The short answer
HubSpot Marketing Hub is the best platform for most B2B teams, starting at $20 a seat a month (list rate), with free CRM underneath. ActiveCampaign is the cheapest option at $15 a month billed annually for 1,000 contacts. Marketo and Pardot suit large teams with long sales cycles, and both are priced on request or from $1,250 a month.
Key takeaways
- HubSpot Marketing Hub Starter costs $20 a seat a month (list rate); new customers may see $7 a seat a month billed annually.
- ActiveCampaign Starter costs $15 a month billed annually for 1,000 contacts, or $19 a month billed monthly.
- Zoho Marketing Plus starts at $25 a month billed annually, or $30 a month billed monthly.
- Pardot Growth costs $1,250 a month billed annually for 10,000 contacts.
- Marketo Engage, Demandbase, and 6sense publish no prices; all three are priced on request.
Which B2B marketing platform fits your situation
- Small team, first automation platform: ActiveCampaign Starter at $15 a month billed annually for 1,000 contacts.
- CRM and marketing in one place: HubSpot Marketing Hub Starter at $20 a seat a month (list rate).
- Flat price, email plus social plus webinars: Zoho Marketing Plus at $25 a month billed annually.
- Already on Salesforce CRM: Pardot Growth at $1,250 a month billed annually for 10,000 contacts.
- Enterprise demand generation: Marketo Engage, priced on request.
- Selling to a named list of accounts: Demandbase, priced on request.
- Prioritizing accounts by buying intent: 6sense, priced on request.
1. HubSpot Marketing Hub: best for B2B teams that want CRM plus marketing in one
HubSpot Marketing Hub is a marketing automation platform built on HubSpot's free CRM, covering email, landing pages, forms, live chat, ad management, and SEO recommendations in one account. Starter costs $20 a seat a month at list rate (new customers may see $7 a seat a month billed annually or $10 billed monthly), and includes 1,000 marketing contacts, with extra contact blocks from $50 a month per 1,000 contacts. Professional costs $890 a month and includes 2,000 contacts and three core seats, plus a $3,000 one-time onboarding fee. Enterprise costs $3,600 a month.
HubSpot fits a B2B team that is tired of syncing a CRM with a separate email tool. Because marketing and sales share one contact record, a lead score, a form fill, and a deal stage all live in the same place, and the free tier is genuinely usable for a small team. The weakness is the jump between tiers. Starter caps automations at 10 actions and has no A/B testing or lead scoring, and the step to Professional is $890 a month plus onboarding, which is a large leap for a growing team.
Skip HubSpot if you need multi-step automation under $890 a month. ActiveCampaign Plus at $49 a month billed annually does branching automation for far less.
2. ActiveCampaign: best for automation depth on a small budget
ActiveCampaign is a marketing automation platform with email, CRM, landing pages, and messaging, priced by contact count. Starter costs $15 a month billed annually for 1,000 contacts, or $19 a month billed monthly, and includes one user and 10,000 sends a month. Plus costs $49 a month billed annually and adds landing pages, predictive sending, and unlimited automation. Pro costs $79 a month billed annually, and Enterprise costs $145 a month billed annually. There is no free plan, but a 14-day trial needs no credit card.
ActiveCampaign fits a small B2B team that wants real automation without an enterprise price. The visual automation builder is the strongest at this price, and the built-in CRM means a deal pipeline comes with every plan. The weakness is the Starter cap: each automation is limited to five actions, so a welcome series with a delay, a condition, and two emails already hits the limit. Most teams that buy for automation end up on Plus at $49 a month.
Skip ActiveCampaign if you need branching automation under $49 a month. Zoho Marketing Plus at $25 a month billed annually is cheaper, though its automation is simpler.
3. Marketo Engage: best for enterprise demand generation at scale
Marketo Engage is Adobe's B2B marketing automation platform for lead management, nurture programs, account-based marketing, and attribution. Adobe publishes no prices: the four packages, Growth, Select, Prime, and Ultimate, are all sold through custom annual quotes based mainly on database size. Growth includes 10 users and 20,000 daily API calls, while Select, Prime, and Ultimate include 25 marketing users and 50,000 daily API calls. There is no free plan and no self-serve trial; evaluation happens through guided demos.
Marketo fits a large demand-generation team running complex nurture programs across many segments. The platform handles large databases, workspaces, partitions, and sandboxes, and the higher packages add AI personalization, journey analytics, and Marketo Measure attribution. The weakness is the buying process. With no published price, no trial, and annual contracts priced by quote, Marketo is a poor fit for any team that wants to start small and grow.
Skip Marketo if you need a published price or a self-serve trial. HubSpot Professional or ActiveCampaign Pro covers the same core jobs for less.
4. Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement: best for B2B teams already on Salesforce CRM
Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement, still widely known as Pardot, is a B2B marketing automation platform built natively on Salesforce. Growth costs $1,250 a month billed annually for up to 10,000 contacts, Plus costs $2,500 a month, Advanced costs $4,000 a month, and Premium is higher. The editions are sold on annual contracts, and a Salesforce Sales Cloud licence is needed for full value, at $75 to $300 or more per user a month on top.
Pardot fits a B2B team that already runs on Salesforce CRM. Lead scoring, grading, Engagement Studio journeys, and form capture all sync directly with Sales Cloud, so sales sees the same lead data marketing sees, with no integration to maintain. The weakness is the total cost. The $1,250-a-month Growth price is only the start: CRM licences, implementation, and the $3,000-a-month B2B Marketing Analytics Plus add-on can push the first year past $50,000.
Skip Pardot if your budget is under $1,250 a month. HubSpot gives a similar CRM-plus-marketing setup from $20 a seat a month (list rate).
5. Demandbase: best for account-based marketing to named accounts
Demandbase is an account-based marketing platform that turns buying signals into pipeline, covering advertising, sales intelligence, and account engagement for B2B teams. Pricing is on request, and the company sells through demos and custom quotes. There is no free plan and no published starting price.
Demandbase fits a B2B team that sells to a defined list of target accounts rather than a broad market. The platform scores accounts by engagement and intent, coordinates ads and sales outreach around the same accounts, and measures pipeline by account instead of by lead. The weakness is the fit. If your buyers are individuals or small businesses rather than named accounts, the account-based model adds complexity without the payoff, and the quote-only pricing makes it hard to compare against HubSpot or Marketo.
Skip Demandbase if you sell to individuals, not named accounts. HubSpot or ActiveCampaign is the better shape for a lead-based funnel.
6. 6sense: best for buyer intent data and account prioritization
6sense is a revenue platform that uses buyer intent data to show which accounts are researching your category, so sales can prioritize the accounts most likely to buy. Pricing is on request, and the company sells through demos and custom quotes. There is no free plan and no published starting price.
6sense fits a B2B team with a large addressable market and a sales team that needs to know where to focus. The intent data reveals accounts that are in a buying cycle before they fill in a form, which changes how a team plans outreach and advertising. The weakness is the same as Demandbase: quote-only pricing, and a model that only pays off when the account list is large enough and the sales cycle is long enough to justify it.
Skip 6sense if you need a published price before you commit. HubSpot Professional includes lead scoring and basic intent signals from $890 a month.
7. Zoho Marketing Plus: best for small B2B teams on a flat monthly price
Zoho Marketing Plus is an all-in-one marketing suite covering email, social media, marketing automation, surveys, webinars, events, and website analytics. It starts at $25 a month billed annually, or $30 a month billed monthly, for one marketer, 1,000 contacts, 10,000 visitors, and 25 webinar attendees. Extra marketers cost $10 a month each on annual billing. A 15-day free trial needs no credit card, and there is no free plan.
Zoho Marketing Plus fits a small B2B team that wants one flat price for the whole marketing toolkit. At $25 a month billed annually it is the cheapest all-in-one on this list after ActiveCampaign Starter, and it includes webinars and surveys that cost extra elsewhere. The weakness is depth. The automation, lead scoring, and attribution are simpler than HubSpot's or ActiveCampaign's, so a team that outgrows the basics will need to move.
Skip Zoho Marketing Plus if you need advanced lead scoring and attribution. ActiveCampaign Plus at $49 a month billed annually is the next step up.
How we chose
The test for this list was whether a platform covers the B2B buying cycle: capturing leads, nurturing them over weeks or months, scoring them, and handing them to sales with context. Each pick had to serve business buyers rather than consumers. Prices and limits come from each vendor's pricing page, checked on 14 November 2026. No hands-on testing was done, so this post compares published pricing and documentation, checked on 14 November 2026. Where a vendor's page did not show a price in the text fetched, the figure is noted as unverified in the price log.
What 10,000 contacts cost in a year
| Platform | Plan | Yearly cost | What the money buys |
|---|---|---|---|
| ActiveCampaign | Starter | $180 a year billed annually | Email and basic automation, 1 user |
| Zoho Marketing Plus | Standard | $300 a year billed annually | Email, social, webinars, automation |
| HubSpot | Starter, 1 seat | $240 a year at list rate | CRM, email, landing pages, 1,000 contacts |
| HubSpot | Professional | $10,680 a year, plus $3,000 onboarding | Automation, lead scoring, 2,000 contacts |
| Pardot | Growth | $15,000 a year billed annually | B2B automation, 10,000 contacts |
| Pardot | Plus | $30,000 a year billed annually | Dynamic content, A/B testing, API access |
| Marketo | Growth | Pricing on request | Enterprise automation, 10 users |
| Demandbase | Custom | Pricing on request | Account-based marketing platform |
| 6sense | Custom | Pricing on request | Intent data and account prioritization |
The spread is the story. At 10,000 contacts, ActiveCampaign Starter costs $180 a year and Pardot Growth costs $15,000 a year, and both send email and score leads. The difference is the CRM integration, the scale of the database, and the enterprise features around the edges. A team should only pay the Pardot price if it already runs on Salesforce and needs that native connection.
Mistakes to avoid when choosing a B2B marketing platform
- Buying for the demo, not the database. The bill follows contact count on ActiveCampaign and Pardot, and seat count on HubSpot. Model your contact list in 12 months, not today, before you sign.
- Ignoring the onboarding fee. HubSpot Professional adds a $3,000 one-time onboarding fee, and Pardot implementations commonly cost $5,000 to $25,000. Add that to the first-year total before comparing.
- Choosing a platform your sales team will not open. A marketing platform that sales ignores is a reporting tool, not a revenue tool. If sales lives in Salesforce, Pardot wins; if sales lives in HubSpot, HubSpot wins.
- Paying for account-based marketing without named accounts. Demandbase and 6sense only work when you can list your target accounts. Without that list, the cheaper lead-based tools do the same job.
For more on the pieces around these platforms, see the best B2B lead generation company and the best lead generation software. The questions to ask a marketing agency guide helps if you decide to outsource instead, and Adziq's email services and content services cover the execution side for teams that want help.
Platforms for B2B Marketing Compared at a glance
| Pick | Best for | Starting price | Free plan |
|---|---|---|---|
| HubSpot Marketing Hub | B2B teams that want CRM plus marketing in one | From $20 a seat a month (list rate); new customers may see $7 billed annually or $10 billed monthly | Yes, free CRM and marketing tools |
| ActiveCampaign | Automation depth on a small budget | From $15 a month billed annually ($19 a month billed monthly) for 1,000 contacts | No, 14-day free trial |
| Marketo Engage | Enterprise demand generation at scale | Pricing on request | No |
| Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement | B2B teams already on Salesforce CRM | From $1,250 a month billed annually (Growth, 10,000 contacts) | No |
| Demandbase | Account-based marketing to named accounts | Pricing on request | No |
| 6sense | Buyer intent data and account prioritization | Pricing on request | No |
| Zoho Marketing Plus | Small B2B teams on a flat monthly price | From $25 a month billed annually ($30 a month billed monthly) | No, 15-day free trial |
Common questions
What is the best platform for B2B marketing?
HubSpot Marketing Hub, for most teams. Starter costs $20 a seat a month (list rate) and sits on top of a free CRM, so sales and marketing share one database. ActiveCampaign is cheaper at $15 a month billed annually, but it caps Starter automations at five actions.
How much does Marketo Engage cost?
Adobe publishes no price for Marketo Engage. The four packages, Growth, Select, Prime, and Ultimate, are all sold through custom annual quotes based mainly on database size. Growth includes 10 users and 20,000 daily API calls; the other three include 25 users and 50,000 daily API calls.
How much does Pardot cost?
Pardot, now called Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement, starts at $1,250 a month billed annually for the Growth edition at 10,000 contacts. Plus costs $2,500 a month, Advanced costs $4,000 a month, and Premium is higher. A Salesforce CRM licence is also needed for full value.
Is HubSpot free for B2B marketing?
The free tier includes a CRM, forms, and basic email with HubSpot branding, for up to two users and 2,000 email sends a month. Paid Starter costs $20 a seat a month (list rate) and removes branding, adds landing pages, and raises the send limit to five times your marketing contact tier.
What is the cheapest B2B marketing platform on this list?
ActiveCampaign Starter at $15 a month billed annually for 1,000 contacts. Zoho Marketing Plus is next at $25 a month billed annually. Both are far cheaper than Pardot at $1,250 a month or HubSpot Professional at $890 a month.
Sources
- HubSpot Marketing Hub pricing
- ActiveCampaign pricing
- Adobe Marketo Engage
- Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement pricing
- Demandbase pricing
- 6sense
- Zoho Marketing Plus pricing
Adziq sells marketing services and does not accept payment for placement in its articles. See our editorial policy.