12 Best Email Marketing Automation Software Tools in 2026

Last updated: September 2026 | Pricing verified on 1 September 2026

Most email marketing automation software doesn’t give you automation at the price on the pricing page.

HubSpot’s Starter plan allows 10 automated actions. Real workflows start at $800/month. GetResponse’s Starter plan gives you exactly one automation. ActiveCampaign’s Starter caps each automation at five actions. Kit hands you 10,000 free subscribers and zero automation.

We checked all 12 vendors’ own pricing and plan-comparison pages on 1 September 2026 and wrote down what each plan actually permits — not what the marketing page implies. Here’s what we found.

The automation gate nobody puts on the pricing page

Email marketing automation software is sold on the promise of workflows. Welcome series. Abandoned cart. Re-engagement. Every vendor shows you the same drag-and-drop canvas screenshot.

Then you sign up and find the canvas is limited to four steps, or one workflow, or nothing at all until you upgrade.

Here’s what the entry tiers actually allow, verified on 1 September 2026:

• HubSpot Free: 1 automated action. Starter ($7/month per seat, billed annually): up to 10 automated actions. Unlimited actions and omni-channel automation start at Professional — $800/month plus a mandatory $3,000 one-time onboarding fee.
• GetResponse Starter ($15.58/month, billed annually): 1 custom automation workflow, no contact tagging, no lead scoring. Unlimited workflows start at Marketer, $48.38/month billed annually.
• ActiveCampaign Starter (from $15/month at 1,000 contacts): automations are capped at 5 actions each. Unlimited actions start at Plus.
• Mailchimp Essentials ($13/month promotional rate): up to 4 flow steps and no branching points. Branching requires Standard.
• Kit Free (10,000 subscribers): Visual Automations and email sequences are both excluded. You need Creator at $33/month.
• Brevo Free and Starter: automation works, but only 2,000 unique contacts can enter active automations. Unlimited contacts in automations starts at Standard, from $18/month.

Four platforms give you a genuinely usable workflow without paying: Omnisend (full ecommerce workflows on free), Mailercloud (1 advanced automation on a 1,000-contact free plan), MailerLite (3 automations, 5 steps), and Brevo (within that 2,000-contact ceiling).

That gap is the single most useful thing to know before you pick a tool. It’s also the thing every roundup leaves out.

How we compared these tools

Five criteria, applied the same way to all 12:

1. What automation the entry plan actually permits — workflow count, step count, branching, and any contact ceiling
2. Free plan quality — contacts, monthly sends, and whether automation is included or just previewed
3. Real starting price — the standard rate, not the promotional first-year rate
4. Deliverability and infrastructure — authentication support, dedicated IPs, inbox placement visibility
5. Who it’s built for — ecommerce, creators, B2B, product-led SaaS

Every price and plan limit below came from the vendor’s own pricing or help-centre page on 1 September 2026. Where a vendor’s pricing page renders prices dynamically and we couldn’t read them, we’ve said so rather than guessed.

At-a-glance comparison

1. Mailercloud — best overall value with real automation on the free plan

What it does: Full email marketing platform — campaigns, visual automation, segmentation, landing pages, and Inbox Tracker, which shows whether your emails land in the inbox, promotions, or spam across major ISPs.

What you actually get to automate: This is where Mailercloud separates itself from the list. The free plan includes the basic workflow editor and one advanced automation on 1,000 contacts and 12,000 emails a month. Compare that to Mailchimp’s free tier (250 contacts, automation preview only) or Kit’s (10,000 subscribers, no automation at all). Premium moves you to the advanced workflow editor with 25 advanced automations, bulk automation, A/B testing, and an AI subject line generator. Branching, behavioural triggers, and segmentation are all included rather than gated three tiers up.

The honest limitations: Mailercloud’s third-party integration library is smaller than Mailchimp’s or HubSpot’s, native SMS marketing is still on the roadmap, and the template library sits at around 100 rather than the several hundred Mailchimp offers. If your stack depends on a long tail of niche integrations, check the list first.

Price: Free for 1,000 contacts and 12,000 emails a month, with no time limit and no credit card. Premium is $10/month billed monthly at 5,000 contacts, with unlimited monthly sends and annual billing saving 30%. (Mailercloud pricing, verified 1 September 2026)

Best for: Small and mid-sized teams who want working automation, strong deliverability, and 24/7 live chat support on every plan — including the free one.

2. ActiveCampaign — best for deep multi-step automation

What it does: The automation-first platform in this category, with a built-in CRM, lead scoring, predictive sending, and a library of over 950 automation recipes.

What you actually get to automate: Everything, eventually. ActiveCampaign’s workflow depth is the benchmark others get measured against — split paths, conditional logic, goal tracking, CRM triggers. The catch is the Starter plan, where each automation is capped at five actions. Five actions is a welcome email, a wait, a condition, and you’re done. Teams that pick ActiveCampaign for automation almost always end up on Plus or Pro, so budget for that from the start rather than treating $15 as the real price. That cap is the most common reason teams start pricing alternatives to ActiveCampaign before their first upgrade.

There’s no free plan, only a 14-day trial.

Price: From $15/month at 1,000 contacts on Starter. (Figure from ActiveCampaign’s own plan-comparison page — the main pricing page renders prices dynamically. Re-check before committing.)

Best for: B2B teams running long, branching lifecycle campaigns who will pay for Plus or higher.

3. Brevo — best for email, SMS and WhatsApp in one workflow

What it does: Multi-channel marketing platform with email, SMS, WhatsApp, a built-in CRM, and transactional sending on the same account.

What you actually get to automate: Genuinely multi-channel workflows — an abandoned cart that emails, then texts, then messages on WhatsApp, built on one canvas. Brevo’s free plan stores up to 100,000 contacts, which is unmatched here, though sending is capped at 300 emails a day. The limit that matters is on automation: only 2,000 unique contacts can enter active automations on Free and Starter. Past that you’re on Standard. The 2,000-contact ceiling is the limit most growing lists hit first, which is why it is worth comparing Brevo alternatives on their automation caps rather than their headline price.

Brevo’s public pricing page shows no prices at all — the figures below come from Brevo’s help centre.

Price: Free for 300 emails a day. Starter from $9/month (5,000 emails a month, up to 500 contacts). Standard, which lifts the automation contact cap, starts at $18/month. (Brevo help centre, verified 1 September 2026)

Best for: Teams who need SMS or WhatsApp in the same workflow as email, on a small budget.

4. Omnisend — best free plan for ecommerce automation

What it does: Ecommerce-focused automation with pre-built workflows for cart abandonment, browse abandonment, welcome, and post-purchase, plus deep Shopify and WooCommerce integrations.

What you actually get to automate: Full email automation workflows on the free plan, with no tier gate — the most generous automation grant of any free tier here. The constraint is volume, not capability: 250 contacts and 500 emails a month. SMS automation requires Pro. If you run a small store and want a working abandoned-cart flow live today for nothing, this is the fastest route. Past 250 contacts the maths changes quickly, and Omnisend alternatives priced per contact are worth comparing at that point.

Price: Free for 250 contacts and 500 emails a month. Standard is $16/month at 500 contacts and 6,000 emails. Pro from $59/month. Note that the $11.20 shown on Omnisend’s pricing page is a 30% discount for the first three months paid upfront, not the standard rate. (Omnisend 2026 plans, verified 1 September 2026)

Best for: Shopify and WooCommerce stores under 1,000 contacts. Shopify sellers can compare more options in our Shopify email marketing guide.

5. Klaviyo — best for ecommerce data and segmentation

What it does: Ecommerce marketing platform built around customer data — predictive analytics, granular behavioural segments, and revenue attribution per flow.

What you actually get to automate: Flows built on unusually specific store data: predicted lifetime value, expected date of next order, browsing behaviour tied to product catalogues. For stores doing real volume, the segmentation is the reason people pay. The pricing model is the thing to understand — Klaviyo bills on active profiles rather than sends, and it’s monthly-only, so costs scale with list size whether or not you email those people. That billing model is why smaller stores tend to compare Klaviyo alternatives on cost per contact before their profile count

Klaviyo’s pricing page renders entirely client-side and returned no figures on either fetch, so the prices below are the list prices tracked by EmailToolTester rather than a page we could read directly.

Price: Free for 250 profiles and 500 emails a month (Klaviyo help centre). Paid email plans start around $20/month for 251–500 active profiles, with Email + SMS from about $35/month. Verify on Klaviyo’s live pricing page before budgeting.

Best for: Ecommerce stores where segmentation depth justifies profile-based billing.

6. MailerLite — best simple automation on a small budget

What it does: Clean, uncluttered email marketing with a visual automation builder, landing pages, and a website builder.

What you actually get to automate: Automation on every plan including free — 3 automations and 5 steps free, 50 automations and 100 steps on Comfort, unlimited on Power. Power also allows multiple triggers on a single automation, which is unusual at this price. MailerLite’s free tier is small at 250 subscribers and 2,500 emails a month, so it’s a starting point rather than a place to stay. Teams that outgrow the 5-step limit usually weigh alternatives to MailerLite on workflow depth rather than price.

Price: Free for 250 subscribers and 2,500 emails a month. Comfort from $12/month at the 500-subscriber tier; Power from $25/month. Annual billing saves 10%. (MailerLite free plan, verified 1 September 2026)

Best for: Solo marketers and small businesses who want a clean builder and don’t need branching logic yet.

7. Mailchimp — best for teams already standardised on it

What it does: The most recognised name in the category — email, landing pages, basic CRM, AI content tools, and the largest template library here.

What you actually get to automate: Less than the brand suggests. The free plan gets a “free preview” of automation flows, not working ones. Essentials allows up to 4 flow steps with no branching points. Multiple starting points and branching require Standard. Standard and Premium then allow up to 200 flows, which is more than most teams will use. Automation being preview-only on free is the single most common reason teams compare Mailchimp alternatives with working free automation.

Watch the pricing carefully: Mailchimp’s headline prices are promotional rates for the first 12 months, and the post-promotional rate isn’t published on the comparison page.

Price: Free for 250 contacts and 500 emails a month. Essentials $13/month for the first 12 months at 0–500 contacts, billed annually; Standard $20/month on the same promotional basis; Premium $350/month. (Mailchimp pricing, verified 1 September 2026)

Best for: Teams whose processes and integrations are already built around Mailchimp.

8. HubSpot Marketing Hub — best if automation must live inside a CRM

What it does: Marketing automation as one module of a full CRM suite, sharing a single contact record with sales and service.

What you actually get to automate: On Free, one automated action. On Starter, up to 10 automated actions. Neither is a workflow in any meaningful sense. Genuine marketing automation — unlimited actions, omni-channel workflows, up to 300 workflows across 10 teams — begins at Professional, $800/month, which also carries a mandatory $3,000 one-time onboarding fee. Enterprise is $3,600/month plus $7,000 onboarding.

If your sales team already lives in HubSpot and the CRM alignment is worth that, it’s coherent. If you want email automation, this is the most expensive way to buy it.

Price: Free tools include 2,000 email sends a month with HubSpot branding. Starter $7/month per seat billed annually ($20/month on monthly billing) including 1,000 marketing contacts. Professional $800/month + $3,000 onboarding. (HubSpot pricing, verified 1 September 2026)

Best for: Companies already running HubSpot CRM with budget at the Professional tier.

If you’re specifically replacing HubSpot, we cover that in detail in our HubSpot alternatives guide.

9. GetResponse — best for webinars and funnels alongside email

What it does: Email marketing plus built-in webinars, sales funnels, and landing pages — a combination nobody else here offers natively.

What you actually get to automate: On Starter, one custom automation workflow, with no contact tagging and no lead scoring. Tagging and scoring are what make automation useful, so Starter is effectively a broadcast plan. Unlimited workflows plus tagging, scoring, and event-based triggers start at Marketer, $48.38/month billed annually at 1,000 contacts. GetResponse also removed its free plan — it’s a trial now, which is a change worth knowing if you’re working from an older comparison post. Because tagging and scoring sit behind Marketer, GetResponse alternatives that include tagging on the entry plan are worth pricing alongside it.

The genuinely distinctive features are Perfect Timing and Time Travel, which schedule sends by each subscriber’s own timezone and engagement pattern.

Price: No free plan, trial only. Starter $15.58/month billed annually ($19 monthly) at 1,000 contacts with unlimited sends. Marketer $48.38/month billed annually ($59 monthly). (GetResponse pricing, verified 1 September 2026)

Best for: Course creators and coaches who run webinars as part of the funnel.

10. Kit (formerly ConvertKit) — best for creators, once you pay

What it does: Creator-focused email platform with tagging-based subscriber management, paid newsletters, a recommendation network, and unlimited landing pages.

What you actually get to automate: Nothing on the free plan. Kit’s free tier is the most generous list allowance in this roundup at 10,000 subscribers with unlimited broadcasts — and both Visual Automations and email sequences are excluded from it entirely. That trade is deliberate: Kit wants creators to build the list free, then pay when they need sequences. Once you’re on Creator, automations and sequences are unlimited, and the tag-based model suits creators better than the list-based model most platforms use. For creators who want sequences before they can justify $33/month, alternatives to Kit with automation on the free tier are the shorter list.

Price: Free up to 10,000 subscribers, broadcasts only. Creator $33/month on monthly billing or $390/year at 1,000 subscribers; Pro $66/month or $790/year. (Kit pricing, verified 1 September 2026)

Best for: Newsletter writers and creators who monetise their list and will upgrade for sequences.

11. Drip — best for behaviour-based DTC flows

What it does: Ecommerce automation for direct-to-consumer brands, built on behavioural segmentation and pre-built playbooks.

What you actually get to automate: Up to 50 workflows, all included at the entry price with no tiering games — one of only three tools here that doesn’t gate automation behind an upgrade. Dynamic segments update as customers behave differently, and the playbooks cover welcome, abandoned cart, and post-purchase out of the box.

The constraint is the floor. There’s no free plan and no tier below 2,500 people, so a 300-contact store pays the same $39 as a 2,500-contact one. Per contact, it’s the most expensive entry point among the SMB tools here.

Price: No free plan, 14-day trial. $39/month for 1–2,500 people, billed monthly, with up to 50 workflows included. (Drip pricing, verified 1 September 2026)

Best for: DTC brands already past 1,000 contacts who want automation with no feature gates.

12. Customer.io — best for product-led lifecycle messaging at scale

What it does: Cross-channel lifecycle messaging for product-led companies — email, push, in-app, SMS and webhooks driven by product event data.

What you actually get to automate: The most technically capable automation here, and the most interesting new capability in the category: LLM actions that run inside a workflow, plus an AI agent with execution skills from the entry tier. If your triggers are product events rather than marketing lists, this is built for that and the others aren’t.

It’s also priced accordingly. No free plan, and the entry tier is $100/month. This is the tool you graduate to, not the one you start with.

Price: No free plan. Essentials $100/month billed monthly for 5,000 profiles and 1 million emails a month. Premium $1,000/month. (Customer.io pricing, verified 1 September 2026)

Best for: Product-led SaaS teams triggering messages from product events.

How to choose

• Best overall value, and automation on the free plan → Mailercloud
• Deepest branching logic, budget for Plus or above → ActiveCampaign
• Email plus SMS or WhatsApp in one workflow → Brevo
• Small Shopify or WooCommerce store, free → Omnisend
• Ecommerce with serious segmentation needs → Klaviyo
• Simplest builder, small list → MailerLite
• Automation inside an existing CRM, Professional budget → HubSpot
• Webinars and funnels alongside email → GetResponse
• Creators monetising a newsletter → Kit
• DTC brand wanting no feature gates → Drip
• Product-event-driven messaging at scale → Customer.io

If you’re not sure, start with the free plan that includes real automation and migrate later. Building a welcome series and seeing it run tells you more in a week than any comparison table.

Five mistakes people make choosing automation software

Budgeting from the headline price. Mailchimp’s $13 is a first-12-months rate. Omnisend’s $11.20 is a three-month promotion. HubSpot’s Professional carries a $3,000 onboarding fee on top of $800 a month. Always find the standard, ongoing rate.

Assuming “automation included” means usable automation. Four flow steps with no branching is a checkbox, not a workflow. Read the plan comparison table, not the feature list.

Ignoring the contact ceiling inside automations. Brevo’s Free and Starter plans allow automation, but only 2,000 unique contacts can enter one. A growing list hits that quietly.

Choosing on template count. Templates are the easiest thing to change later. Deliverability, automation depth, and pricing structure are the hard things to change.

Skipping authentication. SPF, DKIM, and DMARC alignment affect inbox placement more than any feature in this list. Set them up before your first automated send, whichever tool you pick. Google and Yahoo have required them for bulk senders since 2024.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best automated email marketing software?

Mailercloud is the best automated email marketing software for most teams in 2026, because it’s the only platform here that includes a working advanced automation, 1,000 contacts, and 12,000 monthly emails on a permanently free plan. ActiveCampaign has deeper branching logic for complex B2B lifecycles, and Klaviyo is stronger for ecommerce segmentation, but both cost more before you get anything usable.

What is the best software for email marketing?

Mailercloud is our pick for general email marketing in 2026 at $10/month for 5,000 contacts with unlimited sends, Inbox Tracker deliverability visibility, and 24/7 live chat on every plan including free. Mailchimp remains the most widely used, MailerLite is the simplest, and Omnisend is the strongest choice if you sell on Shopify.

Is Mailchimp still free?

Yes, Mailchimp still has a free plan, but it’s limited to 250 contacts and 500 emails a month, and automation is available only as a preview rather than as working flows. Mailercloud’s free plan covers 1,000 contacts, 12,000 emails a month, and one advanced automation you can actually run, which makes it the better free starting point in 2026.

Which email marketing automation software has a free plan with real automation?

Mailercloud, Omnisend, MailerLite and Brevo are the four platforms with genuinely usable automation on a free plan. Mailercloud gives the largest free allowance at 1,000 contacts and 12,000 emails a month with one advanced automation. Omnisend allows full ecommerce workflows but only 250 contacts. Kit, Mailchimp and HubSpot all offer free plans with no working automation.

How much does email marketing automation software cost in 2026?

Entry pricing runs from $9 to $100 a month, but the price that matters is the tier where automation becomes usable. Mailercloud is $10/month for 5,000 contacts with 25 advanced automations. Brevo needs $18/month to lift its automation contact cap, GetResponse needs $48.38/month for unlimited workflows, and HubSpot needs $800/month plus $3,000 onboarding.

Is email marketing still worth it in 2026?

Yes. Email is still the only marketing channel where you own the audience list outright, with no algorithm between you and your subscribers. Automation is what makes it economical — a welcome series, an abandoned-cart flow and a re-engagement sequence run once and keep working, which is why the automation limits in this comparison matter more than template counts or design tools.

Can I set up email automation without a developer?

Yes. Every tool in this list uses a visual drag-and-drop builder, and none of them requires code for standard workflows like welcome series, abandoned cart, or re-engagement. Mailercloud’s advanced workflow editor covers branching and behavioural triggers without any technical setup. The one exception is Customer.io, which is designed around product event data and usually needs engineering help to wire up.

The verdict

Mailercloud is our recommendation for most teams choosing email marketing automation software in 2026. Here’s why:

• A free plan with 1,000 contacts, 12,000 monthly emails, and one advanced automation you can actually run
• $10/month for 5,000 contacts with unlimited sends and 25 advanced automations
• Inbox Tracker showing where your email lands across major ISPs, which almost nobody offers at this price
• AMP for Email support, which is rare across this whole category
• 24/7 live chat on every plan, including the free one
• No ecommerce transaction fees and no automatic upgrades when you cross a send threshold

It won’t suit everyone. If your stack needs a long tail of niche integrations, or you need native SMS today, ActiveCampaign or Brevo will fit better. And if your triggers come from product events rather than marketing lists, Customer.io is the more honest recommendation.

For everyone else — the team who wants working automation, good deliverability, and a price that doesn’t triple at the first upgrade — start free and see the workflow run.