Category pricing · Marketing automation and email platforms
Marketing automation pricing — every platform, every contact-tier
Contact-tier ladders dominate the bill, and most teams pick a platform that gets unaffordable at the next ladder step rather than the current one.
22 tools in this category. Every row in the table below links to the full per-tier pricing page for that vendor, with hidden fees, recommended tier by team size, and tier-jump pain spelled out.
About Marketing automation and email platforms
Marketing automation is the SaaS category where the contact-tier ladder is the price, full stop. The per-seat or per-user line is almost noise. HubSpot Marketing Hub, Mailchimp, Klaviyo, ActiveCampaign, and every alternative price primarily on the number of contacts in the database, with per-contact step functions at 500, 1,000, 2,500, 5,000, 10,000, 25,000, 50,000, 100,000. The pages below show the contact-tier ladder for each vendor and the per-tier feature gating — because the real buying decision is not which platform is cheapest at your current contact count but which platform's contact-tier ladder you can afford to climb as your list grows. Many teams end up switching at the 25,000 → 50,000 jump because their initial vendor's price triples there.
22 marketing automation and email platforms compared
Entry-tier price below is the cheapest paid per-seat or per-month tier each vendor publishes. Custom-quote tiers and usage-based add-ons aren't included; click any tool to see the full per-tier breakdown.
Best for
- Marketing teams choosing their first paid email platform
- Ecommerce teams sizing Klaviyo vs Mailchimp at 50,000+ contacts
- B2B teams adding lead scoring + nurture on top of an existing CRM
What to evaluate
- Contact-tier ladder at your current AND next contact count
- Per-send pricing vs unlimited sends on the tier you're buying
- Workflow / automation step gating between tiers
- Deliverability reputation (where applicable)
Frequently asked questions
What does Mailchimp cost at 10,000 contacts?
Mailchimp Standard at 10,000 contacts is 100 USD per month on monthly billing (no annual discount on Standard). Klaviyo Email at 10,000 contacts is 150 USD per month. ActiveCampaign Plus at 10,000 contacts is 285 USD per month. HubSpot Marketing Hub Professional at 10,000 marketing contacts is 800 USD per month. The four platforms are not directly comparable — Mailchimp is sending-only at the bottom tier; HubSpot includes a marketing-grade workflow builder and forms; Klaviyo is event-driven for ecommerce.
When does HubSpot's marketing-contact ladder hit?
HubSpot Marketing Hub's pricing ladder steps every 5,000 marketing contacts beyond the included pool (Professional includes 2,000 marketing contacts; Enterprise includes 10,000). At 25,000 marketing contacts, Professional is roughly 1,090 USD per month base; at 50,000, roughly 1,840 USD per month base; at 100,000, roughly 3,340 USD per month base. Marketing-contact reclassification (changing a contact from marketing to non-marketing) is the most common cost-control lever.
Is Klaviyo or Mailchimp better for ecommerce at 25,000 contacts?
On price at 25,000 contacts, Klaviyo Email is 400 USD per month and Mailchimp Standard is 270 USD per month. On product fit for ecommerce, Klaviyo wins on event-driven flows (cart abandonment, post-purchase, browse abandonment) because its data model is built around store events; Mailchimp wins on price and on multi-store / multi-list flexibility outside ecommerce. The pages below cover both at every contact tier.