Woodpecker Pricing Breakdown: Plans, Per-Slot Math, and Alternatives [2026]
Woodpecker has built a loyal following among B2B cold email specialists and agencies. And its pricing model is unique in the space — instead of charging per user, Woodpecker charges per "slot" based on how many new prospects you contact each month.
This sounds simple, but it creates a pricing dynamic that most teams don't fully understand until they're already committed. Let's break down exactly what each plan costs and when the per-prospect model works for or against you.
Woodpecker's 2026 Pricing Plans
| Plan | Monthly Cost (per slot) | Prospects/Month | Emails/Month | Daily Limit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $29 | 500 | 6,000 | 500/day |
| Growth | $84 | 3,000 | 36,000 | 3,000/day |
| Scale | $188 | 10,000 | 120,000 | 10,000/day |
| Max | $9,999 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
A "slot" corresponds to one email account. Unlike per-user pricing, you can have one person managing multiple slots. But practically, each active SDR needs at least one slot — often 2-3 for proper email rotation.
Plan-by-Plan Breakdown
Starter — $29/slot/month
The entry point for solo operators and small-scale cold email:
What you get:
- Contact up to 500 new prospects/month
- Send up to 6,000 emails/month (including follow-ups)
- 2 warm-up accounts
- Basic email sequences with follow-ups
- Open and click tracking
- Live chat and email support
What you don't get:
- No A/B testing
- No advanced automation
- No dedicated support
- No team collaboration features
- No phone or LinkedIn capabilities
At $29/month, the Starter plan is one of the cheapest cold email entry points on the market. But 500 prospects/month is a hard ceiling — most SDRs need to contact 500-1,000 per week, not per month.
Growth — $84/slot/month
The Growth plan removes the biggest Starter bottleneck — prospect volume:
What you get (above Starter):
- 3,000 prospects/month
- 36,000 emails/month
- 8 warm-up accounts
- A/B testing
- Advanced follow-up automation
- Dedicated support
3,000 prospects/month is workable for most individual SDRs. The A/B testing addition is important for optimizing reply rates over time.
Scale — $188/slot/month
For high-volume outbound operations:
What you get (above Growth):
- 10,000 prospects/month
- 120,000 emails/month
- 20 warm-up accounts
- Unlimited personalization
- Team collaboration tools
- Priority support
At $188/slot/month, Scale is priced for agencies and high-volume outbound teams that measure success in thousands of contacts per week.
Max — $9,999/month
The enterprise/agency tier with unlimited everything:
- Unlimited prospects and emails
- Unlimited warm-ups
- AI campaign optimization
- Dedicated account manager
This plan is clearly targeted at agencies managing dozens or hundreds of client accounts.
Understanding Woodpecker's Pricing Model
Here's what makes Woodpecker's model different — and where it can trip you up:
Per-prospect, not per-email: You're charged based on how many new prospects you add each month, not how many emails you send. Follow-up emails to existing prospects don't count against your limit.
Slots, not users: One person can manage multiple slots. But for proper email rotation and deliverability, you need multiple email accounts per SDR.
The rotation math: If you're running 3 email accounts for rotation (which most deliverability experts recommend), you need 3 Starter slots ($87/month) or realize that Growth gives you enough volume to consolidate.
What a Real Team Pays
| Scenario | Monthly | Annual |
|---|---|---|
| 1 SDR, 1 slot (Starter) | $29 | $348 |
| 1 SDR, 3 slots for rotation (Starter) | $87 | $1,044 |
| 3 SDRs, Growth (1 slot each) | $252 | $3,024 |
| 5 SDRs, Growth (1 slot each) | $420 | $5,040 |
| 5 SDRs, Growth (2 slots each for rotation) | $840 | $10,080 |
| Agency, Scale (5 slots) | $940 | $11,280 |
The math gets complicated because best practices for cold email deliverability often require 2-3 sending accounts per SDR. At Growth pricing, that's $168-252/SDR/month — suddenly comparable to per-user tools like SalesLoft.
What Woodpecker Does Well (and Doesn't)
Woodpecker excels at:
- Email deliverability — warm-up, rotation, and throttling are first-class features
- Simplicity — it does cold email and does it well, no feature bloat
- Agency-friendly — multi-client management is a core use case
- Affordable entry — $29/month to get started is hard to beat
Where Woodpecker falls short:
- Email only — no phone dialer, no LinkedIn automation, no SMS, no chat
- No built-in prospecting — you need to find contacts elsewhere
- No visitor identification — can't tell you who's on your website
- No AI personalization beyond templates — limited to mail merge variables
- Slot model confusion — many teams underestimate how many slots they need for proper rotation
- No intent signals — sends to lists, not to people showing buying behavior
Woodpecker vs MarketBetter: Cold Email Tool vs SDR OS
| Capability | Woodpecker ($29-188/slot) | MarketBetter ($500-1,500/mo flat) |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Per slot/month | Flat team pricing |
| Email sequences | ✅ Core strength | ✅ AI-personalized |
| Email deliverability | ✅ Excellent (warm-up, rotation) | ✅ Built-in |
| Phone dialer | ❌ | ✅ Smart dialer |
| LinkedIn outreach | ❌ | ✅ Integrated |
| Visitor identification | ❌ | ✅ Company identification |
| Daily playbook | ❌ | ✅ AI-prioritized |
| AI chatbot | ❌ | ✅ 24/7 visitor engagement |
| Contact enrichment | ❌ | ✅ Built-in |
| Champion tracking | ❌ | ✅ Job change alerts |
| Agency/multi-client | ✅ Strong | ❌ Not designed for agencies |
Woodpecker is a cold email specialist. It does one thing exceptionally well. But one-channel outbound in 2026 means you're reaching a shrinking percentage of buyers. Modern B2B prospects require 7-10 touches across multiple channels before responding.
The stack problem: Woodpecker ($84/slot) + Apollo for data ($99/mo) + phone tool ($50-100/user) + visitor ID ($500+/mo) + chatbot ($200+/mo) = $933-1,783/month for a single SDR's complete toolkit.
MarketBetter at $500/month for the Starter plan includes email, phone, chatbot, visitor ID, enrichment, and a daily playbook — all in one.
Who Should Choose Woodpecker?
Woodpecker is ideal if:
- Cold email is your primary (or only) outreach channel
- You're an agency managing multiple client campaigns
- Email deliverability is your top priority
- You run high-volume, low-touch email campaigns
- Your budget is tight and you need the cheapest entry point ($29/month)
Who Should Choose MarketBetter?
MarketBetter is the better fit when:
- Your SDR team needs multichannel outreach (email + phone + LinkedIn)
- You want to know who's visiting your website before reaching out
- Your reps need a daily playbook, not just an email sequencer
- You want one platform instead of cobbling together 4-5 tools
- You're building an in-house SDR team (not an agency)
The Bottom Line
Woodpecker is the best cold email tool for teams that only need cold email. The deliverability features are genuinely excellent, the pricing starts at a fair $29/month, and agencies love the multi-client architecture.
But cold email alone is an increasingly narrow channel. Response rates continue to drop industry-wide, and buyers expect outreach that reflects their actual behavior — not just their name in a CSV.
If cold email is your whole strategy, Woodpecker delivers great value. If you need a complete SDR platform that starts with intent signals instead of imported lists, there's a different approach worth considering.
Ready to move beyond cold email to signal-driven outreach? Book a demo →