r/coldemail by u/TYSON4772 2mo ago Looking for B2B lead source recommendations for the German/European market. Alternatives to Apollo? I'm currently looking for leads and I'm only using Apollo for the German market right now. The data quality isn't great, and it's also a bit pricey. Unfortunately, I missed out on the Apify scraper when it was still around. Do you guys have any recommendations for good lead sources for the German or European market?
any recommendations alternatives to Open on Reddit r/coldemail by u/Old_Sherbert1433 8mo ago Alternatives to scraping Apollo leads since Apify actor got removed? Hey everyone,
I’ve been scraping Apollo leads using an Apify actor for a while, but that actor has recently been **removed**. I switched to using **Ample Leads**, but from what I’ve seen on Reddit threads, it’s just **not working well right now**—poor data quality and limited reach.
I’m looking for **cheap** alternatives that can still pull in **real, accurate lead data**.
Any recommendations for tools or workflows that are currently working for scraping Apollo leads or similar sources?
Would love to hear what’s working for you all!
any recommendations alternatives to Open on Reddit r/coldemail by u/Duck8880 4mo ago Tested 6 Apollo alternatives for B2B leads - what actually lowered my bounce rate in 2026? Hey
Like a lot of people here, I've been relying on Apollo for B2B lead gen for a while. It was great at the beginning, but lately the prices climbed, bounce rates started creeping up (often 30%+ on my lists), and I felt like I was paying more for less accurate data.
So I spent the last couple of months testing cheaper / different alternatives to see if I could keep (or improve) quality without the high monthly cost. I ran the same search filters (SaaS companies, 10-200 employees, specific tech stack) through each, exported \~500–1000 leads per tool, verified with a separate checker (NeverBounce), and sent small test campaigns to compare bounce + early reply signals.
Here's a quick honest summary of what I tried (no affiliate links, just my notes):
* **Apollo** (baseline): Still solid filters, but bounce \~32–38%, cost high now.
* **Hunter / Snov**: Cheap, easy, but enrichment weaker - bounce stayed 28–35%, lots of guessed emails.
* **Lusha**: Better on mobile/personal emails, bounce \~22–28%, but credits run out fast and UI feels clunky.
* **Seamless / UpLead**: Mixed - some fresh data, bounce down to \~20%, but inconsistent accuracy.
* **Dievio One lesser-known option**: Surp
Open on Reddit r/coldemail by u/BessieFlamboyant 2mo ago Best Apollo alternative for prospecting in 2026? I’ve been using Apollo for prospecting for a while but lately the data quality has been getting pretty frustrating.
It still shows people listed at companies they left months ago, titles that are outdated and emails bouncing even after running verification
At this point I’m spending more time cleaning lists than actually doing outreach.
I looked into some other tools like ZoomInfo and Clay but they seem pretty expensive for what I need.
Curious what people consider the best Apollo alternative these days. What's working for you?
Open on Reddit r/SideProject by u/Impossibu 1mo ago Apollo.io alternatives with better data quality in 2026. I switched 3 months ago and here's what actually happened to our bounce rates We're a 5-person B2B agency managing outbound for 6 clients. Apollo was our primary data source for 2 years. In early 2026, our bounce rates started climbing. 8%, then 11%, then 13% on one particularly bad batch. That's not a deliverability issue. That's a data issue.
I think the problem is their database is shared across millions of users. Same contacts getting pulled by every SDR, people change jobs, data doesn't refresh fast enough. We've seen others reporting similar accuracy drops across G2 and Reddit over the past year. Our 3-person team was also spending $237/month base plus $50-80 in credit overages because of the per-user pricing.
We evaluated four alternatives. Tested each with the same ICP (US B2B SaaS, 50-500 employees, director+) across 500 contacts.
[Cognism](https://www.cognism.com): Bounce rate was 2.4%. Best data quality overall, especially for EMEA contacts. Diamond-verified phone numbers are legit. But pricing starts at $1,000-3,000/month which is way beyond our agency budget. If we were enterprise we'd probably just use this.
[Lusha](https://www.lusha.com): Bounce rate was 4.8%. Clean data and the shared credit pool is better than per-user pricing. But the d
Open on Reddit r/coldemail by u/Rude_Yard5181 6mo ago Apollo Alternatives So I've been using Apollo for a while now and I'm just wondering if there are better options out there. Don't get me wrong, it's a solid tool, but I feel like I'm constantly getting hard bounces from apollo’s “verified” emails and the pricing structure is kind of confusing to me when I want mobile numbers.
I'm looking for apollo alternatives that might work better for my workflow. I do a lot of B2B SaaS prospecting and I'm trying to find something that gives me good email accuracy and mobile dials too without breaking the bank.
Would love to hear what you all are using and what's been working for you. Any recommendations would be super helpful. Are there any hidden gems I might be missing?
Open on Reddit r/coldemail by u/RoundKiwi9267 1y ago Affordable alternative to Clay Apollo etc Hey everyone! After years of building AI tools for clients and ourselves, we've recently launched our own affordable alternative to Clay, Apollo, and RB2B.
unlimited business contact platform
verified emails, phone numbers & social profiles
No lookup limits (unlike Apollo's fixed credits)
AI profile summaries & LinkedIn verification
Instant CSV exports for your CRM
We built this because we were tired of paying 100+ usd month for limited contacts when running our own campaigns.
Right now we're looking for SDRs and growth hackers to test our platform. We've got about 100+ people in the free trial early access phase, and are approaching 40 paid users - we'd love to add more beta testers who can provide feedback!
The best part?
You can search unlimited contacts with a simple search engines - no more hours wasted googling or digging through websites.
Drop a comment if you want access - we're giving free extended trials to anyone who uses it for the 7 day free trial and emails us back an honest review! Learning and working for the customers is the key atm 🙏
#LeadGeneration #SalesTools #GrowthHacking
Open on Reddit r/SaaS by u/Substantial_Mess922 1y ago I built an apollo/zoominfo alternative Hi
I built an apollo io/zoominfo alternative . You can filter and search for leads and export in csv your lead list . I also offer emails verification for your lead lists .
So I am looking for beta testers to test my app and help with idea validation.
If you can help me and give helpful feedbacks, you can dm me to get access .
Of course you get free leads in return of your help.
Thank you !
Open on Reddit r/coldemail by u/Bubbly-Dependent6188 9mo ago Where to find leads for cold emails, currently using Apollo but quality is bad!! I have been using Apollo for a long time for cold emailing. I've used like 100k emails from Apollo, but the response rate and the deliverability itself are really low. I have tried enrichment tools, but I am still not getting enough feedback. I want at least an 80% deliverability rate. Are there any better options than Apollo?
Also, I'm planning to majorly look at tools for lead prospecting. Because there are a lot of tools to find emails, but in order to find leads, there are very less tools. I've heard Sales Navigator is good, but it's not scalable at all. I need some API or a platform that I can put a filter on, and that can provide me with leads.
Open on Reddit r/coldemail by u/Physical-Purpose678 4mo ago Apollo & LinkedIn Sales Navigator Alternatives I was using Apollo and LinkedIn Sales Navigator for data enrichment, but they are very expensive. I would like to know if any other alternatives provide updated and accurate information.
Open on Reddit r/SaaS by u/ANWx0 2mo ago Built a B2B SaaS for agencies, got 5-6 CEO demos from 150 manual LinkedIn messages, but $0 from Ads & Cold Email. Should I go all-in on Sales Navigator? Hey everyone, looking for some strategic advice on GTM and customer acquisition for my bootstrapped B2B SaaS.
**Context:** I built a white-label AI Social Media Assistant for web/marketing agencies. It basically turns IG/FB comments and DMs into qualified leads, and agencies can resell it to their clients with their own logo to increase their margins.
I'm currently testing 3 different acquisition channels, but the results are completely unbalanced:
**1. The Winner: Manual LinkedIn Outreach 🏆** I’ve been sending manual connection requests with a short, personalized note to Agency CEOs and decision-makers. Out of \~150 requests sent, I easily booked 5-6 demos/pilot tests. The direct chat format works wonders, it gives me authority, and I can bypass gatekeepers.
**2. The Loser: Cold Email 📉** It's becoming a nightmare. Buying quality lead lists (Apollo) is expensive, and the domain reputation/spam filter bottleneck is real. I’m spending money on Instantly and domains, but the response rate is brutally low compared to LinkedIn.
**3. The Money Pit: Meta Ads (Click-to-DM) 💸** I’m running B2B Lead Gen ads on Meta (Click-to-DM), but I’m burning my daily budget with zero conversations
Open on Reddit r/LeadGeneration by u/Bubbly-Dependent6188 9mo ago This is the best way to find leads for your business for cold outreach Often, people want to do cold outreach, but one challenge they face is that they are unable to find the target audience. After hitting that wall, people often land on platforms like Apollo and Lusha for finding leads. But these platforms have leads that are older, or the email does not exist at all. That reduces the deliverability plus the domain rating.
I have done more than 10M emails, and for me, **Sales Navigator** has worked the best. Just go to Sales Navigator, apply the filters that you are looking for, and then export them using extensions. After exporting them, use any enrichment tool (there are a lot of tools available in the market). You have the list ready. This is a far better way than using Apollo because the quality of lead is way, way better
Open on Reddit r/coldemail by u/New-Transition8994 3mo ago Best source for finding Shopify brands for email marketing outreach? Hey everyone,
I’m starting outbound for my email marketing service focused on DTC brands (mainly Shopify stores doing around $50k+/month). My goal is to reach founders/CEOs and offer lifecycle email + retention improvements.
Right now I’m trying to figure out the **best lead source for Shopify ecommerce brands**, and I’m considering these tools:
* Apollo
* LinkedIn Sales Navigator
* BuiltWith
* StoreLeads
From what I understand:
Apollo → good for finding decision makers + emails
Sales Navigator → strong for finding founders and filtering by company size
BuiltWith → good for identifying Shopify tech stacks
StoreLeads → seems very strong for ecommerce filtering (revenue, apps, etc.)
My question for people who’ve actually done outbound to ecommerce brands:
1. Which of these tools gives the **highest quality Shopify leads**?
2. Is **StoreLeads worth the price** compared to Apollo or BuiltWith?
3. Do you usually combine multiple tools (e.g., StoreLeads for companies + Apollo for contacts)?
4. Are there any **better sources for Shopify leads** that I’m missing?
Appreciate any advice from people who have experience doing outbound in the ecommerce/DTC space.
Open on Reddit r/MyFirst100Customers by u/whazzuup91 10mo ago Apollo.io vs LinkedIn Sales Navigator breakdown - What's better for recruiters? [Just wrapped up a deep dive comparison of Apollo vs LinkedIn Sales Navigator](https://myfirst100customers.com/apollo-io-vs-linkedin-sales-navigator-for-recruiters-what-is-better/) after burning through way too much budget testing recruiting tools for our startup.
**TL;DR:** If you're bootstrapped or early-stage, [Apollo.io](http://Apollo.io) is probably your best bet. If you're hiring execs or have VC funding, LinkedIn Sales Navigator might be worth it.
**Quick backstory:** We've been trying to hire our first 10 employees and I've probably tested every recruiting tool out there. These two kept coming up in founder groups, so I spent 6 months really testing both.
**What I learned:**
[**Apollo.io**](http://Apollo.io) **wins for:**
* 🏆 **Budget-friendly** (way cheaper than Sales Navigator)
* 📧 **Actual email addresses** (huge time saver)
* 🤖 **Email automation** (set it and forget it sequences)
* 🎯 **Better for volume hiring** (dev roles, sales reps, etc.)
**LinkedIn Sales Navigator wins for:**
* 🤝 **Relationship building** (see mutual connections)
* 👔 **Executive search** (C-level, senior roles)
* 📊 **Professional context** (complete career histories)
* 🔍 **Passive candidate
Open on Reddit r/LeadGeneration by u/Limp_Protection6019 9mo ago How do you get high-quality leads for cold email without burning cash? Hey everyone,
I’m running outbound campaigns (mainly cold email) and currently using Apollo to source leads. The issue is, I’m ending up with a lot of dead emails, which means I’m spending money twice - once to get the leads, and again to validate them just so I don’t get bounce issues.
This feels like I’m burning cash and time before even reaching a prospect.
So, I’m curious:
* What’s been your most efficient source for **high-quality B2B leads**?
* Do you prefer building lists yourself, scraping, buying data, or using a different platform?
* How do you balance cost vs. accuracy so you’re not stuck in this “dead leads + validation” loop?
I’d love to hear strategies that worked for you across industries.
Appreciate any insights, I’d rather learn from people who’ve been through this than keep wasting cash testing endlessly.
Open on Reddit r/smallbusiness by u/kenji_endo10 2mo ago Best lead gen tools for small businesses with limited budget? Running a marketing agency with 4 full timers and watching our outreach costs eat up more of our margins every quarter. We're sending maybe 2000 cold emails a month plus some LinkedIn outreach.
Right now we're cobbling together free trials and manual research which is burning way too much time. Need proper lead generation software but everything seems priced for enterprise teams. Looking for something under $200/month that has fresh data.
Been researching and seriously looking at Prospeo.io since they charge per verified contact only (no credits wasted on bad data) and have direct dial numbers which we need. Apollo also came up in my search but seems more expensive for what we'd use.
What are other small teams using? Need decent email accuracy and ideally some intent data to know who's in market. Bonus if it integrates with HubSpot without breaking.
Open on Reddit r/smallbusiness by u/1MadTitan1 8mo ago How did you get your first paying customers without a network? (SaaS product) Hi everyone,
I am writing this because I genuinely need some advice. I am a first-time startup founder, and our product is a SaaS platform that helps with auditing and accounting. As a new player in the market, our initial target is SMEs. This is my first time building any company, so it is very much a learning-by-doing situation for me.
The main challenge I am facing right now is figuring out how to get our very first paying customer. We do not have an investor network and we also do not have any existing network of contacts in this industry.
My current thinking is to buy subscriptions to tools like Apollo and Hunter (possibly LinkedIn Sales Navigator too), get relevant email lists from there and start sending cold outreach emails to potential customers. That seems like the most straightforward approach I can take right now.
However, I am not sure if that is the most effective way, or if there are other approaches that might work better, especially for someone without a network. So I would really appreciate it if anyone here who has been through a similar situation could share what worked for them.
If you have used cold email outreach successfully, I would love to hear your a
Open on Reddit r/SaaS by u/No-Constant-5093 6mo ago I got tired of the SEO spam when looking for cold email tools, so I tested the main players to see what actually hits the inbox. I've been trying to scale outbound for my B2B SaaS recently.
Every time I Google best cold email software, I get hit with "Top 20 Tools for 2025" lists that are clearly written by ChatGPT or just affiliate farms. Or enterprise tools that want me to Book a Demo just to see a price tag (hate that).
So, I spent the last two weeks actually setting up campaigns on the main platforms to see what’s usable for a bootstrapper.
I waded through the garbage so you guys don't have to. Here are the only 4 I'm keeping in my rotation:
1. The Best for Set and Forget Sending: Smartlead / Instantly
* Why I like it: They are basically the same tool at this point, but they handle the warmup infrastructure better than anyone. Unlimited inboxes is the killer feature. If you are paying per seat for sending, you are burning money.
* The Catch: The UI on both can be a bit clunky (Smartlead especially feels like a developer tool sometimes), and support is hit-or-miss.
2. The Best for Data (If you have budget): Apollo
* Why I like it: The database is massive. It’s the industry standard for a reason. If you need 10k leads in a specific niche, they have them.
* The Catch: It is expensive as hell once you
Open on Reddit r/smallbusiness by u/Eastern-League2081 1y ago Any free or cheap tools to build your first B2B lead list I’m bootstrapping a small B2B SaaS business and I need to start prospecting, but I can’t afford $300+ a month for tools right now. Are there any free or pay as you go platforms where I can get started building a lead list that’s actually usuable?
Open on Reddit r/Entrepreneur by u/TheMexBusinessman 11mo ago How do you find people to cold email to? Which websites do you use to cold email customers? I’m about to use cold email as a strategy to grow my Saas business and I saw many people have success using cold emails.
How do you guys apply cold email in your business and how successful were you at it?
Thank you for your answers in advance.
Open on Reddit r/smallbusiness by u/No-Profile1668 2mo ago Best lead gen tools for small businesses with limited budget? Running a marketing agency with 4 full timers and watching our outreach costs eat up more of our margins every quarter. We're sending maybe 2000 cold emails a month plus some LinkedIn outreach.
Right now we're cobbling together free trials and manual research which is burning way too much time. Need proper lead generation software but everything seems priced for enterprise teams. Looking for something under $200/month that has fresh data.
Been researching and seriously looking at [Prospeo.io](http://Prospeo.io) since they charge per verified contact only (no credits wasted on bad data) and have direct dial numbers which we need. Apollo also came up in my search but seems more expensive for what we'd use.
What are other small teams using? Need decent email accuracy and ideally some intent data to know who's in market. Bonus if it integrates with HubSpot without breaking.
Open on Reddit r/startup by u/EmilianoLGU 9mo ago Stop paying for ‘AI prospecting tools. This is why actually works. **AI prospecting tools don’t have secret data.**
When I first started cold outreach, I was desperate for shortcuts. I didn’t know how to prospect. I didn’t know my ICP. So I did what most people do: I bought into the hype.
Every “AI prospecting tool” promised me magic. Perfect lead lists, flawless enrichment, and inboxes full of replies.
So I paid for them. Tested them. Burned money on them. And guess what? They were just shiny LinkedIn wrappers with worse UI and worse data.
There are two kinds of salespeople:
* People who build lists manually, *actually* learn their ICP, and close deals.
* People who pay for wrappers and pray the software does it for them.
Only one of those groups actually wins.
**1. Start on LinkedIn.**
LinkedIn is the *source of truth*. Every serious B2B buyer has a presence here. Period.
If your lead isn’t on LinkedIn, good luck enriching an accurate email or phone number. They probably aren’t buying through cold outreach anyway.
**2. Pay for sales navigator and** f**ilter like crazy.**
Don’t spray and pray. Use Sales Navigator to filter by job titles, company headcount, industry, geography. This is how you build a tight ICP. You’ll learn who actuall
Open on Reddit r/smallbusiness by u/atlastech01 1mo ago How are you guys finding direct dials and verified emails in 2026 without the enterprise-level price tags? \*\*I’ve been diving deep into B2B lead gen lately and noticed a huge gap. It feels like you either pay thousands for tools like ZoomInfo/Apollo or you spend hours manually scraping LinkedIn and hoping a generic email format works.\*\*
\*\*As someone who focuses heavily on the technical side of prospecting, I’m curious:\*\*
\*\*• What’s your current workflow for finding direct phone numbers for cold calls?\*\*
\*\*• Are you seeing better conversion rates with direct dials vs. highly personalized emails right now?\*\*
\*\*• Has anyone found a reliable way to verify emails that actually stay "clean" during a campaign?\*\*
\*\*I’m trying to optimize my own process and would love to hear what’s working for the boots-on-the-ground sales teams here. No pitches, just looking for real-world tactics.\*\*
Open on Reddit r/coldemail by u/Quiet-Engineer-738 4mo ago Whats the best site to extract verified emails (on a budget) Hey everyone, I’m just starting out with outreach and email prospecting. I’ve already set up my inboxes and have been warming them for about a week, following all the best practices for deliverability. I plan to start sending emails in about a week and will be sending roughly 100 per day to begin with.
I know Apollo and Lusha are popular tools for finding verified emails, but I’m on a budget and new to this. Are there any other affordable alternatives or tools you’d recommend for extracting reliable contact emails?
Open on Reddit r/SaaS by u/gojiberryAI 11mo ago How to Find Your First 100 Customers as Fast as Possible (I did it twice) Hey everyone, I’m Romàn, cofounder of GojiberryAI, and today I’m going to tell you exactly how to get your first 100 customers.
There are 3 types of leads in your market. We’re going to focus on the third one, because it’s by far the most effective when you’re just starting out.
The first type is inbound leads. These come from organic channels. You post on Twitter, LinkedIn, Reddit. People visit your site and sign up. These leads are usually very warm, but the downside is they take time to generate. SEO takes months, and when you’re nobody at the start, it’s hard to attract traffic and trust. So yes, posting on social media is good, but it works better when you already have social proof or traction.
The second type is cold leads. You scrape data from Apollo or Sales Navigator, enrich the info with a tool, and reach out. This method is fine, but you’ll contact a huge number of people who don’t care about what you offer. It’s a numbers game, and conversion is low without personalization.
The third type is what we’re going to focus on high intent leads. These are cold leads who have shown interest in what you sell. For example, people who comment or like posts from your competitor
Open on Reddit r/startup by u/Effective-Addition44 2mo ago How do small startups find the right people to email? I am trying to build a lead list for a new project, but I really want to avoid spamming everyone. It feels like most of the generic email addresses I find just go to a black hole or get my domain flagged. I am looking for advice on how to find the actual decision-makers at a company without being annoying.
I recently started looking into [this tool](https://snov.io/email-finder) to find verified emails by domain, and it seems helpful for getting specific names. However, I am curious about what other strategies people are using to keep their outreach professional and targeted.
Do you guys have any tips for finding quality contacts? Should I stay focused on manual research, or are there better automation tools I should try out?
Open on Reddit r/sales by u/crumbledcookies12 1mo ago What tools are you using? I work at a very small startup, no revenue yet. Its just three members and I'm the only non-tech and I specifically chose to come in to do sales.
I'm sure I can sell, I can talk to clients, if can't sell, then atleast bring in product feedback from the meeting. But, I'm not sure on how to find clients, what tools to use, how to do email and cold outreach, I'm more comfortable with calls as the answers are more direct and there is no waiting.
How do I find clients for B2B. What tools do I use? Is Apollo necessary? Any help is appreciated.
Open on Reddit r/coldemail by u/HandZealousideal619 4mo ago Lead Sourcing **Want to know what you guys are using for lead sourcing of linked in based data. Apollo is getting very expensive and is also the leads have not been very accurate the data looks old. Please recommend good and cheaper alternatives.**
Open on Reddit r/LeadGeneration by u/ctf-19 11mo ago Best B2B Lead Gen Workflow? Does anyone have experience with platforms that were better than the below, for B2B lead gen? For example, I've heard positive things about Apollo. I'm also wondering if there is an all-in-one solution, or new AI-driven tools that outperform these predecessors. Thoughts?
1. Lead Generation - Linkedin Sales Navigator
2. Enrich & Verify Leads - FindMyMail
3. Email Message Automation - Lemlist
Open on Reddit r/coldemail by u/No-Charity-5827 4mo ago Thinking to buy quality leads? I will be running my first email campaign soon.
For folks running cold email at scale:
How often are bought leads actually usable?
Common issues I researched on are :
• “Verified” emails still bounce
• Wrong roles / non-buyers
• Duplicates across lists
• Time lost cleaning CSVs
• Deliverability damage from one bad batch and delay the process because of warm ups.
Please feel free to share your concerns with buying leads and using them in email campaigns..
1. What breaks most: accuracy, relevance, duplicates, or deliverability?
2. Do you always re-verify vendor leads?
3. How much cleanup time is normal for you?
4. Any handy checklist before I start using the leads?
Please help as I want to do this on scale and on regular basis with minimal impact on my IP or getting flagged as spam.
Open on Reddit r/marketing by u/Admirable_Car3425 1y ago Need Advice on B2B Lead Gen Funnel Hi everyone,
I’m currently building a lead generation funnel for a B2B manufacturing company. This is my first time setting up a full outreach process, and I’d really appreciate your advice.
So far, I’ve created the ICPs and shortlisted target companies. I have access to LinkedIn Sales Navigator and am planning to get the RocketReach 200-lookups/month plan for verified emails and phone numbers.
Here’s where I’m stuck:
* Should I use Sales Navigator, email, and calls to reach out to the same person across all channels?
* Or should I try different channels for different people within the same company?
* How do you usually structure a multi-step outreach when you have limited credits (like 100 messages on LinkedIn/month and 200 email lookups)?
Any frameworks, advice, or examples would really help. Thanks in advance!
Open on Reddit