Imported from jeremylongshore/tons-of-skills-marketplace (skills/.curated/instantly-cost-tuning/SKILL.md). Install upstream with npx skills add jeremylongshore/tons-of-skills-marketplace --skill instantly-cost-tuning. Copyright stays with the author (MIT).

Instantly Cost Tuning

Overview

Optimize Instantly.ai costs by choosing the right plan, managing email account utilization, monitoring campaign efficiency, and reducing wasted sends. Instantly's pricing is based on sending accounts and features, not per-email — so the key to cost efficiency is maximizing the value per account.

Instantly Pricing Tiers (2026)

Key cost decision: You need Hypergrowth ($97.95/mo) minimum for full API v2 access and webhooks.

Instructions

Step 1: Audit Current Account Utilization

import { instantly } from "./src/instantly";

async function auditAccountUtilization() {
  // Get all accounts
  const accounts = await instantly<Array<{
    email: string;
    status: number;
    daily_limit: number | null;
    warmup_status: string;
  }>>("/accounts?limit=200");

  // Get daily analytics for the last 7 days
  const endDate = new Date().toISOString().split("T")[0];
  const startDate = new Date(Date.now() - 7 * 86400000).toISOString().split("T")[0];
  const dailyAnalytics = await instantly<Array<{
    email: string;
    date: string;
    emails_sent: number;
  }>>(`/accounts/analytics/daily?start_date=${startDate}&end_date=${endDate}&emails=${accounts.map(a => a.email).join(",")}`);

  // Calculate utilization
  console.log("=== Account Utilization Audit ===\n");

  let totalCapacity = 0;
  let totalSent = 0;
  const underutilized: string[] = [];

  for (const account of accounts) {
    const sent = dailyAnalytics
      .filter((d) => d.email === account.email)
      .reduce((sum, d) => sum + d.emails_sent, 0);
    const dailyAvg = sent / 7;
    const capacity = account.daily_limit || 50;
    const utilization = (dailyAvg / capacity) * 100;

    totalCapacity += capacity * 7;
    totalSent += sent;

    if (utilization < 20) {
      underutilized.push(account.email);
    }

    console.log(`${account.email}: ${dailyAvg.toFixed(0)}/day of ${capacity} limit (${utilization.toFixed(0)}% utilized)`);
  }

  console.log(`\nOverall: ${totalSent} sent of ${totalCapacity} capacity (${((totalSent / totalCapacity) * 100).toFixed(0)}%)`);
  console.log(`Underutilized accounts (<20%): ${underutilized.length}`);
  if (underutilized.length > 0) {
    console.log(`Consider removing: ${underutilized.join(", ")}`);
  }
}

Step 2: Campaign Efficiency Analysis

async function campaignEfficiency() {
  const campaigns = await instantly<Array<{ id: string; name: string; status: number }>>(
    "/campaigns?limit=100"
  );

  console.log("=== Campaign Efficiency ===\n");

  for (const campaign of campaigns.filter((c) => c.status === 1 || c.status === 3)) {
    const analytics = await instantly<{
      campaign_name: string;
      total_leads: number;
      emails_sent: number;
      emails_replied: number;
      emails_bounced: number;
      emails_opened: number;
    }>(`/campaigns/analytics?id=${campaign.id}`);

    if (analytics.emails_sent === 0) continue;

    const replyRate = (analytics.emails_replied / analytics.emails_sent * 100).toFixed(1);
    const bounceRate = (analytics.emails_bounced / analytics.emails_sent * 100).toFixed(1);
    const openRate = (analytics.emails_opened / analytics.emails_sent * 100).toFixed(1);

    // Cost per reply (assuming $97.95/mo plan, 25 accounts, ~30 days)
    const costPerEmail = 97.95 / (25 * 50 * 30); // ~$0.0026 per email
    const costPerReply = analytics.emails_replied > 0
      ? ((analytics.emails_sent * costPerEmail) / analytics.emails_replied).toFixed(2)
      : "N/A";

    console.log(`${analytics.campaign_name}`);
    console.log(`  Sent: ${analytics.emails_sent} | Open: ${openRate}% | Reply: ${replyRate}% | Bounce: ${bounceRate}%`);
    console.log(`  Est. cost/reply: $${costPerReply}`);

    // Warnings
    if (parseFloat(bounceRate) > 5) {
      console.log(`  WARNING: High bounce rate — clean lead list`);
    }
    if (parseFloat(replyRate) < 1) {
      console.log(`  WARNING: Low reply rate — review email copy and targeting`);
    }
    console.log();
  }
}

Step 3: Plan Right-Sizing

async function recommendPlan() {
  const accounts = await instantly<Array<{ email: string }>>(
    "/accounts?limit=200"
  );
  const webhooks = await instantly<Array<{ id: string }>>(
    "/webhooks?limit=50"
  );

  const accountCount = accounts.length;
  const usesWebhooks = webhooks.length > 0;

  console.log("=== Plan Recommendation ===\n");
  console.log(`Active accounts: ${accountCount}`);
  console.log(`Uses webhooks: ${usesWebhooks}`);

  if (accountCount <= 5 && !usesWebhooks) {
    console.log("\nRecommended: Growth ($30/mo)");
    console.log("  You're within the 5-account limit and don't need webhooks.");
  } else if (accountCount <= 25) {
    console.log("\nRecommended: Hypergrowth ($97.95/mo)");
    console.log("  Full API v2 access, webhooks, and 25 accounts.");
  } else {
    console.log("\nRecommended: Light Speed ($358.30/mo)");
    console.log(`  You have ${accountCount} accounts — need the 500+ tier.`);
  }

  // Check billing details via API
  try {
    const billing = await instantly("/workspace-billing/plan-details");
    console.log("\nCurrent plan:", JSON.stringify(billing, null, 2));
  } catch {
    console.log("\n(Could not fetch billing details — scope may be missing)");
  }
}

Step 4: Cost Reduction Strategies

async function applyOptimizations() {
  console.log("=== Cost Optimization Actions ===\n");

  // 1. Pause unused accounts to free up slots
  const accounts = await instantly<Array<{
    email: string; status: number; daily_limit: number | null;
  }>>("/accounts?limit=200");

  for (const account of accounts) {
    if (account.status === 0) { // inactive
      console.log(`Consider removing inactive account: ${account.email}`);
    }
  }

  // 2. Clean up completed campaigns
  const campaigns = await instantly<Array<{ id: string; name: string; status: number }>>(
    "/campaigns?limit=100"
  );
  const completed = campaigns.filter((c) => c.status === 3);
  console.log(`\nCompleted campaigns to archive: ${completed.length}`);

  // 3. Check for duplicate leads across campaigns
  // (Leads in multiple campaigns waste sends)
  console.log("\nDuplicate prevention:");
  console.log("  Use skip_if_in_workspace: true on all lead imports");
  console.log("  Use skip_if_in_campaign: true for campaign-specific dedup");

  // 4. Verify email quality before import
  console.log("\nEmail verification:");
  console.log("  POST /api/v2/email-verification — verify before importing");
  console.log("  Set verify_leads_on_import: true in lead creation");

  // 5. Block list maintenance
  const blocklist = await instantly<unknown[]>("/block-lists-entries?limit=1");
  console.log(`\nBlock list entries: ${blocklist.length}+`);
  console.log("  Add competitor domains, role-based emails (info@, admin@)");
  console.log("  Add internal domains to prevent self-emailing");
}

Cost Optimization Checklist

• Right-sized plan for account count and feature needs
• Underutilized accounts identified and removed
• Duplicate leads prevented with skip_if_in_workspace
• Lead emails verified before import
• Block list populated with competitor/internal domains
• Campaigns with >5% bounce rate cleaned up
• Daily limits tuned per account (not over-provisioned)
• Completed campaigns archived
• Warmup-only accounts tracked separately

Error Handling

Prerequisites

• An approved budget, aggregate send/quota baseline, synthetic recipients, and a rollback revision for concurrency, cadence, and schedule policy.

Output

Return a cost-change receipt with baseline/projected counts, control revision, owner approval, draft-canary result, consent/suppression assertions, sent-count result, savings range, and rollback reference. Use aggregates only.

Examples

campaign=sandbox-only; baseline=12000; deferred=120; deduped=900; consent=pass; suppression=pass; sends=0; rollback=cost-r18 is a safe cost decision.

Resources

• Instantly Pricing
• Instantly API v2 Docs
• Workspace Billing API

Next Steps

For reference architecture, see instantly-reference-architecture.