We talk a hellllll of a lot about negotiating with prospects and sealing deals at Close HQ.
But those of us who’ve been in sales for long enough know that acing that final client meeting and signing the contract is only half the battle. What comes before that can also make or break the deal.
Yep. We're talking about finding the right leads.
The mistake many startups and small businesses make is trying to fill their sales pipeline in any way possible. Unfortunately, this can lead to poor product fit, lots of unanswered emails, and a ton of wasted time.
But with the right lead generation tools in your toolkit, your sales team can find higher quality prospects and book meetings without spending hours scouring LinkedIn or Google.
In this guide, we're sharing our top 26 lead gen tools and how they can help you build a healthy sales pipeline. Let's take a look 👇
Lead generation is the very starting point of any sales strategy.
According to Statista, nearly 41 percent of marketing decision-makers say the number one lead generation strategy is connecting with prospects one-to-one. More research in 2023 by Content Marketing Institute found the best way to generate leads is to create brand awareness, build trust and credibility, and educate your customers.
I mean, without leads… what is sales? We need someone to sell our products to. Those people should need the product, and it should solve their problems. That's it.
But many sales teams are falling short and struggle to find high-quality leads.
So, what exactly is lead generation? 🤔
In a nutshell, it's when marketing and sales teams discover leads and determine if turning them into potential customers is viable. Creating a system that weeds out visitors that have a good chance of becoming paying customers is important because it can:
The key is choosing the right tools for your lead generation toolkit. Some focus on getting the right leads into your pipeline, while others help book meetings and get on a call with prospects.
Here are 26 of the best lead-generation tools to help add big dollars to your bottom line 👇
Yes, we put ourselves at the top of the list. We're biased as hell. But we know Close is the best sales platform for teams who want to manage leads, automate lead nurturing, and increase conversion rates. Our sales platform has everything from advanced sales workflows to automated follow-ups, outbound lead functionality, call tracking, and lead management—all under one roof.
If you want a place to talk with leads 1-on-1, track every deal movement, and make every lead feel like they're the only one in your pipeline—Close is the lead generation tool for you.
Plans start at $9/month, billed annually (includes 1 user).
Pro Tip: Enhance your lead generation strategy with Close's Call Assistant. This AI-powered tool revolutionizes the way you interact with and qualify leads. With automatic call transcriptions, you can quickly review conversations for key details, ensuring no valuable information is missed.
As the name suggests, Pipedrive is allllll about the pipeline and generating leads.
It has tons of features a sales team needs to track deals, manage prospects, and keep an eye on metrics. Once a lead drops into your sales funnel, you can track deal worth, close probability, and follow up with them in a single dashboard.
Plans start at $9.90/user/month
The big dog. Salesforce is a cloud-based B2B lead generation tool that's used by over 150,000 companies to manage prospects and close deals.
The reason it's so popular is its customization abilities. Salesforce can be changed to suit any sales team's needs, workflows, and selling techniques to give them the best chance at turning leads into paying customers.
That customization comes with a price as it's more complex to set up. But if you have the time (and money), Salesforce is a great choice to capture leads.
Plans start at $25/user/month
ActiveCampaign is an all-in-one automation platform that's part marketing, and part sales.
It's designed to help teams create targeted campaigns to bring in high-quality leads and automate follow-ups using email sequences. But it goes beyond those features as well. It also has a built-in customer relationship management (CRM) platform and analytics, so lead details can be stored and tracked so your team doesn't let any opportunities slip through the cracks.
Plans start at $29/month and include basic but powerful features
Discover the best alternatives to ActiveCampaign that offer unique features and pricing.
Ever wanted to speak to that one decision-maker at a company you've been trying to lock down a deal with?
VoilaNorbert is the answer. This lead generation tool scrapes data across the internet to help sales teams find (and verify) email addresses for potential leads and decision-makers at specific organizations. Just type in the lead's name or domain, and ViolaNorbert will provide their most probable email address along with other information it finds, like business addresses or LinkedIn profiles. Just like other email finders, like Hunter or Lusha, it’s a fast way to find real, verified email addresses.
The first 50 email address searches are free. Paid plans start at $49/month
Oh, I forgot to mention! If you want to uncover the ways in which B2B CRMs can enhance your sales funnel, check out our enlightening article, designed to help you succeed.
Marketo, now known as Marketo Engage since its acquisition by Adobe, is a marketing automation platform designed for enterprise-level businesses to drive engagement and conversions using targeted email lists.
It has all the features teams expect, like automated email marketing tools, lead management, and trigger-based messaging (like exit-intent pop-ups). While it's not the prettiest tool in the toolkit, it definitely works—over 22,000 teams now use it for lead generation!
No pricing information is available. Teams must contact Marketo for a custom quote ( 🤑)
Source: Drift
Out with the robochat. In with the humans (kinda).
Drift's conversational marketing campaigns changed the game when it came to engaging with website visitors. It automates a potential lead's first touch and chats with them to qualify them as a prospect before connecting them with a sales rep. This speeds up the sales process and saves reps a ton of time chasing down dead leads so they can focus on viable prospects.
Plans start at $2500/month
Reply.io is a sales automation platform that tracks leads and automates outreach all under one roof.
Teams can integrate Reply.io with existing CRM tools, track how many leads they've contacted, automate email follow-ups, and analyze which messages get the most engagement. Using this data, it's easier to sharpen outreach messaging and customize it to create personalized replies to leads to book a meeting.
Plans start at $60/user/month
MailChimp is usually considered an email marketing platform, but it also has some pretty understated tools for lead generation.
Thanks to pop-ups, embedded opt-in forms, and integrations with platforms like LinkedIn, you can easily collect lead data like names and email addresses. This information can then be used to personalize emails and marketing to reach out to leads and connect with them 1-on-1.
Free plan for up to 2,000 contacts. Paid plans start at $6.5/month
Unbounce is a landing page builder to create lead generation campaigns.
It's specifically built for teams who don't have coding skills or the budget to pay for a developer every time they want to launch a new campaign. Just use the drag-and-drop builder to customize one of the out-of-the-box templates, and boom… you have a landing page ready to collect lead data.
Plans start at $99/month
HubSpot is an all-in-one marketing, sales, and customer support platform that packs a punch.
Inside the dashboard, sales teams will find features like lead engagement monitoring, email templates, pipeline management, and call tracking. Every touch with a lead is tracked, and campaigns can be automated to stay on top of every prospect in your pipeline.
Marketing features, such as pop-ups, live chat, and SEO features, can be easily integrated into your website, especially with the built-in HubSpot WordPress plugin.
Free plan available. Paid plans start at $20/user/month
Psst… Want to get all the marketing goodness of HubSpot with the sales agility of Close? Check out our native Close + HubSpot integration.
Does Thursday morning (GMT) work for you? No. Okay, how about Tuesday at 2 pm (EST)? No. Okay, well…
Ugh. We all know how frustrating it is trying to book a slot on a lead's calendar. Thanks to Calendly's scheduling platform, your sales reps can book meetings and appointments without the back-and-forth emails. Just plug it into your calendar tool, like Google Calendar and Outlook, and your leads can pick a free time slot that also suits them. Easy!
There's a (limited) free version. Paid plans start at $10/user/month.
A similar tool to Calendly, SavvyCal is a scheduling tool that also can add the whole sales team to an account.
It's perfect for sales teams who are meeting with leads for more in-depth conversations (like if a developer is joining to answer specific questions) or if multiple people are needed for a demo. We also love it thanks to the SavvyCal + Close native integration—any new meeting will trigger an automatic update in Close and create a new lead profile. It saves time and keeps your pipeline flowing!
There is a free trial. Paid plans start at $12/user/month
Dripify is a marketing automation tool for LinkedIn, built to help you set up customized sequences to keep potential leads engaged.
It nurtures leads, has customizable drip sequences for LinkedIn messaging, and tracks activity to measure individual campaigns' success. Once a campaign is launched, you can add custom lead lists (to target specific industries or customer types) and create sequences based on your end goal.
There's a 14-day free trial. Paid plans start at $39/month
If you want to craft and customize lead generation campaigns that are all about the wow factor, take a look at Digioh.
It's a lead generation platform where teams can build campaigns using contact forms, surveys, promotions, and quizzes to grab the attention of potential prospects. We love this tool because it's super easy to use and focuses on quality designs and automation.
There's a free trial. For access to paid plan trials, please contact them directly to request one.
Source: Moosend
Facebook Lead Ads does what it says on the tin—it helps teams find leads on Facebook.
Simply build an ad using the business dashboard, and you can share it on any platform Meta owns, including Instagram and Messenger. These ads usually double up as a signup form to collect contact information, like phone numbers and email addresses, so teams can follow up with leads from their CRM.
Ads are charged on a pay-per-click basis that varies depending on your target audience
UpLead is designed for teams chasing leads using basic qualifiers like job title, industry, company size, or location.
This tool offers optimization when collecting new leads. First, it matches potential leads with your target audience; if they are a match, UpLead verifies them. When UpLead's work is done, your team is left with a detailed lead profile that usually includes a contact number, social media links, industry, and job title.
Plans start at $99/month for 170 search credits
Typeform is a simple form-builder that creates customizable lead generation forms.
There's not much to say about it other than the designs can be customized to your brand, the forms are engaging, and the data is filtered straight into your CRM. What more do you need?
Free plan available. Paid plans start at $25/month
Ready to enhance your lead game? Our guide on MQL vs. SQL is a click away.
Drip does one thing, and it does it well—it chases leads down using drip email sequences.
If you need lead generation software that doubles as a nurturing tool and can trigger emails to send to leads based on actions, Drip may be the platform to do it. Not only does it track a lead's behavior and automatically send out messages based on triggers (e.g., if they click on a product link, they will get a follow-up message asking to book a meeting), but it also personalizes every email.
It's the closest your team will get to personally nurturing leads without spending hours in their inbox.
There's a free trial. Paid plans start at $39/month
Ortto is another all-in-one sales enablement platform that puts a lot of the behind-the-scenes lead generation work on autopilot.
Think of Ortto as your automated sales assistant. It can find qualified leads, create records in your CRM, and manage relationships in the background. Not only does this mean more spare time for your team to follow up with prospects, but it also tackles a lot of the boring work (ahem, manual tasks) involved in closing deals.
There's a free trial. Paid plans start at $509/user/month.
LeadFuze helps sales teams find leads that match their ideal customers and automate outreach.
It's another all-in-one platform that comes with lead generation tools along with list building, prospect profiles, and reporting features so teams can follow-up more efficiently.
There is a free trial. Paid plans start at $147/month
Tami is a sales automation platform that's a little more complex than some other tools on our list but, used right, it can streamline outreach and allow teams to follow up at scale.
The tool scrapes public data and creates lead profiles with company age, online sales, revenue, and industry information. From there, sales teams can create automatic outreach sequences and follow up with leads that fit their ICPs. And thanks to the extra revenue and company sales information, teams can focus on high-value leads.
There is a free trial. Pricing is available on request
LeadsBridge is a lead generation platform that basically helps your sales tech tools talk to each other.
It builds "bridges" between platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and even TikTok so you can capture customer information and store it in a database. Just pick the form template for your campaign, fill in the blanks, and upload it to your chosen source. LeadsBridge then plugs into your existing CRM and tech stack to filter leads into your pipeline in real-time.
LeadsBridge offers a free trial, after which pricing starts at $22/month
Conversify Labs is a LinkedIn marketing automation tool that customizes follow-ups with leads so they feel personal.
Using the tool, you can add custom fields, product recommendations, and even links to your calendar so leads can book meetings. There are also options to add timing delays to each message so it hits your lead's inbox at the right time.
There's a free (but limited) plan. Paid plans start at $44/month
Leadfeeder is a website tracking tool that’s great for inbound-heavy sales with high-value, low-volume leads.
It tracks website visitors and their engagement with your site and funnels this information into a (really simple) dashboard. In real-time, sales reps can see who is checking out your pricing and product pages and get their hands on information like lead quality, previous visits, and possible contacts at the company.
There's a free trial, and paid plans start at €139/month
The last lead generation tool on our list needs no introduction. LinkedIn is used by millions of sales reps across the globe to reach out to leads and start a conversation.
It's arguably the most valuable tool to search for viable leads, make 1-to-1 connections, and talk to decision-makers about how your product can help them. Added tools like Sales Navigator and InMail also deserve a shoutout for helping sales reps manage leads, track interactions, and find viable prospects within searches.
In our book, LinkedIn is a non-negotiable addition when building out a lead generation toolkit.
There's a free plan available. To get extras like Sales Navigator and InMail, you need a paid plan which start at $79.99/month.
Ready to take your lead generation to the next level? Learn how to generate leads with LinkedIn.
Just that, really. Lead generation tools are now so advanced and automated that there is no reason for you to send out emails manually or spend hours scouring LinkedIn for prospects.
If you invest in the right tools and put them to work, sales teams can automatically find the right leads and automatically follow up with them. If a lead is genuinely interested in hearing your pitch, they can reach out and book a slot on your calendar—then the ball is in your court to close the deal.
Want to see why Close is the best tool to generate leads, talk to prospects, and close deals? Try it free for 14 days here.