Marketing Automation
All 16 profiles checked against live vendor pricing on 26 September 2026. Every category is re-verified on a 52 day rotation; see the schedule.
Marketing automation platforms trigger messages and campaigns from customer behavior, moving people through lifecycle stages across email, in-app, SMS, and push without manual sends.
Where outbound tooling chases new names, marketing automation works the names you already have: onboarding flows, upgrade nudges, win-back campaigns, all triggered by what users actually do. The platforms here compete on data model depth, how precisely behavior can drive messaging, and how much power a lean lifecycle team can wield without an ops hire.
Typical stack. Teams running automation usually pair it with Landing Page Builders, Forms & Surveys, Sales CRM, SMS Marketing, Lead Capture & Popups, Product Analytics & Session Replay and SEO & Content Marketing.
Price movement. Entry prices are tracked for 16 of the 16 tools here. Since tracking began, 1 stopped publishing a price. See every recorded change.
Bento
MomentumMarketing and transactional email from one deliverability-obsessed tiny company
Customer.io
Data-first customer messaging that scales from startup to enterprise without becoming Braze
Dittofeed
The open-source escape hatch from customer engagement vendor lock-in
Encharge
Ease of UseFlow-based marketing automation for SaaS at a price HubSpot refugees recognize as sane
Userlist
Lifecycle email for B2B SaaS that actually understands accounts, not just contacts
Ortto
A CDP, a journey builder, and analytics in one Australian platform, now owned by Canva
Vero
Event-driven messaging from a bootstrapped Australian team that has outlived most of its competitors
Drip
Ecommerce lifecycle automation with every feature on every plan and one number to check
Mautic
Free, open source, and yours to run, if you have somebody to run it
EngageBay
Best ValueThe whole HubSpot shape for the price of a single HubSpot seat
GetResponse
A twenty-eight-year-old bootstrapped email platform that quietly added everything else
HubSpot Marketing Hub
Category LeaderThe category default, priced with a cliff between Starter and Professional
Keap
Twenty years of small-business automation, still charging like it knows it
Mailmodo
InnovationInteractive email that completes the action inside the inbox, priced like it knows you have no alternative
Plunk
Transactional, campaigns, and automations on one contact, at a tenth of a cent an email
GoHighLevel
A white-label all-in-one marketing platform agencies resell as their own software
Profiles are listed in editorial order. Placement cannot be purchased; see our methodology.