I built a free, open-source AI B2B outreach system on N8N — here's how it works

A developer built outreach-os, a free, open-source B2B outreach automation pipeline on N8N that finds leads via Google Places API, scores them, generates AI cold emails, and tracks replies. The system uses GLM-4 or GPT-4o-mini for email generation and is designed for indie builders and small teams to replace costly SaaS tools like Apollo and Lemlist.

B2B cold outreach is broken for indie builders and small teams. Most SaaS tools Apollo, Instantly, Lemlist charge $100–$400/month. And even then, you're stitching together: I wanted one system that does all of this — free, self-hosted, and open source. So I built outreach-os . outreach-os is an open-source B2B outreach automation pipeline built entirely on N8N no backend required . It automates the full cycle: Find leads → Score them → Send AI cold emails → Track replies → Auto follow-up GitHub: https://github.com/hitb1099/outreach-os https://github.com/hitb1099/outreach-os npm: npm i outreach-os The first workflow connects to the Google Places API and searches for businesses by city + industry keyword e.g., "restaurants in Bangalore" . Each lead gets scored 0–100 using a custom algorithm: Leads are automatically split into two Google Sheets tabs: For each HOT lead, the second workflow: The email isn't a template — it's fully dynamic based on the business type, name, and context. A daily scheduled workflow runs at 9AM and: Full status tracking: Pending → Emailed → Replied or Emailed → FollowedUp | Tool | Purpose | |---|---| | N8N | Workflow engine self-hosted | | Google Places API | Lead discovery | | Google Sheets | Lead database | | GLM-4 / GPT-4o-mini | Email generation | | Pollinations.ai | AI banner image generation free | | Gmail | Email sending & reply tracking | npm i outreach-os Or just clone the GitHub repo and import the JSON workflow files directly into your N8N instance. Add your API keys Google Places, OpenAI/GLM-4, Gmail and you're live. Full setup guide is in the /docs folder. I built this because I needed it myself for a restaurant marketing side project. After getting it working, I figured others would benefit from it too — especially indie hackers and small agencies who can't justify $300/month SaaS tools. The entire project is MIT licensed. Contributions are welcome via GitHub. GitHub: https://github.com/hitb1099/outreach-os If this was useful, a star would mean a lot. And drop any questions or feedback in the comments