Top 12 Sales Automation Companies (The Best Agencies and Tools) 

We talk to a lot of salespeople. That includes sales team leaders and even people responsible for revenue operations (RevOps). Most sales teams struggle with the following:

• Sales reps spend too much time on non-selling activities like data entry, lead enrichment, CRM updates, and email follow-ups instead of focusing on conversations and closing deals.
• Hiring more SDRs isn’t scalable and only creates more bottlenecks because most teams’ workflows are manual.
• CRMs get bloated with duplicate data, incomplete records, or dead leads. This means poor data hygiene and in consequence, sales reps don’t trust the system and set out for shadow processes (spreadsheets, sticky notes, etc.).
• Prospecting efforts are low and leads generated from outbound are practically non-existent because sales reps struggle to balance personalization with volume.
• Most sales and revenue teams have no structured or automated workflows for inbound lead routing or prioritization.
• Teams take a lot of time to act when they get leads and it translates into high opportunity costs for businesses. They even sometimes miss opportunities because no one was online when the lead came in. 
• Enterprise-level companies juggle too many disconnected tools spanning across outreach platforms, data providers, CRMs, reporting tools, and more. The tools work in silos and it costs them a lot in monthly subscription fees. 

These are only a few of the problems we can think of on the spot. 

The biggest consequence of everything we’ve mentioned so far is that your sales reps work a lot (even to burnout sometimes) but only have little to no results to show for it.  

If you are here, it somehow means that you face some if not most of the issues we listed above, and your leadership has lost faith in both your sales forecasting and strategy. 

In this post, we are going to discuss the best sales automation companies. The list will include both companies that offer sales automation tools and agencies or lead generation companies you can rely on to automate your sales process.  

Let’s get started. 

Note: Struggling to connect with decision-makers in your target market? We’ll run a completely done-for-you outbound campaign and automate your sales prospecting process to generate a pipeline with prospects ready to engage on autopilot. Book a 15-minute call now to discuss your unique business needs and discover our flexible packages.

6 best sales automation services you can hire for automated outbound sales and lead generation

Here are the top four companies that can help you automate your sales process by creating automation workflows that ensure you get leads on autopilot. 

The list will start with our own, Utmost Agency. 

1. Utmost Agency

The idea behind our business is to build a comprehensive sales automation and lead generation system that runs on autopilot while delivering consistent results. 

We (Andrew and Colin) used to work as sales reps for several companies. We were plagued by the same old sales process and operational inefficiencies that brought you here. 

Understanding the problems firsthand, we designed an approach that combines strategic targeting with operational efficiency to solve the exact pain points you’re facing.

Let’s walk you through our process and show you exactly how we eliminate the headaches of most sales teams. 

We’ll discuss our key processes, the thinking behind everything we do, and all the tools involved. Keep in mind from now, you won’t have to pay for any tools if you work with us. 

We take care of that and you only pay for the results we bring you, not for the tools we use or the work we do. 

— before we start —

At the core of our solution, we use Clay and make it our central command center that connects every part of the outbound sales process we run.

We want you to understand from now on that every process and tool we’ll mention below ties back to our Clay table. 

Here’s briefly how Clay helps us create and transform sales workflows:

1. One place for all your prospect data: Clay becomes your single source of truth, eliminating data silos and manually moving data from one tool to another. 
2. Automated workflows that connect everything: Through native or N8N.io integrations, we create seamless connections between every step in your process. 
3. Smart routing based on prospect behavior: The system automatically adapts based on how prospects engage (or don’t engage) with your outreach.

This approach means we never have to manually transfer data between systems or wonder where a lead is in your process. 

Everything happens automatically, with full visibility for us and your team.

Why Utmost Agency is the best sales automation company for your needs (an overview of our unique sales automation process and how it works for you)

From the very first step, we like to align everything with your business and your ICP. 

The groundwork typically involves understanding what you sell inside out and pinning down your ICP. 

We unfold our work by ensuring you only get the best-fit prospects in your pipeline.

So, we want to ensure we’re going after the right audience. Think of it like a discovery process. 

We’ll be having multiple collaborative sessions with key stakeholders across your organization. 

Here’s what typically happens here:

• We start by really understanding your business and your ICP: We sit down with your team to uncover who your best customers actually are, why they buy, and what problems you’re really solving for them.
  We’ve found that most business owners or startups have a hard time defining their ICP. So, this is where we start. We’ll have rounds of discussions and we’ll ask you key questions that help nail down the exact ICP we should go after. 

• We tap into data you already have: Your website visitors, LinkedIn followers, and CRM contacts contain gold mines of insights about who’s already interested in what you do.
  We connect all of these data points you’re already sitting on in our central intelligence hub, Clay.
  Next, we start applying criteria and rules to further break down the ICP from people already interacting with your brand.
  The criteria and rules we’re talking about here will mostly be from insights gathered through the discovery processes with your team.
  
• We use Zapmail.ai or ScaledMail to buy sending domains and mailboxes: We buy look-alike domains for you and start warming them up. We don’t want to run cold outreach campaigns with the main domain as it exposes it to several risks, such as getting flagged as spam or getting blocked, which in turn can hurt your SEO and sending reputation. 

• We use specialized data source tools based on your industry and ICP: Forget about generic or good-for-all-audience databases like Apollo.io or ZoomInfo.

We have expertise and experience in outbound sales that gives us unique knowledge about specific data sources that are perfect for your industry—and that you’d have never heard about.

At this stage, most teams or sales reps make the mistake of simply relying on popular options (ie., ZoomInfo, Apollo, Lusha).

We like to ensure our choice of data source is contextual.

Anything other than the right data source here means going after the wrong ICP or missing out on a considerable chunk of your total addressable market (TAM). 

Let’s show you what this looks like in action:

For a client selling event software, we didn’t use the typical sales databases everyone else uses. 

The ICP was companies hosting events with exhibitors and preferably with sponsors as well. This is a super niche target and popular data sources like Apollo or Lusha would only turn up meager results.  

So, instead, we used a specialized event information source called 10times.com to specifically find companies hosting events with exhibitors and sponsors and then used the Instant Data Scraper Chrome extension to scrape it so that we don’t do it manually. 

When you need to get even more specific, we bring in specialized tools:

• If you need to find companies just like your best customers, we use PandaMatch.io to find lookalike companies with similar attributes and behaviors.
• Have a super specific customer profile? TryTelescope.io lets us search for things as specific as “companies with warehouses over 500 square meters”
• If you’re targeting a niche industry, let’s say healthcare for example. We tap into specialized databases like Definitive Healthcare for healthcare providers. 

For every niche, we know the exact tool or information source to leverage. This isn’t just about finding great leads, it’s about focusing your team’s energy only on prospects who are likely to buy.

You get to connect with decision-makers who actually respond.

Your team probably wastes hours hunting for contact information by uploading CSV files and using only one tool for it. They then send emails that bounce, lend in spam, or messages that never get read.

At Utmost Agency, we build contact lists that actually work, with verified information across multiple channels.

Here’s what makes our approach unique and super effective:

1. We cross-reference multiple data sources: Using a combination of LeadMagic, Hunter.io, Findymail, and FullEnrich (and even more tools) gives us a complete picture of each contact. 
2. We verify everything before you hit send: We combine email verification tools like DeBounce and BounceBan to check each email address and flag risky contacts that might hurt your sender’s reputation. 
3. We also find phone numbers that actually work: Although expensive, this is why we love FullEnrich. It combines and cross-checks data from 15+ providers to ensure we get mobile numbers that connect you directly to decision-makers. 

So, by now, we’ve had your sending domains warming up, and have a solid lead list of your ICP that we want to go after for the outreach campaign. 

If you can’t tell, we still haven’t done anything manually in our process besides buying the sending domains and warming them up. 

We make the tools we’ve been discussing so far work together in Clay through their native integrations or by leveraging the power of n8n. We’ll be discussing more of this later on.

You get scalable, personalized, and automated outreach that doesn’t sound generic or robotic.

One of the big problems that sales reps face at this stage is that generic templates get ignored, but personalizing every message takes too much time.

We understand it. That’s why we’ve worked on a smart automation workflow combining OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude.ai, Instantly.ai, and Periodix to create a personalized outreach system without any or very little manual work.

Every time we say this, we feel like we must explain how we approach personalization. So, here’s what you need to understand:

We believe that personalization is not as much personalization as it is relevance. Relevance and timing are what matter most. 

So, from our experience, if we get the ICP, the point of contact, the pain points, and the offer right, then that’s all that matters. That’s what wins you clients. 

Also, the offer is just as important. We’ve worked with businesses with an offer so good it requires no personalization. And sometimes, an offer is so impossible no personalization can make it sell. 

Here are a few positive responses we’ve received with this approach.

That cleared, here’s what makes it work:

1. Messages that actually sound human: We use AI tools to create personalized outreach based on each prospect’s industry, role, and known pain points. This is the information we’d already have sitting in our Clay table through our contact enrichment process. And given that we create different segments and constantly test offerings and messages, we create different:

• • email subject lines for each segment 
  • personalized intro lines
  • call-to-actions tailored to prospect roles
  • multi-step sequence content
  • follow-ups that reference prior emails or objectionsNow, after the first few campaign rounds and when we find what works or which testing segments bring the best results, we can then go for batch automation.

2. Different approaches for different channels: Instead of a one-size-fits-all approach and single-channel outreach, we use specialized tools for each channel (Instantly for email, Periodix for LinkedIn) to run outreach ùcampaigns across both channels.

With Instantly, you can:

• send automated cold email sequences across multiple domains/inboxes
• personalize emails using merge tags and AI
• track opens (though we don’t track open rates because it hurts deliverability), clicks, replies, bounces, and interested leads
• warm up your email accounts automatically to build a domain reputation.

Instantly also allows for inbox rotation and smart sending schedules. Also, with their dynamic customization, we create multiple sequence variations based on prospect data from our enrichment process.

Periodix lets us do the same work we do with Instantly.ai but on LinkedIn instead.

3. Smart channel-switching when needed: When a prospect doesn’t respond to our email after a few touchpoints, our system immediately creates a LinkedIn outreach sequence automatically and sends them a LinkedIn message.

Also, our system can detect when a prospect uses Outlook (which we know has lower deliverability) and automatically switch to LinkedIn instead. 

Here is a snapview of the aggregated automation system and the tools together.

You’ll catch prospects right when they need your solution through our systems for intent data and buying signal monitoring.

Beyond initial campaigns, we design automated workflows that continuously monitor for buying signals relevant to your business and reach out to the relevant contacts.

Now, some businesses or sales reps pretend to do this. But their approach to it is poor at best. 

Their approach mostly is all about relying on sales intelligence tools like ZoomInfo or Cognism to offer simplistic intent signals like article views or website visits. 

They then consider every article view as intent data and start reaching out. The problem is that these don’t really tell what the person is thinking or what they want to do. It practically keeps you guessing, at best.  

We take a different approach and are much more effective. We monitor for specific signals that indicate a prospect is actually ready to buy or may need your solution.

Let’s break it down:

1. We set up custom triggers based on your specific business: We brainstorm and identify not-so-obvious events that indicate someone could need your solution. 
2. We set up automated monitoring across multiple sources: Once we’re set on the events that work for your business, we leverage tools like Trigify, PhantomBuster, and Apify to continuously scan for and scrape these signals without any manual effort. 
3. The prospects receive an automated message when opportunity strikes: When a buying signal is detected, our system automatically picks the prospect from the event source and sends them to our Clay table, which then populates all the relevant information and contacts (through the tools we have set up like LeadMagic, etc) and initiates personalized contact. 

Here is what the entire thing looks like:

Let’s share some real examples of the thinking behind this:

• For a cybersecurity client, we monitor funding announcements for IT companies through Apify. When they raise money, it potentially means that they’re about to expand their team and need better security. So, we scrape that, find the right contact and reach out. 
• For a client selling AI-powered furnishing solutions, we set up RSS feeds to track property development announcements in their industry publications. 
• For an enterprise tax incentive solution provider client, we watch for Fortune 500 companies reporting sudden profit increases. That’s the perfect time to discuss tax optimization and we reach out. 

This approach means you’re reaching prospects at exactly the right moment when they actually need what you’re selling.

We’ll help you turn website visitors and social followers into sales conversations by automating inbound lead qualification and sales handoff.

Your primary marketing efforts through your website, blog, and social media are generating valuable awareness, but it’s simultaneously creating inefficiency in your sales process. 

While your content marketing builds brand recognition and education, your sales team team faces four obstacles:

1. Timing uncertainty: You can’t precisely identify when prospects are ready to purchase to reach out. Your salespeople could reach out too early or too late and miss. 
2. Attention competition: Leads that are ready to action or ready for the sales conversation won’t necessarily return to you.
3. Qualification complexity: Because someone is engaging with your content doesn’t mean they fit your ICP. Yet, your sales reps will waste sorting through, finding contacts, and reaching out to them. 
4. Competitive vulnerability: Last, but not least, your competitors with superior systems can detect buying signals and intercept those prospects before you. 

The problem is that your sales professionals are forced to manually sift through everyone who downloads content or engages on social media. It takes up their valuable time and often results in outreach at the wrong time.

That’s why we’ve also worked on an automatic system for qualifying and routing the inbound interest that fits your ICP and is ready for the sales conversation.

Here’s how it works:

1. We identify who’s visiting your site: Using either RB2B or Apify we track and build a profile of the companies behind anonymous website visits. 
2. We track engagement across platforms: We monitor who’s interacting with your content on LinkedIn and other channels using PhantomBuster. 
3. We automatically evaluate lead quality and only route the best to your sales: Our system scores leads based on company fit, engagement patterns, and intent signals. For example, if someone who fits the ICP visits your pricing page twice in the same week, the system scores and routes them to your CRM and Slack with all their engagement history and they can easily pick up the conversation and close. 

This ensures that your reps only speak with high-potential opportunities, complete with context on why they’re a good fit. 

Note: Struggling to connect with decision-makers in your target market? We’ll run a completely done-for-you outbound campaign and automate your sales prospecting process to generate a pipeline with prospects ready to engage on autopilot. Book a 15-minute call now to discuss your unique business needs and discover our flexible packages.

2. Sopro.io

Sopro’s approach to outbound sales puts them at the intersection of human sales expertise and scalable automation. 

Instead of going fully AI or programmatic, they double down on a managed service model. They combine manual prospecting with outreach automation to deliver qualified leads directly to sales teams. 

What sets Sopro apart is their emphasis on compliance and transparency. According to their website, every prospect is researched and vetted manually before being contacted, and GDPR alignment is baked into the workflow. 

Compared to us, it’s a more traditional approach, but for companies scared of pure automation, Sopro offers a high-touch alternative with a strong operational backbone.

3. ColdIQ

ColdIQ takes a more modern, AI-forward approach to outbound sales. 

They mostly work with startups and B2B companies, and they specialize in building modular sales systems that blend strategic targeting, advanced enrichment, and multi-channel outreach—email, LinkedIn, video, and beyond.

ColdIQ also uses tools like Clay, N8N, and custom-built scraping and enrichment workflows just like us at Utmost Agency. 

The main difference between our sales automation services is that they’re less of a done-for-you agency and more of a partner in building sustainable, intelligent outbound engines. 

They won’t be responsible for things meetings booked or lead generated but you’ll pay them to build systems for you. You can even buy their course instead, should you prefer. 

4. OneAway.io

OneAway is one of our best competitors along with Sopro and ColdIQ. 

Their company bridges the gap between cold outreach and relationship-building by offering a highly automated yet deeply personalized outbound system—just like ours. 

They’re known for leveraging advanced tooling (Clay, Apollo, LinkedIn automation, etc.) to deliver highly tailored, multi-step sequences that mimic organic human interaction. 

Unlike traditional lead gen shops, OneAway doesn’t just hand over leads, they build and optimize the full outbound funnel, often functioning as an extension of the client’s GTM team. 

For SaaS startups looking to scale outbound without sacrificing message quality, OneAway offers a sweet deal.

5. LeadBird.io

LeadBird, founded by Justin Weeder, is built around a founder-friendly philosophy and offers a productized service with a proprietary backend that gives clients visibility into outreach performance, deliverability, and results. 

With a clear focus on SaaS and B2B startups, LeadBird is ideal for early-stage companies that need traction fast and want to shortcut the time it takes to build in-house SDR teams. 

6. Afonto

Afonto operates more like a systems consultancy rather than a typical outbound sales automation agency. We still see them right up there with us and all the other sales automation services we’ve mentioned so far. 

They focus on building full-stack, AI-enhanced outbound systems that integrate seamlessly with CRMs, enrichment tools, and multi-channel workflows. 

Think custom scraping scripts, automated enrichment, N8N automation, and ICP-driven targeting models all executed with a strategic eye. 

Afonto is ideal for companies that want to run smart outbound campaigns at scale without bloating their tech stack or relying on manual SDRs. 

Note: Struggling to connect with decision-makers in your target market? We’ll run a completely done-for-you outbound campaign and automate your sales prospecting process to generate a pipeline with prospects ready to engage on autopilot. Book a 15-minute call now to discuss your unique business needs and discover our flexible packages.

Top 6 sales automation tools you can use to set up automated sales systems for your organization

1. Clay: best for outbound sales automation

Clay isn’t your typical sales automation tool. It’s more like a programmable command center for outbound workflows and it’s exactly why we use it here at Utmost Agency over any other sales automation tool. 

Clay helps sales teams enrich leads, scrape websites, trigger AI personalization, and orchestrate entire prospecting sequences across tools like LinkedIn, email, and CRMs—all without writing code. 

It integrates seamlessly with platforms like N8N, Make.com, and Zapier to give you the power to build highly contextual, dynamic lists that update in real-time. 

We see Clay as the perfect solution for sales teams that want to go beyond static lead lists and build intelligent, automated systems that adapt to buyer behavior and intent.

2. HubSpot: best all-in-one platform

HubSpot has evolved from a simple marketing automation tool into a full-fledged CRM platform that powers everything from lead capture to deal closing. 

For sales teams, HubSpot’s automation capabilities span contact enrichment, email sequencing, pipeline tracking, and task workflows all tightly integrated within a clean UI. 

It’s especially powerful for SMBs and mid-market teams that want to centralize sales and marketing ops without heavy technical lift. 

While it may lack some of the deep customization of enterprise CRMs, its plug-and-play ecosystem and intuitive automation builders make it a go-to for fast-growing teams.

3. Salesforce: best for enterprise-scale companies

Salesforce is practically the heavyweight champion of CRMs. It’s robust, highly customizable, and deeply embedded in enterprise ecosystems. 

Its strength lies in its flexibility as you can automate and tailor nearly every sales workflow, from lead scoring to quote generation to territory management, to your needs. 

But that power comes with complexity. 

Because Salesforce isn’t a tool you casually set up. We see it more as a platform you architect. So, you are going to need a bit of experience using it. 

For sales automation, it offers everything from native process builders to advanced integrations via third-party tools (e.g., Outreach, Gong, LeanData). 

It’s quite useful for sales teams that need end-to-end control and scale.

4. Pipedrive: best for pipeline-first CRM with automation

Pipedrive revolutionizes the CRM experience by prioritizing the sales pipeline as the central interface. 

Its automation tools are simple but effective. You get automatic task triggers, lead routing, and email sequences. 

Where it shines is usability because Pipedrive is built for sales teams, not CRM admins. It’s ideal for lean organizations that want just enough automation to stay efficient without drowning in configurations. 

If your sales team is just starting to scale outbound, we believe Pipedrive can be a fast, cost-effective entry point before jumping into heavier tools like Salesforce or HubSpot.

5. Gong: best for revenue intelligence

Gong is not a CRM and isn’t the exact same type of sales automation tool as the ones we’ve mentioned so far. 

It’s more of a layer of intelligence that sits across your sales conversations, pipeline, and forecasting. 

Gong helps you analyze call recordings, emails, and CRM data, to uncover deal risks, sales rep performance gaps, and customer intent signals. 

Where it ties into automation is in its ability to trigger alerts, workflows, and coaching recommendations based on real behavior, not just CRM inputs. 

Gong is increasingly moving from passive insight to active guidance, which is making it a key part of modern revenue operations. 

If your sales team is looking for data-driven sales automation and not just task automation, Gong offers a powerful edge.

6. Freshworks: best for customer-facing teams

Freshworks is a CRM designed for sales teams that want intelligent automation without the enterprise bloat. 

It offers email tracking, lead scoring, and pipeline automation, and has a built-in phone functionality in a lightweight, AI-assisted package. 

Freddy AI, their in-house assistant, monitors and collects insights to notify reps to follow up at the right time.

Freshworks is more popular as a customer-facing and support solution so that’s what we recommend it for. 

Although, Freshworks has been making strides in outbound and sales automation, particularly for businesses that want an all-in-one solution without the complexity of Salesforce or the cost of HubSpot.

Let Utmost Agency handle your outbound sales and lead generation so that your team can focus on selling.

There you have it!

If you are frustrated by wasted time on manual processes or missing opportunities because you can’t scale fast enough, we can help!

The best part is that our team becomes an extension of yours, responsible for a fully automated system that consistently delivers high-quality leads to your calendar.

We align with your specific sales strategy, industry, and ideal customers to create custom workflows that drive predictable pipeline growth.

Working with us means:

• 40-60% less time spent on manual prospecting for your sales reps: Your team focuses on conversations, not data entry. 
• Higher quality meetings: No more wasting time with prospects who aren’t a good fit
• Consistent pipeline generation: Say goodbye to the feast-or-famine cycle of leads
• Ability to scale without adding headcount: Your systems grow with your business

Note: Struggling to connect with decision-makers in your target market? We’ll run a completely done-for-you outbound campaign and automate your sales prospecting process to generate a pipeline with prospects ready to engage on autopilot. Book a 15-minute call now to discuss your unique business needs and discover our flexible packages.