What is signal-based selling?
Signal-based selling means contacting a person or company because something just happened that makes your product relevant now, and naming that event in your first line. The event is the signal: a new role, a funding round, a job ad, a visit to your pricing page, a post about the problem you solve.
Two of the best-known signal platforms are priced for bigger teams. Common Room's Essential plan, which its pricing page describes as for "teams getting started with signal-based selling", costs $2,500 a month billed annually, with five seats included. Warmly's AI Web-Deanonymization plan starts at $10,000 a year, and its GTM Signals Package add-on, covering intent, hiring, funding and competitor signals, is another $10,000 a year. Both were checked on 20 October 2026.
A team of one to five people can cover the signals that matter most to them for under $200 a month, provided someone acts on them every day. The stacks below show how, with every price checked on the vendor's own page.
Which signals can you track for free?
Most strong signals are public, so you can watch them by hand at no cost. These are worth a daily or weekly check:
| Signal | Where to watch | Free help |
|---|---|---|
| A post about the problem, or a request for recommendations | LinkedIn and X search, using your buyers' own words | Saved searches, checked daily |
| Job change or promotion | LinkedIn notifications for people you follow | Your own LinkedIn feed |
| Hiring for the work you automate | Careers pages and job boards | Job alerts |
| Funding | News and company LinkedIn pages | News alerts |
| Website visits | Your analytics | RB2B Free: up to 150 company-level IDs a month; Apollo Free: up to 20 companies a month |
| Research intent | Third-party intent data | Apollo Free: one intent topic |
Our guide to buying signals for small teams lists 15 free triggers and example first lines. This post covers what to pay for once the manual checks take too long.
What do signal tools cost? Prices checked 20 October 2026
Paid signal tools for small teams cost from $20 a seat to $199 a month, while Warmly starts at $10,000 a year and Common Room at $30,000 a year. Prices below come from each vendor's own page on 20 October 2026; "annual" is the per-month price when billed yearly.
| Tool and plan | Price | Signals it adds |
|---|---|---|
| Apollo Free | $0 | One intent topic; identifies up to 20 website-visiting companies a month |
| RB2B Free | $0 | Up to 150 company-level visitor IDs a month, pushed to Slack |
| Unify Free | $0, up to 3 seats | Limited credits; AI outbound and multichannel sequencing |
| Unify Base | $20 a seat a month, billed monthly | Job change and hiring signals; 800 credits a seat |
| lemlist buying intent add-on | $29 a month ($21 annual), on top of a lemlist plan from $69 | 100 buying intent signals a month |
| Apollo Basic | $49 a seat annual, $65 monthly | Six intent topics; identifies up to 100 companies a month |
| RB2B Starter | $79 a month | Person-level visitor IDs (US only), 300 a month, LinkedIn URLs to Slack or Teams |
| Findymail Individual | $99 a month | Five active signals such as hiring, funding or job changes, plus email finding |
| RB2B Pro | From $149 a month | Adds business emails and all integrations, from 600 IDs a month |
| Clay Launch | $167 a month annual, $185 monthly | Job change, promotion, new hire, company news and social signals |
| RB2B Pro+ | From $199 a month | Premium resolution with higher match rates |
| Common Room Essential | $2,500 a month, billed annually | Five seats; job change tracking, Bombora topics, 1,000 de-anonymised visitors a month |
| Warmly AI Web-Deanonymization | From $10,000 a year | Website visitors; signals package is a $10,000-a-year add-on |
One closure to note. Trigify, a signals tool, announced on 23 September 2026 that its team is joining HubSpot and that the standalone platform would close for most customers at 11:59pm BST on 22 October 2026, with customers on different contractual notice periods told their own dates. If it is in your stack, check your notice and export your data before access ends.
The $0 stack for one to three people
A $0 stack is manual work plus three free tiers. It suits a founder, or a team of up to three, willing to spend about 30 minutes a day.
Set up the free tools once
Install RB2B Free on your site for company-level visitor alerts in Slack. Open Apollo Free accounts and set your one intent topic to your category. Add Unify Free for up to three people if you want AI outbound and multichannel sequences.
Run a daily 20-minute sweep
Search LinkedIn and X for your buyers' problem in their own words, check notifications for job changes and replies, and note who engaged with a competitor's posts.
Log each signal with a reason
One row per person: name, signal, date and the first line you'll use. A signal without a reason in the first line is wasted.
Contact within three days, review on Friday
Send while the signal is fresh. On Friday, check which signal types turned into replies and drop the ones that didn't.
Total: $0. The limit is time. When the sweep runs past 30 minutes, or signals go unanswered because nobody checked, pay for the part that hurts most.
The under-$100 stack for one or two people
Under $100, buy one paid signal source and keep the free tiers. Choose by where your buyers show intent:
| Option | Tools | Monthly cost | Best when |
|---|---|---|---|
| A: site visits and job changes | RB2B Starter ($79) + Unify Base, one seat ($20) | $99 | Your buyers are in the US and visit your site |
| B: email-led | lemlist Email ($69) + buying intent add-on ($29) | $98 monthly; $76 billed yearly ($55 + $21) | You run email sequences and want signals in the same tool |
| C: emails plus tracked signals | Findymail Individual | $99 | You need verified emails and want five hiring, funding or job-change signals tracked |
Option A is the only one built on a dedicated visitor-identification tool, though lemlist's buying intent add-on also lists website visitors among its signals. RB2B's free plan identifies companies only, with no email addresses. Starter adds LinkedIn profile URLs for US visitors but still no emails; Pro, from $149, adds them. Unify Base is billed monthly, so you can drop it after a month if job-change alerts don't start conversations.
The under-$200 stack for three to five people
For three to five people, $147 to $195 a month buys a working signal stack, depending on the tools and billing cycle, as long as you favour tools with cheap or unlimited seats.
| Option | Tools | Monthly cost | Arithmetic |
|---|---|---|---|
| A: five people, US traffic | Unify Base for five seats + RB2B Starter | $179 | 5 × $20 + $79 |
| B: shared enrichment and signals | Clay Launch + Unify Free | $167 billed yearly; $185 monthly | Clay includes unlimited seats; Unify Free covers up to 3 people |
| C: three people, email-heavy | Apollo Basic for three seats | $147 billed yearly; $195 monthly | 3 × $49 or 3 × $65 |
For scale, option A costs $2,148 a year (12 × $179). Common Room's Essential plan costs $30,000 a year (12 × $2,500) and adds features such as Bombora intent topics, job change tracking and 1,000 de-anonymised website visitors a month. Warmly's entry plan starts at $10,000 a year. The big platforms cover more, so price them only once your team is acting on everything the cheaper stack finds.
Where does an AI SDR fit in a budget signal stack?
An AI SDR can take over the daily sweep and the first message. Siela's AI SDR works out which signals matter from what you sell: people asking how to solve the problem, comparing tools, looking for an alternative to a competitor, hiring for the work you automate, posting a pain point, recent funding and role changes. You can add more: recent job change, company funding, company hiring, top active profiles, keyword engagement and competitor engagement.
It also tracks keywords and competitors on LinkedIn and X, so people who post about or engage with them become leads, and it can find people on X by what their bio says. Each lead is scored hot, warm or cold with a one-line reason, then saved to the built-in CRM with the reason it was picked. Website visitor identification isn't on that list, so keep RB2B Free or Apollo Free for that signal.
Mistakes that waste a small signal budget
These five mistakes cost small teams money without adding a single useful signal.
- Paying for person-level visitor ID with non-US traffic. RB2B's person-level ID covers US visitors only; its company-level ID is global on every plan.
- Letting credits expire. Apollo's credits reset each billing cycle and don't roll over, and add-on credits renew automatically until you remove them. Unify's one-off top-ups carry over for up to 12 months.
- Upgrading one seat by accident. Apollo puts every seat on the same plan, so moving one person up moves everyone.
- Buying signals nobody acts on. Name an owner and a three-day response rule before paying for any feed.
- Committing too early. Annual billing saves 10% on Clay and up to 24% on Apollo. Run a tool monthly first and switch once you know you'll keep it.
Frequently asked questions
What is signal-based selling?
Signal-based selling is contacting prospects when an event suggests they need your product now, and naming that event in your first message. Common signals are job changes, funding rounds, hiring for related roles, posts about the problem, engagement with a competitor and visits to your website. The timing and the stated reason make the outreach relevant.
How much do signal-based selling tools cost?
As of 20 October 2026, Apollo, RB2B and Unify all have free tiers. Paid entry points include Unify Base at $20 a seat a month, RB2B Starter at $79 a month and Clay Launch at $167 a month billed yearly. Common Room's Essential plan costs $2,500 a month billed annually, and Warmly starts at $10,000 a year.
Can a small team do signal-based selling for free?
Yes. Watch LinkedIn and X for posts about your problem and for job changes, check careers pages for hiring, and use the free tiers of RB2B, which identifies up to 150 visiting companies a month, and Apollo, which includes one intent topic. Expect to spend 20 to 30 minutes a day on it.
Does RB2B identify website visitors outside the US?
Partly. RB2B's pricing FAQ says company-level identification is global on every plan, while contact-level, person identification covers US visitors only. The free plan includes 150 company-level resolutions a month, and person-level identification starts with the Starter plan at $79 a month, checked 20 October 2026.
Sources
- RB2B pricing (checked 20 Oct 2026)
- Unify pricing (checked 20 Oct 2026)
- Apollo.io pricing (checked 20 Oct 2026)
- Common Room pricing (checked 20 Oct 2026)
- Warmly pricing (checked 20 Oct 2026)
- Trigify: The Trigify team is joining HubSpot (23 September 2026; checked 20 Oct 2026)
- lemlist pricing (checked 20 Oct 2026)
- Findymail pricing (checked 20 Oct 2026)
- Clay pricing (checked 20 Oct 2026)