Migrate Lemlist to Reply.io Without Losing Sequences

The moment teams pull the trigger on migrating from Lemlist is almost always the same: they hit a deliverability wall, get dinged on LinkedIn step limits, or realize the reporting gives them no clear sense of sequence-level revenue. The tool served them fine at 200 contacts a month. At 2,000, the gaps show. Reply.io handles multi-channel at scale more cleanly, the analytics are richer, and the API is genuinely usable without a developer on call. But there is no migration wizard. You will be doing this by hand, and if you skip the prep you will crater your sending reputation in the process.

Before you migrate

Do not touch the sequence builder in Reply.io until these items are checked off. Rushing this phase is how you end up with duplicate sends and a burned inbox.

• Audit active sequences in Lemlist. Document every sequence that has contacts in-flight. Note the step each contact is on, because you will need to enroll them at the equivalent step in Reply.io, not from Step 1.
• Export all contacts per sequence. In Lemlist, go to each campaign, filter by status (active, paused, bounced, unsubscribed), and export to CSV. Keep separate files per campaign status. Unsubscribes are the most important: import them to Reply.io’s global unsubscribe list before any send.
• Document your sequence step copy. Lemlist does not export full email body text in its contact CSVs. Open each campaign, copy every step’s subject line and body into a shared doc. Note any liquid-style personalization variables so you can remap them to Reply.io’s merge field syntax (Reply.io uses {{firstName}} style tokens).
• Inventory your sending inboxes. List every email account connected to Lemlist, the daily send limits set, and current warm-up status. You will reconnect these to Reply.io via OAuth or SMTP/IMAP.
• Check your DNS records. Confirm SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are passing for every domain in use. MXToolbox surfaces this in seconds. If records are broken now, fix them before migration, not after.
• Pause all active Lemlist sequences. Set sequences to paused, not stopped. You want to preserve the enrolled contact list so you can cross-reference it against what gets imported to Reply.io.

What breaks and what does not transfer

The two things that catch people off guard are Lemlist’s image personalization and LinkedIn step carry-over. I have watched both sink otherwise clean migrations.

Lemlist’s dynamic image personalization (custom backgrounds with the prospect’s logo or name baked into an image) does not exist in Reply.io. There is no native equivalent. If your sequences rely heavily on that feature for reply rates, factor in a rebuild period using Hyperise as a bridge, or accept that those steps will become plain-text steps. My recommendation: test the plain-text version first. Most teams find the reply rate difference is smaller than expected once copy is tightened.

LinkedIn steps in Lemlist (connection requests, profile visits, InMail) do not transfer as configured steps in Reply.io. Reply.io supports LinkedIn steps via its Chrome extension in a similar but not identical way. You will need to remap each LinkedIn step and reconnect your LinkedIn account inside Reply.io separately.

// Correct column header format for Reply.io imports
firstName,lastName,email,companyName,customField1

// Lemlist export headers (rename before import)
"First Name" -> firstName
"Last Name"  -> lastName
"Email"      -> email
"Company"    -> companyName

// Check Reply.io's required format at:
// app.reply.io > People > Import > Download Template

If you are migrating bounced contacts, do not re-import them. Hard bounces from Lemlist are a signal about the address, not the platform. Importing them into Reply.io and resending will generate fresh bounces that damage your new sending reputation. Keep a separate “do not import” list of all hard-bounce addresses from your Lemlist exports.

For deliverability specifics on diagnosing what broke before or during a migration, the cold email deliverability audit post covers the full diagnostic flow.

Verify it worked

Before you resume sending at full volume, run these four checks:

1. Send a test email from each reconnected inbox to a seed address (Mailtester.com or GlockApps). Confirm SPF, DKIM, and DMARC all pass in the header analysis. Any failure here means you re-authenticate before sending a single campaign contact.
2. Check the Do Not Contact list count in Reply.io against your Lemlist unsubscribe export. The numbers should match within a small margin. If Reply.io shows 50 and your export had 300, the import failed silently.
3. Verify step counts per sequence. Open each rebuilt sequence and count the steps. Cross-reference against your step-copy doc. A sequence that should have 5 steps showing 4 means a step got lost.
4. Run a small batch before full volume. Enroll 20-30 contacts in the first rebuilt sequence and monitor the Reply.io analytics dashboard for 48 hours. Confirm open tracking, click tracking, and reply detection are all firing. Only then scale back to full daily limits.

Should you actually make this switch?

Choose Switch to Reply.io if

• You are sending more than 1,500 contacts per month and need per-sequence revenue attribution
• Your team uses a CRM (HubSpot, Salesforce) and needs a tight two-way sync with activity logging
• You want a single platform for email plus LinkedIn plus calls without stitching three tools together

From $49/user/month Try Reply.io →

Choose Stay on Lemlist if

• Your reply rates depend on dynamic image personalization and you do not want to rebuild that stack
• You are a solo sender under 500 contacts per month where Lemlist's pricing makes more sense
• Your sequences are stable and migration risk outweighs any feature gap you are experiencing

From $39/month Stay on Lemlist →

Choose Migrate to Smartlead instead if

• Your primary need is inbox rotation and high-volume cold email without multichannel complexity
• You want native warm-up baked into the sending infrastructure rather than bolted on
• You are managing multiple client accounts and need workspace separation

From $39/month Try Smartlead →

If your situation is more “contact data migration” than sequence migration, the Apollo to Instantly migration guide covers many of the same CSV mapping and field-match pitfalls in a different tool context.

The migration itself is a weekend’s work if you are disciplined about the prep. The payoff is a platform that actually scales with a modern GTM stack without you manually exporting CSVs every time you want to see what is working. Do the unsubscribe import first, rebuild sequences before enrolling anyone, and let the inboxes warm before you hit full send volume. In that order, you will not lose a sequence, a domain, or a contact list.