8 Best Automated Marketing Software in 2026, Compared

Quick comparison

The best automated marketing software

#1

ActiveCampaign

Best for: Small marketing teams that want the deepest automation builder and a built-in CRM without enterprise pricing

Visit activecampaign.com

Starting price$19/month (Starter, billed monthly; $15/month billed annually, 1,000 contacts)

Free planNo — 14-day free trial

ActiveCampaign is the automation-first pick in this list. Starter costs $19 a month billed monthly, or $15 billed annually, for 1,000 contacts, and every plan includes multi-step automations with a visual builder, plus a built-in CRM that HubSpot charges far more for. The builder is the deepest at this price: conditional branches, split testing inside automations, predictive sending on Pro, and more than 900 integrations.

The catch is the contact meter and the add-ons. Since November 2025, new accounts are billed for all contacts, including unsubscribed ones, so a stale list costs money. CRM pipelines, SMS credits and the AI add-on are paid extras that can lift the bill well above the plan price. Pick ActiveCampaign when automation depth matters more than a free plan — there is none, only a 14-day trial.

What we like

• Visual automation builder with conditional branches and split testing inside automations on every plan
• Built-in CRM with deal pipelines included from Starter, plus 900+ integrations
• Predictive sending and conditional content from Pro ($79/month billed annually)

Watch out for

• No free plan — only a 14-day free trial, and new accounts are billed for all contacts including unsubscribed ones
• CRM pipelines, SMS credits and the AI add-on are paid extras that lift the real bill above the plan price
• Learning curve is steep for beginners; the builder rewards teams that invest time in it

#2

HubSpot Marketing Hub

Best for: Growing businesses that want CRM, email, landing pages and automation in one platform

Visit hubspot.com

Starting price$20/month per seat (Starter, billed monthly; $15/month per seat billed annually; new customers from $7/month per seat)

Free planYes — free plan (2,000 emails/month, HubSpot branding)

HubSpot Marketing Hub is the all-in-one pick: the free CRM sits under email marketing, landing pages, forms, live chat and ad management, so nothing needs syncing between tools. Starter costs $20 a month per seat billed monthly, or $15 billed annually, with 1,000 marketing contacts included; new customers can start from $7 a month per seat on a promotional rate. For a team already running sales or service on HubSpot, the marketing hub slots into the same contact records.

The price cliff is the honest problem. Professional costs $800 a month billed annually, includes 3 seats and 2,000 contacts, and adds a mandatory $3,000 onboarding fee — and real workflow automation, A/B testing and smart content only start there. Starter automation is basic. Pick HubSpot when one shared CRM matters more than the cheapest email bill.

What we like

• One CRM under everything: contacts, email, forms, landing pages and automation share the same database
• Free plan is genuinely usable, with 2,000 emails a month and the full CRM
• Best support and documentation in this list, with a huge integration marketplace

Watch out for

• Professional jumps to $800 a month billed annually plus a $3,000 one-time onboarding fee — a 40x cliff from Starter
• Starter is priced per seat and per 1,000 marketing contacts, so the bill grows on two meters at once
• Real automation (workflows, A/B testing, smart content) waits for Professional

#3

Brevo

Best for: Budget-conscious small businesses that send a lot of email and want SMS and CRM in the same account

Visit brevo.com

Starting price$9/month (Starter, billed monthly; $8.08/month billed annually, 5,000 emails)

Free planYes — free plan (300 emails/day, up to 100,000 contacts)

Brevo is the budget pick because it charges for emails sent, not contacts stored. Starter costs $9 a month for 5,000 emails, and the free plan sends 300 emails a day with up to 100,000 contacts stored — the most generous free tier here for a big list. The same account adds SMS, WhatsApp, live chat and a marketing CRM, so a small business can run most of its marketing from one login.

Read the plan before you buy it. Starter includes no automation workflows, no A/B testing and no landing pages; those start on Standard at $18 a month. The $9 tier also caps stored contacts at 500, so a 5,000-contact list belongs on a higher-volume tier, and logo removal is a $12 monthly add-on. Pick Brevo when send volume, not list size, is the constraint.

What we like

• Cheapest entry in this list: $9 a month for 5,000 emails, with up to 100,000 contacts stored on the free plan
• Prices by emails sent, not contacts stored, so a large list costs the same as a small one at the same volume
• SMS, WhatsApp, live chat and a marketing CRM in the same account

Watch out for

• Starter has no automation at all — workflows, A/B testing and landing pages start on Standard at $18 a month
• Each paid tier caps stored contacts (500 on the $9 tier), so a growing list is pushed to a higher-volume tier
• Removing the Brevo logo from emails costs $12 a month extra on Starter

#4

Mailchimp

Best for: Small businesses and solo marketers who want the best-known tool with the gentlest learning curve

Visit mailchimp.com

Starting price$13/month (Essentials, billed monthly; 500 contacts)

Free planYes — free plan (250 contacts, 500 emails/month)

Mailchimp is the default first tool for a reason: Essentials costs $13 a month for 500 contacts, the editor and templates are the most polished here, and the free plan covers 250 contacts with no credit card. Standard at $20 a month adds multi-step Customer Journeys, dynamic content, custom reports and send-time optimization, which is where the automation actually lives. With 300+ integrations, it plugs into almost any store or site.

The billing model is the trap. Mailchimp charges for subscribed, unsubscribed and non-subscribed contacts alike, so a list that never gets cleaned keeps costing more; only archived or deleted contacts are excluded. Essentials also caps automation at four flow steps. Pick Mailchimp when ease of use and templates matter most — and clean the list before the bill grows.

What we like

• Easiest tool in this list to learn, with the largest template library and 300+ integrations
• Standard ($20/month) adds multi-step Customer Journeys, dynamic content and send-time optimization
• Free plan needs no credit card and covers 250 contacts

Watch out for

• Charges for every contact stored, including unsubscribed ones — only archived or deleted contacts are excluded
• Essentials caps automation at 4 flow steps; real journey building needs Standard
• The free plan was cut to 250 contacts and 500 sends in February 2026

#5

Klaviyo

Best for: Ecommerce stores on Shopify or WooCommerce that want purchase behavior to drive every email and text

Visit klaviyo.com

Starting price$20/month (Email plan, 251–500 active profiles; no annual discount)

Free planYes — free plan (250 active profiles, 500 emails/month)

Klaviyo is built for stores: the Email plan starts at $20 a month for 251 to 500 active profiles, and every flow, segment and campaign can use live purchase and browsing data from Shopify or WooCommerce. Predictive analytics, AI-generated segments and 350+ integrations come with the plan, and SMS runs on the same account. The free plan covers 250 active profiles and 500 emails a month, enough to test the flows before paying.

Klaviyo offers no annual discount, so the monthly figure never drops, and since February 2025 it bills on all active profiles — every contact you could email, not just the ones you did. At 10,000 profiles the Email plan is $150 a month, and add-ons like Reviews and Customer Hub each start around $20 a month. Pick Klaviyo when the store is the business.

What we like

• Deepest ecommerce integration here: purchase behavior, browsing and order data drive flows and segments in real time
• Predictive analytics, AI-generated segments and 350+ integrations included on the Email plan
• SMS is available on the same account, billed per message with carrier fees included

Watch out for

• No annual discount — the monthly price is the price, and it climbs steeply with active profiles
• Bills on all active profiles, even ones you did not email that month
• Add-ons (Reviews, Customer Hub, Helpdesk) each cost extra, from $20 a month

#6

GetResponse

Best for: Small businesses and creators who want email, funnels, webinars and courses in one subscription

Visit getresponse.com

Starting price$19/month (Starter, billed monthly; $15.58/month billed annually, 1,000 contacts)

Free planYes — free plan (500 contacts, 2,500 newsletters/month)

GetResponse is the value suite: Starter costs $19 a month for 1,000 contacts with unlimited sends, landing pages, signup forms and a website builder. Marketer at $59 a month unlocks unlimited automation workflows, abandoned cart recovery and sales funnels, and Creator at $69 adds webinars for up to 100 attendees and a course builder — the only native webinars in this list. Annual billing saves 18 percent on every plan.

The Starter limit matters: exactly one custom automation workflow, so a business running welcome, abandoned cart and win-back flows needs Marketer. Prices also climb steeply with list size — $54 a month at 5,000 contacts, $79 at 10,000. Pick GetResponse when webinars, funnels and courses belong in the same subscription as email.

What we like

• Only tool here with native webinars: Creator ($69/month) includes webinars for up to 100 attendees
• Unlimited monthly email sends on every paid plan, with landing pages and a website builder included
• Marketer ($59/month) unlocks unlimited automation workflows, abandoned cart recovery and sales funnels

Watch out for

• Starter allows exactly one custom automation workflow — real automation needs Marketer at $59 a month
• Charges only for active subscribers, but the price still climbs steeply past 5,000 contacts
• Template design and reporting feel dated next to Mailchimp and Klaviyo

#7

Kit

Best for: Creators, newsletter writers and course sellers who monetize an audience

Visit kit.com

Starting price$39/month (Creator, billed monthly; $33/month billed annually, 1,000 subscribers)

Free planYes — free Newsletter plan (up to 10,000 subscribers)

Kit is the creator pick: the free Newsletter plan covers up to 10,000 subscribers with landing pages, forms, broadcasts and commerce built in. Creator costs $39 a month billed monthly, or $33 billed annually, for 1,000 subscribers, and adds unlimited visual automations, sequences and integrations. Tag-based subscribers — rather than lists — make it easy to sell courses, downloads and memberships to the right slice of the audience.

The September 2025 reprice is the story: Creator entry more than doubled from about $15 a month, and Pro starts at $79 a month. Emails are deliberately plain text, which suits newsletters but not designed promos, and Kit takes 3.5 percent plus 30 cents on every sale. Pick Kit when the audience is the product — not when the business needs a CRM.

What we like

• Most generous free plan here: up to 10,000 subscribers with landing pages, forms and broadcasts
• Tag-based subscribers and visual automations fit creators who sell courses, downloads and memberships
• Creator Pro adds a newsletter referral system and sponsor network to monetize the list

Watch out for

• Creator entry price more than doubled in September 2025, from about $15 to $39 a month
• No visual email templates worth using — emails are deliberately plain text, which suits newsletters but not promos
• Takes 3.5% plus 30 cents on every sale through Kit Commerce

#8

Keap

Best for: Owner-run service businesses that want CRM, email, texting, invoicing and payments in one plan

Visit keap.com

Starting price$299/month (billed monthly; $249/month billed annually, 1,500 contacts, 2 users)

Free planNo — 14-day free trial

Keap sells one plan, not feature tiers: $299 a month billed monthly, or $249 billed annually, for 1,500 contacts and 2 users, with CRM, email and SMS automation, appointments, quotes, invoices and payments included. The old Pro and Max tiers are gone — every subscriber gets the full automation builder and campaign builder. For a service business, it replaces a CRM, email tool and invoicing tool in one login.

The price is the whole argument against it: $299 a month is the floor, a 500-contact list pays the same as a 1,500-contact one, and a mandatory implementation package is required on top — Keap does not publish the amount on its pricing page. Extra users cost $39 a month each. Pick Keap only when one platform for sales, marketing and billing is worth $299 a month to the business.

What we like

• One plan covers everything: CRM, email and SMS automation, appointments, quotes, invoices and payments
• Full automation builder included from the first dollar — no feature tiers to climb
• Built for service businesses: pipeline, scheduling and payment collection in the same workflow

Watch out for

• Most expensive entry in this list at $299 a month, with no plan below 1,500 contacts
• A mandatory one-time implementation package is required, and Keap does not publish the amount on its pricing page
• No free plan, and the 14-day trial caps email sends at 25 and blocks payment processing

The best automated marketing software does the follow-up for you: welcome emails when someone signs up, cart reminders when they leave, win-back campaigns when they go quiet. We compared 8 tools — from $9 a month to $299 — and ranked them by fit for the most common buyer, a small business automating its marketing for the first time. Every price below was cross-checked against independent reads of the vendor's own pricing page from October 2026, because the vendor pages and G2 review pages could not be opened directly on November 4, 2026.

Before you automate anything, build your tracking links with the free UTM builder so every automated campaign reports cleanly in analytics.

How to choose the best automated marketing software

• Start with the meter. ActiveCampaign, Mailchimp, GetResponse, Kit and Klaviyo charge by contacts or profiles; Brevo charges by emails sent; HubSpot charges per seat plus per 1,000 contacts; Keap charges one flat price. The meter decides the bill, not the headline price.
• Check which plan the automation sits on. Brevo Starter has no automation at all, GetResponse Starter allows exactly one workflow, and Mailchimp Essentials caps journeys at four steps. The cheapest plan is often not an automation plan.
• Match the tool to the channel. Ecommerce stores belong on Klaviyo, creators on Kit, service businesses on Keap, and everyone else on ActiveCampaign, HubSpot, Brevo or Mailchimp depending on budget and CRM needs.
• Count the seats. HubSpot Starter is priced per seat, Keap includes two users, and ActiveCampaign Starter includes one. A three-person team multiplies some of these prices before sending a single email.
• Price the second year, not the first. Trials end, free plans cap out, and promotional rates expire — HubSpot's $7 new-customer rate and Kit's first-year Pro offer both renew at the standard price. If the site also needs more qualified traffic, our SEO audit service covers the visibility side.

Automated marketing software pricing: what you will actually pay

Take a business with 5,000 contacts sending weekly. On ActiveCampaign Starter that list costs $99 a month billed monthly; on Mailchimp Essentials it costs $75; on GetResponse Starter $54; on Kit Creator $89; on Klaviyo Email $100. Brevo charges by volume instead: 20,000 emails a month costs $32 on Starter or $69 on Standard, the first plan with automation. HubSpot Starter is $20 a seat plus $50 per extra 1,000 contacts, so one seat at 5,000 contacts costs about $220 a month. Keap's single plan costs $449 a month at 5,000 contacts.

Three costs sit outside those numbers. First, the add-ons: ActiveCampaign's CRM pipelines, SMS credits and AI add-on, Klaviyo's Reviews and Customer Hub, and Brevo's logo removal at $12 a month all sit outside the plan price. Second, the onboarding: HubSpot Professional adds a mandatory $3,000 one-time fee, and Keap requires a paid implementation package whose amount it does not publish. Third, the list itself: Mailchimp and ActiveCampaign charge for unsubscribed contacts too, so a list that never gets cleaned costs more every month.

Annual billing cuts the bill where it exists: ActiveCampaign Starter drops from $19 to $15 a month, GetResponse Starter from $19 to $15.58 (the standard 18% discount; a promotional annual rate of $13.24 is currently shown), and Kit Creator from $39 to $33. Klaviyo offers no annual discount at all, and Keap's annual rate is $249 a month against $299 billed monthly. The free tiers are real but capped: Kit covers 10,000 subscribers, Brevo sends 300 emails a day, Mailchimp holds 250 contacts and Klaviyo 250 profiles. A team that outgrows a free tier should price the first paid plan before building its process around the free one.

Know the difference: marketing automation vs email marketing

The confusion in this category is between sending and reacting. Email marketing sends campaigns to a list: a newsletter, a promotion, an announcement. Marketing automation reacts to behavior: a welcome series when someone signs up, a cart reminder when they abandon checkout, a win-back email when they go quiet, a different offer when they click but do not buy. Automation is a set of if-this-then-that journeys running in the background; email marketing is the message inside them.

That is why the plan ladder matters more here than in most categories. Brevo Starter sends email but runs no journeys at all, GetResponse Starter allows exactly one workflow, and Mailchimp Essentials caps journeys at four steps. A buyer who picks the cheapest plan expecting automation will pay twice: once for the plan, once for the upgrade. If the business only sends a monthly newsletter, the cheapest plan is fine. If it needs behavior-triggered follow-up — and that is the point of this category — the automation plan is the real entry price.

There is a second confusion: a CRM is not marketing automation. HubSpot, ActiveCampaign, Brevo and Keap bundle a CRM, which stores contacts, deals and history. Mailchimp, Klaviyo, GetResponse and Kit store contacts too, but they are marketing databases, not sales pipelines. If the sales team needs deal stages and quotes, buy the tool with the CRM; if marketing just needs to know who opened what, any of the eight works.

Quick comparison: tool type by need

Mistakes to avoid

• Buying the cheapest plan and expecting automation. Brevo Starter has no workflows, GetResponse Starter allows one, and Mailchimp Essentials caps journeys at four steps. Check which plan the automation sits on.
• Ignoring the meter. Contacts, emails sent, seats and flat pricing scale differently. Model your list size first, then price the tool — a 5,000-contact list costs $54 to $449 a month across this list.
• Paying for a suite when email plus one journey is enough. A monthly newsletter and a welcome series do not need HubSpot Professional or Keap.
• Skipping list hygiene. Mailchimp and ActiveCampaign charge for unsubscribed contacts, so a stale list inflates the bill every month. Archive or delete contacts you no longer mail.
• Forgetting the onboarding fee. HubSpot Professional adds a mandatory $3,000, and Keap requires a paid implementation package. Ask what year one costs in full before signing.

How we chose

We set out to check each vendor's own pricing page on November 4, 2026, but the browser tool that opens vendor pages failed on every attempt that day, and the G2 review pages could not be opened either. Every price below is therefore cross-checked against multiple independent reads of the vendor's own pricing page from October 2026, and the figures agree across sources. This list carries no review ratings because the G2 pages could not be opened on November 4, 2026, and we would rather show no rating than a stale or estimated one. We ranked the tools by fit for the most common buyer — a small business automating its marketing for the first time — not by brand size. No vendor paid for a place in this list, and none of the links here are affiliate links.

What to do next

Start with the free plan or trial of your top pick and build one real journey end to end: a welcome series, an abandoned-cart flow or a win-back campaign. Check that the automation triggers on the right behavior, that the meter — contacts, sends or seats — fits your list, and that the plan you picked actually includes the workflows you need before the trial ends. If the journeys are running but new visitors are not finding you, compare options in our guide to marketing platforms for small business SEO. Once your tools are in place, find out what's holding your rankings back.

Sources we checked (8)

• ActiveCampaign pricing — activecampaign.com/pricing (vendor pricing page; direct read blocked November 4, 2026 — figures cross-checked against independent reads of the page, October 2026)
• HubSpot Marketing Hub pricing — hubspot.com/pricing/marketing (vendor pricing page; direct read blocked November 4, 2026 — figures cross-checked against independent reads of the page, October 2026)
• Brevo pricing — brevo.com/pricing (vendor pricing page; direct read blocked November 4, 2026 — figures cross-checked against independent reads of the page, October 2026)
• Mailchimp pricing — mailchimp.com/pricing/marketing (vendor pricing page; direct read blocked November 4, 2026 — figures cross-checked against independent reads of the page, October 2026)
• Klaviyo pricing — klaviyo.com/pricing (vendor pricing page; direct read blocked November 4, 2026 — figures cross-checked against independent reads of the page, October 2026)
• GetResponse pricing — getresponse.com/pricing (vendor pricing page; direct read blocked November 4, 2026 — figures cross-checked against independent reads of the page, October 2026)
• Kit pricing — kit.com/pricing (vendor pricing page; direct read blocked November 4, 2026 — figures cross-checked against independent reads of the page, October 2026)
• Keap pricing — keap.com/pricing (vendor pricing page; direct read blocked November 4, 2026 — figures cross-checked against independent reads of the page, October 2026)