Artisan's Ava made the AI BDR category real. If you are reading this, the credit math or the annual billing is probably why. An honest map of the options, including when to stay.
Facts checked as of July 2026.
People look for Artisan alternatives for a few consistent reasons: cost uncertainty, since published tiers start at $250 a month for Intern and $600 a month for Employee, both billed annually, while real deployments with data commonly land at $1,500 to $3,000 a month and the median reported contract runs about $26,000 a year; credit-based volume limits that active teams outgrow; and the recurring review theme that Ava sends emails well but does not do the work around the emails.
The right alternative depends on the shape of what you want. If you want a worker that owns outbound and the surrounding work, research, battlecards, reporting, follow-through, CellCog hires standing AI employees with built-in cold outreach infrastructure, their own email inbox, and persistent memory: a few dollars to try, $500–1,000 a month full-time, usage-based at roughly $25 per shift, no annual billing. If you want a dedicated AI SDR at similar scope but different pricing, AiSDR runs about $900 a month. If you want full control, Clay, Instantly, and Apollo assemble into a strong DIY stack for a few hundred a month.
| Platform | Model | Real cost | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| CellCog | AI employee that owns outbound plus everything around it | Plans from $8/mo; a full-time role runs $500–1,000/mo in usage, no annual billing | Teams that want delegation, not another tool to operate |
| AiSDR | Dedicated AI SDR | About $900/mo, quarterly billing common | A like-for-like Ava substitute with different pricing |
| Regie.ai | AI sales engagement for GTM teams | From about $59/user/mo; higher tiers quoted | Augmenting human reps rather than replacing them |
| Clay | Data enrichment and GTM workflows | From about $149/mo | Ops-minded teams building custom outbound |
| Instantly | Cold email sending infrastructure | From about $37/mo | High-volume sending with your own strategy |
| Apollo.io | Prospecting database plus sequencing | Free tier; paid from about $49/mo | Budget prospecting and simple sequences |
| Artisan | AI BDR (Ava) with credit tiers | Intern $250/mo, Employee $600/mo, billed annually; real deployments often $1,500–$3,000/mo | Staying put: polished product, if the credit math works for you |
You are leaving because you want more than sent emails. A CellCog AI Employee does the SDR loop, researched lists, personalized outreach from protected sending domains with caps and verification, disciplined follow-up, and also the work around it: market research, battlecards, pipeline reporting, content. It remembers everything across shifts and works with other AI employees as a team. A few dollars to try, $500–1,000 a month full-time, cancel any time. Honest tradeoff: no SDR-specific dashboard suite; you get an employee, not a sales platform.
You like the dedicated AI SDR shape and mostly want different pricing and volume terms. At about $900 a month it sits between Artisan's published tiers and its real-world deployment costs, with a comparable feature set.
You have the ops skills and want control. A few hundred a month total, no credits, no lock-in, and full ownership of targeting, copy, and deliverability. The cost is your time.
Ava is performing and the credit math is predictable for your volume. It is a polished product with real momentum, and migration has its own cost. If it works, staying is a legitimate choice.
The recurring themes in buyer reports: cost uncertainty, where published tiers of $250 to $600 a month billed annually turn into $1,500 to $3,000 a month real-world deployments once data and volume are added; credit limits that active teams exhaust; annual billing; and wanting more than email sending, since Ava does outreach but not the research, reporting, and strategy work around it.
CellCog. An AI employee owns the loop end to end: ideal customer profile to researched lists to personalized outreach to follow-up to pipeline reporting, from dedicated sending domains with verification and volume caps built in. It also does the adjacent work, battlecards, market research, content, and costs $500–1,000 a month full-time with no annual commitment.
Yes, natively: employees delegate to each other's task boards, communicate over their own email, and a manager employee onboards and unblocks its team. CellCog runs its own outbound exactly this way, with one Sales Lead managing five outbound reps. Dedicated SDR platforms scale volume within one product; CellCog scales the org shape itself.
Published self-serve tiers: Intern at $250 a month and Employee at $600 a month, billed annually, plus a free tier. Third-party buyer reports place typical real deployments at $1,500 to $3,000 a month once data and volume are included, with a median reported contract around $26,000 a year. For comparison, a full-time CellCog AI Employee runs $500–1,000 a month, usage-based, with no annual billing.
The DIY stack: Instantly from about $37 a month, Apollo from about $49, optionally Clay from about $149. A few hundred a month plus your operating time. On CellCog, hiring an AI employee needs only the credits of a normal chat, so trying one costs a few dollars; the honest full-time number is $500–1,000 a month.
Describe your ideal customer once. A CellCog AI Employee researches, writes, sends, follows up, and reports back, shift after shift.