AI personalization generates a unique email for every individual lead, written using that lead's bio and company research. It's the most effective personalization available in the platform — and it's the only feature that changes what you're charged per email, so it's worth understanding before you turn it on.
⚠️ What it costs
Email type | Credits per email |
Regular email (normal template) | 1 credit |
AI-personalized, using your own LLM key | 2 credits |
AI-personalized, using SalesTarget.ai's AI | 5 credits |
An AI step that falls back to your template | 1 credit |
A 1,000-lead campaign with AI personalization turned on costs 5,000 credits — or 2,000 credits if you've connected your own LLM key. The same campaign without AI costs 1,000.
You're only charged the higher rate when an AI-generated email actually sends. If AI content isn't ready for a lead, that step falls back to your normal template and costs 1 credit.
Turn on AI personalization
AI personalization is configured per step, so you can use it for your first email and plain templates for follow-ups.
Open your campaign's Templates tab.
Open the AI Personalization panel for the step you want.
Tick Enable AI personalization for this step.
Write an AI Prompt describing what the email should say. Click 💡 Need help? for example prompts.
Choose a Tone — Professional, Friendly, Casual, Formal, or Enthusiastic.
Save.
A green dot next to a step means AI personalization is on for it. Grey means off.
Writing a good prompt
The lead's bio and company research are included automatically — you don't need to add them to your prompt. Focus on what you want the email to *do*:
"Write a short cold email opening with something specific about their company, then explain that we help B2B sales teams cut prospecting time in half. Ask for a 15-minute call. Keep it under 120 words."
Be specific about length, structure, and your ask. Vague prompts produce generic emails, which defeats the purpose.
Cut the cost: connect your own LLM key
Connecting your own AI provider key drops the cost from 5 credits to 2 credits per email — a 60% saving.
Go to Settings → User LLM.
Choose your provider. Seven are supported: OpenAI, Anthropic (Claude), Google Gemini, xAI (Grok), Groq, DeepSeek, and Mistral.
Paste your API key and pick the model you want.
Save.
Your key is stored encrypted. You'll be billed by your AI provider directly for the generation, which is typically far cheaper than the credit difference.
The key belongs to the campaign owner. Whoever owns a campaign determines its pricing — so if you want your whole team on the lower rate, each person running campaigns needs their own key saved.
Credit checks when starting a campaign
If any step has AI personalization enabled, we check your balance before the campaign starts and block the launch if you don't have enough — rather than letting it start and stall halfway. You'll see:
"Campaign cannot be started. Not enough credits — 1000 email(s) require 5000 credits (5/email), but only 800 available."
The check is deliberately conservative: it assumes every email will be AI-generated.
If your balance runs out mid-campaign, the campaign is paused rather than sending anything you can't pay for. Top up and resume.
Editing while a campaign is running
AI personalization settings are read-only while a campaign is active. You'll see "This campaign is active — AI personalization settings are read-only." Pause the campaign to make changes, then resume.
Is it worth it?
AI personalization costs 5× a regular email, so use it where it pays back:
Use it on step 1, where personalization has the biggest impact on reply rate, and use plain templates for follow-ups.
Use it on high-value segments rather than your entire list.
Connect your own LLM key if you're going to use it regularly — the saving is substantial at volume.
Test it against a plain template on a small batch before committing your whole list.
Don't confuse these three AI features
Feature | What it does | Extra credit cost |
AI Personalization (this article) | A unique email per lead, at send time | Yes — 2 or 5 credits per email |
AI Sequence Generator | Drafts a whole sequence for you to edit | No |
AI Content Generator | Drafts a single email template | No |
Only AI Personalization changes your per-email cost.