How to choose a cold email agency
Updated October 7, 2026. Agency facts read October 7, 2026, except Martal Group (September 24, 2026).
Choose a cold email agency on seven checks you can make before a sales call: price, setup fee, contract length, who builds the list, who answers replies, how replies are counted and launch time. Of ten other agencies, five publish a starting price and three say anything about a setup fee. Sales.co is our own service, so read this page with that in mind.
What this page adds: a count of what ten agencies publish on each check, and one check that changes how every reply number reads. In Sales.co's own data, 9,589 contacts replied to a first email in any way, but only 2,818 (29%) wrote the reply themselves. The rest were auto-responders, out-of-office notices and bounces (Sales.co's conversion benchmarks, 336,257 contacts, 20 campaigns, October 2026).
The seven checks
| Check | Sales.co | What the other ten agencies publish |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Price | $2,000 a month for up to 10,000 emails; $2,500 for 15,000; $3,000 for 20,000 | Five publish a starting price, from $2,400 a month (OutreachBloom) to $7,499 for the first month (CIENCE); the billing periods differ. Five quote on a call or say nothing. |
| 2. Setup fee | None | Three say anything: SalesHive states $0 setup fees, LevelUp Leads says it does not charge for onboarding and CIENCE states $5,000 one-time. No statement found for the other seven. |
| 3. Contract | Month-to-month | Five state month-to-month. Hypergen asks six months, LevelUp Leads three, Martal Group a three or four-month pilot. Belkins and OutreachBloom do not say. |
| 4. Who builds the list | Sales.co builds and validates it in house; the data cost is in the fee | Every agency whose site we could read says it builds the list (nine of ten; Martal Group blocks automated readers), so the useful questions are who owns the list if you leave and what data costs. Belkins states 1,500 leads a month at its starter price, CIENCE includes 75,000 monthly platform credits and SalesHive puts data in its flat fee. |
| 5. Who answers replies | Sales.co answers positive replies in under 10 minutes | OutreachBloom says it manages the replies. Belkins says its SDRs respond to every message within 24 hours and SalesHive says responders answer every reply "in minutes, not days". CIENCE lists replies answered as part of the service. Cleverly manages replies on its full-service option. SalesBread monitors your LinkedIn inbox and emails you when a lead is ready. No response time found for the rest. |
| 6. How replies are counted | Published with definitions: any reply, in-person reply, positive reply, per contact and per email | The 2026 reports we compared run from 0.45% (Belkins: unique replies per email sent, auto-replies and bounces removed) to 3.7% (Saleshandy: every reply per email delivered, auto-replies included). |
| 7. Launch time | Sending within 7 days | LevelUp Leads: 7 to 10 days after the onboarding call. CIENCE: a 5-day setup sprint and a full engine in 14 days. Belkins: about 2 weeks to reach 200+ daily messages. SalesHive: 2 to 3 weeks. Hypergen: under a month. SalesBread: a 3 to 5 week wait list. OutreachBloom: "typically live within weeks". Cleverly gives 4 to 6 weeks to first replies and meetings. None found for Leadium and Martal Group. |
"No statement found" means the pages we read do not say. A sales call may. Ask for the answer in writing.
Check 6 decides most disputes
An agency that reports a reply rate should tell you the denominator and what counts as a reply. Three questions settle it. Is the rate per email or per contact? Do automatic replies count? Is a positive reply someone who showed interest, or any reply that was not a refusal? In Sales.co's data the same campaigns produce 2.85% (any reply), 0.84% (written by a person) and 0.29% (positive), per contact. The median of the 15 campaigns with 5,000+ contacts was 0.11% positive. Ask which of those numbers you are being quoted, and compare it with the median, not the pooled figure.
One agency shows the effect on its own pages. Belkins' services page lists a 6%+ email reply rate for its average campaign, and its 2025 benchmark report, which divides unique replies by emails sent, gives 0.45% (belkins.io/blog/cold-email-response-rates). The report says a 5% rate against openers and a 0.45% rate against total sends can describe the same campaign. More on the Belkins alternatives page.
Where to go next
Each page below answers one question you will have after this one.
- How much does a cold email agency cost? Published prices side by side.
- Is a cold email agency worth it? The cost per positive reply and the customer value that pays it back.
- Agency or SDR? Flat monthly fee against a price set by the number of SDRs.
- Which agencies state their terms? Eleven agencies scored on three criteria.
- Best cold email agencies for small B2B companies and for B2B.
- Month-to-month, no setup fee and live in 7 days: what each means in practice.
- Who builds the list, who warms the domains and who answers replies.
- What results to expect and how many replies a campaign gets.
- Head-to-head tables and alternatives to each agency.
Sources
- Sales.co: sales.co/pricing, sales.co/faq and Sales.co's conversion benchmarks, read October 7, 2026.
- Vendor pages read October 7, 2026: OutreachBloom (outreachbloom.com/pricing, outreachbloom.com); Belkins (belkins.io/cold-email-services, belkins.io/pricing); CIENCE (cience.com/pricing, cience.com/cold-email-agency); Hypergen (hypergen.io/pricing); SalesHive (saleshive.com/pricing, saleshive.com/email-outreach); Cleverly (www.cleverly.co/cold-email-outreach-agency); SalesBread (salesbread.com); LevelUp Leads (levelupleads.io/pricing); Leadium (www.leadium.com, www.leadium.com/pricing).
- Martal Group: read September 24, 2026; its site returns an error to automated readers, so it was not re-read.
- Reply-rate reports, read October 7, 2026: Belkins, belkins.io/blog/cold-email-response-rates (updated June 26, 2026, 7,530,489 emails, 0.45%), and Saleshandy, saleshandy.com/blog/cold-email-statistics (updated June 7, 2026, 53.1 million emails, 3.7%).
FAQ
How much does a cold email agency cost per month?
Among the ten other agencies in our tables, five publish a starting price. OutreachBloom starts at $2,400, Belkins and LevelUp Leads at $5,000 (Belkins' services page names no billing period), Hypergen at $6,500 and CIENCE at $7,499 for the first month. Sales.co is $2,000 for up to 10,000 emails. The rest quote on a call. More on cold email agency cost.
Should I accept a long minimum contract?
Three of the ten other agencies ask for a commitment: Hypergen six months, LevelUp Leads three months, Martal Group a three or four-month pilot. Six agencies, Sales.co included, state month-to-month. A longer term fits a sales cycle that is itself long; ask what you get if you stop early.
How long until a cold email campaign books meetings?
In Sales.co's own campaign the median time from first email to booked call was 9 days, 46% of bookings came within 7 days, 66% within 30 days and 34% arrived after the first month (143 bookings). Agencies quote their own timelines: Cleverly says most clients see replies and meetings within 4 to 6 weeks of launching, and SalesBread says the first lead within 36 hours of launch. See Sales.co's conversion benchmarks.
What reply rate should I expect from an agency?
Ask how replies are counted first. In Sales.co's data 2.85% of contacts replied in any way but only 0.84% replied in person and 0.29% replied positively (336,257 contacts, 20 campaigns). The 2026 reports we compared run from 0.45% (Belkins) to 3.7% (Saleshandy) because they count different replies and divide by different totals. See cold email response rates, and which agencies publish their own reply-rate data.
Do cold email agencies guarantee results?
Few do. Belkins states 100+ guaranteed appointments a year at its starter price and SalesBread states 20+ qualified leads a month or your money back. SalesHive says it does not guarantee a number of meetings. Sales.co states no guarantee of replies or meetings.
Is an agency better than doing cold email with tools?
It depends on whether you have someone to own list building, domains, warmup, copy and replies every week. See cold email tools vs a managed service.