The Best Marketing Automation Software (2024 Comparison)

Are you looking for the best email marketing automation software to empower your business?

It’s not ideal to automate everything but by automating certain marketing tasks you can save a lot of time – allowing you to focus on the bigger picture.

That’s why these email marketing tools below exist.

This post will help you decide which among the best email marketing automation tools you should use for your organization and why.

The best marketing automation software tools – summary

TL;DR:

ActiveCampaign – Best marketing automation platform for most users. Segment, personalize, and automate to increase sales.

Omnisend – Best omni-channel marketing automation software for ecommerce stores.

Brevo – Powerful marketing automation software with send-based pricing. Includes email marketing, transactional emails, and SMS.

Moosend – Ideal for those that need an email marketing automation platform that’s affordable and easy to use.


#1 – ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign is a powerful marketing automation platform with an extremely broad feature set.

ActiveCampaign Homepage

You can personalize your email marketing by sending messages that your subscribers are only interested in for maximum engagement.

To automate your campaigns, use triggers to build workflows so customers will receive an email by performing a specific action on your site.

To win more customers, its CRM features help you score your leads to the highest probability of converting into one based on their website activity.

Other features include landing page building, predictive content and sending, and more.

Pricing:

Its paid plans start at $29/month (billed annually).

Before paying for the tool, you can take it for a free spin for 14 days.

Learn more in our ActiveCampaign review.


#2 – Omnisend

Omnisend is the ideal omni-channel marketing automation platform. And it’s uniquely positioned to support ecommerce businesses.

omnisend homepage

It provides users with a bunch of great, pre-built ecommerce automations that you can roll out in minutes. These include automations for cart abandonment emails, welcome chains, transactional emails, etc. You can also build your own automation workflows from scratch in the no-code Automations Editor.

Another thing we like about Omnisend is its support for shoppable emails. The built-in Content Editor makes it easy to create high-converting emails that drive sales for your ecommerce business.

You can add unique widgets like product recommendations (serve up personalized product recommendations to your leads based on factors including their purchase history and location), a product picker, scratch cards, and discount codes.

One important note: the platform can only be used once you’ve connected your online store. Integrations are provided for WooCommerce, Shopify, BigCommerce, Magento, and more.

Pricing:

Omnisend has a free plan for up to 250 contacts and 500 emails per month. If you need more than this, you can choose from two Omnisend paid plans, which start at $16/month up to 500 contacts and 6000 emails per month.

Read our Omnisend review.


#3 – Brevo

Brevo makes multi-channel marketing simple with its collection of no-frills tools that are sure to help you engage with your audience.

Brevo Homepage

This email marketing automation tool allows you to communicate with people via chat, SMS, email, and live chat so no conversation goes to waste.

You can also do lead scoring using its CRM features and segment them to ensure they receive personalized messages from your brand.

If you run paid ads, you can retarget visitors back to your pages, and forms you can build from the tool for increased conversions.

Pricing:

Brevo has a free plan for 300 emails per day and unlimited contacts.

The paid plans start at $25/month for 20,000 monthly emails (no daily sending limits) and basic premium features. The price increases if you want greater monthly sending limits.

Learn more in our Brevo review.


#4 – Moosend

Moosend is primarily focused on email marketing automation. And it offers some pretty advanced features.

moosend homepage

With Moosend, you can automate just about anything, from reminders, to welcome emails, abandoned carts emails, lead scoring, and more.

Moosend actually comes preloaded with ‘automation workflow templates’ that make it super simple to set up well-designed and highly automated email campaigns.

This is great if you’re not well versed in email marketing automation, but if you prefer to customize your workflows, you also have the option of building your using the easy-to-navigate drag and drop builder.

On top of the advanced automation features, Moosend also comes with a lot of other useful marketing tools such as CRM and segmentation tools, a landing page builder, a newsletter editor, and more.

It also has some advanced reporting and analytics to help you stay on track with your campaigns. Moosend is a really great option for serious marketing looking to ease their workload with the use of highly automated campaigns.

Pricing:

Moosend prices start from as little as $9/month. You can also take advantage of a 30-day free trial (No credit card required).

Read our Moosend review.


#5 – GetResponse

GetResponse allows you to take your email marketing to autopilot using its variety of features.

GetResponse Homepage Screenshot

Collect as many subscribers as you can by building forms and pages using pre-made templates in minutes.

You can then automatically send emails to new sign-ups based on certain conditions to ensure that they receive relevant messages from you.

To help you sell more, GetResponse’s webinar features let you onboard people to your business in real-time and connect with them better.

Pricing:

This email marketing automation software offers three paid plans starting at $12.30 (paid annually – monthly and 2-year plans also available) for 1,000 contacts and its basic features.

The webinar capabilities are available on the Plus plan and above.

All plans give you a 14-day free trial upon sign up.

Learn more in our GetResponse review.


#6 – Drip

Drip is an extremely powerful marketing automation platform that caters to ecommerce brands and other businesses.

Drip Homepage

Whilst primarily focused around email automation, Drip also supports SMS. Together, you can use it’s multi-channel automation functionality to reach customers more effectively.

You can get quite advanced with the automations. If you install the onsite tracking code, you can send emails (and SMS) at exactly the right time to encourage sales.

There’s a form builder that allows you to create email signup forms and popovers to increase your email subscribers.

Finally, you can segment your audience in your list according to their behavior and purchasing activity on your site. Personalization will help you close more sales.

What I particularly like about Drip is one of it’s most underrated features – subscriber management. It offers a way to easily search through your contacts based on very specific criteria.

Pricing:

For $39/month, you can send unlimited emails to 2500 contacts max and unlock all its features. The price increases if you exceed your contact limit.

Upon subscribing, you get a 14-day free trial of the tool.

Learn more in our Drip review.


#7 – Wishpond

Wishpond is an easy-to-use and full-featured marketing platform that can help you with all of your marketing needs. Whether you’re looking to automate your email campaigns or run social promotions, Wishpond offers everything you need to get started.

Wishpond homepage

When it comes to automation, Wishpond boasts a wide range of useful options that will help make your marketing campaigns run more smoothly.

You can set up automatic email sequences such as abandoned cart and welcome emails, as well as setting up auto personalization to make your campaigns more personal, and effective. You can also set up notifications for new leads to ensure that your team never misses an opportunity to make a sale.

In addition to automation features, Wishpond also offers users essential marketing features, such as a funnel builder, social promotion and contest builder, and even options to build popups, lead generation forms, and more.

Overall, it’s a great all-in-one tool that can help you to automate, and supercharge your marketing campaigns.

Pricing:

Wishpond plans start from as little as $49/month for up to 1000 leads. If you opt for an annual plan, you can enjoy a 14-day free trial.


#8 – ConvertKit

Regardless of what your online business is, ConvertKit will help turn your passion into a profitable career with its email marketing automation features.

ConvertKit Homepage

To grow your list, create forms to feature on your site pages, and build landing pages to publish on your website.

You can then engage with them by sending beautiful emails with a 99% deliverability rate.

To organize your subscribers, divide them into segments so you can send each one personalized emails to increase engagement.

The tool also has one of the most intuitive automation workflow builders as you can connect triggers and campaigns with relative ease.

Pricing:

ConvertKit’s free plan lets you create forms and landing pages and send emails to up to 300 contacts.

To gain access to its automation features, you need to pony up $29/month for the same number of contacts.

All paid plans come with a free trial. Also, the price increases if your contacts grow.

Read our ConvertKit review.


#9 – AWeber

There are numerous reasons why AWeber remains one of the more trusted email marketing tools in the industry for decades.

AWeber Homepage

You can create beautiful emails by choosing from the software’s collection of prebuilt templates and customizing them using its smart designer and drag-and-drop builder.

But before you can send emails, you must create forms from the tool that you can embed on your site to build your list.

AWeber now has email marketing automation features so you can send personalized emails to subscribers based on triggers and flows of your workflow.

Pricing:

The tool has a free plan for up to 500 subscribers and with limited features.

The paid plan starts at $19 per month ($16.15/month paid annually) for the same number of subscribers but with access to all its features.

Learn more in our AWeber review.


#10 – Constant Contact

Constant Contact is an all-in-one digital marketing platform that comes complete with a whole host of great email automation options.

Constant Contact Homepage

You can create powerful automations to welcome new customers, and create drip campaigns to nurture leads based on how they interact with your emails. The tool is complete with all the automations you need to create advanced list building, email, and lead nurture campaigns.

In addition to email automation features, Constant Contact also includes landing page creation features, reporting options, social media marketing tools, and more. There is also a mobile app that allows you to manage your account on the go.

It’s a great choice for anyone looking for an all-in-one tool to manage and automate their digital marketing efforts.

Pricing:

Constant Contact offers three paid plans. The Lite Plan is the cheapest option and starts from $12/month. There is also a free trial available (no credit card required).

Read our Constant Contact review.


#11 – HubSpot

HubSpot is a well-known CRM product that is complete with a range of marketing and automation features. With the HubSpot Marketing Hub, you can take advantage of free email automation tools including automated campaign creation and A/B testing.

HubSpot Homepage

You can also use HubSpot Marketing Hub to create landing pages and forms to generate leads, and create automated workflows to score leads and personalize your email campaigns.

In addition to this, HubSpot also offers lead tracking and management features, account-based marketing options, analytics and reporting, and more.

HubSpot is a great choice for businesses running large-scale email campaigns as it has a lot of different customization options that can be used to tailor the tool to your business needs.

Pricing:

Hubspot has a free forever plan available that includes popular features like email marketing, forms, landing page builders, and paid ad management tools.

The paid plans start from $45/month and include additional features such as simple form follow-up emails and more.


#12 – Freshsales Suite

Freshsales Suite is an all-in-one CRM platform that can help to unite your sales and marketing operations. It’s ideal for larger businesses and enterprises that need a more sophisticated automation solution.

Freshworks Homepage

With Freshsales Suite, all the tools you need to run your marketing and sales operation are integrated in one place. You’ll get a 360-degree view of your customers and can deliver the right messages at the right time, across departments.

You can use Freshsales Suite’s powerful marketing automation to set up welcome emails, nurture campaigns, transactional emails, and build personalized customer journeys based on triggers, actions, and conditions.

You can also use Freshsales to communicate with leads as they move along the customer journey you’ve built journey by phone, WhatsApp, and chat; create landing pages, leverage AI-powered chatbots and lead scoring, view detailed analytics, and much more.

Pricing:

You can get started with Freshsales Suite free plan, which comes with basic contact management features and is suitable for up to 100 contacts.

To unlock the journey builder, workflows, contact scoring, and other features, you’ll need to upgrade to the Growth plan, which starts at $9/month for up to 1,000 contacts.


#13 – Mailjet

Mailjet is an email delivery service built for marketing and development teams.

Mailjet Homepage

What’s great about Mailjet is that, unlike other email marketing services, it’s equally well-suited to both marketers and developers, so both departments can work together as a team to create, edit, and send emails.

Marketers can use the drag-and-drop email builder to create stunning emails in seconds, and manage subscribers with the contact management tool. Collaboration tools are built-in so you can set up user roles, leave feedback and notes, and work together as a team.

Developers can use the email API to integrate Mailjet with your current configuration and configure the SMTP Relay to start sending emails faster and with better deliverability.

Mailjet also comes with comprehensive documentation so your developer team will always be able to find the information they need.

Pricing:

Mailjet pricing is based on the number of emails you send per month. The free plan is suitable for up to 6,000 emails per month and comes with basic features. The Essential plan starts at $15/month for up to 15,000 emails.

To unlock advanced features like marketing automation and A/B testing, you’ll need to upgrade to the Premium plan, which starts at $25/month for 15,000 emails.


#14 – Keap

Keap is both an email marketing tool and CRM built for small businesses. It’s super simple to use and makes it easy for small businesses to set up automated emails without any of the usual headaches.

Keap Homepage

Automations can be activated by customer/lead behavior and data, all of which can be stored in Keap’s CRM database.  You can automatically tag and segment your leads based on pre-set criteria, then automatically add different segments of your contacts to specific journeys for personalized campaigns.

There are tons of stunning email templates that you can customize to match your brand image and use in your marketing newsletters and broadcasts.

You also get access to conversion optimization features like A/B testing, as well as robust reporting and analytics features for data-driven insights.

Pricing:

Keap plans are priced based on the number of contacts you have. The Lite plan starts at $56/month for 500 contacts and 1 user. Higher-priced plans have more advanced features. You can also sign up for a free 14-day trial.


Frequently asked questions

Do I need email marketing automation?

If your business is at the point where it needs to qualify leads for sales opportunities and scale marketing campaigns, then you should at least try out any of the email marketing automation software above.

What is the best email marketing automation software?

The answer will depend on a variety of factors. However, as far as the best overall email marketing automation software is concerned, it’s hard to beat ActiveCampaign’s robust and smart features.

How do I choose a email marketing automation software?

You need to determine the type and size of your business, your budget for such a tool, the tasks in your organization that require the need for email marketing automation, how easy it is to use the platform, and how helpful its customer support is.

What is the difference between CRM and email marketing automation?

The purpose of CRM is to identify sales opportunities and help you grow your revenue while marketing automation’s goal is to simplify the process of developing, implementing, and scaling your marketing campaigns.

Final thoughts

Even after breaking down the different marketing automation software tools above, the answer to this question hinges on a lot of factors.

For example:

  • What’s your budget?
  • Do you have any existing contacts/subscribers? If so, how many?
  • Which marketing channels do you want to automate? Just email marketing or do you need SMS/push notifications?
  • Do you need a CRM and other sales features such as lead scoring?
  • What other tools in your tech stack will you need to connect to?

To be clear, identifying the best marketing automation tool for you is subjective.

Fortunately, the majority of tools that we’ve discussed above come with free plans or free trials so you can ensure they completely align with the needs of your business.


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