Expandi vs HeyReach: Which LinkedIn Automation Tool Actually Scales Your Outreach in 2026?
Expandi and HeyReach are two of the best LinkedIn automation tools that support custom proxies. Here is an honest comparison of pricing, agency features, and the account layer that decides whether either one actually scales your outbound.
If you are choosing between Expandi and HeyReach, you have already made the smart decision: both are proper LinkedIn automation tools that support custom proxies, which means both can safely run rented or avatar accounts rather than forcing you to burn your team’s personal profiles. That single fact puts them in a different league from the browser-extension crowd. The real question is which one fits how you run outreach, and what the tool cannot do on its own no matter which you pick.
Here is the honest breakdown of what each tool gives you, where each one wins, and the piece of the stack that decides whether either actually scales.
What Expandi Is Built For
Expandi is a cloud-based LinkedIn automation platform aimed at individual operators, sales teams, and lead-gen agencies that want smart, personalized sequences per account. According to their pricing page, Expandi runs at $99 per seat per month on the monthly plan, with a 20 percent discount (roughly two months free) if you pay annually. One seat maps to one LinkedIn account.
What people buy Expandi for:
- Smart sequences and conditional logic. You can branch a campaign based on whether someone accepts a connection, replies, or opens, which lets you build genuinely adaptive outreach rather than a flat blast.
- Personalized images and GIFs. Expandi is known for dynamic personalization inside messages, including image personalization that pulls the prospect’s name or company into a visual.
- Dedicated country-based proxy per account. Every seat gets its own IP, which is exactly why Expandi pairs cleanly with rented and avatar accounts.
- Webhooks and integrations. It plays well with CRMs and enrichment tools through native integrations and webhooks.
Expandi is a strong fit when each account needs its own carefully tuned, high-personalization campaign and you are running a handful of seats rather than a hundred.
What HeyReach Is Built For
HeyReach is built from the ground up for agencies and teams running outreach across many LinkedIn accounts at once. Its whole model is unlimited sending volume for a flat fee and clean multi-account management. Per their pricing page, HeyReach starts at $79 per sender per month, with an Agency plan at $999 per month for 25 senders and an Unlimited plan at $2,999 per month for unlimited senders.
What people buy HeyReach for:
- Account rotation. HeyReach can spread a single campaign across multiple sender accounts, so you hit volume without pushing any one account past safe daily limits.
- Unified inbox. Every reply across every account lands in one place, which is a real time-saver when you are managing dozens of profiles.
- Agency client separation. You manage multiple clients through a single login while keeping each client’s senders, leads, and campaigns walled off from the others.
- Custom proxy support. Like Expandi, HeyReach supports custom proxies, so it works with rented and avatar accounts instead of tying you to a residential IP you do not control.
HeyReach is the natural pick when the constraint is the number of accounts you need to orchestrate and the volume you need to push, not the depth of personalization on any single one.
Expandi vs HeyReach at a Glance
| Expandi | HeyReach | |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Personalized per-account campaigns | High-volume multi-account and agencies |
| Entry price | $99 per seat per month | $79 per sender per month |
| Agency pricing | Per seat, discounts at volume | $999 (25 senders) or $2,999 (unlimited) |
| Standout feature | Smart sequences, image personalization | Account rotation, unified inbox |
| Custom proxy support | Yes | Yes |
| Works with rented and avatar accounts | Yes | Yes |
Neither of these is a bad choice. If your motion is depth (fewer accounts, richer personalization, tuned branching), lean Expandi. If your motion is breadth (many accounts, high volume, agency client management), lean HeyReach. Plenty of agencies actually run both.
The Part Both Tools Quietly Depend On
Here is what the Expandi vs HeyReach debate misses, and it is the part that actually determines whether your program scales: the automation tool is only the engine. It still needs an account to drive.
Both tools support custom proxies precisely because they expect you to bring your own LinkedIn accounts and your own IPs. If you point either tool at your team’s personal profiles, you are gambling the real profiles your reps use every day. Run high volume through a personal account and a restriction does not just pause a campaign, it locks a person out of their own network. That is why serious operators separate the sending identity from the human, and that is the layer AIA provides.
AIA gives you dedicated prospecting avatars: purpose-built LinkedIn identities that come pre-warmed with 100 or more connections and a posting history, each on its own dedicated proxy, ready to be pointed at Expandi or HeyReach. You are not risking a real employee’s account, and you are not stuck aging a cold profile for six weeks before you can send. The tier structure is simple:
- Silver at $97 per avatar per month
- Gold at $147, ID verified with LinkedIn’s verification badge
- Platinum at $177
- Titanium at $197, ID verified
- Sales Navigator add-on at $57 per month per seat
- Email avatar at $11 per pre-warmed domain per month
Volume discounts stack at 10 percent off for 10 or more avatars, 20 percent off for 50 or more, and 30 percent off for 100 or more, and every avatar carries a 48 hour replacement SLA. You can see the full breakdown on the AIA pricing page, and the why AIA avatars page explains how the account layer sits underneath whichever tool you run.
A Warning About Tool Compatibility
Before you commit to any tool, check that it actually supports custom proxies, because that is the difference between a tool you can pair with a rented or avatar account and one you cannot. Expandi, HeyReach, Skylead, We-Connect, Buzz, and LIA all support custom proxies and work cleanly with AIA avatars. Dripify, Waalaxy, Zopto, Dux-Soup, and Ulinc do not support custom proxies, which means they cannot be safely paired with any rented or avatar account regardless of provider. If your shortlist includes one of those, no account layer can fix it, and you should cross it off before you build a program on top of it. The full compatibility map lives on the AIA integrations page.
Where ID Verification Fits
One more factor that neither Expandi nor HeyReach can give you, because it is an account property, not a tool feature: ID verification. LinkedIn increasingly rewards verified profiles with reach and trust, and some prospects check for the verification badge before they reply. AIA’s Gold and Titanium tiers are ID-verified LinkedIn accounts that carry LinkedIn’s own verification badge, so whichever automation tool you drive, the identity behind it can be verified. That is a lever your tool choice simply does not touch.
The Honest Take on Platform Risk
No automation tool and no account provider can promise you zero restrictions, and you should distrust anyone who claims otherwise. Any account running outbound at volume is exposed, whether you send through Expandi or HeyReach. What matters is the mitigation. Running dedicated avatars instead of personal profiles means a restriction never touches a real employee, and AIA’s 48 hour replacement SLA means a flagged avatar is swapped for a fresh, already-warmed one before your pipeline stalls. The tool keeps your sequences running; the account layer keeps your program alive when a profile gets flagged.
To put a number on what that combination can do: one AIA client, a top-100 US agency, ran 185 avatars to generate 500 or more sales-qualified leads and $2.3 million in net-new revenue in under 90 days. That kind of ramp is a purchasing decision when your accounts come pre-warmed, not a six-week aging project.
How to Choose
Pick Expandi if your outbound is personalization-heavy, you run a manageable number of accounts, and smart branching sequences and image personalization are what move your reply rate. Pick HeyReach if you are an agency or high-volume team, you need to orchestrate many accounts through account rotation, and a unified inbox with client separation is worth more to you than per-message depth.
Then make the decision that actually determines whether either tool scales: give it an account layer built for outreach instead of your team’s real profiles. Start by mapping your channels and volume on how to get started with AIA, then match the tier to your verification and scale needs.
Want a straight answer on which tool and which avatar tier fit your outbound before you spend a budget? Message AIA on WhatsApp at https://wa.me/37256084933 or head to getaia.io to place your order and start scaling this week.
