Top Email Automation Software: Find the Best Choice for Your Business

Estimated reading time: 16 minutes

Businesses can hardly do without automation in today’s competitive market, as it is not only useful but essential. If you rely on manual email marketing, you are losing time, missing opportunities, and falling behind competitors who automate their workflow.

Email automation software allows you to send personalized, behavior-based campaigns at scale, without spending hours crafting and managing every message. These tools work by triggering emails based on predefined customer actions, making your outreach more relevant and timely.

Unlike traditional marketing emails sent on a fixed schedule or through basic drip campaigns, automated emails are triggered by real user behavior, like signing up, clicking a link, or abandoning a cart, giving your communication a personal touch without the manual effort from your team.

In this guide, we’ll walk you through the top email marketing automation platforms available today and help you choose the best one that fits your business’s needs.

Best Email Marketing Automation Software

No-code automation tools are designed for marketing teams looking to achieve more with less effort and speed. But these tools vary, as some can get costly with a large subscriber base, which makes unlimited-contact email service providers particularly attractive for e-commerce businesses.

In contrast, agencies with fewer high-value clients typically have smaller contact lists and tend to favor email service providers that limit the number of emails sent rather than the size of the list.

If you’re just starting with automation, this is where to begin. In our analysis, you’ll find the best email marketing automation tools that align with your goals:

ActiveCampaign

If you’re serious about running targeted, personalized campaigns to your contacts, it’s hard to pass by ActiveCampaign. It’s one of the most powerful automation-first platforms, built for behavior-based email flows, CRM, segmentation, transactional emails, and advanced personalization.

Key features:

• Creation of intelligence-driven automated email follow-up
• Community building with timely newsletters
• Abandoned cart emails for winning more sales
• Reactions to contact behavior in real-time
• Gathering data to create profiles of your list
• Qualifying and distributing leads automatically
• Engaging with the audience with autoresponders triggered at a particular time.
• Fostering trust with transactional emails
• Keeping customers informed with prompt confirmations at each step of their purchase.
• Increasing blog traffic with RSS emails

Pricing: Starter plan for $15/month includes multi-step marketing automation with up to 5 actions per flow and up to 1000 recipients.

Free plan: 14-day free trial.

GetResponse

GetResponse is a comprehensive email marketing platform that allows you to build and manage mailing lists, design newsletters, and automate email campaigns using behavior-based autoresponders. It includes built-in analytics for tracking open rates, click-throughs, and forwards, helping you understand and improve your email performance.

Beyond email, GetResponse offers tools for creating landing pages, hosting webinars, building automated sales funnels, and managing contacts with basic CRM functionality. It’s designed to support a wide range of marketing tasks from a single platform.

Key features:

• Create automation events based on users’ behavior
• Set the rules that automate your marketing
• Connect with your audience utilizing the data stored in your account
• An unlimited number of tags for better profiling
• Take action based on selected conditions
• Use filters for even more precise targeting
• Use prebuilt, powerful automation templates.
• Abandoned cart emails
• Online store and CRM data synchronization
• Populate your product inventory
• Connect your payment processors

Pricing: The Sender plan for $9/month offers unlimited autoresponders, an AI email generator, and a custom automation workflow.

Free plan: 30-day free trial.

Brevo

Brevo offers email marketing automation tools to save your time and money. This simple no-code tool allows you to personalize customer journeys, scale your marketing efforts, and get better ROI insights. With Brevo, you can start relationships with new contacts on the right foot, automating welcome messages and introducing your brand, and then keep them engaged with new product updates, anniversary emails, and more. What sets Brevo apart is its flexibility — you can build multi-channel workflows that include email, SMS, and WhatsApp, all from one place, making it easy to meet your audience where they are.

Key features:

• Premade automation templates or a drag-and-drop editor to craft your own
• Automated messages from the welcome series to abandoned cart emails
• Cross-channel campaigns creation in one tool
• Set up smart triggers with Brevo’s workflow editor.
• Send converting messages across channels, from email to SMS.
• Create your own automation, triggering actions on various apps across the platform and beyond with integrations.

Pricing: Starter plan for $8.08/month allows to send from 5,000 emails/month without a daily limit and Brevo logo, core API features, automation workflow editor, and marketing automation up to 2,000 contacts.

Free plan: Free plan with 300 emails/day, transactional emails (API, SMTP, Webhooks), and customizable templates.

Omnisend

Omnisend is built with e-commerce in mind. It’s ideal for online stores that want to drive sales through personalized, automated campaigns. The platform comes loaded with ecommerce-specific workflows and lets you combine multiple channels like email, SMS, and push notifications into a single automation. You also get fun features like gift boxes and scratch cards to boost engagement. It’s fast to set up and integrates smoothly with platforms like Shopify and WooCommerce.

Key features:

• Ready-to-use automations for e-commerce (cart recovery, browse abandonment, order confirmation)
• Drag-and-drop builder for cross-channel workflows (email, SMS, push)
• Segmentation based on shopping behavior and purchase history
• A/B testing and automation splits
• Unique engagement tools: scratch cards, gift boxes, etc.
• Syncs with Google and Facebook Ads
• 160+ integrations with e-commerce platforms and tools

Pricing: Standard plan for $11.20/month allows sending 6,000 emails/month up to 500 contacts, 160+ integrations for better data sync, sales & performance reports, email list cleaning tool, pre-built workflows and segments, A/B testing & automation splits.

Free plan: Free plan with 500 emails/month, email, push, and SMS automation, and pre-built ecommerce workflows.

Klaviyo

Klaviyo positions itself as an intelligent omnichannel marketing solution that merges AI, data, and various channels. It’s a popular choice among e-commerce brands, as it gives serious power to personalize every step of the customer journey, using data directly sourced from your store. If you’re on Shopify, WooCommerce, or BigCommerce, you’ll love how effortlessly Klaviyo syncs product, order, and customer data.

The platform makes it easy to trigger emails based on browsing behavior, purchases, or even predicted next orders. It may seem complex at first, but if you’re focused on growth and repeat sales, Klaviyo makes your email automation smart and scalable.

Key features:

• Powerful automation flows triggered by browsing, purchasing, or inactivity
• Pre-built ecommerce templates: cart abandonment, win-back, welcome series, etc.
• Drag-and-drop editor and over 160 customizable templates
• Pre-built customer data platform
• Deep data syncing with major e-commerce platforms
• Performance tracking and results sharing with intuitive reporting at your fingertips
• Predictive analytics for churn, expected purchase value, and next order date
• Dynamic product blocks, personalized coupons, and segmentation
• SMS marketing and push notifications
• 350+ integrations and APIs

Pricing: Paid plans start at $45/month for 15,000 emails monthly, customer profiles with all-time data, a removed Klaviyo logo from emails, and a generative AI feature for fast content creation.

Free plan: Free for up to 250 contacts and 500 monthly email sends, built-in reporting dashboards, email support for the first 60 days, and 150 monthly SMS/MMS credits.

Zoho Campaigns

Zoho Campaigns is a solid choice if you’re already using Zoho CRM or one of its other apps. It’s friendly to beginners but powerful enough for layered email automation and workflows. Easy integration with Zoho CRM and other tools means your contact data stays in sync with no manual CSV operations.

Key features:

• Drag-and-drop editor to dynamically change email content
• Custom-made and pre-defined workflows with triggers like opens, clicks, or form submissions
• Campaign performance tracking with intuitive reports
• Advanced segmentation by demography, geography, and behavior
• Interactive elements (polls, surveys, GIFs, images, videos, attachments, and reply tracking)
• Email journey setups for cart abandonment, welcome series, and time-zone sends
• Built-in signup forms and templates
• Zoho ecosystem integration of a suite of business applications (CRM, Forms, etc.)
• A/B testing

Pricing: Standard plan starts at $4/month for 10 users, up to 6,000 emails/month to 2,000 contacts, basic segmentation, and access to all ready-to-use email templates. Professional plan starts at $6/month with unlimited emails, 20 users, and full automation capabilities.

Free plan: Forever free plan allows you to send up to 6,000 emails/month to 2,000 contacts, 5 users, limited ready-to-use email templates, and a compliance check.

Drip

Drip is built for e-commerce marketers who want flexible yet intuitive automation. It puts your store data front and center and makes it easy to build pipelines that trigger based on real shopping behavior with a free trial option and no coding required.

Key features:

• Visual workflow builder with point‑and‑click triggers for email, onsite, and social
• 20+ prebuilt customizable workflow templates to match your brand
• 50+ professionally designed email templates
• Shopify Plus, WooCommerce, Stripe, BigCommerce, and other integrations
• Deep behavior-based customer segmentation and personalization
• Social retargeting sync for Facebook/Instagram audiences
• Supports up to 50 active workflows per account
• Smart A/B testing

Pricing: $39 for up to 2,500 contacts, unlimited email sends, dynamic segments, open API access, and up to 50 workflows.

Free plan: Free 14-day trial with limited emails and no credit card required.

MailerLite

MailerLite is for those who want simple, advanced automation and landing pages without coding skills. It has a clean interface, transparent pricing, and expert support. If you are looking for a straightforward email marketing tool with enough features to run automated email series, tagging, and basic segmentation, this software is right for you.

Key features:

• Flexible drag-and-drop automation builder with triggers, delays, and condition splits
• Unlimited automation workflows
• Up to 3 triggers for each automation
• Over 70 content blocks for landing pages (surveys, image carousels, countdown timers)
• Landing page and pop-up creation baked in
• Campaign auto-resend
• Tagging, segmentation, and campaign performance tracking
• Dynamic emails
• AI writing assistant
• Friendly UI with minimal learning curve
• Partner discounts

Pricing: Paid plans start at $10/month for up to 500 subscribers, unlimited monthly emails, 3 user seats, and unlimited websites & blogs.

Free plan: Free for up to 1,000 subscribers, 12,000 emails a month, 1 user seat, 10 landing pages, and basic automation.

Freshworks

Freshworks’ marketing automation tools combine email workflows with a full CRM, chat, and AI-powered features. Known as Freshmarketer (part of the Freshworks suite), it’s for teams that need both sales engagement and marketing automation under one roof.

Key features:

• Email campaign builder
• Predictive & behavioral segmentation
• Multichannel engagement with customers from a single platform
• Real-time customer journey workflows with automated emails, SMS, and WhatsApp
• AI for send-time optimization, contact scoring, and conversation assistance
• Built-in CRM, live chat, landing pages, and social campaigns
• Integration with 1000+ apps

Pricing: Enterprise plan costs $18/monthly for 500 marketing contacts, up to 20x email sends, drag and drop email builder, templates, personalization, dynamic content, 50 subscription types, transactional emails, timezone-based delivery, and 25 custom domains.

Free plan: Free plan allows up to 100 contacts and up to 2x email sends. You also get templates, personalization, dynamic content, 1 custom domain, and 4 subscription types.

Benchmark

Benchmark keeps things light and simple, ideal for small teams that want to launch clean automations without getting overwhelmed. The drag-and-drop builder and AI tools let you design campaigns fast, and you can trigger basic sequences like welcome or birthday emails without fuss.

Key features:

• Easy visual builder with step-by-step help
• Standard drip automations: welcome, follow-up, birthday, re-engagement
• Email engagement automations
• A/B testing
• Pre-designed email templates library
• Pre-built customer journeys
• Smart Content AI-generated design and copy feature
• Segmentation, list-building tools, forms, and polls
• Website tracking

Pricing: Pro plan starts at $13/month for up to 500 contacts, 7,500 emails/month, and includes automation, landing pages, advanced segmentation, and A/B testing.

Free plan: Free with up to 500 contacts and 3,500 emails/month, and core editing and reporting tools included.

Mailchimp

Mailchimp is a well-known name for a reason: it’s accessible for beginners, but full of trigger options and templates for advanced users. It covers everything from abandoned cart sequences to post-purchase journeys in a friendly interface.

Key features:

• Canvas-style automation builder with multi-step workflows
• Behavior-based triggers for welcomes, product recommendations, birthdays, etc.
• Wide template library and flexible design tools
• Basic CRM, audience segmentation, and reporting
• 300+ integrations
• Omnichannel campaigns across SMS, email, social, and more
• Advanced AI assistant
• 130+ pre-built email templates
• Analytics platform to track performance

Pricing: Essentials plan is $13/month per 500 marketing contacts, up to 4 flow steps of marketing automation, 3 user seats, Mailchimp branding removal, and limited reporting and analytics.

Free plan: Free tier allows up to 500 contacts, 1000 monthly email sends, basic segmentation, web tracking, forms, live chat, and no marketing automation flows.

Constant Contact

Constant Contact is a long-standing player in the email marketing space, and its automation features make it a solid choice for small businesses, nonprofits, and beginners who want to keep things simple without losing effectiveness. What sets Constant Contact apart is its easy-to-use interface and event-driven automation that’s built right into a broader suite of marketing tools like SMS, surveys, and social posting. If you want a straightforward way to automate without overcomplicating things, it’s worth a try.

Key features:

• Triggered emails based on sign-ups, clicks, purchases, and other user actions
• Welcome emails, abandoned cart reminders, and post-purchase follow-ups
• Contact segmentation for personalized automation
• Pre-built automation templates to get started fast
• Drip campaigns with timed follow-up sequences
• Real-time reporting and engagement tracking
• Landing pages, SMS, and social tools in one platform
• 300 integrations

Pricing: Lite plan starts at $12/month for up to 500 contacts, includes 1 pre-built automation workflow, drag-and-drop email editor, real-time reporting, and marketing calendar.

Free plan: You can take advantage of a 14-day free trial that offers access to key automation features.

Automate Your Deliverability Testing with GlockApps

In this article, we’ve analyzed the main automatic email delivery software, their key features, and how they help marketers send timely, behavior-triggered emails without manual effort. But it’s worth remembering that all these emails are targeted to land in the recipient’s inbox, or they simply lose their impact.

To understand where your emails land, it’s essential to run regular deliverability tests. At this stage, automation is your best friend again. With GlockApps Inbox Insight, you can create Automatic Tests that run on autopilot. Choose daily or at any other interval, so you always know if your campaigns are reaching their destination.

Once set up, GlockApps sends your message to a seed list of real inboxes and shows you exactly where it lands: Inbox, Spam, or Promotions. You can track performance over time, compare multiple sending accounts or messages, and receive alerts if your deliverability drops. It’s especially useful for transactional emails like purchase confirmations or sign-up notices, where deliverability is critical and content rarely changes.

Key features:

• Fully automated testing of your emails with no manual sending needed
• Track Inbox, Spam, and missing placement across major providers
• Compare different campaigns or sender accounts at the same time
• Get notified if a message gets flagged or your Inbox rate drops
• Visual 30-day history to quickly spot trends or issues
• Easy setup with Gmail, Outlook, or custom SMTP integrations

Set it once, and GlockApps keeps testing in the background and sending alerts when metrics turn risky, so you can focus on improving your email marketing results based on test results.

Closing Thoughts

If you want to stay competitive, improve your marketing, automate your outreach, and keep your messaging relevant, email automation software provides the way to do it. Without it, you’re simply not keeping up with the market.

Start by defining what matters most to your business: contact size, monthly volume, complexity of automation flows, integrations, and budget. Try out a few tools with free plans, test them with your real-world workflows, and see what suits you more.

The right platform will save you time, drive more revenue, and keep your brand consistent at every step of the customer journey. And once your automations are running, don’t forget to set up Automatic Tests to catch deliverability problems and fix them early without revenue loss.

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