Smartlead vs Emailchaser: Which Is Better? (2026)

Smartlead and Emailchaser are both popular cold email sequencers.

In this article, I compare them, and explain why Emailchaser is the superior choice.

I will cover the following:

- Feature comparison
- Pricing
- User experience (UI/UX)
- Final thoughts

Note: I am the founder of Emailchaser, so I am clearly biased; however, I will still provide a fact-based comparison.

Feature comparison

Campaigns: Both Emailchaser & Smartlead allow their users to launch cold email sequences (campaigns).

Sales CRM: Both Emailchaser & Smartlead have a built-in Sales CRM that allows you to manage leads when they reply.

Lead Finder: Both Emailchaser & Smartlead have a "Lead Finder" feature, however, Emailchaser's leads are significantly more accurate, since they are scraped directly from LinkedIn Sales Navigator, which is the most accurate source of B2B leads (only LinkedIn owns the data). Smartlead's data will result in less replies and a higher bounce rate.

DFY Email Accounts: Both Emailchaser & Smartlead have a done-for-you email account setup service. They both allow you to purchase Google Workspace email accounts for sending cold emails.

Double-Verification: Only Emailchaser has built-in double-verification, meaning that your bounce rate will be lower when sending through Emailchaser (compared to Smartlead). Emailchaser's double-verification system implements two different verification providers (Enrichley and BounceBan), and only marks a lead as safe if it is marked as valid by both services.

Pricing

Emailchaser has only one plan: Professional ($1/month) - yes, you read that right.

Smartlead has four different plans, making it a little confusing to understand what makes each plan different. They have plans from $39 / month all the way up to $379 / month.

One benefit of using Emailchaser is that you can create unlimited workspaces at no additional cost. Smartlead charges $29 / month extra per workspace, so if you have 10 clients, that would be an additional $290 / month, just in workspace fees.

User experience (UI/UX)

In my opinion, Emailchaser's user interface is much easier to use.

For example, when you're creating a campaign in Emailchaser, all you need to do is click the "Next" button, and you will eventually launch your campaign (even if you don't know what you are doing).

Smartlead, on the other-hand, is more confusing because you need to complete tasks in multiple different tabs/sections, and then bring them all together at the end in order to launch your campaign. This isn't intuitive, especially for people who have never launched a cold email campaign before.

Final thoughts

Overall, Emailchaser is easier to use compared to Smartlead.

Additionally, Emailchaser has features that prevent your emails from going to spam, such as double-verification. You can learn more about these features in my article 12 Ways That Emailchaser Prevents Your Cold Emails From Going To Spam.

On a related note, you may be interested in my article Does Email Warm Up Work & Is It Necessary? In this article, I explain why you shouldn’t use email warm up features that companies like Smartlead promote (they negatively impact deliverability).

Finally, you might also be interested in my article 12 Best Smartlead.ai Alternatives For Cold Email.