---
title: "Best Outreach Alternative for 2026: Salesloft, Apollo.io, and Groove Compared"
description: "Outreach's enterprise sequencing plans run an estimated $100-160 per seat monthly and require a sales quote, while Apollo.io publishes transparent pricing that starts free and tops out at $119/user/month with a 275-million-contact database built in."
answer_summary: "Outreach's enterprise sequencing plans run an estimated $100-160 per seat monthly and require a sales quote, while Apollo.io publishes transparent pricing that starts free and tops out at $119/user/month with a 275-million-contact database built in."
canonical: "https://nqz.ai/blog/alternative-outreach-day2-0"
published_at: "2026-06-30T17:47:27.985Z"
updated_at: "2026-08-21T07:37:43.000Z"
author: "Ada O'Brien"
category: "Comparison"
tags: ["alternative","comparison","outreach"]
image: "https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1677442136019-21780ecad995?w=1200&h=630&fit=crop"
---

# Best Outreach Alternative for 2026: Salesloft, Apollo.io, and Groove Compared

# Best Outreach Alternative for 2026: Salesloft, Apollo.io, and Groove Compared

Outreach is one of the most established names in sales engagement software, but it's no longer the only mature option — and for many teams, it isn't the cheapest or the simplest one either. This guide looks at what Outreach actually is, how it stacks up feature-for-feature against Salesloft, Apollo.io, and Groove (by Clari), and what each platform actually costs based on public pricing pages and buyer-reported data, not guesswork.

## Product Overview

Outreach was founded in 2014 in Seattle by Manny Medina and a small founding team, and it grew from a straightforward email-sequencing tool into what the company now calls an "AI Revenue Workflow Platform." The product line spans Engage (multichannel sequencing across email, phone, and LinkedIn), Call, Meet (built on its Kaia conversation-intelligence engine), Deal management, Forecast, and Amplify, a set of autonomous AI agents for prospecting and account research. The company has raised roughly $489 million in venture funding over nine rounds, most recently a $200 million Series G in 2021 that valued it at $4.2 billion, from investors including Sequoia, Tiger Global, and Salesforce Ventures ([Crunchbase](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/outreach)).

Outreach is built for mid-market and enterprise B2B sales organizations with a dedicated RevOps function to administer the platform — reviewers consistently note it rewards teams that can invest in configuration and adoption, and that cost is the most common complaint from smaller teams ([G2](https://www.g2.com/products/outreach/reviews)). It holds a 4.3/5 rating on G2 across more than 3,500 reviews as of 2026 ([G2](https://www.g2.com/products/outreach/reviews)).

The competitive landscape shifted meaningfully in late 2025: revenue-intelligence platform Clari completed its merger with Salesloft on December 3, 2025, appointing Steve Cox as CEO of the combined company. Clari had already owned Groove (acquired in 2023) and Clari Copilot (formerly Wingman, acquired in 2022), so Salesloft, Groove, and Clari's forecasting tools now sit under one corporate roof, serving thousands of enterprise customers including Adobe, 3M, IBM, and Zoom ([Salesloft newsroom](https://www.salesloft.com/company/newsroom/clari-salesloft-merger)). That means two of the three alternatives below — Salesloft and Groove — are now sibling products, which is worth knowing before you evaluate them as fully independent options.

## Quick Answer

- If you want published, self-serve pricing with no sales call → Apollo.io, because it's the only one of the four with pricing published at apollo.io/pricing.
- If you need a native prospecting database bundled with your engagement tool → Apollo.io, because it includes 275M+ contacts and 60-73M companies natively, while Outreach, Salesloft, and Groove are engagement-only layers that rely on integrations.
- If you're a smaller team wary of cost → be cautious with Outreach, because its own reviewers consistently flag cost as the most common complaint from smaller teams.
- If you're already a Salesforce shop → Groove, because it's built Salesforce-native by design, unlike the other three which integrate via connectors.
- If review volume and rating matter to your decision → Apollo.io, because it holds a 4.7/5 rating from 9,696 G2 reviews, the highest and largest review base of the four.

## Feature Comparison Matrix

| Dimension | Outreach | Salesloft (Clari) | Apollo.io | Groove (Clari) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Multichannel sequencing | Yes — email, phone, LinkedIn tasks | Yes — Cadence engine, similar scope | Yes — sequences plus built-in dialer on paid tiers | Yes — "Flows," native to Salesforce |
| Native contact/company database | No — execution layer only, relies on integrations | No — engagement layer only | Yes — 275M+ contacts, 60-73M companies (figures vary by source) ([Apollo B2B Data](https://www.apollo.io/product/b2b-data)) | No — engagement layer only |
| AI features | Kaia meeting AI, Amplify autonomous agents, AI deal scoring | Rhythm AI signals and prioritization; now integrating Clari's forecasting AI | AI-assisted sequence writing, lead scoring, research agents | Lighter AI layer; increasingly folded into Clari Copilot |
| Conversation intelligence | Built in (Kaia/Meet) | Built in (Conversations), overlapping with Clari Copilot post-merger | Add-on/limited vs. dedicated tools | Overlaps with Clari Copilot post-acquisition |
| CRM integration | Deep Salesforce and HubSpot integration | Deep Salesforce and HubSpot integration | Salesforce and HubSpot integration, generally seen as lighter-weight | Salesforce-native by design — built specifically for Salesforce shops |
| Forecasting/deal management | Built in (Forecast module, scenario planning) | Inherits Clari Core forecasting post-merger (separate module/cost) | Not a core focus | Inherits Clari Core forecasting post-acquisition (separate module/cost) |
| Pricing transparency | Not published; quote-based | Not published; quote-based | Published on apollo.io/pricing | Not published; quote-based |
| G2 rating (2026) | 4.3/5 (3,574 reviews) ([G2](https://www.g2.com/products/outreach/reviews)) | 4.5/5 (4,000+ reviews) ([G2](https://www.g2.com/sellers/salesloft)) | 4.7/5 (9,696 reviews) ([G2](https://www.g2.com/sellers/apollo-io)) | 8.1/10 on TrustRadius (971 reviews) ([TrustRadius](https://www.trustradius.com/products/groove/reviews)) |

## Pricing Comparison

**Direct answer:** **Salesloft** also withholds public pricing. It's sold in three tiers — commonly reported as Essentials, Advanced, and Premier — with buyer-reported figures in the $125-165/user/month range before negotiation, and the dialer sold as a separate add-on rather than bundled into any tier ([Vendr](https://www.vendr.com/marketplace/salesloft)). Following the Clari merger, new contracts increasingly bundle Salesloft's engagement seats with Clari's forecasting modules, which raises total contract value beyond the base per-seat number.

**Apollo.io** is the only vendor in this comparison with a fully public pricing page. As of 2026 it runs four tiers on annual billing: Free ($0/month, Gmail-only), Basic (~$49/user/month), Professional (~$79/user/month, adds the built-in US dialer), and Organization (~$119/user/month, minimum three seats, adds SSO and advanced security) ([Apollo.io pricing](https://www.apollo.io/pricing)). Month-to-month billing runs 25-40% higher per seat than the annual rate.

**Groove (by Clari)** does not publish pricing. Third-party pricing trackers estimate standalone Groove seats at roughly $50-150/user/month, billed annually only (no monthly option), with seat minimums common in enterprise deals. Once bundled with Clari Core forecasting and Clari Copilot conversation intelligence — increasingly the default sales motion post-merger — total per-seat cost commonly rises to $200-400+/user/month ([MarketBetter](https://marketbetter.ai/blog/groove-clari-pricing-breakdown-2026/)).

## Who Should Choose What

**Direct answer:** **Choose Salesloft** if you want a sales-engagement tool with a reputation for a simpler day-to-day interface and strong satisfaction scores, and you're comfortable being an early adopter of the combined Clari+Salesloft forecasting roadmap, which is still being unified as of 2026.

**Choose Apollo.io** if budget matters and you don't already have a separate data provider — it's the only platform here that bundles a large contact database directly into sequencing at a transparent, comparatively low price point, making it the default pick for startups, SMBs, and lean sales teams.

**Choose Groove** if your organization is deeply committed to Salesforce as the system of record and wants activity capture and sequencing to feel native inside Salesforce rather than as a bolt-on tool — but go in aware that its flow builder has fewer branching and A/B-testing options than Outreach or Salesloft, and that its roadmap is now subordinate to Clari's broader platform strategy.

## Sources

- [Outreach — Crunchbase Company Profile & Funding](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/outreach)
- [Outreach Reviews 2026 — G2](https://www.g2.com/products/outreach/reviews)
- [Outreach Software Pricing & Plans 2026 — Vendr](https://www.vendr.com/marketplace/outreach)
- [Salesloft Products — G2 (11,129 reviews)](https://www.g2.com/sellers/salesloft)
- [Salesloft Software Pricing & Plans 2026 — Vendr](https://www.vendr.com/marketplace/salesloft)
- [Clari and Salesloft Complete Merger — Salesloft Newsroom](https://www.salesloft.com/company/newsroom/clari-salesloft-merger)
- [Apollo.io Products — G2 (9,696 reviews)](https://www.g2.com/sellers/apollo-io)
- [Apollo.io Pricing](https://www.apollo.io/pricing)
- [Apollo.io B2B Data / Data Network](https://www.apollo.io/product/b2b-data)
- [Groove by Clari Reviews & Ratings 2026 — TrustRadius](https://www.trustradius.com/products/groove/reviews)
- [Groove by Clari Pricing Breakdown 2026 — MarketBetter](https://marketbetter.ai/blog/groove-clari-pricing-breakdown-2026/)