AI lead gen & cold email
Save · 0Companies want a steady flow of conversations. You build the list, write the outreach, and hand over replies rather than raw contacts.
~6.6K people search this every month → steady · US, measured
The short playbook
- Define one narrow target: industry, size, and role. Broad lists are what make outreach look like spam.
- Build the list in Apollo or Clay and verify every address with Findymail. Bad addresses damage the sending domain.
- Send from a separate domain through Smartlead or Saleshandy, warmed up before any volume. Sending from the client's main domain puts their normal email at risk.
- US commercial email must carry a real physical address and a working opt-out in every message. Write short and specific with Lavender or Twain, and keep both in the footer.
Tool stack
The lead pilewhere the list comes from: sourcing contacts and enriching them so you're not emailing dead addresses
Apollo Huge B2B contact database with a real free plan: 10,000 email credits a month when you sign up with a work domain.
Clay The enrichment spreadsheet agencies run on: dozens of data providers checked per lead, plus an AI agent that researches each one. Free plan to learn on.
Findymail Email finder that only charges when it returns a verified address, with a bounce guarantee or credits back. $99/mo covers 5,000 finds.
The sending machinemailboxes, warmup, sequences: the part clients are actually paying you to run
Saleshandy Unlimited sending mailboxes with warmup included, from $25/mo for 6,000 emails a month. The 7-day trial needs no card, and cancellation is self-serve.
Smartlead Unlimited mailboxes from $39/mo, with client workspaces built in for when you sign more than one account. Warmup is a $59/mo add-on, or bundled on the $174 Unlimited plan.
lemlist Close to a whole stack in one tool: a 650M lead database, warmup, and sending together. Email is $69/mo; the $109 Multichannel plan adds LinkedIn and calling steps.
The wordsai that researches the lead and writes the opener so it doesn't read like a blast
Lavender AI email coach inside Gmail or Outlook that scores your draft and tells you why it will not get replies. Free covers 5 emails a month; daily senders want the $29/mo Starter.
Twain AI agent that researches each lead and writes the opener from scratch. One credit per lead, regenerates are free, and credits are shared across your team.
Common questions
Is cold email legal?
Business-to-business cold email is legal in the US under CAN-SPAM as long as you say who you are, use a real address, and honor opt-outs. Europe is stricter. The bigger practical risk is not the law, it is burning a domain's sending reputation with sloppy volume.
What do you need to start?
A separate sending domain (never the client's main one), mailboxes with warmup, and a sender like Saleshandy from $25 a month or Smartlead from $39. Leads come from Apollo, which has a real free tier, with Findymail or Clay for cleaner data as budgets grow. Plan on about $50 a month to run your first campaign.
How does AI change cold email?
The blast era is over. AI researches each lead and writes the opener specific to them, which is what tools like Lavender and Twain sell. The work that still cannot be automated is picking a list worth emailing and an offer worth replying to.
Why do clients pay for this?
They are not buying emails, they are buying booked meetings. Retainers commonly run $1,000 to $3,000 a month per client, with some agencies charging per qualified meeting instead. Deliverability, domain setup, and list quality are fiddly, always-on work that founders are happy to hand to someone who has already made the mistakes.
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Income and demand tiers reflect what we found in public reports and search data, verified to the level shown. Nothing here is a guarantee of earnings.