Instantly vs HeyReach: Which Cold Outreach Tool Is Superior?

This is a real decision a lot of outbound teams are facing in 2026: do you stack two tools (one for email, one for LinkedIn), or do you run both channels from one platform? I've used all three. Below is what I'd want to know before paying anyone for a year.

I'll cover what each tool fundamentally is, what each actually costs once you add the bits the pricing page doesn't show you, where the real differences sit, and which scenarios I'd pick which one for.

Quick-glance comparison

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Instantly: what it is and what it costs

Instantly is a cold-email-only sending platform. It started as a tool focused on sending volume and shared-pool warm-up, and has since spread into separately-priced add-on products: a Lead Database (formerly SuperSearch, now "Instantly Credits"), a CRM, Email Verification, Website Visitors, Inbox Placement, and a couple of AI agents. There's no native LinkedIn outreach anywhere on the platform.

What Instantly does well: unlimited connected email accounts and warmup on every Outreach plan, a clean campaign builder, and unified replies inside one "Unibox" view. For teams whose only channel is cold email and who are sending at high volume, the unlimited inboxes model genuinely scales.

Core features

• Unlimited email accounts and warmup on every Outreach tier
• Campaign builder with A/B testing and scheduling
• "Unibox" for managing email replies in one view
• Inbox Placement tests, Email Verification, blacklist monitoring (each its own add-on or feature)
• Instantly Credits - a separate Lead Database subscription with 450M+ contacts
• CRM module - separate subscription
• AI Sales Agent and AI Reply Agent - newer products, layered on top
• Light Speed tier includes SISR (Server and IP Sharding and Rotation)

Pricing (verified on instantly.ai/pricing in May 2026)

• Instantly Growth: $47/mo monthly, $37.60/mo annual - 1,000 contacts, 5,000 emails/mo
• Instantly Hypergrowth: $97/mo monthly, $77.60/mo annual - 25,000 contacts, 100,000 emails/mo
• Instantly Light Speed: $358/mo monthly, $286.30/mo annual - 100,000 contacts, 500,000 emails/mo, SISR
• Enterprise: custom
• Instantly Credits (Lead Database) - separate, $37.60-$197+/mo
• CRM - separate subscription
• VIP Managed Services - $2,000 / $4,000 / $10,000 per month

Who Instantly fits: cold-email-only teams sending high volume across many connected mailboxes, especially agencies that don't need LinkedIn in the same workflow.

What Trustpilot reviewers say

Instantly sits at 4.8/5 on G2 (~3,937 reviews) but 3.8/5 on Trustpilot (1,053 reviews). That gap matters - G2 captures users with smooth onboarding; Trustpilot captures what happens when something breaks. The recurring 1-and-2-star themes across Trustpilot, Reddit, and recent reviews from January-May 2026 cluster around three things: deliverability that the platform doesn't diagnose ("warmup score said 95, real inbox placement was nowhere near"), support response quality once campaigns hit problems, and billing or cancellation friction. Salesforge's own published comparison cites questionable content in Instantly's warm-up email pool - the kind of thing you only discover if you log in to a warmup mailbox and look.

Honest limitations

• No native LinkedIn outreach - if you want multichannel, you wire in HeyReach or Smartlead via integration
• Modular pricing - Outreach, Credits, CRM, AI agents are all separately priced, so the advertised $47/mo is rarely the real number
• Deliverability "black box" - when warmup scores diverge from real inbox placement, there's limited diagnostic depth
• Shared warm-up pool quality - documented user complaints about the type of domains in the pool
• DFY domain ownership has been flagged in 2026 Trustpilot reviews when users tried to migrate off the platform

HeyReach: what it is and what it costs

HeyReach is a LinkedIn-only automation tool built for agencies and sales teams managing multiple LinkedIn sender accounts. Connection requests, follow-up messages, profile views, follows, InMails - all the standard LinkedIn outreach actions, run cloud-side from HeyReach's servers, with a unified inbox for all the resulting LinkedIn conversations across accounts. There is no native email outreach in HeyReach; multichannel happens by piping HeyReach into Instantly or Smartlead through an integration, which means a second subscription.

The Growth plan is priced per LinkedIn seat. The Agency and Unlimited plans are flat-rate bundles - 50 senders for $999/mo, unlimited (capped at 500) for $1,999/mo - which is what makes HeyReach attractive once you're past five or six LinkedIn accounts.

Core features

• Cloud-based LinkedIn automation - connections, messages, follows, profile views, InMails
• Unified inbox for LinkedIn messages across all connected accounts
• Multichannel via paid Instantly or Smartlead integration (not native)
• 100 email credits per sender (basic email enrichment, not native email sending)
• Whitelabel included on Agency plan (one branding)
• API, webhooks, and MCP server
• Workspace and permissions for managing multiple clients
• Bring-your-own proxies on Agency and Unlimited plans

Pricing (verified on heyreach.io/pricing in May 2026)

• HeyReach Growth: $79/seat/mo monthly, $67/seat/mo quarterly, $59/seat/mo yearly
• HeyReach Agency: $999/mo monthly, $849/mo quarterly, $749/mo yearly - 50 senders, whitelabel included
• HeyReach Unlimited: $1,999/mo monthly, $1,699/mo quarterly, $1,499/mo yearly - unlimited (capped at 500) senders

Who HeyReach fits: agencies and sales teams whose entire outbound motion runs on LinkedIn and who manage many sender accounts. The flat-rate Agency and Unlimited tiers become economical past 5-10 active senders.

What Trustpilot reviewers say

HeyReach sits at 4.7/5 on G2 (10,000+ reviews aggregated) but 3.9/5 on Trustpilot (51 reviews). The 1-and-2-star themes that come up consistently: bugs in account onboarding (multiple users report it takes 5-6 tries to add a LinkedIn account), campaigns that take 1-2 days to actually start sending, slow customer support (response times averaging 24-48 hours per reviewer reports), and some product-safety complaints from users who didn't realize HeyReach was sending connection requests under their name. There's also one piece of context worth knowing: HeyReach's own LinkedIn company page was removed by LinkedIn in March 2026, along with several executive profiles. The CEO confirmed customer automations were unaffected, but the removal is worth understanding before betting your outbound on a LinkedIn-automation tool.

Honest limitations

• LinkedIn only - no native email. Multichannel means a second paid tool.
• BYO proxies on Agency and Unlimited plans - residential proxies typically run $5-15/account/month on top of the platform price
• Per-seat pricing on the Growth plan gets expensive fast for small teams (3-5 LinkedIn senders = $237-$395/mo)
• Email enrichment is included as credits but the platform doesn't send email - you still need somewhere to send from
• Support response times have been a recurring complaint in 2025 and 2026 Trustpilot reviews

Salesforge: what it is and what it costs

Salesforge is the outreach layer of the Forge Stack - a unified set of products covering lead generation (Leadsforge), email infrastructure (Mailforge, Infraforge, Primeforge), deliverability and warm-up (Warmforge), and outbound execution (Salesforge itself). Salesforge runs email and LinkedIn sequences from one platform, with an optional AI SDR (Agent Frank) sold as a separate subscription. Where Instantly is "email only" and HeyReach is "LinkedIn only", Salesforge is the platform built to do both natively in one workflow.

Core features

• Multi-channel sequences combining email and LinkedIn in one workflow
• Conditional sequences - touchpoints branch on prospect behavior
• Unlimited mailboxes on every plan (Pro and Growth) - no per-seat pricing
• Unlimited LinkedIn senders on the Growth plan
• Free, unlimited Warmforge warm-up included with every subscription - premium-by-default pool with curated, aged real Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 mailboxes
• Primebox - free unified inbox for both email and LinkedIn replies, with AI sentiment analysis
• AI personalization (Overdrive Mode pulls from multiple sources)
• Smart mailbox rotation and dynamic IPs
• 14-day free trial
• Three native email infrastructure options: Mailforge (shared IPs, $2-3/mailbox/mo), Infraforge (dedicated IPs, $3-4/mailbox/mo), Primeforge (real Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 mailboxes, $3.50-4.50/mailbox/mo)
• Native CRM integrations: HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Attio, Clay, and more
• API, MCP server, and Forge CLI for power users

The Forge Stack context. Salesforge is the outreach layer in a stack that you can use end-to-end or piece by piece. Find leads in Leadsforge, spin up domains and mailboxes in Mailforge or Primeforge, warm them in Warmforge, send through Salesforge, and let Agent Frank take over if you want an autonomous AI SDR. The integration is native (no Zapier glue between Forge products), and it's the same support team across all of them. See the full Forge Stack for context.

Pricing (from salesforge.ai/pricing)

• Salesforge Pro: $48/mo monthly or $40/mo billed annually - 1,000 active contacts, 5,000 emails/mo, 1 LinkedIn sender, 1 user, unlimited mailboxes, unlimited warm-up
• Salesforge Growth: $96/mo monthly or $80/mo billed annually - 10,000 active contacts, 50,000 emails/mo, unlimited LinkedIn senders, unlimited users, A/B testing, API access, Primebox AI, ESP Matching, full integrations library
• Agent Frank (AI SDR) - separate subscription, $499/mo billed quarterly or $416/mo billed annually for 1,000 active contacts. Demo required before purchase. Not included in Pro or Growth plan prices.
• Forge infrastructure products - sold separately as needed: Mailforge from $2/mailbox/mo, Infraforge from $3/mailbox/mo, Primeforge from $3.50/mailbox/mo

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Who Salesforge fits. Salesforge publishes its own ICP openly: B2B teams selling to startups, SMBs, or mid-market companies with ACVs between $5,000 and $100,000, targeting 3,000+ businesses, wanting to book meetings at scale without growing a large SDR team. If your motion is Fortune 500 enterprise procurement with six- or seven-figure ACVs and long RFP cycles, Salesforge itself says it's not the right fit.

Honest limitations

• Email infrastructure is not bundled into the Salesforge plan price - you connect your own mailboxes or pay for Mailforge / Infraforge / Primeforge separately
• The Pro plan is capped at 1 user and 1 LinkedIn sender. For teams, Growth ($96/mo monthly, $80/mo annual) is the realistic floor.
• Agent Frank requires a sales-led demo plus a 2-week warm-up before he can start sending - no self-serve trial on the AI SDR
• Several features (API, A/B testing, multi-language sequences, ESP Matching, full integrations) are gated to the Growth plan

Case study reference. UniteSync, a music-royalty platform, ran Salesforge plus Mailforge plus Warmforge to an 85.26% positive reply rate at a $2.86 customer acquisition cost. The case study is public on Salesforge's site and the metrics are stated in numbers you can verify.

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Head-to-head feature comparison

Multi-channel outreach

This is the cleanest split between the three tools.

• Salesforge: email and LinkedIn natively in one sequence. You can build a touchpoint that opens with a LinkedIn connection request, follows up with a personalized email, and branches based on whether the prospect accepted the connection or replied.
• Instantly: email only. No native LinkedIn outreach anywhere on the platform. If you want LinkedIn, you wire in HeyReach or another tool via integration and run them as parallel campaigns, not a single sequence.
• HeyReach: LinkedIn only. Email exists as a paid integration with Instantly or Smartlead, which means a second subscription and the multichannel logic runs across two products.

For teams who actually run both channels, Salesforge is the only one of the three where it's native. For email-only or LinkedIn-only teams, the others are designed for that single channel.

Email deliverability and warm-up

Salesforge includes free, unlimited Warmforge warm-up on every subscription, with a Heat Score per mailbox, automated DNS health checks, and one free placement test per month. The warm-up pool is curated - aged real Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 mailboxes only, with strict participation rules.

Instantly includes unlimited warm-up too, but the pool quality has been a recurring concern. The Trustpilot review pattern of "warmup score said one thing, inbox placement said another" is documented across many reviewers. Salesforge's published comparison page goes further and calls out specific examples of low-quality domains the user found in their Instantly warm-up traffic.

HeyReach: not applicable - LinkedIn doesn't have email-style warm-up.

AI and personalization

Salesforge has Overdrive Mode (multi-source AI personalization pulling from website, blog, LinkedIn posts) and Agent Frank as an optional autonomous AI SDR. Agent Frank prospects continuously, writes in 20+ languages, runs in Auto-Pilot or Co-Pilot mode, and comes with a dedicated Account Manager and Slack channel - sold separately at $499/mo billed quarterly.

Instantly has AI personalization and recently launched AI Sales Agent and AI Reply Agent products. These are newer and priced separately on top of the Outreach subscription.

HeyReach has no AI SDR. Its MCP server lets you connect AI agents externally, but there's no autonomous prospect-and-message agent built into the product.

Reply management

Salesforge includes Primebox free with every subscription. One inbox for email and LinkedIn replies, AI sentiment analysis tagging threads positive/neutral/negative, and Primebox AI on the Growth plan that drafts replies in your tone.

Instantly has Unibox for email replies. LinkedIn replies are not native because LinkedIn is not native.

HeyReach has a unified LinkedIn inbox across all connected accounts, which is genuinely useful for agencies managing many sender accounts. Email replies are not native.

Pricing and scalability

The three pricing models scale differently as your team or volume grows.

• Salesforge: not per-seat. Unlimited mailboxes on every plan, unlimited LinkedIn senders and unlimited users on Growth ($96/mo monthly or $80/mo annual). A team of 20 pays the same as a team of 1.
• Instantly: flat per workspace, but the modular product split means scaling means stacking subscriptions. Outreach + Credits + CRM at the entry tier is $124+/mo per most third-party breakdowns of 2026 pricing. Add the AI products and the bill keeps growing.
• HeyReach: per-seat on Growth ($79/seat/mo), then flat-rate above that ($999/mo for 50 senders, $1,999/mo unlimited). For LinkedIn-only motions past 10-15 seats, the flat tiers are economical. For small teams running fewer LinkedIn accounts, the per-seat math gets steep fast.

Integrations and stack

Salesforge integrates natively with HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Attio, GoHighLevel, folk, Breakcold, Clay, Sendspark, RB2B, and Slack. API and the full integrations library are on the Growth plan. There's also a Salesforge MCP server for connecting AI assistants like Claude.

Instantly integrates with most CRMs through Zapier-style connectors and has a developer API. The Lead Database and CRM are also part of the Instantly ecosystem if you want everything in one vendor.

HeyReach integrates with Clay, RB2B, Trigify, HubSpot, Attio, Make, Zapier, n8n, and notably with Instantly and Smartlead for multichannel email-plus-LinkedIn workflows.

Pricing comparison

Here's how the headline plans line up.

A real scenario. Picture a five-person B2B sales team running both email and LinkedIn outbound. They want roughly 50,000 emails per month across multiple mailboxes, plus LinkedIn outreach from each rep's account.

• On Salesforge: one Growth plan at $96/mo monthly ($80/mo annual). Unlimited users, unlimited LinkedIn senders, 50,000 emails/mo, free Warmforge warm-up, free Primebox unified inbox for both channels. Add infrastructure separately as needed (Mailforge from $2/mailbox/mo).
• On Instantly + HeyReach: Instantly Hypergrowth at $97/mo monthly ($77.60/mo annual) for the email volume, plus HeyReach Growth at 5 seats - that's $395/mo monthly ($295/mo annual) at $59/seat/mo annual. Total: roughly $492/mo monthly, $373/mo annual, plus you're managing two platforms, two billing relationships, and two support queues.
• The Salesforge bill is one platform and one number. The stack approach is two platforms, two numbers, and the integration between them is the second tool's responsibility.

Agent Frank is a separate $499/mo subscription billed quarterly (or $416/mo billed annually) if you want the AI SDR. It is not bundled into the Pro or Growth plan and should never be added to the Pro or Growth price to imply it is.

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Who should use which tool

Salesforge itself publishes the anti-ICP: if you primarily target Fortune 500 companies, your sales motion depends on long RFP cycles, your ACVs are consistently six or seven figures, or your pipeline relies on a small number of highly bespoke, high-touch deals, Salesforge is not the right tool. That's their own published positioning, not mine.

Final verdict

Instantly is a cold-email-only platform that has split itself into multiple separately-priced products, so the advertised entry price rarely matches the real monthly bill. HeyReach is a LinkedIn-only automation tool whose multichannel story depends on a second paid integration. Both have legitimate use cases for single-channel motions, and both have Trustpilot review patterns worth reading carefully before you commit to a year.

For real multi-channel B2B outbound on one platform, Salesforge is the stronger choice. At $96/mo monthly ($80/mo annual) for the Growth plan, you get unlimited users, unlimited LinkedIn senders, unlimited mailboxes, free Warmforge warm-up, and Primebox - the combination that the email-only and LinkedIn-only alternatives don't offer at any price.

One falsifiable benchmark: UniteSync ran on Salesforge plus Mailforge plus Warmforge to an 85.26% positive reply rate and a $2.86 customer acquisition cost. The case study is public on Salesforge's site, with the customer's CEO named and quoted. The numbers are either right or they aren't, and Salesforge can be held to them.

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Further reading: see the dedicated Salesforge vs Instantly comparison for a head-to-head on email-only outreach, the full comparisons hub for other alternatives, the HeyReach review for a deeper read on LinkedIn-only automation, and the Forge Stack overview for the full picture of how the products fit together.

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