Email Marketing Automation Software: Which Ones Are Worth Using

What email marketing automation software does

Email marketing automation software sends the right email at the right moment without you pressing send each time. A signup triggers a welcome series. An abandoned cart triggers a reminder. A purchase triggers a follow-up and a review request. A subscriber who goes quiet for 90 days triggers a win-back offer. You build each flow once, and the software runs it for every new subscriber, every day.

How automation actually works

Every automation is three parts: a trigger, a condition, and an action. The trigger is the event that starts the flow, such as a signup, a purchase or a cart abandonment. The condition is the rule that decides what happens next, such as whether the subscriber has bought before, or which product they viewed. The action is the email that goes out, or the tag, wait and branch that follows it. A welcome series is the simplest example: trigger on signup, wait one day, send email one; wait three days, send email two; if the subscriber clicked, tag them as engaged, and if not, send a different third email. More capable tools add branching, scoring and multi-channel steps, but the shape is always trigger, condition, action.

The tools worth using, at each list size

Prices are from each vendor's own pricing page, checked on 14 November 2026. No hands-on testing was done; this guide compares published pricing and documentation, checked on 14 November 2026. Every price rises with list size or send volume, so read the table as a starting point, not a final bill.

Brevo: the cheapest route to real automation

Brevo prices by emails sent rather than contacts stored, which makes it unusually cheap for a business with a large list that emails rarely. The free plan sends 300 emails a day with Brevo branding and caps automations at 2,000 contacts. Starter costs $9 a month for 5,000 emails but includes no automation at all, so a business that needs welcome sequences and behavioural triggers must step up to Standard at $18 a month, which adds automation, A/B testing and landing pages. At 2,500 contacts, Brevo Starter costs $25 a month. Brevo is the pick when the list is large and the budget is small.

MailerLite: automation included from the start

MailerLite includes automations on every plan, including the free one. The free plan covers up to 250 subscribers, 2 user seats and 2,500 monthly emails, with campaigns, automations, a website, a landing page and signup forms. Comfort starts at $12 a month and adds unlimited templates, dynamic emails, multivariate testing and the AI writing assistant. Power starts at $25 a month and adds unlimited user seats, monthly emails and automations. MailerLite prices by subscriber count, and it counts only active subscribers, so unsubscribed and bounced addresses do not add to the bill. It is the pick for a small business that wants automation without paying for a higher tier to get it.

Mailchimp: the familiar starting point

Mailchimp is the tool most small businesses reach for first, and its free plan is usable for testing: up to 250 contacts and 500 sends a month, with basic templates. Essentials starts at $13 a month for 500 contacts and 5,000 sends, with A/B testing and branded templates, but its automation flows are capped at 4 steps. Standard starts at $20 a month at the same contact tier and allows up to 200 flows, plus predictive segmentation, send-time optimisation and AI content tools. Premium starts at $350 a month. Mailchimp charges for every contact in the audience, including unsubscribed and non-subscribed contacts, and the free plan is now small at 250 contacts. It is the pick when you want the most familiar tool and a short learning curve.

ActiveCampaign: the deepest automation builder

ActiveCampaign has the deepest automation builder in this list: multi-step, conditional, behaviour-triggered sequences that most competitors do not match until their top tier, if at all. Starter costs $15 a month billed annually at 1,000 contacts, but caps each automation at five actions, so a welcome series, a nurture flow or an abandoned cart journey quickly runs past the limit. Plus, at $49 a month at 1,000 contacts, removes the cap and adds the CRM, landing pages and predictive sending. There is no free plan, only a 14-day trial. ActiveCampaign is the pick when automation depth is the whole point and you are willing to pay for the Plus tier to get it.

Klaviyo: the ecommerce pick

Klaviyo is built for ecommerce, and it shows: every plan ties directly into Shopify, WooCommerce and similar platforms, with revenue attribution and product-level segmentation built in rather than bolted on. The free plan covers up to 250 active profiles and 500 email sends a month, with $5 of SMS credit and $5 of Composer usage. The paid Email plan starts at $20 a month for up to 500 profiles, rising to about $60 at 2,500 profiles and $150 at 10,000. Klaviyo is the pick for a store that wants to know exactly which email earned which dollar.

A worked example: a welcome series for a 2,500-contact store

A store with 2,500 contacts wants a three-email welcome series, an abandoned cart flow and a post-purchase follow-up. Sending two emails per contact per month means 5,000 emails a month, so Brevo is priced on that volume. Here is what each tool costs a month at that size, and what the automation limits mean in practice.

The cheapest workable option is Brevo Standard at $18 a month for 5,000 emails, or MailerLite Comfort from $12 a month, and the most capable is Klaviyo at $60 with revenue attribution. ActiveCampaign Starter looks cheap at $39 until the five-action cap forces the Plus upgrade, and Mailchimp Essentials looks cheap at $45 until the four-step flow cap does the same. Budget for the tier that holds your longest flow, not the cheapest tier on the page.

Before your first automated send: a deliverability checklist

• ☐ Authenticate your sending domain with SPF, DKIM and DMARC, and check the records resolve
• ☐ Send the first campaign to your most engaged subscribers, not the whole list at once
• ☐ Set up a sunset flow that stops emailing subscribers who have not opened in 90 days
• ☐ Add a one-click unsubscribe link and a preference centre, and honour both fast
• ☐ Check that your welcome email arrives in the inbox, not the promotions tab or spam, on Gmail and Outlook
• ☐ Confirm your list was collected with consent; a bought list will damage your sender reputation and can get the account closed
• ☐ Test every automation end to end with a test subscriber before you turn it on

Common mistakes with email marketing automation

• Buying the cheapest tier, then hitting its automation cap. Brevo Starter has no automation, Mailchimp Essentials caps flows at 4 steps, and ActiveCampaign Starter caps each automation at 5 actions. The cap, not the price, decides which tier you need.
• Automating before you have a list worth automating. A welcome series for 40 subscribers is a distraction. Build the list first, then automate.
• Sending the same flow to everyone. A first-time buyer, a repeat buyer and a subscriber who never bought need different emails. Segmentation is what makes automation pay, and every tool in this list charges more as the list grows, so prune cold subscribers regularly.
• Never checking the numbers. Open rates and click rates are the minimum. Check revenue per email for ecommerce, and check unsubscribes after every new flow. A flow that earns clicks and loses subscribers is a bad flow.
• Forgetting the sunset rule. Continuing to email people who never open hurts deliverability for everyone else. A 90-day sunset flow is not optional.

Email automation terms worth knowing

• Trigger: the event that starts an automation, such as a signup, a purchase or a cart abandonment.
• Drip sequence: a series of emails sent on a schedule after a trigger, such as a three-email welcome series.
• Segmentation: dividing a list into groups by behaviour, purchase history or preferences, so each group gets different emails.
• Sunset flow: an automation that stops emailing subscribers who have not engaged for a set period, usually 90 days.
• Deliverability: the share of sent emails that reach the inbox rather than spam or the promotions tab.
• Double opt-in: asking new subscribers to confirm by email, which keeps bots and typos off the list.

For the wider email picture, see the email marketing funnel and the best mass email service. The best email marketing platforms for newsletters compares the newsletter-first tools, and the email automations for online stores guide walks through store flows in detail. Adziq's email services cover setup and automation for teams that want it done for them.

Common questions

Sources

• Mailchimp pricing
• ActiveCampaign pricing
• Klaviyo pricing
• Brevo pricing
• MailerLite pricing

Adziq sells marketing services and does not accept payment for placement in its articles. See our editorial policy.