You have probably heard about Artisan's "Stop Hiring Humans" campaign.
The billboards ran in San Francisco and New York, the backlash followed, and Artisan retired the slogan.
They changed the messaging and rebuilt the dashboard. The complaints did not change with it. Users still report sloppy emails, a high price and thin output.
So I pulled together every alternative worth your time. Here they are.
Agent Frank: Best overall AI SDR for outbound. He handles prospecting and multichannel outreach on full-funnel infrastructure he owns instead. His Intelligence layer powers both Co-Pilot and Auto-Pilot modes, and nothing prices per seat.
AiSDR: Best for teams who want the option to cancel next month. One agent runs email, LinkedIn and text, with every price published on the website. The contact caps bite as you scale.
Reply.io Jason AI: Best for teams who want an AI SDR without learning a new tool. He works inside the sequencer your reps already open, across five channels and a billion-contact database. Jason bills on top of your Reply plan.
Jazon: Best for teams who need the agent on their own servers, as finance and healthcare often do. He covers email and LinkedIn on an email-trained model, with a three-month pilot. Lyzr quotes him by deployment.
11x: Best for enterprise teams who need phone outreach, since Julian places the calls Ava cannot. Alice runs email and LinkedIn alongside him on SOC 2 Type II infrastructure. The entry price runs well above Artisan's.
Feature Comparison: Artisan AI Alternatives At A Glance
Outbound teams growing revenue without adding headcount
$499/mo annual
Yes, same sequence
Yes, 500M+ built in
Signals, followers, lookalikes
Own domains and mailboxes
Signals plus your corrections
Auto-Pilot or Co-Pilot
AiSDR
SMB teams who need email and text in one agent
$250/mo
Yes
Yes, 700M+
ICP search
Partial
Reads 323+ sources
Both
Reply.io Jason AI
Teams already running Reply.io
Add-on to Reply.io
Yes
Yes, 1B+
Research Agents
Own mailboxes
Research Agents
Both
Jazon
Technical teams who want to shape the agent
Not published
Yes
Partial
ICP search
Your own servers
Email-trained model
Both
11x
Enterprise teams who need phone outreach
$3,750/mo annual
Yes
Yes, 400M+
ICP search
Included in contract
Outbound and inbound agents
Both
Why People Leave Artisan AI
There are 3 main reasons why users leave Artisan AI for its alternatives.
AI Email Slop
The complaint I hear most is the writing. Reviewers say Ava's emails read like a machine wrote them.
Artisan gives you a tone setting and a brand guide. Reviewers say the emails still read generic once campaigns start.
Pricing
Artisan used to publish its prices. In May 2026 it launched Ava 2.0 with a free tier and plans at $250 and $600 a month.
That lasted a few months. Artisan pulled the self-serve pricing later in the year, and the page now lists Team, Scale and Enterprise with no numbers against any of them.
Every tier reads "pricing scoped to your plan" or "custom, flexible plans." You book a call to find out what Ava costs.
Not Real LinkedIn Outreach Automation
Artisan sells Ava as an AI automation product. Nothing about the LinkedIn channel runs automatically. Ava drafts the message and you click send on every single one.
For an AI SDR, that is a strange gap. You bought an agent to stop doing the manual work, and the manual work is still there.
How I Tested These 5 Artisan AI Alternatives
Every tool here calls itself the best AI SDR. So I gave them all the same list, the same offer and the same mailboxes. Then I marked each one on five things.
Are they real AI SDRs: A real agent sources the leads and finds the contact data, then writes, sends and books the meeting. Several here stop short and hand part of that back to you.
How much supervision it hands back: Ava needs a tight ICP, approved copy and someone watching the replies. I checked how much each tool asks of you.
Whether it sends on LinkedIn: Ava drafts and you click send. I tested whether each tool works the channel by itself, because buyers who ignore email often answer there.
What it really costs: Your bill rarely matches the starting price. I added up the mailboxes, the domains, the credits and the contact data on top.
What it does to your domains: Thousands of emails a month can ruin the domains you sell from. I checked whether each tool warms its own mailboxes, spreads volume across them and backs off when bounces climb.
1. Agent Frank
Best for: Outbound teams who want to grow revenue without adding headcount.
G2 rating: 4.6 out of 5 for Salesforge
Agent Frank is an AI SDR for outbound sales outreach who books meetings on his own.
He finds the prospects who match your ICP, writes personalized outreach for each one, runs automated follow ups and books the meeting.
He runs in two modes:
Auto-Pilot: He chooses the leads, writes the messages and sends them without asking you first. The replies arrive in your inbox and you join in when you want to.
Co-Pilot: Nothing goes out until you have approved it. He works slower this way, and I would begin here.
Outbound starts with two problems that feed each other. You need people to send to, and somewhere clean to send from. Weak data wastes good infrastructure, and a burned domain wastes good data.
Frank arrives with both.
His outbound prospecting runs on 500M+ contacts, and he reads the buying signals before writing a word.
Megaforge handles the sending. Twenty mailboxes sit across Gmail, Outlook, Mailforge and Infraforge for $69 a month. He warms every one of them himself. Spreading the volume that way keeps your deliverability up and your own domain clean.
LinkedIn prospecting runs the same way, inside the same sequence as the email.
Agent Frank Key Features
All-in-One SDR: He builds the list, finds the addresses, writes, sends and books the meeting.
Auto-Pilot or Co-Pilot: You decide whether he sends alone or waits for your sign-off.
LinkedIn automation: He sends the connection requests and messages himself, inside the same sequence as the email. Running both channels as one flow makes him the safest multichannel option here.
500M+ contacts included: Lead generation comes with the plan, so you pay nothing for data.
Builds ABM lists: You give him named accounts. He finds the right people inside each one.
Continuous lead discovery: New leads matching your ICP keep arriving. The list never empties.
Provides Intent Signals: He reads the company, the buying signals and the likely objections. The draft follows from that.
Trained on your material: You upload your decks, docs and website, and he learns the product from them.
Intelligence layer: He remembers every correction you make in Co-Pilot and carries it into the next campaign. Each one starts from what he already learned.
20+ languages: He drafts in multiple languages, each one starting in the prospect's own. None of it arrives translated from English.
Works 24/7 Autonoumously: You set his time zone, his days and his send windows. He stays out of inboxes overnight.
Unlimited senders: You connect every mailbox and LinkedIn profile you own, and the price holds.
Warm-up at no extra cost: Warmforge warms every mailbox before the first send, and the plan covers it.
Megaforge splits the volume: Twenty mailboxes sit across four providers, each sending about 15 emails a day. Losing one domain never stops a campaign.
Named account manager: You get one on every plan, plus a shared Slack channel.
Why Frank Beats Ava
Frank takes the top slot for three reasons.
He sends on LinkedIn himself: Artisan sells the channel and hands you the drafts to send by hand. Frank runs it inside the same sequence as the email.
Everything in one place: Frank covers the whole chain from infrastructure to sending. Megaforge spreads that sending across four providers, so no single domain carries the load.
Agent intelligence: Ava performs as well as you feed her. Frank learns your product once, keeps what you correct and writes better each campaign.
What I Liked About Agent Frank
I had several ways to find leads, from competitor followers to lookalikes to buying signals. None of it needed a second subscription.
One pass through the Knowledge Base taught him the product. No campaign needed fresh prompts after that.
The steps made sense straight away. Co-Pilot let me watch for two weeks before I handed over the sending.
What Are The Cons Of Agent Frank
There is no free trial. You book a demo before you can buy.
Best for: Small sales teams who want the option to cancel next month.
G2 rating: 4.6 out of 5
AiSDR runs email, LinkedIn and text from a single agent called Ami. She researches each prospect, writes the message, handles the reply and books the meeting.
The contract puts AiSDR second. Transparent pricing sits on its website, and the cheapest plan bills month to month.
So readers who left Artisan over the commitment should start here.
The data comes with it too. All three plans include the 700M+ lead database. Apollo and ZoomInfo stay off your invoice.
The texts surprised me. Almost nothing else on this list sends them, and mine pulled replies that email missed.
AiSDR Key Features
Email, LinkedIn and text: One agent runs all three, and the texts come included.
700M+ lead database: The leads come with every tier, so no second data bill reaches your card.
Data enrichment from 323+ sources: Ami reads broadly first. Reviewers say her copy avoids the template feel.
Replies in minutes: She answers a warm reply in five to ten minutes, not the next morning.
Two-way HubSpot sync: Lists, account scores and activity sync both ways on every tier.
A GTM engineer sets it up: Someone at AiSDR configures your ICP, copy and CRM before launch.
Credits roll over: Unused messages move into the next quarter while the plan runs.
Multi language support: She drafts in 60+ languages, whichever one your prospect speaks.
Ami builds the strategy: She drafts your ICP, angles and sequences before any sending starts.
Best for: Teams who want an AI SDR without learning a new tool.
G2 rating: 4.6 out of 5 for Reply.io
Reply.io put its AI SDR inside the sequencer your reps already open daily. Jason finds the leads, drafts the outreach, keeps chasing and handles the replies.
Your reps learn nothing new. For plenty of teams that beats a sharper standalone agent.
Reply runs multiple channels, more than anything else on this list. One sequence holds email, LinkedIn, phone calls, SMS and WhatsApp. Ava writes email and drafts LinkedIn. Calling and WhatsApp stay out of her reach.
Reply also holds the largest database here. Over a billion records span more than 150 countries.
You pay for Jason separately from your Reply subscription. He runs on custom pricing, and published figures vary enough that I would get a quote first.
Jason AI Key Features
Lives inside Reply.io: Your reps keep the screens and sequences they know.
Five channels: Email, LinkedIn, phone, SMS and WhatsApp all share one cadence.
1B+ contact database: Reply supplies its own records, reaching more than 150 countries.
Research Agents: You pick up to three angles, such as recent funding or a new hire.
Handles replies: He answers the questions, books the meeting and keeps the thread alive.
Lead scoring: He ranks leads by engagement, so reps work the hottest ones first.
Deep CRM sync: Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive and Copper update both ways every two hours.
700+ integrations: Zapier and Make link whatever else your stack runs.
Built-in deliverability: Warm-up and sending health both sit inside the platform.
Best for: Teams who need the agent running on their own servers.
G2 rating: Not enough reviews to score
Lyzr built Jazon on its own agent platform. He studies each prospect, drafts the emails, handles LinkedIn and fills your calendar.
Where he runs matters more than anything else about him. You install Jazon in a private cloud or on hardware you already own. No other tool here allows that.
Banks, hospitals and government teams face rules about where customer records sit. Most AI SDRs fail that review well before anyone books an Artisan demo. Ava stays on Artisan's servers and always will.
Lyzr gives you a second reason to look. Eligible customers get three months free, and no other trial on this page comes close.
Just expect a slow start. Lyzr leads with a platform and treats the SDR as one use of it. You assemble Jazon instead of switching him on.
Jazon Key Features
Runs on your own servers: He runs in a private cloud or on-premises. Your data stays inside the building.
Email-trained model: Lyzr trained a model for outreach instead of adapting a general one.
Email and LinkedIn: One agent covers both channels.
Books meetings: The calendar connection schedules everything with no human involved.
SOC 2 and ISO 27001: Lyzr holds both. Your security team asks about these first.
Model-agnostic: He works with whichever language model you like, and you can change it later.
PII redaction built in: He strips the sensitive fields out before the model sees them.
Other agents included: Marketing, HR and support agents come on the same platform.
Three-month pilot: Qualifying customers run him free for a quarter.
What I Liked About Jazon
I hosted him on my own servers. Three other tools could not do that.
I got sharper first drafts from his email model than from any general-purpose agent.
Three free months told me what a 14-day trial never could.
I shaped his behavior directly instead of choosing from a dropdown of preset tones.
What Are The Cons Of Jazon
The setup demands genuine technical work. You will struggle without an engineer.
Lyzr sells a whole platform. Jazon gets less focus than a product built only for outbound.
No price appears anywhere for Jazon. You request one, and your deployment decides it.
Jazon carries too little user feedback to judge him against the bigger names.
Anyone who needs pipeline this month belongs higher up this list.
Jazon Pricing
Plan
Price
What you get
Agent Studio Free
$0
The platform, for building and testing
Agent Studio Pro
$99/month
The platform with production limits lifted
Jazon
Quoted on request
The SDR agent, priced by deployment
Lyzr prices Agent Studio openly and quotes Jazon case by case. Each cloud run costs about $0.08.
5. 11x
Best for: Enterprise teams who need phone outreach.
G2 rating: 4.4 out of 5 from 33 reviews
11x sells two AI agents. Alice works outbound across email and LinkedIn. Julian picks up the phone.
The phone earns 11x its place here. Ava never calls anyone. Artisan sells dialer seats at $67 a month and your own reps do the dialing. A buyer who only answers a ringing phone stays unreachable.
Julian closes that gap. He calls, he talks, and he books the meeting with no rep on the line.
Security gives you the second reason. 11x holds SOC 2 Type II, and that matters once procurement gets involved.
Then comes the hard part. Alice Growth starts at $3,750 a month on an annual contract, against Artisan's $250. You pay fifteen times more. I would want fifteen times the pipeline before signing that.
11x Key Features
Alice runs outbound: She researches the accounts, writes the copy and sends on email and LinkedIn.
Julian makes the calls: He dials, talks to the prospect and books the meeting himself.
Inbound lead qualification: He answers the leads who come to you, not only the ones you chase.
400M+ contact database: Prospecting comes with the platform.
105+ languages: Both agents write and speak in whatever your market uses.
SOC 2 Type II: 11x holds the certification enterprise procurement teams ask for.
Managed mailbox infrastructure: 11x folds the sending setup into the contract.
Deep CRM integrations: The platform syncs with Salesforce, HubSpot and a standard enterprise stack.
2,000 new prospects a month: The Growth plan targets that volume.
Ava does a decent job. She writes, she sends, she books.
She just asks for a lot of your attention. She wants a tight list, approved copy and someone reading every reply. She writes worse emails when she gets less.
Agent Frank wants less from you. He learns your product once, keeps the corrections you make and writes personalized emails from both. He sends on LinkedIn himself. He uses his own warmed domains, so your company domain stays clean.
I would put the difference like this. One wants your week. The other wants a starting point.
Agent Frank, for most teams. He learns your product once and keeps your corrections, so he asks less of your week. He also sends LinkedIn messages himself and uses his own warmed domains.
2. Is Ava a fully autonomous AI SDR, or does she need a human?
She needs a human. Ava runs campaigns and answers replies on her own. Reviewers say she performs only as well as you feed her. One tester put it in seven words: you set up more, the AI decides less.
3. Does Ava send LinkedIn messages?
No. Artisan lists LinkedIn as a channel, but Ava writes the message and you click send. Four of the five alternatives in this post work the channel on their own.
4. How much does Artisan AI cost in 2026?
Artisan starts at $250 a month on annual billing, or $280 monthly. A free tier gives 300 credits but runs no campaigns. The dialer costs $67 a seat on top. I would check the live page first, because the pricing changed twice this year.
5. Which Artisan alternative is cheapest?
AiSDR, at $250 a month billed month to month. Agent Frank costs $499 with the data and warm-up included, and the infrastructure bills separately from $33. Cheaper tools charge for those pieces one by one.
6. How fresh is Artisan's contact data?
Artisan draws on 250M+ contacts and fills each record from 22+ sources. Reviewers still flag stale records, so I would re-verify before a big send. Several say Ava misses good-fit buyers in narrow markets.
7. Where is Artisan AI based?
San Francisco. The company ran "Stop Hiring Humans" billboards there and in New York. Artisan retired the slogan in 2026 and apologized. Artisan now markets Ava as replacing busywork instead of reps.
8. What happened to Artisan in May 2026?
Artisan rebuilt the product and launched Ava 2.0 on 26 May 2026. She now handles replies and objections, and the company published self-serve prices. Most articles about Artisan still describe the older version.
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