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Email marketing software can alter the course of your growth by sending the right message to the right people at the right time – on autopilot.

But with 670+ email marketing tools available, finding the best software can be overwhelming. That’s why we’ve meticulously researched and tested over 100 email marketing platforms for you.

Using a combination of interviews with 1,782 marketers, results from our extensive annual testing of email marketing platforms, and a lot of data crunching, we’ve compiled a list of recommendations to meet a range of needs.

2 Best email marketing automation tools for Small Business in 2023

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Scroll horizontally to compare tools
ActiveCampaign
Enables businesses to create optimized customer experiences.
Website
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Keap
Scalable automation designed for small buisnesses.
Website
Best for
Best for
Best marketing automation software for small to medium-sized businesses
Best for
Best for established small buisnesses
Pricing for 2,500 contacts
Pricing for 2,500 contacts
$49/mo
14 day free trial
Pricing for 2,500 contacts
$153/mo
14 day free trial
Rating
Rating
4.5(588)
Rating
3.5(443)

We’ve uncovered the strengths and weaknesses of these popular email marketing services in 9 key areas: cost, deliverability, integrations, ease of use, reporting, security, advanced features, CRM, and support.

Read on to finally find the optimal tool for your email marketing efforts.

#1 ActiveCampaign

Website

Best marketing automation software for small to medium-sized businesses

With over 150,000 customers, it’s not surprising that ActiveCampaign was the most commonly mentioned tool in our survey of email markering software options for 2023.

ActiveCampaign has earned its reputation as a leading marketing automation tool by focusing on building a world-class product that provides multiple solutions for B2C, B2B, and e-commerce businesses from around the globe.

ActiveCampaign’s automation builder is as simple to use as a flowchart or mindmap

It’s by far the most advanced email marketing platform on our list, with machine learning and predictive tools enabling marketers to work smarter and deliver higher ROI.

Often credited with pioneering visual marketing automation, ActiveCampaign is impressively intuitive and easier to use than some tools on our list.

As an all-in-one marketing tool, ActiveCampaign comes with a built-in CRM system to manage your sales, live chat, and of course, email campaigns.

A built-in sales CRM connects with ActiveCampaign’s powerful automation engine

As an all-in-one marketing tool, ActiveCampaign comes with a built-in CRM system to manage your sales, live chat, and of course, email campaigns.

ActiveCampaign’s Pricing

You might think all these features come at a hefty cost. Yet, starting at only $9 a month, ActiveCampaign is reasonably priced and more affordable than many of the tools on this list.

To find out which plan is right for you, check out our full ActiveCampaign pricing breakdown.

ActiveCampaign’s Pricing

ActiveCampaign’s Pros

  • All-in-one platform

    You can build courses, landing pages, websites, membership sites and manage products directly inside ClickFunnels.

  • Unique triggers and actions

    As a bi-product of it’s all-in-one platform, ClickFunnels has unique triggers and actions in their automation workflows, like auto-enrolling people into courses or upselling products.

  • Community

    ClickFunnels have an active user community (online and offline) with more than 100k customers throughout the year. There is also a wide network of ClickFunnels consultants available for managed campaigns.

  • Automation split testing

    This feature enables you to A/B test entire sequences against each other, rather than just test individual emails (which is offered by most marketing automation tools).

ActiveCampaign’s Pros

  • CRM

    ActiveCampaign’s marketing automation is particularly powerful because ActiveCampaign has an in-built CRM system. This CRM, however, is not as good as standalone platforms like PipeDrive or Salesforce – though we feel this is a reasonable trade-off for ActiveCampaign’s automation features.

ActiveCampaign Verdict

If you’re looking for a market-leading email marketing solution, there’s no denying that ActiveCampaign has long occupied that position.

Try ActiveCampaign today with a 14-day free trial — no credit card required.

ActiveCampaign
Website

#2 Keap

Website

Best for established small buisnesses

Keap is best suited to small businesses that already have a strong customer base and a turn over above $100,000.

Our favourite aspect of Keap is the campaign builder. Unlike other automation tools, building sequences in Keap are intuitive and almost addictive.

Keap's Pricing

Keap has generous pricing for its feature set, and with their simple pricing structure, it won't spiral out of control as you scale.

To find out which plan is right for you, check out our full Keap pricing breakdown.

Keap's Pricing

Keap's Pros

  • User interface

    Keap has one of the best-designed user interfaces in the marketing automation industry. Their visual campaign builder makes crafting even the most complex of nurturing sequences both fun and intuitive.

  • Great integration & API

    Thanks to a combination of over 300+ apps in the Keap Marketplace, their API, and their Zapier integration, you can connect Keap to hundreds of third-party tools.

  • Great support & training

    Keap receives a lot of praise for the quality of their customer service.

  • Scalability

    Keap uses universal tracking, which makes it easy to keep track of a contact’s behaviour across multiple marketing channels.

  • Built-in shopping cart / eCommerce

    Keap are one of the only marketing automation tools that offer order forms, payment processing, fulfilment, and inventory tracking directly within the tool.

Keap's Cons

  • Kickstart fee

    Keap charge a one-off mandatory kickstart fee of $1999. While it’s useful to have an Keap consultant help you setup your first few campaigns, this initial fee puts some customers off.

  • No native integrations

    Keap doesn’t have any native integrations with third-party tools. While they do have a marketplace with over 300 apps and extensions, many of these require an additional ongoing cost.

  • Deliverability rates

    While Keap claims to have deliverability rates above 98%, we have seen several user tests showing that Keap’s deliverability isn’t as good as some other tools. On top of this, some tools allow you to setup dedicated IP addresses for sending emails, which is not a function offered by Keap.

Keap Verdict

Keap is best suited to small businesses that already have a strong customer base and a turn over above $100,000. Think of it as invaluable addition to your marketing team.

Keap
Website