This article discusses outbound LinkedIn and email outreach: automation, sending connection requests, crafting personalized messages, building multi channel campaigns, and tracking campaign performance - everything vital for a successful cold outreach campaign. The goal is practical: pick a tool to automate prospecting and scale cold outreach safely.

Pricing Overview

Monthly starting plans matter for budget comparisons:

• Salesforge lists a Pro plan at $48/month (1000 active contacts in sequence, 5000 emails, 100 email validation and personalization credits, unlimited mailboxes, free warm-up) and Growth at $96/month (unlimited seats, 100 social action credits, A/B testing, personal onboarding, etc.). Salesforge also offers a 14-day free trial to test the tool out.
• PhantomBuster Starter plan monthly price is ~$81/month when converted from euros (gives 20 hours execution, 5 phantom slots). Higher plans scale execution hours and phantom slots. PhantomBuster also offers a 14-day free trial.
• Waalaxy offers a Pro starting plan at $39/user/month (300 invitations per month). Instead of a free trial, Waalaxy has a freemium plan with very noticeable limitations.

Pricing snapshots change, so make sure to verify vendor pages before going through with a purchase.

Multi Channel: Email vs LinkedIn Automation Tools?

• Salesforge runs email + LinkedIn natively in one product and offers free built-in warm-up and deliverability tooling, enabling multi channel prospecting from a single dashboard. That simplifies multi channel campaigns.
• PhantomBuster automates interactions across platforms and extracts data; though cold outreach-wise it can only run LinkedIn outreach flows. It is primarily a data extraction and automation engine.
• Waalaxy is extension-first: it automates LinkedIn invites, messages and offers email sequences on higher paid plans, working inside the browser. It’s very user friendly for LinkedIn-first workflows.

Salesforge’s single-dashboard approach reduces context-switching when building outreach campaigns that combine LinkedIn and email.

LinkedIn Prospecting: Lists, Sales Navigator, Filters

All three tools support prospecting on LinkedIn in different ways:

• Salesforge easily integrates with a native Forge stack tool for a large lead database and search engine via Leadsforge, reducing the need to juggle Sales Navigator for every lookup if used.
• PhantomBuster can extract profile data from LinkedIn and Sales Navigator by using your session cookie; it’s powerful at data extraction for lists and filters.
• Waalaxy imports prospects directly from LinkedIn Search and Sales Navigator via its Chrome extension, offering many pre-made sequences to act on those lists.

PhantomBuster is best when you need massive exports and complex filters; Waalaxy is fastest for LinkedIn in-browser list building.

Sending Connection Requests and Personalized LinkedIn Messages

Automation tools all send connection requests and follow-ups, but differ in scale and personalization:

• Salesforge supports automated connection requests at scale with multi-account rotation and AI-assisted message personalization. It emphasizes protecting LinkedIn account health by distributing actions and applying automatic limits and guidelines.
• PhantomBuster includes pre-built LinkedIn outreach flows: connection request, intro message, and up to three follow-ups in one automation job. It requires the LinkedIn cookie and maps data to messages.
• Waalaxy provides templates and conditional sequences inside the extension, enabling personalized connection requests and automated follow-ups.

All tools allow automated messages, but Salesforge stresses AI-driven personalization to scale personalized linkedin messages efficiently.

Email Automation and Deliverability

Cold email success depends on deliverability and email automation features:

• Salesforge includes free built-in premium warm-up and mailbox rotation so sequences are less likely to hit spam folders; they market their deliverability stack heavily. That helps large multi channel campaigns rely on email as a consistent touchpoint.
• PhantomBuster does not send email natively; you extract contact data and push it into an email tool or CRM to run sequences.
• Waalaxy provides cold email sequences in higher tier paid plans, often sending via your SMTP/Gmail; deliverability depends on your setup. Higher Waalaxy tiers add inbox features and email credits.

If your outreach strategy relies heavily on email, Salesforge’s integrated approach reduces friction and centralizes deliverability controls.

Campaign Management and Multi-Step Workflows

Campaign orchestration differs by product complexity:

• Salesforge provides multi-step outreach campaigns, A/B testing, branching logic and centralized reply handling (unified inbox). This enables tracking multiple campaigns and optimizing them iteratively.
• PhantomBuster allows chaining Phantoms and scheduling, but complex workflows can require more technical setup. It’s flexible for automation builders.
• Waalaxy has a visual sequence builder inside a Chrome extension with many pre-made templates - quick for building LinkedIn-first sequences.

Salesforge targets teams that want to optimize campaigns with built-in analytics and inbox-driven follow-ups. PhantomBuster is for builders who will stitch data pipelines. Waalaxy is for people who want extremely quick and basic campaigns.

Analytics, Tracking Campaign Performance and Reporting

Measuring performance is essential to reveal which messages, channels and segments convert, enabling optimization, better deliverability and efficient resource allocation:

• Salesforge reports opens, clicks, replies, connection rates, and includes A/B test views to track campaign performance across channels. It aggregates thorough metrics into concise dashboards for all users.
• PhantomBuster tracks automation runs and scraped results; users export metrics for deeper analysis in BI or CRMs.
• Waalaxy shows common per-campaign metrics inside the extension and supports exports for offline analysis.

If you want extensive, integrated, multi-touch analytics and quick A/B iteration, Salesforge’s built-in analytics are a perfect option that reduces dependency on external tools.

Multi-User Management and Team Collaboration

Scaling outreach needs team features:

• Salesforge advertises unlimited users/mailboxes and shared workspaces on the Growth tier, enabling agencies and large sales teams to add many seats and run multiple campaigns without per-seat penalties.
• PhantomBuster scales via more execution hours and phantom slots; Team plans add capacity, but sharing and per-user granularity is less native.
• Waalaxy uses seat-based billing (price scales with seats) with a team dashboard to reassign seats and manage LinkedIn accounts. This is standard for extension-first tools.

For agencies and enterprise sales teams, Salesforge’s unlimited-user model simplifies team collaboration and cost forecasting.

Technical Expertise, Learning Curve and Setup Time

Who needs technical skills to use these tools? Well...

• Waalaxy is the lowest barrier: a Chrome extension with templates and a gentle learning curve for non-technical users.
• Salesforge packs advanced features (deliverability, API, A/B testing), so teams may need a slight bit of ramp time but get onboarding and docs + everything's displayed in a user friendly interface.
• PhantomBuster rewards technical curiosity: building complex Phantoms and chaining workflows can require more technical expertise and technical skills.

If your team lacks technical experience, Waalaxy is quickest to adopt; if you want systemized, high-volume outreach, Salesforge’s upfront learning pays off quick.

Safety, LinkedIn Limits and Human-Like Behavior

• Salesforge emphasizes distributing actions across multiple LinkedIn accounts and adhering to the automatically set quotas and guidelines to avoid LinkedIn flags, enabling users to follow account-safety best practice.
• PhantomBuster uses session cookies and schedules runs; it highlights safe automation practices and provides guidance to stay under LinkedIn limits.
• Waalaxy enforces invite caps and best-practice rules per plan; the extension approach keeps actions tied to user accounts.

Ultimately, all vendors stress responsible use and assure LinkedIn account safety.

Integrations and CRM Sync

Keeping lead data flowing into CRMs matters:

• Salesforge advertises API, webhooks, Zapier and CRM connectivity to sync outreach results into pipelines. This helps centralize prospect activity.
• PhantomBuster integrates with HubSpot and exports CSVs; users pipe extraction output into CRMs.
• Waalaxy supports exports and Zapier integrations to sync to many different apps and CRMs like HubSpot/Pipedrive.

If you require native CRM integration and less engineering work to sync leads, Salesforge and Waalaxy make it straightforward; PhantomBuster requires more pipeline stitching.

User Feedback and Support

Salesforge highlights responsive support and onboarding; customer quotes emphasize ease of use and deliverability.

PhantomBuster has active community and priority support for paid plans, though users sometimes report tool complexity.

Waalaxy shows many positive reviews for ease-of-use; support levels depend on plan. Some users report occasional bugs typical of browser extensions. The real issues with Waalaxy arise when it comes to support responsiveness.

Best-Fit Recommendations

Pick Salesforge if you want integrated email automation, unlimited LinkedIn accounts, A/B testing, deliverability tooling and a unified inbox for large teams and agencies. It’s best for sales professionals scaling sales and marketing efforts across multiple channels, though works perfectly for small teams as well.

Pick PhantomBuster if you need a powerful data extraction engine to pull large prospect lists and run complex scraping workflows across platforms. It’s for technically savvy teams.

Pick Waalaxy if you want a fast, user friendly interface for LinkedIn-first prospecting and a browser-based workflow with templates. Great for very small teams.

Final Verdict: Salesforge vs PhantomBuster vs Waalaxy

All three are popular tools for cold outreach:

• PhantomBuster is a notable force for data extraction tasks.
• Waalaxy is excellent for simple, fast LinkedIn automation via a chrome extension.

Salesforge combines the things most teams actually need to efficiently scale:

• Native email automation
• Built-in deliverability (warm-up and rotation)
• Multi-source AI personalization
• Multi-account distribution
• Team-friendly licensing
• Detailed analytics

Which is why many sales and marketing teams gravitate to it for enterprise-grade cold outreach at small team prices. If you prioritize integrated, scalable, safe multi-channel outreach, Salesforge is the strongest candidate among the three.

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