Here’s what I learned in my cold emailing adventure. It has been frustrating and more expensive than I thought it would be. So I’m writing this to help anyone that is considering doing a Cold Emailing campaign with Instantly.io, Hunter.io, or other tool
Why Not Just BCC Everyone?
Using the same email address to email hundreds (or thousands) of prospects is not a good idea. ISP’s will see this activity and possibly flag the email address. f you use your main email address for this this could land you in a world of hurt. It could cause all the emails – even the ones you write one on one to people you already know – to start winding up in their spam boxes.
If you’re emailing more than 50-100 people, don’t do it.
Instead, plan a bulk cold emailing campaign. Here’s an overview:
Step 1: Infrastructure Setup
You will need to have multiple accounts. And probably best if you have multiple domains. You don’t want your “main” domain (ie, your website) to get flagged so you’ll need a new domain (or domains).
Using emails from your own domain will increase the likelihood of all your external emails from all your domain accounts to start winding up in spam folders – even for pre-existing contacts, vendors, and – ack! – customers.
Oh, and once you buy the domains ($10 each) and email inboxes ($5 each), you have to wait 4+ weeks to warm them up (which you have to pay for).
Step 2: Lead Lists and Lead Generation
Maybe you have a list of emails you want to send to – great! Bad news, some providers will charge you to upload your own list of emails.
Maybe you need to get more leads. You can pay providers to get more leads for you. Great!
A few gotchas here, including this big one: some providers won’t guarantee the leads they give you are any good unless you pay them to verify. And others will verify them as part of their service – but if you want to download the email you already paid for you might have to pay to export them, depending on your plan. Other providers only let you download 10 at a time, making you page through lists unless you pay to upgrade to bulk download the emails you are already paying for.
So have a beginning to end plan before you start paying for stuff (like I did…)
Step 3: Email Verification
Just because a provider lets you pay to get email addresses doesn’t mean they are any good. You need to choose a service to check them. Different providers are better at this but everyone says they can do it. I thought Instantly.ai and Hunter.io were pretty bad at this. You’re better off exporting them (which you might have to pay for as I mentioned in step 2) and then cleaning the list at ZeroBounce or NeverBounce, who have focused on cleaning.
Then importing them back into your first system (but if you’ve already got them in there, how do you delete the ones that are bad? I had to delete them all from the first system and re-import the cleaned list. But unfortunately I had already started a campaign and things got messy/messier. Have a plan.)
Step 4: Campaign Execution
Writing the sequences takes time, strategy, and organization. This can add to the complications. I liked Instantly.ai’s Unibox to consolidate all incoming emails into one inbox (since you will presumably be emailing from many inboxes) Otherwise Instantly.ai was one big headache. Their site isn’t even responsive so have fun trying to respond to interested prospects if you aren’t sitting by your desktop 24/7.
Calculating Bulk Cold Emailing Costs
Here’s some typical costs – plans change over time so check all their details and just use this table as a rough estimate.
Infrastructure Costs
| Component | Provider | Cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Domain | Any Registrar | $10-20/year | Basic domain registration |
| Email Account | Google Workspace | $6-12/user/month | Must use Google Workspace, not @gmail.com |
| Domain Warmup | Various | $40-100/month | Temporary cost for first 1-2 months |
Lead Generation Tools Comparison
| Tool | Pricing | Location Filtering | Export Limits | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apollo.ai | $49-99/month | Yes | Limited by plan | Location-specific targeting, integrated sending |
| Hunter.io | $49-399/month | No | Based on plan | General B2B prospecting |
| LinkedIn Sales Nav | $79-159/month | Yes | Manual export | High-quality B2B leads |
| Seamless.ai | $97-147/month | Yes | Based on plan | Real-time verification |
Email Verification Services
| Service | Cost per 1K Emails | Accuracy | API Available | Unique Features |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ZeroBounce | $16 | Very High | Yes | Risk scoring, catch-all detection |
| NeverBounce | $10 | High | Yes | Good bulk pricing |
| Apollo (built-in) | Included | Medium | No | Convenient but less reliable |
| Hunter (built-in) | Included | Medium | Yes | Basic verification |
Email Sending Platforms
| Platform | Monthly Cost | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|---|
| Instantly.ai | $37-297 | Good deliverability, interface is a nightmare. Don’t even try it on the phone. | Limited weekend support |
| Lemlist | $59-999 | Great personalization | Higher cost |
| Apollo (built-in) | Included | Unlimited sends on basic plan | Limited to 1-5 inboxes |
| Mailgun | $35+ | Reliable delivery | Not ideal for cold emails |
| SendGrid | $14.95+ | Great infrastructure | Better for transactional emails |
Recommended Budget for Starting Out
| Component | Monthly Cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Infrastructure | $50-100 | Domain + 2-3 Google Workspace accounts |
| Lead Generation | $99-199 | Mid-tier plan on preferred platform |
| Email Verification | $50-100 | Based on volume (5-10K emails) |
| Sending Platform | $97-197 | Mid-tier plan |
| Total | $296-596 | First month higher due to warmup costs |
Here’s a flowchart that might help you decide. Sorry it is hard to read. I couldn’t get WP’s markdown editor to make it look nicer.
