Drip
Ecommerce lifecycle automation with every feature on every plan and one number to check
Drip is an ecommerce marketing automation platform combining email campaigns, a visual workflow builder, behavioral segmentation, onsite popups and signup forms, and deep store integrations with Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and Magento, priced on a single plan that scales purely with contact count from $39 a month for 2,500 subscribers, with unlimited email sends and complete feature parity at every volume.
Overview
Drip was founded in 2012 by Rob Walling and Derrick Reimer in Fresno, California, and became one of the most respected tools in the early SaaS bootstrapper community, largely because its automation was serious at a price point where competitors were still selling autoresponders. Leadpages acquired it in July 2016 as its first acquisition, the team moved to Minneapolis, and over the following years Drip narrowed its focus decisively toward ecommerce rather than trying to be a general-purpose marketing automation platform.
That narrowing is the most important thing about Drip today. It is not a SaaS lifecycle tool, it is not a notification platform, and it is not a CDP. It is a shop's email and automation engine: cart abandonment, browse abandonment, post-purchase sequences, winbacks, onsite popups to grow the list, and revenue attribution so the store owner can see what the emails actually earned. The store integrations with Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and Magento are the product's real substance, because they carry order, product, and browsing data automatically.
The commercial model is the simplest in this whole category and deserves credit for it. There is one plan. Everything is included at every level: unlimited email sends, the full workflow builder, dynamic segmentation, onsite campaigns and popups, API access, unlimited sub-accounts, and email support. The only variable is how many subscribers you have. $39 covers 2,500, $89 covers 5,000, $154 covers 10,000, $349 covers 25,000, $699 covers 50,000, and $1,399 covers 100,000, with custom pricing beyond that. Nobody has to read a feature matrix.
The obvious caveat is SMS. Drip has SMS but it is closed to new users, available only on accounts that already had it, and US-only where it exists. For a category where SMS is increasingly table stakes in ecommerce, that is a meaningful hole, and it is the clearest reason a Shopify store might choose a competitor instead.
Best for
Small and mid-sized ecommerce brands on Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, or Magento who want cart recovery, post-purchase flows, and list growth from one tool with no feature tiers and no send limits.
Not the right fit for
- B2B SaaS companies; there is no account object, no product event model beyond what a store integration provides, and none of the lifecycle vocabulary a SaaS team needs.
- Anyone who needs SMS; SMS is closed to new users, and where it exists on legacy accounts it is US-only, which rules Drip out for a large share of modern ecommerce programmes.
- Teams that need push notifications or in-app messaging; Drip is email and onsite forms, full stop, so anything on a phone screen requires a second vendor.
- Companies with large dormant lists; billing scales purely with subscriber count, so 40,000 people who never open anything cost the same as 40,000 buyers.
- Cold outbound or prospecting teams; Drip is for people who opted in to hear from your store, and using it otherwise will end in a deliverability problem.
How it works
- 1
You connect your store. The Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and Magento integrations pull customers, orders, products, and browsing behavior into Drip automatically, which is the entire reason a store owner buys this rather than a general email tool. Everything downstream depends on that data arriving without anyone writing code.
- 2
Contacts accumulate attributes and events from that store data plus anything you add through forms, popups, tags, or the API. Segmentation is dynamic: a segment such as bought twice in the last ninety days but not in the last thirty recomputes continuously rather than being a static export.
- 3
Workflows are built on a visual canvas. A trigger (cart abandoned, order placed, product viewed, tag applied, form submitted, date reached) starts a sequence of email steps, delays, conditional branches, decision splits, and actions such as applying a tag or calling a webhook. Goal and exit conditions remove someone from a flow when they buy, which is the difference between a helpful reminder and a nuisance.
- 4
Onsite campaigns close the loop at the top: popups, embedded forms, and signup widgets capture visitors into the same contact database that the workflows act on, so list growth and lifecycle messaging are one system. Revenue attribution then reports what each campaign and workflow earned, which is the number a store owner actually cares about.
Feature breakdown
20 features in 4 modulesEcommerce integrations and data
The reason to buy Drip rather than a general-purpose email tool.- Shopify integration
- Customers, orders, products, and browsing behavior sync automatically, which is what makes cart abandonment, browse abandonment, and post-purchase flows possible without engineering work.
- WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and Magento
- First-class support for the other major store platforms rather than Shopify-only, which matters for the substantial share of stores not on Shopify.
- Product and order data in messages
- Emails can reference specific products, order values, and purchase history, so a winback can name the thing somebody bought rather than gesturing at it vaguely.
- Revenue attribution
- Per-campaign and per-workflow revenue reporting, which is the metric that decides whether the subscription renews.
- Open API
- Included on every plan, so custom data and events can be pushed in from a headless store or a bespoke system.
Workflow automation
A proper visual builder with branching, not a linear autoresponder.- Visual workflow builder
- Drag-and-drop canvas with triggers, email steps, delays, decisions, and actions, supporting up to 50 workflows on the standard plan.
- Conditional branching and decisions
- Split a workflow on purchase history, tags, engagement, or any contact field, so one flow serves several customer types without duplication.
- Delays and timing control
- Wait steps between messages, including waits until a specific time or day, so a sequence lands when people actually read email.
- Goal and exit conditions
- Remove somebody from a cart recovery sequence the moment they complete the purchase, which is both good manners and better revenue attribution.
- Cart and browse abandonment recipes
- Pre-built flows for the two highest-value ecommerce automations, which get a new store owner to revenue in an afternoon rather than a fortnight.
- Tag and field actions
- Workflow steps that apply tags, update custom fields, or fire webhooks, so a flow can change state rather than only sending messages.
Segmentation and audience
Dynamic rather than list-based, which is what distinguishes Drip from a newsletter tool.- Dynamic segments
- Segments defined by rules over purchase history, engagement, tags, and custom fields, recomputing continuously as data changes rather than being frozen exports.
- Behavioral targeting
- Target on what people bought, viewed, opened, and clicked, so a campaign to lapsed buyers is a rule rather than a manual list build.
- Tags and custom fields
- Arbitrary tagging and custom data on contacts for the store-specific logic that no vendor's default schema anticipates.
- Unlimited sub-accounts
- Included at every price point, which is genuinely useful for agencies and for operators running more than one store.
Email and onsite
Composition, sending, and list growth in one place.- Unlimited email sends
- Send volume is never metered at any subscriber tier, so a high-frequency store is not punished for emailing its list, which is unusual among contact-priced tools.
- Visual and plain-text email builder
- Drag-and-drop composition plus a plain-text path, which matters because plain-text often outperforms designed templates in ecommerce lifecycle flows.
- Onsite popups and forms
- Popups, embedded forms, and signup widgets that capture visitors directly into the contact database, removing the need for a separate list-growth tool.
- A/B testing
- Split testing on subject lines and content, included on the standard plan rather than gated behind a premium tier.
- Included sending infrastructure
- Drip runs delivery, so there is no separate ESP contract, and you authenticate your own sending domain so mail comes from your brand.
Use cases
4 documentedShopify store with abandoned carts and no recovery flow
Roughly seventy percent of carts are abandoned and nothing follows up, because building the flow required data the current email tool does not have.
The Shopify integration carries cart and product data automatically, a pre-built recovery workflow goes live the same day, and revenue attribution shows what it recovered within a week.
Store owner tired of feature-gated pricing
The current vendor puts automation on one tier, A/B testing on another, and send volume on a third, so every improvement is an upgrade conversation.
Drip has one plan with everything included at every level, so the only question is how many subscribers there are, and the price is predictable a year out.
Agency running lifecycle for several small brands
Each client needs a separate environment, and per-account subscriptions multiply fast.
Unlimited sub-accounts are included at every price point, so the agency runs multiple stores under one arrangement rather than negotiating seat licences per client.
Brand emailing its list four times a week
Contact-priced competitors either cap sends or charge per email, which penalizes a high-frequency editorial programme.
Unlimited sends at every tier means frequency costs nothing extra, and the bill is determined solely by list size, which the brand controls through hygiene.
Pricing
from $39 per month for up to 2,500 subscribersA single plan with complete feature parity, priced solely on the number of active subscribers, with unlimited email sends at every level.
| Plan | Price | Includes |
|---|---|---|
| Up to 2,500 subscribers | $39 per month |
Every feature is here. Higher tiers add contact capacity and nothing else. |
| Up to 5,000 subscribers | $89 per month |
|
| Up to 10,000 subscribers | $154 per month |
|
| Up to 25,000 subscribers | $349 per month |
There is also a 17,500-subscriber band at $249 for stores between the two. |
| Up to 50,000 subscribers | $699 per month |
|
| Up to 100,000 subscribers | $1,399 per month |
A 75,000 band exists at $999. Above 100,000 subscribers pricing is quoted. |
Billing notes
- The meter is active subscribers only. Send volume is never metered, so a store emailing daily pays the same as one emailing monthly at the same list size.
- Feature parity across every tier is the structural decision that makes Drip pricing honest: there is no upgrade path that unlocks capability, only capacity.
- At 5,000 subscribers the price is $89 a month, which is roughly the same as Encharge and well under Ortto or Customer.io for a comparable list.
- At 50,000 subscribers the price is $699 a month, which is competitive with contact-priced rivals and considerably cheaper than an equivalent Ortto Professional band.
- The 14-day trial is unusually tight: 2,500 contacts but only 100 emails in total, which is enough to test a flow and not enough to run a campaign.
- SMS is not available to new accounts. Legacy accounts with SMS pay from $39 a month on tiered limits and it is US-only, so treat Drip as an email-and-onsite product.
- Because sending is included, there is no separate ESP invoice underneath, unlike bring-your-own-provider tools such as Knock, Courier, Novu, or Dittofeed.
Value assessment: Drip's pricing is the most honest structure in this category and, for its intended buyer, very good value. One plan, every feature, unlimited sends, and a single number that scales with list size means a store owner can budget a year ahead without reading a comparison matrix, and $89 at 5,000 subscribers with cart recovery, dynamic segmentation, onsite popups, and revenue attribution is a fair price for a complete lifecycle programme. Where the value degrades is scope. The absence of SMS for new customers is a real gap in 2026 ecommerce, there is no push or in-app channel, and if your list is large but disengaged you are paying for people who will never buy. Judged as an ecommerce email and automation engine it is well priced; judged as a multi-channel platform it is not one.
Strengths & limitations
Strengths
- One plan with complete feature parity at every price point, which eliminates the upgrade-to-unlock pattern that makes most competitors exhausting to buy.
- Unlimited email sends at every tier, so send frequency is never a cost consideration and the bill depends only on list size.
- Deep native integrations with Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and Magento carrying order, product, and browsing data automatically.
- Cart and browse abandonment recipes plus revenue attribution get a store from installation to measurable recovered revenue in a day.
- Dynamic segmentation over purchase history and behavior rather than static lists, which is the difference between a lifecycle programme and a newsletter.
- Onsite popups and forms are included, removing a separate list-growth subscription that most stores otherwise pay for.
- Unlimited sub-accounts at every tier, which quietly makes Drip one of the better-value options for agencies and multi-store operators.
- Fourteen years of operating history and stable ownership under Leadpages since 2016.
Limitations
- SMS is not available to new users at all, and where it exists on legacy accounts it is US-only, which is a serious gap for ecommerce in 2026.
- No push notifications and no in-app messaging, so anything reaching a phone screen requires a second vendor entirely.
- Entirely ecommerce-shaped: no account object, no SaaS lifecycle vocabulary, and no product event model beyond what a store integration supplies.
- Subscriber-count billing means dormant contacts are billable, so a large unengaged list costs real money for no return.
- The 14-day trial allows only 100 emails in total, which is enough to inspect the product and not enough to validate a real programme.
- Workflow count is capped at 50 on the standard plan, which is generous for most stores but a genuine ceiling for a complex multi-brand operation.
- Owned by Leadpages since 2016 and no longer founder-led, with a product that has been refined rather than reinvented for several years.
Head-to-head comparisons
5 alternativesDrip vs Ortto
from Around $237 per month on annual billing at the 10,000-contact band (Starter)Ortto is a far broader platform: a CDP, five channels including push and in-app, forms, live chat, and a real reporting layer, at several hundred dollars a month. Drip is a focused ecommerce email and automation engine at $89 for 5,000 contacts with everything included. A store that wants cart recovery and revenue attribution should take Drip and spend the difference on ads; a company consolidating marketing, data, analytics, and support should take Ortto.
Full Drip vs Ortto comparisonDrip vs Vero
from $54 per month, or $49 per month billed annuallyVero is built for SaaS product teams with event streams and warehouse-defined audiences, at $54 a month for 5,000 profiles including push. Drip is built for stores, with catalog-aware flows and revenue attribution Vero does not attempt. These two almost never appear on the same shortlist, and if they do, the answer is decided entirely by whether you sell products or software.
Full Drip vs Vero comparisonDrip vs Mautic
from $0 in licence fees; realistically $20 to $150 per month in hosting plus sending costsMautic is free open-source marketing automation with campaigns, email, landing pages, and lead scoring, but you host it, you supply the sending, and you own the operations forever. Drip costs $39 a month and hands you working ecommerce flows the same afternoon. Choose Mautic when there is no software budget and there is sysadmin capacity; choose Drip when your time is worth more than the subscription, which for a working store it almost always is.
Full Drip vs Mautic comparisonDrip vs Bento
from $29/mo (up to 5,000 active users, unlimited marketing sends)Bento targets SaaS founders with email, in-app messaging, and unusually hands-on support, with a free tier for small lists. Drip targets store owners with catalog data, cart recovery, and revenue attribution. Both are well-priced focused tools; the choice is entirely about whether your customers buy a subscription or a product.
Full Drip vs Bento comparisonDrip vs Customer.io
from $100/mo (Essentials)Customer.io is a deeper data platform with real-time behavioral segmentation, a first-party CDP, five channels including push, in-app, and webhooks, and compliance certifications, from a $100 monthly floor on profile-based billing. Drip is cheaper, simpler, and specifically shaped for stores. A store that only needs email should not pay for Customer.io; a company whose messaging logic depends on complex product events should not try to make Drip do it.
Full Drip vs Customer.io comparisonImplementation & onboarding
- Setup time
- An afternoon for a store on Shopify or WooCommerce: connect the integration, let data sync, switch on the cart abandonment recipe. A full lifecycle programme with winbacks, post-purchase sequences, and onsite capture takes a week or two of thinking rather than of building.
- Learning curve
- Low. The workflow canvas is one of the more approachable in the category and the ecommerce recipes give a new user a working example to modify rather than a blank page. Dynamic segmentation is the concept most people take longest to use well.
- Onboarding
- Fully self-serve with a 14-day trial capped at 2,500 contacts and 100 emails. Email support is included on every plan and priority support arrives at higher volumes. Documentation and pre-built recipes carry most new accounts.
- Migration notes
- Contact and tag import is straightforward and the store integration rebuilds purchase history from the platform itself, so behavioral segments become useful faster than they do when migrating a SaaS tool. Because sending is included, migrating means moving sending reputation: authenticate your domain and ramp volume over a couple of weeks rather than switching a large list in one send. Prune inactive subscribers before importing, since every one of them is billable from day one.
Platform, API & security
- Platforms
- Web appREST APIJavaScript tracking snippetStore platform apps for Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and Magento
- API
- Open REST API included on every plan covering subscribers, events, tags, campaigns, and workflows, plus outbound webhooks from workflow steps.
- Compliance
- GDPRCAN-SPAMCCPA
- Data residency
- US-hosted; regional hosting is not offered as a self-serve option.
- SSO
- Not offered as a standard self-serve feature.
- Security notes
- Sending infrastructure is operated by Drip with customer domain authentication, so deliverability responsibility is shared between vendor infrastructure and customer list practice. Unlimited sub-accounts allow separation of client or brand data within one arrangement.
Support & resources
- Channels
- Email support on every planPriority support at higher subscriber volumesLive chat during business hours
- Documentation
- Help centre and knowledge base covering store integrations, workflows, segmentation, onsite campaigns, deliverability, and the API.
- Community
- Long-standing presence in the ecommerce and bootstrapper communities, with a substantial body of third-party tutorials and agency expertise built up over a decade.
Company
- Founded
- 2012
- Headquarters
- Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States
- Ownership
- Owned by Leadpages since July 2016
- Founders
- Rob Walling, Derrick Reimer
- Employees
- Not disclosed
- Funding
- Acquired by Leadpages in July 2016 for undisclosed terms; Leadpages had itself raised $27M in Series B funding in 2015, partly to fund acquisitions.
Funding history
| Round | Amount | Year | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Acquisition | Undisclosed | 2016 | Leadpages acquired Drip in July 2016 as its first acquisition; founders Rob Walling and Derrick Reimer joined Leadpages in Minneapolis. |
Timeline
- 2012Founded in Fresno, California by Rob Walling and Derrick Reimer, initially as a lightweight email capture and drip campaign tool.
- 2015Adds a visual workflow builder and behavioral automation, earning a reputation in the bootstrapper community for serious automation at a small-business price.
- 2016Acquired by Leadpages in July as its first acquisition, with the team relocating to Minneapolis.
- 2019Repositions decisively around ecommerce, deepening Shopify, WooCommerce, and Magento integrations and adding revenue attribution.
- 2021Adds onsite popups and forms, bringing list growth into the same product as lifecycle messaging.
- 2026Continues on a single-plan model with complete feature parity and unlimited sends, from $39 a month for 2,500 subscribers, with SMS closed to new accounts.
Integrations
- Shopify
- WooCommerce
- BigCommerce
- Magento
- Leadpages
- Facebook and Meta custom audiences
- Zapier
- Stripe
- Recharge
- Open REST API and webhooks
Frequently asked questions
10 questionsWhat is Drip?
Drip is an ecommerce marketing automation platform. It combines email campaigns, a visual workflow builder, dynamic behavioral segmentation, onsite popups and forms, and native integrations with Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and Magento, so a store can run cart recovery, post-purchase, and winback programmes off its own order and browsing data. It has been operating since 2012 and has been owned by Leadpages since 2016.
How much does Drip cost?
There is one plan priced purely on subscriber count with every feature included at every level and unlimited email sends throughout. It is $39 a month for 2,500 subscribers, $89 for 5,000, $154 for 10,000, $249 for 17,500, $349 for 25,000, $699 for 50,000, $999 for 75,000, and $1,399 for 100,000, with custom pricing above that. There is a 14-day free trial limited to 2,500 contacts and 100 emails.
Does Drip support SMS?
Not for new customers. SMS exists only on accounts that already had it, where it starts around $39 a month on tiered limits and is US-only. For a new buyer, treat Drip as an email and onsite product. If SMS is part of your ecommerce programme, this is the clearest reason to look at a different vendor.
Is Drip event-driven or list-driven?
Event-driven within an ecommerce frame. The store integration supplies orders, products, and browsing behavior automatically, and workflows are triggered by those events (cart abandoned, product viewed, order placed) with dynamic segments that recompute continuously. What it is not is a general-purpose event platform: you cannot easily model arbitrary SaaS product events the way Customer.io or Vero can.
Do I bring my own ESP or sending domain?
Sending is included. Drip runs the delivery infrastructure, so there is no SendGrid or Postmark contract underneath. You authenticate your own sending domain so mail comes from your brand, and deliverability is shared: Drip operates the infrastructure and reputation, while list hygiene, consent, and content are yours. Migrating in means warming your sending gradually rather than switching a large list over in one day.
Can a store owner run Drip without a developer?
Yes, and that is the point of the product. The store integrations are one-click apps, the cart abandonment and browse abandonment flows come as recipes, and the workflow canvas, segmentation, and popup builder are entirely no-code. The API exists for headless stores and custom data but the overwhelming majority of accounts never touch it.
How good is the workflow builder?
Good, and better than its price suggests. It is a proper visual canvas with triggers, conditional branches, decision splits, delay and wait steps, tag and field actions, webhooks, and goal-based exit conditions that pull someone out of a cart sequence when they buy. The cap is 50 workflows on the standard plan, which is ample for a single store and a real limit for a complex multi-brand operation.
Why does feature parity across tiers matter?
Because it removes the entire class of decision where you have to work out which capability sits behind which upgrade. Automation, A/B testing, segmentation, onsite forms, API access, and unlimited sub-accounts are all present at $39. The only thing more money buys is more subscribers, which makes a year of budgeting a single arithmetic problem instead of a procurement exercise.
Is Drip suitable for a SaaS business?
No. There is no account or company object, no way to model organizational relationships, and no product event framework beyond what a store integration provides. SaaS teams should look at Customer.io, Vero, Userlist, Bento, or Encharge instead. Drip's entire architecture assumes your customers buy products from a catalog.
Who owns Drip and is it still being developed?
Drip was founded in 2012 by Rob Walling and Derrick Reimer in Fresno and acquired by Leadpages in July 2016, moving to Minneapolis. It remains a Leadpages product and continues to be maintained and sold, though it has been refined rather than reinvented in recent years. The absence of SMS for new accounts is the most visible sign that the roadmap is conservative.
Editorial verdict
Drip is the easiest recommendation in this batch for one specific buyer: a small ecommerce store that wants cart recovery, post-purchase flows, and list growth working by the end of the week. One plan, every feature at every level, unlimited sends, and a price that depends only on list size makes it the most honest commercial structure in the category, and $89 a month at 5,000 subscribers buys a complete lifecycle programme with revenue attribution that tells you whether it worked. The limits are equally unambiguous. SMS is closed to new customers and US-only where it exists, there is no push and no in-app channel, and none of the architecture makes sense for a SaaS business. For a five-person company selling products online, Drip is the first thing to buy and probably the only thing. For a five-person company selling software, it is the wrong tool no matter how good the price is.
Written by the SaaSTracker editorial team. Awards, when shown, are judged against the published criteria in our methodology.