The best marketing automation software of 2026

Platformly's automations run on the same records as its revenue data, and that is what sets it apart here. Visual flows start from sign-ups, purchases, clicks, tags, page visits and other events, then use waits, conditions and signed webhooks to branch and to reach other systems. Sales come in from Stripe, Paddle, Shopify and WooCommerce, or from any checkout through a generic sales webhook, and land on the contact who bought. Tracking links, five attribution models, revenue per subscriber and lead value then show which email, link or traffic source earned the money, and customizable dashboards keep those figures in view.

Email covers a block editor with templates, A/B tests, sending by each reader's time zone and content blocks that show only when a condition matches. Texts go through your own Twilio or Vonage account, and the CRM adds segments, lead scoring and sales pipelines with deals, stages and reminders. A shared inbox handles email, chat and SMS replies, with a chatbot that hands over to a person.

The AI assistant suggests segments, drafts broadcasts and fixes flow steps, and a person approves anything that sends or publishes. An MCP server lets AI agents such as Claude work in the account under scoped permissions.

Choose it if you sell through a store or a payment processor and want every automation judged by the revenue it brings in.

Skip it if you only send a newsletter and have no sales to track, or your sales team already lives in HubSpot and you want automation built around that CRM.

ActiveCampaign is the tool we would set up first for a small business that wants more than a welcome email. Its builder handles branches, waits and goals, and the library has more than 950 prebuilt recipes, so you can start from a working onboarding or follow-up sequence and edit it instead of drawing one from a blank canvas.

Pricing follows your contact count. At 1,000 contacts, Starter is $15 a month billed yearly or $19 month to month, Plus is $49 or $59, Pro is $79 or $99 and Enterprise is $145 or $179. Starter is fine for a first sequence, but it caps each automation at 5 actions, keeps automations to email and limits you to 5 lists. Most businesses buying ActiveCampaign for automation should budget for Plus, which adds landing pages, site messages, sales automation and automations that use more than email. Pro adds predictive sending, conditional content and attribution reports, and it is the first plan with more than one user (it includes 3).

Every plan starts with a 14-day free trial that needs no card, and ActiveCampaign lists more than 1,000 integrations.

Choose it if you want branching automations without enterprise pricing, or you plan to add sales follow-up later.

Skip it if you mainly send one newsletter a month, because a cheaper email tool covers that. Watch the cost as your list grows, too: at 10,000 contacts Plus costs $189 a month billed yearly.

HubSpot keeps marketing, sales and service on the same contact record. When a lead fills in a form, the salesperson can see which emails that person opened without anyone exporting a list. You can start on HubSpot's free tools with up to 2 users, but they include only a token amount of automation: one automated email action per form.

Marketing Hub Starter is listed at $20 a seat a month, and HubSpot was showing new customers a lower $7 a seat rate when we checked. Starter includes 1,000 marketing contacts and simple automation of up to 10 actions. Unlimited workflow actions and automation across channels start at Professional, which HubSpot lists at $800 a month (or $890 on the other billing option) with 3 seats, 2,000 marketing contacts and a required one-time onboarding fee of $3,000. Enterprise is $3,600 a month with 5 seats, 10,000 marketing contacts and $7,000 for onboarding.

If you need full workflows, plan for Professional. Your first year on it costs at least $12,600 once you add the onboarding fee, before extra seats or contacts.

Choose it if your sales team already works in HubSpot, or will soon, and the budget covers Professional.

Skip it if you want branching automation for under $100 a month. ActiveCampaign Plus and Brevo Standard both offer it for far less.

Brevo, the company formerly called Sendinblue, charges mainly by the emails you send each month, which suits a business with a large list that it emails a few times a month. The free plan lets you send up to 300 emails a day once Brevo approves your account. Starter costs $9 a month from 5,000 emails a month and adds forms that send a follow-up email as soon as someone signs up, plus unlimited saved segments.

Standard, at $18 a month for its first tier, is where automation opens up. You get unlimited multi-step workflows, A/B tests, web and event tracking that can trigger messages, send-time optimization and one landing page. Professional jumps to $499 a month from 150,000 emails a month and adds WhatsApp, popups, web and mobile push, 10 seats and contact scoring. Paying yearly takes 10% off, and Brevo lists more than 150 integrations.

For a small business that wants welcome, follow-up and win-back sequences without paying per contact, Standard is the cheapest plan in this guide with unlimited workflows.

Choose it if you want email and SMS on one bill, or you have a big list that you email only occasionally.

Skip it if you need lead scoring on a small budget, because contact scoring is a Professional feature at $499 a month. Skip it as well if you plan to run many landing pages, since Standard includes one.

Klaviyo is built around store data. Its flows can start when someone views a product, abandons a cart, starts checkout, places an order or goes quiet for too long, and a single flow can send email, SMS and push messages. Klaviyo has more than 60 prebuilt flows, including welcome, browse abandonment and post-purchase series, and says it works with more than 350 tools and APIs.

Pricing is based on active profiles, which Klaviyo defines as contacts who can receive your marketing emails, and on how much you send. The free plan covers up to 250 active profiles and 500 emails a month, plus a small monthly allowance for text messages. The Email plan starts at $20 a month for 251 to 500 active profiles, and Email and SMS starts at $35 a month for the same range. Above that, Klaviyo's calculator sets the price as your list grows, so run your own numbers before you commit.

For a Shopify brand, the appeal is that segments and flows can use what customers bought and browsed without extra setup. For a business that sells services or software, much of that store logic sits unused.

Choose it if you run an online store and want email and SMS in the same flows.

Skip it if you don't sell products online. Lead nurturing with a handoff to salespeople fits ActiveCampaign or HubSpot better.

Omnisend covers much of the same store-first ground as Klaviyo and costs less at the start. Email automation, prebuilt ecommerce workflows, automation splits and A/B tests are on every self-serve plan, including the free one.

The free plan covers 250 contacts, 500 emails and 500 web push notifications a month, with Omnisend branding on your emails and forms. Standard is $16 a month for up to 500 contacts and 6,000 emails a month. Pro is $59 a month at its first tier, which the pricing page shows for up to 2,500 contacts, and it lifts the email cap to a fair-use limit of 60 times your list. Pro also includes bonus SMS credits equal to your monthly bill. US texts cost from $0.009 down to $0.007 each, depending on how many credits you buy. When we checked, new customers were offered 30% off for the first three months.

Personalized product recommendations cost extra as an add-on, and Omnisend assigns a free account expert once you spend at least $400 a month.

Choose it if you run a small store and want email, SMS and push automation without Klaviyo's prices.

Skip it if you don't sell products online, or if you want product recommendations included in the base price.

GetResponse sends unlimited emails on every paid plan, so you pay for list size and features rather than for how often you send. Its FAQ puts the starting price at $19 a month for 1,000 contacts on monthly billing, and paying for 12 months takes 18% off. That Starter plan includes landing pages, signup forms, popups, a welcome series and one custom automation workflow.

Most people who buy GetResponse for automation will want Marketer, which adds unlimited workflows, abandoned cart recovery, advanced segmentation, sales funnels, promo codes and revenue reports. Creator adds webinars, a website builder, a course creator for up to 500 students and paid newsletter subscriptions. When we checked, the pricing page showed these two plans only in euros (EUR 54 and EUR 62 a month for 1,000 contacts), so confirm the dollar price at checkout. GetResponse lists more than 170 integrations and offers a 14-day trial with no card.

Choose it if you sell knowledge products and want the webinar, the course and the follow-up emails in one account.

Skip it if you need SMS. On the pricing page it appears only in the custom-priced Enterprise plan. Skip Starter, too, if you need more than one custom workflow.

Keap, which used to be called Infusionsoft, now sells one plan that includes the whole platform. It starts at $320 a month, or $3,195 a year, with 2 users included and $39 a month for each extra user. Implementation services are required, and Keap doesn't publish their price.

For that money you get a CRM with tags, custom fields, company records and lead scoring; automation templates, pipeline automation and tasks that automations can create; landing pages, forms, broadcasts and Gmail or Outlook sync; and sales tools: an appointment scheduler, quotes, invoices and checkout forms. US text messaging includes 500 messages and 100 voice minutes, with larger add-on tiers from $24 to $279 a month. Keap also has an API, webhooks and a Zapier integration.

The free trial needs no card, but it caps you at 25 emails and turns off payments and texting, so you can test the automation builder and little else.

Choose it if you are a coach, consultant or agency that would otherwise pay separately for a CRM, a scheduler and invoicing.

Skip it if you only need email automation. ActiveCampaign Plus does that from $49 a month at 1,000 contacts on yearly billing.

Mailchimp is a sensible first tool if your plan is a newsletter plus a short welcome series, and it gets thin when you need branching automation. The free plan covers 250 contacts and 500 sends a month (250 a day) for one user, and Mailchimp lists no automation flows on it.

Essentials starts at $13 a month for 500 contacts and allows single-email automations and flows of up to 4 steps, with 3 seats and a send limit of 10 times your contacts. Standard starts at $20 a month for 500 contacts, raises flows to as many as 200 flow points, adds flow templates and more than 45 behavioral triggers, and includes 5 seats. Premium starts at 10,000 contacts with unlimited seats; Mailchimp showed us only a euro price for it, so check the dollar figure before you plan around it. Standard comes with a 14-day free trial, and Mailchimp lists more than 300 integrations.

Choose it if you are new to email, want templates and a familiar editor, and your automation needs stop at a welcome series or a cart reminder.

Skip it if you need lead scoring and a handoff to sales, or long branching sequences on a budget. ActiveCampaign Plus and Brevo Standard go further for similar money.