Ballast – agent cold email outreach

Ballast, a cold email platform, claims it can run cold email up to 80% cheaper than Instantly, citing a comparison of 20,000 emails per month on its $19 Starter plan versus Instantly's $97 Hypergrowth plan at monthly prices checked in October 2026. Ballast includes unlimited mailbox connections, warmup that never counts against the email quota, and an API and MCP server that exposes every app function as a REST endpoint and AI-callable tool, with all features available on every plan. The company also says its pricing counts only contacts still waiting for an email rather than every contact in an account, a distinction it uses to undercut competitors' contact-capped entry tiers.

Run cold email up to 80% cheaper than Instantly. Ballast is cold email software with every feature on every plan. Connect unlimited mailboxes, send sequences at a pace your domains survive, and handle replies in one inbox, priced by the emails you send. Get started https://ballast.to/signup From $19 a month Everything you see here, your AI can do too. See how https://ballast.to/docs/mcp The problem The cheap plan is never the plan you end up on. Entry plans cap your contacts. Then the Unibox, client workspaces and placement tests sit on higher tiers or cost extra. Here is an agency sending 150,000 emails a month for 5 clients. - Light Speed plan$358 - Unlimited Smart plan$174 - 5 client workspaces × $29$145 - Pro plan, 150,000 emails$79 - Unibox, warmup, placement testsincl. Now put in your own numbers. Your volume and your list, priced on each tool's cheapest public plan that covers both. Emails a month 20,000 Contacts in your account 5,000 On Ballast Warmup is free and never uses your quota. All 20,000 emails go directly to your prospects. - Instantly Hypergrowth plan $97 Ballast is 80% cheaper - Smartlead Pro plan $94 Ballast is 80% cheaper - Lemlist Email plan $69 Ballast is 72% cheaper Their cheapest public plan for both numbers, monthly billing, checked October 2026. Ballast is priced as if every contact were active; it only counts contacts still waiting for an email. Every comparison https://ballast.to/compare The 80% in the headline: 20,000 emails/month: Ballast Starter $19 vs Instantly Hypergrowth $97, monthly prices checked October 2026. How it works Cheap is the hook. Steady is the product. Everything included Everything you need to run cold email. Every card below is on every plan. The plan only sets how many emails you send. MailboxesGoogle Workspace, Microsoft 365 or any SMTP host, as many as you own. WarmupMailboxes in the pool trade a few emails a day, open them and pull them out of spam. SequencesSteps, A to E variants, spintax and variables, previewed against real leads. UniboxReplies from every mailbox in one inbox, sorted into Interested, Out of office and the rest. GuardrailsBreakers pause a mailbox, a campaign or the workspace when bounces climb, and say why. Deliverability NetworkSMTP mailboxes log in through static IPs used only for mail, the same IP every time, with dedicated IPs if you want them. ImportInstantly, Smartlead, Lemlist, Apollo and Clay exports, mapped for you, with every skipped row explained. API and MCPEverything in the app is a REST endpoint and a tool your AI can call, with signed webhooks. Deliverability Built to keep you out of spam. Cheap is only cheap if your emails land. Every plan sends at the pace Gmail and Outlook expect from a person, and stops on its own when bounces say something is wrong. - Warmup never uses your plan quotaUnlimited warmup is included on every plan and never counts toward your monthly email allowance. New mailboxes build real open and reply history without touching your quota. - Paced like a personRandom gaps of 4 to 10 minutes, Gmail to Gmail and Outlook to Outlook, only in each lead's working hours, and a slow daily ramp for new mailboxes. - Breakers that pause on their ownWhen bounces pass your threshold, Ballast pauses the mailbox, the campaign or the workspace and says why, before one bad list costs you a domain. - Tested before your leads see itSend a campaign email to test inboxes at the main providers and see inbox, spam or missing for each, before you launch. Ten tests a day on every plan. - Static mail-only IP networkSMTP mailboxes connect through static IPs used exclusively for mail and isolated from app traffic, with dedicated IPs available. Everything that keeps you out of spam https://ballast.to/features deliverability Write the sequence Write it once. Read it as each lead will. Variables with fallbacks, spintax and up to five variants a step. The preview fills in a real lead, warns you when a value is missing, and checks length, spam words and links while you type. Handle the replies Every reply from every mailbox, in one inbox. Replies land in the Unibox seconds after they arrive, with the campaign emails folded above them. Out of office pauses the sequence until the return date, unsubscribes stop it, and AI labels the rest if you turn it on. Answer from the same mailbox, in the same thread. Ready to stop paying per mailbox? Import your setup in an afternoon. Every feature on every plan, from $19 a month. Why Ballast Spend the budget on the list, not on the tool. - Every feature on every planNo Unibox tier, no seat fee, no warmup add-on. Built-in deliverability network on every plan. The plan only decides how many emails you send. - Your data stays yoursYour list, your copy and your replies live in your workspace. We don't sell them, share them or train models on them. - Your AI can run itEvery screen is also an MCP tool for Claude, ChatGPT and Cursor. Nothing sends until you say yes. - Steady beats fastEach mailbox sends at its own daily limit, ramps up slowly and pauses when bounces climb. Unlimited mailboxes is not unlimited sending. - Replies over opensOpen tracking is off by default. Privacy proxies open emails on delivery, so the number mostly counts machines. - Switch in an afternoonImport presets for Instantly, Smartlead, Lemlist, Apollo and Clay exports, with duplicates, suppressed and invalid rows counted for you. Your AI can run it Everything you can do in Ballast, your AI can do too. Every action is a tool on the Ballast MCP server. claude.ai and ChatGPT sign in with your account, Claude Code and Cursor use an API key. Anything that sends, imports or deletes asks first. Connect your AI in a minute https://ballast.to/docs/mcp Free tool Check your domain before the next send. SPF, DKIM, DMARC, MX and 9 blacklists in about two seconds, with the fix for every problem. The same check Ballast runs on your domains every night. Pay for emails sent. The rest is included. Five plans, one product. Mailboxes, seats, warmup, the Unibox and the API come with each of them. Emails a month Up to 10,000 active contacts Leads that finished, replied, bounced or unsubscribed don't count, so you never delete leads to make room. Starter $0.95 per 1,000 emails Billed monthly 300 AI drafts a month, no limit with your own AI key Included on all five plans - Unlimited mailboxes - Unlimited seats - Warmup never uses plan quota - Deliverability Network mail-only IPs - Unibox with AI labels - Sequences and A/B variants - Domain monitoring - Import presets - API, webhooks and MCP - One-click unsubscribe Start with Starter https://ballast.to/signup Need an Enterprise plan or more than 2,000,000 emails a month? Talk to us https://ballast.to/contact . Full details on the pricing page https://ballast.to/pricing . From the blog Cold email, with the numbers we checked. Cold email 7 Pitch Email Examples for B2B Sales and Cold OutreachReal B2B pitch email templates that get replies, without the fluffy compliments, fake calendar demands, or generic sales talk. Cold email 5 Cheap Cold Email Platforms With Unlimited Seats 2026 Compare cheap cold email platforms with unlimited seats and mailboxes. See real starting prices, contact caps, and monthly send allowances. Deliverability Catch-All Email: What It Is and Whether to Send to OneA catch-all email domain accepts mail for any address, so no verifier can confirm a lead there. How to spot one, why it bounces later, and when to send. Questions The ones people ask before they switch. Anything else, write to contact@ballast.to. How do you protect deliverability if your price is up to 80% lower? The price is lower because we do not charge per seat, mark up mailboxes, or sell safeguards as add-ons. We do not cut corners on deliverability. Ballast paces sending per mailbox with random 4 to 10 minute gaps, matches ESPs Google mailboxes write to Gmail leads, Microsoft to Outlook , routes traffic over static mail-only IPs, checks SPF, DKIM and DMARC nightly, and pauses campaigns automatically if bounces climb past 3%. How the breakers work https://ballast.to/docs/sending-safety Why do you charge per email, not per mailbox or seat? Your emails leave from your own mailboxes, so one more mailbox or teammate costs us next to nothing. Charging for them would only punish you for spreading volume the safe way. The plan counts emails sent a month and active contacts. Leads that finished their sequence, replied, bounced or unsubscribed don't count. Does warmup consume from my monthly email quota? No. Warmup never touches your email allowance. If your plan includes 20,000 or 150,000 emails a month, all of them are for real prospect campaigns. Warmup runs separately across the pool 2 on day one, up to 10 a day per mailbox, with real opens and replies at no extra cost. How warmup works https://ballast.to/warmup Which mailboxes can I connect? Google Workspace and Gmail with an app password, Microsoft 365 and Outlook.com with Microsoft sign-in, and any other provider over SMTP and IMAP. Unlimited on every plan. To keep the shared network clean, a new workspace can add 5 mailboxes and send 1,000 emails a day for its first 7 days. Connect a mailbox https://ballast.to/docs/connect-mailbox Can my AI run it? Yes. Every action in the app is also a tool on the Ballast MCP server. claude.ai and ChatGPT sign in with your Ballast account; Claude Code and Cursor use an API key. Launching a campaign, replying, importing and deleting need a second, confirming call, so nothing sends until you say yes. Connect your AI https://ballast.to/docs/mcp Can I bring my leads from Instantly or Smartlead? Yes. Export a CSV and drop it in. Ballast has presets for Instantly, Smartlead, Lemlist, Apollo and Clay exports, keeps your custom fields, and counts duplicates, suppressed and invalid rows before anything is imported. 10,000 rows take about four seconds. Switching from Instantly https://ballast.to/migrate/instantly What happens if I go over my plan? Sending pauses until your next monthly period or until you move up a plan. There is no overage bill. The sidebar shows what's left, and we email you when you reach the limit. Is there a free trial? No free plan and no trial: a card is required, because free cold email accounts attract people who burn the shared sending network for everyone. The domain checker is free and needs no signup. If Ballast isn't for you, ask for a full refund within 3 days of a charge. Check your domain free https://ballast.to/check Can I keep my clients apart? Yes. Make a workspace per client: each has its own mailboxes, leads, campaigns and Unibox, unlimited seats, and its own plan, so each client's sending is billed on its own. Or run several clients from one workspace on one plan. Where is my data, and who sees it? Ballast is hosted in the EU. Your list, your copy and your replies stay in your workspace. We don't sell them, share them or train models on them. Every company we use that touches your data is on our sub-processor list. Sub-processors https://ballast.to/legal/sub-processors The honest part Skip Ballast if this is you - You have no list or offer yetA sending tool won't find you customers. Work out who you're writing to and why they'd reply, then come back. - You want to blast a bought consumer listOur acceptable use policy forbids it and the breakers would pause you anyway. - You send newsletters or receiptsUse an email service built for that. Ballast is for one-to-one outbound from your own mailboxes. - You want guaranteed inbox placementNobody can sell that honestly. We keep you inside the published rules and stop before a bad day burns a domain.