I'm scaling up outbound and looking at providers.

Any recommendations?

Our 2026 cold email tech stack

The exact stack we run our cold email & cold calling agency on

Been running outbound for clients for a while now, mostly local businesses and software companies in the US. Get asked the tool stack question constantly so figured I'd just put it all in one place.

Here's what we actually pay for and use daily:

Sequencer:
- EmailBison
- Smartlead

We run both. Bison for the heavier campaigns and custom API workflows, Smartlead for clients where we want simpler reporting and lower volume.

Lead data:
- Apollo
- AI Ark
- D7
- Outscraper

Apollo for the bulk B2B stuff, AI Ark when we need cleaner intent signals or niche verticals Apollo misses, D7 & Outscraper for local leads.

Inboxes:
We use Elevate Inboxes - Outlook emails

We've currently got 15k inboxes from them, cost-effective (got a discount for $0.35 per inbox)

Cold Calling:
- OpenPhone

Cheap, clean UI, multi-number, integrates with most CRMs. Nothing fancy needed for outbound dialing if you're not running a 50-rep call center.

CRM:
- Custom one we made with Claude

Integrates directly with our Smartlead API, EmailBison API, and calendar. Way better than paying $X/seat for HubSpot or other BS CRM.

Happy to answer questions on any of it and what we see working in 2026.

The exact stack we run our cold email & cold calling agency on

Been running outbound for clients for a while now, mostly local businesses and software companies in the US. Get asked the tool stack question constantly so figured I'd just put it all in one place.

Here's what we actually pay for and use daily:

Sequencer:
- EmailBison
- Smartlead

We run both. Bison for the heavier campaigns and custom API workflows, Smartlead for clients where we want simpler reporting and lower volume.

Lead data:
- Apollo
- AI Ark
- D7
- Outscraper

Apollo for the bulk B2B stuff, AI Ark when we need cleaner intent signals or niche verticals Apollo misses, D7 & Outscraper for local leads.

Inboxes:
- Elevateinboxes.com - Outlook emails

We've currently got 15k inboxes from them, cost-effective (got a discount for $0.35 per inbox)

Cold Calling:
- OpenPhone

Cheap, clean UI, multi-number, integrates with most CRMs. Nothing fancy needed for outbound dialing if you're not running a 50-rep call center.

CRM:
- Custom one we made with Claude

Integrates directly with our Smartlead API, EmailBison API, and calendar. Way better than paying $X/seat for HubSpot or other BS CRM.

Happy to answer questions on any of it and what we see working in 2026.

The exact stack we run our cold email & cold calling agency on

Been running outbound for clients for a while now, mostly local businesses and software companies in the US. Get asked the tool stack question constantly so figured I'd just put it all in one place.

Here's what we actually pay for and use daily:

Sequencer:
- EmailBison
- Smartlead

We run both. Bison for the heavier campaigns and custom API workflows, Smartlead for clients where we want simpler reporting and lower volume.

Lead data:
- Apollo
- AI Ark
- D7
- Outscraper

Apollo for the bulk B2B stuff, AI Ark when we need cleaner intent signals or niche verticals Apollo misses, D7 & Outscraper for local leads.

Inboxes:
- Elevateinboxes.com - Outlook emails

We've currently got 15k inboxes from them, cost-effective (got a discount for $0.35 per inbox)

Cold Calling:
- OpenPhone

Cheap, clean UI, multi-number, integrates with most CRMs. Nothing fancy needed for outbound dialing if you're not running a 50-rep call center.

CRM:
- Custom one we made with Claude

Integrates directly with our Smartlead API, EmailBison API, and calendar. Way better than paying $X/seat for HubSpot or other BS CRM.

Happy to answer questions on any of it and what we see working in 2026.

Who here is doing cold email to generate walkthroughs?

And what does your technical stack look like?

We use Smartlead as our sequencer, and elevateinboxes.com for our inboxes.

Curious what other people are using and what type of results you are seeing?

I recently built out an isolated inbox setup for cold email and have been running it across our agency at scale.

- Clean US IPs (not recycled from burned tenants)
- Full DNS setup (SPF, DKIM, DMARC)
- 1 week warm-up (not 2 weeks)
- Automated replacement guarantee on burned domains

How it works:

1. Order the domains you need (link in the comments).
2. Pay.
3. Wait 24-72h depending on your order size.
4. Inboxes ready, uploaded to your sequencer.

Easy.

We've already set up more than 100k inboxes and the deliverability holds up, we also use this exact infra in-house to blast around 5m emails a day.

Happy to answer any questions, and what's working tech wise in 2026.

Writing this for anyone who's currently paying $2+ per inbox..

Quick context: I run a B2B cold email agency, mostly US clients. We send ~150k emails/day across our book of business.

A year ago we were 100% on Workspace and the infra cost was eating us alive. Wanted to share the actual mechanics of how to bring that cost down without compromising deliverability.

For most people it's impossible to scale to even 100k/mo sending volume if they're paying more than a dollar per inbox.

The industry runs a constant cycle of buying domains, burning them, replacing them. The cost compounds.

We built our own infra for our agency, and profit margins obviously got higher.

We're seeing consistent reply rates of 3%+ even in saturated markets.

Not trying to hard-sell here, just sharing because I see the 'infra costs are killing me' posts in this sub weekly.

Happy to answer technical questions in the comments if anyone wants to dig in on what's working in terms of deliverability and tech stack in 2026.

Writing this for anyone who's currently paying $2+ per inbox..

Quick context: I run a B2B cold email agency, mostly US clients. We send ~150k emails/day across our book of business.

A year ago we were 100% on Workspace and the infra cost was eating us alive. Wanted to share the actual mechanics of how to bring that cost down without compromising deliverability.

For most people it's impossible to scale to even 100k/mo sending volume if they're paying more than a dollar per inbox.

The industry runs a constant cycle of buying domains, burning them, replacing them. The cost compounds.

We built our own infra for our agency, and profit margins obviously got higher.

We're seeing consistent reply rates of 3%+ even in saturated markets.

Not trying to hard-sell here, just sharing because I see the 'infra costs are killing me' posts in this sub weekly.

Happy to answer technical questions in the comments if anyone wants to dig in on whats working in terms of deliverability.