Here is the thing no migration guide in this category says plainly: there is no importer. Not in Outboundry, not in Instantly, Smartlead, lemlist, Saleshandy, Apollo or anywhere else. Nobody has built a “connect your old tool and pull everything across” button, and nobody is going to, because the vendors on the losing end of that transfer have no reason to expose an API for it.
So every migration is a rebuild. Once you accept that, the planning gets much simpler, because the question stops being “how do I move everything” and becomes “what is actually worth moving, and how do I avoid a gap while I rebuild.”
What transfers, what doesn’t
| Asset | Transfers? | How |
|---|---|---|
| Email accounts | Yes | Reconnect them. Bulk connection via CSV or OAuth, not a data transfer |
| Unsubscribes and DNC | Yes | Export from the old tool, import as a suppression list. Do this first |
| Lead data | Yes | CSV export and import, with field mapping |
| Domains | Yes, if you own them | Registrar transfer, 5–7 days |
| Sequences | No | Rebuilt by hand, step by step |
| Reply history | No | Stays in the old tool, or in the mailbox itself over IMAP |
| Warmup history | Partly | The mailbox keeps its history; the tool’s internal warmup score does not follow |
| Analytics and reporting | No | Export to CSV before you cancel, or lose it |
| Custom fields | Manually | Recreate the schema, then map on import |
| Webhooks and integrations | No | Rebuilt |
The two items people underestimate are sequences and analytics. Sequences because rebuilding a 9-step multichannel campaign with conditional branches is an afternoon, not ten minutes. Analytics because once you cancel, your entire performance history is gone, and that is the dataset you would use to decide what to rebuild.
What does not restart
Worth saying, because migration anxiety is usually aimed at the wrong thing.
Domain reputation carries over. It is attached to the domain, not to the tool that sent through it. If you keep your domains, you keep the reputation you built. This is the single most valuable thing you own and it survives the move intact.
Mailbox history carries over. A Google or Microsoft mailbox that has been sending for a year is still a mailbox that has been sending for a year. Reconnecting it to a new platform does not reset that.
What does reset is the new tool’s internal warmup scoring, which is a number in a dashboard rather than a property of your infrastructure. It will look alarming for a fortnight. It is not.
The 30-day plan
Days 1–5: export everything before you touch anything
Do this while you still have an active subscription, because several of these exports disappear the moment you downgrade.
- Unsubscribes, bounces and your do-not-contact list
- Full lead database with every custom field
- Every sequence, as text, screenshots work, a document is better
- Campaign-level performance data: sends, replies, meetings by campaign and by step
- Any webhook or integration configuration
The sequence export matters more than it sounds. You are not going to copy them verbatim, but you want to know which subject lines and which step orders produced results before you rebuild.
Days 5–10: stand up the new environment in parallel
Do not cancel anything yet.
- Create the workspace structure. For agencies, one workspace per client from the start.
- Load the suppression list first, before a single lead. This is the step people skip and regret.
- Recreate your custom field schema, then import leads mapped to it.
- Bulk-connect your email accounts. They keep sending from the old tool meanwhile.
On the email accounts: connecting a mailbox to a second platform does not break the first. Both can hold a connection. You are not cutting over, you are adding a second route.
Days 10–20: rebuild sequences and run both
Rebuild one sequence properly rather than all of them roughly. Pick your best-performing campaign, recreate it, and run it on the new platform at perhaps 20% of your volume while the old tool carries the rest.
This is where a rebuild beats an import, honestly. Most teams have sequences that accreted over eighteen months, a step added here, a branch nobody remembers adding. Rebuilding forces a decision on each one, and campaigns usually come out shorter and better.
Compare reply rates on comparable segments across both tools during this fortnight. That is a clean A/B you will never get another chance to run.
Days 20–30: shift volume and close out
- Ramp the new platform up, 30% every few days, watching bounce and complaint rates
- Wind the old tool down in step
- Export anything left: final analytics, any replies that landed in the old unibox
- Confirm the suppression list on the new platform matches the old one exactly
- Then cancel
Never cancel before the final export is confirmed complete. It is unrecoverable and it happens more often than you would think.
The five things that go wrong
The suppression list arrives late. Somebody imports leads on day one and launches before the unsubscribe file is loaded. You contact people who asked you to stop, which is a compliance problem as well as an embarrassing one.
Mailboxes get disconnected from the old tool too early. Then you have a pipeline gap while the new sequences are still being built. Keep both connected.
Nobody exports the analytics. Three months later somebody asks which segment converted best last year and the answer is gone.
Sequences get copied verbatim, including the parts that never worked. You are rebuilding anyway. Use the performance export to decide what deserves rebuilding.
Domains turn out to belong to the agency. If a third party registered your sending domains, the reputation is theirs and you are warming from zero. Check before you plan anything, the ownership piece covers how to handle it.
If you are also changing infrastructure
Changing platform and changing mailbox provider at the same time is two migrations, and the second one has a warmup cycle in it. Doable, but sequence them: move platforms first on your existing mailboxes, settle, then move infrastructure. Migrating mailboxes between providers covers that half.
If you must do both at once, add three to four weeks for warmup and expect reduced volume throughout.
The short version
No outreach platform imports from another, so plan a rebuild rather than a transfer. Email accounts reconnect, suppression lists and leads import by CSV, domains move if you own them. Sequences, reply history, analytics and integrations do not.
Export everything while your old subscription is still active. Load the suppression list before the first lead. Run both tools in parallel for a fortnight rather than cutting over on a date.
And treat the rebuild as the point rather than the cost. Most teams find their sequences were longer than they needed to be, and the version they write second performs better than the one they would have imported.
Next: migrating mailboxes between providers, or who owns your sending domains.
Frequently asked questions
Can you import campaigns from one cold email tool to another?
No. No platform in this category offers an importer for sequences, because it would require cooperation from the tool you are leaving. Campaigns are rebuilt by hand.
What actually transfers when you switch outreach platforms?
Email accounts reconnect, suppression and do-not-contact lists import as CSV, lead data imports with field mapping, and domains transfer if you own the registrar account. Sequences, reply history, analytics and integrations do not.
Will switching platforms hurt my deliverability?
Not by itself. Domain reputation is attached to the domain and mailbox history to the mailbox, so neither resets when you connect to a new tool. The new platform’s internal warmup score starts fresh, which looks worse than it is.
How long does an outreach platform migration take?
About 30 days done properly: five days exporting, five standing up the new environment, ten rebuilding and running in parallel, ten shifting volume across before cancelling.