, using only the published prices above and in the add-on table below. Domain fees are yearly and shown separately.
| Setup | Plan and add-ons | Monthly | Plus yearly |
|---|---|---|---|
| Solo founder, 2 existing mailboxes, 1,500 contacts, no integrations | Base | $39 (or $32.50 billed yearly) | none |
| Same founder, but replies go to a CRM via the API | Pro | $94 (or $78.30 billed yearly) | none |
| Agency with 5 white-label clients, under 30,000 contacts | Pro + 5 workspaces ($145) | $239 | none |
| Agency with 5 white-label clients, more than 30,000 contacts | Unlimited Smart + 5 workspaces ($145) | $319 | none |
| High-volume sender buying 30 new Google mailboxes on 10 domains | Unlimited Smart + 30 Zapmail mailboxes ($135) | $309 | $130 in domains |
| Same, with inbox-placement tests | + SmartDelivery Growth ($49) | $358 | $130 in domains |
| Same 30 mailboxes bought pre-warmed | Unlimited Smart + 30 pre-warmed mailboxes ($270) | $444 | $180 in domains |
Two patterns stand out. For agencies, workspaces quickly cost as much as the plan itself. For anyone buying new infrastructure, the mailboxes are the biggest line, and they scale with every domain you add. The solo founder, by contrast, pays only the plan, because the mailboxes they already have connect for free. That is also the case where a $39 plan with no API feels most expensive for what it does.
The add-ons that change the bill
Smartlead’s plan price covers the software. These are sold separately:
| Add-on | Price |
|---|---|
| New Google or Outlook mailboxes (SmartSenders via Zapmail) | $4.50 per mailbox a month + $13 per domain a year |
| New Outlook mailboxes (InfraInbox) | $5 per mailbox a month + $16 per domain a year |
| SMTP mailboxes (Mailreef) | $3.99 per mailbox a month + $19 per domain a year |
| SMTP mailboxes (AeroSend) | $4.20 per mailbox a month + $13 per domain a year |
| Pre-warmed mailboxes | $9 per mailbox a month + $18 per domain a year |
| SmartDelivery inbox-placement tests | Growth $49 (120 tests), Pro $174, Expert $599 a month |
| SmartDialer calling | from $9 a month in credits |
| Dedicated IP server (SmartInfra) | $39 a month each |
| White-label client workspace | $29 a month each |
| Extra verified prospect emails (Base and Pro) | $59 a month |
| Email verification credits | from $32 |
If you already own your mailboxes and domains, you can skip almost all of this and pay only the plan. Keep in mind that add-ons are never refunded, even within the 7-day window that covers the plan.
Smartlead vs Instantly vs lemlist pricing
These three are the tools most people compare when they search for Smartlead’s prices. Each prices from its own page: Instantly, lemlist.
| Feature | Smartlead | Instantly | lemlist |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry plan, monthly | $39 Base | $47 Growth | $69 Email |
| Entry plan, billed yearly | $32/mo | $37.60/mo | $55/mo |
| Emails a month on the entry plan | 6,000 | 5,000 | 50,000 |
| Next plan up | $94 Pro: 90,000 emails | $97 Hypergrowth: 125,000 emails | $109 per user: Multichannel |
| Biggest published plan | $379: 500,000 emails | $358: 500,000 emails | Multichannel, priced per user |
| Unlimited mailboxes | Yes | Yes | Yes: unlimited senders |
| Warm-up included | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Prospect data | Partly: 2,000 to 170,000 verified emails a month | Partly: separate credits from $47 | Yes: built-in lead database |
| MCP server | Yes: with your API key | Yes: with your API key | Yes |
Smartlead is the cheapest of the three to start, but its entry plan is also the most limited, with no API. Instantly’s Growth plan is $8 more and allows fewer emails (5,000) and fewer contacts (1,000). At the top end the two are close: $379 vs $358 for 500,000 emails. lemlist starts higher at $69 but its Email plan includes 50,000 emails, unlimited users and a lead database, and its Multichannel plan adds LinkedIn, calls and SMS to the same sequence, priced per user.
All three now offer an MCP server, so Claude or another AI client can work with your campaigns. Smartlead’s MCP setup guide says it is free with any paid plan and runs on your Smartlead API key; its help center lists campaign insights, lead and account data and deliverability diagnostics. Because the API is listed from Pro up, confirm with Smartlead before counting on MCP with Base. Instantly’s MCP server also connects with an API key.
What users say
These are recurring themes in public user reviews, not our own testing.
Praise. User reviews mention that Smartlead is easy to set up and use, that unlimited mailboxes with built-in warm-up make it good value for agencies, and that white-label workspaces and a single inbox for replies across many mailboxes save time. Several reviewers credit the warm-up and ESP-matching features for better inbox placement.
Complaints. User reviews mention slow or inconsistent support, bugs and campaigns stopping unexpectedly, and connected mailboxes disconnecting. A second group of complaints is about money: problems cancelling and disputes over charges and refunds. Some reviewers also say the bill grows faster than expected once mailboxes and other add-ons are counted.
If billing is your worry, read the refund policy below before paying: renewals and add-ons are treated strictly.
Trial, refunds and cancelling
- Trial: 14 days, no card, up to 2,500 sends and 1,250 contacts, with everything except white-labeling.
- Refunds: a full refund within 7 days of a new subscription. Renewals only within 3 days, unused, and for a valid reason like an outage or a billing error; “not getting results” doesn’t qualify. Add-ons are never refunded.
- Cancelling: no lock-in; subscriptions renew automatically until you cancel.
Practical advice: use the free trial on real mailboxes before paying, set a calendar reminder a few days before any yearly renewal, and buy mailboxes only once you know the plan fits.
When Smartlead is worth it, and when it’s too expensive
Worth it if:
- you run outreach for several clients and need separate white-label workspaces;
- you send tens of thousands of emails a month from many mailboxes, where Pro and up cost about $1 per 1,000 emails;
- you want warm-up, mailbox purchase, inbox-placement tests and an API in one account;
- you already own your mailboxes, so the plan price is your whole bill.
Too expensive if:
- you send a few hundred emails a day from your own addresses. Base costs $6.50 per 1,000 emails and still lacks the API;
- you need the API or a CRM link at low volume, which means paying $94 for capacity you won’t use;
- your agency needs more than a few workspaces on Pro, where $29 each soon doubles the bill;
- you want LinkedIn steps, or your outreach and everyday email in one place.
Smartlead alternatives by price
If the plans or the add-ons don’t fit, these are the closest options, with prices from each vendor’s own page. For a wider list, see our lemlist alternatives round-up.
| Mailpitcher | $7.99, Solo |
|---|---|
| Woodpecker | $35, 500 prospects |
| Smartlead | $39, Base |
| Saleshandy | $41, Starter |
| Instantly | $47, Growth |
| lemlist | $69, Email |
Cheapest plan on monthly billing, checked 12 October 2026.
1. Instantly
- Price: Instantly Growth is $47/month ($37.60 yearly) for 1,000 contacts and 5,000 emails; Hypergrowth is $97/month.
- Pros: unlimited mailboxes and warm-up on every plan; scales to 500,000 emails a month on Light Speed ($358); 14-day trial without a card.
- Cons: only 1,000 contacts on the entry plan; the lead database is a separate credits product from $47; user reviews mention billing disputes and chatbot-first support.
2. Woodpecker
- Price: Woodpecker starts at $35/month for 500 contacted prospects (8,000 emails); annual billing saves about a third.
- Pros: unlimited email accounts and team members; email verification included; optional LinkedIn steps ($29/month per account).
- Cons: free warm-up only for a few accounts per tier, then $5 each; the API is a $20/month add-on; the trial ends after 14 days or 100 emails.
3. Mailpitcher (that’s us)
- Price: Mailpitcher Solo is $7.99/month ($79/year) for 3 mailboxes; Pro is $12.99/month ($129/year) for unlimited mailboxes and an MCP server.
- Pros: a fraction of Smartlead Base, with no credits or per-email fees; on Pro, Claude or any MCP client can read mail, draft, send and start or pause campaigns within your daily caps; every mailbox and every reply in one inbox, with follow-ups that stop on reply.
- Cons: no lead database or email finder; no open and click tracking (subject-line A/B tests are judged on replies), no LinkedIn or calls; no warm-up network, so it suits your own established mailboxes rather than fresh domains at volume.
MCP access tokens
Give an AI tool (like Claude) its own token to read your mail and run outreach on your behalf. It works through the same limits and safeguards as the app.
4. Saleshandy
- Price: Saleshandy Starter is $41/month ($34 yearly) for 2,000 prospects and 6,000 emails, with 1,500 lead-finder credits.
- Pros: warm-up on all plans; contact finding without a second tool; no per-inbox fees.
- Cons: 7-day trial only; verification uses extra credits; user reviews rate its reporting as basic.
5. lemlist
- Price: lemlist Email is $69/month ($55 yearly) with unlimited users and senders; Multichannel is $109/month per user ($87 yearly).
- Pros: LinkedIn, calls and SMS in the same sequence on Multichannel; a built-in lead database; warm-up included on all plans.
- Cons: costs more than Smartlead Base; Multichannel is priced per user; data features use credits sold as add-ons.
Questions people ask
What are the reviews like for Smartlead?
Mixed. User reviews mention ease of use, unlimited mailboxes, built-in warm-up and white-labeling as strengths, and slow support, bugs, mailboxes disconnecting and billing or cancellation problems as the main complaints.
How much does Smartlead cost?
Smartlead has four plans: Base at $39 a month, Pro at $94, Unlimited Smart at $174 and Unlimited Prime at $379. Paying yearly saves 17%, so Base works out to $390 a year (about $32 a month). Prices checked on smartlead.ai on 12 October 2026.
Does Smartlead have a free plan?
No. There's a 14-day free trial with no card required, limited to 2,500 sends and 1,250 contacts, with every feature except white-labeling.
Does Smartlead charge per mailbox?
No. Every plan allows unlimited email accounts. You only pay per mailbox if you buy new ones through Smartlead's SmartSenders add-on, from $3.99 to $9 a month per mailbox plus a yearly domain fee.
Does Smartlead have an MCP server?
Yes. Smartlead's blog says its MCP server is free with any paid plan and connects Claude and other MCP clients to your account through your Smartlead API key. API access is listed from the Pro plan up, so check with Smartlead before relying on it on Base.
Can I get a refund from Smartlead?
Smartlead's refund policy gives a full refund within 7 days of a new subscription. Renewals can only be refunded within 3 days, if the product wasn't used and for a valid reason such as an outage or a billing error. Add-ons are non-refundable.
Which Smartlead plan includes white-labeling?
White-label client workspaces cost $29 a month each and are available from the Pro plan up. Unlimited Prime includes three.
What is cheaper than Smartlead?
Woodpecker starts at $35 a month for 500 contacted prospects, and Mailpitcher at $7.99 a month (or $12.99 for unlimited mailboxes). Instantly ($47) and Saleshandy ($41) cost a little more than Smartlead Base but include more on their entry plans.