An AI SDR is a software agent that takes over outbound prospecting end to end. It picks the accounts, enriches the contacts, writes a personalised message, sends it from your domains, follows up and sorts the replies. What it does not do is run the meeting and negotiate. That boundary is the one thing that never moves from one tool to the next.
This comparison reviews eight agents, from fully autonomous platforms to sequencers that have bolted agent features on top. Prices were checked with the vendors in November 2026. The conclusion fits in one line. The price gaps are enormous, the outcome gaps are far smaller, and your list quality decides the result before the model does.
How this comparison was built
The criteria were set before a single name made the list. Four questions, asked of every tool in the same order.
- How far the autonomy goes. An agent that sends on its own is not run like a copilot that prepares drafts for approval.
- What the entry ticket costs. Public price taken from the vendor, rounded, dated, converted to euros when the list is in dollars.
- What is said about the model. Very few vendors publish which model writes the messages. The absence of information is information.
- What users report. Rating and review volume taken from G2 and Capterra in November 2026, with the recurring complaint.
Full disclosure on method. Our own campaigns run on a classic sequencer, with custom-built enrichment and scoring blocks. At one client, automated reply analysis is wired into a Lemlist campaign. The seven other platforms were handled outside client work, and the « my take » sections give a verdict tool by tool. For the full picture of the sales stack, our AI tools for sales teams cover all four layers, and this comparison takes only the agent layer.
The eight AI SDR tools at a glance
The table below ranks the eight tools by what they take on and by their entry ticket. Amounts are rounded and dated November 2026.
| Tool | Scope | Price around | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11x (Alice) | Autonomous outbound, managed mailboxes | 3,500 € a month | Enterprise |
| Artisan (Ava) | Outbound and calling in one tool | Quote only | Scale-up |
| AiSDR | Autonomous outbound, unit pricing | 1.50 € per contact | SMB running a test |
| Amplemarket (Duo) | Copilot with human approval | 550 € a month | Team already in place |
| Lemlist (lemAgent) | Sequencer plus research agent | 100 € a month | B2B SMB |
| La Growth Machine | Multichannel LinkedIn, email, calls | 120 € a month | French SMB |
| Humanlinker | Personalisation and signals | 70 € a month | Micro and small business |
| Qualified (Piper) | Inbound, website and chat | Quote only | SaaS vendor |
1. 11x with Alice, the autonomous option aimed at enterprise
11x sells two agents, Alice for outbound and Julian for inbound. Alice builds the lists, writes, sends from Gmail mailboxes the vendor configures and monitors itself, then syncs the CRM both ways. 11x has been the most heavily funded platform in the category, and the most debated.
Key features
- Sending domain creation and management, warmup and mailbox rotation included on every tier.
- Multilingual outreach advertised across more than a hundred languages from the middle tier up.
- Two-way CRM sync, with no setup or implementation fee.
- Julian, the inbound agent, handles calls and chat conversations on a separate subscription.
Underlying model and limits
The vendor does not publish the model that writes the messages. Billing is per prospect rather than per send, which means a three-touch sequence costs the same as a thirty-touch one. The sending infrastructure stays with the vendor, so the reputation you build does not really belong to you. Leaving then costs more than a simple tool switch.
Pricing
The entry tier starts around 3,500 euros a month on annual billing, for five users and roughly two thousand new prospects a month. Higher tiers are quote only and climb to five thousand then ten thousand prospects. The inbound agent is billed separately, around 5,000 euros a month for voice. Checked in November 2026, vendor list in dollars converted to an order of magnitude.
What users say
A 4.5 out of 5 rating on G2 across about fifty reviews, in November 2026. That is the thinnest sample in this comparison relative to the money involved. Customer success support comes back as praise, the price level as the complaint.
My take on 11x
I do not recommend it, and that is the bluntest verdict on this list. The product does what it says, the problem sits elsewhere. You pay the price of a junior rep for a layer on top of data you can buy anywhere. On top of that sit an annual commitment and sending infrastructure that stays with the vendor. The most frequent user reports are about leaving, which is hard, and about results that did not justify the invoice. If you go ahead anyway, negotiate the exit clause before the price.
2. Artisan with Ava, outbound and calling in a single tool
Artisan positions Ava as a digital junior rep working alongside your team rather than instead of it. The platform bundles the contact database, the sequencer, a phone dialer and the revival of dormant CRM opportunities. It is the widest functional coverage in this comparison.
Key features
- A database advertised at more than 250 million B2B contacts, filterable by role, industry and company size.
- Sending from your own domains and under your reps' names.
- Built-in phone dialer, sized in seats within the subscription.
- Human guardrails, message approval, tone locking and escalation rules.
- Automated revival of lost or dormant CRM opportunities.
Underlying model and limits
The model is not publicly documented. The vendor does display a SOC 2 Type II certification and GDPR compliance. Few competitors state it as plainly. The built-in dialer stays basic against a dedicated tool, and if the phone is your main channel our best power dialers cover that question separately.
Pricing
No public price. Pricing runs on credits and is sized by prospect volume, mailbox count and dialer seats. Buyer estimates put entry well above a thousand euros a month, without the vendor confirming that level. Worth a quote before any budget projection.
What users say
A 4.2 out of 5 rating on G2 across about sixty reviews, in November 2026, and that is the lowest score in this comparison. Positive reviews praise the interface and the personalisation. Negative reviews hit two precise points, the accuracy of what the agent produces and the ratio between price and quality.
My take on Artisan
My view is more nuanced here, but it stays guarded. Ava produces generic output until somebody trains it, and training is measured in weeks rather than hours. The teams getting something out of it are those who put a human on it full time at the start, which cancels much of the promised saving. On a niche market, targeting drifts quickly. What I keep is pulling email and phone into one account, which is genuinely convenient. What I would watch is the volume sent during the first weeks.
3. AiSDR, the only one publishing a unit price
AiSDR is the only vendor here publishing a unit price rather than a subscription. You pay per person actually contacted, with research and copywriting included. In a category where everyone else points to a demo form, that is a genuine commercial differentiator.
Key features
- Advertised access to more than two billion profiles, with address verification included.
- Multichannel campaigns, with a conversational assistant to drive the platform.
- Two-way HubSpot sync, included from the first tier.
- Paid options à la carte, warmed mailbox, vendor-run campaign, fully managed service.
Underlying model and limits
The writing model is not documented. Unit pricing is transparent but misleading on one point, a badly targeted contact is billed exactly like a relevant one. The invoice therefore tracks the size of your list. A badly targeted file costs you full price. That is precisely why upstream work matters, and our data enrichment tools are the block that decides the real cost.
Pricing
Around one euro fifty per person contacted, with no monthly subscription, billed daily and cancellable at any time. A warmed mailbox runs around thirty euros. Teams going past a thousand contacts a month move to a quote, with a discount advertised up to forty percent. Checked in November 2026.
What users say
A 4.6 out of 5 rating on G2 across about a hundred reviews, in November 2026. Support responsiveness comes back very often in the positive reviews. It is the best ratio between rating and review volume among the purely autonomous platforms here.
My take on AiSDR
This is the one I recommend for testing, and only for testing. Unit pricing is honest, setup is fast, and you can stop without penalty. The trade-off appears in every user report, the product automates so much that little control is left over the detail. The moment you want to fine-tune a sequence or a segment, you hit the ceiling. Take it to answer one question, does an autonomous agent produce anything on my market, then switch tools if the answer is yes.
4. Amplemarket with Duo, the copilot that keeps a human in the loop
Amplemarket takes a different stance from the fully autonomous platforms. Duo, its agent layer, prepares the work and submits it for one-click approval rather than sending alone. The tool addresses sales teams that already exist, equipping them instead of replacing them.
Key features
- Duo Copilot prepares research and outreach, sending goes through human approval.
- Duo Copywriter drafts the first message, Duo Inbox prepares a reply draft for every response.
- Intent signal detection and automatic prioritisation of the accounts to work.
- AI voice messages at scale, available from the middle tier up.
Underlying model and limits
The model is not published. Human approval is a real guardrail, but it imposes a time cost many buyers underestimate at purchase. If nobody approves, the queue grows and the platform is useless. The entry tier is capped at two users, which quickly forces an upgrade as the team grows.
Pricing
The starting tier sits around 550 euros a month on an annual commitment, for two users and a generous contact quota. Higher tiers are quote only and unlock voice messages then the assisted inbox. A free trial is offered on every tier. Checked in November 2026, dollar list converted to an order of magnitude.
What users say
A 4.6 out of 5 rating on G2 across more than seven hundred reviews, in November 2026. That is the most credible review volume in the category proper. The recurring complaint is the learning curve and an onboarding judged too light against the depth of the tool.
My take on Amplemarket
It is the most solid in the category, and the one I would keep if I had to pick a single tool for an established team. Human approval prevents the worst mistakes, and the functional depth is real. Two reservations run through user reports and I share them. Deliverability degrades faster than with a dedicated emailing tool, and contact data freshness is uneven across segments. Plug in your own enrichment rather than relying on theirs.
5. Lemlist and lemAgent, the sequencer that grew an agent
Lemlist started life as a multichannel sequencer. The vendor added a research and qualification agent, lemAgent, on top of a proven sending base. For many SMBs that trajectory is more reassuring than a platform born autonomous.
Key features
- lemAgent researches and qualifies prospects, then personalises outreach, on every tier.
- Email and LinkedIn sequences, with mailbox warmup and rotation.
- Data enrichment and intent signals available as separate paid modules.
- You can try the agent on your own data before any paid subscription.
Underlying model and limits
The model is not documented, and the product page stays vague about how the agent actually works. Autonomy is clearly lower than Alice or Ava, which is a deliberate choice. The real limit sits elsewhere. Enrichment and signal modules are billed on top, and the final invoice climbs fast once you add the blocks up.
Pricing
Around 65 euros per user per month for the email tier, around 100 euros for multichannel, on annual billing. Enrichment runs about 15 euros more a month, intent signals about 20 euros. Checked in November 2026, dollar list converted to an order of magnitude.
What users say
A 4.6 out of 5 rating on G2 across more than sixteen hundred reviews, in November 2026. That is by far the largest sample in this comparison. Usability and ease of setup scores are the highest in the category, around 8.8 and 8.7 out of 10.
My take on Lemlist
It is my default pick for a French SMB, and the only tool on this list we have actually had our hands on during an engagement. At a client, I wired automatic reply analysis into a Lemlist campaign so the prospect status updated without a human reading anything. A « not interested » flips to lost, a « come back in six months » flips to bad timing. Deliverability is the strong point, LinkedIn automation lags behind, and the paid modules push the bill up faster than advertised. That kind of block pays off more, and faster, than an agent writing in your place.
6. La Growth Machine, the French multichannel tool adding agents
La Growth Machine is a French vendor pricing in euros, which avoids currency surprises. The tool orchestrates LinkedIn, email, voice messages and call tasks inside one sequence, and it has added reply and analysis agents on its upper tiers.
Key features
- Sequences mixing LinkedIn, email, voice messages and call tasks handed to the rep.
- Rotation across several sending mailboxes per identity from the middle tier up.
- Reply agent in beta on the Pro and Ultimate tiers, analysis agent reserved for the top tier.
- A connection server for assistants such as Claude, included from the middle tier.
- Native connections to n8n, Make, Zapier and Clay, which makes it an easy block to automate around.
Underlying model and limits
The vendor does not publish the model. Autonomy stays partial, the agents assist the sequence rather than drive it. The main limit comes from the channel itself. LinkedIn automation exposes the account to restrictions, a subject we cover in our guide to automating LinkedIn prospecting.
Pricing
60 euros a month per identity on the entry tier, 120 euros on the middle tier, 180 euros on the top tier, with two months free on annual billing. Prices are published in euros excluding tax, which is rare enough in this category to be worth noting. Checked in November 2026.
What users say
A 4.6 out of 5 rating on G2 across about fifty reviews, in November 2026. On the review platform's head-to-head comparisons, support and ease of administration clearly beat Lemlist, around 9.5 and 9.2 out of 10. Complaints centre on sync bugs and on the per-identity cost as the team grows.
My take on La Growth Machine
I take it whenever LinkedIn is the main channel, and I pass otherwise. On multichannel it is the best on this list, and euro billing makes life simpler. Three things to know before signing, and they come up in every user report. Built-in enrichment generates bounces, so buy your addresses elsewhere. CRM sync breaks from time to time. And getting started needs a technical profile, with the entry tier proving narrow fast.
7. Humanlinker, personalisation at a small-business price
Humanlinker is a French vendor that chose personalisation over autonomy. The tool analyses the prospect, offers a reading of their personality, recommends contacts and drafts the messages. It costs what an ordinary software subscription costs, light years from the autonomous platforms.
Key features
- AI contact recommendations, with a sizeable monthly quota from the first tier.
- Personality analysis to adapt the pitch, and meeting preparation in text or voice.
- Address and phone enrichment, unified inbox, monitoring of key accounts.
- Advertised connection to conversational assistants and to a tool server, shown on the homepage.
Underlying model and limits
The vendor advertises dedicated models and fine tuning on its upper tiers, without naming them. The tool does not send on its own, it prepares. The first tier's credit quotas are quickly exhausted if you industrialise, since one credit equals one full generated sequence. Personality analysis helps you find the right angle, and stops there.
Pricing
Around 70 euros excluding tax per user per month on the professional tier, billed annually, with a fourteen-day trial. Upper tiers move to a quote and unlock target account monitoring, account analysis and advanced CRM connections. Checked in November 2026, list published in euros.
What users say
A 4.5 out of 5 rating on Capterra across about sixty reviews, and a comparable level on G2, in November 2026. Ease of use and the quality of the personalisation come back most often. Review volume stays modest, which argues for testing rather than trusting the score.
My take on Humanlinker
I recommend it to a solo rep, never to a team chasing volume. Writing quality sits above what the big platforms produce, and at this price the question barely arises. It does fall away once you industrialise, credits burn fast and the sending engine is not at the level of a dedicated sequencer. I am also wary of the personality analysis, which gives false confidence when used to justify an opener.
8. Qualified with Piper, the agent that works inbound
Qualified, acquired by Salesforce, attacks the problem from the other end. Piper works the visitors on your website rather than strangers on a list. It opens the conversation live, qualifies, offers a slot and emails back the visitors who left without asking for anything.
Key features
- Live conversation on the website, in text, voice or video depending on context.
- Immediate booking into the calendar of the rep who owns the account.
- Email follow-up to identified visitors, and delivery of content matched to the account.
- Handoff to a human, programming interface access and a Salesforce sandbox on the upper tiers.
Underlying model and limits
The model is not published. The prerequisite is brutal, Piper is only worth it if your site already receives qualified traffic. Tiers are in fact sized in monthly web sessions, starting at 250,000 for the first one. A French SMB getting a few thousand visits a month is not the target, and the tool assumes a Salesforce foundation in practice.
Pricing
No public price, three tiers sized in web sessions and active email contacts. Each tier points to a demo request. The shape of the offer clearly indicates a fast-growing software vendor rather than an SMB. Checked in November 2026.
What users say
A 4.9 out of 5 rating on G2 across more than fifteen hundred reviews, in November 2026, the best in this comparison. Read it carefully, that score covers the whole platform and not the Piper agent alone. Support and simplicity are praised, the reporting learning curve and limited customisation come back as complaints.
My take on Qualified
Excellent product, wrong question for most readers of this article. If you are a growing software vendor, on Salesforce, with qualified traffic already arriving, Piper is the best buy on this list and I would take it without hesitating. If you are a French SMB with a few thousand visits a month, it has no place in your budget. Before buying an agent that goes hunting, look at how many qualified visitors already pass through your site without being addressed.
What AI SDR tools promise and what the numbers say
The marketing promise of the category is consistent, a digital rep working around the clock for a fraction of a human's cost. Gartner expects AI agents to outnumber sellers ten to one by 2028. The same release, dated July 2026, adds that fewer than four sellers in ten will say those agents improved their productivity. Both numbers belong together.
The most instructive episode in the category remains 11x. In March 2025, TechCrunch reported that the startup displayed customer logos for companies that were not customers. ZoomInfo had only run a one-month trial, Airtable never used the product in production. Former employees described losing seven to eight customers in ten. The company disputed that rate and put its retention at 79 percent. Its founder chief executive stepped down two months later.
The hidden cost of an autonomous agent is your domain reputation
An agent able to write a thousand messages a day puts you in front of a problem that did not exist when a human wrote thirty. Since February 2024, Google's rules require senders of more than 5,000 daily messages to Gmail to fully authenticate the domain. One-click unsubscribe and a complaint rate under 0.3 percent come on top. Google even recommends staying under 0.1 percent.
That threshold is very low. Three complaints per thousand messages are enough to tip a domain over. Once reputation is damaged it takes weeks to rebuild, and in the meantime your ordinary business email also lands in spam. That is why autonomous platforms sell secondary domains and warmed mailboxes. Volume is paid for in risk.
Should you buy an AI SDR or build your own?
The question predates AI SDR tools, and I put it on LinkedIn in July 2026 in a build versus buy comparison. The 2026 picture is clear. Off-the-shelf solutions have exploded, technical debt scares people, and the return on in-house approaches often disappoints. Buying delivers value faster, building gives control over the code and the sensitive data.
On prospecting specifically, there is a third path the comparisons forget. You can buy a proven sequencer and build on top only the blocks that differentiate you, targeting, enrichment and scoring. That is the architecture Tandem sets up at its clients, and it is the one that delivers the best result per euro invested.
I filmed the build of exactly this kind of prospecting agent. It enriches an inbound contact, generates the outreach script, scores the prospect, notifies the owning rep and updates the CRM. The interesting part of the demo is the approval mode. Each of the agent's tools is set to automatic or to human approval, tool by tool. That is precisely the setting missing from turnkey platforms. The detailed sales use cases sit in my AI sales edition.
One last point of method, which I argued in a post on AI agents in October 2026. Almost every enterprise use case is a workflow rather than an agent, and that is fine. An agent is non-deterministic, hard to test and hard to control. A structured workflow is enough in the vast majority of business situations. A well-tooled prospecting sequence is a workflow.
Which AI SDR to choose for your situation
- You are testing the idea with no dedicated budget. Humanlinker or Lemlist, under 100 euros per user per month, and you keep your domains.
- You already have a sales team. Amplemarket, because human approval stops anything going out in your name.
- You prospect mainly on LinkedIn from France. La Growth Machine, for euro billing and seniority on that channel.
- You want to measure an autonomous agent before believing in it. AiSDR, unit pricing allows a test for a few hundred euros.
- Your site already receives a lot of qualified traffic. Qualified, and work inbound before funding outbound.
- You have a five-figure annual budget and a team to run it. 11x or Artisan, with a written pilot and a three-month exit criterion.
What French law allows in B2B prospecting
An agent that sends on its own exempts you from nothing. For business-to-business prospecting, the CNIL applies the right to object rather than prior consent, on one condition. The subject of the approach must relate to the profession of the person contacted. Pitching software to an IT director fits, sending the same offer to every employee of a company does not.
Two obligations fit in one sentence each. The recipient must be able to identify who is writing, and must be able to refuse further approaches by a simple, free method. When addresses come from a data provider, you must also make sure the people were informed of that possible use. It is the point autonomous platforms move past fastest, because it slows their volume promise.
Can an AI SDR replace a sales rep in 2026?
No, and no serious vendor on this list really claims it. Amplemarket's headline says the opposite, the agents build the pipeline and the team closes it. An AI SDR removes the repetitive tasks at the top of the funnel, targeting, enrichment, first drafting and reply sorting. It does not remove the job.
My verdict by profile fits in three lines. A French SMB starting out takes Lemlist or La Growth Machine, keeps its domains and invests the savings in list quality. An established team takes Amplemarket and accepts the cost of approval. A company that genuinely wants to test autonomy starts with AiSDR, because it can stop the test without penalty.
And before signing anything, ask yourself about the list. Across more than fifty companies supported and around a hundred engagements, the pattern never changes. What separates a campaign passing 25 percent replies from a silent one comes down to targeting and enrichment done upstream.
