9 Best Email Drip Campaign Software (July 2025)

Did you know that acquiring a new customer could cost up to 7x more than retaining an existing one? Okay, you probably read that somewhere.

But are you also aware that increasing customer retention by 5% could potentially boost your profits by 25-95%? Yes, retention marketing is making a huge comeback. And this holds true for both existing customers who’ve already given you money, as well as prospects who have yet to.

One of the most effective ways to nurture, engage, and convert leads is with a successful drip campaign using email automation. And it goes without saying that choosing a robust automated email drip campaign software goes a long way toward ensuring the success and ROI of your retention campaigns. Let’s look at the best ones in this article!

What is an Email Drip Campaign?

An email drip campaign, also called a nurture campaign, is a type of email marketing strategy that involves sending a series of automated emails to a specific segment of your email list. 

This is usually triggered by a subscriber’s action or behavior, followed by subsequent emails that aim to educate, entertain, and therefore nurture them through their buyer’s journey in conversational tone.

For example, if a user subscribed to get information on a webinar (a trigger), they could get the following drip campaign:

• 1st email: Welcome email for new subscribers with a registration link;
• 2nd email: Reminder a few days before the event;
• 3rd email: Reminder on the day of the event;
• 4th email: Post-webinar email with a link to a recording;
• 5th email: Follow-up email with a survey request;
• 6th email: Follow-up email with a demo invitation.

Key Features of Drip Campaign Software

Want to build customer relationships that actually stick? That’s where drip email campaign software comes in. This software helps you send the right message at the right time, consistently, helping you stay top of mind with your audience.

But how do you choose the right software for your business? Here are some key features to consider:

• Beyond email. While the name might imply a narrow focus, the best drip email marketing software integrates with multiple channels. These can include SMS messages, social media updates, and even in-app notifications.
• Effortless automation. The core function of a drip marketing campaign is automation. Your chosen software should handle tasks like welcome sequences, onboarding emails, abandoned cart reminders, and post-purchase follow-ups smoothly and reliably.
• Lead generation and nurturing powerhouse. A strong email marketing service not only helps you generate leads but also guides them through the sales funnel. Look for features such as landing page builders and CRM integrations to segment customers based on interests or behavior.
• Data-driven insights. Even the most creative marketing campaigns benefit from data analysis. Opt for software that provides comprehensive analytics and reporting, including key performance metrics like open and conversion rates.
• User-friendly interface. Prioritize intuitive interfaces, drag-and-drop builders, and clear documentation that make setting up and managing your campaigns straightforward and manageable.

Email Drip Campaign Software – Comparison Table

Before we dive into each email drip campaign software in detail, let’s quickly compare them:

9 Best Drip Campaign Software in 2025

Choosing the best email drip campaign messaging software can involve a fair amount of struggle—you have to understand different feature combinations, ease of use considerations, integration capabilities, scalability, pricing, and more!

Here are our best suggestions to help you get started (including our top choice for a free email drip campaign software).

Sender – Most Affordable Email Drip Campaign Tool

Sender offers exceptional value without sacrificing essential features. It combines an intuitive interface with surprisingly advanced capabilities for segmentation, automation, and personalization.

The platform excels at making complex drip campaigns accessible to businesses with limited budgets, while still delivering professional results that rival more expensive alternatives.

Overall rating:

4.7

/5

G2:

4.5

Trustpilot:

4.8

Capterra:

4.7

See full Sender overview

The drag-and-drop editor makes creating emails straightforward, without needing any coding on your part. You can build professional-looking templates that work across devices without the usual frustration of broken layouts and wonky formatting.

Sender’s segmentation tools are quite impressive. You can slice your audience members into specific groups based on their behaviors, demographics, and engagement patterns.

Meanwhile, the visual workflow builder deserves special mention. It simplifies creating logical branches in your campaigns with an intuitive interface that doesn’t require technical expertise.

Sender takes email deliverability seriously, too. Their first-class authentication methods help ensure your emails actually reach inboxes instead of vanishing into spam folders, which explains Sender’s impressive 99% deliverability rate.

Key Features

• Budget-friendly premium features. Get advanced segmentation, automation, and analytics at a fraction of competitors’ prices even on the free plan;
• Behavior-based segmentation. Create hyper-targeted audiences based on email engagement, purchase history, and site activity patterns;
• A/B testing in automation. Optimize every step of your workflow by testing different subject lines, email content, or timing within automated sequences;
• Multiple trigger types. Initiate sequences based on time delays, subscriber actions, or specific events across your marketing ecosystem.

Competitive Edge

Sender bridges the gap between basic free email tools and expensive enterprise platforms, delivering sophisticated automation capabilities at price points accessible to small businesses and startups just beginning their email marketing journey.

• Advanced features available at entry-level pricing tiers where competitors reserve them for premium plans;
• Simpler learning curve than enterprise alternatives while offering comparable segmentation capabilities;
• Complete marketing suite with email, automation, landing pages, and forms in one affordable package.

Sender’s Pricing

Drip – Best Marketing Automation Software

Drip specializes in ecommerce-specific automation, turning shopping behaviors into targeted marketing opportunities. With ready-made templates for abandoned carts, post-purchase follow-ups, and product recommendations, Drip streamlines the creation of revenue-generating sequences specifically designed for online stores.

Overall rating:

4.4

/5

G2:

4.4

Trustpilot:

0.0

Capterra:

4.4

Drip excels at behavioral segmentation, capturing all those tiny but meaningful shopping actions your customers take. Did they view a product three times? Add something to cart but not purchase? Drip tracks these behaviors and lets you build hyper-targeted segments based on what customers do, not just what they say they want.

The workflow creation feels refreshingly intuitive, too. Want to create a post-purchase upsell flow? That’s just a few clicks away. The platform clearly understands the online shopping journey, which isn’t always true with general-purpose email tools.

Integration with major ecommerce platforms like Shopify and WooCommerce happens smoothly—no technical headaches or missing data fields. According to Drip’s research, businesses using their segmentation features earn about 5x more revenue than those who don’t.

Key Features

• Revenue attribution. Track exactly how much revenue each email and campaign generates through detailed conversion reporting;
• Shopping behavior automation. Trigger sequences based on product views, cart additions, purchases, and category browsing patterns;
• Smart product recommendations. Automatically showcase relevant products based on past purchases and browsing history;
• Ecommerce integrations: One-click connections with Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, and other major platforms. With ready-made templates for abandoned carts, post-purchase follow-ups, and product recommendations.

Competitive Edge

While general email platforms treat ecommerce as just another use case, Drip was built specifically for online sellers, with specialized features that understand customer shopping behavior and translate it into revenue-generating automation opportunities.

• Ecommerce-specific segmentation that captures micro-interactions most platforms overlook;
• Revenue attribution that directly connects email campaigns to purchases and lifetime value;
• Product recommendation engine that requires no manual setup or constant tweaking;
• Specialized workflow templates designed specifically for common ecommerce scenarios.

Drip Marketing Limitations

Despite Drip’s strengths for ecommerce businesses, some limitations emerge for companies with broader needs. Its specialized focus on online stores means it lacks some features that would benefit service businesses, B2B companies, or content publishers. The platform’s pricing can also escalate quickly as subscriber counts increase.

• Less suitable for service businesses or B2B companies with longer, content-driven nurture sequences;
• More expensive than general email platforms when scaling to larger subscriber counts;
• Limited custom HTML editing capabilities for highly specialized template customization.

Drip’s Pricing

ActiveCampaign – Powerful Multichannel Automation Tool

ActiveCampaign combines robust email marketing with CRM functionality to create a comprehensive automation platform. With over 800 pre-built automation templates and workflows, it drastically reduces setup time while enabling sophisticated campaigns.

The platform’s strength lies in its ability to coordinate marketing and sales efforts through unified customer data, advanced segmentation, and precise targeting across multiple communication channels.

Overall rating:

4.1

/5

G2:

4.5

Trustpilot:

3.1

Capterra:

4.6

See full ActiveCampaign review

Their segmentation capabilities rank among the best I’ve seen. You can create laser-focused audience slices based on any criteria (behavior, demographics, engagement history), ensuring your drip sequences target exactly the right people.

The CRM integration provides another advantage for your sales funnel. Rather than keeping sales data and marketing data separated, ActiveCampaign creates a unified view that enables coordinated outreach and effective sales follow-up.

The visual workflow builder makes complex automation sequences manageable, even with conditional logic and branching paths. For companies with sales teams, the automated lead scoring functionality helps prioritize which leads deserve immediate human follow-up based on their engagement with your drip content.

Key Features

• Predictive sending. AI determines optimal delivery times for each recipient based on past engagement patterns;
• Site tracking integration. Track visitor behavior on your website to trigger perfectly timed follow-up messages;
• Split automation testing: Compare different automation sequences against each other to identify the most effective workflows;
• Machine learning suggestions. Get recommendations for campaign improvements based on performance data analysis.

Competitive Edge

ActiveCampaign stands out by seamlessly bridging the gap between marketing automation and CRM functionality, delivering enterprise-class capabilities at mid-market prices without requiring technical expertise or dedicated system administrators.

• Integrated CRM, marketing automation, and sales automation eliminate the need for multiple disconnected platforms;
• Machine learning capabilities that typically require enterprise budgets are available at much lower price points;
• 800+ pre-built email templates drastically reduce implementation time compared to competitors;
• More sophisticated segmentation options than competing platforms at similar price points.

ActiveCampaign’s Marketing Limitations

While ActiveCampaign offers robust capabilities, its comprehensive feature set creates some challenges. The platform’s complexity can overwhelm new users, with a steeper learning curve than simpler tools. The advanced functionality comes with performance considerations, particularly for businesses with very large contact databases or complex automation requirements.

• Steeper learning curve and initial setup time than more basic platforms;
• Performance can slow with extremely complex automations and large databases;
• Higher price points may be prohibitive for small businesses with limited budgets.

ActiveCampaign’s Pricing

Customer.io – Designed for Real-Time, Event-Driven Sequences

Customer.io stands out for its event-based architecture that responds to user actions in real-time rather than relying on predetermined schedules. The flexible data integrations and support for multiple communication channels make it ideal for sophisticated, behavior-driven marketing strategies.

Overall rating:

3.9

/5

G2:

4.4

Trustpilot:

2.5

Capterra:

4.7

Customer.io takes a modern approach to drip campaigns. While many platforms rely heavily on time-based sequences, Customer.io builds around an event-based architecture instead, responding to user behaviors as they happen.

The flexible data integrations are also impressive. Their RESTful API email automation and third-party extensions make it simple to pull information from multiple sources, enriching your targeting capabilities for different audience segments. The visual workflow builder handles complex sequences with conditional branching and dynamic personalization in an intuitive way.

Beyond email, Customer.io supports push notifications and SMS drip campaigns, giving you true multichannel campaign capabilities from a single platform. The reporting provides clear insights without overwhelming complexity—you get the basic analytics you need to refine your automation strategy without getting drowned in numbers.

Key Features

• Event-based triggering. Launch messages based on user actions like feature usage, page visits, or interaction milestones;
• Custom conversion metrics. Define what “success” means for each campaign beyond standard open and click rates.;
• Branching logic workflows. Create sophisticated decision trees that adapt to individual user behaviors and attributes;
• Developer-friendly API. Enable technical teams to push custom events from any digital touchpoint into your campaigns.

Competitive Edge

Customer.io distinctly outperforms other platforms for SaaS, mobile apps, and digital products by offering a developer-friendly, API-first approach that captures real-time user behaviors and translates them into contextually relevant, perfectly timed messaging.

• True event-based architecture rather than time-based sequences found in most competitors;
• API-first approach more easily integrates with custom tech stacks and product analytics platforms;
• Workflow complexity and conditional logic capabilities surpass what’s available in competing tools;
• Granular tracking and segmentation designed around user behavior within digital products.

Customer.io Marketing Limitations

Customer.io’s developer-centric approach creates significant barriers for non-technical marketers. The platform prioritizes flexibility and customization over ease of use, requiring more technical expertise than most competitors. Its premium pricing positions it out of reach for smaller organizations with limited marketing budgets.

• Requires more technical knowledge than most competing platforms;
• Higher price point than many alternatives, particularly for smaller user bases;
• Less intuitive interface for marketers without technical backgrounds or developer support.

Customer.io’s Pricing

Brevo – Affordable Option with SMS and Email Flows

Brevo delivers multichannel campaign capabilities at price points accessible to any small business. And with intuitive workflow builders and flexible segmentation tools, Brevo makes drip marketing campaigns achievable for growing companies with limited marketing budgets.

Brevo also makes multichannel marketing accessible. From one dashboard, you coordinate automated workflows across email, SMS, and chat messages, creating consistent experiences regardless of which channel your target audience prefers.

Overall rating:

4.5

/5

G2:

4.5

Trustpilot:

4.4

Capterra:

4.6

See full Brevo review

The visual workflow builder welcomes beginners while satisfying experienced marketers. You can design automation sequences with conditional paths based on how recipients interact with your messages.

Their segmentation tools provide numerous targeting options. Create segments using demographic info, engagement history, and custom attributes, ensuring your drip marketing emails reach the right audience with relevant content.

For growing businesses, Brevo scales nicely. Their pricing accommodates increasing subscriber count with minimal contact limits. That said, compared to platforms like HubSpot, Brevo stands out for delivering “scalability at an affordable price.”

Key Features

• Creator-centric design. Purpose-built for selling digital products, courses, and memberships with integrated marketing tools;
• Visual automation builder. Drag-and-drop interface for creating complex subscriber journeys without technical expertise;
• Subscriber tagging system. Organize your audience based on interests, purchase history, and engagement patterns;
• Commerce integration. Sell digital products directly through Brevo without needing separate ecommerce platforms.

Competitive Edge

Brevo delivers multichannel marketing capabilities that typically require enterprise budgets but packages them at price points accessible to small businesses, with particular strength in combining email and SMS campaigns within unified automation workflows.

• Email and SMS marketing, managed from a single interface, where most competitors require separate platforms;
• More generous sending volumes at each price tier compared to similar platforms;
• Stronger transactional email capabilities than most marketing-focused automation tools;
• CRM functionality is included without the steep learning curve of enterprise platforms.

Brevo Marketing Limitations

While Brevo is a great drip campaign software for small businesses, it shows limitations as companies scale. The platform’s simplified approach means it lacks some of the advanced capabilities needed by larger enterprises with complex segmentation needs. Some users report deliverability challenges when sending high volumes.

• Less robust segmentation capabilities than enterprise-focused alternatives;
• Limited customer journey analytics compared to more specialized platforms;
• Some deliverability challenges reported with larger volume sending.

Brevo’s Pricing

Kit – Creator-Focused Email Campaigns Builder

Kit (formerly ConvertKit) specializes in serving content creators, course builders, and digital product sellers with straightforward yet powerful automation tools.

The platform strips away unnecessary complexity while preserving essential functionality, making it particularly suitable for non-technical users who need professional email marketing capabilities.

Overall rating:

3.7

/5

G2:

4.4

Trustpilot:

2.0

Capterra:

4.6

See full Kit review

We also loved their two-pronged approach to drip campaigns. “Sequences” create simple, linear email series (perfect for straightforward courses or welcome campaigns); while “Automations” enable complex, branching workflows responding to subscriber actions. This tiered approach welcomes email marketing beginners, but provides room to grow as your marketing sophistication increases.

The tagging system organizes subscribers effectively without the complexity found in some enterprise solutions. Meanwhile, the creator-focused tools for selling digital products, courses, and memberships also shine.

Kit also offers a free Newsletter plan with basic analytics for those just getting started. While their email builder makes creating professional-looking campaigns simple, even for those without much design experience.

Key Features

• Creator-centric design. Intuitive interface and tools designed specifically for content creators to easily build and send engaging emails;
• Visual automation builder. Drag-and-drop interface to effortlessly create complex drip email sequences and automate your marketing workflows;
• Subscriber tagging system. Organize your audience into specific segments based on demographics, interests, or behavior for highly targeted campaigns;
• Commerce integration. Connect your online store to seamlessly sync customer data, personalize emails, and drive sales through automated campaigns.

Competitive Edge

While general marketing platforms try to serve everyone, Kit focuses exclusively on content creators and course sellers, providing specialized features designed specifically for digital products, memberships, and audience monetization.

• Purpose-built for creators, not retrofitted from business-oriented marketing tools;
• More intuitive product selling features without requiring separate ecommerce platforms;
• Simplified workflow creation that doesn’t sacrifice advanced capabilities;
• Creator-centric pricing model that scales more reasonably with audience growth.

Kit Marketing Limitations

Kit’s creator-focused specialization creates inherent limitations for traditional businesses. The platform lacks features needed by ecommerce stores selling physical products and offers fewer traditional B2B capabilities. Its simplified approach sacrifices some advanced functionality available in broader marketing platforms.

• Limited ecommerce features for physical product sellers compared to dedicated platforms;
• Fewer B2B-specific capabilities, like account-based marketing features;
• Simplified reporting lacks advanced analytics features often found in enterprise solutions.

Kit’s Pricing

HubSpot – CRM with Customer Relationships Focus

HubSpot integrates comprehensive marketing automation with robust CRM capabilities, creating a unified platform for customer communication. The native connection between marketing and sales data enables highly personalized drip campaigns based on detailed contact records and interactions.

Overall rating:

3.7

/5

G2:

4.4

Trustpilot:

2.1

Capterra:

4.5

The main benefit of HubSpot’s approach is the connection between marketing automation and CRM data. This native integration simplifies email personalization based on detailed contact records, yielding higher conversion rates through more consistent communication.

During our time with Hubspot, we couldn’t help but notice how user-friendly their workflow editor is. It also comes with premade drip campaign templates that save significant setup time. 

For businesses implementing comprehensive inbound marketing strategies, HubSpot offers integrated tools for content management, social media, landing pages, and forms—all triggering or supporting drip campaign sequences. 

The built-in CRM with email automation and drip campaign functionality in HubSpot works particularly well, allowing agents to nurture new leads over the long timeframes typical in property sales.

Key Features

• Smart content personalization. Dynamically adapt email content based on recipient properties, behaviors, and list memberships;
• Integrated marketing tools. Connect email campaigns seamlessly with blogs, social media, ads, and website content;
• Progressive profiling. Gradually collect more contact information through forms that adapt to what you already know;
• Campaign ROI analysis. Track complete attribution from first touch to final conversion across all marketing channels.

Competitive Edge

HubSpot stands alone by fully integrating marketing, sales, and service tools in one platform, eliminating the fragmentation and data silos that plague businesses using separate systems for different customer-facing departments.

• Complete integration between marketing, sales, and service platforms that competitors can’t match;
• Consolidated customer data, providing true 360-degree views impossible with disconnected systems;
• Sophisticated attribution reporting across the entire customer journey from first touch to renewal;
• Seamless handoffs between marketing and sales teams that eliminate common conversion friction points.

HubSpot Marketing Limitations

HubSpot’s comprehensive nature introduces significant cost and complexity challenges. The platform’s pricing structure escalates rapidly as contacts grow or when accessing advanced features. The all-in-one approach, while powerful, creates a steeper learning curve and potential feature bloat for teams with simpler needs.

• Steep pricing increases as contact counts grow or when accessing advanced features;
• Complex implementation requires significant resources for full utilization;
• Potential features are overwhelming for teams that don’t need the full suite.

Hubspot’s Pricing

Mailchimp – Ready-to-Use Drip Email Platform

Mailchimp is a veteran email marketing platform that balances sophisticated automation capabilities with user-friendly design. The platform features an extensive template library, an intuitive customer journey builder, and a comprehensive analytics suite.

Overall rating:

3.9

/5

G2:

4.3

Trustpilot:

2.8

Capterra:

4.5

See full Mailchimp review

Mailchimp’s template library contains over 130 professionally designed email templates easily customizable for different drip scenarios. Whether you need a welcome series, abandoned cart automation, or post-purchase follow-up, Mailchimp has ready-to-use designs that save hours of work.

Their customer journey builder provides an intuitive visual interface for creating automated email sequences. Trigger these based on specific user actions or schedule them based on time intervals, giving flexibility in how you structure campaigns. Meanwhile, the subject line tester helps optimize your emails for higher open rates.

The analytics dashboard shows comprehensive insights into opens, clicks, and other key metrics that matter to your campaign’s success. This helps identify which sequences perform well and which need optimization.

Key Features

• Journey mapping visual builder. Create multi-step campaigns with an intuitive drag-and-drop canvas interface;
• Content recommendation algorithm. Automatically suggest products based on purchase history and browsing behavior;
• Send-time optimization. Schedule delivery when recipients are most likely to engage based on past activity;
• Behavioral targeting segments. Create dynamic audience segments that update automatically as subscribers take actions.

Competitive Edge

Mailchimp balances sophisticated features with unmatched usability, making advanced marketing automation accessible to non-technical users while providing scalability to grow from solopreneurs to enterprises without platform migrations.

• Intuitive template editor that produces consistently responsive designs without technical knowledge;
• Strong ecommerce functionality without requiring the complexity of dedicated ecommerce platforms;
• Superior mobile app for campaign management compared to most competitors’ mobile experiences.

Mailchimp Marketing Limitations

Mailchimp’s evolution from simple email marketing to a comprehensive marketing platform has created some growing pains. The interface has become increasingly complex, and recent pricing changes have reduced value compared to previous offerings. Advanced users often encounter limitations in segmentation and automation complexity.

• Recent pricing changes have made it less cost-effective than previous iterations;
• Complex interface navigation as features have expanded beyond core email capabilities;
• Automation limitations for sophisticated multi-step journeys compared to specialized platforms.

Mailchimp’s Pricing

SendX – Tag-Based Email Campaigns Software

SendX combines advanced automation capabilities with an interface accessible to non-technical users. What makes this drip marketing software stand out is its smart tagging system—it tracks what your subscribers do and sends follow-up emails tailored to their actions.

With geolocation-based scheduling, unlimited contacts, and an intuitive visual builder, SendX delivers dynamic drip campaigns without the head-spinning complexity that comes with enterprise marketing platforms.

Overall rating:

3.8

/5

G2:

4.6

Trustpilot:

2.2

Capterra:

4.6

Their visual drag-and-drop email builder also feels genuinely user-friendly, and with pre-built templates speeding up campaign setup considerably, we were able to set-up an entire campaign in under 20 minutes. 

Another standout feature of SendX is its powerful segmentation. It made it super easy for us to target specific audiences with pinpoint accuracy using demographics, behavior, and custom tags.

Finally, the A/B testing functionality lets you experiment with different email elements (subject lines, content, send times) to identify what generates the best response. This data-driven approach, combined with customer feedback, continuously improves drip campaign performance over time.

Key Features

• Visual rule-based automation. Effortlessly trigger actions using tags, link clicks, or form submissions through an intuitive visual interface;
• Reusable snippets and templates. Build branded content blocks once and reuse them across emails, sequences, and broadcasts for consistent, time-saving messaging;
• Streamlined segmentation tools. Use tag-based segmentation to launch highly targeted campaigns for product releases, downloads, or community updates;
• Built-in creator network. Tap into a ready-made creator ecosystem to cross-promote your offers and expand your subscriber base.

Competitive Edge

SendX disrupts the standard email marketing pricing model by offering unlimited contacts across all plans, making it uniquely affordable for businesses with large subscriber databases that send relatively infrequent campaigns.

• Unlimited contacts pricing model, unlike competitors who charge primarily based on list size;
• Advanced features, available at lower price tiers than competing platforms;
• Simplified user interface without sacrificing advanced segmentation capabilities;
• Stronger deliverability focus at lower price points than many competitors offer.

SendX Marketing Limitations

SendX’s focus on simplicity and affordability comes with feature trade-offs for advanced marketers. The platform offers fewer advanced automation capabilities than specialized competitors and lacks some of the sophisticated personalization options found in higher-end platforms. Integration depth varies across different business tools.

• Fewer advanced automation options compared to specialized enterprise platforms;
• Limited dynamic content capabilities for sophisticated personalization scenarios;
• Inconsistent depth of integration with some CRM and ecommerce platforms.

SendX’s Pricing

Ready to Launch Your Drip Email Campaigns?

Choosing email drip software isn’t a one-size-fits-all decision. The right drip campaign software can transform your marketing from isolated messages into a cohesive customer journey that builds relationships and drives revenue.

That said, tools like Sender’s drip sequence automation make it a breeze to launch your drip email campaigns. Not only do you get an intuitive drag-and-build editor, but also powerful triggers, segmentation, and real-time analytics—all you need to send effective messages at the right time.

About author

Thomas Radavicius

Author

Sender

Thomas Radavicius is an email marketing expert with extensive knowledge in various digital marketing topics. He loves staying current with industry trends and enjoys learning about strategies to enhance and grow business marketing efforts. In his free time, Thomas explores new technologies, reads about marketing innovations, and hikes outdoors.

Writer - Ignas Vieversys