Quick answer
CIENCE's closest competitors depend on what's missing: SalesRoads, Ripe Leads and Cleverly if you want a published number like CIENCE's own, Belkins and Callbox for a similar multi-channel build, SalesHive, Martal Group, memoryBlue and Shipyard GTM, my own agency, for delivery models CIENCE doesn't run.
What CIENCE actually sells
I run cold email and LinkedIn as one motion for B2B clients, which puts me in the same budget conversation as every agency ranked below, CIENCE included. CIENCE is a Miami, Florida based outbound provider, founded in 2016, that sells a managed GTM system: a campaign team that builds and runs your outreach, a platform called graph8 that houses the data and sequencing, and SDR capacity you can add by the seat. Its own channels list runs to cold email, cold calling, LinkedIn, paid ads, direct mail and inbound qualification. By its own account it has served 2,500+ clients and sources SDRs through an international network spanning more than 10 languages.
Disclosure. I run cold email and LinkedIn outbound for B2B companies, and in 2026 I started my own agency, Shipyard GTM. That makes me a competitor to every agency named here, CIENCE included. Shipyard is on the list below because it's a real option for some readers, but it's mine, so it never goes first and gets the same watch for treatment as everyone else. I have no commercial deal with any other agency in this article, and prices and terms change, so check each one's own site before you sign.
Why look for a CIENCE competitor?
CIENCE already does the one thing most agencies on this list won't, publish an itemised price. The reasons people still go looking tend to be these:
- The published number is a floor, not a total. The $2,000 campaign team fee and $499 graph8 platform fee are the base. SDR capacity, the part that actually does the prospecting, is priced separately on top.
- The setup fee is still a black box. CIENCE's own pricing page quotes a one time GTM setup cost only on a call, the same gap that makes agencies without any published price hard to compare.
- Ownership changed. graph8 acquired CIENCE's assets, and a buyer researching the company now is reading about a team that may differ from the one a pre-acquisition review describes.
- Performance bonuses cut both ways. CIENCE's own bonus structure pays out a fraction of base pay once a team clears 60% of target, which means the headline SDR rate is not the full story either way the campaign performs.
The 9 ranked, at a glance
Ranked by how directly comparable the published number is to CIENCE's own, highest transparency first.
| Rank | Agency | Based in | Price on their site | Channels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baseline | CIENCE | Miami, US | Yes, except setup | Email, phone, LinkedIn, ads, direct mail |
| 1 | SalesRoads | Boca Raton, US | Yes, from $11,950 per 4 weeks | Phone, email |
| 2 | Ripe Leads | Vilnius, Lithuania | Yes, in euros | Email, LinkedIn |
| 3 | Cleverly | Los Angeles, US | Yes, from $397/month | LinkedIn, email, phone |
| 4 | Shipyard GTM (my agency) | Vilnius, Lithuania | No, fixed price disclosed after a call | Email, LinkedIn |
| 5 | Callbox | Encino, US, delivery from the Philippines | Yes, two numbers that disagree | Phone, email, LinkedIn, retargeting, chat |
| 6 | SalesHive | Denver, US | No | Phone, email |
| 7 | Martal Group | Oakville, Canada | No | Email, LinkedIn, phone |
| 8 | memoryBlue | Tysons, US | No | SDR and BDR prospecting, demand generation, SEO, PPC |
| 9 | Belkins | Dover, US | No | Email, calling, LinkedIn, SMS, paid ads |
Which ones actually publish a number?
Three of the nine do, plus CIENCE itself. SalesRoads lists $11,950 per 4 week period for one SDR, falling to $7,192 per rep at six SDRs, on its own pricing page (checked 26 October 2026). Ripe Leads charges €3,750 for the first month and €2,850 a month after, per its own site (checked 26 October 2026). Cleverly advertises LinkedIn plans from $397 to $997 a month on its own FAQ (checked 26 October 2026), with a separate pay per meeting ready lead model for cold email that carries no published rate. Callbox is the odd one out: its pricing page, checked 26 October 2026, reads "Estimated Quarterly Investment: $16,000-$32,000" for one pod, while its own pricing FAQ has separately quoted $20,000 to $40,000 a quarter for the same programme, so it publishes a number without the number actually settling anything. Belkins, Martal Group, SalesHive and memoryBlue all quote only after a call.
CIENCE's own pricing page, checked 26 October 2026, is the most itemised of the group: $2,000 a month for the campaign team, $499 a month for the graph8 platform with 75,000 credits included, then SDRs starting at $1,750 a month offshore up to $3,500 a month in the US or Europe. Its own worked example prices five offshore SDRs plus the team and platform fees at $11,249 a month, before any performance bonus.
What the graph8 acquisition actually changed
CIENCE's own about page states plainly that graph8 acquired CIENCE's assets, combining the sales development team with graph8's GTM platform. That's a real reason to ask questions before you sign, not a reason to avoid CIENCE outright. The published pricing and the itemised SDR rates are unchanged, by the company's own site, but CIENCE carries a large public review trail that mostly predates the acquisition, which means a review written in, say, 2022 describes a team structure that may not match who answers your account today. None of the nine agencies ranked here have been through a comparable ownership change recently, which is worth factoring in if continuity of the team you meet on the sales call matters to you.
Which ones let you scale headcount the way CIENCE does?
CIENCE's own pitch is a modular build: buy the campaign team and platform, then add or remove SDRs by the seat at a published rate, with no separate contract per hire. SalesRoads comes closest on the published side, its per 4 week pricing scales down per rep as headcount grows, from $11,950 for one SDR to $7,192 per rep at six. SalesHive and Shipyard GTM, my agency, both run flat monthly fees that can be adjusted month to month, though neither prices additional headcount per seat the way CIENCE does. Martal Group moves the opposite direction, a paid 3 to 4 month pilot comes before the monthly plan even starts, so there is no cheap way to test a single seat first. Belkins, Callbox and memoryBlue all quote team size and scope on a call, which means the scaling mechanic itself, not just the price, is unpublished.
Each one, ranked, with a verdict
1. SalesRoads
Boca Raton, phone and email with experienced US based reps by its own account. Good for: a published, no commitment price that scales down per rep the closer you get to CIENCE's own headcount flexibility. Watch for: no LinkedIn and no channels outside phone and email, so it can't replace CIENCE's broader channel list. Full SalesRoads review.
2. Ripe Leads
Vilnius, founder led cold email and LinkedIn with a published euro rate card and campaigns run in German, Polish and Lithuanian as well as English. Good for: a transparent retainer and direct access to the person doing the work, the opposite of a multi-hundred-client operation. Watch for: launched in 2026, no SDR headcount to scale the way CIENCE's model allows. Full Ripe Leads review.
3. Cleverly
Los Angeles, LinkedIn led with email and calling as extra channels. Good for: testing LinkedIn outreach at a fraction of CIENCE's minimum monthly spend. Watch for: a standardised programme, not the dedicated campaign team and SDR build CIENCE sells. Full Cleverly review.
4. Shipyard GTM (my agency)
Vilnius. Done for you outbound on email and LinkedIn, run as one sequence rather than two separate budgets, for B2B companies with product-market fit. It maps the target market first, then builds the data, signals and sending inside your own tools. Fixed monthly price after a first call, month to month, and you keep the domains, inboxes, data and copy if you leave. Good for: companies that want one person accountable for email and LinkedIn together instead of CIENCE's per-seat SDR model. Watch for: launched in October 2026, so no public reviews or published case studies yet, no price on the site, and no phone or direct mail channel if that's what you actually need from CIENCE. shipyardgtm.com.
5. Callbox
Encino headquartered, delivery mostly from the Philippines by its own FAQ, with smaller offices across APAC. Good for: staffed local offices across multiple regions, a genuine capability CIENCE's own site doesn't claim. Watch for: its own two pricing pages still quote different quarterly ranges for the same programme, so the published number needs confirming either way. For the full breakdown of Callbox's pricing gap and who else to weigh against it, see my Callbox alternatives roundup. Full Callbox review.
6. SalesHive
Denver based, phone and email on its own platform, one flat monthly fee with no setup cost by its own pricing page (checked 26 October 2026). Good for: watching activity inside SalesHive's own dashboard instead of waiting on a monthly report. Watch for: no LinkedIn, and no published rate card, so the flat fee itself still needs a call to confirm. Full SalesHive review.
7. Martal Group
Oakville, Canada, onshore reps spread across North America, Europe and LATAM by its own site. Good for: a closer already in the target market, since its higher tiers add a fractional sales executive past the booked meeting, something CIENCE's pod structure doesn't claim to do. Watch for: a paid pilot before the monthly plan starts and no published price, the opposite of CIENCE's pay as you scale model. Full Martal Group review.
8. memoryBlue
Tysons, Virginia, SDR and BDR prospecting bundled with demand generation and paid search by its own site (checked 26 October 2026), plus a recruitment arm that places sales talent permanently. Good for: a built in path to hiring the rep in house later, which none of CIENCE's own pricing tiers offer. Watch for: no published price and a broader marketing bundle than CIENCE's outbound-only scope, so you're paying for services you may not need. Full memoryBlue review.
9. Belkins
Dover, Delaware, a managed, multi-channel programme of research, cold email, calling, LinkedIn and paid ads around a dedicated team per client, per its own site (checked 26 October 2026). Good for: the broadest channel list of the nine, closest to matching CIENCE's own spread across email, phone, LinkedIn and ads. Watch for: no published price at all, so you trade CIENCE's itemised list for a single custom quote. Full Belkins review.
Note. This ranking is mine, built from each agency's own published pricing and the one mechanic CIENCE itself leads on, scaling SDR headcount at a stated rate. A buyer who cares most about channel breadth or regional coverage would rank this list differently, which is exactly why the one-by-one notes above matter more than the rank number.
A rough cost per meeting, with the assumptions shown
Take CIENCE's own cheapest working configuration: the $2,000 campaign team fee, the $499 platform fee and one offshore SDR at $1,750, for $4,249 a month before any performance bonus. Assume 8 to 12 qualified meetings a month, a common lower mid retainer target, not a researched fact, and that comes to roughly $354 to $531 per meeting. Compare that with SalesRoads' own one SDR rate of $11,950 per 4 weeks, close to $12,953 a month assuming 4.33 weeks, which lands at roughly $1,079 to $1,619 per meeting over the same assumed volume. Ripe Leads' €2,850 a month, converted at a rough $1.08 per euro as an assumption rather than a fact, is about $3,078 a month, or roughly $257 to $385 per meeting. None of these agencies publish their own meetings-per-month figure, so swap in whatever number a real sales call gives you before trusting any of these ranges. I've booked 2000+ meetings for B2B clients across retainers at every point on this spread, and the first question worth asking on any of these calls is what "qualified meeting" actually means in the contract, since a loose definition is what makes a low per-meeting number look better than it performs.
Tip. Ask CIENCE, or any agency on this list, to quote the fully loaded monthly cost at your target SDR headcount, performance bonus included, not just the base campaign team and platform fee.
Questions to ask before you sign
What does the one time setup fee actually cost, and what does it include? If I add or remove an SDR mid month, how is that billed? Who is actually delivering the work, a direct CIENCE employee or a sourced contractor from its SDR network? Who owns the domains, mailboxes and lead data when I leave (here's why that answer matters more than it sounds)? And exactly what counts as a qualified meeting, and who decides if one doesn't show?
When CIENCE is still the right call
If the actual appeal of CIENCE is modelling your own cost before a single sales call, its published campaign team fee, platform fee and per-seat SDR rates let you do that in a way only three of the nine agencies here can match. Scaling SDR headcount up or down at a stated monthly rate, rather than renegotiating a custom contract, is a genuine convenience if your pipeline volume changes quarter to quarter. The trade is the one this article opened with: the setup fee is still a black box, and the team running your account may differ from the one an older review describes, so confirm both on the call rather than after you sign.
Key takeaways
- CIENCE's own pricing page lists $2,000 a month for its campaign team and $499 a month for its graph8 platform, then SDRs from $1,750 a month offshore to $3,500 a month in the US or Europe, checked 26 October 2026.
- SalesRoads, Ripe Leads and Cleverly are the only three alternatives here that publish a number as clearly as CIENCE does.
- graph8 acquired CIENCE's assets, so a pre-acquisition review may describe a different team than the one running your account now.
- SalesRoads is the closest match to CIENCE's scale up or down SDR pricing, though it only runs phone and email.
- Confirm the one time setup fee and how mid month headcount changes are billed before you sign, CIENCE's own page leaves both to a call.
FAQ
What is a good alternative to CIENCE?
It depends what you actually want from the switch. For a published number you can compare the same way you compared CIENCE's own, SalesRoads, Ripe Leads and Cleverly all post one. For the same style of modular, scale up or down delivery, Shipyard GTM, my own agency, and SalesHive both run month to month. For the widest channel spread similar to CIENCE's own email, phone, LinkedIn, ads and direct mail list, Belkins and Callbox come closest, though neither publishes a price.
Does CIENCE's published pricing include everything?
No. Its own pricing page lists a $2,000 a month campaign team fee and a $499 a month graph8 platform fee as the base, then SDR capacity on top starting at $1,750 a month offshore or $3,500 a month in the US or Europe, checked 26 October 2026. The one time setup fee that gets you live within two weeks is quoted on a call, not published.
What changed when graph8 acquired CIENCE?
CIENCE's own about page confirms graph8 acquired its assets, folding the sales development team into graph8's broader GTM platform. The company's public review history still mostly predates that change, so a review written before the acquisition describes a team that may not be the one running your account now.
Which CIENCE competitor is cheapest to start with?
Cleverly, with LinkedIn plans from $397 to $997 a month on its own FAQ, checked 26 October 2026. That buys a standardised LinkedIn programme, not the multi-channel SDR build CIENCE sells, so it answers a narrower need.
Is CIENCE worth it if I want to scale SDR headcount up and down?
That is the one thing CIENCE's own pricing page is built around: add or remove SDRs month to month at a published per rep rate, with no separate contract for each hire. None of the nine agencies here publish that same scale up or down mechanic as clearly, which is the main reason to stay rather than switch.