AI Sales Tools: 16 Best by Job, With Prices (2026)

AI sales tools are software that uses AI models to do one job in the sales process faster: find people, fill in verified contact data, research accounts, write and send outreach, record calls, or keep the CRM and forecast current. The 16 below are grouped by that job, in the order a sale runs, and each has its own section with a price read on the vendor's own pricing page on October 30, 2026. The order is the order of the work, and it is not a ranking.

Disclosure: Clu publishes this page and is one of the 16 tools. Competitor prices come from each vendor's own pricing page, or from Vendr's recorded purchases where the vendor publishes none, with the date read.

Vendr figures are medians of recorded purchases, read on the date given in each section. Most teams under 100 people need one tool from four of the six jobs, and they should start with the data jobs, because every later step acts on the contact data from the first two.

For the tools that work beside a rep, ranked with prices, see AI sales assistants, and for the rules that run the process around them, sales automation software.

Apollo: AI people search and sequences

Price (checked October 30, 2026): Free plan; Basic from $49 a seat a month. On October 16, 2026 Apollo's page showed Basic at $49 billed annually or $65 monthly.

Apollo's AI page promises to "pull lead lists with natural language, not filters," and one Apollo seat also drafts emails, runs sequences and dials. Apollo charges 1 credit for an email and 8 for a phone number. Its MCP server at mcp.apollo.io/mcp works on any plan, including free, and can add contacts to sequences from a chat. Our Claude for sales guide walks through prospecting from Claude, and the MCP servers for sales comparison lists every server with its plan gate.

Best for: a founder or small team that wants search, data and sequences on one bill.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator: people search on LinkedIn's own graph

Price (checked October 30, 2026): Core $119.99 a month or $1,079.88 a year per license; Advanced $159.99 a month or $1,799.88 a year; Advanced Plus priced by team size.

Sales Navigator searches LinkedIn's own member graph, which makes it the freshest source for who works where. LinkedIn lists three AI features: Account IQ summarizes account activity and earnings calls, Lead IQ finds relationship paths and lookalike leads, and Message Assist, in public beta, drafts outreach. Sales Navigator does not export emails or phone numbers, so most teams pair it with an enrichment tool.

Best for: reps whose outreach happens on LinkedIn itself.

Clu: people search and verified contact data (our product)

Price (checked October 30, 2026): Free with 50 credits a month; Starter $49 a seat a month ($37 billed annually) with 750 credits a seat; Pro $89 ($67) with 1,500 credits a seat; Enterprise custom.

Disclosure. We make Clu. Its 98% verified email and 85% direct dial figures come from our own 500-lead benchmark, which named no other vendor.

Clu, our GTM agent, turns a plain-English description of your buyer into a people search across 1B+ profiles, which costs 0 credits to run. Enrichment tries 25+ providers per record: 1 credit per verified work email, 10 per phone number. The same search and enrichment work inside Claude through the remote MCP server at mcp.cleanlist.ai/v1/mcp, with 30+ tools, added as a custom connector under Settings, then Connectors, and authorized with OAuth. MCP is included from Starter and open during the 14-day Pro trial; REST API keys start on a paid Pro plan. On Pro, agents run the same work on a schedule or a CRM trigger, such as the fill missing emails agent, which finds work emails for CRM contacts that lack one every night, and finished records write to HubSpot or Salesforce. Sequences send email from your own inbox at 0 credits; there is no dialer, no intent data and no technographic filters.

Best for: teams that want a work email and a phone number on the same row, verified, without stitching tools together.

Clay: AI research agents and enrichment workflows

Price (checked October 30, 2026): Free with 500 actions and 100 data credits a month; Launch $167 a month billed annually or $185 monthly; Growth $446 billed annually or $495 monthly; Enterprise custom.

Clay is a spreadsheet that calls data providers and AI models in each column, and you build the waterfall order yourself. Its Claygent agents "take inputs, follow your instructions, and write a structured output," so you can ask 500 companies "Do they sell to hospitals?" and get 500 answers. Clay's MCP server brings this into Claude and ChatGPT. Our Clay pricing breakdown explains its two meters, actions and data credits.

Best for: RevOps teams that want to control every step and have someone to maintain the tables.

Cognism: European contact data with phone-verified mobiles

Price (checked October 30, 2026): no published price. The page lists Standard and Pro packages, each with five seats, and states "1 credit = 1 revealed contact."

Cognism is a B2B contact database known for European coverage and what it calls Diamond Data, mobile numbers it says are verified by phone, with AI-assisted search on top. Its Pro package adds intent data and on-demand mobile verification.

Best for: teams whose pipeline depends on calling the UK and continental Europe and who can sign an annual contract.

ZoomInfo Copilot: account research on ZoomInfo's data

Price (checked October 30, 2026): no published price; the pricing page lists Professional, Copilot Advanced and Copilot Enterprise behind "Get Pricing". Vendr reports a median contract of $33,500 a year across 1,574 recorded purchases (read October 1, 2026).

ZoomInfo describes Copilot as an AI pipeline engine that automates prospecting, personalizes outreach and manages follow-ups, built on ZoomInfo's contact data and intent signals. ZoomInfo's MCP server comes with every subscription.

Best for: enterprise teams that already buy intent data.

Claude: account research and call prep

Price (checked October 30, 2026): Free; Pro $20 a month, or $17 a month billed annually ($200 a year); Max from $100 a month; Team standard seat $25 a month, or $20 billed annually.

Claude reads a prospect's website, press releases and job posts and writes a one-page account brief or a call plan in seconds. Connect a data vendor's MCP server and the same chat can search people and enrich them, which turns research and list building into one conversation. Claude holds no verified contact data of its own, so without a data connector any email it gives you is a guess.

Best for: founders and small teams that want one assistant for research, writing and prep.

Instantly: AI cold email at volume

Price (checked October 30, 2026): Growth $47 a month for 5,000 emails and 1,000 contacts; Hypergrowth $97; Light Speed $358. Lead finder credits are a separate subscription, from $9 a month for 150 credits.

Instantly combines cold email sending, inbox warmup, AI-written copy and a lead finder, and its AI agents run on the credits subscription. Software that runs outbound on its own, the AI SDR category, is a separate buy covered in our AI SDR tools comparison.

Best for: solo founders and agencies sending at volume from many inboxes.

Outreach: sequencing and deal management with AI agents

Price (checked October 30, 2026): no published price. Each package, from Amplify Essentials (10,000 AI Credits) to Amplify Pro (100,000), says "Request pricing." Vendr shows a median of $45,600 a year across 914 purchases (read September 1, 2026).

Outreach is a sales engagement platform that bills seat licenses plus AI Credits for its agents, with sequencing and deal management on one platform.

Best for: large sales teams that want sequencing and deal management in one place.

Salesloft: cadences with Clari Forecast

Price (checked October 30, 2026): no published price; the site sends you to "Talk to sales." Vendr reports a median of $30,740 a year across 704 purchases (read September 1, 2026).

Salesloft runs cadences across email and phone, and its site now presents Clari Forecast as its forecasting product.

Best for: mid-market teams that want cadences and a forecast from one vendor.

Also worth a look for outreach: HeyGen makes personal video for outbound. You record yourself once, and its AI avatar, in your face and voice, delivers a personalized video to each prospect, in 175+ languages. Copy.ai sells a GTM AI platform where sales, marketing and ops teams build workflows for prospecting, inbound lead processing and account research.

Gong: conversation intelligence for coaching

Price (checked October 30, 2026): no published price. Gong says "Licenses are priced per user" with a platform fee based on users supported. Vendr reports a median of $55,346 a year across 1,144 purchases, from $11,491 to $203,767 (guide updated March 2026, read October 1, 2026).

Gong records and analyzes sales calls, emails and deal activity to show which deals are at risk and what the best reps do differently.

Best for: sales teams of roughly 20 reps or more with a manager who coaches from call data.

Fathom: AI meeting notes that sync to the CRM

Price (checked October 30, 2026): Free forever; Premium $20 a month or $16 billed annually; Team $19 a user a month or $15 annually, 2-user minimum; Business $34 or $25 annually, 2-user minimum.

Fathom records and summarizes meetings and pushes action items out. Business adds CRM field sync after meetings and AI scorecards.

Best for: small sales teams that want accurate notes in HubSpot or Salesforce without a Gong contract.

Granola: call notes without a bot in the meeting

Price (checked October 30, 2026): Basic free; Business $14 a user a month; Enterprise $35.

Granola is an AI notepad that takes your notes during a call and fills them out from the transcript, without a bot joining the meeting.

Best for: founders running their own discovery calls who want clean notes and a quick prep sheet.

HubSpot Sales Hub (Breeze): CRM agents

Price (checked October 30, 2026): Free for up to 2 users; Starter from $7 a seat a month; Professional from $90 a seat a month plus a $1,500 one-time onboarding fee; Enterprise $150 a seat plus $3,500 onboarding.

HubSpot's Breeze Data Agent updates records from your CRM and the web, and its Prospecting Agent researches leads and drafts outreach at $1 a lead it recommends. Professional adds forecasting, and agents draw on HubSpot Credits. The AI BDR guide covers the Prospecting Agent as an account research tool.

Best for: SMBs that want CRM, sequences and AI in one bill.

Salesforce Sales Cloud (Agentforce): CRM agents and forecasting

Price (checked October 30, 2026): Starter Suite $25 a user a month; Pro Suite $100 billed annually, with forecasting; Core $195; Advanced $395; Max $550 a user a month billed annually, with the Agentforce add-on included. The Agentforce add-on for Sales is $125 a user a month on its own.

Salesforce sells Agentforce as AI agents inside Sales Cloud, so the data and the agent share one system.

Best for: teams already running on Salesforce.

Clari: forecasting

Price (checked October 30, 2026): no published price. clari.com/pricing redirects to Salesloft's site, where Clari Forecast is listed as Salesloft's forecasting product.

Clari builds the forecast from pipeline and activity data and shows where the quarter will land. If you want the pipeline read out before the meeting without a new tool, Clu's pipeline review prep agent lists stalled deals by owner before Monday, and the weekly pipeline report agent posts what moved, what closed and what is at risk to Slack every Friday.

Best for: revenue leaders running a weekly forecast call across several teams.

FAQ

What can AI be used for in sales?

Six jobs: people search and list building, enrichment and data quality, account research, writing and sequencing, call recording and prep, and CRM hygiene and forecasting. Each job feeds the next, so the research, writing and CRM tools act on the contact data from the first two. Agents that run whole jobs on their own are covered in AI sales agents explained.

What are the 5 most popular AI tools for sales?

Google's AI Overview for "ai sales tools" named Apollo, Clay, Instantly, HubSpot and Outreach on October 1, 2026, and the same answer named Gong for calls and Salesforce Agentforce for CRM AI. For your own team, pick the tool that removes the task eating most of your week.

How much do AI sales tools cost?

From $0 to more than $50,000 a year. Free plans exist at Apollo, Clay, Clu, Fathom, Granola, HubSpot and Claude, and self-serve paid plans start at $7 a seat a month (HubSpot Starter). Clu's plans are Starter $49 and Pro $89 a seat a month, with a 14-day Pro trial, and the Clu pricing page has the details. ZoomInfo, Outreach, Salesloft, Gong, Clari and Cognism publish no price; Vendr's medians for the first four run from $30,740 to $55,346 a year.

How many AI sales tools does a team need?

Fewer than most stacks carry. A founder-led team can run on two: Apollo for search, data and sequences, plus Fathom or Granola for calls. A 5 to 20 rep team often runs four: HubSpot as CRM and sequencer, Clu for verified data written into HubSpot, Instantly for cold email at volume and Fathom for calls. Enterprise teams usually keep Salesforce, ZoomInfo, Outreach or Salesloft with Clari, and Gong as separate contracts.

Who sets up AI sales tools at a company?

At small companies, a founder or the head of sales. From about 20 people, a GTM engineer or a RevOps lead owns the wiring between the CRM, the data tool and the sequencer. Our GTM engineering guide covers that role, and the AI SDR tools comparison covers the agents they deploy.

For the lead generation side of the same stack, see our AI lead generation tools guide.