Changelog
What's new in Ballast
Ballast is cold email software with every feature on every plan. Connect unlimited mailboxes, send sequences at a pace your domains survive, and handle replies in one inbox, priced by the emails you send.
Follow via RSSAnalytics, REST API, webhooks and MCP
See how campaigns are doing at a glance, and let your own tools and your AI do anything you can do in the app.
- Overview dashboard: emails sent, replies, positive replies and bounce rate over 7, 30 or 90 days, mailbox health, reply sentiment, and the hours and weekdays people reply in their own time zone.
- Campaign analytics by step and A/B variant, by mailbox and by email provider, with a winner once each variant has 50 sends.
- REST API with API keys from Settings. Every endpoint is documented with its parameters, permissions and a curl example.
- Signed webhooks for replies, labels, bounces, unsubscribes, won leads and paused campaigns, with retries and a delivery log you can replay.
- MCP server: connect Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or Claude Code and they can build campaigns, read replies and check stats. Launching, replying, importing and deleting always show you a preview and ask before they happen.
Unibox: every reply in one inbox
Replies from all your mailboxes land in one place, sorted, and you answer them in the same thread.
- Ballast reads each mailbox's inbox and matches replies to the lead and campaign that started the conversation.
- A reply stops that lead's sequence. Optionally, it also stops emails to colleagues at the same company.
- Out-of-office replies move the sequence to the day after the person is back. Auto-replies don't count as replies.
- "Stop" and "unsubscribe" replies unsubscribe the lead for the whole workspace.
- Bounces are read from the inbox too: the address is suppressed and the lead stops everywhere.
- Labels such as Interested, Not now and Out of office, set by rules, by you, or by AI if you turn it on. AI labels are off by default because reply text would go to a model provider.
- Answer from the Unibox: the reply goes from the same mailbox, in the same thread.
Sending that paces itself
Campaigns send from your own mailboxes at a human pace, and stop on their own before a bad day burns a domain.
- Each mailbox sends up to its daily limit with a random gap between emails, only inside the lead's working hours in the lead's time zone.
- New mailboxes ramp up slowly, a few more emails each day.
- Provider matching: Gmail mailboxes write to Gmail recipients and Outlook to Outlook when you have both.
- Follow-ups thread under the first email as a reply.
- Every email carries a one-click unsubscribe header. Unsubscribes and bounces are suppressed for the whole workspace.
- Breakers pause a mailbox, a campaign or the whole workspace when bounces cross a threshold, and email the owners and admins.
- Start and end dates for campaigns.
Campaigns, sequences and Write with AI
Write multi-step sequences with A/B variants, preview them for real leads, and launch with a checklist.
- Steps with waits, up to five variants per step with weights, spintax and variables with fallbacks.
- A content checklist on every email: length, links, spam words, questions and more.
- Preview any email exactly as a given lead will get it.
- Schedule: sending days, hours and the time zone used when a lead has none.
- A launch checklist that blocks what would break sending and suggests what would help.
- Write with AI: drafts a sequence or rewrites an email from your offer profile, checked against the content checklist. Drafts arrive turned off until you turn them on.
Leads, lists and verification
Import leads from the tools you already use and keep bad addresses out of your campaigns.
- Import CSV files with presets for Instantly, Smartlead, Apollo and Clay exports, with duplicates, suppressed and invalid rows counted before you confirm.
- Lists, labels with triggers, and a suppression list by address or by domain.
- Free checks for typos, disposable domains, role addresses and domains that can't receive mail.
- Verify leads with your own MillionVerifier, ZeroBounce or NeverBounce key. We never mark up verification.
- Each lead's email provider is detected, so you can see who uses Google, Microsoft and others.
Mailboxes and domains
Connect as many mailboxes as you like on any plan, and keep an eye on the domains behind them.
- Google Workspace and Gmail with an app password, Microsoft 365 and Outlook.com with a Microsoft sign-in, or any SMTP and IMAP server.
- Import mailboxes in bulk from a CSV, including Instantly and Smartlead exports.
- Every connection is tested before it's saved, and again every day.
- Each sending domain's SPF, DKIM, DMARC and blacklist status is rechecked daily.
Workspaces, team and billing
One account, as many workspaces and teammates as you need, every feature on every plan.
- Workspaces for each brand or client, with owner, admin and member roles. No seat limits.
- Plans priced by the emails you send, every feature included on each one.
- Guided setup: workspace, sending domain, what you sell, expected volume and the plan that fits it.
Free domain checker
Check whether a domain is ready for cold email in about two seconds, no signup needed.
- MX, SPF, DKIM, DMARC, 9 blacklists and domain age, graded 0 to 100 with the fix for each problem.
- A shareable result page for each domain.
Check your domain before you send.
SPF, DKIM, DMARC and blacklists, graded in about two seconds. Free, no signup.