Looking for the absolute best Email Marketing Platforms for SaaS?
Is email marketing dead? Absolutely not. While behemoths like Mailchimp and Klaviyo dominate the conversation, a new class of intelligent email marketing platforms and tool is emerging (and will continue to), built for the modern creator, indie brand, and ambitious entrepreneur.
Forget bloated, one-size-fits-all software. The future of email marketing is nimble, personalized, and deeply integrated. Here’s a breakdown of the contenders shaking up the industry, what they offer, and who they’re built for.
Let’s be real: I’m agnostic when it comes to email marketing tools for SaaS—that means I’m happy to pick tools whether they bill themselves as “for SaaS,” “for B2B,” or “for B2C.” Email marketing isn’t siloed by vertical. Some tools are more general, others have features that shine for specific audiences, but none are locked down to one category.
What matters more than branding is fit. You want something that:
- Works well with your business setup
- Is affordable and predictable, no billing surprises
- Handles deliverability smartly
- Has solid A/B testing and a capable email designer
- Offers modern comforts like automated workflows, smart filters, and targeting
Pick, choose, prosper.
Here’s a deeper look at each tool on your list—focusing on what they bring and how much they cost (where prices are publicly available):
1. Kit
Think of Kit as email marketing for the creative class—the definitive tool for bloggers, podcasters, course creators, and indie authors. It’s designed to help creators not only build a list but also monetize it. Kit’s core strength lies in its intuitive design and robust set of features, including landing pages, forms, visual automations, and A/B testing. A unique feature is the option to monetize directly through paid newsletters and digital product sales.
Kit’s marketing is heavy on the “creator market”. However, if you are just a tech or SaaS enthusiast like and find Kit’s endearing and easy dashboard (+ landing pages, tag-based automations, and more), you can make it work for your SaaS business.
- Kit Pricing: The free plan is incredibly generous, allowing you to have up to 10,000 subscribers with unlimited forms and landing pages, though automations are limited to one. The Creator plan starts at $29/month for up to 1,000 subscribers, with prices scaling up to $119/month for 10,000 subscribers. For advanced users, the Creator Pro plan adds features like priority support, advanced reporting, subscriber scoring, and Facebook custom audiences, starting at $59/month for 1,000 subscribers.
2. Bento
Bento positions itself as the “email marketing Swiss Army knife” for its wide range of functionalities in a single app. It combines email, SMS, live chat, and advanced automations, along with deep event tracking. Bento also helps with transactional email — fow which you’d normally have to look for a service that does transactional emails well (such as ZeptoMail, Amazon SES, and others)
Bento is a powerful option for businesses looking for a single solution to manage multi-channel communication with their customers — SaaS businesses, agencies, creators, and others. Loaded with a few other features worth your while, Bento is primed to be an out-of-the-box solution (not to mention all the love it’s been getting from X).
On top of Bento Email Marketing, other features worth looking out for are:
- Spam Shield (also included in all free plans): Keep bad emails, and temporary emails off your list and keep your reputation clean.
- Transactional emails (no need to look for another service like SendGrid or Zepto)
- Bento CRM (unified Inbox or shared inbox + Live Chat + Sales + AI Agents)
Bento also takes care of everything you need for tracking your customer journey (first touch to recurring sale); AI to automate flows, AI to build segments, and to help you stay out of the spam folder with solid email deliverability.
- Bento Pricing: The platform starts at $30/month for up to 3,000 users, offering unlimited emails and full access to all its features. After the 3,000-user mark, the cost is a simple $0.01 per user per month. Many users praise its deliverability and excellent customer support.
3. Customer.io
Customer.io is engineered for B2B and SaaS companies that require extensive tracking and multi-channel marketing capabilities. This platform is built for complex user journeys and data-driven campaigns, making it a go-to for companies that need to send highly personalized and automated messages across various channels.
- Customer.io Pricing: Its tiered pricing reflects its focus on larger, more data-intensive businesses. The Essentials plan starts around $100/month for 5,000 profiles, which includes approximately 1 million emails. The Premium plan is a significant leap, starting at over $1,000/month for enhanced features, HIPAA compliance, and dedicated support. A notable feature is their startup program, which offers a free 12-month Essentials plan for companies with less than $10M in funding, for up to 30,000 profiles.
Note On Open Source Email Marketing Platforms
For those with the technical chops and a desire for absolute control, open-source platforms are a game-changer. Both UsePlunk and Mautic are completely free to use, as they are open-source projects.
- What to Expect: The “free, DIY, and Open Source” comes with a significant caveat: you are responsible for everything. This includes self-hosting, managing email deliverability, handling all updates, and providing your own support. These platforms are ideal for teams that can handle the technical demands and want to avoid recurring software fees.
4. UsePlunk
Plunk is open-source, affordable email marketing platform for SaaS that brings together marketing, transactional and broadcast emails into one single, complete solution. It gives you the freedom from different APIs, ever-changing UI/UX interfaces, and different pricing methods for email, newsletters, or email marketing (Including transactional emails).
Deploy Useplunk on your servers to send email campaigns, newsletters, broadcasts, campaigns, transactional emails, and also automated workflows (based on events happening on your site).
You’d email from your own domain for unlimited contacts, unlimited automated/transactional/campaigns per month without Plunk’s branding.
- Useplunk Pricing: Technically starts at $0.001 per email. Start for free and then pay as you.
5. Mautic
Mautic is an open-source marketing automation platform that stands out for its flexibility, data ownership, and cost-effectiveness. While the core software is free for self-hosting, there are managed cloud-hosted options available through various third-party providers.
Mautic offers a comprehensive suite of marketing automation features that rival many expensive proprietary platforms.
- Marketing Automation: The platform’s intuitive drag-and-drop campaign builder allows you to create complex, multi-channel customer journeys based on a user’s behavior, actions, and profile data.
- Lead Management & Scoring: Mautic provides robust tools for tracking, nurturing, and scoring leads. You can create dynamic segments and assign scores to identify your most engaged and high-priority prospects.
- Omnichannel Communication: Beyond traditional email, Mautic supports communication across various channels, including SMS, social media, and web push notifications, allowing you to engage your audience wherever they are.
- A/B Testing & Dynamic Content: You can easily A/B test emails and landing pages to optimize for better conversions. Mautic also allows you to display dynamic content, tailoring the user experience to each individual.
- Data Ownership: As an open-source platform, Mautic gives you complete ownership and control over your data. This is a significant differentiator from closed platforms, ensuring data sovereignty and compliance with regulations like GDPR and CCPA.
Mautic pricing: Free for self-hosting (might have some limitations). Otherwise, for the cloud hosted Mautic options. Some providers offer plans starting as low as $15/month for a basic setup with limited resources, while others, like Powertic, offer managed Mautic starting around $49/month for up to 10,000 contacts and 50,000 emails per month. For larger businesses, prices can go into the hundreds or thousands of dollars per month depending on the scale and support needed
6. Resend
Resend.com is an email API platform designed for developers to send transactional and marketing emails at scale. It distinguishes itself with its focus on a simple, elegant, and developer-friendly experience, including seamless integrations with modern frameworks like React. It includes broadcasts, campaigns, audiences, and Email API.
- Developer-Focused API: Resend offers a clean RESTful API with SDKs for popular languages like Node.js, Python, and Ruby, making integration easy.
- High Deliverability: The platform helps ensure emails reach the inbox with features like custom domain verification (DKIM, SPF, DMARC), proactive blocklist tracking, and managed dedicated IPs.
- React Email Integration: You can build beautiful, responsive email templates using React components.
- Real-time Analytics & Webhooks: The dashboard provides insights into email performance (opens, clicks, bounces), and webhooks provide real-time notifications for these events.
7. Swipe One
Swipe One, while being affordable, comes with most things you’d look for in a top Email Marketing Platform. Then, it has a few more aces up its sleeve. Swipe One comes with a full-fledged marketing platform, a Simple CRM, integrations, AI agents, and email marketing itself.
Email marketing comes with Dynamic personalization (using dynamic tags to personalize subject lines), timing those email campaigns right, use AI to generate email or customize email design with the Ai builder, and more.
Simple, Intuitive email builder works out of the box and you also get 100+ exper-crafted templates (+ mobile ready) for all industries and goals.
Get access to analytics to help you stay on top of numbers yet.
Choose The Right Platform
Choosing a platform isn’t about finding the “best” one; it’s about finding the best fit for your business.
- If you are a solo creator or blogger, Kit is likely your best starting point due to its generous free plan and creator-centric features.
- If you need a multi-channel Swiss Army knife, Bento provides a powerful all-in-one solution for a predictable fee.
- If you run a B2B SaaS company with complex user journeys, Customer.io is built for your needs.
- If you have a technical team and want full control, a self-hosted, open-source option like UsePlunk or Mautic could be the most cost-effective long-term play.
What are Your Top Email Marketing Platforms For SaaS?
Labels like SaaS, B2B, B2C—they’re just marketing. The real play is picking the tool that fits your workflow, budget, and growth model. Kit is steal for creators; Bento is killer if you want multi-channel muscle in an indie package; Customer.io is serious enterprise with higher price tags; while open-source options like UsePlunk and Mautic are budget-friendly if you’re hands-on.
Let me know what your favorite email marketing tools for SaaS are, or the ones you use right now.