Alternative to lemlist: SmartOutbound, priced per mailbox rather than per user
lemlist or SmartOutbound? The real cost for a team, features, limits and when each tool is the best choice, with public pricing checked in November 2026.
Updated on 11 November 2026
lemlist is one of the best-known outreach tools in France. It popularised email personalisation and now offers a complete package covering email and LinkedIn. Yet many teams look for an alternative for a simple reason: the price, which rises with every user.
The prices side by side
Public prices checked on 11 November 2026 on the official pricing pages, monthly billing, excluding VAT.
| lemlist Email | lemlist Multichannel | SmartOutbound | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $69 per month | $109 per month per user | €9.99 excl. VAT per month per block of 10 mailboxes |
| Annual billing | $55 per month | $87 per month per user | no annual discount, no commitment |
| What is counted | users | users, 5 senders each | connected mailboxes |
| Warmup | included | included | included |
| no | yes | no | |
| Free trial | 14 days | 14 days | 30 days, no card required |
What this means for a team
Take a team of four sales reps who prospect by email only, with two mailboxes each, so eight mailboxes.
- With SmartOutbound, eight mailboxes fit into one block: €9.99 excl. VAT per month, regardless of how many people log in.
- With lemlist, the price depends on the number of users and the plan chosen. The Multichannel plan, which is the one used for the trial, comes to $436 per month for four users on monthly billing.
The gap widens further for an agency managing several clients, or for a call centre adding email to its campaigns: the number of people using the tool grows faster than the volume of emails.
What lemlist does that SmartOutbound does not
- LinkedIn sequences (Multichannel plan): profile visits, connection requests, messages.
- An integrated contact database to find prospects without a list.
- Personalised images and videos in emails, one of lemlist's hallmarks.
- A broad integration ecosystem and a large community.
If your approach relies on LinkedIn or personalised images, lemlist remains a very good choice.
What SmartOutbound does differently
- Pricing per mailbox, with no limit on users or imported contacts.
- AI included at no extra cost: writing sequences, personalised opening lines, sorting replies, and an assistant that prepares your campaigns from your files.
- A cautious ramp-up for new mailboxes (5 emails a day in the first week, 10 in the second) and a cap of 50 emails per mailbox per day, to protect your domains.
- Separate workspaces per client or brand, with their own mailboxes and statistics.
- Data hosted in France and an interface in 27 languages.
What to know before switching
SmartOutbound connects to your mailboxes via SMTP and IMAP. Google Workspace and Gmail work with an app password, as do Hostinger, OVH, IONOS, Zoho, Infomaniak and Gandi. Microsoft 365 and Outlook mailboxes are not yet supported.
Your already warmed-up mailboxes keep their reputation: it belongs to your domains, not to the tool. You can therefore pick up where you left off by importing your contacts from CSV or Excel.
For other tools, see the full comparison or SmartOutbound's pricing.
Frequently asked questions
+Is SmartOutbound cheaper than lemlist?
Yes, for email prospecting. SmartOutbound costs €9.99 excl. VAT per month for 10 mailboxes, with no limit on users. lemlist's Email plan starts at $69 per month and the Multichannel plan at $109 per month per user on monthly billing.
+Can you do LinkedIn outreach with SmartOutbound?
No, SmartOutbound is focused on email. If LinkedIn is part of your approach, lemlist Multichannel or La Growth Machine are better suited.
+Can I reuse mailboxes warmed up with lemlist?
Yes. Reputation is tied to your domains and mailboxes, not to the tool. Connect them to SmartOutbound: warmup continues and you resume sending gradually.
+How long does migration take?
About an hour for a small team: connect the mailboxes, import the contacts, recreate the sequences or have them written.