Octopus CRM vs Waalaxy
An independent, review-free comparison compiled by the SaaSTracker editorial team. Both products are profiled in full, and neither can pay for placement here.
The short answer
Editorial assessmentOctopus CRM compared with Waalaxy
Waalaxy is the other approachable extension in this category, with a free tier, a friendlier campaign builder, an email finder, and a much larger vendor behind it. Octopus is cheaper on paid tiers and simpler. Waalaxy is the better first tool for most people because the free plan costs nothing and the email finder opens multichannel; Octopus wins narrowly on price for someone who has already decided they only want LinkedIn actions.
Choose Octopus CRM if
Solo sellers, consultants, recruiters, and small business owners who want basic LinkedIn outreach for less than the price of lunch, work at their desk during business hours, and are willing to trade every advanced feature for a price that makes the decision trivial.
Choose Waalaxy if
Solo operators, freelancers, and small teams who want a cheap, self-serve way into LinkedIn prospecting and are comfortable keeping a browser tab open while it runs.
Side by side
13 attributes| Attribute | Octopus CRM | Waalaxy |
|---|---|---|
| Category | ||
| Starting price | $9.99 per month (Starter) (7 days trial) | €19/user/mo (Pro, billed monthly) (free plan available) |
| Pricing model | Flat monthly subscription per user across four feature-gated tiers, with a 35 percent annual discount and an agency arrangement quoted on request. There is no per-account, per-credit, or per-action metering. | Per-user monthly pricing in EUR, billed monthly, quarterly (20% off), or annually (50% off); each seat corresponds to a LinkedIn account. |
| Free plan | No | A genuinely permanent free tier, not just a trial: roughly 3 actions per day per action type (visits, invites, messages), no email finder credits, and no CRM sync. Enough to test messaging and workflow, not to run real volume. |
| Free trial | 7 days, no credit card required, available through the Chrome Web Store listing | 14 days on paid plans |
| Best for | Solo sellers, consultants, recruiters, and small business owners who want basic LinkedIn outreach for less than the price of lunch, work at their desk during business hours, and are willing to trade every advanced feature for a price that makes the decision trivial. | Solo operators, freelancers, and small teams who want a cheap, self-serve way into LinkedIn prospecting and are comfortable keeping a browser tab open while it runs. |
| Setup time | Fifteen minutes. Install the extension from the Chrome Web Store, open LinkedIn, run a search, import the results into a list, pick an action, and start. There is nothing to connect and nothing to configure at the infrastructure level because there is no infrastructure. | Under 30 minutes to install the extension and launch a first template campaign. |
| Learning curve | Minimal, and this is the product's real virtue. Four actions, one funnel builder, one dashboard. A user who has never touched LinkedIn automation will have a working campaign within an hour, which is not true of PhantomBuster, TexAu, or Linked Helper. | Very low; templates remove most of the setup decisions a new user would otherwise face. |
| Platforms | Google Chrome extension, Chromium browsers (Edge, Brave) in practice, Desktop only, requires the browser to be open and the machine awake | Chrome extension (Chromium-based browsers) |
| Compliance | GDPR considerations are the user's responsibility; the vendor publishes no formal certifications | GDPR-aligned processes (France-based company, EU data handling for email enrichment via Dropcontact) |
| Founded | 2016 | 2019 |
| Headquarters | Not disclosed | Montpellier, France |
| Ownership | Privately held; ownership not disclosed | Privately held, bootstrapped |
Strengths and limitations
Octopus CRM
Strengths
- The lowest cost of ownership in the category by a wide margin: $9.99 to $39.99 per month with no Sales Navigator seat required and no credits to buy.
- Runs entirely in your own browser from your own IP with your own fingerprint, so there is no datacentre login, no country mismatch, and no session cookie sitting on a vendor's server.
- A 7-day trial with no credit card makes evaluation genuinely free, which matters when the real question is whether the channel works for you at all.
- Works with free LinkedIn accounts as well as Premium, Sales Navigator, and Recruiter Lite, so the tool does not force a $99 upstream subscription.
Limitations
- Campaigns stop when Chrome closes. There is no cloud execution, so nothing runs overnight, on holiday, or while your laptop is shut, and this single fact rules the tool out for a large share of buyers.
- No unified inbox. Once a prospect replies you are back in LinkedIn's own messaging, with no tags, no templates in context, and no team visibility.
- Safety limits are set by you and not enforced by the vendor. Octopus markets the ability to send beyond LinkedIn's roughly 100 invites per week allowance via the connect-by-email path, which is precisely the kind of volume that triggers restrictions.
- No email finder, no email sending, and no multichannel sequencing of any kind, so LinkedIn is the whole of your outreach.
Waalaxy
Strengths
- Lowest entry price in the category with a genuinely useful free tier, not just a time-boxed trial.
- 99+ template library removes the blank-page problem for first-time users.
- Email Finder credits only burn on a successful match, stretching modest monthly allotments.
- Multichannel LinkedIn-to-email fallback on Business closes a gap pure-LinkedIn tools leave open.
Limitations
- Chrome-extension architecture means campaigns only run while the browser is open and the computer is awake, unlike cloud-based competitors.
- No account rotation or pooled-limit model, so agencies working multiple client accounts outgrow it quickly.
- Inbox Waalaxy is billed separately from the core subscription, an add-on cost easy to miss when comparing headline prices.
- Browser-extension execution is generally considered easier for LinkedIn to fingerprint than server-side cloud tools with stable dedicated IPs.
Pricing compared
Octopus CRM
Flat monthly subscription per user across four feature-gated tiers, with a 35 percent annual discount and an agency arrangement quoted on request. There is no per-account, per-credit, or per-action metering.
- Starter$9.99
- Pro$14.99
- Advanced$21.99
- Unlimited$39.99
Judged per dollar, Octopus CRM is unbeatable and it is not close: $14.99 buys automated invites and bulk messaging with no Sales Navigator requirement, against $49 to $200 elsewhere. Judged per capability it is the thinnest product here, with no cloud execution, no inbox, no email, no branching, and no agency layer. The correct way to read it is as a floor test rather than a platform: spend $10 to find out whether LinkedIn outreach produces meetings for your offer, and if it does, graduate to something that can run overnight and handle replies. Buyers who intend to stay on it long term should understand they are choosing a permanently manual reply workflow in exchange for saving roughly $40 a month.
Waalaxy
Per-user monthly pricing in EUR, billed monthly, quarterly (20% off), or annually (50% off); each seat corresponds to a LinkedIn account.
- Pro€19
- Advanced€49
- Business€69
At €19 to €69 a month, Waalaxy is priced well under Dripify, Expandi, and HeyReach, and its free plan is one of the only real (non-trial) free tiers in the category. The catch is that the sticker price undersells the real cost: Inbox Waalaxy is a separate line item, and the browser-extension architecture asks the user to supply the always-on machine that a cloud tool would otherwise provide. For a solo operator already at their desk during outreach hours, that trade is a good one; for anyone wanting true set-and-forget automation, the effective cost includes keeping a computer running.
Editorial verdict on each
Octopus CRM
Octopus CRM is the correct answer to one specific question: does LinkedIn outreach work for my offer, and can I find out for the price of a sandwich? At $14.99 for automated invites plus bulk messaging, with no Sales Navigator seat required and a 7-day trial that costs nothing, it lets you generate real acceptance and reply data before committing to a real platform. It also has one genuine architectural advantage over every cloud tool here, which is that it acts from your own browser and IP and never holds a session credential on someone else's server. What you give up is everything else: campaigns stop when Chrome closes, there is no inbox, no email, no branching, no agency layer, and the vendor sets no safe limits while actively marketing a way past LinkedIn's invite allowance. Buy it as a cheap, low-commitment experiment or as a permanent tool for a solo operator who works at a desk and does not mind handling replies by hand. Do not buy it as the foundation of a team's pipeline, and do not use the connect-by-email volume feature it advertises unless you are prepared to lose the account.
Read the full Octopus CRM profileWaalaxy
Waalaxy earns its popularity honestly: it's the cheapest credible way into LinkedIn automation, its template library removes the intimidation factor for first-timers, and its free plan is one of the only real ones in the category. The trade for that price is architectural, a Chrome extension that needs an open browser and an awake machine, and a reply inbox billed separately from the core plan, both of which are easy to miss when comparing sticker prices against cloud competitors. For a solo founder, freelancer, or independent recruiter already working from their laptop during outreach hours, that trade is a clear win; for an agency or anyone wanting true unattended automation, it's the wrong tool no matter how good the price looks.
Read the full Waalaxy profileOctopus CRM profile last reviewed 2026-08-22; Waalaxy last reviewed 2026-08-22. Pricing is compiled from public sources and can change without notice. See our methodology.