How this page was made. Every figure was read from each vendor's own pages on 19 September 2026 and is linked at the bottom. emailcampaign.ai is the third column and the publisher of this page; where Smartlead or lemlist is the better choice, the page says so. Prices change; check the linked pages before buying.
Smartlead is built for agencies: unlimited mailboxes and warm-up from $32.50 a month, a client workspace for $29, the app on your own domain, mailboxes from partners, and a placement-test product. lemlist is built for the team itself: per-seat pricing from $55, lemwarm included, LinkedIn steps and a contact database, and nothing for reselling. The two rarely compete for the same buyer, which is exactly why people compare them when they are not sure which buyer they are.
Side by side
| Smartlead | lemlist | emailcampaign.ai | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starting price | $32.50 a month annual ($39 monthly) for 2,000 contacts and 6,000 emails | $55 a month billed annually for Email (one account); Multichannel $87 a user a month annual, five senders a user; monthly billing higher | Free 14-day trial; Basic $39 a month; Pro $94 a month |
| Pricing model | Plan by contacts and emails; unlimited mailboxes and warm-up; client workspaces $29 a month each on Pro and above; SmartServers $39 a server | Per user or account; lemwarm included on every plan; lemwarm standalone $24 to $40 per email address a month | Plan by emails per month; unlimited mailboxes and warm-up on every plan; infrastructure at cost plus $5 setup per mailbox |
| Provisions mailboxes and domains | Yes via partners: Google $13 a domain a year plus $4.50 a mailbox a month; Outlook via Zapmail or InfraInbox; pre-warmed $18 plus $9 | No mailbox or domain provisioning found on its pages; you connect what you have | Yes: domains (about $12 a year), Google Workspace seats ($8.40 a month), Microsoft 365 seats at Microsoft's rate, or self-hosted servers from $39 a month; you own the domains and accounts |
| DNS | SPF, DKIM, DMARC and tracking records configured automatically on partner mailboxes | Guides only | SPF, DKIM (selectors read from the provider), DMARC and postmaster records written through the registrar and shown before they go live |
| Warm-up | Included, unlimited, private pool | Included through lemwarm; standalone lemwarm sold separately | Included, unlimited, with a maintenance level after the ramp; never reaches your inbox |
| Placement test | SmartDelivery from $49 a month for 120 tests | lemwarm deliverability score; no seed-list placement product found | Yes, per mailbox at Gmail and Outlook |
| White-label | Pro and above, enabled by support: app on your own domain, client access to reports and campaigns; $29 a client workspace | None at any tier; the agency page leads to a partner waitlist | Yes: a complete webmail and admin console on the client's own domain, plus dashboard branding |
| Reviews | G2 4.6 from 306; Trustpilot 3.0 from 141 with 46 percent one-star | G2 4.4 from 271; Capterra 4.6 from 391; Trustpilot 3.4 from 148 | New listing; reviews being gathered |
| Best for | Agencies running many clients from one account who are comfortable with partner-supplied mailboxes | Small teams that want polished multichannel sequences with LinkedIn steps and warm-up in one subscription | Teams that want the mailboxes, domains, DNS and warm-up done for them behind one approval, and agencies that need a client-branded door |
| Watch out for | Reviews cite support response of two to three days, cancellation friction, and warm-up pausing without warning | Per-seat cost grows with the team; Trustpilot reviewers report features removed without warning and credits charged when data is not found | The recommended 8 to 10 sends a day per mailbox means volume comes from fleet size; if you want 100 a day from one mailbox, nothing here will let you |
Where Smartlead is stronger
Everything an agency bills for. Client workspaces at $29 a month each, the application served from your own domain, client logins to reports and campaigns, and SmartDelivery placement tests from $49 a month for 120 tests. lemlist has no white-label at any tier and its agency page leads to a partner waitlist.
Mailbox supply. Partners inside Smartlead sell Google mailboxes at $4.50 a month plus $13 a domain a year, Outlook through Zapmail or InfraInbox, and pre-warmed accounts at $18 plus $9, with SPF, DKIM, DMARC and tracking records set automatically. lemlist connects what you bring.
Price per mailbox. Unlimited mailboxes and warm-up for $32.50 a month billed annually, against lemlist's $55 for a single account.
Where lemlist is stronger
Channels. LinkedIn steps sit inside the sequence, with calls on the upper plan, and a 650-million-contact database feeds it; Smartlead is an email engine.
Support and stability, as reviewers describe them. Smartlead holds 3.0 on Trustpilot from 141 reviews with 46 percent one-star, and G2 reviewers report two to three days for a support answer, campaigns failing to send and warm-up pausing without warning. lemlist is at 3.4 on Trustpilot and 4.6 on Capterra from 391 reviews; its complaints are about features removed without warning and credits charged when data is not found, not about mail failing to go out.
Where emailcampaign.ai fits
emailcampaign.ai overlaps with Smartlead's agency side and goes further on infrastructure. It creates Google Workspace, Microsoft 365 or self-hosted mailboxes itself, under your ownership, rather than through partners, and it writes and confirms the DNS before anything goes live. The white-label is not a portal: each client gets a complete webmail and administration console on their own domain, where their staff sign in and their administrator controls forwarding, address masking and the review of deleted mail. It does not have lemlist's LinkedIn steps, and it caps each mailbox at 8 to 10 cold emails a day.
Decide by the question you are asking
- “We bill clients and need their names on the software.” Smartlead, or emailcampaign.ai if the clients' staff will work inside a mailbox.
- “We are a small in-house team that wants LinkedIn and email in one sequence.” lemlist.
- “We want a second vendor out of the picture for mailboxes.” emailcampaign.ai; Smartlead's mailboxes come from partners, lemlist's from you.
- “We need a placement-test product from the same vendor.” Smartlead's SmartDelivery; emailcampaign.ai runs tests per mailbox at Gmail and Outlook; lemlist offers a lemwarm score.
- “Support speed decides it.” lemlist on the reviews; open a trial ticket with each before buying.
Sources: Smartlead: Pricing · Smartlead: White-label · Smartlead: Trustpilot · lemlist: Pricing · lemlist: Trustpilot · emailcampaign.ai: Pricing · emailcampaign.ai: Infrastructure ·
Questions, answered straight
- Is Smartlead good for a team that is not an agency?
- Yes; the client workspaces and domain branding simply go unused. You still get unlimited mailboxes and warm-up for $32.50 a month, the cheapest entry on this page. What you give up against lemlist is the LinkedIn channel and the database.
- Does lemlist have white-label?
- No, at any tier as of the read date. Its agency page leads to a partner waitlist. Agencies that need it look at Smartlead ($29 a client workspace on Pro and above, enabled by support) or emailcampaign.ai (a client-branded webmail and admin console included in the plan).
- Which provisions Microsoft 365 mailboxes?
- Smartlead through partners (Zapmail or InfraInbox), emailcampaign.ai directly in a tenant that belongs to you, lemlist not at all.
Published 19 September 2026. Updated 19 September 2026. Written by the team that runs the infrastructure; numbers come from the platform's own provisioning and sending, and from the providers' published documentation at the time of writing.