The best email autoresponder software of 2026

Platformly runs your autoresponders on the same contact records as your sales, so you can see which follow-up sequence brought in each customer instead of stopping at opens and clicks. Its visual flows start from sign-ups, purchases, clicks, tags, page visits and other events, with waits, conditions and signed webhooks between the emails. Sales come in from Stripe, Paddle, Shopify and WooCommerce, or from any checkout through a generic sales webhook, and Platformly credits each one to the email, link or source that led to it, with five attribution models to choose from.

The emails use a block editor with a template library, show-when content blocks and merge tags, and broadcasts can go out by each reader's time zone. Forms and landing pages collect sign-ups with double opt-in and consent records, and lead scoring shows who is warming up. An AI assistant drafts broadcasts and subject lines, suggests segments and fixes flow steps, and a person approves anything before it sends. If you collect leads with Convertful, Convertful lists Platformly among the tools it connects to.

Platformly does more than a plain welcome series needs. If you only want a few automated emails for a small list, MailerLite's free plan is a cheaper place to start. See Platformly's site for current plans.

MailerLite lets you get a welcome series running this week without paying for it. You pick a trigger, then add emails, delays and conditions in a visual builder. Triggers include a subscriber joining a group, completing a form, clicking a link, updating a field, reaching a date or joining a segment, and you can give one automation up to three of them. Ready-made templates cover welcome sequences, abandoned carts and webinar invitations, so your first sequence starts from a draft.

The free plan includes automations, which several tools in this guide hold back for paid plans. It stops at 250 subscribers, 2,500 emails a month and 3 active automations of 5 steps each. Comfort starts at $12 a month and raises the limit to 50 active automations with up to 100 steps. Power starts at $25 a month and removes the cap on active automations. Yearly billing saves 10%, and every new account gets 14 days of premium features with no card.

MailerLite's store triggers (abandoned cart, a specific product, any product, a category) cover the usual shop sequences. If almost every email you send depends on order history, compare it with Klaviyo before you commit.

AWeber suits a small business owner who wants follow-up emails working without learning a big automation builder. An automation can start when someone subscribes, gets a tag or makes a purchase, and Split Paths send each subscriber down a different branch based on what they open or click. Pre-built templates cover welcome sequences, post-purchase follow-ups and onboarding emails.

If you would rather not build anything, the Done For You plan costs $20 a month billed yearly, plus a setup fee, cut from $599 to $79 under a limited-time offer when we checked. Within seven days AWeber's team builds your emails and workflows, a branded email template, a landing page, a thank-you page and a sign-up form, and you get a one-to-one setup call, weekly newsletter drafts and 30 days of unlimited edits.

Watch the Lite plan's limit of 3 email automations. A welcome series, a lead magnet delivery and a post-purchase sequence use all three. Lite costs $15 a month for 500 subscribers, or $12.49 a month billed yearly. Plus costs $30 a month, or $19.99 a month billed yearly, and gives you unlimited automations, landing pages and lists. You can remove AWeber branding on either plan, and both start with a 14-day free trial.

GetResponse still calls its sequences autoresponders, and its timeline makes a fixed schedule easy to plan. You place each message in a list or calendar view against a day of the subscriber's time on your list, and GetResponse sends it by subscription time, after a delay or at an exact hour. That fits a seven-day email course, a trial onboarding series or an email on each subscriber's anniversary.

Every paid plan includes autoresponder series. Starter allows only 1 custom automation workflow, while Marketer and Creator include unlimited workflows when you want branching logic on top of the day-based schedule. GetResponse's own FAQ puts monthly plans at $19 a month for unlimited messages to 1,000 subscribers, and paying for 12 months takes 18% off. The plan table we reached showed euros, so check the US price for each plan before you buy.

The free plan holds up to 500 contacts and 2,500 newsletters a month, with a GetResponse badge on your emails. Autoresponders are one of the premium tools you get for the first 14 days. After that you can still create and save drafts of them, so plan on a paid plan if your sequence needs to keep sending.

In a shop, most autoresponders hang off an order: the welcome email for a first-time buyer, the cart reminder, the thank-you, the request to buy again. Klaviyo is built around that store data, so these sequences start from what the customer did in your shop rather than from a list sign-up date.

The free plan covers up to 250 active profiles and 500 emails a month, and Klaviyo's FAQ says it includes building automations, segments and reports. Paid email plans start at $20 a month for 251 to 500 active profiles, and email with SMS starts at $35 a month at the same size. Klaviyo bills on active profiles, which it defines as contacts who can receive marketing emails.

Klaviyo is more than a newsletter writer or coach needs. If you do not run a store, MailerLite or Kit will cost less for the same welcome series.

Kit, formerly ConvertKit, is made for writers, coaches and course creators who sell from their list. It handles digital product sales and paid subscriptions alongside email, so the sequence that follows a lead magnet can end with a product page Kit hosts for you.

Read the free plan carefully. It takes you up to 10,000 subscribers with unlimited landing pages, forms and broadcasts, and it lets you sell digital products, but it does not include automated email sequences or the visual automation builder. For an autoresponder you need Creator, which costs $33 a month billed yearly ($390 a year) for 1,000 subscribers and adds unlimited visual automations and unlimited email sequences. Pro is $50 a month on a first-year discount; Kit lists $66 a month as the regular price. Both paid plans start with a 14-day trial and no card.

Kit suits a creator business better than a shop. If most of your sequences start from purchases in a store, Klaviyo is the better fit.

ActiveCampaign suits a business that has outgrown a simple welcome series and wants long sequences with several steps and branches. Every plan includes multi-step marketing automation and an AI automation builder that drafts a workflow for you to edit.

The Starter plan limits each automation to 5 actions, which is enough for a short welcome series but not for a long nurture sequence with conditions. Plus removes that limit, and Pro and Enterprise add the automations map, which shows how your workflows connect. Monthly sends run at 10 times your contact limit on Starter and Plus, 12 times on Pro and 15 times on Enterprise.

For 1,000 contacts, Starter costs $15 a month billed yearly or $19 month to month, and Plus costs $49 a month yearly or $59 monthly. That makes Plus about three times MailerLite Comfort at the same size, so pick it when the length and logic of your sequences justify the price. The 14-day free trial needs only an email address and no card.

Brevo, formerly Sendinblue, prices most plans by the number of emails you send rather than the size of your list. If you hold a large list but mail it a few times a month, that can cost less than a tool that charges for every contact.

Match the plan to the kind of autoresponder you need. Starter costs $9 a month for 5,000 emails and can send follow-up emails as soon as someone signs up through a Brevo form, which covers a single welcome email. For a real sequence with delays and branches, Standard costs $18 a month and adds unlimited multi-step workflows, A/B testing, send time optimization and website event tracking. Both are monthly prices, and yearly billing takes 10% off.

The free plan lets you send up to 300 emails a day once Brevo approves your account. Brevo also sends SMS from Starter and WhatsApp messages from Professional, so you can add text messages in the same account later.