No credits. No per-seat math. One flat fee.
Send/data credits that don’t roll over and per-seat pricing that scales brutally are two of the most common complaints across this category. WarmHawk is structurally exempt from both — there’s no metered credit system in a self-hosted product, and one flat fee covers unlimited users.
WarmHawk has three tiers, and the split is deliberate: Tier 0 is a free, fully-functional sending engine you run yourself. Tier 1 (Self-Hosted Pro) is $199/mo flat for the operator dashboard and a founder-staffed support SLA on top of that same engine. Tier 2 (Enterprise DFY) is a $999 one-time setup fee for WarmHawk’s founder to run the deployment for you, instead of you running install.sh yourself, plus the same $199/mo software fee Tier 1 pays. Billing runs entirely through Stripe — Checkout to start, the Stripe Customer Portal to manage cards, invoices, upgrades, and cancellations afterward.
WarmHawk has three tiers: Tier 0 is free and open, giving you the full sending engine via API with no dashboard or SLA. Tier 1 is $199/mo flat for the operator dashboard, live monitoring, and a founder support SLA — unlimited users and domains, no per-seat pricing. Tier 2 is a $999 one-time setup fee for WarmHawk’s founder to run the deployment for you, plus that same $199/mo software fee, self-serve checkout and no sales call.
Every tier runs the identical sending, queueing, and AI-personalization engine — unlike Instantly, Smartlead, or Lemlist, where higher plans often mean different sending limits or feature gates on the core product (G2/Reddit, 2026 competitor architecture research). What changes between WarmHawk’s tiers is who operates the dashboard layer and who carries the support and deployment burden — not what the engine itself can do.
- ✓Full API, sending/queueing engine, direct access
- ✓CSV lead import via API
- ✓Gemini/Claude BYOK AI personalization via API
- ✓Own nginx/TLS package, one-command install.sh
- ✓One-command in-place upgrades (warmhawk update)
- ✓Business Source License — non-compete grant, Apache 2.0 after 4 years
- ✓Full operator dashboard
- ✓Unlimited client domains, mailboxes & users (flat fee)
- ✓Live queue inspector, throttling controls, domain health alerts
- ✓Bundled Uptime Kuma + native OTEL export, on by default
- ✓Nightly backups, bundled + documented, default-on
- ✓2FA/MFA on dashboard login
- ✓Team invite/remove (flat permissions)
- ✓support@warmhawk.com — 1 business day / 4h critical SLA
- ✓30-day money-back guarantee
- ✓Everything in Self-Hosted Pro
- ✓Direct founder line, same-business-day response
- DNS change history
- Trust badge embed
- Domain certificate PDF
- Compliance report PDF
- Lookalike-domain monitoring
Custom branding on your client’s dashboard, or bulk pricing across several separate installs — no new price, no checkout flow, just a conversation with the founder.
30-day money-back guarantee · Secured by Stripe. Cancel or switch monthly ⇄ annual any time from the Stripe Customer Portal — no support ticket required.
The full Tier 0 / Tier 1 / Tier 2 feature matrix
Every row below reflects what actually ships today. Where something is planned but not built, it says so — nothing here is aspirational marketing copy.
| Feature | Tier 0 — Free | Tier 1 — $199/mo | Tier 2 — $999 one-time + $199/mo |
|---|---|---|---|
| API + sending/queueing engine, direct API access | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Operator Dashboard (web UI) | No | Yes | Yes |
| Unlimited client domains, mailboxes & users (one flat fee per account) | N/A — API-only, no seats | Yes | Yes |
| Live queue inspector, throttling controls, analytics, domain health alerts | No | Yes | Yes |
| CSV lead import | Yes, via API | Yes | Yes |
| Gemini/Claude BYOK AI personalization (EU AI-disclosure marker included) | Yes, via API | Yes | Yes |
| Own nginx/TLS package, one-command install.sh | Yes | Yes | Yes — WarmHawk runs it for you |
| One-command in-place upgrades (warmhawk update) | Yes | Yes | Yes — self-run after setup, same command as Tier 1 |
| Guided first-login onboarding checklist | N/A — no dashboard | Yes | Yes |
| Native OTEL export (free, BYO backend) | No | Yes | Yes |
| Bundled Uptime Kuma (free, 1-min checks on every service, on by default) | Yes — bundled with the engine | Yes | Yes |
| Nightly backups, bundled + documented | N/A — customer owns their own Postgres separately | Yes, default-on | Yes, default-on |
| 2FA/MFA on dashboard login | N/A — no dashboard | Yes | Yes |
| Team invite/remove (flat permissions) | N/A | Yes | Yes |
| Audit log (who-did-what-when) | No | No | Planned — Tier 2 only, procurement-driven |
| DNS change history | No | No | Yes |
| Trust badge embed | No | No | Yes |
| Domain certificate PDF | No | No | Yes |
| Compliance report PDF | No | No | Yes |
| Lookalike-domain monitoring | No | No | Yes |
| Support channel | Community (GitHub, best-effort) | support@warmhawk.com — 1 business day / 4h critical | Direct founder line, same-business-day |
| BYO-cert support | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 30-day money-back guarantee | N/A | Yes | Yes — on the $199/mo fee; the $999 setup fee is separate and non-refundable |
A precision note on “unlimited users.” Unlimited users on Tier 1 and Tier 2 grants your whole team shared access to one account’s data, under flat permissions — everyone who’s invited sees everything in that account. It is not the same thing as per-end-client data isolation between an agency’s own separate clients. That kind of walled-off, client-by-client isolation inside a single account is a tracked-but-unbuilt future item today, not a shipped feature — if you need it now, run separate accounts per client instead of relying on the permission system to separate them for you.
Why each tier costs what it costs
Tier 0 is free because WarmHawk operates nothing on your behalf at that tier — no dashboard, no SLA, no managed infrastructure, just code you run. Tier 1’s $199/mo buys the dashboard layer, a founder-staffed support SLA, and zero-per-seat pricing at any team size. Tier 2’s $999 one-time fee buys WarmHawk’s founder hours: running the deployment for you, once, instead of you running install.sh yourself.
Tier 0 — $0
You pay nothing at Tier 0 because you are running nothing that WarmHawk operates, monitors, or supports beyond handing you the code. There is no dashboard to maintain on our side, no SLA clock ticking, no managed anything. That is the whole reason it costs $0 — not a crippled trial with a countdown, but a real, fully-functional sending and queueing engine, direct API access, CSV import, and BYOK AI personalization, with zero commercial obligation attached. If you can run the API yourself, Tier 0 never expires and never asks for a card.
Tier 1 — $199/mo
$199/mo is not really priced for “software” — it buys three specific things on top of the free engine. First, the licensed operator dashboard itself: the queue inspector, throttling controls, analytics, and domain health alerts that turn the API into something you can actually run day to day without reading logs. Second, a founder-staffed support SLA — 1 business day standard, 4 hours on anything critical. That SLA is precisely the thing competitors lose reviews over — support tickets that sit for days during a deliverability emergency (G2/Reddit). Third, pricing that does not grow with your team: unlimited users and unlimited client domains for one flat fee, at a point where a seat-metered or domain-metered competitor would already be charging more as you add people (Cost analysis). What Tier 1 does not buy is a managed deployment or WarmHawk-hosted observability — you still run your own server, your own Uptime Kuma, your own OTEL backend. It is self-hosted software with a support contract, not a hosted service.
Tier 2 — $999 one-time setup + $199/mo
The $999 fee is founder-hours, once: doing the deployment itself instead of walking you through install.sh. On top of that, Tier 2 pays the same $199/mo software fee every Tier 1 customer pays — once it’s deployed and handed over, you run it day to day, with a direct founder-line, same-business-day support SLA (Tier 1’s is 1 business day via support@warmhawk.com). What Tier 2 does not buy is a different product: the observability stack (bundled Uptime Kuma plus native OTEL export) is identical on Tier 1 and Tier 2. The $999 fee is priced for WarmHawk’s setup hours, not for extra features the dashboard is missing or for someone else operating your server long-term.
How billing actually works
Tier 1 billing runs on Stripe end to end: Stripe Checkout to start, and the Stripe Customer Portal afterward to update a card, download invoices, toggle monthly ⇄ annual, or cancel — no support ticket required for any of it. A 30-day money-back guarantee and a discounted annual price ($1,990/yr) are both baked into the same setup.
Starting a Tier 1 subscription goes through the monthly/annual checkout widget above — pick an interval and it redirects to a hosted Stripe Checkout payment page. Everything afterward is self-serve through the Stripe Customer Portal: update the card on file, view and download every invoice, upgrade or downgrade between monthly and annual billing, or cancel outright, all without emailing anyone.
Annual billing is a second Stripe Price on the same product, not a separate plan — $1,990/yr instead of $199 × 12 ($2,388), roughly two months free for prepaying, offered as a toggle both at checkout and later inside the Customer Portal if you want to switch direction after the fact. And Tier 1 carries a plain 30-day money-back guarantee: cancel inside the first 30 days of your first charge and it is refunded in full, no retention call, no justification required.
What per-seat and credit-based pricing actually costs you
Most cold email tools price by seat, by domain, or by a monthly credit allowance — and all three scale against you as your team or your client list grows. Per-seat pricing in particular scales brutally for agencies: every hire, every new client-facing teammate, is another line item, on top of whatever the base plan already costs (Cost analysis). WarmHawk’s Tier 1 is flat: unlimited users and unlimited client domains for one $199/mo fee, structurally, because there is no per-seat metering built into the product at all — not a discount, a different architecture.
The same is true of send credits. Across the industry, unused send or data credits typically do not roll over month to month — you lose whatever allowance you didn’t use (Cost analysis). WarmHawk has no credit system to lose anything from in the first place: a self-hosted engine sends what your own mailboxes and queue can safely handle, not what a monthly allowance permits.
Put concretely: picture a 10-person agency team running client outreach. On a per-seat competitor, the bill is whatever the base plan costs, multiplied out or stacked with add-ons as each of those 10 people needs a login — the exact numbers vary by vendor and plan tier, but the direction is consistent, and it moves with headcount. On WarmHawk, that same 10-person team is still $199/mo, flat, on Tier 1 — the eleventh hire changes nothing on the invoice. That gap is structural, not promotional: it is the difference between software priced per seat and software priced per account.
| Team running cold outreach | Typical per-seat infrastructure cost | WarmHawk Tier 1 |
|---|---|---|
| Solo operator | $220–400/mo (2026 cold-email infrastructure cost survey) | $199/mo flat |
| 10-person agency team | Scales with headcount — add-ons and per-seat charges stack on top of the base plan | $199/mo flat — unchanged |
| Large agency | $5,000–8,000+/mo (2026 cold-email infrastructure cost survey) | $199/mo flat — unchanged |
Questions
Pricing questions worth answering up front
Can I switch from monthly to annual later?+
Yes. Tier 1 (Self-Hosted Pro) toggles monthly ⇄ annual any time from the Stripe Customer Portal — no support ticket, no downtime, no re-onboarding. The annual price is $1,990/yr, about two months free versus paying $199 twelve times.
What happens if I cancel?+
Your Stripe subscription for the dashboard, support SLA, and managed extras ends at the close of the billing period. The underlying Tier 0 engine is yours to keep running — it is Business Source Licensed software on your own server, not a rented seat.
Is there a free trial?+
There isn't a time-boxed trial, because Tier 0 already is the free tier — a real, fully-functional sending engine with no card required. Run it indefinitely via API. Tier 1 adds the dashboard and support SLA, backed by a 30-day money-back guarantee instead of a trial clock.
What does the 30-day guarantee actually cover?+
The $199/mo software fee — Tier 1's, or Tier 2's identical one. Cancel within 30 days of your first charge and WarmHawk refunds that fee in full, no questions asked. Tier 2's $999 setup fee is a separate, one-time payment for founder-delivered work, not a subscription, so this guarantee doesn't cover it the same way — email support@warmhawk.com if setup didn't go as expected.
Do you offer invoicing instead of a credit card?+
Tier 1 and Tier 2 both run through Stripe Checkout, card-based by default — Tier 2’s checkout combines the $999 one-time setup fee with the same $199/mo software subscription Tier 1 uses, in one self-serve session, not a quoted invoice. If you need a custom build beyond Tier 2’s standard setup, that’s scoped directly with the founder and can be invoiced separately.
Does 'unlimited users' mean I can host separate clients with isolated data?+
No — be precise about this one. Unlimited users on Tier 1/2 means your team shares one account with flat permissions, not that each of your agency's clients gets walled-off data from each other. Per-client data isolation is a tracked, unbuilt future item, not a shipped feature.
What if I need something Tier 2 doesn’t cover — a custom feature or integration?+
That’s a Custom Build engagement, starting at $1,999 one-time — scoped development work for things that don’t exist yet in the product, like a bespoke integration or per-client data isolation. It’s not a listed checkout tier; use the custom-build contact form on the checkout page and WarmHawk’s founder will scope and quote it directly.
Pick the tier that matches how much you want to run yourself.
Run the engine yourself for $0, or get the dashboard, monitoring, and a founder-backed SLA for $199/mo — 30-day money-back guarantee included.