11x vs Artisan (2026)
Both sell an autonomous sales development representative with a human first name, priced as a hire rather than a licence, and the decision is how much of the machinery each lets you see. Artisan publishes the one control that matters most on this kind of product, an autonomy dial that sets how much of the workflow its agent Ava owns, and then publishes where customers actually set it: more than ninety percent run fully autonomous. It sends from its own infrastructure with warmup and inbox placement testing. 11x sells an outbound agent and a separate voice agent that conducts telephone calls, and publishes nothing on where its email leaves from or what governs any of its three channels. Where each is weakest is the record behind the marketing. A March 2025 investigation reported that companies 11x displayed as customers disputed that description, and the GTM Tech Index grades its outcome evidence D while recording the dispute rather than settling it. Artisan's own chief executive told a technology publication that its Stop Hiring Humans billboards were mostly for attention. Neither names a model, a data source or a certification.
- You want a voice agent as well as email. 11x sells a separate voice agent that conducts telephone conversations beside its outbound agent for email and social messages, where Artisan is email first and its inbound and meeting agents are described as still in development.
- You are an enterprise with a defined target profile and someone to run the agent. Independent analysis places 11x with organisations that have budget to pilot, high quality record data to ground its research and a revenue operations resource to configure and monitor agent behaviour, and states plainly which smaller buyers should not purchase it.
- The balance sheet behind a twelve month commitment matters to you. 11x raised roughly seventy four million dollars across rounds led by Benchmark and Andreessen Horowitz, about twice the thirty seven million Artisan reports across its seed and its Series A.
- You want to choose how much the agent owns. Artisan replaces the on and off switch with an autonomy dial, a continuous setting for how much of the outbound workflow Ava handles, and publishes that more than ninety percent of customers run it fully autonomously, which is honest about where a configurable control actually sits.
- Sending reputation worries you more than anything else. Ava sends from Artisan's own infrastructure with email warmup and inbox placement testing built into the product, which the GTM Tech Index grades B, where 11x publishes nothing on whether messages leave from customer mailboxes or vendor systems.
- You want data, sequencing and deliverability in one subscription. Artisan sells a bundled contact database it states is fed by more than twenty two sources with waterfall enrichment, positioned as replacing a separate data subscription, with research against trigger events and reply handling on the same account.
This comparison is published by GTM Tech Index, an independent research platform that compares go to market software vendors objectively. 11x and Artisan are each graded against the same capability taxonomy, from each vendor's own public materials, under the GTM Tech Index verification standard. No vendor pays for placement, and no vendor has reviewed this page. How this evidence is graded
Plain facts
| 11x | Artisan | |
|---|---|---|
| Primary category | AI SDR & Outbound Agents | AI SDR & Outbound Agents |
| Founded | 2022 | 2023 |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, California, United States | San Francisco, CA |
| Website | www.11x.ai | www.artisan.co |
Side by Side
| Axis | 1 11x |
A Artisan |
|---|---|---|
|
AI Capability
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| AI Centrality | ||
| Autonomy and Oversight Model | ||
| AI Disclosure and Model Transparency | ||
| Operational and Outcome Evidence | ||
|
Compliance and Risk
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| Outreach Compliance Posture | ||
| Data Privacy Posture | ||
| Data Licensing and Provenance | ||
| Platform Terms Exposure | ||
| AI Safety and Data Stewardship | ||
| Recipient Disclosure and Authenticity | ||
|
Integration and Deployment
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| Ecosystem and Integration Depth | ||
| Deployment Model and Data Residency | ||
| Security Certifications and Trust Center | ||
|
Commercial and Operational
|
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| Commercial Transparency | ||
| Exit and Data Portability | ||
| Deliverability and Sending Discipline | ||
| Segment and Market Coverage | ||
The short version of each
11x
11x is a San Francisco autonomous outbound company founded in 2022 that sells digital workers rather than software: an outbound agent that prospects, writes personalised email and social messages, handles replies and books meetings, and a separate voice agent for telephone conversations, both given human names and positioned against the cost of hiring a sales development representative. It raised roughly seventy four million dollars in rounds led by Benchmark and Andreessen Horowitz. The GTM Tech Index grades it A on AI centrality, since nothing remains without the models, and C on most other axes, with no model provider, processing agreement, residency statement or certification located. It grades D on commercial transparency, where third party reporting places the cost near sixty thousand dollars a year on a twelve month commitment, D on recipient disclosure, and D on outcome evidence, after a March 2025 investigation reported disputes from companies it displayed as customers.
Source: GTM Tech Index, 2026
Artisan
Artisan is a San Francisco company founded in 2023 and backed by Y Combinator that sells Ava, an autonomous business development representative positioned as an AI employee. Ava sources from a bundled contact database the vendor states is fed by more than twenty two sources with waterfall enrichment, researches prospects against trigger events, writes and sends personalised outreach on Artisan's own sending infrastructure, handles replies and books meetings. The GTM Tech Index grades it A on AI centrality, and B on autonomy and oversight, for an autonomy dial paired with the disclosure that more than ninety percent of customers run Ava fully autonomously, on deliverability discipline, with warmup and inbox placement testing built in, and on platform terms. It grades C on the other thirteen axes, including commercial transparency, where third party pricing reports contradict one another, and recipient disclosure, where a product sold loudly as AI says nothing on whether Ava tells prospects so.
Source: GTM Tech Index, 2026
Common questions
Is 11x better than Artisan?
Artisan documents more of what matters for an autonomous agent: an autonomy dial with its real usage disclosed, and sending infrastructure with warmup and placement testing, which gives it four axes at A or B in the GTM Tech Index against one for 11x. 11x adds a voice agent for telephone calls and has the larger funding base. Both grade C on most compliance axes, and both need their paperwork requested in writing before signing.
Do 11x and Artisan tell prospects they are AI?
Neither states that it does. 11x designs and markets its agents as people, with human names, sold as hires against a human salary, so a prospect can reach a booked meeting without a person participating, and it grades D on recipient disclosure. Artisan grades C: it has told the market loudly that Ava is an AI employee and publishes nothing on whether Ava identifies herself to the prospects she writes to and answers. Graded by GTM Tech Index against seventeen capability axes from each vendor's own published materials, verified September 21, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
How much do 11x and Artisan cost?
Neither publishes a price. Third party reporting on 11x converges near five thousand dollars a month or sixty thousand a year, including a set number of contacts, on a twelve month contract signed upfront with no free version. Third party figures for Artisan contradict each other, ranging from flat tiers of two hundred and fifty and six hundred dollars a month billed annually to twelve thousand to more than one hundred and twenty thousand dollars a year, with annual commitment consistently reported. Graded by GTM Tech Index against seventeen capability axes from each vendor's own published materials, verified September 21, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
Can I rely on the customer claims of 11x and Artisan?
Treat both with care and verify directly. A March 2025 investigation by a technology publication reported that companies 11x displayed as customers disputed the description, and the GTM Tech Index grades its outcome evidence D while recording the dispute rather than adjudicating it. Artisan reports roughly two hundred and fifty enterprise customers with two named publicly, and its chief executive told a technology publication its billboard campaign was mostly done for attention. Ask each for referenceable customers in your segment.
How does the GTM Tech Index grade 11x and Artisan?
Both are graded on the same seventeen capability and compliance axes from public sources, at documented depths of fourteen and seventeen. 11x takes A on AI centrality, C on thirteen axes, and D on commercial transparency, outcome evidence and recipient disclosure. Artisan takes A on AI centrality, B on autonomy and oversight, deliverability and platform terms, and C on the remaining thirteen with no D. The index publishes no composite score and declares no winner.
Related comparisons
Other published head to head assessments involving these vendors or their closest peers. The full set for this category is on the Sales Engagement & Outreach page.
The shared silence is nearly everything a procurement team asks for. Neither vendor publishes a model provider, a training position, a processing agreement, a subprocessor list, a hosting region or a security certification, none of which the index located on either public surface, and both bundle prospect contact data without naming where it comes from.
Artisan states more than twenty two sources, and its own and third party materials cite figures from two hundred and fifty to three hundred million contacts. The regulatory exposure is the sharper gap, because both send autonomously.
11x runs email, professional network messaging and telephone calls without a person in the loop, which brings messaging law, platform terms and telephone preference rules into scope together, and publishes no consent, suppression, unsubscribe or calling window mechanism. Artisan publishes no unsubscribe handling or opt out process for autonomous cold email at machine speed.
Both agents carry human first names and answer replies, and neither states whether a prospect is told they are corresponding with software, which is the ground article 50 of the European artificial intelligence regulation covers. The benign reading is that these obligations sit in customer contracts rather than on public pages. Ask both for the processing agreement, a security report and unsubscribe mechanics in writing before any twelve month commitment.