The best AI sales tools, sorted by the sales job

Selling breaks into a handful of jobs: find the right people, reach them, run the call, follow up, and keep the record straight. Each job now has an AI tool built for it, and most of them charge per seat. This page sorts eight tools by those jobs and lists the prices each vendor publishes as of October 2026, so a small team can buy only what it uses.

How the picks were chosen

We kept tools that a founder, a small sales team or a freelancer can sign up for today, that publish prices, and that offer a free plan. We picked at least one tool for each sales job: CRM, prospect data and sequences, call notes, writing, inbox work and automation. Selection rests on public facts such as pricing pages, plan limits and listed features. We did not run a sales test, and nothing here is a paid placement.

The eight tools at a glance

1. HubSpot

Best for: a small team's CRM with AI built in · Price: Starter $20/seat/month; Sales Hub Professional $100/seat/month, or $90 billed yearly (as of Oct 2026) · Free plan: yes

HubSpot starts free: the free tools include the CRM and Breeze Assistant for up to 2 users, with no credit card. Starter, at $20 a seat, adds the sales, marketing and service tools together with HubSpot's AI agents: the Prospecting Agent, the Data Agent, and AI meeting prep and a notetaker, with 500 HubSpot Credits a month. Sales Hub Professional raises that to 3,000 credits.

Limits: Professional carries a required one-time onboarding fee of $1,500. HubSpot was also running a limited-time lower Starter price for new customers when we checked; the $20 figure is the regular one.

2. Apollo

Best for: finding contacts and running outreach from one account · Price: Basic $65/seat/month, or $49 billed yearly; Professional $99, or $79 yearly (as of Oct 2026) · Free plan: yes, plus a 14-day trial

Apollo combines a B2B contact and company database with email sequences, a dialer and AI research. The free plan gives 75 credits per seat a month, 2 sequences and 250 emails a day, enough to test the data on a short list. Basic raises that to 2,500 credits a month and unlimited sequences; Professional adds agents, A/Z testing and call recording.

Limits: credits pay for emails and phone numbers, so the real cost follows how much data you pull. Organization, at $119 a seat billed yearly, needs at least 3 seats.

3. Otter

Best for: notes, action items and follow-ups from sales calls · Price: Pro $16.99/month, or $8.33 billed yearly; Business $30, or $19.99 yearly (as of Oct 2026) · Free plan: yes

Otter joins or records a call and writes the transcript, a summary and action items. The free Basic plan includes 300 transcription minutes a month at up to 30 minutes per conversation. Pro raises that to 1,200 minutes and 90 minutes per meeting and adds the Salesforce and HubSpot integrations, which put call notes where the deal lives.

Limits: AI Chat queries are capped per plan (20 on Basic, 50 on Pro, 200 on Business), and you should tell the people on the call that you are recording.

4. ChatGPT

Best for: cold emails, follow-ups, proposals and objection practice · Price: Go $8/month; Plus $20/month; Business $25/user/month, or $20 billed yearly (as of Oct 2026) · Free plan: yes

ChatGPT is the cheapest way to cut writing time across the whole cycle: a first-touch email from your offer and one proof point, a follow-up sequence, a quote cover note, or a role-play of the buyer's pushback before a call. Web search on the free plan helps with a quick look at an account before you write.

Limits: it does not know your pipeline unless you paste it in, and anything it says about a prospect company needs checking. On Business, OpenAI says it does not train on business data by default.

5. Claude

Best for: long proposals, RFP answers and account plans · Price: Pro $20/month, or $17 billed yearly; Team Standard $25/seat, or $20 yearly (as of Oct 2026) · Free plan: yes

Claude suits the long documents in sales: paste an RFP and your past answers and ask for a requirement-by-requirement draft, or turn discovery notes into a proposal. Projects keep your product sheets and past proposals in one place, and Pro includes Claude in Microsoft 365.

Limits: usage caps apply on every plan, and like ChatGPT it has no CRM data of its own.

6. Gemini

Best for: sellers who live in Gmail · Price: Google AI Plus $4.99/month; Google AI Pro $19.99/month (US, as of Oct 2026) · Free plan: yes

Gemini is the low-cost pick for a seller whose day runs through Gmail. Google AI Plus, at $4.99 a month, adds Gemini in Gmail, so replies and summaries of long threads happen in the inbox. For company accounts, Google's Workspace pricing page lists Gemini in Gmail from Business Starter and in Docs and Meet from Business Standard.

Limits: Gemini in Docs starts at Google AI Pro on personal plans, and Google showed us Workspace prices in local currency only, so check them on Google's page.

7. Microsoft Copilot

Best for: sellers who live in Outlook and Excel · Price: Microsoft 365 Personal $9.99/month; Microsoft 365 Business Standard with Copilot $23.50/user/month paid yearly (as of Oct 2026) · Free plan: yes, limited

Microsoft Copilot works inside Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint. For one person, Microsoft 365 Personal at $9.99 a month adds Copilot in those apps. For a team, Microsoft lists Business Standard with Copilot at $23.50 a user a month and Business Premium with Copilot at $32, both paid yearly, and says Copilot Chat comes at no additional cost with eligible Microsoft 365 plans.

Limits: on Microsoft 365 Family, Copilot in the Office apps is for the subscription owner only.

8. Zapier

Best for: moving leads and notes between apps without copy-paste · Price: Professional $29.99/month, or $19.99 billed yearly (as of Oct 2026) · Free plan: yes, plus a 14-day trial

Zapier connects 9,000+ apps: a form fill becomes a CRM contact, a booked call becomes a deal, a signed quote becomes an invoice. Paid plans add multi-step Zaps and AI by Zapier steps, which can sort or summarise a lead on the way through, and Zapier Agents handle longer jobs.

Limits: the free plan allows 100 tasks a month and two-step Zaps with no AI steps. Professional starts at 750 tasks a month, and higher task tiers cost more.

Other sales jobs and where they go

• Research an account before a call: Perplexity answers with cited sources, so you can check what it says about a company. Apollo's AI Research does the same inside the prospect record.
• Write a quote or estimate: a chat assistant with our Customer Quote Writer prompt.
• Bring back lapsed customers: the Customer Win-Back Email prompt, sent from your CRM.

What to check before you pay

• Seats. HubSpot, Apollo, Otter and the chat assistants all price per user. Count the people who sell every day, not everyone who might log in.
• Credits. Apollo meters contact data in credits that reset each cycle. Estimate how many contacts you will pull a month before you choose a tier.
• Where the record lives. Call notes and emails are worth more inside the CRM. Check the integration exists on the plan you are buying: Otter's HubSpot and Salesforce integrations start on Pro.
• Billing. Yearly billing cuts Apollo Basic from $65 to $49 a seat and Otter Pro from $16.99 to $8.33. Run the free plan for a week first.

Which one to pick

• A founder doing sales alone: the HubSpot free CRM, ChatGPT or Claude for writing, and Otter Basic for calls.
• Outbound to new accounts: Apollo for the list and the sequences.
• A team on Google or Microsoft: Gemini or Copilot in the inbox before any new tool.
• Too much copy-paste between apps: Zapier.

Whatever you buy, the first email still needs a reason to reply. This prompt keeps it short and honest:

Write three cold emails under 120 words for [job title] at [type of company].
My offer: [what you sell]. One real result I can point to: [result].
Open with their day-to-day problem, not a compliment. One soft call to action. No invented numbers, no hype words.

The full version is the Cold Email Writer prompt. Browse all sales prompts, or the ChatGPT prompts for small business for quotes, follow-ups and supplier emails.

FAQ

What is the best AI tool for sales?

It depends on the job. A CRM with AI built in, such as HubSpot, keeps the pipeline. Apollo supplies contacts and sends sequences. Otter records calls. ChatGPT or Claude writes the emails and proposals.

Are there free AI sales tools?

Yes. HubSpot, Apollo, Otter, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot and Zapier all have free plans, with limits on credits, minutes, tasks or usage.

Can ChatGPT write sales emails?

Yes, and it writes better ones when you give it the offer, the buyer's job title and one real result. Tell it not to invent numbers, and read every email before it goes out.

Is it legal to send AI-written cold emails?

Who writes the email does not change the rules for sending it. In the US, the FTC says the CAN-SPAM Act makes no exception for business-to-business email: the sender must be accurate, the subject line must not mislead, the message needs a postal address and an opt-out, and opt-outs must be honored within 10 business days.