HubSpot Sequences vs. Apollo.io vs. Klenty: Which Sales Engagement Tool Should You Choose?

You’re looking for an ideal sales engagement platform for your team. It’s down to Hubspot sequences vs. Apollo.io vs. Klenty now. 

Which one among these will help your sales team close more deals and drive more revenue?

Here, we’ll give you the lowdown on all these 3 sales engagement tools, including their capabilities, benefits and drawbacks, and pricing to help you make a well-informed decision.

What Is Klenty?

Klenty is a sales engagement platform that helps mature sales teams engage prospects strategically across multiple channels, execute the right next step for every prospect and generate qualified pipeline. 

Klenty helps sales teams automate and standardize every single touchpoint—from cold prospect to opportunity to closed-won—to help you build a repeatable sales process. 

What Is Klenty Best For?

Klenty is best for sales teams that already have a comprehensive sales process in place. With Klenty, mature sales teams get the standardization they need along with the flexibility to run outreach that is highly tailored to their accounts. 

Let’s delve a little deeper into the different ways Klenty can help sales teams meet their goals and become better sellers:

Email-Heavy Sales Teams

For sales teams relying on email outreach and running multiple cold email campaigns, Klenty offers advanced email personalization and ensures high email deliverability to ensure all your emails land on the prospect’s primary inbox and your campaigns see high open and response rates.

Here’s a look at how Klenty helps email-heavy sales teams meet their outreach goals:

Email personalization:

• Merge Fields lets you add custom phrases, sentences and even paragraphs based on prospect type.
• Liquid Templates uses dynamic formulas to change the content of your emails based on when the prospect receives and opens the email.
• Kai, Klenty’s AI Cadence Writer, scans the prospect’s website and LinkedIn profile and picks out ‘personalization points’ for your emails. It also inserts hyper-personalized openers, ‘problem sentences’ and CTAs to your emails.

Email deliverability:

• Email validation helps reduce bounce rates by automatically validating email addresses for both new and existing prospects.
• Email sending control—Klenty lets you limit the number of emails you send per day and stagger email sending in an irregular manner. 
• Deliverability insights give you the percentage of emails that land in the Primary Tab across different email service providers, scores your emails based on spam factors, and gives suggestions for improving deliverability.

Call-Heavy Sales Teams

Klenty’s calling features allow you to dial prospects in bulk and automatically syncs all activities, notes, and tasks to your CRM. This makes it ideal for sales teams engaging in high-volume cold calling for their sales outreach.

Here’s a deeper look at the capabilities of Klenty’s Sales Dialer:

• Parallel dialing. The dialer enables reps to place up to 5 calls simultaneously in one click, enabling you to scale your outbound call volume 5x and boost call productivity by minimizing time spent on unproductive calls.
• AI-powered call notes. Klenty’s conversation intelligence automatically generates highly detailed call notes of your calls. Also, all notes get synced to your CRM instantly. 
• Time zone detection lets you batch prospects based on their respective time zones and call them during prime business hours.
• 1-click-to-call dialer helps you dial without any manual effort. 
• Voicemail drop lets you send personalized, pre-recorded voicemails with 1 click.
• Local dial to place calls to your prospects using their area code.
• Call reports to measure your performance and find coachable points.

Intent-Driven Outreach

Klenty lets you segment prospects and run the right next steps for them based on their intent. Through this customized outreach and follow-up efforts based on the prospect’s buying journey, you can execute the right activities at the right time for every prospect.

• High Intent Detector allows you to assign points and isolate those prospects who are closer to buying than others.
• Klenty's Cadence Playbooks helps you customize your outreach based on their intent. You can automatically move prospects to a different cadence based on intent, and execute precisely those activities which take each prospect towards a meeting.

Goal-Driven Outreach

With Klenty's Goals and Reports sales leaders can set up milestones for sales reps to hit on a weekly and monthly basis. This means reps stay accountable to targets and adapt their approach to hit goals.

For every rep in their team, managers can track KPIs like:

• Activity targets 
• Prospect coverage targets
• Conversion targets

They also get full visibility into rep efforts across emails, calls, LinkedIn tasks, text, and WhatsApp.

What’s more, managers can spot gaps and coach reps to help them to achieve their targets.

Multichannel Outreach

Klenty empowers sales reps to make complete use of 5 different channels: 

• Phone: Place calls and voicemails in one click without the distraction of dialing.
• Email: Personalize email text and videos with prospect data at scale.
• LinkedIn: Complete tasks like LinkedIn InMails and connect requests in a click with personalization.
• SMS: Use text messaging to complement your cold calls and boost your chances of striking a conversation.
• WhatsApp: Schedule and send personalized WhatsApp messages in one click. 

Through a full-fledged and automated multi-channel outreach, reps can reach prospects wherever they are, and book more meetings—all at scale.

Plus, Klenty’s multi-channel inbox collates all prospect communication across all channels in one place, so you can manage prospect interactions without the pain of switching tabs.

Pros & Cons of Klenty 

Pros of Klenty:

• Easy-to-use interface with no bloatware. Klenty’s intuitive and clutter-free interface makes reps take to the platform almost instantly and see results rapidly.
• Transparent pricing. Klenty’s pricing is available for everyone to see to help you know exactly what you’re paying for.
• 14-day free trial. You’ll get a 14-day free trial to explore all of Klenty’s features with a dedicated account manager, so that you can make a well-informed decision. 
• Affordability. With its basic plan starting at just $50 per user per month, Klenty remains a powerful yet affordable sales engagement platform for growing sales teams.
  Pay for what you need. Klenty has tailored pricing plans for email-only sales teams and multi-channel teams. You don't have to pay for features you don't use.
• Parallel Dialer for cold calling. Klenty’s powerful Sales Dialer enables parallel dialing, where you can place up to 5 calls simultaneously, all in one click to help you place 5x more calls. The dialer also logs all notes to your CRM, allows you to send voicemails in a click, and batch prospects according to their time zone.
• Intent detection. Klenty’s Cadence Playbooks helps you detect intent in prospects, establish the right next steps for every prospect, and prioritize prospects based on their intent. You gain visibility into where prospects are in their buying journey, move prospects from cadence to cadence based on intent, and execute precisely those activities which take each prospect towards a meeting. No more blind follow-ups.
• Set clear goals for reps. With Klenty’s Goals and Reports, managers can set daily, weekly, and monthly targets for the sales team, get them to commit towards targets for activity, prospect coverage and conversion, and spot gaps as they happen (not after) to ensure timely interventions.
• Advanced email personalization. At Klenty, email personalization doesn’t stop with just placeholders. The ‘Liquid Templates’ feature uses dynamic formulas to change the content of your emails based on when the prospect receives and opens the email. 
• Tight integrations that ensure updated CRMs. Klenty smoothly integrates with 5 CRMs—Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Hubspot, Zoho, and Pipedrive. The advanced integration capabilities include triggers to automatically update contacts from Klenty to CRM and auto-syncing of metrics like opens, clicks and replies along with email conversation history to the CRM. The tight integration ensures an up-to-date CRM and saves hours per day by eliminating manual activities and allows you to focus on selling.

• Helps sales teams consolidate their tech stack. Apart from its sales engagement platform, Klenty also offers platforms to source accurate contact data of ideal buyers (Prospect IQ), schedule meetings automatically with prospects (Schedule IQ), and analyze your calls using AI (Call IQ). With Klenty, you can effortlessly consolidate your tech stack to work with a unified data foundation for all the stages of the sales cycle.

Cons of Klenty:

• User interface. Klenty’s UI can take a few minutes to get used to.
• Pricing. Due to advanced capabilities, the product’s pricing can be a little out of reach for small businesses.
• Not suitable for spray-and-pray. Getting the most out of Klenty requires you to set up a well-planned sales strategy, which can be a bit daunting for teams that use a spray-and-pray approach to outbound.

Klenty’s Customer Experience for Growing Sales Teams

Klenty provides end-to-end customer support entirely free of charge, making it ideal for growing sales teams. 

Here’s a closer look at the customer support you’ll get from Klenty:

• Free onboarding. Klenty’s extensive onboarding process is free of cost to all of its customers. The support is customized depending on your sales team’s size and goals. What’s more, the support team will have as many onboarding calls as you need till every member of your team becomes comfortable using the platform.
• Free systematic implementation program. Not just onboarding, Klenty’s implementation is also free of cost. Here, the support team provides strategic suggestions on the best way you can use the platform to achieve your goals. 
• Free 24x5 customer support. Klenty’s customer support is impressively responsive—a response time of only 2.5 minutes—and remains free of cost for the entirety of your customer lifespan.
• Free deliverability consultancy. If sales teams who use Klenty encounter any email deliverability issues (like emails going to spam or having a high bounce rate), the customer support team will analyze their deliverability and provide actionable suggestions to ensure their emails land on prospect’s primary inbox. This, too, is free of cost. 
• Free quarterly reviews. Klenty takes a proactive approach in improving its customers’ performances. Every quarter, the customer support team analyzes how customers use the platform, and prepares a deck that includes customized insights like overall performance review, recommendations, and product roadmap.

What Is HubSpot Sequences?

HubSpot Sequences is a comprehensive sales automation tool designed to streamline your outreach efforts. Whether you're aiming to automate follow-ups, personalize sales emails, or conduct A/B tests, HubSpot Sequences offers a suite of features to enhance your sales workflow.

What Is HubSpot Sequences Best For?

Sales teams can use Hubspot sequences to scale their outreach efforts without compromising on personalization.

Email-heavy sales teams

Here are some of the email-specific features that’ll be handy for sales teams that runs multiple cold email campaigns: 

• Automated Follow-Up. HubSpot Sequences empowers you to automate your follow-up process, ensuring that your prospects receive timely and relevant communication.
• Personalized Sales Emails. Craft personalized automated emails to engage your leads effectively, increasing the chances of conversion.
• A/B Tests. Fine-tune your outreach strategy with A/B tests, allowing you to optimize your approach based on real-time data.

Pros & Cons of HubSpot Sequences

Pros of HubSpot Sequences:

• Neat UI. The user interface of HubSpot Sequences is designed for simplicity and clarity, ensuring a seamless user experience.
• User-Friendly. HubSpot Sequences caters to users of all experience levels, providing an intuitive platform for effective sales automation.
• Free Trial. Explore the capabilities of HubSpot Sequences with a free trial, allowing you to assess its suitability for your sales needs.
• Best for Individuals and Small Teams. Tailored to meet the requirements of individuals and small teams, HubSpot Sequences offers a scalable solution for growing businesses.

Cons of HubSpot Sequences: 

• No Dialer. HubSpot Sequences, unfortunately, lacks a built-in dialer, posing a challenge for sales teams heavily reliant on efficient calling activities. The absence of this feature may hinder the seamless integration of calling efforts into the overall outreach strategy.
• Reporting Feature - Non-Intuitive. Users have reported challenges with the non-intuitive nature of HubSpot Sequences' reporting feature. Extracting actionable insights from the data may require a steeper learning curve, potentially delaying the decision-making process for sales teams relying on prompt and data-driven strategies.
• Not Multi-Channel. While HubSpot Sequences excels in email automation, it falls short when it comes to offering a multi-channel approach. This limitation restricts users from leveraging a diverse set of communication channels, potentially limiting the scope and effectiveness of their outreach efforts.
• Too Basic. Some users may find HubSpot Sequences to be on the more basic end of the spectrum regarding features. For businesses seeking a more robust and customizable sales automation solution, the simplicity of HubSpot Sequences may not fully align with their sophisticated needs.
• Bad Customer Support. Reports suggest that HubSpot Sequences may not provide the level of customer support expected by users. Timely and effective support is critical for resolving issues promptly, ensuring smooth platform utilization, and maximizing the value of the software.
• No Behavior-Based Workflows. The absence of behavior-based workflows limits the adaptability of HubSpot Sequences. Users looking to tailor their strategies based on specific customer interactions and responses may find this limitation restrictive in optimizing their outreach campaigns.
• Less Flexible Sequences. HubSpot Sequences may be perceived as offering less flexibility in terms of designing and customizing sequences. This lack of flexibility could impact users looking for more dynamic and adaptable sales workflows tailored to their unique business processes.
• Lack of Native Integrations. While HubSpot Sequences does offer integrations, the absence of some native integrations might pose challenges for users who prefer a seamless and integrated tech stack. This could potentially lead to additional steps and complications in connecting HubSpot Sequences with other essential tools.
•  No Goals. The absence of a dedicated goal-setting feature within HubSpot Sequences may limit users' ability to set and track specific milestones for their sales reps. Goal-driven approaches are integral for sales teams to stay accountable and focused on achieving their targets.
• No Multichannel AI Writer. HubSpot Sequences lacks a built-in multichannel AI writer, potentially limiting the efficiency of crafting personalized messages across various communication channels. This absence may impact users seeking advanced AI capabilities to enhance their outreach strategies beyond emails.

Here are the 10 top HubSpot Sequences alternatives.

What Is Apollo.io? 

Apollo.io is a cloud-based sales engagement platform that enables sales teams to automate their workflows and connect with prospects more effectively, helping teams to accelerate their sales cycles and drive more revenue.

Founded in 2011, Apollo.io is one of the leading players in the Sales Engagement platforms Market. Though its original product offering focused on sales development, the company has since expanded its platform to offer functionality for the entire sales organization such as Conversation Intelligence, Revenue Intelligence, etc. 

What Is Apollo.io Best For?

Email-Heavy Sales Teams

For sales teams relying on email outreach and running multiple cold email campaigns, Apollo.io has multiple features. 

• Good Database of Emails: Apollo.io provides access to a substantial database of over 270 million records of emails, enhancing your prospecting capabilities.
• Apollo AI - AI writing assistant: Craft hyper-personalized emails based on relevant buyer signals for every prospect.

Intent-Driven Outreach

• Get alerts on lead signals: Create alerts sent to your Slack, email, or Apollo’s control center to manually take action on new leads.
• Engage at the right time: Create automation to engage leads and customers at the perfect moment and never miss an opportunity again.

Pros & Cons of Apollo.io 

Pros:

• No Email Send Limit: Apollo.io doesn't restrict your email sends, giving you the flexibility to reach out to as many prospects as you need. 
• Pricing: Although Apollo has limited features available for the lower pricing plans , Apollo.io is said to be offering competitive pricing plans, catering to a larger audience.
• Good Database of Emails: Apollo.io provides access to a substantial database of over 270 million records of emails, enhancing your prospecting capabilities.

Cons: 

• Security: Apollo.io's approach to data privacy has been a source of concern for many businesses. Their terms state that they will have access to all the contact, prospect, or customer databases you upload, using this data to enhance their datasets and then selling it to other customers in a cyclical data-selling model. While this system can offer discounts to customers, it raises privacy concerns, particularly for mid-sized and enterprise companies. . This might be one of the biggest red flags while considering Apollo.io. 
• Zoho Integration: Apollo.io lacks a native integration with Zoho. Thus Users have to connect their Zoho CRM to Apollo using Zapier. This causes the users to face challenges when integrating Apollo.io with Zoho, affecting workflow efficiency.
• Limited Customer Support: Reports of less-than-ideal experiences with Apollo’s customer support have been raised by a huge number of Apollo users. Timely customer support is a critical component of any software service, as it ensures that users receive timely assistance and guidance. 
• Underdeveloped Onboarding: One critical drawback of Apollo.io is the absence of structured onboarding processes. This deficiency can significantly hinder users' ability to swiftly adapt to the platform, potentially leading to a steeper learning curve and underutilization of its features.
• Playbooks: Users are limited to pre-existing automation templates and may not create custom triggers, reducing customization options. This is a big disadvantage for users adapting to the platform, as they have been in the market, looking for a sales engagement platform, for the very same reason - To be able to customize and automate their sales outreach. The absence of behavior-triggered playbook automations, makes it even more challenging for users to adapt their strategies based on customer interactions and responses.
• No Parallel Dialer: Apollo.io's standard dialer, while functional, lacks the advanced capabilities of a parallel dialer. This limitation can significantly impact the efficiency of sales teams, especially those heavily reliant on calling activities. The absence of parallel dialing features hinders the ability to engage with prospects at scale, potentially slowing down the outreach process and affecting productivity.
• Non-Intuitive Reports: Apollo.io's reporting system, while functional, may not fully meet some users' preferences for intuitiveness. This could lead to occasional challenges in extracting actionable insights from the data, resulting in minor delays in the decision-making process for sales teams. 

Explore the best 10 Apollo.io alternatives here.

Pricing of HubSpot Sequences, Apollo.io & Klenty 

Klenty Pricing:

Here are the pricing details for the different plans that Klenty offers:

• Startup plan: $50/user/month (billed annually) and $60/user/month (billed quarterly). Comes with email deliverability, email personalization, sales ops, reply optimization, and task management features. 
• Growth plan: $70/user/month (billed annually) and $85/user/month (billed quarterly). Everything in Startup + multichannel outreach, CRM integrations, intent-based follow-ups (cadence playbooks), and sales management features.
• Pro plan: $100/user/month (billed annually) and $125/user/month (billed quarterly). Everything in Growth + Goals and Reports, 200 credits (Phone+Email), account-based prospecting, and website tracking.
• Enterprise plan: Customized plans available. Everything in Pro + IP-based login restrictions, quarterly customer success review, and advanced deliverability insights.

HubSpot Sequences Pricing:

HubSpot Sequences offers two sets of plans:

For Individuals and Small Teams:

• Free
• Starter
• Professional

For Businesses and Enterprises:

• Professional
• Enterprise

When considering the pricing, calculate the approximate cost based on the number of seats your team requires.

Apollo Pricing:

• The first one being the Free / $0 plan. This plan is a free plan with Limited features. 
• The Basic plan comes at $39 per user , per month. This plan additionally includes features such as Email open & Click tracking and 250k words monthly limit - AI assisted Email Writing. 
• The Professional plan comes at $79 per user, per month. This plan includes Plays as an addition. 
• Finally the Organization plan comes at $99 per user, per month. Customizable reports and Advanced API access are the additions to this plan. 

What Are Users Saying About HubSpot Sequences, Apollo.io & Klenty?

A sales engagement platform is a significant investment for your organization, and a wrong decision can prove to be costly. 

So, checking reviews on G2 from users who have used the solution you’re evaluating will give you valuable insights about its pros and cons, helping you make a well-informed decision. 

That said, let’s see some of the reviews on G2 for Salesloft, Mixmax and Klenty.

Hubspot sequences’s G2 reviews:

Apollo’s G2 Reviews:

Klenty’s G2 Reviews:

Which Tool Should You Choose?

Hubspot sequences is a basic tool for individuals and small sales teams looking to automate their outreach.

Apollo.io is the affordable sales engagement platform for startups as it supports you to conduct mass outreaches to your prospects. 

So mature sales teams aiming for a successful outreach need a platform to send the right message across the right channel at the right time. This is what Klenty was built for.

Klenty helps you deliver on your pipeline goals by enabling sales reps to plan, execute, and track their outreach across multiple channels and persistently follow up—all at scale.

Plus, Klenty also comes with affordable pricing plans, coupled with excellent customer support that’s always free of cost, to ensure the continued success of growing sales teams.

Book a demo now to see how Klenty can help you crush your sales goals!