Artisan’s Ava finds leads, enriches them, writes and sends outreach and books meetings for your reps. Ocean uses contextual intelligence to find your next deal, with the reason on every account.
Used by teams at
ArtisanAI outbound that finds, writes, sends and books for your reps. A fit for teams that want an AI SDR on email.
Artisan sells Ava, an AI BDR. You set your ICP and campaign, and Ava finds leads, enriches them from 22+ sources, tests message variations, sends from your reps’ own mailboxes and domains, handles replies and books meetings.
Learning which companies fit from your own won and lost deals, then ranking the whole market with the reason on each account.
Ocean is contextual intelligence for go-to-market. It reads what every company actually does from its own website, learns what good looks like from your closed-won and closed-lost deals, and ranks your whole market against it, with the reason behind each score. The ranked accounts arrive in your CRM, your rep queue or your AI agents.
What buyers weigh, grouped by the job each part does. A light blue background marks the stronger side.
| Topic | Ocean | Artisan |
|---|---|---|
| Finding the right accounts | ||
| Lookalikes | Ocean is stronger here. Core of the product. Segments and models learned from your won and lost CRM deals. | You search 250M+ contacts with filters or plain-language search, or build campaigns from your CRM or a CSV. Its pages don’t describe finding lookalikes from your customers. |
| Learns your ICP from won and lost deals | Ocean is stronger here. Learned automatically from your won and lost deals. | You set the ICP and Ava prioritizes leads by intent signals such as funding and leadership hires. It can start campaigns from your CRM, including closed-lost follow-up, but doesn’t describe learning fit from your won and lost deals. |
| The reason behind each account | Ocean is stronger here. Segment, score, tier and matched signals on every account and every export. | Research and signals feed each message’s personalization. It doesn’t describe ranking accounts with a written reason for the fit. |
| Segments your market | Ocean is stronger here. Segments your whole market and shows win rate, deal size and cycle time for each segment. | A library of 20+ campaign types, such as cold outbound, intent-triggered outreach, CRM reactivation and upsell. |
| Contacts and data | ||
| Contacts | Verified emails and direct phones from a waterfall across 16+ data sources. Charged only when a contact is found, and exports are free. | 250M+ B2B contacts with waterfall-enriched emails and phones, plus a database of local businesses, built into the platform. |
| Buying signals | Up-to-date signals built in-house from each company’s own teams, leaders, hiring and website. | Funding, job changes, hiring, website visitors, Bombora topic intent and social keywords, plus any event you can send by webhook. |
| Sending, replies and booking | Ranks accounts and hands them off. Sending stays in your own tools. | Writes and sends personalized sequences, tests variations, handles replies and objections and books meetings. Calls are queued for reps in a dialer. |
| Workflow and pricing | ||
| CRM sync | Two-way with HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive and Attio. Reads your deals to learn, then writes scores, segments and signals back. | Bi-directional sync with Salesforce and HubSpot on every plan, plus Slack and webhooks. |
| AI agents and MCP | MCP server, public API and a chat agent on the same data and lookalike engine. | Its help center documents a connector in Claude to search prospects, build lists and draft campaigns. Its public MCP server is read-only and covers its marketing pages. |
| Security and company scale | SOC 2 Type II and GDPR, per Ocean’s own site. | Its site says SOC 2 Type II, with SSO and audit logs. Its Trust Center lists a pentest report and policies and says it is working on its security compliance. Ask for the report. |
| Pricing | Two ways to buy: a flat-rate plan with credits included, or a custom plan built around your deals and credit volume. | Team, Scale and Enterprise are scoped on a sales call. Earlier in 2026 it published Free, 250 and 600 dollars a month plans, and sources disagree on whether they remain. |
Artisan’s pricing page now shows three sales-scoped plans sized by lead volume. Self-serve credit plans were published earlier in 2026, and sources disagree on whether they’re still offered.
Credits are the unit: about two cents each per its CEO, with waterfall email enrichment at two credits, and a typical campaign costing about 20 credits per person contacted. Mailboxes and phone numbers are billed separately, and third-party estimates of real spend run from about $600 to $5,000 a month depending on volume. A recent review complains of credits running out mid-month. Confirm the date of any price you’re quoted.
A flat-rate plan with credits included, or a custom plan built around your deals.
Contacts are charged only when one is found. Exports are free.
See Ocean pricingArtisan sends the email and books the meeting. Ocean decides which companies deserve that email, from what you’ve actually won.
Choose Artisan if Use both ifFive steps. Most teams keep Artisan for sending and use Ocean to choose who it emails.
Export the leads Ava is working and the ICP behind each campaign, then run the same companies through Ocean to compare them against your closed-won deals.
Find your plan, credit balance and renewal date. Credits may run out mid-month on a heavy campaign.
Connect HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive or Attio. Ocean reads your closed-won and closed-lost deals to learn what a good account looks like.
Ocean proposes segments and scores, with the reason on each. Correct anything that doesn’t match how you sell.
Scores, segments and matched signals go back to your CRM, or into Apollo, Instantly or Lemlist sequences.
Expect rules, filters and signals you set, because a model of your own deals is not what it leads with; ask for a test on your accounts.
Expect rules, filters and signals you set, because a model of your own deals is not what it leads with; ask for a test on your accounts.
Expect a quote that grows with seats, credits and add-ons, because the entry price is the smallest line; price your real volume.
Expect a trust-center link or a request form, because reports sit behind a sales step; ask for the date and scope.
Ocean is better because it tells it like it is: contextual intelligence to find your next deal, with the reason on every account.
Start using OceanThe right alternative depends on what you use Artisan for. Here’s what each is built for and where Ocean starts.
11x
Rox
Amplemarket
Leadsforge
ApolloShort answers on what Artisan costs, how Ava picks leads, how Ocean compares and what to check before you buy.
A company that sells Ava, an AI BDR for outbound. Ava finds leads, enriches them, writes and sends personalized outreach, handles replies and books meetings on your reps’ calendars. Calls are queued for reps in a dialer, not made by the AI.
Its pricing page shows Team (about 2,500 leads a month), Scale (about 6,000) and Enterprise, each scoped on a sales call. Earlier in 2026 it published a free plan, Intern at 250 dollars a month and Employee at 600, billed annually, and sources disagree on whether those remain.
You set the ICP, and Ava searches 250M+ contacts or your CRM and prioritizes by intent signals such as funding, hiring and leadership changes. Ocean learns the fit from your own won and lost deals and ranks the whole market against it.
It doesn’t describe doing so. It can run campaigns from CRM records, such as closed-lost follow-up, but the ICP is one you set. Ocean reads your CRM deals, learns the ICP and ranks the market against it.
Its help center documents a connector in Claude to search prospects, build lists and draft campaigns, and it runs a read-only MCP server for its marketing pages. Ocean has an MCP server and a public API on the same data and lookalike engine.
Yes: bi-directional sync with Salesforce and HubSpot, plus Slack and webhooks. Ocean has native two-way sync with HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive and Attio.
Its site says SOC 2 Type II with SSO and audit logs, while its Trust Center lists a pentest report and policies and says it is working on its security compliance. Ask for the SOC 2 report, the subprocessor list and the data terms before you commit.
Ocean reads what each company does from its own website, learns from your closed-won and closed-lost deals, and returns ranked matches with the reason on each one.
Today we can more confidently say we're reaching out to all the companies that could potentially buy from us.
Josh Pudnos,
Director of Commercial Operations, Brandwatch
With Ocean.io we can focus our ad spend on the right companies.
Martin Nørgaard Klausen,
Co-Founder, Lead Motor, Zen Media
Working with a trusted partner saves a ton of engineering time and ongoing AI costs. Speed and quality are higher out of the gate.
Stefan Kollenberg,
Data Partnerships, Clay
Ocean.io reduced our average cost per Marketing Qualified Lead by 23%.
Garrett Butler,
Digital Engagement, CBC
Ocean.io expands the sea into an ocean, and Scalestack is great at fishing in this vast ocean.
Ezequiel,
Head of Product Operations, Scalestack
Ocean.io allows us to identify lookalike companies with incredible accuracy.
Maged,
Head of Product, Surfe
