11 Best Drip Campaign Software Compared

Drip campaign software sends a pre-built sequence of emails (and often SMS or push notifications) automatically over time, triggered by a signup, a purchase, or specific user behavior, rather than requiring a marketer to send each message manually. The 11 platforms below span the main ways businesses actually run drip campaigns: ecommerce lifecycle marketing, SaaS product-led onboarding, creator newsletters, CRM-integrated B2B nurturing, and budget-conscious multichannel sending.

Pricing in this category has moved sharply in 2026 for several vendors — a few platforms have restructured their tiers or raised top-end pricing significantly this year — so the figures below are treated as September 2026 reference points rather than fixed facts, with a note wherever a platform's pricing has shifted notably.

What Actually Differentiates These Platforms

Beyond basic "send an email after a signup" functionality, the meaningful differences are: whether triggers are based on simple actions (a form submission) or on richer behavioral/event data (a specific in-app action, a product view, cart abandonment with specific items); whether pricing is based on contacts, active profiles, or email sends, which changes cost dramatically at scale; how deep the visual automation builder goes for conditional branching; and whether the platform is purpose-built for one vertical (ecommerce, SaaS) or general-purpose. The "best" platform for a Shopify store and the "best" platform for a B2B SaaS company with event-based onboarding are rarely the same tool.

Quick Comparison

Several of these platforms — notably Customer.io and GetResponse — have restructured pricing or raised top-tier costs substantially in 2026. Contact-based and profile-based pricing also scales steeply with list size, so the entry price rarely reflects what you'd pay at 10,000+ contacts. Confirm current tiers directly with each vendor before budgeting.

The 11 Platforms, In Detail

1. ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign combines email marketing, marketing automation, and a built-in CRM, making it a common pick for businesses that want sophisticated conditional branching, lead scoring, and multi-channel triggers (including SMS and WhatsApp on higher tiers) without moving to a separate CRM platform. Its automation builder is generally considered one of the more powerful in this list, though that power comes with a steeper learning curve than beginner-focused tools. Based on documented pricing, plans start at $15/month for 1,000 contacts and scale up through $49, $79, and $145/month tiers as contact count and feature needs grow; note that as of a November 2025 policy change, new ActiveCampaign accounts are billed on all stored contacts, including unsubscribed and bounced ones, which is worth factoring into cost estimates for lists with significant inactive segments.

2. Klaviyo

Klaviyo remains the most commonly cited platform for ecommerce brands, particularly on Shopify, with deep product-catalog sync, predictive customer lifetime value scoring, and revenue attribution tied to individual automation flows. It offers a free plan covering core ecommerce features, with paid plans that scale by "active profiles" rather than a flat contact count — based on documented pricing, paid tiers start in the roughly $20–45/month range depending on profile volume, and Klaviyo has moved much of its pricing behind a usage-based slider on its pricing page as of 2026, so costs are worth modeling against your actual list size rather than a single quoted starting figure.

3. Drip

Drip is built specifically for ecommerce personalization, with product-level triggers and behavior-driven segmentation aimed at brands running abandoned-cart flows, post-purchase sequences, and similar revenue-focused automations. Unlike Klaviyo, Drip uses a simpler single-plan pricing structure rather than a module-based system, though it has no free plan. Based on documented pricing, Drip starts at $39/month for up to 2,500 contacts and scales to $89, $449, and roughly $1,199/month at higher contact tiers — a steeper jump between mid and high tiers than several competitors, so it's worth modeling cost at your expected list size before committing.

4. Customer.io

Customer.io stands apart from the ecommerce-focused platforms on this list by targeting product-led SaaS companies that want automation triggered by actual in-product behavior — a specific feature used, a milestone hit, an event fired from a data pipeline — rather than just email opens or purchases. This makes it a strong fit for onboarding sequences and churn-prevention messaging tied to real usage data, though it requires more technical setup (often a Segment integration or direct API/event pipeline) than marketing-team-friendly tools. Customer.io offers a free tier for a limited number of profiles; based on documented pricing, the Essentials plan runs around $100/month, and the company raised its top-tier Premium pricing substantially in February 2026, from roughly $100/month to about $1,000/month — a significant shift worth confirming directly if you're evaluating Customer.io at scale.

5. Omnisend

Omnisend is frequently positioned as the more accessible alternative to Klaviyo for ecommerce stores, bundling email, SMS, and web push notifications into one visual automation builder with pre-built ecommerce workflow templates and a product picker for inserting items directly into emails. It offers a genuine free tier and, based on documented pricing, paid plans starting around $16/month, generally undercutting Klaviyo at comparable list sizes while offering a somewhat smaller automation template library and less sophisticated reporting than Klaviyo's deeper analytics.

6. Mailchimp

Mailchimp has evolved from a simple email tool into a broader marketing automation platform, with AI-assisted audience insights and a customer journey builder that handles drip sequences alongside its long-standing broadcast email features. It's commonly recommended for businesses that want an approachable starting point without a steep learning curve, backed by one of the largest third-party integration ecosystems in this category. Based on documented pricing, Mailchimp offers a free plan for up to 500 contacts, with paid plans starting around $13/month and scaling up through higher tiers as contact count grows.

7. Kit (formerly ConvertKit)

Kit is built specifically for creators, bloggers, and solopreneurs, with an emphasis on clean subscriber tagging, simple logic-based automations, and newsletter-specific features like paid subscriptions — a functional edge over more general-purpose tools for anyone monetizing a newsletter directly. Its free plan is notably generous, covering up to 10,000 subscribers, which is a higher free-tier ceiling than most competitors on this list. Based on documented pricing, paid plans start in roughly the $29–39/month range depending on the specific plan and current pricing structure. Compared to platforms like ActiveCampaign or Klaviyo, Kit intentionally offers fewer advanced automation and testing features, trading depth for simplicity.

8. HubSpot Marketing Hub

HubSpot's Marketing Hub bundles email, forms, landing pages, and drip automation with HubSpot's CRM, so every send reads from and writes back to a live contact record — a meaningful advantage for B2B teams that want marketing and sales activity tied together rather than living in separate systems. It offers a free CRM tier, and based on documented pricing, the Starter plan begins around $20/month, while the Pro tier — needed for more advanced automation and reporting — runs roughly $890/month, often with several thousand dollars in onboarding costs on top. This makes HubSpot a strong fit for growing B2B teams that need the integrated CRM layer, but a costly choice for anyone who only needs standalone drip email.

9. GetResponse

GetResponse bundles drip email automation with landing pages, webinar hosting, and conversion funnel tools, making it a common pick for businesses building out a full acquisition funnel rather than just sending sequential emails. Its pricing structure has grown notably more complex in 2026, with separate Starter, Marketer, and Creator tiers each scaling across multiple contact-count bands. Based on documented pricing, Starter begins at $19/month for 1,000 contacts, with Marketer (unlimited automation workflows) starting around $59/month and Creator (adds webinar hosting) around $69/month at the same contact tier — both climbing steeply at higher contact counts, reaching several hundred dollars a month at 50,000–100,000 contacts.

10. Brevo (formerly Sendinblue)

Brevo differentiates itself by pricing based on email sends rather than contact count, which can make it meaningfully cheaper than contact-based competitors for businesses with large but infrequently-emailed lists. It supports email, SMS, and WhatsApp from a single platform, with a free tier that includes unlimited contacts and a capped number of daily sends. Based on documented pricing, paid plans start around $9/month and scale up through higher-volume tiers; its automation builder is generally considered less visual and polished than ActiveCampaign's, and deliverability has historically been cited as a relative weak point compared to more established competitors, though this has reportedly improved.

11. MailerLite

MailerLite targets newsletter creators and small content businesses specifically, with a clean, simple interface, a built-in landing page builder, and newsletter monetization features like paid subscriptions. Its free plan covers up to 1,000 subscribers and a set number of monthly emails, and based on documented pricing, paid plans start in roughly the $10–18/month range. It trades some of the automation depth found in ActiveCampaign or Klaviyo for a notably gentler learning curve, making it a common recommendation specifically for beginners and small teams rather than businesses running complex, highly branched customer journeys.

How to Choose the Right Platform

This is general guidance based on what each platform is documented to do best, not a strict rule — many businesses outgrow their first choice as list size or automation complexity grows, and switching platforms as needs change is common in this category.

Common Mistakes When Running Drip Campaigns

Choosing a platform based on entry price alone. Contact-based and profile-based pricing scales steeply — a platform that looks cheap at 1,000 contacts can cost several times more at 10,000, so model your expected list size before committing rather than anchoring on the advertised starting price.

Sending the same drip sequence to every audience segment. What counts as an effective sequence length, tone, and cadence depends heavily on the audience and the product — a B2B onboarding sequence for an enterprise buyer looks very different from a post-purchase ecommerce flow for a $20 product, and there's no single universal "correct" drip structure that applies across contexts.

Ignoring inactive or unsubscribed contacts in billing. Several platforms, including ActiveCampaign as of its November 2025 policy change, bill based on total stored contacts rather than only active ones — regularly cleaning unengaged contacts from your list can meaningfully reduce cost on contact-based pricing plans.

Setting up triggers without testing the actual customer journey. A drip sequence that looks correct in the automation builder can still fire incorrectly in practice — testing with real test contacts before launching to your full list catches broken conditional logic before it reaches customers.

Treating drip campaigns as "set and forget." Automation still needs periodic review — open and click rates drift, offers go stale, and triggers that made sense at launch may no longer match current product or pricing, so a completely unattended sequence tends to under-perform one that gets revisited periodically.

Frequently Asked Questions

What's the difference between a drip campaign and a marketing automation platform? 

A drip campaign specifically refers to a scheduled or triggered sequence of messages sent over time. Marketing automation platforms are the broader software category that includes drip campaigns alongside other capabilities — CRM, landing pages, lead scoring — so most of the tools on this list function as both.

Is a free plan ever enough for a real drip campaign? 

Yes, for small lists — Mailchimp, Brevo, Klaviyo, Kit, and Customer.io all offer free tiers that support basic automated sequences, though contact caps, feature restrictions, or branding requirements typically apply until you upgrade.

Which platform is best for a small ecommerce store just getting started? 

Omnisend is commonly recommended as a lower-cost entry point with strong Shopify integration, while Klaviyo tends to be the better fit once a store has enough volume and complexity to benefit from its deeper analytics and predictive features.

Do I need developer help to set up event-based triggers? 

For platforms like Customer.io that trigger on in-product behavior, generally yes — connecting a data pipeline or event source (often via Segment or a direct API integration) typically requires some technical setup, unlike simpler action-based triggers (form submission, email open) that most platforms support without engineering involvement.

How much does drip campaign software typically cost for a small business? 

For lists under a few thousand contacts, most platforms on this list fall in the $0–$50/month range; costs climb from there based on list size, channel mix (adding SMS typically increases cost), and how much automation depth you need.

Can I switch drip campaign platforms without losing my contact list? 

Yes — most platforms support CSV export/import of contact data, though automation workflows, tags, and engagement history generally don't transfer automatically and would need to be rebuilt on the new platform.

Does pricing typically include SMS, or is that a separate cost? 

It varies — Omnisend and Brevo bundle SMS into certain plans, while ActiveCampaign and others charge SMS credits separately on top of the base plan. Confirm whether SMS is included or additional before assuming a quoted price covers multichannel sending.