Do you manage a sales team? Do your team members spend the majority of their time sending emails? You are not alone.

Statistics show that sales representatives spent 21% of their work hours writing emails. Only 17% of the time is used for lead prospecting and research. 

That’s why it is crucial to have a sales email automation tool.

Sales email automation tools help create a series of automated emails that are sent out based on triggers, like the actions of your subscribers, or when you attach new tags to subscribers.

The best way to look at a sales email automation tool is as a virtual assistant that automatically sends out messages for you.

It can automate the most frustrating sales tasks such as following up on an unresponsive lead, sending reminders and thank you messages, and even emails to remind your team about routine tasks that need to be done.

In this blog post, we will cover eight really good email automation tools that even a small business owner or solopreneur can afford.

9 Sales Email Automation Tools That Won’t Pinch Your Pocket

Here is our list of the best sales email automation tools that any sales team will love.

Please do note that we have no order or ranking here. Our main criteria for shortlisting tools here is that the software is really resourceful, and doesn’t cost a bomb.

#1. EngageBay

EngageBay is a powerful sales automation platform that boasts of a range of features for sending targeted emails. 

With EngageBay, you can select from a variety of email templates using a simple drag-and-drop interface. This feature also helps you integrate images and social share buttons into design blocks, helping customize emails better.

What’s more, it enables customer database targeting and segmentation by applying filters based on location, sales prospects, qualified leads, and many more. 

You can even personalize cold emails by adding contact attributes with the help of the autofill feature. This helps build customer relationships better and quicker.

Lastly, you can track your campaign performance, which can help you modify your emails for a more targeted reach.

Pros

• Helps track email conversations, SMS, and phone calls in one place without the need to edit or modify templates
• Super affordable

Cons

• Not many project management tools
• Can have more templates

Pricing

EngageBay offers four categories of plans: Free, Basic, Growth, and Pro.

The Free Plan provides up to 500 contacts. It comes with a range of features, including 1,000 branded emails, segmentation, email template builder, autoresponders, and email broadcasting.

The Basic Plan costs $11.69 per user per month. It offers up to 1,000 contacts and 2,500 branded emails. Under this plan, you can find key services like lead scoring, tag management, SMS marketing, and third-party integrations.

For those looking for features such as marketing automation, email broadcast A/B testing, push notifications, and timezone-based email delivery, the Growth Plan works best. It starts at $22.49 per user per month and provides 20,000 contacts and branded emails each.

Under the Pro Plan, you can avail of features such as custom reporting, phone support, a dedicated account manager, and free onboarding sessions. It includes 30,000 contacts and branded emails each, available at $49.99 per user per month.

Read also: 15 Introduction Email Templates That Work Like a Charm

#2. HubSpot

HubSpot’s email marketing tool helps you personalize emails for higher clickthrough rates. 

This tool helps you add a personal touch to your emails using a wide range of goal-based email templates. 

It also comes with a drag-and-drop feature that you can use to customize email layout, branding, and call-to-action button.

Moreover, you can schedule your drip email campaigns to ensure that the emails reach the right people at the right time, irrespective of time zone.

HubSpot’s sales engagement platform is popular for its robust outreach campaigns optimized using A/B tests and analytics. You get insights into who is engaging with your emails, which subject line works best, and so on.  

Pros

• Unlimited number of email templates
• Easy-to-use and customizable software

Cons

• A limited number of bulk marketing templates
• No SMS feature

Pricing

The three plans offered by HubSpot include Starter, Professional, and Enterprise.

The Starter Plan costs $45 per month. It includes services such as email marketing, landing pages, live chat, and email and in-chat app support.

Under the Professional Plan, you can avail of features such as omnichannel marketing automation, multi-language content, contact and company scoring, website traffic analysis, and Salesforce integration. It starts at $800 per month.

For those looking for a large contact database, opt for its Enterprise Plan. Priced at $3,200 per month, it adds advanced features like email send frequency cap, adaptive testing, behavioral event triggers and reporting, and object customization.

You can also try out HubSpot’s free tools like ad management, reporting dashboard, form building, and live chat.

Read also: HubSpot, MailChimp, or EngageBay? Which Tool is Worth Your Money?

#3. Keap

Keap not only helps automate your drip email campaigns but also increases revenue in no time. It helps send curated emails to your sales leads relevant to their interests, thereby increasing clickthrough rates. 

This, in turn, drives up revenue and converts leads into loyal customers. 

With Keap, you can send personalized cold emails and newsletters using a variety of in-built templates. Keap also provides valuable insight into your sales strategies with the help of A/B testing, analytics, and at-a-glance reports. 

Pros

• Powerful and customizable sales automation tool
• Helps convert additional sales through automated follow-up and reminder emails

Cons

• Too many logins required
• Email broadcasts interface should offer more options to customize marketing emails

Pricing

Keap provides three plans: Lite, Pro, and Max. All the plans offer one-to-one coaching, unlimited expert support, a dedicated migration specialist, and unlimited emails.

The Lite Plan comes at $40 per month. It provides features like sales CRM, lead capturing, appointment scheduling, and automated text messaging.

With the Pro Plan, you can avail services like sales pipeline management, text message broadcasting, A/B testing, checkout forms, and sales reporting. This plan costs $85 per month.

If you are an established business or have an expanding salesforce, go for the Max Plan ($100 per month). Under this plan, you will get services like sales funnels, recurring upsells, marketing performance analytics, and Shopify integration. 

In other words, the Max Plan offers a comprehensive set of sales automation tools for running robust outreach campaigns. 

Also read: Infusionsoft (Keap) Pricing and Comparison with Alternatives

#4. Mailchimp

Mailchimp is considered among the best email automation tools currently. 

With Mailchimp, you can send instant emails by choosing from a variety of email templates. Or, you can code to create your own, or just ask the Creative Assistant to build one for your brand.

What’s more, your emails can get more creative with Mailchimp’s click-worthy content feature. It helps you add the subject based on its Subject Line Helper along with personalized email content.

This sales automation software also enables you to send personalized emails based on your clients’ interactions. 

Moreover, its email tracking feature analyzes the optimal time to send emails to your contacts and increases the open rate.  

Pros

• Easy to create customized emails
• User-friendly interface

Cons

• Limited A/B testing
• Dashboard can be difficult to navigate

Pricing

Mailchimp offers four types of plans: Free, Essentials, Standard, and Premium.

Under the Free Plan, you get tools like marketing CRM for running drip email campaigns, a website builder to create landing pages and web forms, and a Mailchimp domain.

With the Essentials Plan ($9.99 per month), get features such as email and landing page templates, custom branding, A/B testing, and customer journey builder. 

The Standard Plan starts at $14.99 per month and includes behavioral targeting, customizable email templates, dynamic content, and send time optimization.

For those looking for features like advanced audience segmentation, phone and priority support, and multivariate testing, the Premium Plan works best. It starts at $299 per month. 

#5. ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign’s sales automation tool helps you send emails with just a few clicks. Using ActiveCampaign, you can broadcast emails, send trigger emails based on customer activity, and schedule emails as per requirements.

ActiveCampaign also helps you send targeted emails by segmenting your audience. 

You can also contact potential sales leads by sending them automated welcome emails as soon as they click on your website.

In addition, ActiveCampaign boasts of an email funnel that helps you convert qualified leads into active customers within a short time. 

Pros

• Easy to setup automation and email campaigns
• Great interface

Cons

• Reporting feature is unreliable
• Cluttered dashboard

Pricing

ActiveCampaign offers a minimum of 500 contacts per plan, which can increase to an unlimited number as per your business needs. Thus, the pricing range also varies according to the number of contacts required by your business.

It has four pricing plans in general, including Lite, Plus, Professional, and Enterprise. 

You can get the Lite Plan for $9 per month with features like marketing automation, unlimited email sending, newsletter mailing, segmentation, and over 125 built-in email templates.

Under the Plus Plan, you can get over 50 landing page templates, Facebook custom audiences, SMS marketing, contact scoring, and advanced performance reporting. The Plus Plan starts at $49 per month.

The Professional Plan is considered to be ActiveCampaign’s most popular plan. It costs $149 per month and includes website personalization, predictive sending, marketing attribution, and site messages.

With the Enterprise Plan, you can avail of features like custom reporting, free design services, unlimited email design testing, and social data enrichment. The plan starts at $258 per month.

Read also: ActiveCampaign Pricing and Comparison with Other Alternatives

#6. Drip

Drip is an email and SMS marketing software for growing businesses. With Drip, you can customize emails based on the multitude of email templates available. And if you want your own designs, you can use the website’s HTML builder for complete customization.

Drip’s email automation tool helps your emails stand out through targeted segmentation and personalization, helping them reach the right people at the right time. 

Additionally, it helps you understand what kind of emails your clients like and what content they interact with the most, thanks to its email test feature. 

With the email test feature, you can send as many emails as you want and see what works best for your customers.

Pros

• Its automation and workflow is suited to every business
• Helps create unique and responsive email templates

Cons

• Lack of email sequencing feature
• Pricing is higher compared to other email automation tools

Pricing

Drip offers two types of plans, based on whether you only want the email marketing service or the email+SMS marketing service.

The email marketing service costs $19 per month. It includes unlimited email sends and email support for 1,500 contacts.

The email+SMS marketing service starts at $22 per month and comes with unlimited email sends, email support, and 200 SMS sends.

#7. GetResponse

GetRepsonse’s email marketing platform boasts of various features that help in lead generation and improving sales performance. With GetResponse, you can send free newsletters and create automated email sequencing to follow up with your clients.

GetResponse helps you design action-based trigger emails as well as transactional emails for sending receipts, invoices, and payment reminders. 

What’s more, you need not worry about losing touch with your leads, as GetResponse enables email delivery at the right time using its Perfect Time and Time Travel delivery feature.

Pros

• Impressive sales automation tool
• Great reporting interface

Cons

• RSS newsletter is unreliable
• The platform can be difficult to navigate

Pricing

GetResponse offers two types of plans: For Everyone and Mid & Large Companies. 

There are four pricing categories under the plans For Everyone: Free, Basic, Plus, and Professional. 

The Free Plan provides unlimited newsletters, one landing page, custom domain, and signup forms.

With the Basic Plan, you can get unlimited landing pages, email scheduling, autoresponders, and basic segmentation. However, it costs $12.30 per month.

The Plus Plan starts at $40.18 per month and accompanies features such as marketing automation, webinars, contact scoring, and tagging, and offers up to 5 sales funnels.

Under the Professional Plan, you can get unlimited automation, web push notifications, e-commerce features, and unlimited sales funnels. The plan starts from $81.18 per month.

Lastly, the Mid & Large Enterprises is designed for larger organizations that need more advanced and customized features. 

The services include email marketing and automation, SMS marketing, landing pages, transactional emails, and single sign-on (SSO). 

To avail of this plan, users need to contact GetResponse’s sales team directly. 

Read also: 5 GetResponse Alternatives You Should Choose in 2021

#8. Salesforce

Salesforce’s Email Studio is considered among the best email automation tools worldwide. And why not, since it has all the features that will help you send bulk yet personalized cold emails, helping in lead generation.

Salesforce helps you filter through millions of profiles within seconds for easy segmentation. You can also automatically import, segment, and filter data from anywhere, which enables you to send emails to those who want to read them.

Additionally, Salesforce helps you discover your audience by sending more emails to active subscribers and fewer emails to inactive users. 

And despite the huge built-in library of email templates, you can create your own if needed. 

Pros

• Easy to use
• Good for building landing pages 

Cons

• Users need to know SQL to use automation tools
• The platform can be slow to load

Pricing

Salesforce has four types of plans: Basic, Pro, Corporate, and Enterprise.

The Basic Plan costs $400 per month. It accompanies services like email marketing, content creation, and integration with Salesforce Cloud.

Under the Pro Plan, you get additional features like personalized marketing automation with email solutions. The Pro Plan starts at $1250 per month.

Some advanced functionalities of the Corporate Plan include cross-channel strategic marketing solutions, and ‘Powered by Einstein’, a service that enables smarter marketing. This plan costs $3,750 per month.

The Enterprise Plan is for those handling multiple businesses. This plan allows you to execute your sales strategies across multiple marketing domains, brands, and channels. To avail, companies can contact Salesforce directly.

#9. Outfunnel

Outfunnel is a powerhouse of a platform when it comes to sales automation and keeping up with your prospects.  

The platform connects your CRM with other marketing tools and its ‘App Connector’ feature assists with keeping your sales and marketing data in sync at all times. Any relevant marketing data is shared with sales immediately, nobody will be behind again!

With Outfunnel, there is a new upcoming feature that will be using the contacts in your CRM list to create unique, custom ad audiences, so keep a lookout for this handy feature. 

Pros 

• Powerful automation features 
• Helps keep sales and marketing teams in sync

Cons 

• Lacks some customization options
• The lead scoring feature can have more flexibility

Pricing 

Outfunnel has three pricing plans available, and the price is affordable considering all the features that come with each plan. 

The ‘Starter’ plan, best for small businesses, is $19/month and that will provide you with most of the features, with the only limitation being the number of emails, events, and integrations available. 

Then the ‘Growth’ plan, great for growing companies,  is $49/month, and you are provided with thousands of email marketing opportunities and great insights into web visitor tracking numbers. 

Last but not least, the ‘Professional’ plan, ideal for enterprises, at $125/month, includes up to 50,000 events that you can sync up with the App connector, and up to 50,000 emails, you can send out each month. 

Each of these plans have a free trial available, so you can test out the waters before making a decision. 

👉Unlock the full potential of your email marketing with our guide on the most effective trigger email strategies! 🔓

Conclusion

Sales email automation tools help automate administrative tasks like sending multiple emails to your customers, following up, and helping customers onboard or opt out easily. 

With an email automation tool, your sales professionals can stop worrying about so many such repetitive daily sales tasks.

It ensures that no lead slips through your sales pipeline and at the same time, increases your sales team productivity. 

If you want to know how EngageBay can help your sales team, just sign up and we’ll give you a call and a free demo!

Boost your sales productivity with the best features of these 12 essential sales database tools!