Best Marketing Automation Software in 2025
ActiveCampaign, HubSpot, Brevo, or Klaviyo? Marketing automation means different things for different businesses. Here's how to match the platform to the use case.
Marketing automation is not one thing
"Marketing automation" covers a wide spectrum of functionality: email sequences triggered by behaviour, lead scoring, CRM workflows, multi-channel campaign automation, and full customer journey orchestration. The right platform depends on which part of that spectrum you're trying to address.
ActiveCampaign — Best pure marketing automation
Starting price: $15/month (Starter, 1,000 contacts)
ActiveCampaign is the most powerful marketing automation platform at its price point. The visual automation builder handles complex, multi-step, behaviour-triggered sequences — the kind of sophisticated customer journeys that cost significantly more in enterprise platforms.
Site tracking triggers automations based on what someone does on your website. Predictive sending optimises email delivery times based on individual subscriber behaviour. CRM functionality is included. If marketing automation is your primary tool requirement and you want depth without enterprise pricing, ActiveCampaign is the standard recommendation.
Best for: Businesses serious about email and marketing automation. SaaS, e-learning, coaches, agencies.
HubSpot — Best when automation is one part of a broader stack
Starting price: Free CRM; Marketing Hub Starter from $15/seat/month
HubSpot's automation capabilities are strong and the platform's value is in its integration with everything else — CRM, email, landing pages, reporting, and service tools all share the same database. For marketing and sales teams that want automation as part of an integrated platform rather than a standalone tool, HubSpot's ecosystem is hard to beat.
The automation is less powerful than ActiveCampaign at the same price point, but the breadth of what it connects makes it the better choice for teams that want one platform for marketing and sales.
Klaviyo — Best for e-commerce automation
Starting price: Free for 250 contacts; $20/month for 500
For e-commerce brands, Klaviyo's automation depth is specific and deep in ways general marketing automation platforms aren't. Revenue-triggered flows, product-specific automations, predictive lifetime value segmentation, and purchase behaviour triggers are built into the platform natively.
If you run a Shopify or WooCommerce store and want to automate customer communications based on purchasing behaviour, Klaviyo is the right tool.
Zapier and Make — Best for automation without a single platform
Zapier starting price: Free for 100 tasks/month; from $29.99/month Make starting price: Free for 1,000 operations/month; from $9/month
For businesses that don't want a single marketing platform but want to automate workflows across their existing tools, Zapier and Make are the answers. Zapier connects 7,000+ apps. Make's visual builder handles more complex logic at lower cost.
These aren't marketing automation platforms in the traditional sense — they're workflow automation tools. But for connecting your CRM to your email platform to your Slack channel to your spreadsheets, they're indispensable.
How to choose
Pure marketing automation depth: ActiveCampaign.
Automation as part of an integrated marketing + sales platform: HubSpot.
E-commerce store: Klaviyo.
Small business wanting simple automation: Brevo's automation is good enough at lower cost.
Multi-tool workflow automation: Zapier or Make (not mutually exclusive with the platforms above).