16 Best Lead Generation Tools (Inbound & Outbound)

If you've been searching for an all-in-one lead generation tool that does everything from prospecting and lead scoring to inbound marketing and cold outreach, you've probably come up empty-handed.

Building a sales pipeline often means creating a custom tech stack for key channels and workflows. So, where should you start? And which software should your sales and marketing teams prioritize?

We've rounded up 16 essential lead gen tools, including several that we use to drive Livestorm's inbound and outbound efforts.

What is lead generation?

Lead generation is the practice of finding prospects, cultivating their interest in your solutions, and guiding them toward a conversion. This process tends to include numerous touchpoints across several different channels.

Types of lead generation

There are two main approaches to lead generation. Depending on your business model, you might use both or choose the one that fits best.

• Inbound lead generation involves creating and distributing marketing content (like live events) to spark your target audience's interest. Prospects see this content and initiate contact with your business.
• Outbound lead generation involves identifying and connecting with prospects via cold outreach. Sales teams use these tactics to initiate contact with prospects who fit their ideal customer profile (ICP).

Why do you need lead generation?

When you invest in lead generation for sales and marketing, you create opportunities to attract and convert prospects. A solid strategy is essential for achieving pipeline goals.

With a reliable lead gen system, you can:

• Engage with people and businesses that fit your ICP
• Ensure your sales pipeline is always full
• Build trust and form relationships with potential customers
• Close deals faster and create a dependable source of revenue

16 Top lead generation tools

From inbound to outbound, here are the best lead generation tools:

1. Livestorm for automated webinars
2. Surfe for prospecting
3. Leadfeeder for identifying website visitors
4. Leadpages for website lead capture
5. Cognism for data enrichment
6. Reply.io for cold outreach
7. Intercom for building chatbots
8. MadKudu for lead scoring
9. Chili Piper for lead routing
10. Calendly for booking meetings
11. Customer.io for email marketing
12. Sendoso for sending gifts
13. Zapier and Make for marketing automation
14. HubSpot for inbound marketing and sales
15. Pipedrive for customer relationship management
16. Mailshake for outbound sales

1. Livestorm for automated webinars

Livestorm is a webinar platform for hosting live and on-demand webinars. Use live events to interact with prospects in real time or run asynchronous events to automate lead generation.

With Livestorm, you can:

• Create webinar funnels that engages leads, builds trust, and improves conversions
• Send follow-up emails automatically to nurture leads and convert more prospects
• Promote webinars to your ICP and reach in-market leads at scale

Pricing: Livestorm's free plan includes up to 30 live attendees and 20 minutes per session. Paid plans start at $99 per month for up to 100 live attendees and four hours per session.

2. Surfe for prospecting

Surfe is a LinkedIn prospecting tool that's ideal for finding and connecting with potential customers. This outbound platform:

• Allows exports from LinkedIn Sales Navigator
• Enriches contact data using 15+ premium databases
• Offers templates to improve results from LinkedIn cold outreach

Pricing: Surfe's free plan includes 20 email finder and five phone finder credits per month. Paid plans start at $39 per month for 150 email finder and 50 phone finder credits.

3. Leadfeeder for identifying website visitors

Leadfeeder reveals the names of the companies that visit your website so you can follow up with promising leads efficiently. This inbound tool:

• Shows which webpages each company views
• Scores leads to help you decide which ones to prioritize
• Recommends company contacts to include in your outreach

Pricing: Leadfeeder's free plan includes 100 identified companies and 7-day data retention. Paid plans start at $165 per month for 50 identified companies with unlimited data retention.

4. Leadpages for website lead capture

Leadpages is a landing page builder with customizable templates and tools to capture prospects' contact details. This inbound platform:

• Has 250+ landing page templates optimized for conversions
• Includes an AI Engine that generates copy and images quickly
• Offers pop-ups and alert bars to streamline lead generation.

Pricing: Leadpages starts at $49 per month for one custom domain and 10,000 AI Engine credits.

5. Cognism for data enrichment

Cognism is a sales intelligence provider that enriches prospecting data with contact information like phone numbers and emails. This outbound tool:

• Has a database of over 70 million mobile phone numbers to improve cold calling
• Ensures compliance with privacy requirements across various regions
• Cleans and enriches data directly in Salesforce's customer relationship management (CRM) tool

Pricing: Contact sales to discuss Cognism's personalized plans.

6. Reply.io for cold outreach

Reply.io is a sales engagement platform with AI-powered tools for automating outreach across email and LinkedIn. This outbound platform:

• Has a built-in database so you can find and reach out to prospects at scale
• Offers AI-powered multichannel sequences so you can connect with leads quickly
• Integrates with third-party tools for more advanced prospecting and verification

Pricing: Reply.io's free plan includes 200 data search credits and access to the AI sequence generator. Paid plans start at $59 per user per month for 500 data search credits, email automation, and email warmup.

7. Intercom for building chatbots

Intercom is an AI-powered customer service platform that engages with prospects across channels. This inbound tool:

• Connects with website visitors via an AI-powered chatbot
• Tracks conversations across email, SMS, social media, and your website
• Has a no-code builder for custom multichannel automations

Pricing: Intercom starts at $39 per month for inbound email and live chat functionality.

8. MadKudu for lead scoring

MadKudu is an AI-powered lead scoring tool that helps sales teams identify and prioritize high-intent accounts. This inbound platform:

• Detects buying signals from dozens of data sources and creates signal-based sales playbooks
• Offers customized AI-powered predictive scoring to improve lead quality
• Integrates with outbound tools to streamline outreach sequences

Pricing: Contact sales for details on MadKudu's customized plans.

9. Chili Piper for lead routing

Chili Piper is a lead qualification and routing tool that connects leads with sales reps—so they can close more deals. This inbound tool:

• Books meetings via email and automatically updates CRM records
• Qualifies leads and uses priority-based signals to assign them to sales reps
• Distributes leads to sales reps automatically based on custom rules

Pricing: Chili Piper starts at $22.50 per user per month for one-click scheduling over email.

10. Calendly for booking meetings

Calendly is an automated scheduling tool that's ideal for discovery calls, product demos, and sales calls. This inbound platform:

• Embeds booking tools on your website or landing page
• Uses Salesforce and HubSpot integrations to route qualified leads to the right sales reps
• Has automated workflows so you can remind prospects about meetings and follow up afterward

Calendly's free plan includes one event type with unlimited meetings. Paid plans with unlimited event types and multiple calendars start at $12 per seat per month.

11. Customer.io for email marketing

Customer.io is a customer engagement platform that spans email marketing, SMS messages, and in-app notifications. This inbound tool:

• Has a visual workflow builder that creates customer journeys to nurture leads efficiently
• Sends data-driven marketing campaigns using custom behavior-based triggers
• Uses branching logic to develop custom engagement paths for each audience segment

Customer.io starts at $100 per month for 5,000 contact profiles and 1 million emails.

12. Sendoso for sending gifts

Sendoso is a direct marketing platform that uses intelligent sending to develop relationships with leads. This outbound platform:

• Sends your choice of gifts to key people within your target accounts
• Offers a marketplace with a range of merchandise, physical gifts, experiences, and gift cards
• Monitors the return on investment (ROI) of your gifts so you can optimize your strategy

Pricing: Sendoso has customizable monthly subscriptions and a pay-as-you-go program. Contact sales for custom pricing.

13. Zapier and Make for marketing automation

Between Zapier and Make, you can automate almost any marketing task. Both are automation platforms that integrate with over 1,000 apps.

Zapier's features

With Zapier, you can:

• Use a visual builder to create multi-step automated workflows with over 6,000 apps
• Drag and drop workflows and design elements to build automated apps
• Set up simple AI-powered chatbots on your website

Zapier's pricing

Zapier's free plan includes 100 tasks and unlimited automations per month. Paid plans start at $29.99 per month.

Make's features

With Make, you can:

• Connect all your lead gen tools to create custom automated workflows
• Add infinite steps and apps to any workflow, making them as simple or as complex as you need
• Automate sales processes, including prospecting, outreach, and contracting

Make's pricing

Make's free plan includes 1,000 operations and two active scenarios per month. Paid plans start at $10.59 per month.

14. HubSpot for inbound marketing and sales

HubSpot](https://www.hubspot.com/) is an inbound marketing and sales automation platform that manages leads and helps you nurture them across channels. This tool:

• Has email templates and analytics to help optimize your lead generation efforts
• Automates sales processes and email sequences so you can follow up reliably
• Records sales call data in a built-in CRM to manage leads efficiently

Pricing: HubSpot's free plans include limited sales and marketing features. The Marketing Hub and the Sales Hub each start at $20 per seat per month.

15. Pipedrive for customer relationship management

Pipedrive is a CRM that tracks leads at every stage of the sales pipeline and automates key steps in your sales process. This platform:

• Has automation tools to enrich prospecting data, schedule calls, and send follow-ups efficiently
• Offers email builder, segmentation, and analytics tools to generate leads effectively
• Integrates with prospecting tools like Surfe and lead capture tools like Intercom

Pricing: Pipedrive starts at $24 per seat per month for 3,000 open deals.

15. Mailshake for outbound sales

Mailshake is an outbound sales tool designed to help you generate more qualified leads at scale. This tool allows you to:

• Automate your cold email outreach
• Multi channel outreach with phone dialer, LinkedIn automation and email.
• Find prospects with their Data Finder tool with a database of 100m+

Pricing: Mailshake's pricing starts at $25 per month for their starter plans. Mid tier plans pricing is $45 per month while their unlimited sales engagement plan is $85 per month

Livestorm for lead generation

When on-demand webinars are an integral part of your team's lead gen strategy, Livestorm helps you:

• Automate webinars to share thought leadership and customer education on autopilot
• Set up email cadences to follow up with engaged leads automatically
• Use thousands of Livestorm integrations to create a custom lead generation software stack

Want to see how our webinar platform works with your tech stack? Sign up for a free Livestorm account and automate your next webinar in minutes.