An alarming majority of software review lists are simply scams for affiliate commissions by promoting unnecessary subscriptions to many individuals in exchange for little more than low-quality service.
Many software lists combine typical SaaS marketing tools such as email marketing and social media scheduling into one massive category and label it a "strategy."
However, this thought process misses the point entirely.
When selecting the appropriate software solution to meet your business goals, it is not about which boxes you check off from a feature list, but rather finding a software solution that aligns well with your record keeping, the amount of your recurring monthly income (MRR), and how you conduct sales.
Choosing the wrong "foundation" for your SaaS marketing tools will force you to spend valuable time resolving data integrity issues, poor connectivity issues, and numerous others.
We need to cut through the clutter and determine what each software solution actually costs you, the time required to set it up, and what benefits it will provide you on your pipeline.
How to Choose Your SaaS Marketing Tools
Before jumping into name-specific SaaS marketing tools, you need to understand the marketplace's current state.
As an example, the average software company uses 91 different marketing technology platforms across their organization, but more than 50% of them are never used.
In addition to being an over-saturated market, riding the roller-coaster of marketing technology over time will not resolve any weaknesses in a company's marketing strategies.
Your database is a "master switch," which will direct which marketing automation options you have available to you. If you use Salesforce as your database, there will be many more options available to you than if your database is HubSpot.
Secondly, your company's growth motion will determine your marketing automation requirements in terms of implementing your software solution.
For example, companies that utilize a product-led growth motion require a comprehensive behavioral tracking capability. Conversely, companies that utilize a sales-led growth motion will require extensive lead scoring and account-level data.
Finally, you must account for implementation time as a hidden cost. In many cases, the time required to implement your SaaS marketing tools can represent 25% of your overall marketing budget before any emails have even been sent out from your solution set.
We will examine the current state of the marketplace for all 20 vetted SaaS marketing tools included in this article, and will evaluate those that generate revenue.
20 Vetted Platforms to Grow Your Business
1. HubSpot Marketing Hub
Focus: HubSpot's all-in-one inbound marketing platform for users of its CRM and tools for building native automation.
Target Audience and Price: Startups through enterprises. HubSpot's monthly Professional tier pricing is approximately $800 (billed yearly) with mandatory onboarding costs of approximately $3,000 for Professional+ edition.
Real Outcomes: HubSpot provides users with strong attribution reporting, especially when using the platform's native CRM. Enterprise editions include advanced multi-channel attribution, eliminating the need for middleware between the marketing platform and the CRM.
2. Marketo Engage (Adobe)
Focus: Marketo is an enterprise automation and lead management platform combined with revenue cycle analysis of marketing initiatives in Salesforce-focused businesses.
Target Audience and Price: Typically used by Series B and enterprise businesses. Marketo has a custom pricing model and is typically implemented over a lengthy implementation period.
Real Outcomes: Marketo provides mature account level and detailed marketing data. It is designed for complex sales motion where sales and marketing are integrated through a long-term implementation. Implementation times for Marketo typically range from 4 to 12 weeks.
3. Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot)
Focus: An integrated marketing automation platform designed for business-to-business (B2B) sales and lead nurturing through the Salesforce platform.
Target Audience and Price: Typically targeted at teams that are primarily focused on CRM sales. Starting at $1,250 each month.
Real Outcomes: Integrates tightly with your CRM customer record and is designed for teams that want to align sales and marketing strategies.
4. ActiveCampaign
Focus: Mid-sized business marketing automation that includes a visual workflow builder. Contact volume can cause costs to increase rapidly and will often become unclear.
The outcome for the above companies is to create a suite of solutions that provide lean teams with an automatable process that they can access easily, helping them scale within their market.
The following companies have been developed to solve the problems faced by companies looking for cost-effective ways to drive automated lifecycle marketing through product-led growth (PLG):
5. Customer.io
Customer.io creates automation solutions that are built specifically for product-led growth (PLG) strategies. These companies are typically at an early stage in their company lifecycle.
Pricing is based on the type of usage of the platform, which allows for flexibility as an organization's needs grow.
Real Outcomes: Customer.io allows for customer and event-driven triggers for marketing automation. By connecting to product analytics, companies can create targeted sales campaigns when usage spikes.
6. Braze
Braze is a cross-channel engagement and marketing automation tool for large-scale, enterprise-grade use cases.
Pricing: Braze has customizable pricing per company stage and is designed for growth/enterprise stage companies.
Real Outcomes: Braze is ideal for creating real-time, personalized cross-channel experiences. It is a preferred solution in direct-to-consumer and hybrid business models than in purely B2B software environments.
7. Iterable
Iterable is a cross-channel automation tool used by marketers to coordinate multiple campaigns via email, push, and SMS.
Pricing: Iterable creates custom solutions based on your company's size.
Real Outcomes: Iterable delivers high-quality marketing solutions to marketers who need to coordinate several channels and have high testing and experimentation.
8. Klaviyo
Klaviyo is an e-commerce-focused marketing automation solution that allows teams to scale their marketing based on the number of contacts they have.
Pricing: Tiered pricing is used for the larger and enterprise-level companies.
Real Outcomes: Klaviyo helps companies generate a high ROI for e-commerce but is rarely used in the B2B software space unless the company has created a hybrid revenue model.
9. Mailchimp
Mailchimp is an email marketing platform that has a limited number of automations available. Pricing is based on the number of contact tiers and features.
Real Outcome: Mailchimp is best for sending simple email newsletters or blasts. The lack of depth to support complex attribution within B2B or deep visibility down the pipeline.
10. Sendinblue (Brevo)
Focus: Inexpensive email, SMS, and basic management of customers.
Target and Pricing: Small groups on a tight budget. Pricing tiers based on the number of contacts.
Results: Very cost-effective option for early stage groups, but architecture does not support advanced revenue tracking or extended lead hand-offs.
11. HighLevel
Focus: Automation white-labeling, allowing for the management of sub-accounts.
Target and Pricing: Starter plan is priced at $97 per month. SaaS Pro pricing at $497 per month.
Results: Pricing model is unique to high-volume contacts. Very much focused on agency usage rather than regular product teams.
12. Drip
Focus: Workflow automation primarily for e-commerce websites.
Target and Pricing: Brands that run e-commerce stores will use contact-based pricing.
Results: Drip is extremely effective in helping e-commerce brands sell products to consumers, but it is nearly irrelevant for B2B software brands that do not have a direct-to-consumer business model.
13. Hootsuite
Focus: Social media management and scheduling of posts.
Target and Pricing: Small to mid-sized teams using a seat-based pricing model.
Results: Hootsuite is a very effective tool for managing social media efforts. However, it is designed to be an ancillary tool, not the central revenue stream.
14. Hotjar
Focus: Understanding behavioral patterns through the use of heat maps and recording sessions.
Target and Pricing: Small to medium-sized businesses, based on a tiered plan for daily web sessions.
Results: Hotjar provides businesses with insights into how to improve their landing pages and the onboarding process of using their products. It is useful for building a holistic community but cannot replace the automation stack.
15. Ahrefs
Focus: Intelligence for the search engine and reporting on backlinks.
Target and Pricing: Standard pricing starts at $129 per month.
Results: Ahrefs is the standard for determining keyword gaps. While its primary function is to enable organic pipeline creation, it does this through the use of a completely manual process.
16. Semrush
Semrush has a holistic view of a brand's digital footprint through all channels, whether organic, paid, or content.
Pricing is tiered with the option for enterprise-level pricing plans.
The biggest benefit Semrush provides your business is that it gives you a roadmap for better prioritizing your content and omnichannel paid ad spend, making it the foundation for your marketing execution stack.
17. GetContentGap / SAAGA Solve
Automated content gap analysis against your direct competitors.
Freemium model with the opportunity to purchase several levels up to paid tiers.
The great benefit of GetContentGap / SAAGA Solve is that it identifies winnable search queries and intent-based topics. It also serves as an ongoing strategic planner for content rather than merely a tuner of campaign execution.
18. HubSpot Breeze AI
HubSpot has built-in an AI layer to its ecosystem.
HubSpot has several tiers and offers those who are in higher tiers with advanced features as part of the full package.
The significant benefit of using the AI layer in HubSpot is that it takes away the need to build AI workflows from scratch, thus providing more accurate predictive lead scoring for mid-sized businesses who use HubSpot.
19. Oracle Marketing (Eloqua)
Oracle's massive enterprise marketing cloud for complex data coordination.
Only available to large enterprises that have to operate within strict compliance regulations, thus Oracle provides custom pricing.
The significant benefit is that Eloqua is built specifically for huge organizations that need powerful operational capabilities, and that the implementation process is extremely heavy and resource-intensive.
20. Adobe Experience Cloud
Adobe Experience Cloud allows brands to create end-to-end customer experiences and marketing orchestration in real-time, at massive scale.
As an enterprise-only platform, the size and complexity of Adobe's platform mean that custom pricing contracts are common.
Adobe Experience Cloud is also very comprehensive; however, it is equally complicated to implement. A matching marketing operations team and rigid data rules are required for our approach to be successful.
Final Thoughts on SaaS Marketing Tools: Keep It Simple
Growing by adding more login screens to your daily routine cannot be done.
The evidence supports this: A 702% return on investment from organic search or a baseline of 1,050 clicks of organic traffic are not created with tool bloat. They are created through strategic alignment.
For companies generating less than $50,000 in monthly recurring revenue, your single source of truth must be a single tool that has no need for customization.
For Series B businesses utilizing a complex sales cycle, you need to be able to defend every dollar you spend with comprehensive, multi-touch attribution.
Don't be swayed by recommendations of popular software. Find the tool that addresses your immediate pipeline issues, is compatible with your current number of contacts, and natively integrates with your existing customer database. Any other option is a waste of your budget.
Questions to Ask About Your Business Growth
How Do Usage Triggers Help Sales for Product-Led Companies?
For product-led technology businesses, traditional ways of tracking engagement (opens on emails, whitepaper downloads) do not indicate a potential customer.
Usage-based triggers allow you to see your customers' actions in real-time (e.g., if a user logs in for the time, creates multiple accounts, etc.).
When a user reaches a predetermined threshold of activity, an alert will be sent to sales. This helps bridge the gap between sales and marketing and enables sales to act on the highest level of buying intent.
How Much Do Middle-Market Pricing Models Really Cost?
Many mid-market marketing automation platforms draw you in with their lower-cost entry-level pricing. However, as your database increases in size, these pricing tiers make it impossible for businesses to afford their databases, even if those leads never purchase.
If your team cleans up the database of dead email addresses and purges their contacts monthly, they must conduct this exercise or they run the risk of losing thousands of dollars on dead email addresses.
Why Do AI Content Features Fail to Make Money?
While a majority of businesses have invested in AI, actual value realized is still extremely low. Simply using an AI feature to rewrite your blog posts will not affect your business.
The value of AI lies in autonomous workflows — automated lead scoring, automated routing, and massive amounts of data analysis. Without a clear framework for measuring output as you are producing, your output is simply noise.
When Should a Team Stop Using All-in-One Platforms?
An all-in-one platform becomes unusable when your sales model grows beyond its ability to track and measure.
If your revenue operations team is forced to move data from your all-in-one system to an external application (Excel) to analyze multi-touch attribution and how many leads were generated to convert into paying customers, then your foundation is becoming cracked.
As soon as you realize that an all-in-one solution hinders your ability to see clearly throughout the sales cycle, it is critical to utilize specialized, enterprise-grade software solutions.
