Cold tool pricing: read the unit, not the headline

Cold tool pricing: read the unit, not the headline

Vendors price on different units to make comparison hard. Here's how to normalize it.

The pricing models
— Per-mailbox (Mailreach, some warm-up): scales linearly with domains — brutal at 30+ mailboxes
— Per-seat / flat unlimited mailboxes (Smartlead, Instantly): cheap if you run many mailboxes, wasteful for one
— Per-credit (Clay, Apollo enrichment): unpredictable, spikes with usage

The trap: a $37/mo 'unlimited mailbox' plan looks cheaper than $25/mailbox — until you realize the cheap plan caps active leads, sends, or AI credits, and you upgrade anyway.

The real cost formula
— Total = sending tool + mailboxes (~$3-7 each) + warm-up + verification + enrichment
— A 20-mailbox setup runs $300-600/mo all-in, regardless of which 'cheap' sender you pick

Verdict: 4/5 flat-unlimited models (Smartlead/Instantly) once you're past ~5 mailboxes; per-mailbox pricing only wins for tiny setups.

Who it's for: anyone comparing sticker prices without counting mailboxes.