Emails might seem antiquated in the era of social media, but did you know that email marketing remains one of the most effective digital marketing strategies out there? That’s right: email marketing earns a ROI of $36 for every dollar spent, making it one of the most lucrative digital marketing strategies. And the best way to approach email marketing, today, is with automation.
Email automation simplifies your marketing efforts by putting the nurturing process on autopilot. To put it simply: email automation tools allow you to “set it and forget it” by sending out email flows automatically, on your behalf, so you can focus your time and efforts elsewhere.
Luckily, there are a number of great email marketing automation tools and software out there. The hard part? Wading through all the options to find the one that’s right for you. And that’s exactly where this article comes in.
Here, we’re taking you on a deep dive of the 12 best email marketing automation tools on the market, including a breakdown of their features and pricing.
Nurture and convert leads with The Leap’s built-in email marketing features. Start free!What is email marketing automation?
In a nutshell, email marketing automation allows you to create email campaigns that reach the right customers with the right message at the right moment — without even lifting a finger.
To get into the nuts and bolts, email marketing automation involves using digital tools and software to send personalized, timely emails to your subscribers based on predefined triggers and schedules. This technology streamlines the email marketing process by automating repetitive manual tasks, like sending welcome emails, follow-ups, and promotional campaigns. In other words, it allows you to communicate consistently with your audience while freeing up time and effort.
Some key features of email marketing automation include trigger-based workflows that respond to customer actions, like sign-ups and purchases, as well as audience segmentation that targets specific groups based on their behavior and preferences. This type of advanced automation ensures that each of your subscribers is receiving the content that’s relevant to them, which ultimately improves the effectiveness of your email campaigns, boosts conversion rates, and earns you more money.
Set lead nurturing on autopilot with The Leap’s email features.
12 Best email marketing automation tools and software
And without further ado, here are the best email marketing automation tools and software on the market:
- The Leap
- Mailchimp
- Benchmark
- ActiveCampaign
- GetResponse
- Brevo
- Kalviyo
- Omnisend
- HubSpot
- Drip
- MailerLite
- ConvertKit
Email marketing automation tools comparison
| Tool | Features |
| The Leap | Best for: Creators looking for an all-in-one email marketing automation and lead generation tool Free plan? ✅ with automation AI features? ✅ Pricing: Free plan (up to 500 contacts) |
| Mailchimp | Best for: Drip email campaigns Free plan? ✅, but without automation AI features? ✅ Pricing: Paid plans start at $20/month for 500 contacts |
| Benchmark | Best for: Simple email marketing automation Free plan? ✅, but without automation AI features? ✅ Pricing: Paid plans start at $13/month for 500 contacts |
| ActiveCampaign | Best for: Advanced automation and CRM Free plan? ❌ AI features? ✅ Pricing: Paid plans with automation start at $66/month |
| GetResponse | Best for: End-to-end lead generation Free plan? ✅, but without automation AI features? ❌ Pricing: Paid plans with automation start at $48.60/month |
| Brevo | Best for: Entrepreneurs and small businesses Free plan? ✅ with automation AI features? ❌ Pricing: Paid plans start at $9/month |
| Kalviyo | Best for: Ecommerce Free plan? ✅ with automation AI features? ✅ Pricing: Paid plans start at $20/month |
| Omnisend | Best for: New to ecommerce Free plan? ✅ with automation AI features? ❌ Pricing: Paid plans start at $16/month |
| HubSpot | Best for: CRM Free plan? ✅ with limited automation AI features? ✅ Pricing: Paid plans start at $20/month |
| Drip | Best for: Online storefronts Free plan? ❌ AI features? ❌ Pricing: Paid plans start at $39/month |
| MailerLite | Best for: Simple solution Free plan? ✅ with automation AI features? ✅ Pricing: Paid plans start at $9/month |
| ConvertKit | Best for: Solo entrepreneurs Free plan? ✅ with automation AI features? ❌ Pricing: Paid plans start at $9/month |
1. The Leap
Best for: Creators looking for an all-in-one email marketing automation and lead generation tool
Want to simplify your email marketing efforts? The Leap can help you with that.
The Leap is an all-in-one creator store with a powerful email marketing automation system that lets you put nurturing on autopilot, so you can earn money while you sleep.
The Leap provides you with a range of features and tools that make creating your email campaigns and nurturing your leads effortless. At the outset, these include 16 pre-built, expert-recommended email templates, along with an AI writing assistant that can create first drafts and brainstorm campaign ideas based on your product offering. This means you can leverage email automation to guide leads through your value ladder, boosting your conversion rate and turbocharging your income.
How does it work? Simply input your expertise or select a product on your Leap store, and The Leap’s AI writing assistant will brainstorm a list of campaign ideas for you. Based on your input, the AI assistant will come up with a blueprint for your email flows and funnels based on best practices. From there, it’ll write up a draft for each of your emails, which you can customize to your liking. Then, all you need to do is hit “Publish” and let the platform’s email automations do its thing: send newsletters automatically on your behalf — oh, and earn you money overnight.
Just getting started? The Leap also provides users with a host of tools to help you build your email list, including opt-in forms and an AI-powered digital product builder that helps you create lead magnets in just minutes.
You can access, manage, and send emails to up to 500 contacts on your free Leap plan before upgrading to a paid plan.
Features
- Email automation
- AI-powered first drafts
- Pre-built, expert-recommended email templates
- Mini-CRM with audience analytics
- Audience segmentation
- AI assistant helps brainstorm campaign ideas and value ladders
- Opt-in forms to build your email list
- AI-powered digital product builder
Pricing
- Free plan (up to 500 contacts)
- Pro plan: $19/month (up to 5,000 contacts)
- Elite plan: $59/month (up to 25,000 contacts)
Want to start nurturing leads — and earning money — in your sleep? Try The Leap for free now.
Set lead nurturing on autopilot with The Leap’s email features.
2. Mailchimp
Best for: Drip email campaigns
If you’ve read anything about email marketing, then you’ve probably heard of Mailchimp. The platform is one of the most popular email marketing automation tools due to its comprehensive features and ultra user-friendly interface.
Speaking of user-friendly: the platform’s intuitive drag-and-drop email builder allows you to create professional-looking email campaigns effortlessly, which makes it a great option for creators and entrepreneurs who are just getting started. With tons of customizable templates to choose from, this platform helps you create campaigns and broadcasts that align with your brand and engage your audience effectively.
The platform excels in automation, offering an array of powerful tools that help you streamline your marketing process, nurture your audience, and convert leads into paying customers. With Mailchimp, users can set up automated email flows, such as welcome emails, abandoned cart reminders, and re-engagement campaigns, which run automatically based on triggers and user actions. Not only does this feature save you tons of time, it enhances customer engagement by delivering the most relevant messages at the right time.
On top of that, Mailchimps’s advanced analytics and audience segmentation features further supercharge your marketing efforts. Detailed reporting tools provide insights into your campaigns’ performance, like click-through and open rates, so you can make better decisions driven by real data. Its segmentation capabilities help you target specific audiences with tailored messages to boost audience engagement.
Features
- Email automation (paid plans only)
- AI assistant helps write and design emails
- CRM with audience analytics
- Advanced email performance analytics
- Audience segmentation
Pricing
Mailchimp offers a free plan without automations. Its paid plan pricing works on a sliding scale, placing limits on how many email contacts you can capture and how many emails you can send per month. Its lowest tier paid plan is $20/month for 500 email contacts and 6,000 emails/month. You can check out a comprehensive breakdown of its pricing on the Mailchimp website.
3. Benchmark
Best for: Simple email marketing automation
Just want something simple? Then Benchmark is likely the email marketing automation tool for you. Benchmark is beloved for a winning combination of ease-of-use and effectiveness. In other words, it’s geared towards helping users run basic, yet powerful email automations effortlessly, which makes it a great choice for those new to email marketing.
One of Benchmark’s top selling features is its simple, user-friendly interface. No bells and whistles here! Automations are totally easy to set up with the platform’s intuitive drag-and-drop email editor, which enables you to create professional-looking, visually-appealing emails without any advanced design or coding skills. Plus, tons of pre-made templates and an AI-powered email builder make it easy for you to get the ball rolling fast.
When it comes to its automation capabilities, Benchmark may be simple, but it’s also mighty. The platform offers a range of powerful automated email flows, including welcome series, abandoned cart reminders, and re-engagement campaigns. On top of that, Benchmark’s automation tools can be tailored to specific customer actions and preferences.
Benchmark is also kitted out with robust analytics and segmentation features. It provides users with comprehensive reports on email performance, including open rates, click-through rates, and subscriber activity. Its segmentation tool lets you target different audience groups based on behaviors and demographics.
While Benchmark does have a free plan, its email automation tool is only available via its paid plans, which starts at $13/month for 500 contacts.
Features
- Email automation (paid plans only)
- AI-powered email builder
- CRM with audience analytics
- Audience segmentation
- Email performance analytics
- Opt-in forms and landing pages
Pricing
Benchmark’s free plan doesn’t include email marketing automation. If you want access to email automation, you’ll need to upgrade to the paid Pro version, which starts at $13/month for 500 contacts.
4. ActiveCampaign
Best for: Advanced automation and CRM
Want to dive into the deep end of email marketing automation? Then ActiveCampaign, known for its enterprise-grade automation and CRM capabilities, might be your best bet.
ActiveCampaign offers sophisticated, AI-powered automation workflows that help you create hyper-personalized email sequences based on customer behavior and interactions. With tons of advanced features like trigger-based emails, segmentation, dynamic content, site tracking, and lead scoring, this platform enables you to build targeted, effective email marketing campaigns that will boost conversion rates. Don’t know where to get started? ActiveCampaign’s marketplace provides you with thousands of pre-built email templates to help you out.
The platform’s comprehensive CRM and robust analytics allows you to connect your sales and marketing data, so you can build more effective, data-driven campaigns. While the platform’s built-in CRM helps you manage customer relationships and track interactions, its detailed reporting offers performance insights, including open rates, click-through rates, and engagement metrics.
Of course, all of these great features come with a price tag — and a pretty steep learning curve. Pricing starts at $107/month for 5,000 contacts — and that’s on a plan with limited automation capabilities. If you’re new to email marketing software, it might take you a bit of time to wrap your head around ActiveCampaign’s complex interface and numerous features.
Features
- AI-powered email automations (paid plans only)
- Thousands of pre-built email templates
- CRM with sales analytics
- Email performance analytics
- Audience segmentation
- Lead scoring
- Dynamic content
Pricing
ActiveCampaign offers four paid plans. Its lowest tier plan starts at $20/month for 1,000 contacts. If you want automation, you’ll need to subscribe to their second-tier plan, which starts at $66/month for 1,000 contacts.
5. GetResponse
Best for: End-to-end lead generation
GetResponse is a feature-rich email marketing automation tool — and then some. With a comprehensive list of marketing and lead capture features, this platform enables you to perform end-to-end lead generation campaigns, which makes it a great all-in-one marketing solution.
But before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s roll it back. As a full-feature automation tool, GetResponse excels at, well, automation, offering tons of advanced features including triggered campaigns, segmentation, and dynamic content that help you create personalized workflows based on customer behavior and engagement. By upgrading to Pro, you also gain access to the platform’s powerful CRM.
What really sets GetResponse apart from the rest is its integrated tools for webinars, sign-up forms, and landing pages, which allow you to capture leads, grow your list, and engage your audience through multiple channels. This makes GetResponse not just an advanced automation platform, but a powerful lead generation tool, as well.
GetResponse has a generous free plan that includes its drag-and-drop email builder, 2,500 monthly sends, and some lead capture tools. Its lowest tier plan (which costs $15.60/month for 1,000 contacts) only allows you to set up simple autoresponders. If you want access to advanced automations, you’ll need to subscribe to its Plus plan.
Features
- Email automations (paid plans only)
- Drag-and-drop email editor
- Audience segmentation
- CRM
- Email performance analytics
- Dynamic content
- Webinars
- Opt-in forms
- Landing pages
Pricing
Free plan available. Its lowest tier plan costs $15.60/month for 1,000 contacts, but doesn’t include automation. Its Plus plan includes email automations and begins at $48.40/month for 1,000 contacts.
6. Brevo
Best for: Entrepreneurs and small businesses
Formerly transactional email service SendInBlue, Brevo is another standout email marketing tool known for providing advanced automation features at an affordable price tag.
Brevo’s impressive automation features include welcome emails, drip campaigns, sales reminders, lead scoring, and personalized follow-ups based on user actions and preferences. Beyond email, Brevo also offers chat and SMS marketing features for users based in the U.S. With an account, you’ll also be able use its transactional email features including confirmation emails and invoices.
Other features include an intuitive drag-and-drop email editor, audience segmentation, sign-up forms, and detailed analytics on key metrics like open rates, click-through rates, and engagement levels, which help you refine your strategy and target the right leads with the right messaging.
What gives Brevo a leg up above the rest is its low price point and advanced free features. The platform’s free plan gives you access to automations and allows you to send 300 emails per day. Its Starter plan is ideal for entrepreneurs and small businesses looking to grow, allowing you to send 20,000 emails per month to unlimited subscribers for just $29/month.
Features
- Email automations (on free plan)
- Drag-and-drop email editor
- Audience segmentation
- Email performance analytics
- Opt-in forms
Pricing
Free plan with automation available. Its Starter plan (geared towards creators and small businesses) starts at $9/month for 500 contacts and 5,000 monthly sends.
7. Klaviyo
Best for: Ecommerce
Klaviyo is one of the most popular — and powerful — email marketing automation tools around. Over the years, the platform has become a go-to for ecommerce businesses, especially those using platforms like Shopify. What sets Klaviyo apart is its seamless integrations with various ecommerce platforms, as well as its advanced email and SMS marketing tools.
Klaviyo packs tons of automation tools into one streamlined platform. Its advanced automated flows function across email and SMS, and include automations like cart abandons, cross-sells, win-backs, in-stock, and price-drop alerts.
Additional features include a robust reporting tool with customizable dashboards, customer segmentation for more personalized automations, and self-optimizing opt-in forms to capture leads and grow your email list.
Klaviyo has also rolled out a range of powerful AI features. These include generative AI for drafting emails, building flows, and segmenting audiences, as well as predictive analytics-powered personalization, and AI optimization features that test and fine-tune campaigns.
While Klaviyo is packed with lots of great features, the platform does arrive with some setbacks. For one, its interface isn’t as intuitive as other equally feature-rich platforms. On top of that, its email automations aren’t as easy to set up as similar tools.
Features
- AI-powered email automation (on free plan)
- AI-powered email drafts
- Customer segmentation
- Performance reporting tool
- Predictive analytics
- Robust e-commerce integrations
- SMS marketing
Pricing
Klaviyo’s free plan includes all of the platform’s features, but sets a limit of 250 contacts and 500 monthly email sends. If you just want email marketing (rather than SMS), paid plans start at $20 for up to 500 contacts.
8. Omnisend
Best for: New to ecommerce
Like Klaviyo, Omnisend is an email marketing automation tool that caters to ecommerce businesses. That means, if you’re selling digital products on platforms like Shopify, you’ll want to consider this top tool. On top of its numerous ecommerce integrations, Omnisend also links up with Google and Facebook Ads, so you can target customers beyond email and SMS.
Like other platforms of its caliber, Omnisend offers all the bells and whistles of advanced automation, as well as audience segmentation, automation splits, advanced reporting, and personalized recommendations. It also offers up tons of pre-built email templates catered to ecommerce businesses, like welcome series, product and cart abandonment, cross-selling, and confirmation emails. It also provides users with sign-up forms and landing pages to help them grow their email list.
White Omnisend doesn’t offer the AI power of platforms like Klaviyo, it’s a much more intuitive platform to use, overall. Its automation editor is particularly easy-to-use, with a simple workflow editor and drag-and-drop email builder. This means it’s great for online store owners who have just started their email automation journeys.
Features
- Email automation (on free plan)
- Pre-built email templates
- Drag-and-drop email builder
- Performance reporting tool
- Audience segmentation
- Automation splitting
- Robust e-commerce integrations
- SMS marketing
Pricing
All Omnisend plans include all of its features (and, yes, that includes its free plan). The platform’s free plan does, however, place a cap of 250 contacts and 500 monthly sends. Paid plans start at $16/month for up to 500 contacts and 6,000 emails per month.
9. HubSpot
Best for: CRM
Want the best CRM in the email marketing automation game? Then it’s got to be HubSpot. This popular all-in-one marketing platform combines powerful email automation with robust CRM capabilities.
So, how does it work? Your Hubspot is made up of a number of different “hubs” which are all connected to a central Smart CRM, which hosts and tracks data on leads and customers.
The platform’s Marketing Hub provides you with the powerful, all-in-one marketing automation software that helps you engage, nurture, and convert leads effortlessly. This HubSpot arm is kitted out with features like an opt-in form builder and an AI-powered email builder, along with a marketing automation tool that scores your leads, segments them, and sends automated, personalized email flows based on CRM data.
HubSpot offers free tools with limits on how many emails you can send, contacts you can host, and email automations you can set up. This is great for creators and entrepreneurs who are just starting out, but can prove expensive if you’re trying to scale.
Features
- Email automation (limited on free plan)
- AI-powered email writer
- Audience segmentation
- Powerful CRM
- Opt-in forms
- Lead scoring
Pricing
HubSpot’s free plan includes 1 automated action per campaign. If you want to take advantage of advanced automations, you’ll need to shell out for a paid plan. Its Starter plan costs $20/month and offers 10 automated actions per campaign.
10. Drip
Best for: Online storefronts
Drip is a streamlined email marketing tool designed specifically for online storefronts, boasting tons of ecommerce integrations with platforms like Shopify, Magneto, WooCommerce, and BigCommerce. The platform’s API can also be extended to work with custom online storefronts, which means that Drip is a great tool for creators selling digital products, no matter where they’re selling them online.
Drip has a robust set of automation capabilities with workflow templates tailored towards ecommerce, including abandoned cart, win-back, post-purchase, and welcome emails. It also offers advanced audience segmentation capabilities, which allow you to segment audiences based on criteria like purchase history and engagement, along with detailed analytics and in-depth reporting on key metrics.
What sets this platform’s automation suite apart is its easy-to-use visual workflow builder. This intuitive tool simplifies the process of designing complex automated flows, making it easy for you to set up personalized customer journeys.
While Drip isn’t exactly the most inexpensive platform on the market, all of its paid plans include all of the platform’s features along with unlimited email sends.
Features
- Email automation
- Easy-to-use workflow and email builder
- Audience segmentation
- Website forms and campaigns
- Robust ecommerce integrations
- Customer analytics
- Email performance analytics
Pricing
Drip prices its plans on a sliding scale based on the size of your email list. It’s also important to note that all plans include all features and unlimited email sends. Plans start at $39/month for 2,500 contacts and go up from there.
11. MailerLite
Best for: Simple solution
Want a lightweight email automation tool geared towards creators and entrepreneurs? Then look no further than MailerLite.
MailerLite delivers on its namesake, as one of the simplest and more streamlined tools currently on the market. Sure, the platform doesn’t have all the advanced automations of some of competitors, but its easy-to-use workflow editor makes setting up automations, including multi-step campaigns a virtual breeze. In terms of automations, triggers including email clicks, specific dates, and new sign-ups, to name a few.
It also provides you with three different email editors to choose from — drag-and-drop, rich text, and custom HTML editors — so you can create the personalized, high-converting campaigns of your dreams. Plus, its AI-powered writing assistant helps you compose emails in minutes.
MailerLite has a generous free plan that includes automation along with 12,000 monthly emails. The free plan also provides users with sign-up forms and landing pages to build their email list, along with a subscriber management system that allows you to segment your audience. Higher tiered plans also allow you to sell digital products by building out an online storefront and processing payments via Stripe.
Features
- Email automation (on free plan)
- Easy-to-use automation builder
- Drag-and-drop email builder
- AI-powered email writing assistant
- Opt-in forms
- Landing pages
- Blogs and websites
- Online storefront
Pricing
Free plan includes automation and 12,000 monthly sends to up to 1,000 subscribers. If you want unlimited sends (and additional advanced features), you’ll have to upgrade to paid, starting at $9/month for 500 subscribers.
12. ConvertKit
Best for: Solo entrepreneurs
ConvertKit is an email automation tool geared towards creators, solo entrepreneurs, and small business owners. The platform offers a range of features that, used together, help users grow their audiences and nurture leads in order to earn more money, easily.
ConvertKit’s intuitive Visual Automations tool helps you easily map out your customers’ automated journeys, from segmenting your subscribers to triggering email sequences, so you’re confident that the right messaging is reaching the right audience at the best time. It also provides users with a library of pre-built automation templates to help them get started. On the flip side, its straightforward email designer helps you craft beautiful newsletters, no code needed.
In terms of lead generation, ConvertKit also provides users with email sign-up forms and landing pages that help you capture more leads and build your email list.
ConverKit has a generous free plan that allows you up to 10,000 contacts, along with one automation and one email sequence. If you want unlimited automations, you’ll need to upgrade to paid, starting at $9/month for 300 contacts on its Creator plan.
Features
- Email automation (limited on free plan)
- Pre-built automations
- Easy-to-use email builder
- Audience segmentation and tagging
- Email performance analytics
- Opt-in forms and landing pages
Pricing
Free plan with one automation and up to 10,000 contacts. Paid plans start at $9/month for unlimited automations and 300 contacts, and increase in price depending on the size of your email list.
Choose The Leap for your email automations
So, there you have it! All the best email marketing automation tools, all in one place. Now, it’s your turn to try out the tool that you deem best — so you can start converting customers and earning an income, of course!
Want to cut to the chase with an automation tool that does it all? Then you’ll want to try The Leap. Our all-in-one creator store doubles as an email automation tool that enables you to put nurturing on autopilot and earn money while you sleep.
In addition to powerful automations, The Leap rounds out its email marketing offering with an AI email writing assistant, pre-built email templates, a mini-CRM, audience segmentation, and opt-in forms and landing pages to build your email list.
The best part? It’s free!
Want to start converting leads into customers, auto-magically? Sign up for The Leap for free now.
Set lead nurturing on autopilot with The Leap’s email features.
Follow The Leap on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube for more creator tool and platform reviews. We also make a newsletter.
Further reading
- 20 Ways To Grow Your Email List
- Why Build an Email List? 5 Reasons Why You Need One
- How To Build an Email List in 6 Easy Steps (+ Free Mini-Course)
- How To Promote Your Digital Products: 10 Ways To Boost Sales
- What Is a Lead Magnet and How To Create One (10 Ideas and Examples)
- How To Create Email Flows and Send Broadcasts With The Leap
