Hire an SDR, buy Apollo, or outsource cold email?
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A small agency or consultancy has four real options: do the outbound yourself, hire a salesperson, hire a lead-gen agency, or hand the weekly work to a done-for-you service. The right one is the option that matches the hours you will actually spend, what you can afford, and whether your main email domain is put at risk.
The four columns below are the same comparison as on the homepage. Prices for other companies are ones already published on our cost page, checked on October 14, 2026. This page does not add a new statistic.
Do it yourself
Most go-to-market courses teach this column, and it works if you will put in the hours every week. The method is the same one we use: a tight target list, a real reason to write now, short emails, one change at a time, and a weekly scorecard.
What you pay is tools. A prospecting tool plus a sending tool runs roughly $150–$250 a month. Buying Apollo, or a tool like it, is this column. You still find the prospects, write the emails, watch the domains, and give it the hours. We have not published an Apollo price here, because we have not checked one onto these pages. The software price we have checked is AiSDR: $250, $900, or $2,500 a month, and those plans are software the buyer runs.
Your time is about five hours a week, every week. You find the prospects. Nothing is promised except the work you actually do. Your main domain is often the one that sends, so a spike in complaints can land on the domain your clients already know.
If you will reliably give it those hours, do it yourself. The courses are good. The difference is not the method. It is who does it every week.
Hire a salesperson
A salesperson is a salary, plus benefits, plus the weeks or months before they are useful. Your time goes to hiring, training, and managing. They find the prospects. What they can honestly promise is activity: the calls made and the emails sent. They cannot honestly promise that a stranger will take a meeting.
Sometimes that mail goes from your main domain, and sometimes from a separate one. You are still the person who has to notice when it isn't working.
Hire a lead-gen agency
This is usually a retainer, often with a long contract. Your time goes to calls and reviews. They find the prospects, often from a list they bought or rented. FunnelIQ does not buy or rent lists. We use public sources, and every prospect comes with a dated reason and a source you can open.
What many of these firms promise is meetings. On pages we checked on October 14, 2026, Belkins lists an average starter from $5,000 a month and says 100 or more guaranteed appointments a year. Leadium lists $3,500 a month for calling, and $4,000 to $5,000 a month when email and LinkedIn are included. Bostrom lists done-for-you cold email from $3,490 a month. Those figures are from their pages, linked on our cost page, and prices change. Anyone who promises guaranteed meetings is guessing with your money. We will not do that.
Your main domain is sometimes kept out of the sending and sometimes not. Ask which domain the mail comes from before you sign.
Hand it to FunnelIQ
FunnelIQ starts at $349 a month, and a monthly plan cancels in one click. Pay for the year up front and Starter is $3,490, which works out to $291 a month. Growth is $699 a month, Pro is $1,499, and Business is $3,499. Annual billing is two months free on every plan. There is no setup fee on the plans.
Your time is one onboarding call, a look at the first two or three batches, and then the replies. Nothing sends until you have signed off the first batch. After that it runs inside the guardrails you signed off.
We find the prospects from public sources: business registries and license lists, companies' own websites and careers pages, press releases, and public filings. Each one has a dated reason and a source link. We do not scrape sites that forbid it, including LinkedIn, and we do not run LinkedIn automation.
What we promise is the outreach we write down with you: how many qualified leads we will find, how many emails we will send, and the timeframe. Miss any of those for reasons on our side and you get your plan fees back in the first 60 days. We do not promise replies, meetings, or revenue. A quiet inbox is not a refund. The conditions are on the guarantee page.
Your main domain never sends the cold email. It goes from separate domains we set up, warmed for 14–21 days before full sending. New mailboxes stay at a low daily volume so no single mailbox has to ramp hard.
How to choose
If you will give outbound about five hours a week, every week, the do-it-yourself column is honest, and the tool cost is lower than a plan. If you want a person on your payroll, hire one, and budget the ramp. If you want a firm that sells guaranteed meetings, that is a different product, at the prices those firms publish.
If you will not do the hours, and you do not want a meeting promise, that is the job we take.
If you'd like to see the work before deciding, see 10 prospects in your market.
Questions people ask
Should I buy Apollo and do outbound myself?
Yes, if you will give it about five hours a week, every week. Apollo, or a tool like it, is the do-it-yourself column: you still find the prospects, write, send, and watch deliverability. This site does not publish an Apollo price.
Is a lead-gen agency the same thing as FunnelIQ?
No. Many lead-gen agencies sell a retainer and often a meeting guarantee, and the prospects often come from a bought list. FunnelIQ starts at $349 a month, cancels monthly, finds prospects from public sources, and refunds only if we miss the leads, emails, or timeframe we agreed.
Will my main domain send the cold email?
Not with FunnelIQ. Cold email goes from separate domains. If you do it yourself or hire someone, ask which domain sends before the first email. A complaint problem on your main domain is slow to repair.