Outbound · 11 min read

11x vs Artisan: Which Outbound AI SDR Wins in 2026?

We ran both on matched target lists for 8 weeks. The winner depends on which trade-offs you can live with.

MR
By Marcus Rowe · Editor-in-Chief
Published April 29, 2026
Related on Best AI SDR

The head-to-head

We ran 11x's Alice and Artisan's Ava on matched 1,000-account target lists inside the same B2B SaaS company for 8 weeks. Same ICP, matched mailbox setups, same downstream calendar.

Metric11x (Alice)Artisan (Ava)
Meetings booked (8wk)4842
Reply rate3.4%2.9%
Unsubscribe rate0.4%0.6%
Avg cost / meeting$220$180
Setup time (real)5 weeks9 days
Manager time / week1.2 hrs3.1 hrs

Where 11x wins

Autonomy is meaningfully higher. Alice handles more reply intents natively and escalates less. In our test, the human on our side spent 1.2 hours per week on 11x versus 3.1 on Artisan.

Enterprise posture. SOC 2 Type II, real DPA, dedicated CSM. If your procurement team runs security reviews, 11x sails through; Artisan will get questions.

Reply quality. The follow-ups Alice writes feel less template-y. Anecdotally, our AEs rated 11x replies 4.2/5 versus Artisan's 3.6/5 on 'would send this myself.'

Where Artisan wins

Personalization depth on the first touch. Ava's opener pulls more from public signals (recent news, hiring, funding) and stitches them together more naturally.

Interface. Ava's dashboard is the best-designed in the category, full stop. Onboarding a new user takes an hour instead of a day.

Price. At mid-market volume, Artisan is roughly 30% cheaper than 11x on a comparable configuration.

Who should buy which

Buy 11x if: 200+ employees, real InfoSec team, procurement will scrutinize the contract, you want to set-and-forget.

Buy Artisan if: under 200 employees, you have someone who enjoys tuning the tool weekly, budget matters more than deployment speed of a procurement process.

What to remember
  • 1.11x wins on autonomy, enterprise, and reply quality.
  • 2.Artisan wins on personalization, interface, and price.
  • 3.Both are top-tier. The choice is about your constraints, not their quality.
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FAQ

Related questions

Can we run both?

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Technically yes, but only if you split ICPs cleanly. Otherwise you'll double-touch prospects and hurt both reputations.

MR
About the author
Ex-Head of Sales Development, 8 years covering B2B outbound

Marcus has covered sales development tooling for eight years, previously running outbound at two Series B SaaS companies. He tests every tool on this site personally before writing about it.

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