Key takeaways
- Early startups sell through founders, so tools must be quick to learn.
- Pick tools that still work when the first sales hire joins.
- Free tiers help while the ideal customer profile is still changing.
- Pebbles Ai gives founders research, leads and drafting in one place.
What startups need from prospecting software
Startups need prospecting software that is fast to start and flexible while the market is still being tested. The ideal customer profile often changes every few months.
- A free tier or low commitment while you test segments.
- Flexible fields so your CRM can change with your market.
- Easy research on new segments and accounts.
- Room for a second or third seller to join.
How the options suit startups
The options below are common in startup sales stacks. The notes summarise each product's own description.
- Attio: a flexible CRM with enrichment, email and calendar sync, and sequences on Pro.
- Clay: spreadsheet-style enrichment workflows, with a free plan and unlimited seats on every plan.
- Hunter: domain search, an email finder and verifier, and Discover for finding companies.
- lemlist: cold email and LinkedIn automation with lemwarm warm-up included in all plans.
- folk: a light relationship CRM with enrichment and campaigns.
- Unify: signal-based outbound with sequencing and a free tier.
A startup example
Picture Tidewater Labs, an illustrative seed-stage startup selling compliance software to fintech firms. The two founders sell, and they test two segments each quarter.
Tidewater could keep accounts in Attio, find emails with Hunter and send short tests from lemlist. When a segment works, they add enrichment in Clay to scale it.
Where Pebbles Ai fits
Pebbles Ai fits founders who want to test segments quickly without stitching tools together. Your assistant researches a segment with citations, finds companies and people, and drafts outreach from what Company Intel knows about your product.
The CRM is labelled Beta and has no native sync with other CRMs; through MCP the assistants can create and update records in Attio or Pipedrive, and each CRM write is an approval action under the execution mode (in Manual mode it waits for your approval). Contacts can be imported from Google, Microsoft or a CSV file, so an early spreadsheet of accounts carries over.
The products compared
Attio
Modern data-driven CRM
A flexible, data-model-first CRM with automatic enrichment, email and calendar sync, sequences and call intelligence on Pro, and a free tier.
Best for: Startups and scale-ups that want a customisable CRM with enrichment and a developer-friendly API.
Pricing model: Free, Plus, Pro and Enterprise, per user, with seat and workspace credits. Source: Attio pricing
Clay
Data enrichment and GTM workflow builder
A spreadsheet-style workspace for building enrichment and prospecting workflows, pulling from many data providers with waterfalls and an AI web research agent, priced by actions and data credits.
Best for: GTM engineers and RevOps teams who want to design custom enrichment and research workflows across many data sources.
Pricing model: Free, Launch, Growth and Enterprise; monthly actions and data credits; unlimited seats. Source: Clay pricing
Hunter
Email finder and verifier
An email finding and verification tool with domain search, an email finder, a verifier, simple sequences, company discovery and an API, with a free plan.
Best for: Anyone who needs to find and verify professional email addresses quickly, with a free start.
Pricing model: Free, Starter, Growth, Scale and Enterprise; yearly billing at a discount. Source: Hunter pricing
lemlist
Multichannel cold outreach platform
A cold outreach tool for email and multichannel campaigns, with a built-in lead database, email and phone finder, LinkedIn automation, warm-up and an AI agent, priced per user.
Best for: Founders and outbound teams running personalised cold email and LinkedIn campaigns who want warm-up and a lead database in the same tool.
Pricing model: Email, Multichannel and Enterprise, priced per user, monthly or annual. Source: lemlist pricing
folk
Lightweight relationship CRM
A lightweight CRM for relationship-driven teams, with contact enrichment, email campaigns, AI assistants and a LinkedIn extension, priced per member with a two-week trial.
Best for: Founders and small teams managing relationships and simple campaigns.
Pricing model: Standard, Premium and Enterprise, per member, monthly or annual. Source: folk pricing
Unify
Signal-based outbound platform
An outbound platform built on buying signals, with a people and company dataset drawn from many sources, multichannel sequencing, agentic chat and CRM sync, with a free tier.
Best for: Teams running signal-led outbound that want sequencing and CRM sync with HubSpot or Salesforce.
Pricing model: Free, Base, Pro (per seat) and Business. Source: Unify pricing
We make Pebbles Ai. Facts about other products come from their own public pages, checked on .
Where Pebbles Ai fits
- CapabilityResearch & analysisResearch a new segment and get an answer with numbered citations, so you can test a market before you build a list.
- CapabilityProspecting & customer recordsSave ideal customer profiles in the CRM, then find leads by role and location at up to ten named companies a run.
- CapabilityOutreach contentDraft email and LinkedIn campaigns in your personality; generated emails wait as drafts in your connected Gmail or Outlook, and LinkedIn messages are drafted for you to send.
Common questions
When should a startup buy prospecting software?
Once founders are prospecting every week and losing track of accounts. Before that, a spreadsheet and your inbox are often enough.
Should founders do their own prospecting?
Yes, early on. Founders learn which segments respond, which shapes the product and the first sales hire's playbook.
What should a startup prospecting stack include?
A CRM, a way to find emails and a way to send personal outreach. Add enrichment and signals once a segment proves itself.
About this page. Written by the Pebbles Ai team for people who run sales, marketing and growth. Last updated .
