The Easy B2B Outreach Stack: Instantly + HeyReach + Apollo (Email + LinkedIn in One System)

Last updated: June 13, 2026

Answer in 40 words: The simplest B2B outbound system uses three tools: Apollo for prospect data, Instantly for cold email, and HeyReach for LinkedIn. Total cost: $140-230/mo. They connect natively, feed leads into GoHighLevel via webhooks, and a solo founder can set it up in a weekend.

The Short Version

Most outbound content makes this look way harder than it is. GTM influencers with 15-tool stacks, Clay waterfall enrichment flows, and custom API orchestration layers that require a full-time ops person to maintain. That’s fine if you have a 20-person sales org. It’s overkill if you’re a B2B company under $10M trying to book meetings.

Here’s the simple version that actually works: Apollo for prospect data. Instantly for cold email. HeyReach for LinkedIn. Three tools, three jobs, one system. They connect to each other natively. They feed leads into your CRM through webhooks. And the whole thing costs less than $250/mo.

I set this stack up for B2B clients regularly. It works for companies with 1-5 people running outbound. No GTM engineer required. If you want the deeper, more advanced version, I wrote the full architecture in how to build an automated B2B outbound engine. This post is the starter version. The one you can actually set up this week.

Why does outbound look so complicated?

A B2B outreach stack is the set of tools you use to find prospects, contact them across email and LinkedIn, and manage their replies in a CRM. That’s all it is.

But scroll LinkedIn for 10 minutes and you’ll see outbound stacks with Clay, Apollo, Instantly, HeyReach, n8n, Slack, OpenAI, a custom webhook layer, three enrichment waterfalls, and a 47-step automation flow. It looks impressive. It also takes 80+ hours to build, breaks when any single API changes, and requires someone technical to maintain.

For a B2B company doing $2-8M in revenue with a founder, a marketer, and maybe one sales rep, that’s not a stack. That’s a science project.

The reality is simpler. Outbound has three jobs:

1. Find the right people. (data)
2. Reach them on email. (cold email)
3. Reach them on LinkedIn. (social outreach)

One tool per job. Connect them. Run the motion. That’s it.

What’s in the stack?

Three tools. Each does one thing well.

Tool	Job	Cost
Apollo	Prospect data + list building	Free – $49/mo
Instantly	Cold email sending + warmup	$30-47/mo
HeyReach	LinkedIn outreach + automation	$59-79/mo per sender
Total		$89-175/mo

Add GoHighLevel at $97/mo as your CRM and the full outbound + CRM system runs under $275/mo. Compare that to HubSpot Marketing + Sales Professional at $990+/mo, or an all-in-one enterprise outbound platform at $500-2,000/mo.

How does Apollo fit as the data layer?

Apollo is where you build your prospect lists. It has a database of 270+ million contacts with company data, job titles, verified emails, and phone numbers. You search by industry, company size, job title, location, tech stack, and dozens of other filters. Then you export the list and load it into Instantly and HeyReach.

Pricing that makes sense for lean teams:

• Free: 100 email credits/mo, 2 sequences, basic filters. Good enough to test whether the data matches your ICP before paying.
• Basic ($49/mo annual): 1,000 export credits, buying intent data, A/B testing, unlimited email credits. This is the tier most B2B teams under $10M should start on.
• Professional ($79/mo annual): 2,000 export credits, AI email writing, dialer. Worth it once you’re running consistent weekly outbound.

The free plan alone gets you started. Build a list of 50-100 prospects, export it, load it into your outbound tools, and see if the contacts convert before committing to a paid plan.

For the deeper comparison of Apollo against other data tools, I covered it in Apollo vs Clay.

How does Instantly handle cold email?

Instantly is the cold email platform. You load your prospect list from Apollo, write your email sequences, and Instantly handles sending, warmup, deliverability, and reply management.

Why Instantly for the email layer:

• Unlimited email accounts on every plan. Connect as many sending domains and inboxes as you need. This is how you scale cold email safely. More inboxes means lower volume per inbox, which means better deliverability.
• Built-in warmup included. New sending domains need to build reputation before you blast cold email. Instantly’s warmup network handles this automatically. Most competing tools charge $30-50/mo extra for warmup.
• Simple sequence builder. Write your cold email sequence (3-5 emails over 2 weeks), set the schedule, and let it run. No drag-and-drop flowchart complexity. Just emails, timing, and conditions.
• Growth plan at $30/mo (annual) covers most lean teams. 5,000 emails/mo, unlimited inboxes, unlimited warmup. That’s enough for a solo founder or small team doing targeted outbound.

One important setup detail: Set up a subdomain for cold email. Don’t send from your primary business domain. Create something like outreach.yourcompany.com or hello.yourcompany.com, connect those inboxes to Instantly, and keep your main domain reputation clean. This takes 20 minutes and protects you from deliverability issues affecting your regular business email.

How does HeyReach handle LinkedIn?

HeyReach is the LinkedIn outreach layer. It automates connection requests, follow-up messages, profile views, and InMails across one or multiple LinkedIn accounts from a single dashboard.

Why HeyReach for the LinkedIn layer:

• Sender rotation. If you have multiple LinkedIn profiles (founder + sales rep + marketer), HeyReach rotates outreach across them automatically. This keeps each account under LinkedIn’s daily limits while increasing total reach.
• Unified inbox. All LinkedIn conversations from all connected accounts in one view. No logging into 3 separate LinkedIn profiles to check messages.
• Smart sequences. Connection request → wait 3 days → if accepted, send message → if no reply, follow up → if replied, stop. Conditional logic without the complexity.
• Cloud-based. Runs on HeyReach’s servers, not your browser. Your computer can be off and campaigns still run.

Pricing: $59/mo per sender on annual billing, $79/mo monthly. Team members, VAs, and clients don’t cost extra. Only connected LinkedIn sender accounts count as seats. For a full breakdown, I covered it in HeyReach review.

For how HeyReach compares to the other LinkedIn tools, see HeyReach vs Skylead vs Dux-Soup.

How do all three tools connect?

This is the part that surprises people. It’s not complicated.

Apollo → Instantly + HeyReach. Build your prospect list in Apollo. Export as CSV. Upload the email list to Instantly for cold email campaigns. Upload the LinkedIn list to HeyReach for LinkedIn sequences. Same prospects, two channels, coordinated timing.

HeyReach ↔ Instantly (native integration). This is the piece most articles miss. HeyReach has a native integration with Instantly. You can set it up so that if a prospect doesn’t respond to your LinkedIn sequence, they automatically get added to your Instantly email campaign. Or vice versa. Replies on either channel pause outreach on both. No Zapier. No custom code. Just connect the two platforms and set the rules.

The multi-channel motion: LinkedIn connection request first (warm touch) → if no response after 5 days, Instantly sends cold email → if they reply on either channel, both sequences pause automatically. Two channels working together without you manually coordinating anything.

That’s the core system. Three tools, connected. One list of prospects, two outreach channels, automatic coordination.

How does this feed back into GoHighLevel?

The outreach stack finds and reaches prospects. Your CRM manages them once they respond. GoHighLevel at $97/mo is where it all comes together.

The simple version: webhooks.

Both Instantly and HeyReach support outbound webhooks. When a prospect replies, books a meeting, or hits a specific status, the webhook fires and pushes that lead into GoHighLevel automatically. Name, email, company, LinkedIn URL, conversation context. All in your CRM without manual entry.

Setting up a webhook takes 5 minutes per tool. In HeyReach, go to Integrations, create a webhook, paste your GHL webhook URL, and pick which events to send (new reply, positive sentiment, meeting booked). Same process in Instantly. Done.

The advanced version: n8n.

If you want more control, n8n is an open-source automation builder that sits between your outreach tools and your CRM. It lets you add logic: route positive replies to GHL pipeline stage 1, tag negative replies, send a Slack notification when someone books a call, trigger a different GHL automation based on which channel they replied on.

n8n has a native HeyReach integration and connects to Instantly via webhooks. Setup takes about an hour for a basic flow. But start with direct webhooks first. You can always add n8n later when you need more sophistication.

The key point: everything flows into one CRM. No matter which channel a prospect responds on, they end up in GoHighLevel where your pipeline, follow-up automations, SMS, and calendar booking take over. One source of truth.

What does the full motion look like?

Here’s a typical week for a lean B2B team running this stack:

Monday: Prospect. Spend 30-60 minutes in Apollo building a targeted list of 50-100 prospects. Filter by ICP criteria. Export the list.

Tuesday: Load campaigns. Upload the email list to Instantly. Upload the LinkedIn list to HeyReach. Write or update your sequences (or reuse existing ones). Set the native HeyReach-Instantly sync so channels coordinate automatically.

Wednesday-Friday: Sequences run. LinkedIn connection requests go out via HeyReach. Cold emails send via Instantly. Replies flow into GoHighLevel through webhooks. You check the unified inbox in HeyReach for LinkedIn replies and Instantly’s Unibox for email replies. Respond to warm leads. Let the automation handle the follow-ups.

Weekly time investment: 3-5 hours. That includes list building, campaign loading, and reply management. The rest is automated.

Compare that to the “build a 15-tool stack and hire a GTM engineer” approach. Same result. Fraction of the complexity. Fraction of the cost.

What does this stack actually cost?

Here’s the real monthly math for a solo founder or small team (1-3 people):

Tool	Plan	Monthly cost
Apollo	Basic (annual)	$49/mo
Instantly	Growth (annual)	$30/mo
HeyReach	Growth, 1 sender (annual)	$59/mo
GoHighLevel	Starter (CRM)	$97/mo
rb2b (optional)	Starter	$79/mo
Total without rb2b		$235/mo
Total with rb2b		$314/mo

For comparison:

• HubSpot Marketing + Sales Professional: $990+/mo before contact overages and extra seats
• Outreach.io or Salesloft: $100-150/user/mo with annual contracts
• Lemlist (all-in-one multi-channel): $69-99/mo but with lower LinkedIn automation depth than HeyReach

Even with rb2b, the full stack is still cheaper than HubSpot Marketing Professional alone ($890/mo).

If you’re bootstrapping or testing outbound for the first time, you can start even cheaper: Apollo Free ($0) + Instantly Growth ($30) + HeyReach with 1 sender ($59) = $89/mo before CRM.

What are the honest limitations?

Being straight about where this stack has edges:

HeyReach is LinkedIn-only. No native email sending. That’s why you need Instantly alongside it. The native integration between the two tools solves the coordination problem, but you are running two platforms. Some all-in-one tools like Lemlist or Skylead combine both channels in one UI. The trade-off: those tools are weaker on LinkedIn automation depth than HeyReach and weaker on email deliverability than Instantly.

Instantly pricing gets complex at scale. The $30/mo Growth plan is clean and simple. Once you need the lead database (Instantly Credits), CRM module, and higher volume, you’re looking at $120-220/mo for Instantly alone. For lean teams, stick with Apollo for data and Instantly just for sending.

Apollo credits expire monthly. Export credits don’t roll over. If you’re on the Basic plan with 1,000 export credits, use them or lose them each month. Build a weekly prospecting habit so credits don’t go to waste.

LinkedIn automation carries platform risk. All LinkedIn automation tools operate on LinkedIn’s tolerance, not explicit permission. HeyReach, Expandi, Skylead, Dripify, all of them. LinkedIn removed HeyReach’s company page in March 2026 (HeyReach reported zero product impact). The risk is real but manageable with proper daily limits and warm-up periods.

This stack doesn’t include phone. If cold calling is part of your outbound motion, you’ll need a dialer on top. Apollo Professional includes a basic dialer. Or add a standalone tool. For most B2B teams under $10M, email + LinkedIn is enough to start.

Who is this stack for?

This stack is built for:

• B2B founders running their own outbound who need to book meetings without hiring an SDR
• Small sales teams (1-5 people) that want multi-channel outreach without a 15-tool stack
• Fractional CMOs and consultants setting up outbound for clients who’ve never done it before
• Companies replacing an expensive all-in-one like Outreach, Salesloft, or HubSpot Sales + Marketing combined
• Anyone who’s been told outbound is complicated and wants proof that it doesn’t have to be

Skip this stack if you’re running 50+ sender accounts across 10+ clients (you need the full agency architecture) or if your sales motion is inbound-only and you don’t do proactive outreach.

Bonus: Add rb2b for the highest-intent outreach signal

Everything above covers outbound to cold prospects. But the highest-converting outreach you’ll ever send is to someone who was already on your website.

rb2b identifies anonymous website visitors at the person level. Name, company, LinkedIn profile, job title. Not just the company. The actual human who was browsing your site. For US-based visitors, you get real identity data on people who were already interested enough to show up.

Here’s why I love this tool as a fractional CMO who’s obsessed with capital efficiency: you already paid to get that person to your site. SEO, AEO, LinkedIn content, outbound campaigns, paid ads, a referral. Whatever the channel, you spent time or money earning that visit. They showed up, looked around, and left without filling out a form. Without rb2b, that investment is invisible. With it, you have a name, a company, and a signal that says “this person is actively evaluating what you sell.”

That’s not a new campaign. That’s maximizing the budget you’re already spending.

Pricing that scales with your traffic:

• Starter ($79/mo): Great place to start for most B2B sites. You get person-level visitor identification and enough capacity to test the workflow.
• Pro ($149/mo): Adds the Hot Leads and Hot Pages features, which prioritize visitors based on the pages they viewed and their engagement level. This saves a ton of time when you start getting volume. Instead of manually sorting through every identified visitor, rb2b tells you which ones visited high-intent pages like pricing, case studies, or your “work with us” page, and which ones just read a blog post and bounced.

Start on Starter at $79/mo. Once you see the data flowing and want to prioritize who to reach out to first, upgrade to Pro.

The automation with GoHighLevel:

Connect rb2b to GoHighLevel via webhook. When rb2b identifies a visitor, the lead gets pushed into GHL automatically with their details and the pages they visited. From there, you trigger a GHL automation based on what they looked at.

Visited your pricing page? That’s a hot signal. Trigger a same-day follow-up. If you’re using a voicedrop tool, send a quick voicemail that afternoon. Something natural: “Hey, I noticed we’re connected in similar circles. I run [company] and we help [what you do]. Would love to connect if it makes sense.” No mention of the website visit. No “I saw you were on our site.” That’s weird and it kills trust immediately.

Visited a blog post? Lower intent. Add them to a nurture sequence instead. Maybe a LinkedIn connection request through HeyReach with a note that references the topic they were reading about, not the fact that you tracked them.

Visited your case study page? Medium-high intent. Send a personal email (not through Instantly, through your actual inbox) referencing the problem the case study solves. “We just helped a [similar company type] with [specific result]. Thought it might be relevant to what you’re working on.”

The key is matching the response to the intent signal without revealing the signal itself. The prospect should feel like they’re getting a well-timed, relevant message. Not like they’re being surveilled.

This is the capital efficiency play. You’re not spending more to generate new traffic. You’re converting the traffic you’re already generating. Every dollar you put into SEO, AEO, GEO, outbound, and ads works harder because the visitors who don’t fill out a form don’t disappear anymore. That’s what I mean when I say maximize before you scale.

For the full breakdown of rb2b including what it can and can’t identify, I covered it in rb2b review.

My take as a fractional CMO

This is the outbound stack I recommend to every B2B client under $10M who asks me “how do we start doing outbound?”

The reason is simple: it works, it’s affordable, and it doesn’t require a technical person to maintain. A founder can set this up over a weekend. A marketing hire can manage it in 3-5 hours a week. And when leads reply, they flow into GoHighLevel where the follow-up automations, SMS sequences, and calendar booking take over.

The “easy” framing isn’t marketing fluff. It’s intentional. I’ve watched too many B2B companies stall on outbound because they thought they needed Clay waterfalls, custom enrichment APIs, and a GTM engineer before they could send their first cold email. They didn’t. They needed three tools, a list of 50 prospects, and the willingness to start.

Start simple. Get replies. Then optimize. The advanced orchestration (n8n flows, Claude-powered personalization, multi-step waterfall enrichment) can come later, after you’ve validated that outbound works for your business. Don’t build the factory before you’ve proven the product sells.

For the full advanced version when you’re ready, see how to build an automated B2B outbound engine.

If you want help setting up the stack or building the outbound motion for your team, see my fractional CMO services.

Common questions about the B2B outreach stack

Do I need all three tools or can I start with just one?

How long does it take to set up the full stack?

Is cold email still effective in 2026?

Can I run this without GoHighLevel?

How many prospects should I reach out to per week?

What if I already have HubSpot?

What is rb2b and do I need it for outbound?

The Bottom Line

Outbound doesn’t have to be complicated. Three tools. Three jobs. One system.

Apollo finds the prospects. Instantly sends the cold email. HeyReach runs the LinkedIn outreach. They connect natively. Replies flow into GoHighLevel through webhooks. Add rb2b to convert the website traffic you’re already paying for. Total cost: $235-314/mo for the full system including CRM.

That’s a complete multi-channel outbound engine for less than what most companies pay for a single HubSpot hub.

The advanced version with n8n orchestration, Claude-powered personalization, and waterfall enrichment exists, and I’ve written that playbook too. But you don’t need it to start. You need a list of 50 prospects, a cold email sequence, a LinkedIn sequence, and the willingness to press send.

Start this week. Optimize next month. Scale next quarter. That’s the motion.

About Holly Mack

Holly Mack is a fractional CMO for B2B companies between $1M and $50M in revenue. She specializes in marketing systems, AI-powered workflows, and lean team operations. She works with founders, CEOs, and operators across SaaS, MSPs, agencies, consulting, and staffing firms.