Cold outreach campaigns are proven to work across industries and niches. However, not just any outbound campaigns will work. To really maximize your sales efforts, you want to connect with the right leads, which requires targeted sales prospecting and personalization.
Growbots is outbound sales software that lets you reach the right decision makers and convert them to paying customers. It’s built for small and medium businesses and it promises to reach the right potential customers while dodging the spam folder.
But is it really all that it promises to be? Let’s take a look in this detailed Growbots review.
What is Growbots?
Growbots is an outbound sales software designed for prospecting and outreach. It’s built for small and medium businesses that don’t necessarily have huge sales teams or a list of their own contacts to reach out to.
Growbots core features
Growbots comes packed with features built for small businesses that want to reach their ideal decision makers. Here are the Growbots features you can expect in this user friendly tool:
- A database with 180 million contacts for prospecting and building a list
- AI prospecting based on the information you feed to the AI tool
- Live email verification before outreach
- Accurate prospect data with contact details such as phone numbers
- CRM integrations with Hubspot, Salesforce and other tools via Zapier
- Easy campaign segmentation
- Outreach automation with an AI generator for email templates
- One inbox for outreach
- Multiple email accounts for one business
- Import contacts from your email account to Growbots
- Multichannel sequence creator
- Email tracking and insights
- Auto unsubscribe
- Email warmup to improve email deliverability and stay out of spam folders
Pricing plans
Growbots will state that they have flexible pricing plans, but in reality, it means a bit of work to figure out how much the tool will cost.
The free plan gives you three active campaigns, statistics, and benchmarking, up to five steps in a sequence, shared inbox preview, and unlimited support.
The paid plan is called All-in-One, with two different pricing tiers. For $29 per month, you can get the Starter tier with 100 emails per day. This also unlocks AI automated message handling, deliverability monitoring, Zapier integration, A/B testing, live chat support, unlimited user seats, and email accounts.
The more expensive tier in this package is called Pro and it also unlocks 100 daily emails. Added features include advanced sending limits, CRM integrations, AI template generator, imported emails verification, campaign timeline access, and priority live chat support.
They also have a Concierge plan split up into three tiers. This is where the Growbots team helps you out with your email deliverability and campaigns. Pricing is not disclosed.
Potential downsides of using Growbots for outbound sales
With a range of sales and prospecting features, Growbots seems like the ideal tool for companies that want to do their own research and outreach. But things are not perfect.
The user interface and experience can be very challenging, especially for new users. The onboarding process can be smooth if you’ve used email tools before. However, since this is outbound sales software designed for small businesses, it can be challenging to get started.
Pricing can quickly go out of hand, especially if you send a lot of emails. The flexible pricing plans are more suited for smaller email volumes.
The database is not always accurate, and you can hurt your sales efforts by reaching out to emails that no longer exist, which can be harmful, especially for US based customers.
Analytics are not always precise and do not reflect real world performance. In other words, it can be time consuming to figure out if your multichannel sequences are really hitting the mark with new prospects or if you’re landing in spam folders.
What real Growbots users are saying
Growbots has quite a few reviews online that you can use to learn more about this software. Here are some you may find relevant:
“Not very intuitive and they don’t have a training video series or anything to help you through the learning curve. The blog posts are okay but something more robust for training would probably alleviate a lot of questions handed off to customer service.
More substantial is the cost – you get charged every time you add a new email, so it’s not very scalable, especially if one email gets put on a blacklist and can’t be used for a couple of weeks. We are going to look at incorporating Instantly so we can add as many emails as we want without paying $700+ a month.” – Source
“Although I like the ability to create lists and send emails, I would like a better reporting function with flexibility and real-time dashboards you don’t have to run. I’m not too fond of the billing in that if you load your contacts, it costs the same as using their contacts.” – Source
“I dislike very little about the platform. The determination of what constitutes a cold or warm response is not always accurate but this is not that big of an issue. Sometimes email responses are classified as warm when they are not but I would rather error on the side of warm than cold so can review personally.” – Source
Best Growbots alternatives for outbound sales efforts
In the long run, Growbots can be very expensive, especially if you want your company to grow. If you’re looking for a smarter investment in your sales operations, there are plenty of Growbots alternatives to consider instead.
Woodpecker
Woodpecker is a sales outreach and email automation platform designed to improve email deliverability and streamline personalized messaging. It is ideal for agencies and businesses looking to scale their outreach efforts with cost-effective, high-speed email campaigns.
Top Features:
- Automated Follow-Ups with Personalized Messages: Automates follow-ups to keep communication consistent and save time.
- A/B Testing: Enables users to optimize their campaigns by testing different messages and strategies.
- Easy Integration and Onboarding: Simplifies the start process by integrating easily with other tools.
- Condition-Based Campaigns and Manual Tasks: Customizes campaigns based on specific triggers or conditions for more effective outreach.
- Email Deliverability Monitor: Ensures high deliverability rates, keeping emails out of spam folders.
- Timezone Detection: Sends emails at the ideal time for recipients, increasing open rates.
- AI Tools for Personalized Videos: Enhances email engagement with personalized video content for prospects.
- Unlimited Email Warmup and Recovery: Gradually increasing email volume ensures a healthy sender reputation.
- Unlimited Team Members: Facilitates collaboration without additional costs.
- Centralized Inbox: one place to share all of your incoming and outgoing emails, making for easy cloud collaboration.
- Adaptive Sending: automatically detects the limits of the upcoming provider to protect you from getting blocked.
Pricing:
Woodpecker’s pricing starts at $20 per month, giving you flexibility and scalability to fit businesses of different sizes and needs.
Downsides:
While Woodpecker is effective for email outreach, it lacks built-in LinkedIn automation. However, with integrations like Hunter.io, it can still leverage LinkedIn for cold outreach strategies.
User Reviews:
Woodpecker is praised for its easy-to-use features, particularly its automation and deliverability tools. However, some users have noted that it lacks advanced multi-channel capabilities like LinkedIn automation.
Ready to take your cold outreach efforts to the next level? Grab your free trial of Woodpecker today!
Klenty
Klenty is a sales engagement platform designed to help businesses run effective cold outreach campaigns. It provides a seamless integration with CRM systems, advanced inbound and outbound sales automation, and a user-friendly interface for managing outreach across multiple channels.
Top Features:
- Easy CRM Integration: Connects smoothly with popular CRM systems to streamline lead management and outreach.
- Follow-Up Campaigns: Automates follow-ups to keep leads engaged and ensure no opportunities are missed.
- User-Friendly Interface: Simple and intuitive UI makes it easy for teams to manage outreach efforts.
- Advanced Automation: Automates both inbound and outbound sales processes, enhancing team productivity.
- Multichannel Inbox: Supports email, phone, and social media communication from a single inbox.
Pricing:
Klenty has several pricing bundles tailored to different needs:
- Sales Engagement Bundle:
- Prices start at $50/user/month, with the ability to automate outreach across channels.
- Free trials are available for all plans except the Enterprise plan.
- Annual and quarterly billing options, but no monthly billing.
- Additional Bundles:
- Conversation Intelligence, Prospecting Data, and Dialer plans are also available, catering to businesses that need more specialized tools.
Downsides:
While Klenty has some useful features, users have noted a few limitations:
- Outdated Design and Functionality: The interface feels old compared to newer tools on the market.
- Frequent Bugs: Users report experiencing bugs, which can disrupt workflows.
- No Full Automation for Messages and Calls: Each salesperson needs a separate account, and full automation for calls and messages isn’t possible.
- Limited Features: Missing features like LinkedIn automation, AI reply suggestions, and lead generation tools.
User Reviews:
User feedback on Klenty is mixed, with some praising its functionality while pointing out limitations. One user shared, “LinkedIn automation, AI automatic reply suggestions, and the ability to search for new leads are missing.”
Another mentioned, “It’s a bit pricey to make a separate account for each salesperson.” Users have also commented on the interface, stating, “User interface is a little less aesthetic and workflow-friendly compared to some more established competitors,” and “It can be buggy sometimes.”
Another review mentioned, “I do wish there was a way to completely automate texting/calls.”
Apollo
Apollo is an end-to-end sales intelligence, engagement, prospecting, and closing platform. It provides a comprehensive suite of tools that support the entire sales process—from lead sourcing and enrichment to helping sales teams close deals—making it a go-to solution for businesses looking to optimize their outreach and sales efforts.
Top Features:
- Lead Sourcing and Enrichment: Helps sales teams find and enrich leads with accurate data, improving outreach efficiency.
- Prospecting Tools and Lead Scoring: Tools to identify high-value leads and prioritize outreach efforts.
- Chrome Extension for Gmail and LinkedIn: Enables easy communication and outreach directly from Gmail and LinkedIn using a Chrome extension.
- AI-Powered Email and Call Sequences: Provides both manual and AI-generated email and call sequences for streamlined communication.
- CRM Integration: Seamlessly integrates with major CRMs like HubSpot, simplifying workflow automation and contact management.
Pricing:
Apollo gives users several competitive pricing options:
- Starting at $49/user per month: This plan includes unlimited email credits and all essential sales engagement tools.
- Free Plan: Available with limited features for new users looking to test the platform.
Downsides:
While Apollo has robust features, there are several challenges users have reported:
- No Unified Dashboard: Teams may struggle to manage multiple users due to the lack of a unified dashboard.
- IP Penalization Risks: Overlapping IP addresses in physical offices can lead to penalization, impacting deliverability.
- Data Accuracy Issues: Users have experienced inaccurate contact data, such as phone numbers and email addresses.
- Slow Setup for Sequences: Setting up sequences can be time-consuming for some users.
- Outdated Interface: The user interface feels outdated compared to newer tools.
- Feature Overload: Some users feel that the rapid growth and addition of features have led to inconsistencies and bugs.
User Reviews:
User feedback highlights both the platform’s strengths and weaknesses. One reviewer praised Apollo for its “good search function and great integration with CRMs like HubSpot,” while also mentioning that it’s “easy to create and launch sequences.” However, some users noted that “pricing is not flexible for smaller teams,” and others criticized the customer support, describing it as “dreadful.”
Bardeen
Bardeen AI is a workflow task automation tool that helps businesses streamline various operations, including cold outreach and lead generation. It uses AI to automate message generation, lead scraping, and content personalization, making it a versatile solution for teams looking to improve efficiency across multiple business functions.
Top Features:
- AI Message Generator: Creates personalized emails, messages, and other types of textual content to enhance outreach campaigns.
- AI-Based Content Personalization: Tailors content to individual prospects for improved engagement and response rates.
- GPT for Spreadsheets: Automatically populates spreadsheet fields based on prompts, saving time and reducing manual data entry.
- Chrome Extension for Web Scraping: Scrapes websites, including LinkedIn, to extract valuable data such as leads.
- Contact Database Enrichment: Enhances contact data by filling in missing or incomplete information for better-targeted outreach.
Pricing:
Bardeen has five pricing plans:
- Free Plan: Includes 100 monthly credits for AI automation and basic integrations with tools like Google Workspace, Slack, Telegram, and Trello.
- Pro Plan ($10/month): Provides 500 credits and advanced integrations with tools such as HubSpot, Apollo, Lemlist, Smartlead, and more.
- Business Plan: 10,000 credits per month, team collaboration, cloud-based scraping, and unlimited scraper models. Pricing is custom.
- Enterprise Plan: Tailored solutions with professional setup, custom AI agents, SAML SSO, and automation consulting services. Pricing is available upon request.
- Solution Engineering: Available for advanced users who need custom workflows and extensive automation support.
Downsides:
While Bardeen offers a wide range of features, some users have noted the following limitations:
- Learning Curve: The initial setup requires some learning, especially when configuring triggers and actions.
- Customer Support: Users have reported challenges in getting timely responses from customer support.
- Inaccurate Lead Data: Occasionally, the data scraped or enriched may be inaccurate, particularly if the source structures are complex or unusual.
User Reviews:
User feedback highlights the tool’s versatility but also points out its complexities. One reviewer mentioned, “It takes time to get the hang of it. You must review the resources carefully to set up triggers and actions, otherwise, you’ll be confused.” Another user noted, “When scraping, I need to check the fields manually, as the app sometimes skips or incorrectly scrapes data due to unusual source structures.”
PersistIQ
PersistIQ is a sales engagement platform designed for small teams, helping businesses streamline their sales outreach through multi-channel engagement and AI-powered email sequences. It integrates with popular CRMs and tools, making it an ideal choice for teams looking to automate outreach efforts and manage contacts efficiently.
Top Features:
- Multi-Channel Sales Outreach: Supports outreach across multiple channels, including email and social media, to maximize engagement.
- Contact Prospecting: Helps teams find and manage prospects more effectively.
- CRM Integrations: Seamlessly integrates with popular CRMs such as HubSpot, Salesforce, and Zapier to simplify workflow automation.
- AI Sales Email Tools: Automates the creation of personalized email sequences, follow-ups, and replies, improving productivity and engagement.
Pricing:
PersistIQ has three pricing plans:
- Essentials Plan ($59/user/month): Includes 500 AI email replies and 300 daily emails per user.
- Premium Plan ($99/user/month): Offers 1,000 AI email replies and 600 daily emails per user.
- Teams Plan ($59/user/month): Requires the purchase of three seats and includes team-based features.
Downsides:
While PersistIQ is feature-rich, there are a few limitations:
- Customer Support Issues: Users report that the customer support team could be more responsive.
- Inaccurate Lead Data: Some users have experienced inaccuracies in the lead data provided by the platform.
- Lack of Results: Users have noted a lack of positive responses from outreach efforts.
- Buggy Interface: The platform’s interface can sometimes be slow or buggy, affecting usability.
User Reviews:
User feedback is mixed, with some expressing dissatisfaction with the tool’s performance. One reviewer stated, “They indicated we should expect around 10 appointments per month. So far, we haven’t gotten a single positive reply from the thousands of emails they’ve sent.” The user also highlighted issues with PersistIQ’s sales team, saying, “The salesperson indicated we could revisit our agreement due to poor performance, but they have been unwilling to let us out of our agreement.”
Reply.io
Reply is a multichannel sales engagement platform for both inbound and outbound sales. It has a wide range of features for automating sales outreach across multiple channels, including email, phone, and social media. The platform integrates AI to enhance productivity and provides a built-in contact database for outreach efforts.
Top Features:
- A/B Testing and If-Campaigns: Enables users to experiment with different email sequences and conditional campaigns based on prospect behavior.
- Follow-Ups in One Thread: Keeps all email communications within the same thread, ensuring a consistent conversation flow.
- Built-In Email Validation: Verifies email addresses before sending, reducing bounce rates and improving deliverability.
- Timezone Detection: Automatically adjusts email sending times to align with the recipient’s local timezone.
- AI Support: AI-powered tools help optimize email writing and sequence building (AI credits depend on the plan).
- Reply Data: Provides access to a database of business contacts for use in outreach campaigns.
Pricing:
Reply gives you several pricing options:
- Sales Engagement Bundle:
- Email Volume Plan ($59/month): Includes unlimited email sending, mailboxes, email warmup, and contact storage.
- Multichannel Plan ($89/user/month): Supports multichannel prospecting, unlimited active contacts, and 10 mailboxes per user.
- Agency Plan ($166/month): Designed for client outreach, offering unlimited users, clients, and a comprehensive anti-spam suite.
- AI SDR Plan ($259/month): Includes 1,000 active contacts per month for advanced AI-powered outreach.
- AI Chat Plans:
- Free Plan: Basic access to AI chat features.
- Pro Plan ($50/month): Enhanced AI chat capabilities for businesses looking to integrate conversational AI.
Downsides:
Although Reply is a robust sales engagement platform, users have identified several limitations:
- Limited AI Credits: AI functionality is restricted in lower-tier plans, limiting its effectiveness for some users.
- Deliverability Monitor: The platform lacks a comprehensive deliverability monitor, which could impact email performance.
- Customization Issues: Users report limited options for customizing emails, making it difficult to fully tailor email appearances.
- Overwhelming Interface: Some users find the platform initially overwhelming due to numerous labels and tags, complicating email organization.
User Reviews:
User feedback highlights the platform’s complexity and lack of customization. One reviewer noted, “There are too many labels and tags in Reply, making it hard to organize emails.” Another stated, “Reply needs more options for customizing emails. You can’t make them look exactly how you want.” Additionally, users pointed out, “You can’t easily send one email to many people from the same company,” and “You have to use another platform to ensure emails reach inboxes.”
Conclusion
Growbots has a rich feature set that is built specifically for small and mid-sized businesses. In reality though, it turns out that the onboarding can be pretty complex and some features do not work as advertised. The worst of all, is that as your sales operations grow, your costs soar too.
With Woodpecker, you don’t have to worry about any of that. Our ease of use, transparent pricing, and a wealth of features make sure that anyone can do cold outreach with low costs and effort.
Grab your free trial and get started with Woodpecker today!