How we make this list: we compare pricing pages, product documentation and public user reviews. Ratings come from G2, Capterra or Trustpilot, with the date we checked them.
Key takeaways
- An AI BDR finds prospects, researches them, writes and sends outreach, handles simple replies, and books meetings. The compliance duties stay yours: consent law and suppression lists apply to AI sent mail exactly as to human sent mail.
- AiSDR is the transparent buy: pay as you go at $1.50 per person prospected, $149 per managed campaign, or $2,500 a month fully managed, all published.
- Artisan and 11x sell enterprise digital workers on annual contracts, Artisan reported around $30,000 to $60,000 a year and 11x from $3,750 a month.
- Apollo and Instantly are the budget build: a free Apollo tier with paid seats from $49, and Instantly sending from $37 a month, assembled into a stack you operate.
- Deployment decides outcomes more than model quality. Prospeo's 2026 analysis reports 50 to 70 percent of AI SDR users churning within three months, with failures tracing to bad data.
Quick comparison
| Tool | Best for | Starting price | Free plan |
|---|
 AiSDR | Published pricing, autonomous outreach | $250 per month | No |
 Artisan | Enterprise AI BDR, Ava | See website | No |
 11x | Enterprise digital worker, Alice | $3,750 per month | No |
 Reply.io | AI agent on a sequencer, Jason | $500 per month | No |
 Amplemarket | AI research, human approval | $600 per month | No |
 Salesforge | Flat priced email agent, Frank | $499 per month | No |
 Apollo.io | Data and sequences, budget start | Free | Yes |
 Instantly | High volume sending, AI agents | $37 per month | No |
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The best AI BDR software
#1AiSDR
Best for: Published pricing, autonomous outreach4.6/5 on
G2 (102 reviews, checked Oct 2026)
Visit aisdr.com
Starting price$250 per month
Free planNo
AiSDR is the easiest AI BDR to evaluate because it publishes what everyone else quotes: a pay as you go rate per person prospected that includes research, lists, and writing, a fixed price managed campaign, and a fully managed tier, with subscription tiers in between. For a first experiment, that price visibility is worth real money: you can cost a 1,000 prospect test before any sales call.
Its limits are the category's: Artisan's comparison marks its reply handling as partial, meaning the agent drafts and routes more than it resolves, and every AI BDR inherits the quality of its input data. Run AiSDR on a verified, suppression checked list and it performs the job it advertises. Run it on a scraped list and it performs that job too, faster and at scale.
What we like- The most transparent pricing in the category: $1.50 per person prospected pay as you go, $149 per managed campaign, $2,500 a month fully managed, per its pricing page checked October 26, 2026
- Autonomous chain: sources leads, enriches, writes, sends, and books meetings
- Published monthly tiers reported between $250 and $2,500 for teams scaling up
- Signal based personalisation and HubSpot integration suit mid market teams
Watch out for- Reply handling is partial in vendor comparisons, a human still supervises conversations
- Outcomes depend entirely on the data fed in, the category wide failure mode
- Fully managed at $2,500 approaches a junior hire's cost without the judgment
- Autonomous sending on your domain carries deliverability risk if governance is loose
#2Artisan
Best for: Enterprise AI BDR, Ava4.0/5 on
G2 (47 reviews, checked Oct 2026)
Visit artisan.co
Starting priceSee website
Free planNo
Artisan's Ava is the polished enterprise offer: a large contact database with intent signals, waterfall enrichment, multichannel outreach, and meeting booking, sold as a digital worker on an annual, usage based contract. Prospeo's costing places it at roughly $30,000 to $60,000 a year, with the condition that matters: deploy it with dedicated RevOps support, or the integration creates the duplicate records that sink these projects.
Buyers should also weigh the December 2025 episode, when LinkedIn restricted Artisan's accounts over scraped data and brand use before reinstating them after changes. It ended well, but it demonstrates the platform risk inside multichannel AI outreach: your BDR's channels are rented from companies with their own rules.
What we like- Ava sources from over 270 million contacts with buying signals, per Artisan's published comparison
- Enrichment waterfall across about 12 providers keeps contact data current
- Multichannel: email, social, and phone, with autonomous reply handling under escalation rules you set
- Usage based pricing with a free trial lets a pilot precede the annual contract
Watch out for- Reported annual costs of roughly $30,000 to $60,000 put it beyond early stage budgets
- LinkedIn restricted Artisan's accounts for about two weeks in late December 2025 over data practices, resolved after changes, a governance lesson for buyers
- Needs dedicated RevOps ownership to prevent CRM pollution, per Prospeo
- Vendor authored comparisons rank it first, discount accordingly
#3
11x
Best for: Enterprise digital worker, Alice
Visit 11x.ai
Starting price$3,750 per month
Free planNo
11x sells Alice as a digital worker for enterprise outbound teams, priced from a reported $3,750 a month on annual terms. At that level the comparison is not against Apollo at $49 a seat but against hiring: a loaded human BDR costs roughly $75,000 to $100,000 a year in the sources consulted, and Alice never sleeps and works a territory list completely. The diligence should match the price: reference calls with customers at your volume, not logos.
The caution flags are documented rather than rumoured. TechCrunch's March 2025 investigation found trial customers presented as clients, and the founder's move out of the CEO role followed in May 2025. Neither fact disqualifies the product in 2026, but both instruct the buyer: verify deployment claims yourself and insist on a pilot with exit terms.
What we like- Alice covers prospecting across a claimed 400 million plus contact base, with multichannel outreach including a phone and SMS agent
- Enterprise packaging: dedicated deployment, integrations, and support
- Reported Growth tier from $3,750 a month billed annually is at least a known floor
- The longest standing enterprise brand in the AI worker category
Watch out for- The floor is the story: about $45,000 a year before Pro or Enterprise tiers
- TechCrunch reported in March 2025 that some logo customers were trial accounts and its founder left the CEO role that May, verify current references directly
- Annual commitments mean a failed pilot is an expensive year
- Reply handling rated partial in vendor comparisons
#4Reply.io
Best for: AI agent on a sequencer, Jason4.6/5 on
G2 (1,559 reviews, checked Oct 2026)
Visit reply.io
Starting price$500 per month
Free planNo
Reply.io's Jason is the staged adoption path: start with the sequencer your reps already run, at $59 a month, then switch on the AI agent, reported at $500 a month on annual terms by UseCarly, to source, write, send, and reply inside the same workflows. Artisan's comparison credits Jason with full reply handling and meeting booking.
The cost shape needs care. Agent tiers are reported from $500 to $3,000 a month depending on volume, on top of platform seats, so compare total cost at your sending volume against AiSDR's published tiers.
What we like- Jason AI runs on a mature multichannel sequencer: email, social, and calls in one platform
- The agent handles replies and books meetings, rated fully autonomous there in vendor comparisons
- The underlying sequencer starts at $59 a month, so teams can adopt in stages
- Own B2B data add ons reduce dependence on outside lists
Watch out for- The AI agent tier, reported from $500 a month on annual commitment, is an add on decision on top of seats
- Agent pricing reported up to $3,000 a month at higher volumes
- Data depth is partial compared with Artisan's or Apollo's databases
- Two products to govern, sequences and agent, means two configurations to audit
#5Amplemarket
Best for: AI research, human approval4.6/5 on
G2 (691 reviews, checked Oct 2026)
Visit amplemarket.com
Starting price$600 per month
Free planNo
Amplemarket is the deliberate middle: its AI, Duo, does the research, enrichment, and drafting across a native database and multichannel sequences, and a person approves before anything sends. SellStack describes the model exactly, AI research with a rep approving every send, at a reported $600 a month billed annually for the two user Startup plan. For teams whose fear is an agent emailing the wrong person, that approval gate is not a limitation; it is the product.
What we like- Duo, its AI, researches and drafts while a rep approves sends, the control model many teams actually want
- Native database and multichannel outreach, email, social, and calls
- Startup plan reported at $600 a month billed annually for two users, a defined entry
- Strong fit for Salesforce centred teams in agency comparisons
Watch out for- Human approval means human time: it augments BDRs rather than replacing the seat
- Pricing beyond the entry plan is unpublished
- Reply handling assists reps rather than resolving autonomously
- Less brand presence and fewer independent reviews than the leaders
Starting price$499 per month
Free planNo
Salesforge built its name on sending infrastructure, warm up, mailbox management, deliverability, and Agent Frank is that foundation with an agent on top: sourcing support, personalised email, reply handling, and booking at a flat $499 a month, for 1,000 active contacts on quarterly terms. For an email led outbound motion, flat pricing removes the per seat arithmetic every rival imposes.
The boundaries are plain: email is the whole channel set, so social touches need another tool, and the agent is young, with Prospeo openly noting it has not tested Frank enough to recommend it confidently. The price is low enough to pilot properly: run Frank against your current sequence for one quarter, on reply rate and meetings per thousand contacts.
What we like- Agent Frank is flat priced: $499 a month, billed quarterly, for 1,000 active contacts, the simplest contract in this list
- Email first focus with reply handling and meeting booking inside email
- Deliverability infrastructure heritage, mailboxes priced at a few dollars each
- No per seat multiplication as the team grows into it
Watch out for- Email only: no social or phone channels
- A newer entrant, Prospeo notes limited independent testing so far
- Quarterly billing is a commitment a monthly tool would not ask
- Lead sourcing is partial, you may still feed it lists from Apollo or Clay
Starting priceFree
Free planYes
Apollo is where AI BDR programmes start on a budget: a contact database past 230 million, enrichment, sequences across email and calls, and AI assistance for research and prioritisation, on a free plan with paid seats from $49. Prospeo's under $500 stack is Apollo's free tier, a verification layer at about a cent an email, and a sending tool, around $30 to $100 a month all in, the cheapest credible way to test outbound before buying autonomy.
Be clear about what it is not: Apollo's reply handling and booking are human run. Apollo makes your BDRs faster and your lists bigger; it does not employ one.
What we like- The budget foundation: a free plan, then $49 per user per month billed annually, with a database of over 230 million contacts
- Data, enrichment, sequences, and a dialer in one subscription
- AI features research and prioritise inside rep run workflows
- The stack Prospeo recommends under $500 a month: Apollo plus verification plus a sender
Watch out for- The AI assists
- Reps run the outreach, so it is not an autonomous BDR
- Data accuracy varies by segment, verification spend is part of the real price
- Credit systems make heavy prospecting cost more than the seat price suggests
- At scale its per seat model approaches agent money without agent autonomy
#8Instantly
Best for: High volume sending, AI agents4.8/5 on
G2 (4,161 reviews, checked Oct 2026)
Visit instantly.ai
Starting price$37 per month
Free planNo
Instantly is the sending engine of the budget stack: cold email infrastructure that agencies and founders use to run volume with warm up and rotation, from a reported $37 a month, with AI agent bundles from about $94 adding sourcing and automation on top. Its lead database, an add on at a claimed 450 million contacts, completes a self built AI BDR for teams willing to assemble one.
What we like- The volume sender: built for cold email at scale with deliverability tooling and inbox rotation
- AI agent bundles reported from $94 a month add autonomous capability to the sending base
- A lead database add on reported at 450 million contacts
- Pricing starts low, $37 a month in Prospeo's table, with no contract
Watch out for- Email only, and reply handling is built for humans in its Unibox rather than autonomous resolution
- Trackers disagree on the entry price, $37 against $47 in SellStack's table, verify at checkout
- High volume sending is the fastest route to domain damage without strict governance
- Database quality is an add on purchase, not the core product
How we chose
We covered the autonomous agents, the approval gated middle, and the budget stack, using Prospeo's BDR AI analysis and AI SDR cost comparison, Artisan's category comparison read as a vendor source, UseCarly's pricing guide, and SellStack's comparison with AiSDR's pricing page checked October 26, 2026. Reported annual figures for Artisan and 11x are labelled as reported. Generic sequencers with an AI writing assistant and no prospecting or reply capability were excluded, as were done for you agencies, which are services rather than software.
What to look for in AI BDR software
Start with the law, because the AI does not carry it for you. CAN-SPAM requires honest headers, a real postal address, and working opt outs on every commercial email, whoever or whatever wrote it. In the EU and UK, B2B outreach sits under GDPR and PECR consent and legitimate interest rules, and purchased lists do not transfer consent to you. Your suppression list, existing customers, current opportunities, competitors, anyone who opted out, must be excluded before the agent sees the data. Prospeo's cautionary pilot, an agent that contacted 14 existing customers and created 2,000 duplicate CRM records, failed on exactly this step.
Then buy the pilot, not the platform. Insist on a bounded test: one segment, verified data, a few thousand contacts, success defined in advance as cost per held meeting against your human baseline. Score reply quality as well as quantity; an agent that generates annoyed replies is spending your domain's reputation, which takes quarters to rebuild. Finally, distrust guaranteed meetings. No entry here can promise them honestly.
Frequently asked questions
What does an AI BDR actually do?
It runs the top of funnel workflow: build a prospect list against your ideal customer profile, enrich contacts, research accounts, write and send outreach across email and sometimes social and phone, follow up, sort replies, and book meetings. Products differ in how much is autonomous. AiSDR, Artisan, and 11x aim to run the chain end to end; Amplemarket drafts for human approval; Apollo and Instantly give reps data and sending power with AI assistance inside.
How much does AI BDR software cost?
Three bands. Budget stacks built on Apollo and Instantly run about $30 to $500 a month plus verification costs, with Apollo free to start and seats from $49. Mid market autonomy is published at AiSDR, $250 to $2,500 a month by tier, with Salesforge flat at $499 and Reply's agent from $500. Enterprise agents are annual contracts: 11x from a reported $3,750 a month and Artisan reported around $30,000 to $60,000 a year. Human BDRs cost roughly $75,000 to $100,000 a year fully loaded in the sources consulted.
Is AI BDR outreach legal?
It is regulated, not banned, and the sender is responsible. In the US, CAN-SPAM sets the floor: truthful headers and subject lines, an identified advertiser, a postal address, and honoured opt outs. The EU and UK add GDPR and PECR rules on consent and legitimate interest for B2B email, and bought lists carry real risk. Platform terms are a second law: LinkedIn restricts automated outreach and has suspended AI vendor accounts before. Compliant programmes use verified data, honour suppression lists across every tool, and keep a human accountable.
Why do so many AI BDR deployments fail?
Data, mostly. Prospeo's 2026 analysis reports 50 to 70 percent of AI SDR users churning within three months and traces failures to stale lists, missing enrichment, no suppression discipline, and no RevOps ownership, rather than to the AI's writing. The pattern is an agent faithfully executing a bad brief at machine speed: emailing customers, duplicating CRM records, personalising from dead companies. The fixes precede the purchase: clean data, a narrow profile, verified addresses, exclusion lists, and a pilot with defined success.
Sources we checked (0)
Is your product missing or out of date?
We review this list regularly. Vendors can request a listing, send updated pricing or ask about featured placement.
Shihab Mia · Founder, Rankite
Shihab has 5+ years in B2B and SaaS SEO. He writes Rankite's software buying guides from pricing pages, documentation and public user reviews. More about Shihab.