11 Best AI BDR Tools
In this post, we’ll look at 11 of the best AI BDR Tools, focusing on features, pros, and cons.
Before AI BDR tools, Business development reps (BDRs) had to do a lot of manual work to find and contact leads:
- Search for sales leads online, using manual scraping tools, and via LinkedIn;
- Or buy databases, and then manually filter 1000s of potential leads;
- Put viable ones in email outreach tools;
- Whenever possible, tailor emails to individual prospects;
- Hit send and hope for the best;
- Remember to do follow-up emails and messages.
With AI BDR tools, all of that is ⏤ or should be ⏤ a thing of the past.
AI BDR tools automate every step, from sourcing leads to sending personalized emails and messages in an automated sequence.
Before we look at 11 of the best AI BDR tools on the market, let’s answer a question that has a lot of BDRs worried: Will these tools take my job?
Could AI BDR tools replace BDRs & SDRs?
When AI-powered (Artificial Intelligence) BDR tools started coming out, many sales reps ⏤ especially those at the prospecting end started ⏤ worrying about job security.
Business development reps (BDRs), sales development reps (SDRs), and other demand-gen employees are only as good ⏤ and safe in their jobs ⏤ as their last quarter’s performance.
So, with the emergence of AI BDR tools, are BDRs and SDRs even less secure in their jobs?
No, is the short answer.
- AI BDR tools haven’t replaced SDRs and BDRs.
- We are seeing that with SDRs and BDRs: AI tools like Overloop AI can take 90% of the most difficult, time-consuming, and boring work off a sales reps desk:
- Finding prospects with enough data points to make hyper-personalized outreach easier;
- Automating the hyper-personalized outreach at scale;
- Writing hyper-personalized email sequences at scale that will make it easier to actually get a response, book a call, a meeting, or a demo.
In every way, AI BDR tools are making sales reps better at their jobs.
It means that BDRs can focus on preparing for meetings, demos, and building relationships with prospects and turning them into clients.
Let’s look at the 11 best AI BDR tools on the market. 11 Best AI BDR Tools
Here are the top 11 AI BDR Tools for 2024.
Overloop AI
A powerful AI Sales Prospecting and AI BDR Platform.
Overloop AI: Everything you need to scale sales and revenue on autopilot, at a fraction of the cost of a human BDR (without replacing them!).
Simple and Quick DFY Setup
Before a BDR can start prospecting, you need to set up a sales campaign the right way.
If you don’t buy domain names that are variants of your primary, you risk emails from your primary domain being flagged as spam.
Think of adding “get”, “try”, etc., and other versions as secondary domains you can use purely for these sales campaigns.
As part of the setup sequence, new customers need to:
- Buy a domain, or several, if you’re planning a mass-volume campaign
- Open a Google Workspace with that domain and create one or more email addresses
- Give us access, and we’ll do the rest!
We take care of all of the more technical aspects of account and domain configuration.
Next, we start the warmup sequence, which doesn’t take too long.
After that, you’re ready to go.
Unlike other AI BDR Tools, the domain(s), email addresses, and Google Workspaces are 100% yours. You own and control them, so you don’t need to worry about being locked in or not being able to make use of those emails and domains.
AI-powered B2B database
Every sales campaign depends on having a database of prospects.
Overloop taps into an advanced AI-powered B2B database containing over 450 million contacts.
Our AI assistant tool automatically enriches those contacts, providing you with as much accurate information as possible to ensure every email is hyper-personalized.
We do this at scale, so you or your sales team can focus on booking calls and closing deals instead of manually scraping for any information that might help you generate and convert leads.
Find leads and send emails while you sleep!
To get started, define your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), and Overloop will take care of the rest. Our AI will automatically build your lists.
You can go as granular as you need:
- Specific cities and regions within countries;
- Funding or revenue;
- Technologies companies and people are using;
- And loads more!
Find which ICPs are worth targeting, then use our AI-powered database to double down on the markets that have the biggest appetite for your product or services.
AI-powered Email Writing
The hardest part of any sales campaign for BDRs is giving prospects a reason to reply.
Generic emails with no follow-up are usually ignored.
If you send 1000 emails and 99% are ignored or deleted, your BDR team won’t get anywhere with a sales campaign. Our system acts as an AI BDR tool, ensuring emails are perfectly tailored for every recipient.
Overloop’s AI engine analyzes the lead’s website and social media profiles to craft ultra-personalized and impactful cold emails, giving prospects a reason to reply.
Our AI BDR tool handles everything, allowing your BDRs to focus on what matters most – building meaningful connections and growing your business.
AI-powered follow-up sequences and LinkedIn engagement
For BDRs, SDRs, and anyone in demand-gen, booking meetings is the #1 goal.
Booked calls, demos, and meetings are the KPI every BDR is targeted against, and also, how bonuses and commissions are calculated.
In sales, conversions are the only thing that matters.
That’s why hyper-personalization with emails and the prospects you target make such a big difference. With Overloop, you aren’t simply sending out 1000s of generic emails and hoping for the best.
Our AI assistant tool implements high-performing multi-channel outbound campaigns, optimizing the timing and sequencing of each message for maximum engagement.
Overloop AI: Everything you need to scale sales and revenue on autopilot, at a fraction of the cost of a human BDR.
Outreach.io
Outreach.io is an AI-powered sales automation platform.
Features:
- AI BDR tools included within the platform
- End-to-end sales lifecycle management
- Systems to make BDRs more effective
Pros:
- Built for managing sales pipelines and teams of BDRs at scale
- Numerous use cases, including coaching and forecasting
Cons:
- Pricing is geared towards enterprise sales teams
- Might have more features than the average smaller business needs
HubSpot
As part of HubSpot’s suite of inbound SaaS tools comes with an AI BDR tool.
Features:
- Deal management, reporting, and analytics
- Supports AI-based outreach
- Integration with over 1,400 apps and other tools in HubSpot’s App Marketplace
Pros:
- One of the most reliable CRMs on the market
- Integrations and new AI sales BDR tools features
Cons:
- HubSpot doesn’t go into much detail about how the AI features work or if they support automated cold email outreach
- HubSpot’s pricing is usually geared towards Enterprise-level customers, so can be expensive for small and medium businesses.
Salesloft
A sales engagement platform with AI BDR Tools.
Features:
- Now known as a “revenue orchestration platform”, built using AI-powered tools
- Manages the entire sales lifecycle, particularly for SaaS companies
- Improves the seller workflow with Rhythm, an AI-powered signal-to-action engine
Pros:
- A market leader in the Forrester Wave: Sales Engagement Platforms (2022)
- Lots of features, making it especially useful for larger sales teams
Cons:
- Product is priced more for larger (Enterprise SaaS) sales teams, competing with the likes of Salesforce
- Might have more features than smaller businesses, agencies, and startups want or need, especially for prospecting and demand generation.
Clari
Clari acquired a sales automation platform, Groove, that comes equipped with AI BDR tools.
Features:
- An AI BDR tool that helps close the gap between sales insights and actions
- Makes revenue sales cycles more predictable
- Writes engagement emails that are tailored to how a company wants to sell and sound in outbound emails
Pros:
- Sales engagement can be automated and scaled across multiple channels
- Built for RevOps leaders such as CROs, so they can provide real-time information to company boards and investors
Cons:
- Designed more for enterprise RevOps leaders such as CROs rather than startup or agency founders and SMBs
- Reviews complain of subpar setup and functionality.
Close’s Cold Email Generator
Close is a CRM built for sales teams. Close also offers a free Cold Email Generator tool for BDRs.
Features:
- Uses AI to generate a first draft of cold emails for BDRs
- You can then put that into Close’s Sales AI tool, or your own email outreach solution
- You can also pick the desired outcome: e.g., reply to the email, book a call, fill in a form, etc.
Pros:
- It’s free and easy to use!
- Has basic functionality you’d expect from a free AI writing tool
Cons:
- On its own, it can generate emails but can’t do anything else
- You would need to plug the outputs into an outbound email SaaS tool (and have the databases) to implement cold outreach.
Salesforce
Salesforce is another CRM powerhouse that’s embraced the AI BDR tool movement.
Features:
- Sales AI product automates aspects of outbound and inbound sales with Salesforce’s Einstein Copilot, an AI assistant tool.
- It’s used to guide sellers (salespeople) to close deals more effectively
- Gives sales teams more insights with predictive AI tools
Pros:
- Salesforce’s Einstein 1 is tailored for once a sales lead enters a pipeline
- Predictive analytics helps sales teams to realize more value from every deal
Cons:
- An AI BDR assistant is less helpful when you’re trying to get sales leads from cold outreach.
- Salesforce’s Sales AI product can’t do that part of the sales campaign.
Clay
An AI BDR tool for better outreach and lead generation data.
Features:
- Scrapes lead data from 75 sources
- An AI sales assistant enriches those leads
- Automated tools send outbound sales emails
Pros:
- Custom sales data enrichment
- Sales AI assistant integrations
Cons:
- The quality of the data and sources can be questionable, especially if it’s scraping from your own LinkedIn profile and contact details are non-existent or outdated
- The number of data sources is more limited than other tools
InstantlyAI
Instantly is an AI-powered BDR tool.
Features:
- DFY email setup and automated warmup;
- A Lead Finder database (or you can use your own);
- Automated outbound campaigns.
Pros:
- A low-ish cost compared to some AI sales tools;
- 24/7 support team.
Cons:
- DFY setup doesn’t work as well as advertised, with higher hard bounce rates than expected;
- Customer support struggles to keep up with the high levels of support tickets.
ChatGPT Plus
Can you use OpenAI’s ChatGPT Plus to write sales emails? Yes, you can, to a point.
Features:
- Simple to use; millions of us are familiar with providing ChatGPT with prompts for various tasks
- Give it a sales-related prompt and it will generate a sales email
- Integrate it with other sales tools so it can become an AI BDR tool
Pros:
- Low-cost for the Plus version (formerly ChatGPT 4.0) and easy to use
- Lots of integrations available
Cons:
- It would require integrations with several tools for it to become an AI BDR tool
- Numerous limitations, even in the Pro version, and hyper-personalization would be difficult at scale.
Crystal
An AI BDR tool for pre-meeting personality assessments.
Features:
- A Chrome extension for BDRs to assess the personalities of sales prospects before meetings
- DISC assessments are used to score prospects on dozens of personality points
- Connects with Gmail and LinkedIn for pre- and post-meeting emails and messages
Pros:
- A clever advantage if the data is accurate and it’s used well
- Makes it easier to build a rapport with prospects
Cons:
- BDRs still need to make a judgment call on live calls; they can’t assume someone will be exactly as a DISC assessment predicts (they could be having a bad day)
- Monthly billing isn’t possible, only annual pricing, making it too expensive for quite a few businesses.
Wrapping up…
That wraps up our list of the top 11 AI BDR tools for 2024.
These cover a wide range of use cases, and you should be able to find one that suits you.
Did we miss any? Let us know, and we’ll consider adding it to the list.
Get Overloop AI for your AI BDR Tool: Everything you need to grow 100% on autopilot, at a fraction of the cost of a human BDR.
AI BDR Tools Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What are AI BDR Tools?
AI BDR tools are designed to do a lot of the pre and post-meeting work that BDRs used to have to do manually.
With the right tool, and used in the right way, they should save BDRs hours and hours of time.
AI BDR tools can:
- Source leads
- Enrich the data with social signals and more
- Verify the leads, to ensure contact details are accurate
- Write a whole sequence of personalized emails and messages
- Implement the outreach sequences automatically
- Track every click, conversion, reply, and call/meeting booked
- Provide all of that information for reporting purposes to a BDR’s manager, such as a Head of Sales, CRO, or Sales Director.
What to look for in AI BDR Tools?
When looking for an AI BDR tool, you need one that can:
- Automate the end-to-end manual workloads of BDRs, SDRs, and founders who do sales themselves
- Use AI effectively in the tool to add value, such as enriching sales leads and creating hyper-personalized context and content
- Implement outbound sales campaigns at scale
- Monitor, manage, and optimize the process automatically so that BDRs and other salespeople can focus on where they add the most value: booking calls, doing sales calls, building rapport, and closing deals.
Get Overloop AI for your AI BDR Tool: Everything you need to grow 100% on autopilot, at a fraction of the cost of a human BDR.
