Appointment setting companies compared on published price, contract terms and cost per held meeting, from Belkins to CIENCE and Leadium. Checked October 2026.
There is no single best appointment setting company, because the right one depends on deal size, channel and how much contract risk you accept. CIENCE publishes the most pricing, Leadium and SalesHive run month to month, and Belkins sells a booked-meeting guarantee. Whoever you pick, pay for held meetings and get 'qualified' defined in writing.
Search for appointment setting companies and you get a dozen lists, and most were written by a company on the list. Belkins ranks Belkins first. Beanstalk ranks Beanstalk first. So here's a different cut: nine options, only what each vendor publishes about price and contract terms, clearly marked when a number comes from someone else, and the arithmetic for what a meeting costs once no-shows are counted. We checked every page on 25 October 2026. Where a site blocked us, we say so.
Expect a retainer of several thousand dollars a month, or a fee per meeting that rises with the seniority of the person you want to meet. Every range below comes from a firm that sells the service, so read them as market signals, not benchmarks. They also disagree, which is the first thing to know.
| Model | Reported range | Source and date |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly retainer | $4,000 to $18,000 | Revnew, 13 March 2026 |
| Pay per held meeting, mainstream B2B | $150 to $400 | Cleverly, 10 June 2026, updated 13 July 2026 |
| Pay per held meeting, mid-market to enterprise | $400 to $700 | |
| Pay per held meeting, C-suite or competitive verticals | Over $1,000 | |
| Hybrid: base plus per meeting | $2,000 to $4,000 plus $150 to $400 (Cleverly); $3,000 to $8,000 plus $100 to $300 (Revnew) | Cleverly, Revnew |
One warning from the same Cleverly guide is worth keeping: per-appointment pricing below $100 almost always means unverified, low-quality meetings. A cheap meeting with the wrong buyer is the most expensive kind.
For most B2B teams the shortlist is CIENCE, Belkins, Leadium and SalesHive, because they publish enough to compare. SalesRoads, Martal Group and Callbox are established names, but their own sites blocked us, so their figures below are labelled "reported". Cleverly suits small budgets, and AI SDR software suits teams that would rather keep outreach in house.
| Company | Best for | Price (source) | Contract |
|---|---|---|---|
| CIENCE | Teams that want to see the price sheet | $2,000 team + $499 platform + SDRs from $1,750 (own page) | Month to month |
| Belkins | Multi-channel campaigns with a volume guarantee | From $5,000 on its service page; $8,000 a month in its guide | Not published |
| Leadium | Smaller teams avoiding long lock-ins | Not published; form budget bands start at $2,500 | Month to month |
| SalesHive | One flat fee, phone plus email | Custom quote (own page) | Month to month |
| SalesRoads | US-based phone-first outreach | Reported $6,950 to $9,950 per four weeks | Confirm directly |
| Martal Group | Outsourcing more than the booking | Reported $2,500 to $10,500 a month in a pilot | Reported 3 to 4 month pilot |
| Callbox | Campaigns across several countries | Reported $16,000 to $32,000 a quarter per pod | Not published |
| Cleverly | Small budgets testing LinkedIn or calling | From $697 a month (own page) | Check with Cleverly |
| Outbound Labs | Keeping outreach in house with AI agents | $149 a month (Growth), 750 free emails first | Monthly plans |
CIENCE's pricing page breaks the bill into parts: a $2,000 monthly campaign team, a $499 monthly platform fee, and SDRs from $1,750 a month offshore or $3,500 in the US and Europe. SDRs earn a bonus only above 60% of their held-meeting target, there's a one-time setup fee (the amount isn't on the page), and the contract is month to month. Its own example, five offshore SDRs, comes to $11,249 a month before bonus. The weak spot is reputation: Belkins' 2025 guide reports a 4.2 Clutch score on 142 reviews and 3.7 on G2 with 181, lower than its peers. Belkins is a competitor, so check the live scores yourself.
Belkins' service page says "from $5,000" for 1,500 leads a month, three outreach channels and 100 guaranteed appointments a year, with no-show recovery in every package. Its own listicle says that same package starts at $8,000 a month. Its pricing page shows no prices at all, only packages of 30+, 100+ and 200+ appointments a year. It has the biggest review base of the group, with 4.9 on 230 Clutch reviews and 4.8 on 93 G2 reviews on its own page. Ask which price is current, and what "no-show recovery" means in practice.
Leadium's FAQ is unusually direct. All contracts are month to month, appointment setting launches in 7 to 10 days, and it does not guarantee appointment outcomes, only the activity it delivers. It also tells you what it counts as qualified: if a prospect agrees to connect on a sales call, that's a qualified appointment. That's a loose bar, so tighten it in writing. It publishes no price. Its contact form offers budget bands that start at $2,500 to $3,500, while Belkins' guide reports a $1,500 start.
SalesHive's pricing page (counted 6 October 2026) says managed programs are one flat monthly fee covering SDRs, a strategist, data and tooling, with no setup fees, no per-meeting charge and no meeting guarantee. You owe nothing until you approve the launch, and after outreach starts you can cancel month to month with written notice. It quotes about three weeks to launch. The catch is the missing number: rates are custom quoted, and annual plans cost less than monthly ones.
SalesRoads sells outreach led by phone with US-based SDRs, aimed at mid-market and enterprise deals. We couldn't open its site, so these figures are secondhand. Smartlead's October 2026 review reports $6,950 to $9,950 per four-week period, and notes that four-week billing means 13 periods a year, not 12. At those rates that's $90,350 to $129,350 a year (our arithmetic). Smartlead also found no no-show policy on SalesRoads' site. Check with SalesRoads before you compare it with a monthly quote.
Martal Group runs prospecting, demos and some closing, so it fits teams that want to outsource more than the booking. Belkins' guide reports a three-month pilot at $2,500 to $10,500 a month; Smartlead reports a three to four month pilot. Belkins argues that one vendor for the whole funnel rarely works. That's a competitor's opinion, but it's a fair question to put to Martal: who owns qualification after the first call? Both figures are reported, not published. Check with Martal.
Callbox's pitch is reach: multilingual SDRs and campaigns across Asia Pacific, Europe and Latin America, per Belkins' guide. SalesOne read its pricing page on 19 October 2026 and reports an estimated $16,000 to $32,000 a quarter for one campaign pod, with the exact price set after a consultation. That puts it at the top of this list on cost, so it makes sense mainly when several markets and languages are the point.
Cleverly says LinkedIn appointment setting starts at $697 a month for 600 prospects, and cold-calling appointment setting is $2,997 a month with 10 to 40 appointments and a free SDR replacement if targets are missed. Note the conflict: Cleverly also wrote the pay-per-appointment price guide we cite above, so its benchmarks come from a vendor. The low entry price makes it a sensible small test, not proof of results.
We'd rather be honest about where we fit. Outbound Labs is AI SDR software: six agents (Researcher, Strategist, Prospector, Writer, Sender, Closer) do the research, writing and sending, and you approve every campaign. The Growth plan is $149 a month for 5,000 emails and the Scale plan is $499 for 25,000. You can start with 750 free emails and no card, and see AI SDR pricing in full. It doesn't promise meetings, and nobody should. It fits when your deals are small, you'd rather learn what works before paying a retainer, or you want your own team talking to every reply. If you need people to qualify prospects for you, pick from the agencies above.
Most promise activity, not meetings. Of the vendors that publish terms, two say outright they don't guarantee outcomes, and one guarantees a count of booked appointments. Here is what each says on its own site, and where it says nothing.
| Vendor | Contract | Meeting guarantee | "Qualified" means | No-show terms |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CIENCE | Month to month | None stated; SDR bonus paid on a held-meeting target | Not stated | Paid on held meetings |
| Leadium | Month to month | None on appointments; guarantees its activity | Prospect agrees to a sales call | Not stated |
| SalesHive | Month to month, written notice | None | Not stated on the page we read | Not stated |
| Belkins | Not published | 100 appointments a year on the entry package | Agreed per client before launch | "No-show recovery" listed, terms not stated |
| Cleverly (calling) | Check with Cleverly | Free SDR replacement if targets are missed | Not stated | Not stated |
Smartlead points out that Belkins' guarantee counts booked appointments, not held ones. That's the gap to close in any contract. SalesOne's read of public reviews of 20 outsourced sales agencies (a database it says isn't a statistical sample) found the most common complaints were results below what was pitched, changed reps or wrong scripts, and targeting outside the agreed profile. Fit gets decided in the brief and the contract. Fixing it later is hard.
A held meeting costs the monthly fee divided by meetings that actually happen, and the number depends heavily on what the agency really delivers. The two examples below use only published prices, plus Smartlead's figure that roughly 15 to 30% of cold-booked B2B meetings never happen.
Belkins' entry package. If you pay 12 months, $5,000 a month is $60,000 for at least 100 booked appointments, and $8,000 a month is $96,000. The guarantee is a floor, so real cost per meeting could be lower. The first month also goes to setup, per Belkins.
| Monthly fee | Per guaranteed booked appointment | Per held meeting at 15% no-show | Per held meeting at 30% no-show |
|---|---|---|---|
| $5,000 | $600 | $706 | $857 |
| $8,000 | $960 | $1,129 | $1,371 |
CIENCE's five-SDR example. At $11,249 a month before bonus, the cost per held meeting depends on how many the team holds. CIENCE doesn't publish results. As a yardstick, the Bridge Group's 2025 survey of 351 B2B companies puts the median in-house monthly quota at 10 held meetings per SDR, with median SDR on-target earnings of $80,000 and 3.0 months of ramp. Treat 50 as a ceiling, not a forecast.
| Held meetings a month | 10 | 20 | 30 | 50 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cost per held meeting | $1,125 | $562 | $375 | $225 |
Compare those with the $150 to $600 per-meeting range above. Then run your own numbers in our cost per meeting calculator. It's worth knowing what volume sits behind the price, too. Belkins' 2026 study says it sent 7.5 million cold emails in 2025, saw a 0.45% reply rate and booked over 1,200 appointments. That's at most one appointment per 6,250 emails. The retainer is paying for infrastructure and volume, not magic.
Choose on what the contract measures, not on the logo wall. Run every shortlisted vendor through the same checks, in writing, before you pay anything. Our own rule: refuse to pay for booked meetings, and give a month-to-month vendor the first test.
| Check | What a good answer looks like |
|---|---|
| Held or booked? | Reports and billing count meetings held, or a credit or replacement for each no-show |
| Definition of qualified | Role, company size, geography and attendance written into the contract |
| Test meetings | Name three past meetings you'd happily pay for and two you wouldn't; the definition should bill the first three only (SalesOne's test) |
| Contract length | Month to month, or a short pilot with an exit |
| Ownership | You keep the lists, recordings and sending domains when it ends |
| Compliance | Opt-outs and do-not-contact lists handled; you remain responsible under CAN-SPAM |
| Deliverability | It names its sending setup; our email deliverability guide lists the limits to ask about |
Compliance deserves its own line. The FTC's CAN-SPAM guide makes no exception for business-to-business email and says you can't contract away your legal responsibility by hiring another company. If an agency sends in your name, you carry the risk.
Software is a better fit when your deal size is small, you want to test a message before paying a retainer, or you want to talk to every reply yourself. An agency is the better fit when you need people on the phone, a short ramp and someone else to run the process. The Bridge Group's numbers show why the build-it-yourself option is slow: a new in-house SDR takes about three months to ramp.
The middle path is a tool that does the work but keeps a person in charge. Our post on the human approval loop for an AI SDR explains how that works, and our AI SDR vs human SDR comparison and AI SDR ROI calculator put numbers on the trade.
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