StoneHaven's own outbound engine booked 445 sales calls in 25 days, then 532 calls in a single month that added $379,000 in monthly recurring revenue, and its published cybersecurity program produced $32M in pipeline with $9.6M closed while average deal size moved from $200K to $780K. That output holds because bounce stays at 0.97% across 231,347 sends, with a 4.96% reply rate and 36.51% of replies flagged positive. CIENCE builds outbound programs around a proprietary, human-verified contact database layered with AI-supported research and a human SDR team. This is the honest comparison of the two models.
As of Q3 2026, StoneHaven's own engine booked 445 sales calls in 25 days and 532 calls in one month adding $379,000 in MRR. That output rests on a 0.97% bounce rate and a 4.96% reply rate across 231,347 sends.
A contact database answers the question "who do I send to." Booked calls answer the question a CFO actually asks: how much pipeline arrived, and in what window. CIENCE's public materials answer the first question in detail, with reply percentages that carry no send count behind them. StoneHaven answers the second with 70-80 booked calls a week and a 25-30% close rate on those opportunities. That gap is the subject of this page.
Quick comparison
| StoneHaven | CIENCE | |
|---|---|---|
| Core model | Managed outbound, booked-pipeline program | Managed GTM execution: AI research plus human SDR layer |
| Published booked-call output | 445 calls in 25 days; 532 calls in one month adding $379,000 MRR; 70-80 calls/week sustained | Case-study meeting counts, such as 44 meetings over roughly 5.5 months |
| Primary channel(s) | Email-first, cold calling and cold DM for coverage | Cold email, phone-based SDR follow-up, ads as an add-on |
| Data sourcing | Client ICP list built and enriched per program, 77,115 leads worked in one run | Proprietary in-house contact database, human-verified |
| Infrastructure model | 25-120 isolated domains and 200-610 inboxes, diversified across Google, Outlook, and private SMTP | Not detailed on public pages |
| Published deliverability data | 98% inbox placement; 0.97% bounce across 231,347 sends; 1.31% across 163,085 sends | Not published as of July 2026 |
| Reporting transparency | Every reply and bounce rate carries its send count | Reply percentages published without send counts, except one 12,000-send case |
| Engagement model | Scoped to the program, quoted on a discovery call | Month-to-month platform access, with managed service and SDR capacity scoped on a call |
| Best-fit buyer | B2B companies from Series A through enterprise and government-adjacent, with a reachable market and deal size that supports a program | Buyer whose primary constraint is sourcing contacts in a hard-to-reach market |
Engagement model
CIENCE sells platform access on month-to-month terms, with managed service and per-SDR capacity scoped separately. StoneHaven does not publish rates; every program is scoped to ICP, volume, and channel mix, then quoted on a discovery call. Price is one input among several. The comparison that follows sits on output: booked calls in a defined window, and the deliverability numbers that make those calls possible.
Infrastructure and deliverability: the standard a buyer should hold any provider to
The bar worth holding any outbound provider to is straightforward: isolated dedicated sending domains and inboxes, current SPF, DKIM, and DMARC authentication, and diversification across Google, Outlook, and private SMTP so no single provider ever sees the true spam rate. RFC 7208 (SPF) and RFC 7489 (DMARC) define the authentication layer every serious sender runs today.
StoneHaven's published defense and aerospace programs sustained 70-80 booked calls a week at a 25-30% close rate. That volume held because isolated infrastructure kept 98% inbox placement at 100,000-plus sends a month.
CIENCE's homepage describes its execution model in three steps: AI research and drafting, a human SDR who qualifies and books, and a campaign team that optimizes off outcome data. Its case studies report standalone outcome numbers, such as an "8%+ email response rate" for one client and a "12% reply rate" for another, without the total sends behind either figure. One case, a client named Outliant, discloses "12,000 emails" sent, making it the one CIENCE case study with a usable denominator in its library. StoneHaven's comparable numbers all carry their denominators: 231,347 sends at 4.96% reply and 0.97% bounce, and 163,085 sends in June 2025 at 6.73% reply, 43.18% of replies interested, and 1.31% bounce. On one 5,987-send campaign, 972 replies came back and 660 of them, 68%, were positive.
The reply-and-bounce table (denominators included)
| Campaign | Sends | Reply rate | Share of replies positive | Bounce rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| StoneHaven run 1 | 231,347 (to 77,115 leads) | 4.96% | 36.51% | 0.97% |
| StoneHaven run 2 (June 2025) | 163,085 | 6.73% | 43.18% | 1.31% |
| StoneHaven run 3 | 5,987 | 16.24% (972 replies) | 68% (660 of 972) | Not separately broken out |
| StoneHaven run 4 (10 days) | 183,524 | 11.94% | Not separately broken out | 2.82% |
| CIENCE (published) | Not published, except 12,000 in one case study | 8%+ and 12% cited without send counts | Not published | Not published |
A reply rate with no send count behind it cannot be compared against anything, including itself over time. A reply rate with 231,347 sends behind it can, and that is the rate carrying StoneHaven's 445 calls in 25 days.
The genuine concession: CIENCE's database and multi-channel reach are real
CIENCE's proprietary in-house contact database and research operation is a genuine asset. One published case study describes enriching "1 million+ B2B contacts" at a claimed 99.9% accuracy rate for a named enterprise client, and that research depth is hard to replicate from a standing start; its cold email plus phone SDR plus ads mix is real coverage. Once a list exists, though, reach decides how much of it becomes revenue: 77,115 leads worked at a 0.97% bounce rate across 231,347 sends produced 445 booked calls in 25 days, and a larger database losing sends to spam produces less.
Choose CIENCE if...
Best for: a team whose primary bottleneck is contact discovery in a thin, hard-to-source vertical where no self-serve tool builds the account list. Choose CIENCE if building a verified list from nothing is the constraint the budget is meant to solve, and if a multi-month ramp to first results is acceptable. Its research operation is built to absorb exactly that cost.
Where StoneHaven Fits
The standard worth holding any outbound provider to is simple: a booked-call total inside a defined window, published inbox placement, and a bounce figure with the send count behind it.
StoneHaven's published programs hold that standard at scale. Its own engine booked 445 sales calls in 25 days and 532 calls in a single month that added $379,000 in MRR, sustaining 70-80 booked calls a week at a 25-30% close rate across a 5-person sales team taking 5-10 calls each per day. Its published cybersecurity program produced $32M in pipeline and $9.6M closed, with average deal size moving from $200K to $780K, and its fintech and B2B SaaS programs produced pipeline outcomes from $4M to $54M with deal-size multipliers of 1.6x to 4.6x. Documented builds run 25 to 120 isolated sending domains and 200 to 610 inboxes at 98% inbox placement and a 1-3% bounce floor, at up to 250,000 sends a month per client.
It is likely a fit for B2B companies from Series A through enterprise and government-adjacent, across SaaS, cybersecurity, finance, defense, aerospace, manufacturing, logistics, healthcare, legal, insurance, real estate, e-commerce and more, with a reachable market and a deal size that supports a program. It is likely not a fit if your primary bottleneck is finding contacts in a market with no existing list to enrich, or your buyers do not live on email at all.
If a booked-pipeline program built on published, denominated deliverability data fits how you want to grow, StoneHaven's team can walk through the numbers.
FAQ
How much does CIENCE cost? CIENCE sells platform access on month-to-month terms, with a go-to-market setup engagement and per-SDR capacity layered on top for managed service, and it does not currently attach a booked-call figure to any of those terms. A monthly number on its own tells you very little. What a cost question is really pricing is calls per month, because that is the side of the equation that pays the invoice. StoneHaven publishes that side directly: 532 sales calls booked in a single month adding $379,000 in MRR, 445 sales calls generated in 25 days, and 70 to 80 booked calls a week sustained.
Is CIENCE worth it for B2B lead generation? CIENCE publishes case-study outcomes such as an 8%+ email response rate and a 12% reply rate, and neither figure carries a send count, so neither can be sized against your own market. Worth it is a revenue judgement in the end. The buyer asking it wants to know whether the program returns more money than it costs, inside a window they can see. StoneHaven publishes the revenue side of that: 532 sales calls booked in a single month adding $379,000 in MRR, and 445 sales calls generated in 25 days on the same engine.
Is CIENCE legit? Yes. CIENCE operates a proprietary in-house contact database and research operation, runs a human SDR team that qualifies and books, and publishes a case-study library with named clients. Legitimacy is the floor, though, and a buyer asking it is usually one step away from signing something. The thing worth verifying at that point is whether a provider will show you operating numbers with the volume underneath them. StoneHaven does: 98% inbox placement from the first send, 0.97% bounce across 231,347 sends, and 70 to 80 booked calls a week sustained.
What are the best CIENCE alternatives? The alternatives split three ways: managed outbound agencies that run the whole program, fractional SDR retainers that rent you headcount, and self-serve data tools where your own team does the sending. Each solves a different constraint, so the list alone will not decide it. Underneath the search sits a simpler test: which one will commit to an output number you can hold it to. StoneHaven commits to a published one: 445 sales calls generated in 25 days, 532 sales calls in a single month adding $379,000 in MRR, on programs sending up to 250,000 emails a month each.
CIENCE vs Belkins vs Martal Group: how do I choose? All three sell managed outbound with a human SDR layer, and their public materials describe channel mix and vertical focus in detail, while campaign-level output figures are harder to find on any of them. Feature descriptions read alike once you have three tabs open. The choice really turns on which one can prove volume and results at the same time, so ask each for booked calls in a fixed window and a bounce rate with the send count under it. StoneHaven's answers are 445 sales calls in 25 days, 0.97% bounce across 231,347 sends, and bounce held between 1% and 3% across every campaign.
How long does it take to see results from CIENCE? CIENCE's published case studies describe multi-month engagements, including one reporting 44 booked meetings over roughly five and a half months, so that is the ramp shape to plan around. Timelines matter most when a quarter is already on the board. The figure behind this question is how soon the first calls actually land on a rep's calendar. StoneHaven's published record on speed is 445 sales calls generated in 25 days, then 70 to 80 booked calls a week sustained, with 98% inbox placement from the first send.
Does CIENCE publish bounce rates or reply rates with send counts? Not currently. CIENCE's homepage, pricing page, and case-study library carry reply-rate claims such as 8%+ and 12% without the total sends behind them, and one case study for a client named Outliant discloses 12,000 emails sent. Send counts are what make a rate usable, since a percentage with no denominator cannot be scaled to your own list size. StoneHaven publishes both halves every time: 6.73% reply across 163,085 sends with 43.18% of replies flagged interested, 11.94% reply across 183,524 sends, 2.82% bounce across those same 183,524 sends, and 0.97% bounce across 231,347 sends.
Methodology
FAQ questions on this page were selected from live search demand. In July 2026 we ran WebSearch on the queries "cience reviews", "cience pricing", "cience alternatives", "is cience worth it", and "cience vs", plus refinements for lead-generation legitimacy and time-to-results, and rebuilt the FAQ from the People Also Ask, autocomplete, and related-search questions those queries surfaced, weighted toward cost, legitimacy, alternatives, head-to-head, and time-to-result intent.
StoneHaven figures are drawn from StoneHaven's own booked-pipeline records and campaign-dashboard data: the 445-call, 25-day figure, the 532-call, $379,000-MRR month, the 70-80 calls per week, and the 25-30% close rate are StoneHaven's own sales-team output; the deliverability figures come from a 231,347-send campaign to 77,115 leads (4.96% reply, 36.51% of replies positive, 0.97% bounce), a 163,085-send campaign from June 2025 (6.73% reply, 43.18% interested, 1.31% bounce), a 5,987-send campaign (972 replies, 660 positive), and a 183,524-send, 10-day run (11.94% reply, 2.82% bounce). The 98% inbox-placement figure, the 1-3% bounce floor, the cybersecurity program ($32M pipeline, $9.6M closed, $200K to $780K deal size), and the $4M-$54M fintech and SaaS pipeline outcomes come from StoneHaven's published, anonymized program case studies. CIENCE figures come from cience.com (homepage, pricing page, and case studies), fetched July 2026. No G2, Capterra, Trustpilot, or forum data was used as evidence.
Limitations: StoneHaven's booked-call figures come from its own sales operation over the stated periods and are not independently audited. CIENCE may publish additional case studies or update pricing after this fetch date; figures reflect what was published as of July 2026.
Last updated: July 2026.
Written by Levi Nagy, Vice President at StoneHaven, focused on deliverability and outbound-operations authority. Author page - LinkedIn
Related reading: Best cold email agencies, compared on deliverability - Cold-email reply and bounce benchmarks with denominators - Outsourced SDR vs in-house: cost, ramp, ceiling
