Free cold email software exists, and for a 100-contact test it can be enough. Every no-cost version caps something: how many contacts, how many emails a day or a month, how many mailboxes, or which features. Which cap you hit first tells you what to do. Below are three vendors' own published limits as of October 2026, the day you would hit each one on a real workload, and what the $0 option costs in hours instead of dollars.
I'm not ranking these. Limits change, so each figure below is as published on the vendor's own pricing page in October 2026. Check the page before you rely on it.
Why no-cost versions exist
A no-cost version is a sample. It gets you inside the product, shows you where the value is, and stops just short of the point where your outreach becomes steady work. So the cap isn't random. It sits where a serious user would need more, and which cap that is varies by tool. That is why comparing the headline "free" claim is useless and comparing the caps is useful.
The caps to look for
Five things decide whether a no-cost version can carry a real test:
- Contacts or recipients per month. How many new people you can add.
- Emails per day and per month. How many you can send.
- Follow-ups and steps. Whether a sequence can send a second and third message on its own.
- Reply detection. Whether the tool stops a follow-up when someone has replied.
- Mailboxes. How many of your inboxes you can connect.
What three vendors publish
| Tool | $0 level, per the vendor's page | Lowest paid level, per the same page |
|---|---|---|
| Mailmeteor (Gmail and Sheets add-on) | 50 emails a day, 500 a month. Follow-ups, reply detection and warmup are listed as not included | $5.99 per user per month: 250 a day, 5,000 a month, adds reply detection. Follow-ups appear at the $17.99 level |
| Hunter (Campaigns) | 50 credits a month, 500 recipients per sequence, 1 connected email account | Starter at $49 a month, or $34 a month billed yearly |
| Snov.io | Monthly plan that renews: 50 credits, 100 recipients, 1 warm-up slot, 25 enrichment tokens | Starter at $39 a month |
These are not like-for-like. One is a mail-merge add-on, two are lead-and-campaign tools, and the meaning of a "credit" is defined on each vendor's page. The point of the table is the shape: every one has a number that stops you somewhere.
A 100-contact test, and the day each cap bites
Rosa is a freelance bookkeeper in Tucson. She wants to test 100 new contacts a month, three emails each (the first and two follow-ups), which is 300 sends, about 15 a day over 20 working days. Against the published limits:
- Mailmeteor at $0: 300 sends fits under 500 a month and 50 a day. What it does not include is follow-ups and reply detection, so she sends 200 follow-ups by hand and checks each person for a reply first. The cap she hits is time, in month one.
- Hunter at $0: 100 recipients fits under 500 per sequence, but 50 credits a month is the tight one. If each address you look up uses a credit, she runs out at contact 51, around the tenth working day.
- Snov.io at $0: 100 recipients a month. She just fits, with nothing to spare. If she wants 250 contacts in month two, she hits the cap at contact 101, around working day 8.
Now double the test to 250 contacts, which is 750 sends or about 38 a day. On the Mailmeteor $0 level the 500-a-month cap runs out near working day 13. On Snov.io the recipient cap runs out near working day 8. Sends were never the cap that bit first. The first cap was follow-ups, credits or recipients.
What you give up at the $0 level
Usually the pieces that make outreach hands-off: automatic follow-ups, stopping when someone replies, a second inbox to spread volume, and the data that finds addresses. Without them, you become the automation. Also read the terms. Many bulk-email and newsletter tools require that recipients have opted in, so loading a cold list into one can get the account closed. That is a different product category from outreach tools, and the fact that it has a no-cost version doesn't make it suitable for cold lists.
When $0 costs more than paid
Price Rosa's hours. 200 hand-sent follow-ups at 2 minutes each is about 6.7 hours. Checking for replies ten minutes a day over 20 days is 3.3 hours. Call it 10 hours a month. At $40 an hour that is $400 of her time, to save the price of a plan that costs a few dollars to a few tens of dollars. If your time is worth anything, the cheapest option is rarely the $0 one past the first test. Run the free test to learn whether your email gets replies, and decide on spending when you know. For the full picture of what the alternatives add up to, what a sales stack costs when you assemble it shows the sums.
Options that are really trials
A trial and a no-cost version are different. A trial lets you use the full product for a limited time, then ends. A no-cost version stays but is capped. Plenty of outreach tools offer only a trial, and some ask for a card to start one. Rocketship has no $0 level. Every monthly plan starts with a 7-day free trial, card required, and you can cancel before day 8 from Settings. Details are on the free trial page.
How to decide in one afternoon
- Write down your test: contacts per month, emails per contact. Multiply for total sends.
- Open each pricing page and note the five caps. Mark the first one your test would hit.
- Decide whether you can live with doing that part by hand for a month.
- Read the acceptable use terms before importing a cold list into anything.
- Set a date, usually 30 days, to count replies and decide.
If your test is a mail merge from your own Gmail, mail merge in Gmail shows the steps with no add-on spend beyond the sheet. For the address question, Google Workspace versus Gmail sets out the costs, and an outreach tool for people who do not do sales and whether you need a sales engagement platform at all go further.
When the test works and the hand-work starts to pile up, that's the moment to hand the work off. Rocketship finds the buyers, emails them from your own Gmail, follows up, and books the meeting on its own. Plans that get you customers start at $24.99 a month (Launch), and every monthly plan starts with a 7-day free trial, card required. See how the AI workers run outreach.