What is an AI sales agent? Types, prices and the 8 best in 2026

By bravabase · Updated 13 November 2026

An AI sales agent is software that does the work before a sales conversation: it finds people who fit your offer, checks for a reason to contact them now, gets their contact details, writes the outreach and follows up. Some also answer inbound leads in website chat or on the phone. Prices checked November 2026 run from $1.50 per person prospected, through $85 to $99 a month for agents built for small teams, to $36,000 a year for enterprise ones. The best show why each lead is worth a message and let you approve what goes out in your name.

This guide covers what an AI sales agent does, the four types, whether AI agents can really do sales, how to choose one, the 8 best compared, and what each costs, with every price taken from the vendor’s own pricing page.

What an AI sales agent does

Most agents cover some or all of these six jobs:

1. Finds leads. It searches for people and companies that match your ideal customer, often using a contact database or public activity.
2. Researches them. It reads their website, recent posts and company news, and looks for a reason to reach out now: a new leader, hiring, funding, a tool they adopted. These are buying signals.
3. Qualifies them. It scores each lead against your offer, so you start with the best fits.
4. Writes outreach. It drafts a first message that mentions something real about the person.
5. Follows up. It sends or drafts the next touches and handles simple replies.
6. Books meetings. Some agents answer interested replies and offer times from your calendar.

What it doesn’t do well

• Real conversations. Objections, pricing questions and negotiation still need you.
• Judgement about your market. Vague targeting gives you vague leads.
• Relationships. It can open a door. People buy from people they trust, and that part is yours.

The four types of AI sales agent

“AI sales agent” covers four different jobs. Pick the type first; the vendor second.

Signal-based outbound agents

A signal-based agent does the research before any outreach. It watches for people and companies that match your offer and show a reason to talk now, scores each one and finds a contact. Then it drafts the first message and waits for you. This suits founders, consultants and small teams who sell a considered service and can’t afford to burn their name on bad cold email. bravabase and Amplemarket’s Duo both work this way. If you only need the contact details, see how to find a work email and phone number.

Outbound agents (AI SDRs)

An outbound agent, usually called an AI SDR, takes the job of a sales development rep: it prospects, sends sequences from your mailboxes, answers simple replies and books meetings for someone else to close. Most work by email; some add LinkedIn, calls or SMS. They suit a large market and an offer people understand quickly. See the best AI SDR tools for a longer list.

Inbound chat agents

An inbound agent waits for buyers to come to you. It answers questions on your website, asks qualifying questions and books a meeting while the visitor is still on the page. Prices from each vendor’s pricing page, checked November 2026:

• Fin charges $0.99 per resolved conversation and $9.99 per qualified lead. With your existing helpdesk there is a 50-outcome monthly minimum, and a 14-day free trial with no card (Fin pricing).
• Salesforce Agentforce costs $2 per conversation, or $500 per 100,000 Flex Credits, where a standard action uses 20 credits. Per-user add-ons for Sales are $125 a user a month (Agentforce pricing).
• Qualified’s Piper is quote-only; plans are sized by web sessions and email contacts (Qualified pricing).

Inbound agents only help once people already visit your site. If you need new conversations, start with a research or outbound agent.

Voice agents and cold calling

Voice agents speak on the phone. Bland, a voice agent platform, charges $0.14 a minute of talk time on its Start plan with no platform fee, or $0.12 a minute on Build at $299 a month; phone carrier costs are billed separately, and you build the agent yourself (Bland pricing).

Check the rules before you point one at a cold list. In the US, the FCC ruled on 8 February 2024 that calls made with AI-generated voices are “artificial” under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, so the consent rules for prerecorded calls apply (FCC). For most small B2B teams, the better use of AI for cold calling is finding the right person, their direct number and a reason to call, then making the call yourself.

Can AI agents do sales?

Yes, a large part of it: finding, researching, writing, following up and booking meetings. They can’t build the trust that closes a considered deal, and they shouldn’t speak for you unchecked.

Two choices decide whether an agent helps or hurts:

• Approval or autopilot. Some agents send on their own; others draft and wait for you. Autopilot saves time, but every message goes out in your name. If your reputation is your business, approve before anything sends.
• Quality or volume. An agent can email thousands of people a month. That suits a big market and a simple offer. If you sell a considered service to a few hundred possible buyers, fewer, better messages to people with a real reason to talk win.

For a side-by-side of cost and output, see AI SDR vs hiring an SDR.

AI sales agent vs AI SDR vs AI sales assistant

The names overlap, and vendors use them loosely. Roughly:

How to choose an AI sales agent

1. Inbound or outbound. Do you need new conversations, or faster answers for people who already find you?
2. Where your buyers reply. Email, LinkedIn, phone, or a mix.
3. Approval. Can you review messages before they send? Can you turn that on and off?
4. Lead quality. Does it show why each lead was picked, with a fit score and a dated reason, or just hand you a list?
5. Contact details. Does it find work emails and phone numbers, and do you pay when it finds nothing?
6. A price you can see. Is there a published plan, a monthly option and a free trial, or only a sales call and a yearly contract?
7. Setup time. Can you start the same day, or does it need weeks of onboarding?

The best AI sales agents in 2026

These eight find leads or run outbound, which is what most small B2B teams are looking for. We make bravabase, so we list it first, and we say plainly where another tool is the better choice. Prices checked November 2026 on each vendor’s own pricing page, linked below.

1. bravabase (Brava)

Best at: finding people who need what you sell right now. Brava, your personal AI sales agent, learns your business from your website, then finds leads showing a reason to buy: posts about the problem you solve, job changes, hiring, funding, new leaders and the tools a company uses. It scores each one for fit, gets work emails and phone numbers, and drafts outreach and posts. Nothing goes out until you approve it. LinkedIn connects as one channel, and the work emails and phone numbers are yours for email and calls.

Price: $99 per user a month, or $948 a year ($79 a month). Includes 500 quality leads a month, each with a real buying signal, 1,500 AI credits a month and 2 Discovery agents; more are $49 a month each. You don’t pay when Brava can’t find an email or phone number. 7-day free trial with 250 credits (pricing).
Suits: founders, consultants, agencies and small B2B sales teams who want quality over volume.
Drawback: it doesn’t send email sequences or make calls. If you want fully autonomous email at huge volume, pick Instantly, Artisan or 11x instead.

2. Artisan (Ava)

Best at: handing outbound email to an agent. Ava finds and enriches leads from 250M+ contacts, writes and sends emails from your own domains, handles replies and books meetings. You can switch on approval before sending.

Price: a free plan with 300 credits a month for finding and enriching leads, without campaigns. Intern is $280 a month, or $250 billed yearly, with 10,000 credits; Employee is $660, or $600 billed yearly, with 25,000. New accounts get a 30-day trial with 10,000 credits and no card (Artisan pricing).
Suits: startups ready to run outbound mostly by email.
Drawback: credits go fast. Artisan puts a full campaign at about 20 credits per person, so Intern reaches about 500 people a month. Calls are left to your reps, with a dialer at $75 a seat a month. More in our Artisan review.

3. 11x (Alice)

Best at: research-heavy outreach at scale. Alice researches each account and runs outreach from managed Gmail mailboxes that 11x sets up, warms and monitors for you.

Price: Growth from $36,000 a year, billed yearly, for up to 5 users and 2,000 new prospects a month. Pro and Enterprise are quote-only, and there is no monthly option (11x pricing).
Suits: funded sales teams with a five-figure yearly budget.
Drawback: the highest entry price here, and only on a yearly contract.

4. AiSDR

Best at: testing an agent without a subscription. It writes outreach from each prospect’s posts and company news and runs it on email and LinkedIn, with voice notes.

Price: $1.50 per person prospected, billed daily, with no monthly fee and no card to sign up. Team plans for 1,000+ people a month are quote-only, on quarterly contracts (AiSDR pricing).
Suits: small teams trying an AI sales agent before committing.
Drawback: the per-person price adds up: 1,000 people a month is $1,500 at the self-serve rate.

5. Amplemarket (Duo)

Best at: signal-based outbound with a human in control. Duo scans for buying signals daily, picks who to contact and drafts a sequence across email, social and calls. Reps approve before anything sends (Duo).

Price: Startup is $600 a month on a yearly term, with 2 users. Growth and Elite are quote-only. Every plan has a free trial (Amplemarket pricing).
Suits: small sales teams with budget for a full outbound platform.
Drawback: a yearly commitment from the first plan. More in our Amplemarket review.

6. Reply.io (Jason AI)

Best at: one platform for many channels. Jason AI searches for contacts, uses intent signals, writes personalised messages and drafts responses to replies, inside Reply’s email, LinkedIn, call and SMS tools.

Price: Jason AI from $500 a month. Reply’s own plans start at $49 per user a month for email and $89 for multichannel, billed yearly, with a 14-day trial (Reply pricing).
Suits: teams that already run sequences and want an agent on top.
Drawback: the agent costs far more than the core plans, and LinkedIn on the email plan is $69 a month per account extra.

7. Apollo.io

Best at: contact data and email sequences for little money. Apollo pairs a database of 240M contacts with sequences, a dialer and an AI assistant.

Price: a free plan with 900 credits per seat a year. Basic is $49 per seat a month and Professional $79, billed yearly, with a 14-day trial (Apollo pricing, and our Apollo pricing breakdown).
Suits: small teams that want data and outbound email in one place.
Drawback: it’s a toolkit with AI help, not an agent that works alone. You still build the lists and sequences.

8. Instantly

Best at: cold email at volume for a low price. Its AI Sales Agent reads your website, builds a prospect list, writes and sends emails, follows up and books meetings (AI Sales Agent).

Price: the agent comes in the Starter bundle at $94 a month, or $85 billed yearly, with 1,500 credits and 5,000 emails a month. Email-only plans start at $47 (Instantly pricing).
Suits: email-first teams selling to a large market.
Drawback: email only, and it sends on its own once running. More in our Instantly review.

AI sales agent pricing: what each one costs

AI sales agents are priced five ways: per user, per person contacted, per conversation or outcome, per minute, or as a yearly platform contract. From each vendor’s own pricing page, checked November 2026:

Watch for what sits outside the headline price: yearly contracts, mailboxes, dialer seats, phone carrier fees and LinkedIn add-ons. Per-person and per-outcome prices look small, so multiply by the volume you expect: AiSDR at 1,000 people a month is $1,500.

Is there a free AI sales agent?

Not one that runs outreach for free. What you can get for nothing, checked November 2026:

• Free plans for finding leads: Apollo (900 credits per seat a year) and Artisan (300 credits a month, no campaigns).
• Free trials: Artisan 30 days with 10,000 credits and no card; Fin 14 days with no card; Reply.io and Apollo 14 days; bravabase 7 days with 250 AI credits; Amplemarket has a free trial on every plan.
• Pay only when you launch: AiSDR lets you sign up without a card and build a campaign before you pay; Bland’s Start plan has no platform fee, so you pay only for minutes used.

For more side-by-sides, see our comparisons and the best AI lead generation tools.