Octopus CRM is one of the many automation tools that claim to be the “all-in-one LinkedIn automation” solution.
In addition to presenting itself as a LinkedIn automation tool, the name of the software implies that it includes an in-app CRM as well. That would be a great feature, provided it was really so.
That’s why we’ve decided to put Octopus CRM to the test - alongside some of Octopus CRM alternatives – to see what this tool has to offer and how it compares to some of its competitors.
When trying out these tools, we’ve taken notice of all those features that are vital for successful LinkedIn outreach, such as:
Below, you’ll find a comparison table with a quick overview of all the crucial info.
Let’s begin by laying out all the essential information about Octopus CRM.
Octopus CRM is a LinkedIn automation software that can be used for very elementary LinkedIn automation.
It is compatible with Basic, Premium, Sales Navigator, and Recruiter LinkedIn plans.
Octopus CRM has a few perks worth mentioning.
This tool isn’t too challenging to use, as it doesn’t have too many automation options, which makes it beginner-friendly.
The only activities you can automate with Octopus are:
Since Octopus has a minimal number of functionalities, and they all work pretty much the same way, you can figure out the how's and the what's pretty quickly, which is a plus if you’re new to automation tools.
If you’re a more advanced user, Octopus CRM will leave you with much to be desired, precisely due to its lack of more intricate features.
The price probably stands out the most when it comes to Octopus CRM since it is one of the most inexpensive tools in the market.
It comes with as many as four pricing plans, including an option for creating a custom plan for agencies.
On the other hand, there are areas in which Octopus CRM is greatly lacking.
Since it’s a Chrome extension, it is clear that Octopus is nowhere near safe as a cloud-based tool.
Using a Chrome extension significantly raises the chances of being detected – and in effect banned – by LinkedIn, as the platform’s bots have become very apt in discovering extensions.
No browser extension can ever come close to the levels of safety provided by cloud-based software, despite what Octopus CRM’s team might claim about their tool being “the safest out there.”
Moreover, since it’s connected to your browser, your device will have to stay on the entire time your campaigns are running.
Besides that, Octopus CRM offers some automatic safety limits and warnings only if you subscribe to the Unlimited plan. If you go for one of the cheaper plans, you’re pretty much on your own – Octopus CRM will take no liability for your being banned by LinkedIn for using it.
As we’ve mentioned, Octopus CRM can automate only a few very basic LinkedIn activities, but that’s not all.
By far the biggest flaw of Octopus CRM is that there are no options for creating smart sequences whatsoever, which means you have to create an entirely new campaign for each step you want to take.
Essentially, you have to create a separate campaign for each individual activity, such as viewing a profile, sending a connection request, endorsing a skill, or sending messages to first-level connections.
You also have to manually extract all the symbols and emojis from your prospects’ names. Should you overlook this, the tool will send out connection request messages that include all the titles, symbols, and emoticons, making it evident that they’ve been sent by a software rather than a reasonable human being.
There are no options for scheduling activities or setting up automatic limits. Once again, you have to do everything by hand, which makes us wonder whether you can call Octopus CRM a real automation tool.
After all, if you have to do almost everything by yourself, there isn’t much point in paying for a tool that’s only semi-efficient at best.
Octopus CRM is not really a CRM despite what its name might suggest.
Octopus CRM only offers the option for importing and exporting data (if you buy a more expensive plan, that is) and a very basic statistics dashboard, but nothing more than that.
You cannot further organize or manage your prospects, and there are no options for segmenting your leads and laying out all the relevant data insightfully and clearly.
Essentially, Octopus CRM offers no more CRM options than any other LinkedIn automation tool.
In fact, it has even fewer options than some of the Octopus CRM alternatives we’ve tested.
Since LinkedIn has recently introduced weekly connection limits, it has become crucial for any half-decent automation tool to offer safe ways of bypassing them.
This is another massive weakness of Octopus CRM, as it has just one option for working around the LinkedIn limits: the invite by email.
However, there’s a catch to this as well. You get this feature only if you go for the most expensive plan, and even then, you get only 500 email finder credits.
To make matters worse, the credit is spent on a prospect no matter if the search for their email address was successful or not.
And guess what? If you want more email finder credits, you will have to pay extra.
Real great, isn’t it?
Octopus CRM has four pricing plans and an option for creating custom plans for agencies that want to automate several LinkedIn profiles with the software.
The plans are as follows:
If you opt for annual billing, you’ll get a 35% discount on these prices.
Even though the plans are really cheap, they come with a catch. If you want all the vital options for LinkedIn outreach automation, you will have to choose the Unlimited plan.
The most expensive plan is the only one that includes the feature of inviting prospects by email and the options for integration with other apps, and some safety limits.
The cheapest, Starter plan, really leaves you with next to nothing, as you’ll only get the option for an auto invite and a stats dashboard.
Also, as there are no options for teams, if you want to automate more than one LinkedIn profile, you’ve guessed it right – you have to pay for each license separately.
There’s a 7-day free trial no matter what plan you choose, which isn’t that much time to see whether the tool is a fit for you.
Moreover, if you need more than the 500 email finder credits you get with the Unlimited plan, you can upgrade to some of the email finder plans:
There really isn’t that much to say if you have high standards and expectations of your automation tool regarding Octopus CRM.
On the other hand, provided that you have relatively modest needs for LinkedIn outreach, the fact that Octopus has a minimal number of features could be an advantage, as you won’t need too much time to wrap your head around it.
So, if you need a tool that won’t put your LinkedIn outreach on total autopilot but leave you with much space for doing lots of things manually, and you’re okay with not being as safe as you could be, then Octopus CRM might do you some good, especially if you consider that it is one of the cheapest tools on the market.
Don’t expect to get an in-app CRM system though, as that’s something Octopus CRM does not deliver to its users.
If, however, this doesn’t sound all that great to you, read on to see what tool is the best Octopus CRM alternative for you.
On a side note, before we dive in – although Sales Robot is our automation tool, we’ve rated it honestly and with no fishy business. We were as unbiased and fair in rating Sales Robot as we were with all the other software on our list in order to help you find the right one for you, even when it’s not us. After all, our clients’ success is as important to us as our own, so we wouldn’t dream of promising something we can’t deliver.
Sales Robot claims to be “the smartest LinkedIn automation platform on the market,” and the features Sales Robot’s team offers to speak for themselves better than any words.
As it has plenty of options for automating various activities, Sales Robot’s a perfect LinkedIn outreach tool for a wide range of users, from lead generation agencies to start-ups, sales teams, and recruitment agencies, as well as individual small business owners.
Even though Sales Robot’s relatively new in the market, it has still managed to position itself firmly among its competitors by collaborating with over 300 customers in a short period of time and earning an outstanding rating of 4.9 on G2.
The following are some of the vital functionalities that make Sales Robot stand out from the crowd of similar tools.
Sales Robot includes various features that enable users to automate all sorts of activities on LinkedIn.
With Sales Robot, you can automate:
What’s even better is that you don’t have to create a separate campaign for each step since it is possible – and quite easy at that as well – to create a single campaign that will encompass all of these activities and more.
You can also delay and schedule specific steps, set up triggers, delete pending invites, blacklist individuals and companies, skip duplicates, etc.
As Sales Robot’s interface is very intuitive, you will have no problem creating your own campaigns in no time. And as an added help, there are ready-made campaign templates to help you start and learn the ropes on the go.
Sales Robot integrates seamlessly with all the most popular tools, such as Zapier, HubSpot, Salesforce, Hyperise, etc.
That enables you to effortlessly export all the relevant data to your CRM or database of choice in a few clicks.
Sales Robot is a cloud-based tool, which means that the chances of LinkedIn bots detecting it are virtually non-existent. That also means that you don’t have to keep your device running for your campaigns to proceed as planned – the software will take care of everything even when your computer is shut down.
Moreover, Sales Robot has other ways of taking care of your safety.
In addition to randomizing activity, there are options in the tool for setting up limits for all the critical LinkedIn activities you want to engage in, such as:
In addition, you can also gradually increase the number of regular connection requests and InMails that you send over a period of time.
That way, the AI mimics human behavior to perfection, making it impossible for LinkedIn to get suspicious and raise the alarm.
If you’re still worried about accidentally crossing LinkedIn limits or alerting the platform with abnormal activity, there is a Safe mode feature inside Sales Robot to ensure you’ll always stay within the recommended range.
Sales Robot offers as many as three options for working around the weekly limit:
These methods are both effective, as you can reach out to many more people than the measly 100 per week, and completely safe since they are not against LinkedIn’s policies.
With this software, you can effortlessly draft and send highly-personalized messages and connection requests in just a few clicks.
Sales Robot’s latest generation AI can automatically find the things that stand out the most from a particular profile, such as:
The tool’s AI will then draft a highly-personalized message based on the data it collected, ensuring that your leads feel like they’re talking to an actual person rather than a software.
And if you decide to write your own messages, rather than use our pre-made fully customizable templates, Sales Robot will calculate the probable response rate of those messages.
Nothing is perfect, and Sales Robot is no exception, as there is always room for some improvement. There are a few things that can strike some users as shortcomings.
If we are to be completely honest, the GIF and image personalization in Sales Robot isn’t as advanced as in some other tools.
Even though Sales Robot has an option for creating unique content through integration with Hyperise, the visuals are not as customizable and original as they could be.
Sales Robot has only one pricing plan at $179 per month.
However, the value you're getting for your money is more than enough to justify the price - considering that you get:
Moreover, Sales Robot’s team intends to include another plan at $99 per month in the near future, to add some more versatility.
At the moment, Sales Robot has two pricing plans:
Even though there are two plans, it includes everything you may ever need from a LinkedIn automation tool and more.
Better yet - it’s perfect for teams of all sizes, as it allows easy integration and team collaboration.
And as it comes with a 14-day free trial, Sales Robot provides plenty of time to try everything out and decide for yourself whether Sales Robot’s the way to go.
What’s more, the folks at Sales Robot will include another pricing plan at $99 per month sometime soon, so stay tuned for that. 😉
Get more sales on LinkedIn. Start a free 14-day trial today.
Ultimately, if you want an actual LinkedIn outreach automation tool that’s going to enable you to get a steady stream of warm leads on complete autopilot, then you need to look no further than Sales Robot.
Unlike Octopus CRM, Sales Robot has advanced options for creating various smart sequences and complex campaigns that run all by themselves once you’ve put in the desired actions, triggers, limits, and delays.
What’s more, creating, customizing, and adjusting smart sequences and campaigns has never been easier, thanks to Sales Robot’s simple UI that makes everything all that smoother for you to tune to your business goals.
The fact that Sales Robot is cloud-based and provides its users with a Safe mode that’s available no matter what pricing plan you opt for is another huge plus.
When you combine that with the automatic randomization of all activities and the options for setting up limits and gradually increasing various activities, you get the formula for foolproof safety of your LinkedIn outreach – another thing Octopus CRM cannot guarantee.
In addition, Sales Robot’s latest generation AI is more than capable of crafting highly-personalized messages that are so human-like that there is no chance your prospects will figure out that they’ve been chatted up by software rather than an actual person.
And let’s not forget the one thing that’s important to most users – Sales Robot offers as many as 3 safe and efficient options for bypassing the dreaded LinkedIn limits that work like a charm. Whereas with Octopus CRM, you get just one option - and you have to pay extra if you want to make the most of it.
So, if you’re ready for an automation tool that can create fully autopiloted smart sequences and campaigns that bring a predictable stream of hot new leads and make bypassing LinkedIn limits a breeze while keeping you safe and sound – then Sales Robot is the right Octopus CRM alternative for you.
Don’t just take our word for it. Sign up for a 14-day free trial and see what Sales Robot has to offer first-hand.
And there are no strings attached – we won’t ask you for your credit card info. 😉
LeadDelta is a CRM software designed for LinkedIn.
That means that LeadDelta is not an automation tool like Octopus CRM and other software on our list, but a tool that helps you organize and manage your LinkedIn leads in one place, giving you a clearer and more straightforward overview of essential data.
It does come with some automation options, such as sending bulk messages to a targeted segment of your LinkedIn network.
LeadDelta is an excellent tool if you need to organize your LinkedIn contacts and create an easily accessible database of all the vital info you may need for your business.
Some of its features that made the biggest impression are the following.
LeadDelta is masterful at giving you a clear, simple, and decluttered view of your LinkedIn contacts and their data, such as their email addresses, phone numbers, companies and positions they’ve worked at, etc.
In addition, you can tag and filter contacts for further segmentation. That allows you to group prospects that have something in common or leads that should be targeted in the same campaign, for example.
There’s also an option for bulk removal of LinkedIn contacts.
You can opt for disconnecting with certain users on LinkedIn but keeping them part of your LeadDelta database, or you could erase them from LeadDelta alone. Finally, you could choose to delete them from both LinkedIn and LeadDelta.
LeadDelta also gives you a hand with organizing your LinkedIn inbox, which is notorious for its cluttered and unintuitive interface.
With LeadDelta, it’s much easier to keep track of all the messages you’ve sent and received. You can add notes and tags with reminders or relevant information about the correspondent and even pin the most important messages to access them more easily.
LeadDelta lets you gather all the necessary information from your contacts’ profiles in just a few clicks.
That way, you get a complete and understandable database you can further export and integrate seamlessly with any other app or CRM.
There are areas in which LeadDelta is somewhat lacking, and they mostly revolve around LinkedIn automation options.
If you are looking for a software that will take care of your LinkedIn outreach, then LeadDelta is most definitely not the right choice for you, as it has next to no automation options.
LeadDelta is primarily a CRM software, and as such, it does a fantastic job.
When it comes to automation though, the only thing you can semi-automate with LeadDelta is sending bulk messages to up to 25 first-level contacts. The messages come with basic placeholders to help you draft them more easily, but they are very far from being highly personalized.
LeadDelta comes with just one pricing plan and a free trial of only 5 days.
You don’t really get to see how the tool performs when given such a short trial, so you’ll probably have to subscribe for at least a month or so to see whether LeadDelta gets the job done for you.
LeadDelta has one pricing plan alone at $23.70 when billed monthly.
You get a discount when you opt for annual billing, in which case the tool comes at $19.75 per month.
Despite its name, Octopus CRM cannot be called an actual CRM software since it offers next to nothing when it comes to organizing, managing, and creating databases of your LinkedIn leads.
LeadDelta, on the other hand, does precisely that and more, as it gives you a nice, clean, and decluttered overview of everything you need to know about your prospects on LinkedIn.
Its interface is pretty intuitive and easy to use, even if you’ve had no experience with CRM so far.
Overall, having a CRM for your LinkedIn prospects could prove to be a mighty weapon in your LinkedIn sales and outreach, especially if you combine it with an automation tool that puts all of your activity on autopilot and takes care of everything in your stead.
So, if what you’re looking for is a LinkedIn-focused CRM software that will help you organize, manage and have a clear view of your LinkedIn network and leads, then LeadDelta is the ultimate Octopus CRM alternative for you.
Meet Alfred, previously known as Meet Leonard, is a tool that’s supposed to ease your lead generation process through automation.
Meet Alfred is different from other tools because of its capability to tackle several social media at once, so it’s an excellent option for multi-channel campaigns.
Several nifty features enable Meet Alfred to deliver outstanding results.
If you aim to target several social media at once, Meet Alfred has your back.
The software saves you valuable time it would take you to create each post manually, as it easily automates creating posts suitable for various social media.
This way, you use one concept for everything from LinkedIn to Facebook, Instagram, and even Twitter.
In addition, Meet Alfred takes care of optimizing posts for different social media.
It takes notice of the needs and prerequisites of each of these media when creating a post and even shows you a preview before posting it, so you can see what it is going to look like when it turns up before your followers and potential prospects.
You can also schedule posting time for every media.
Whereas Meet Leonard was a Chrome extension, Meet Alfred is cloud-based, making it trickier for LinkedIn to detect its use and ban you.
Moreover, the software comes with options for setting up limits, and it tries its best to mimic regular human activity.
Meet Alfred has a built-in CRM system that allows users to view and organize LinkedIn leads on a single page.
You can also add tags and notes, apply filters, and export data within the app.
Meet Alfred comes with quite a few weak points as well.
Meet Alfred’s interface is pretty clunky, and it has a steep learning curve. That means you should be prepared to invest some serious time and effort in mastering the use of this tool if you want to make the most of its functionalities.
Moreover, the software is prone to crashing mid-task, and the campaigns can get glitchy. Unfortunately, this effectively renders many of Meet Alfred’s neat features practically useless.
To make matters worse, there’s been a report of false reviews on certain platforms, which raises additional flags when it comes to overall UX and UI.
The customer support seems to be a nightmare at Meet Alfred, as there have been various complaints about that.
Since you never know when an issue or a question might occur, you’d probably feel much safer if someone from the team was always there for you.
Sadly, that’s something you won’t have with Meet Alfred, so you’d better be prepared to take care of everything yourself.
Meet Alfred comes with two different pricing plans:
When billed annually, you get a discount.
Recently, Meet Alfred included an offer for obtaining Sales Navigator “at a price you can afford”, which comes at $39 per month. However, it’s hard to say how legitimate – and safe – this offer really is.
There’s also a 14-day free trial included.
Octopus CRM is a rudimentary LinkedIn automation tool that can automate only certain LinkedIn activities – and even that barely, if we’re completely honest.
Due to that, Meet Alfred most definitely overrides Octopus CRM when it comes to overall automation features, but especially when multi-channel campaigns are concerned.
Even though its UX and UI are not as great as we’d like them to be, Meet Alfred still has some cool options for automating the creation, optimization and posting of social media posts on several social media simultaneously.
As such, Meet Alfred is a fantastic tool when you need a multi-channel campaign with the main focus on social media such as Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, in addition to LinkedIn.
Creating versatile posts for every media is easy-peasy with a few clicks, which saves you a lot of time, and that’s a feature Octopus CRM doesn’t have.
In addition, the in-app CRM system comes in pretty handy and is something Octopus CRM doesn’t actually have. This feature allows you to have a clear overview of all the relevant data from LinkedIn.
In the end, if your primary goal is creating a presence in multiple social media at once and managing multi-channel campaigns with as little time and effort invested, then Meet Alfred is the suitable Octopus CRM alternative for your business.
Phantombuster is not an automation tool created exclusively for LinkedIn. It covers many different social media and platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and even Reddit, Craigslist, Medium, and many more.
Phantombuster enables you to automate practically any web action you would perform manually: from following profiles, liking and commenting on posts, and accepting requests to sending customized messages.
Phantombuster offers automation of nearly all web activity that marketers and business owners need the most, but some of its most noteworthy features include the following.
PhantomBuster has options for automating entire campaigns on various social media, including but not limited to LinkedIn.
By connecting individual Phantoms – which are separate activities, such as viewing or following a profile – into a chain or a “Flow,” you effectively create a campaign that carries on working on auto-pilot.
PhantomBuster can extract almost any information available online and store it for your further use.
The software provides you with an uncluttered view of the saved data, enabling users to easily access the information they need.
You can further export the data to your CRM software of choice, a database, or any other system you may need.
Thanks to this feature, you can schedule your workflows, set triggers, and leave the rest to the tool.
Being cloud-based also means that the software will be up and running 24/7, without the need to keep your device turned on all the time.
Phantombuster, as nifty a tool as it is, is not without its faults, of course. Some of the most common challenges users face are as follows.
PhantomBuster is not primarily LinkedIn-focused.
Due to that, it’s not as fine-tuned to LinkedIn requirements and restrictions as some other tools from our list are.
In fact, Phantombuster doesn’t even offer a single option for working around the LinkedIn connection invite limitations, so you can send out just 100 invites per week by using this tool.
The number of slots you get in a plan determines the number of automated activities you can simultaneously have installed on your account.
That dramatically restricts your effective lead generation and outreach options, especially if you need more complicated, multi-step workflows for your campaigns.
Moreover, you get a limited number of hours per day during which Phantombuster performs. It goes without saying that the more expensive plans provide you with more working hours than the cheaper ones.
Phantombuster demands access to your cookies to log into LinkedIn as you, and to be able to do that, you have to download a Chrome extension.
That raises the question of safety and probably increases the risk of being detected by LinkedIn bots that do not look very favorably upon such tricks.
Phantombuster offers several pricing plans that include different features:
The pricier plans also include priority support and a dedicated expert in some instances.
In addition, each of these plans, except for the free one, comes with a number of email credits per day, which is essentially the number of email addresses you can scrape in a day.
Phantombuster also offers a 14-day free trial.
Phantombuster is perfectly apt to automate practically any web-based activity you might need. As such, it has plenty of automation features that are suited to different social media and platforms.
However, this tool is greatly lacking when it comes to LinkedIn automation in particular.
Phantombuster doesn’t have an option for going around the LinkedIn limitations, which is a massive issue for many users who are precisely looking for a way to bypass those restrictions to grow their business.
In addition, it is on the more expensive end of the spectrum, especially if you consider all the limits and restricted number of dedicated activity slots and working hours.
As an alternative to Octopus CRM, Phantombuster is somewhat safer, as it is cloud-based. That also means your device doesn’t have to be turned on at all times for it to keep running.
On the other hand, Phantombuster demands access to your cookies to log into LinkedIn as you. To do that, you have to install a Chrome extension, which significantly raises the risk of being detected - and banned - by LinkedIn.
To wrap it all up, Phantombuster is an excellent software when you want to automate activity on the web in general. If your goal is to automate various actions on several channels and platforms simultaneously – and you’re not primarily targeting LinkedIn – then Phantombuster is the Octopus CRM alternative that will do the trick.
As a parting gift, we’ll leave you with some key takeaways to help you make a well-informed decision on choosing a tool that will get the job done for your business-specific needs.
Wanna give Sales Robot a try? Sign up for a free 14-day trial right now and see for yourself whether Sales Robot’s a match. You don’t even have to provide your credit card information – just buckle up and enjoy the ride.
Disclaimer: Please note that the featured information is correct as of 01.04.2022. Sales Robot has made every attempt to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information provided on this website. However, the information is provided “as is” without a warranty of any kind. Sales Robot does not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained on this website.
Thoughts, Notes & Tutorials
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