The Scouting Report · Honest Comparisons

How we stack up, verdicts on this page, receipts one click deeper.

Seven ways to buy pipeline, scouted the way we’d want to be scouted: what each is genuinely good at, where the model actually differs, and who should pick whom. We’d rather lose the deal than pretend.

Before the names, the five questions

Ask every vendor these. The answers sort the market faster than any logo.

The questionThe field, typicallyAlleyoop
Is the pricing published?Almost never, quote forms and discovery calls first. Third-party vetting guides call published pricing “the rarest signal.”$5,250 / $10,000 / $14,750 per month, flat. On the site, budgetable before you talk to anyone.
What does the fee actually buy?Seats, hours, platform licenses, or a metered rate per meeting, capacity, not results.A program built for one deliverable: qualified meetings on your closers’ calendars. Flat fee, everything included.
Who gets contacted?Lists matching your ICP on paper, worked top to bottom.Accounts showing real interest: including the 99% of site visitors who never fill a form.
Where does marketing sit?Your job, or a separately-scoped service.Same roof, same system. Warm-up happens before the first call, by design.
Who owns the assets when you leave?They do. The lists, the messaging, the learnings walk out with the vendor.You do. PlayIQ™ Score, prospect lists, playbook, the High IQ Exit.

Every claim below traces to each firm’s public materials or third-party 2026 pricing guides, and each entry links to the full comparison.

Step zero · first time buying this category?

This table is the summary. The full framework is the buyer’s guide: the strong-and-weak answer patterns behind these five questions, four gates that tell you whether you’re ready for outbound at all, seven red flags, and the tiebreaker that ends most evaluations early. Ten minutes, and the dossiers below read like scorecards.

Read the guide first

Before you compare prices, compare architectures

The number isn’t lower. The machine is different.

Demand has to be created, and demand has to be converted. They are different jobs, and the market keeps selling them with the wrong tools.

Agencies that only sell

Humans doing both jobs by phone.

Senior reps creating awareness one dial at a time, working lists top to bottom. It’s the most expensive way ever invented to make someone aware you exist, which is why the seat costs $11K.

Conversion tool doing creation’s job.

Agencies that only market

Awareness created, then abandoned.

Campaigns run, interest sparks, a dashboard fills up, and nobody picks up the phone. The moment a buyer leans in is exactly when the engagement ends.

Creation tool with no conversion at all.

Alleyoop

Each half does only what it’s best at.

Marketing creates and tracks the demand, the scalable way to make interest exist. Senior humans do the one thing that requires humans: engaging in the moment and converting. Same roof, one system.

Right tool, both jobs.

It’s cheaper to create demand with marketing and convert it with humans than to do both with either. You’re not paying half as much for less. None of it goes to the wrong tool.

01

memoryBlue

The scale operator

Their model$9–12K/mo per seat · quote-gated Ours$5,250/mo flat · published · system included

Credit where due: 23 years, 650+ SDRs, 30+ languages, nine offices, a real training academy. If you need enterprise outbound coverage across continents, they built that machine.

The difference is what the fee buys. A memoryBlue engagement rents seats (human capacity, reported $9–$12K a month each, priced after a sales process) and that capacity works lists top to bottom. An Alleyoop program is built around the outcome: the system finds the accounts already showing interest, marketing warms them under the same roof, and senior reps spend their hours only where a conversation is likely. You’re not paying half as much for less, you’re paying half as much because none of it goes to brute force.

Pick them if

You need multilingual, multi-region enterprise coverage, or you want their audition-to-hire path to eventually staff your own team.

Pick us if

You want qualified meetings, priced flat and published, live in under 30 days, without renting a bench.

Full scouting reportRead: Alleyoop vs. memoryBlue

02

CIENCE

The stack you operate

Their model$5K setup + license + retainer + ~$250 per held meeting OursOne flat fee · meetings aren’t metered

Their data and platform work is real, intent signals, visitor ID, campaign orchestration in one stack. If you want to own outbound machinery, they’ll sell you good machinery.

The difference is who operates it. CIENCE is modular: a setup fee, a platform license, a team retainer, SDR capacity by the seat, and a commission on top of each held meeting. You assemble it, you run it, and your cost rises with your success. Alleyoop is one number for one outcome: no meter on meetings, no stack to manage, no RevOps prerequisite. We built the machinery so you wouldn’t have to buy it.

Pick them if

You have revenue-ops capacity, want to own the platform and data, and prefer paying per result on top of a base.

Pick us if

You want the outcome, not the operating manual, one flat fee, dedicated onshore people, system included.

Full scouting reportRead: Alleyoop vs. CIENCE Evaluating CIENCE? The guide

03

Belkins

The email craftsman

Their modelCustom retainer · quote-gated · email-led OursPublished flat · call-first to warm signal

A genuine quality operator: research-intensive lists, carefully tuned email programs, strong reputation. That craft is exactly why they’re in this report.

The difference is where the conversation starts. Belkins hand-picks prospects who match your customer on paper and works them, patiently, principally by email, on a custom retainer that takes a sales process to price. Alleyoop starts from behavior: accounts already showing interest get warmed by marketing, then called by a dedicated Playmaker. Their motion asks your buyer to live in the inbox; ours meets the buyer who’s already looking.

Pick them if

Your buyers genuinely respond to email, you prize list craft, and you have patience for a program that matures on its own clock.

Pick us if

You want conversations with in-market accounts now, at a price you can budget before the first call.

Full scouting reportRead: Alleyoop vs. Belkins Evaluating Belkins? The guide

04

SalesRoads

The phone specialists

Their modelFrom ~$9,950 per 4-week cycle · list-driven Ours$5,250/mo flat · signal-driven

Skilled onshore callers, dedicated pods, real coaching oversight, if the job is “work this list by phone,” they do it well.

The difference is the ceiling. At SalesRoads, the list is the strategy, you define it, their callers work it in cadence. Every improvement requires a better list. At Alleyoop, the system continuously finds which accounts are showing buying signals (competitor installs, contract expirations, site visits) and the calls go where the interest already is, pre-warmed. Same phones. Different physics.

Pick them if

Your motion is phone-heavy, you want to own the list and the play, and you want direct daily access to named callers.

Pick us if

You’d rather the list build itself from live buying signals, and pay a flat, published number for the meetings.

Full scouting reportRead: Alleyoop vs. SalesRoads Evaluating SalesRoads? The guide

05

Martal Group

The advisory layer

Their modelFractional advisory + SDR capacity · scoped custom OursPure outcome delivery · program lead included

Closer to embedded sales consulting than pure appointment setting: fractional VP-level counsel with a North American team, strongest in tech and SaaS. For some companies that’s exactly the missing piece.

The difference is what you’re shopping for. If part of the purchase is a sales leader to shape your motion, Martal sells that, sincerely. If what you need is pipeline, an advisory layer is overhead between you and the meetings. Alleyoop skips it: the program comes with a lead and a standing weekly call, and every dollar of the fee points at one deliverable.

Pick them if

You want fractional VP-of-Sales guidance embedded alongside outsourced SDR capacity, scoped to your situation.

Pick us if

Your strategy is set and the missing piece is qualified meetings, delivered on a published flat fee.

Full scouting reportRead: Alleyoop vs. Martal Group

Not comparing agencies?

The other two ways this decision goes.

06

AI SDRs

The software-only route

Their modelPer-seat software · volume economics OursAI decides who & when · humans have every conversation

The pitch is honest about one thing: software is cheaper than people. If your deal size is small and your brand can absorb volume outreach, the math can pencil.

The problem is what the volume does. When every inbox fills with machine-written outreach, reply rates fall for everyone, so hitting a real meeting number takes more sending, not less, and the market now reads it instantly. Buyers churn off AI SDR tools within weeks when the calendar stays empty. We use AI where it wins, deciding who to contact and when, and humans where trust is built: every conversation, every meeting.

Pick them if

Low ACV, high volume tolerance, and outreach reputation isn’t a risk your brand carries.

Pick us if

Your buyers are executives, your deals are considered, and a booked meeting has to survive contact with a human.

The full argumentThe AI SDR Problem

07

In-House

The build

Their model~$154K per seat loaded · 4–7 months to first meeting OursWeeks 3–4 to meetings · ~⅓ the cost of a seat

Building is sometimes the right call, when sales development is strategically core, you have a strong SDR manager and a recruiting engine, and the budget horizon is multi-year. We’d rather lose the deal than pretend that list is empty.

For everyone else, the arithmetic is stubborn: ~$154K per seat fully loaded before the manager and the data stack, 34–40% annual turnover (Bridge Group) that re-starts the ramp clock, and 4–7 months to a first qualified meeting. An Alleyoop program is live in under 30 days, produces meetings in weeks 3–4 at roughly a third of one seat’s cost, and when you eventually do build, everything we made is yours to take in-house.

Build if

SD is core to how you win, you have management muscle and a recruiting engine, and you’re funded for a two-year horizon.

Buy if

You need pipeline this quarter, at a knowable cost, with the option to graduate to in-house later, assets included.

Full comparisonRead: Alleyoop vs. In-House

Free toolRun your numbers, the CFO Cost Model

Still torn between paths? The Outbound Score settles it in four minutes, honestly.

The tiebreaker · The High IQ Exit™

Whoever you pick, ask what you keep when it ends.

It’s the question that most cleanly separates this market, and the one answer we’ll put against anyone’s. Every other agency takes the brain when they leave. We hand you ours.

See everything you own →
  • PlayIQ™ Score: the trained intelligence model, complete
  • Prospect Lists: every contact sourced, scored, segmented
  • Sales Playbook: the messages that worked, by persona

Still not sure which option is right?

Bring this page to a call. We’ll tell you honestly if we’re not the fit, that’s kind of our thing.

Book a meeting →

Not ready to talk? Read the buyer’s guide first, how to evaluate anyone in this category, including us.

The assist is ours. The win is yours.