Marketing Automation

For transactional email and providers see Email. For surveys / NPS / feedback boards see Surveys & Feedback. For full CRM / pipelines see CRM. For analytics see Analytics.

Full marketing-automation platforms

• ★ Mautic — open source, GPLv3; the dominant OSS marketing automation platform. Email campaigns, landing pages, forms, lead scoring, multi-step journeys, CRM sync. Default OSS pick.
• ★ HubSpot Marketing Hub Free — bundled with HubSpot CRM Free; the most usable free hosted alternative for full-funnel marketing.
• Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) — free tier (300 emails / day, no contacts cap); SMTP + automation + landing pages.
• EngageBay Free — small free tier; bundled CRM + marketing.
• Listmonk — see Newsletters below; pure newsletter, not full automation.

Paid SaaS incumbents

• HubSpot Marketing Hub Pro / Enterprise — paid up-tiers.
• Marketo Engage (Adobe) — enterprise.
• Pardot / Account Engagement (Salesforce) — enterprise B2B.
• ActiveCampaign — mid-market favorite.
• Customer.io — lifecycle email; great DX; paid.
• Klaviyo — ecommerce-focused; paid; small free tier.
• Drip — ecommerce; paid.
• Iterable — enterprise lifecycle.
• Braze — enterprise customer engagement.

Newsletter-only / self-host

• ★ Listmonk — open source, AGPLv3; high-volume newsletter / campaign sender. Pairs with SES / SMTP / Postal. The default OSS newsletter pick.
• Postal — open source SMTP / mail-sending server; AGPLv3.
• Sendy — paid one-time license; sits on top of Amazon SES; popular indie pick.
• PHPList — old-school OSS newsletter; GPLv3.
• Newsletter (WP plugin), MailPoet — for WordPress sites.
• Buttondown — paid; small newsletters; great UX.
• Beehiiv, Substack, Ghost Newsletters, ConvertKit / Kit — paid; creator-flavored.
• Loops — modern; transactional + lifecycle; small free tier.

Social scheduling

• ★ Postiz — open source, AGPLv3; modern social-media scheduler (X, LinkedIn, Threads, Instagram, FB, YouTube, TikTok, etc.). The default OSS pick in 2026.
• Mixpost — open source / paid; competitor to Postiz.
• Plann — small free tier.
• Buffer Free — 3 channels free; widely used.
• Hootsuite — paid (free tier removed).
• Later — Instagram-flavored; paid.
• Sprout Social, Sprinklr, Hootsuite Enterprise — enterprise.
• Typefully — Twitter / X focused.

Landing pages / forms

• ★ Mautic has built-in landing pages.
• Unbounce, Instapage, Leadpages — paid.
• Carrd, Tally (Surveys) — cheap / free for simple pages.
• Framer, Webflow — for richer marketing sites.

SMS / WhatsApp / push

• Twilio — incumbent SMS API.
• MessageBird / Bird — SMS + WhatsApp.
• Vonage, Plivo, Sinch — alternatives.
• OneSignal — push notifications; small free tier; see Notifications.
• Knock, Courier — multi-channel notification orchestration.

Lifecycle / behavioral email

• ★ Customer.io — incumbent; paid.
• Loops — modern; small free tier; transactional + lifecycle.
• Encharge, Vero, Userlist — alternatives.
• PostHog — has surveys + flows + lifecycle email; bundled. See Analytics.

Patterns to know

• Don't buy a $500/mo marketing automation tool until you have something to automate. A list of 200 people in Brevo + 4 manual sends a month is fine for a year.
• Double opt-in by default — protects deliverability and keeps you compliant with GDPR / CASL.
• Warm new sending domains slowly — see Email.
• Suppression list survives platform migrations — keep one master list of "do not email."
• Segment by behavior, not demographics — "clicked X in last 30 days" beats "industry = SaaS."

License watch-outs

• Mautic, Listmonk, Postiz, Postal — AGPLv3 / GPLv3. Self-host fine; review legal for embedded SaaS use.
• Sendy is paid one-time-license, not OSS.

Pick this if…

• Full OSS marketing automation: Mautic.
• Free hosted, full-funnel: HubSpot Marketing Hub Free.
• OSS newsletter at scale, you'll bring SMTP: Listmonk.
• Indie newsletter on SES: Sendy or Listmonk.
• OSS social scheduler: Postiz.
• Free social scheduler, hosted: Buffer Free.
• Lifecycle email, modern stack: Loops or Customer.io.
• Ecommerce-flavored automation: Klaviyo (paid) or Mautic (OSS) with Shopify connectors.