Closing more deals seems like it’s easier than ever before. With so many tools for scraping contacts, verifying their accuracy, and creating cold emails, it seems like the job of a sales rep is a breeze. Lavender AI is one of those tools that helps you understand the performance of your emails and maximize how much pipeline you get from email as a channel.
But is it all that good and can you get something better for your money? Let’s find out.
What is Lavender AI?
Lavender AI is an email intelligence platform that helps businesses craft better sales outreach emails with the help of artificial intelligence.
Top features
For businesses that rely on email to close new business, Lavender has a range of useful features:
- Sales email personalization – to create personalized content based on contact data in your CRM
- Email scoring – get an idea of how likely your emails are to land in the primary inbox
- AI email creation – create new emails with just a few clicks
- Integrations with CRMs and email marketing platforms – exchange information between platforms without fear of manual error
- GIF images – for added engagement and personalization
- Mobile optimization features – so you can create emails that look great on every device
Lavender.ai pricing
There are four plans to choose from.
The Free forever plan lets you analyze and personalize 5 emails per month, you get the basic features + Gmail and Outlook integrations.
The Starter plan is $27 per month, which unlocks unlimited emails, personalizations and AI recommendations. You also get mobile optimization, AI email writer, live chat support, multi-inbox support and standard integrations.
The Individual Pro is $45 per month, and it gives you unlimited everything plus all the integrations and priority support.
The Team plan is $89 per seat per month, and you can choose which plan to put your team members on (Starter, Growth and Enterprise), and you also unlock aggregated email analytics, accelerated dynamic scoring, proactive human support, coaching programs and content studio access.
What are users saying?
Many customers have complaints about the app performance, citing frequent glitches and downtime. Additionally, the customer support is far from stellar:
“As an SDR, I’ve had the opportunity to use Lavender.ai, and here’s my experience: 1. Buggy Performance: The product frequently crashes, making it unreliable. The user interface is also quite buggy, which hampers productivity. 2. Unhelpful Customer Support: The customer support team hasn’t been very helpful. Their advice often feels condescending, focusing on superficial aspects of email tone rather than providing constructive feedback. Their office hours are more about explaining basic email concepts than offering genuine support. 3. AI Functionality: While the idea of using AI to rewrite emails is fantastic, I’d recommend ChatGPT over Lavender. Lavender’s feedback tends to be limited to critiquing sentence length rather than offering meaningful improvements. 4. Lack of Compelling Features: The product itself is uninspiring and hasn’t led to an increase in booked meetings. It doesn’t deliver the results it promises. – Source
And this is not the only instance of an unhappy customer complaining about the app’s usability:
“Even though the UI is intuitive and simple to use, it sometimes glitches – sometimes the icons are not easily clickable, disapear, or don’t function some of the time (at least in G-Suite).” – Source
The best alternatives to Lavender AI for email campaigns
If you need a reliable tool to help you craft better outreach emails that reach real decision makers, we have just what the doctor ordered.
Woodpecker
Woodpecker is an email outreach platform for sales teams, agencies, and B2B companies that helps send personalized cold emails while maintaining high deliverability. It focuses on automation, email warmup, and engagement tracking to optimize outreach efforts.
Why consider Woodpecker?
Woodpecker provides essential tools to streamline cold email campaigns:
- Automated follow-ups with personalization – keeps communication consistent and relevant.
- A/B testing – helps determine the most effective messaging strategies.
- Easy integration and onboarding – connects with CRMs and email providers for a smooth setup.
- Condition-based campaigns – sends targeted emails based on recipient behavior.
- Email deliverability monitoring – prevents emails from landing in spam folders.
- Timezone detection – ensures emails arrive when recipients are most likely to engage.
- AI-powered video personalization – enhances outreach with customized video messages.
- Unlimited email warmup and recovery – helps maintain a strong sender reputation.
- Unlimited team members – supports collaboration without additional costs.
Considerations
While Woodpecker is a great choice for cold email outreach, there are a few things to keep in mind:
- No built-in LinkedIn automation – unlike some alternatives, it focuses only on email. However, integrations with tools like Hunter can help supplement LinkedIn outreach.
Pricing
Woodpecker’s pricing is based on outreach volume:
- Starts at $20/month for up to 500 prospects.
- Scalable plans with additional features available for higher-tier users.
- 7-day free trial available to test the platform.
What do users say?
User feedback highlights Woodpecker’s strengths and areas for improvement:
- “Great for cold email campaigns, especially for agencies.”
- “Excellent deliverability tracking and an easy-to-use interface.”
- “Would be even better with native LinkedIn automation.”
Get your free trial of Woodpecker today!
Sendbuzz
SendBuzz is a sales engagement tool designed to support businesses increase conversions through multi-channel outreach. It combines email, SMS, LinkedIn, and call automation with lead generation, CRM integrations, and workflow automation to create a seamless prospecting experience.
Why consider SendBuzz?
SendBuzz offers a variety of features for sales teams looking to scale outreach:
- Multi-channel outreach – automate prospecting across email, SMS, calls, and LinkedIn.
- Advanced lead finder – access a database of over 850 million verified profiles.
- Sales automation and workflows – create automated sequences and follow-ups.
- Funnel and landing page builder – generate leads with custom landing pages and sales funnels.
- Calendar and form builder – simplify appointment scheduling and lead capture.
- CRM integrations – sync with popular CRM platforms for better lead management.
Considerations
While SendBuzz offers a strong feature set, there are a few potential drawbacks:
- Steep learning curve – the platform is highly technical, which may be overwhelming for new users.
- Feature overload – some features feel underdeveloped or not fully refined due to the tool being relatively new.
Pricing
SendBuzz offers three pricing tiers based on prospect volume:
- $197/month: Includes 2,000 prospects.
- $497/month: Includes 10,000 prospects and unlimited email follow-ups.
- $997/month: Includes 25,000 prospects and all premium features.
What do users say?
User reviews highlight both the strengths and challenges of using SendBuzz:
- “Great tool with strong technical capabilities, but can be too complex for some teams.”
- “Customer support is helpful, and documentation is available for troubleshooting.”
Apollo.io
Apollo is a comprehensive sales platform designed to help businesses with lead sourcing, enrichment, and outreach automation. From identifying potential customers to closing deals, Apollo offers a wide range of tools for sales teams to streamline their prospecting and engagement efforts.
Why consider Apollo?
Apollo provides key features for sales teams looking to improve their outbound strategies:
- Lead sourcing and enrichment – access a vast database of verified leads and enhance contact details.
- Prospecting tools – identify and reach out to potential customers with advanced filtering.
- Lead scoring – prioritize leads based on data-driven insights.
- Chrome extension — connect with prospects directly from Gmail and LinkedIn.
- AI-powered email and call sequences – automate outreach with AI-assisted messaging and follow-ups.
Considerations
While Apollo is a powerful platform, users have noted some challenges:
- No unified dashboard – managing multiple users can be complicated.
- Potential IP penalization – overlapping IP addresses in shared office spaces may trigger security measures.
- Data accuracy concerns – some phone numbers and emails in the database may be outdated.
- Slow sequence setup – configuring email and call sequences can take time.
- Overwhelming feature set – the interface can feel cluttered due to the number of tools available.
Pricing
Apollo offers flexible pricing options:
- Starts at $59 per user per month with 5000 credits per month.
- Free plan available with limited features.
What do users say?
User feedback highlights Apollo’s strengths and areas for improvement:
- “Good search function and great CRM integration with HubSpot.”
- “Easy to create and launch sequences.”
- “Pricing isn’t flexible for smaller teams, and customer support is lacking.”
Selzy
Selzy is an all-in-one email marketing solution that allows businesses to create, personalize, and automate email campaigns at scale. With AI-powered tools, automation, and integrations, it caters to businesses looking to optimize their email outreach.
Why consider Selzy?
Selzy provides a variety of features to enhance email marketing efforts:
- AI email builder and assistant – generate and personalize email content with AI support.
- Bulk email sender – send mass email campaigns efficiently.
- Email automation – set up automated workflows for follow-ups and engagement.
- Detailed analytics – track open rates, click-through rates, and campaign performance.
- A/B testing – optimize email subject lines, content, and layouts for better results.
- Email personalization and segmentation – target specific audiences based on behavior and demographics.
- Extensive integrations – connect with tools like Airtable, Google Sheets, Zendesk, and HubSpot.
Considerations
While Selzy offers powerful email marketing tools, there are some drawbacks:
- User interface navigation – some users find it difficult to locate certain features.
- Pricing scalability – costs increase as the email list grows since pricing is based on the number of contacts.
Pricing
Selzy offers four pricing plans:
- Free plan: Includes bulk emails, AI assistant, and email builder for up to 100 contacts.
- Lite: Starts at $7.50/month and adds an email quality checker, subject line assistant, and email authentication check.
- Standard: Starts at $15/month and includes chatbots and an online email marketing course.
- Enterprise: Custom pricing available upon request.
What do users say?
User reviews highlight both benefits and areas for improvement:
- “Difficult to locate some features.”
- “Pricing is high when scaling beyond 1,000 contacts.”
- “International address support could improve, but the customer service team is helpful.”
- “Free plan has limitations, but that’s expected.”
Conclusion
Lavender AI makes a lot of promises, but similar to other AI-powered email tools, it can feel unfinished. The glitchy interface, the bugs, the lack of proper customer support – these are some of the many reasons why businesses look for Lavender alternatives.
But why waste time looking when the best choice is right in front of you? With Woodpecker, you can create, personalize, segment, split test and analyze cold emails. One offer, tons of features at affordable pricing.
Grab your free Woodpecker trial to get started today!