InsideSales Playbooks vs. Mailshake

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
InsideSales Playbooks
Score 6.7 out of 10
N/A
InsideSales Playbooks (formerly XANT Playbooks) aims to help SDRs and AEs quickly build closeable pipeline, by helping salespeople get a hold of more of the right people. InsideSales.com uses their A.I.-platform called Neuralytics to target likely buyers combined with their cadence engine to help sales reps consistently engage all of their prospects in a personalized way. Just like Waze from Google helps drivers get to their destination quickly based on the data from other drivers,…N/A
Mailshake
Score 9.5 out of 10
N/A
Mailshake is a suite of tools for teams sending sales emails, including pre-written emails, follow-up scheduling and send controls, merge fields and customization / personalization, in-built monitoring, and both an API and Zapier integrations, notably with Gmail and Google Suite.
$50
per month
Pricing
InsideSales PlaybooksMailshake
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Email Outreach
$50.00
per month
Sales Engagement
$99.00
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
InsideSales PlaybooksMailshake
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeRequiredNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
InsideSales PlaybooksMailshake
Considered Both Products
InsideSales Playbooks
Chose InsideSales Playbooks
HubSpot CRM and Outreach
Chose InsideSales Playbooks
It allows us to create better outreach cadences, more flexibility, and better automation.
Chose InsideSales Playbooks
It is user-friendly.
Chose InsideSales Playbooks
You can do so much more with Playbooks. the power dialer that we had previously just allowed us to take a few notes and disposition a call. with Playbooks, you can keep track of accounts. Keep track of conversations, lists of what needs to get done, schedule calls and much much …
Chose InsideSales Playbooks
My company decided to switch most likely to improve efficiency of dials and ease of use. This new software is much different as it helps the representatives keep track of their accounts and forces a certain amount of touches before giving up on accounts. This will save the reps …
Chose InsideSales Playbooks
Playbooks comes with many more features and it is not as glitchy. It allows me to consistently move forward in my tasks and not have to wait for a bunch of tabs to re load to complete my work.
Chose InsideSales Playbooks
I have only us InsideSales Predictive PowerDialer which enabled quicker dialing. Playbooks has so much more to offer including automation and cadence control.
Chose InsideSales Playbooks
I have never used another product like InsideSales.com Predictive Playbooks.
Chose InsideSales Playbooks
I like PowerDialer for speed. It was less bulky and didn't take up my screen, but Playbooks is better for cadence and setting appointments.
Chose InsideSales Playbooks
Playbooks is more efficient than Salesforce in letting me organize my day and know exactly who I need to call and when.
Chose InsideSales Playbooks
It's better than the lightning dialer as it logs calls a lot faster and everything works so much faster.
Chose InsideSales Playbooks
My company chose this tool to use, and I am really glad they did. Although I did not have a direct impact on the decision I am very happy they made this decision which I believe to be the best for our team!
Chose InsideSales Playbooks
This is the first product I have evaluated. But it still is one of the best I have ever used.
Chose InsideSales Playbooks
Playbooks offers a more streamlined way of entering data into Salesforce.
Chose InsideSales Playbooks
The PowerDialer was very easy to use but was simple. There was no organization or anything in that type of tool. It was simply to disposition your calls and that was it. Playbooks is much more predictive and intelligent. It makes it easy to organize accounts and call them …
Chose InsideSales Playbooks
I'm not 100% sure if I used the predictive pipeline before, but I used to work at another sales company and we had an inside sales system that was driven by neuralytics. It was nice because it had so many different algorithms going on in the background that would tee-up the …
Chose InsideSales Playbooks
It was paid for by my employer and implemented company-wide for the Business Development Department.
Chose InsideSales Playbooks
Playbooks is much better than base because it is far more intuitive and does not interrupt the workflow of the reps. Reps can also continue to work out of Salesforce reports if they have found that to be more effective, which is a huge plus over tools like base.
Mailshake
Chose Mailshake
You can use Mailchimp or SendGrid for similar use, with Mailchimp the email automation is limited, and SendGrid holds up quite well. However, Mailshake is strictly designed and well equipped for email outreach and unusually cold emails, and its usability is second to none.
Chose Mailshake
For more advanced email campaigns, I use ActiveCampaign and the email sending provider because it gives more control and options related to the drip rules. Besides that, for simple campaigns that need to be followed up in a great, quick, and simple way, Mailshake is perfect …
Chose Mailshake
These tools are undoubtedly reputable products that are used by millions of users. However, for the goal of lead generation by cold emailing, Mailshake shines by its genius approach of highest possible personalization of the messages. We see incredible results with every …
Chose Mailshake
While MailChimp is an established email marketing platform, it is more suitable for jobs like sending out email newsletters or welcome messages.
Mailshake is a niche product that shines in cold email and drip campaigns that are highly personalized for each recipient. However, it …
Chose Mailshake
We looked at several email marketing solutions to find a solution for our email outreach campaign but decided to go with Mailshake because of it's deep focus on email outreach, ease of use and pricing. Mailshake also integrates well with other software via Zapier so we did not …
Best Alternatives
InsideSales PlaybooksMailshake
Small Businesses
Salesmate
Salesmate
Score 10.0 out of 10
Salesflare
Salesflare
Score 6.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
HubSpot Sales Hub
HubSpot Sales Hub
Score 8.5 out of 10
Mailtrack
Mailtrack
Score 9.7 out of 10
Enterprises
Outreach
Outreach
Score 8.5 out of 10
Groove, a Clari company
Groove, a Clari company
Score 6.2 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
InsideSales PlaybooksMailshake
Likelihood to Recommend
1.3
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
3.2
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
7.8
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
InsideSales PlaybooksMailshake
Likelihood to Recommend
Playbooks is great for sales organizations that need help with efficiency and cadence. It is well suited for heavy calling and high emails on accounts. Playbooks also does a great job at taking the guesswork out of accounts for my reps. The only time I would think that Playbooks would be less appropriate would be if a company already has a similar system in place.
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Mailshake is great for cold prospecting and drip email campaigns. I do not think Mailshake is well-suited for hyper-personalized one-to-one emailing.
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Pros
  • Organization with tasks - Playbooks tells reps what step they are on with each account
  • Keeping reps focused & accountable - now, they know exactly what is expected of them for that day
  • Time efficiency - realizing what accounts to continue working, and what accounts to stop working
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  • Saving time by sending pre-defined follow up messages to those who do not open the email or respond.
  • Great detailed stats in the dashboard.
  • Integration with CRM for automatic import of leads.
  • Great deliverability of emails with G Suite integration.
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Cons
  • There does seem to be a lot of steps involved for each play when it would be nice to have fewer steps to send out an invite to an upcoming webinar.
  • It would also be great to have more VOD's that we could watch on our own time to learn more about the tool.
  • It would also be great to have the ability to see exactly when they open an email and forward it on.
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  • Mailshake works only with Gmail/G Suite accounts.
  • The only option for customizing emails is in the CSV file. It would be great if there were a feature in the tool for this.
  • Missing starts about the total number of opens of an email (it is only tracked once).
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Usability
It only took a day to get comfortable with Playbooks. The ease of use and overall usability is fantastic in the sense that it's pretty straightforward once you get enough repetitions in the tool. I also like all of the videos and resources available if support is needed
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I found it pretty good - we were able to put email templates and campaigns together almost immediately. The reason I gave it an 8 is because if you want to edit those templates, the saving and making sure they were part of the campaigns was a little tricky and not intuitive.
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Support Rating
No answers on this topic
Quick support. They offer very extensive and detailed tutorials on how to use the tool, as well as how to succeed in sending emails the right way. It probably reduces the number of support tickets and general support needs. The videos make it very easy to use their solutions. Great way to educate new clients.
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Alternatives Considered
You can do so much more with Playbooks. the power dialer that we had previously just allowed us to take a few notes and disposition a call. with Playbooks, you can keep track of accounts. Keep track of conversations, lists of what needs to get done, schedule calls and much much more.
Read full review
You can use Mailchimp or SendGrid for similar use, with Mailchimp the email automation is limited, and SendGrid holds up quite well. However, Mailshake is strictly designed and well equipped for email outreach and unusually cold emails, and its usability is second to none.
Read full review
Return on Investment
  • 100's of hours back in our week due to Salesforce Integration!
  • We have more clients answering the phone due to creative caller ID solutions.
  • We can standardize our messaging by partnering with Marketing to help build plays and auto-enroll certain contacts based on messaging.
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  • I'd say it was a net negative for us because the initiative did not lead to sales for us. It was probably HOW we were using it, and not the fault of the product itself. If you have luck with cold emails, and just need a new platform, Mailshake could be a great, and inexpensive option. Our loss was mostly employee time, and learning what doesn't work for us is a positive in the end.
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ScreenShots

InsideSales Playbooks Screenshots

Screenshot of Playbooks DashboardScreenshot of Editing a RecordScreenshot of Creating an EmailScreenshot of Adding NotesScreenshot of Scheduling a CallScreenshot of Viewing Task List