5 Woodpecker Alternatives for Effective Cold Email Outreach
Cold outreach helps businesses across various industries to connect with their target audience and boost sales. When deciding on the best communication channel, email is the clear winner. According to HubSpot's research, 80% of buyers prefer email due to its ease of use and convenience.
Woodpecker is a popular solution for cold emailing, sales, and agency outreach. However, users seek alternatives due to slow customer support, high pricing, email templates requiring improvement, basic reports, and confusing UI.
If you are currently using Woodpecker and looking for a better solution, you've come to the right place. In this article, we will share five of the best Woodpecker alternatives, comparing their features, benefits, and pricing to help you find the best tool for your business needs.
Let's start with our list.
The best Woodpecker alternatives for cold email outreach
Here are the best Woodpecker alternatives for your cold email outreach in 2023.
1. Skua
Skua is the ultimate solution for effective cold email outreach, powered by advanced artificial intelligence (AI) technology.
It transforms your outreach strategy through intelligent email sending and automated account-warming capabilities. With Skua, you can ensure your emails are delivered to the right recipients while maintaining your sender's reputation.
Skua uses machine learning algorithms to optimize your outreach campaigns. It improves your subject lines, follow-up sequences, and delivery timing, increasing open rates and intensifying engagement from potential prospects.
Further, Skua offers integrated mail merge features for personalized emails at scale, enabling you to establish natural and meaningful conversations with potential leads.
Take advantage of our free trial and start your journey with Skua today!
User rating
Currently, Skua lacks ratings on G2 or Capterra. However, its users are happy with its unlimited account warmup, customizable templates, advanced analytics, simplicity, cost-effectiveness, and customer support.
Features list
- Email deliverability – improve email visibility and prevent messages from landing in spam folders
- Email warmup – gradually increase your email sending volume to build trust with providers and protect your sender's reputation
- Cold email campaigns – enhance your lead generation with personalized cold email campaigns. Cultivate lead engagement and relationships to improve results
- Email scheduling – send emails at strategic times to maximize open rates and boost the chances of receiving responses
- Inbox rotation – consolidate multiple email accounts under one campaign and switch between them to optimize email distribution and deliverability
- Unified inbox – organize your conversations in one place with specific labels for leads and search function
- A/Z testing – test different subject lines, message content, and CTAs to optimize your campaigns
- Simplified CRM – keep track of leads, deals, opportunities, and scheduled meetings in a centralized location
- Spintax – generate unique content for each recipient with different variations of sentences, phrases, and words
- Analytics and reporting – gain insights by analyzing important metrics, including lead count, email opens, click-throughs, and responses
- AI – use AI to optimize email copy, create campaign sequences, and improve deliverability. Automatically classify responses to manage replies and identify high-value leads
Integrations
You can integrate Skua with Pipedrive, HubSpot, HighLevel, Hyperise, Google Workplace, Gmail, and Microsoft accounts. You can also add other email providers.
Visit the Integrations page for the entire list.
Customer support
Skua offers multiple ways to get help, including a knowledge base, live chat, a dedicated implementation manager, and a Facebook community.
Pricing
Skua offers a 14-day free trial and the following pricing plans
- Starter – $34/month or $28/month billed annually. It includes unlimited email accounts and warmups, 1,000 active leads and 5,000 emails
- Growth – $99/month or $84/month billed annually. It includes unlimited email accounts and warmups, 25,000 active leads and 100,000 emails
- Custom – contact us to tailor our plan to your needs
You can find all relevant details on the Pricing page.
Pros
- AI-powered solution for enhancing cold outreach efforts through optimized delivery timing, subject lines, and follow-up sequences
- Integrated mail merge tools to foster genuine interactions with potential leads
- Unlimited email-sending accounts and warmups
- Duplicate checker to fine-tune your campaign
- Built-in mail merge tool for personalized emails at scale
- Efficient inbox rotation for splitting the email volume
- Spintax for creating unique email content
Cons
- Lack of user reviews on major platforms like G2 and Capterra
- It doesn’t include a free plan
Ready to enhance your email outreach? Experience Skua's potential firsthand.
2. Outreach
Image source: Capterra
Outreach is a sales engagement platform that helps teams personalize and optimize their outreach campaigns to better connect with prospects, close deals, and grow revenue.
User rating
Outreach has a 4.3 score on G2. Users are satisfied with its sequence builder, templates, and user interface.
Features list
- Sales engagement – increase productivity with high-impact sequences and playbooks
- Deal management – inspect deals to understand how to boost conversion rates and accelerate deal velocity
- Mutual action plans – create predictable purchase processes to improve deal qualification
- Conversation intelligence – observe your team meetings and help members improve with an AI-powered virtual assistant
- Rep coaching – use real-time guidance during meetings to help your sales reps improve
- Deal insights – identify good opportunities and get actionable recommendations to optimize your activities
- Pipeline management – detect and optimize pipeline gaps to increase conversion rates
- Forecast – increase pipeline coverage with automated roll-ups and scenario modelling
- Sentiment analysis – detect and classify language used in buyer emails to help sellers improve reply rates
- Integrated A/B testing – run tests to determine which messages and engagement workflows work best
- Job title classification – categorize various job titles into specific roles and departments to make building and using personas easier
- Out-of-office handling – identify prospects out of the office and extract new contacts you can contact instead
Integrations
Outreach offers over 90 integration options like HubSpot, Salesforce, LinkedIn, Demandbase, Gmail, Outlook and Snowflake.
Customer support
Outreach provides a support page you can only access if you have an account on the platform. You can also contact the company via email.
Pricing
With Outreach, you can get a demo and subscribe to one of their two plans – for everyone or enterprises.
Their plans for everyone include a Standard package for small teams with core features and a Professional package for larger sales teams with deeper insights.
Both include a robust feature list. However, pricing is available upon request.
Pros
- The automated sequences feature
- Regular updates based on user feedback
Cons
- Occasional bugs and problems with integrations (especially Gmail)
- Customer support might be better
- High learning curve
- No pricing details on the website
3. Salesloft
Image source: Capterra
Salesloft is a sales engagement platform that helps sales teams connect with prospects, manage their pipelines, and close more deals by enabling them to create personalised and automated outreach campaigns and track and measure their performance.
User rating
Salesloft has a rating of 4.5 out of 5 on G2. Users like its intuitive interface, customized cadences, analytics and integrations.
Features list
- Cadence – scale your prospecting and connect with buyers using multiple channels
- Conversations – get insights to understand your customers better and improve your conversation skills
- Deals – gather data regarding deal health and pipeline visibility
- Forecast – make accurate forecasts based on human and AI-powered insights
- Bi-directional CRM sync – transfer critical data into and from your CRM
- Coaching – improve sales skills with coaching based on real-time data
- Reporting and analytics – get the data you need to make smarter decisions and increase customer engagement and revenue
- Security – enjoy high security levels thanks to ISO and SOC 2
- Governance – use a governance system synced with CRM to get the information you need
- AI-powered workflows – optimize workflows with the help of AI to maximize conversion rates
Integrations
Salesloft offers an API to integrate with various tools, including LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Salesforce, Outlook, Twitter, Slack, Gmail inbox, Okta, and HubSpot.
Customer support
In case of any issues, you can contact Salesloft via email and phone or visit their help center. You can also work with an implementation manager.
Pricing
Salesloft has three pricing plans with varying feature sets: Essentials, Advanced and Premier. The company doesn’t offer pricing details on the website.
Pros
- Comprehensive engagement platform with various sales-related features
- Good tools for managing sales pipelines
Cons
- You can send a limited number of emails daily
- The user interface isn’t intuitive
- Too complex for non-technical users
- No pricing details on the website
4. SmartReach
Image source: G2
SmartReach is a sales execution platform that helps sales teams automate email outreach campaigns. It lets you create and send personalized cold emails to boost conversion rates and generate more leads. It also provides analytics and insights to help you understand your campaigns' performance.
User rating
SmartReach has a 4.8 rating on G2. Users like its automatic time zone recognition, analytics, ease of use, and customer support.
Features list
- Email sequencing – pause campaigns automatically, detect direct and indirect replies, and create exception days in the calendar
- Email deliverability – build IP, domain and email reputation. Run spam tests and auto-pause campaigns in case of issues
- AI-powered communication – write and share cold emails using AI tools
- Hyper personalize – use merge tags and include conditional statements in your messages to hyper-personalize them
- A/B testing – test different email content and subject line variations to see what works best
- View progress – evaluate which campaigns run out of prospects or have high email error rates
- Multichannel outreach – reach prospects using various channels such as WhatsApp, SMS, and LinkedIn
- Task manager – use a Chrome extension to execute tasks on different channels in one place
- Prospect feeds – get detailed, real-time information regarding prospect engagement
- Duplicate management – choose how to approach duplicate prospect data
- Group and tag prospects – segment and label prospects based on their activity
- Roles and permissions – add multiple team members and define roles and permissions to prevent unauthorized access to information
- Advanced tracking – track bounce rates and the number of unsubscribed users
- Best time to send – discover the best time to send messages to boost your results
- Advanced reporting – monitor campaign performance in one place
- Hot prospect – tag prospects who opened emails recently as “hot” to focus on them
Integrations
SmartReach integrates with HubSpot, Zoho CRM, Pipedrive and Salesforce – the company provides detailed documentation for the API. You can also use Zapier to facilitate other integrations.
Customer support
SmartReach has a detailed help center. In case of problems, you can reach the company via email or chat.
Pricing
SmartReach has four paid plans:
- Email Outreach – $29/seat/month. This subscription is for cost-sensitive businesses focused on B2B outreach campaigns
- Sales Engagement – $49/seat/month. For multi-channel outreach efforts and multiple team members
- Agency – includes up to 2,000 seats. The pricing is unavailable
- Enterprise – for large sales teams with complex workflows. The pricing is unavailable
There’s also a 20% discount for a yearly subscription and a 14-day free trial.
Pros
- Robust integration options
- Advanced email tracking features
- Reporting features
Cons
- Integration flow with some platforms like HubSpot could be better
- The interface feels a bit outdated
- Spam detection isn’t optimal
5. ReplyUp
Image source: AlternativeTo
ReplyUp is a cold email tool that helps you automate email follow-ups and increase conversion rates. It allows you to create personalized email sequences triggered by specific actions or events, such as opening an email, clicking a link, or visiting a website. You can also track and measure the performance of your campaigns.
User rating
ReplyUp has a 1.5 out of 5 rating on G2. Users like its simplicity and automated follow-ups.
Features list
- Email outreach – build email lists for mass outreach campaigns and send up to 100 000 emails daily with good deliverability thanks to Amazon SES
- Email marketing – customize and brand your emails at scale, use merge tags and similar options
- Automation – use a visual workflow builder, schedule emails and send automatic follow-ups
- Segmentation and personalization – segment lists in real-time and use dynamic custom fields
- Activity tracking – monitor open, click, reply, bounce and invalid email rates
- Analytics and reports – get data regarding the performance of campaigns
Integrations
ReplyUp provides an API and comprehensive documentation to help you get started. There is no other information about available integrations.
Customer support
You can contact the company via email or live chat in case of any concerns about the product.
Pricing
ReplyUp has three pricing plans:
- Starter – $59/monthly or $49 annually with unlimited emails and 50 000 contacts
- Growth – $149/month or $99 annually with unlimited emails, contacts, and API access
- Custom – a tailor-made plan with custom pricing
Pros
- Sending bulk emails is cheap, thanks to Amazon SES
Cons
- Low user score
- Limited and unresponsive customer support
- Feature set could be better
- Problems with closing an account – some users had to cancel their credit card to stop billings because ReplyUp didn’t respond to emails
Woodpecker alternatives: A short overview
Below is a comparison table summarizing the key features of the tools discussed in this article.
Our criteria for choosing the best Woodpecker alternatives
Here are the parameters we considered when selecting the tools for our list.
Features and functionality
We prioritized tools with comparable/superior features to Woodpecker, including email automation, personalization, A/B testing, and unique features like advanced reporting or lead scoring.
User-friendliness
We focused on user-friendliness when selecting tools, including drag-and-drop email builders, intuitive campaign setup, and transparent reporting.
Customer support
We looked for tools that offer responsive customer support, including email, phone, and chat support. We also consider the availability of resources such as knowledge bases, tutorials, and webinars.
Pricing and cost-effectiveness
We searched for Woodpecker alternatives with competitive pricing and various plans to suit different budgets. We also evaluated the cost-effectiveness by considering the tools' features and functionality relative to the price.
Integration with third-party tools
We explored tools that integrate with various third-party platforms, including CRM systems, marketing automation, and lead generation tools. It enables a smooth workflow and streamlines sales and marketing processes.
Current user reviews
We looked for tools with positive reviews from current users, indicating that the product is reliable, effective, and easy to use.
Since we’ve summarized the criteria we used to choose solutions for this list, let’s look at the best Woodpecker alternative in 2023.
The best alternative to Woodpecker in 2023
Skua is an excellent alternative to Woodpecker due to its distinctive features.
Skua offers a variety of powerful features to simplify and expand outreach efforts. It includes unlimited email accounts, warmups, personalized cold outreach, email scheduling, inbox rotation, and comprehensive A/Z testing.
However, what truly distinguishes Skua is its advanced AI-driven optimization, which enhances various aspects of your outreach campaigns. It offers unparalleled personalization capabilities, which lead to significantly higher engagement rates.
Curious about how Skua works? Experience it firsthand by signing up for a 14-day free trial and exploring its features.
