Budget & alternatives · Prompt 8 of 8 · September 2026

A real buyer question from the September 2026 snapshot, asked 3× to each of the three models. 9 answers recorded.

“What are the best tools for cold email outreach at scale?”

ChatGPT answered 3× this snapshot

Best depends on your volume, budget, and how much automation you want. The main categories are: Cold email platforms These handle sequencing, personalization, inbox rotation, tracking, and basic deliverability. Top options: Smartlead — excellent for scaling, inbox rotation, warmup, agency-friendly Instantly — very popular for high-volume outreach, simple UI, good for lead gen teams Lemlist — strong personalization,…

Named across its answers: 1. Instantly2. Smartlead3. Apollo.io4. Lemlist5. Clay

Verbatim excerpt from one collected ChatGPT answer; formatting flattened, words untouched.

Instantly is the dominant answer here, appearing in all 9 responses with an average position of 1.1 and leading 8 of them, while Smartlead holds a solid but clearly secondary position at an average position of 2. For marketers allocating share-of-voice budget, this question shows Instantly and Smartlead have locked up AI recommendation slots that Groove, Lusha, and Close are completely missing despite their category rankings.

AI-generated read of the September 2026 measurements.

Who wins this question

Owned Consensus

All three models name Instantly, Smartlead, Apollo.io and Lemlist on this question.

ChatGPT

Claude

Gemini mentioned · first · avg. pos

Instantly 112111111 9/9 · 8× first · #1.1

Smartlead 221222223 9/9 · 1× first · #2

Lemlist 443333332 9/9 · never first · #3.1

Apollo.io 337464454 9/9 · never first · #4.4

Clay 8710865 6/9 · never first · #7.3

NeverBounce 9109786 6/9 · never first · #8.2

ZeroBounce 1098997 6/9 · never first · #8.7

Mailreach 111110119 5/9 · never first · #10.4

MillionVerifier 118108 4/9 · never first · #9.3

Mailshake 544 3/9 · never first · #4.3

Hunter.io 676 3/9 · never first · #6.3

Findymail 967 3/9 · never first · #7.3

Each square is one collected answer; the number is the brand's position in that answer. Lime = the very first recommendation. Unlinked brands were named by the models here but sit outside this category's published top 15 overall. Showing the top 12 of 30 brands named at least once. Never mentioned here: Groove, Lusha, Close.