Look, I'll save you the 40 hours of demos. If you run a managed service provider and you're weighing Aiinak AI Sales Agent vs Salesloft, the answer isn't the same for everyone. I've deployed both at different points — once for a 12-tech MSP doing mostly SMB co-managed IT, and again for a larger shop selling M365 and security stacks to mid-market. Different tools won different rounds. Here's the actual breakdown.
MSPs are weird buyers. Your sales motion isn't pure inbound SaaS and it isn't enterprise field sales either. You're doing a mix: QBRs that turn into upsells, cold outreach to the dentist down the street, referral follow-ups from your vCIO conversations, and the occasional RFP for a school district. Most sales platforms were built for one of those motions. Not all five.
What each tool actually does (stripped of marketing)
Salesloft is a sales engagement platform. That means it's a really good pipe through which a human SDR runs their day — cadences, dialer, email sequences, conversation intelligence, deal tracking. The AI parts (Rhythm, Drift-style signals after the Drift acquisition, Conductor AI) prioritize which leads a human should call next. The human is still the agent.
Aiinak AI Sales Agent is a different thing entirely. It's an autonomous agent. You give it an ICP, connect your inbox and CRM, and it runs outreach, handles replies, qualifies, and books meetings on its own. No SDR in the middle. Think of it like hiring a junior rep who works 24/7 for $499/month instead of $68K/year plus benefits.
That distinction matters more than any feature bullet list. Salesloft makes your humans better. Aiinak replaces a chunk of what those humans do. For an MSP with two salespeople (which is most of you), that's a real decision.
Pricing: the math that actually matters for MSPs
Salesloft doesn't publish pricing publicly, and they'll make you sit through a demo before you get a number. Based on what I've seen MSPs quoted, figure roughly $125–$165 per user per month on the standard plan, and north of that for the Premier tier with conversation intelligence and forecasting. Minimum seats are usually 3 or 5 depending on your AE.
So if you're putting two AEs and one SDR on Salesloft Premier, you're looking at somewhere around $6,500–$8,000 a year in platform cost, plus the actual SDR salary of $55K–$75K loaded. Real cost to run the function: roughly $62K–$85K annually.
Aiinak AI Sales Agent starts at $499/month. One agent, no seats. That's $5,988/year all-in for the outreach layer. If the agent books you even two-thirds of the meetings an SDR would, the ROI math is uncomfortably obvious. But — and this is important — it only works if your ICP is well-defined and your offer is clear. Garbage in, garbage out.
Here's the thing most vendors won't tell you: if you're an MSP selling a complex, trust-heavy offer (think compliance services for healthcare clients), no AI agent is closing that on its own. It'll get you to the first meeting. You still need a human to close.
Feature-by-feature comparison
CapabilityAiinak AI Sales AgentSalesloftCore modelAutonomous AI agentSales engagement platform (human-driven)Starting price$499/month (flat)~$125–$165/user/month (quoted)Email outreachYes, agent-written and sentYes, human-written cadencesLinkedIn outreachBuilt-inVia integration (LinkedIn Sales Navigator)Reply handlingAutonomousRouted to human repMeeting bookingAgent books directlyVia Calendly/Chili Piper integrationLead scoringAI-native, continuousRhythm AI signalsDialer & voiceNot includedYes, nativeConversation intelligenceBasicStrong (call recording, coaching)CRM integrationsSalesforce, HubSpot, PipedriveSalesforce, HubSpot, Dynamics, moreDeployment time1–3 days2–6 weeks (with onboarding)Best forTeams without an SDRTeams with 2+ SDRs already## Where Salesloft actually wins
I want to be fair here because Salesloft is a mature product and there are genuine reasons MSPs pick it.
First, the dialer. If your sales motion involves calling — and for a lot of MSPs selling into local SMBs, phone still works better than email — Salesloft's native dialer with local presence and call recording is legitimately good. Aiinak doesn't do voice outreach. If you need a rep on the phone making 60 dials a day, Salesloft plus a human beats any autonomous agent today.
Second, coaching and conversation intelligence. If you're building out a team of three or four AEs who sell six-figure security stacks, being able to review call recordings, tag objections, and coach your reps is worth the price tag. That's a muscle Salesloft has been building for a decade. Aiinak isn't trying to compete there.
Third, complex deal management. Salesloft handles multi-threaded deals across 4–6 stakeholders reasonably well. If you sell 8-figure-ARR compliance engagements to hospital networks, you want the engagement platform. An autonomous agent is wrong for that motion.
Fourth, ecosystem maturity. Salesloft's integration marketplace is deeper. If you're already on Outreach or Gong or ZoomInfo, the plumbing is well-worn. Aiinak is newer and the integration list is more focused.
Where Aiinak wins for MSPs specifically
Now the other side. Most MSPs I know don't have a dedicated SDR. They have a managing partner doing sales part-time, maybe one account manager handling renewals, and a tech who got promoted into sales because he's good with clients. That's the reality.
For that team, Salesloft is overkill. You're buying a race car when you needed a scooter. The platform only pays off if you have humans feeding it, and those humans cost $60K–$90K each. Aiinak fills the gap where the human doesn't exist yet.
Deployment speed is the other big one. I got an Aiinak agent running cold outreach to CPAs and dental practices in under 48 hours — connected to HubSpot, pulling from a purchased list, writing emails in the voice I trained it on. Salesloft onboarding for a similar team was 3 weeks before we sent the first sequenced email, mostly because of cadence design, integration setup, and training.
The flat-rate pricing also matters for MSPs who are used to per-seat SaaS bloat. You know exactly what you're paying. No surprise bill when you add a new rep.
Honest limitations of the AI agent approach
I'll tell you what breaks, because no one else will.
AI agents are still weak at handling multi-turn conversations with confused prospects. If someone replies "can you explain what co-managed IT even means," the agent will try, but the quality varies. A good human SDR handles that in one sentence. You'll want to review replies for at least the first 30 days and correct the agent's voice.
Second, deliverability. Autonomous agents send a lot of email. If your domain warmup isn't done properly, you'll land in spam. Aiinak handles this reasonably well but it's not magic — you still need proper SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and ideally a separate outreach domain (something like getyourmsp.com instead of your primary). Industry benchmarks suggest new outreach domains take 3–4 weeks to warm properly.
Third, territory and compliance. If you serve Canadian clients, CASL is stricter than CAN-SPAM. Configure your agent carefully. Some MSPs also have existing client lists they legally can't mix with cold prospecting. Keep those flows separate.
So which one should your MSP actually pick?
Here's how I'd decide, practically:
- Pick Salesloft if you have 2+ active SDRs or AEs, your motion is phone-heavy, you sell deals over $50K ACV that require multi-threading, and you need conversation intelligence for coaching.
- Pick Aiinak AI Sales Agent if you don't have an SDR, you want outbound to just start happening without hiring, your offer is repeatable (managed IT, M365, security stack, backup), and you're comfortable reviewing the agent's work for the first month.
- Run both if you have the budget. Let Aiinak handle top-of-funnel cold outreach and meeting booking, and use Salesloft for your human AEs to work the middle of the funnel on qualified opportunities. This is actually what I'd recommend for MSPs above $5M in ARR.
If you're leaning toward testing an autonomous agent, you can Deploy Sales Agent on a pilot for one ICP segment — say, just dental practices in your metro — and see what lands in 30 days before committing further. That's how I'd do it if I were starting over.
The honest answer is that the best ai sales agent 2026 setup for most small MSPs is an autonomous agent plus one solid closer. Not a stack of seats feeding a pipeline nobody has time to work.
Originally published on Aiinak Blog. Aiinak is an AI agent platform that runs your entire business — deploy autonomous agents for Sales, HR, Support, Finance, and IT Ops.
