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Comparison

The best FluentCRM alternatives

FluentCRM puts contacts, sequences and automations inside WordPress, with a flat annual licence and no per-contact charge at any list size. People leave when sending through WordPress starts to strain, or when the site being down means the marketing is too.

Alternatives below, with what each costs, what its free tier really gets you, and what it is bad at. We make one of them. It's marked, and it costs more than a flat licence.

20 options Prices checked 2 August 2026 No affiliate links
The short answer

Pick by the reason you're leaving

Nobody replaces a platform in the abstract. Something specific stopped working. Start from that, not from a feature matrix.

Open source with automationMautic

Self-hosted, no per-contact cost, and a proper campaign builder.

Cheapest one-time licenceSendy

$69 once, same bring-your-own-SES model, outside WordPress.

Cheapest hosted escapeEmailOctopus

$9/mo billed yearly, with nothing to run and deliverability handled.

Best for ecommerceKlaviyo

If WooCommerce data is what you're automating on, this goes much further.

Best when sending should leave WordPressEmail Bump

Managed sending, flows and a transactional API, with the site out of the critical path. That's us.

Context

What actually goes wrong with FluentCRM

The flat licence and the data staying in your own database are genuinely good. The problems all come from where it runs.

It doesn't send email. FluentCRM manages contacts and automations; the sending goes out through WordPress's mailer to Amazon SES, Mailgun or an SMTP provider you configure. So the licence is flat and the sending bill isn't, and deliverability is entirely yours.

WordPress cron is fragile at volume. Large sends depend on cron firing reliably on a shared host. It's manageable with a real cron job and enough resources, and it's the single most common source of complaints — campaigns that stall halfway through.

If the site goes down, so does the marketing. Your automation, your contact database and your sequences live inside the WordPress install. A plugin conflict or a hosting incident takes the marketing with it.

It's tied to one ecosystem. That's the point if you're a WordPress shop and a hard ceiling if you're not. There's no path to using it alongside a non-WordPress product.

The baseline

What FluentCRM costs, from their own pricing page

Everything below is compared against these numbers, read on 2 August 2026.

Flat annual licence

The plans

$90/year
1 site licenceSolo/Blogger — Unlimited contacts
$174/year
5 site licenceSmall Business — Unlimited contacts
$349/year
50 site licenceAgency — Unlimited contacts
Your provider
SES, Mailgun or SMTPSending — Billed separately from the licence
Worth knowing

The fine print

  • Unlimited contacts at any list size — the licence is flat.
  • Data lives in your WordPress site's own database tables.
  • It uses WordPress's emailing functionality; you supply the sending provider.
  • Deep integration with WooCommerce, LearnDash and the membership plugins.
  • A free version of the plugin is available.
Side by side

All 20, on the things that decide it

ProviderStarts atFree tierWhat it coversLicenceData region
Email BumpHosted$19/mo at 10,000 contacts5,000 contacts and 5,000 emails a monthThe whole product — campaigns, live segments, multi-step flows and behavioural triggersProprietaryUnited States (Amazon SES, us-east-1)
MauticSelf-hostableFree to run; you pay for hosting and a sending providerSelf-hosted — the software is freeFull campaign builder, segmentation, landing pages, forms and lead scoringOpen sourceWherever you deploy it
SendySelf-hostable$69 one-time licence; you pay Amazon SES for sendingNot free, but there is no recurring costLists, campaigns, autoresponders and reportsCommercial one-time licenceWherever you host it
MailcoachSelf-hostableHosted from $9.99/mo base, including 2,000 emailsNone; the hosted base plan is $9.99/moCampaigns, lists, automations and transactional sendingCommercial, with a separate self-hosted licenceWherever you deploy the self-hosted version
listmonkSelf-hostableFree to run; you pay your SMTP provider for the sendingSelf-hosted — the software is freeLists, subscribers, campaigns and templatesAGPL-3.0Wherever you deploy it
KeilaSelf-hostableKeila XS €8/mo for 2,000 emails on the hosted planSelf-hosted — the software is freeCampaigns, a visual editor, segmentation and analyticsAGPL-3.0European Union hosting, or wherever you self-host
EmailOctopusHostedPro from $9/mo billed yearly2,500 subscribers and 10,000 emails a month, with EmailOctopus brandingCampaigns, simple automations, landing pages and formsProprietaryUnited Kingdom
BrevoHostedPaid plans start at 5,000 emails a month; the price scales with send volume300 emails a day, forever, with contact storage into the tens of thousandsCampaigns, automation, plus SMS, WhatsApp, a CRM and landing pagesProprietaryEuropean Union (France)
MailerLiteHostedComfort from $12/mo; Power from $25/mo250 subscribers and 2,500 emails a month, 2 seats, 3 automationsCampaigns, automations, landing pages, forms and websitesProprietaryEuropean Union (Lithuania)
SenderHostedPaid plans are priced by subscriber count and aren't shown as a static table2,500 subscribers and 15,000 emails a month, with automation includedCampaigns, automation, landing pages, forms and pop-ups, plus SMS on paid tiersProprietaryEuropean Union (Lithuania)
ActiveCampaignHostedPriced per tier and contact count; no static price table is publishedNone — a 14-day trialThe whole product, plus a sales CRM on the higher tiersProprietaryUnited States (Chicago-headquartered)
MailchimpHostedEssentials $13/mo at 500 contacts250 contacts and 500 sends a month, capped at 250 a day, 1 seatCampaigns, journeys, landing pages, forms, ads and a light CRMProprietaryUnited States
Kit (formerly ConvertKit)HostedCreator $33/mo at 1,000 subscribers ($390/year)Up to 10,000 subscribers with one basic visual automationBroadcasts, sequences, visual automations, landing pages, forms and digital product salesProprietaryUnited States
GetResponseHostedStarter $19/mo at 1,000 contacts ($15.58/mo billed annually)None — a 14-day trial with feature limitsCampaigns, automation, funnels, landing pages, webinars and coursesProprietaryEuropean Union (Poland)
KlaviyoHostedPriced by active profiles on a slider; no static price table is published250 active profiles and 500 email sends a month, plus $5 of mobile messagesCampaigns, flows, ecommerce segmentation, SMS and pushProprietaryUnited States
OmnisendHostedStandard $11.20/mo for 500 contacts; Pro $41.30/mo for 2,500250 contacts, 500 emails a month and 500 web push notificationsEcommerce campaigns and automations, SMS and web pushProprietaryEuropean Union (Lithuania)
LoopsHostedPriced by subscribed contacts via a slider, not published as a fixed table1,000 contacts and 4,000 sends a month, with a Loops footer on your emailCampaigns and loops (their term for automations), plus transactionalProprietaryUnited States
BentoHosted$29/mo for up to 5,000 active users100 transactional emails a month; the marketing platform has a 30-day trialCampaigns, automations, CRM, segmentation, forms and pop-upsProprietaryUnited States
EngageBayHostedBasic $12.74/user/month on biennial billing, 500 contacts250 contacts, free for teams of up to 15 membersCampaigns, sequences, landing pages, forms and pop-ups, plus a CRM and helpdeskProprietaryUnited States
MoosendHostedPro is priced by subscriber count on a calculatorNone — a 30-day trial with no credit cardCampaigns, automation, landing pages, forms, plus SMTP and transactional emailProprietaryEuropean Union (Greece)

Read off each vendor's own pricing or documentation page on 2 August 2026. Where a vendor renders prices from a slider and publishes no static table, the cell says so instead of repeating a number from someone's affiliate post.

In detail

Every option, and what it's bad at

01Hosted service

Email Bump

Best for: Teams tired of send multipliers, seat limits and paid add-ons

Contact-priced marketing automation with the transactional API included rather than sold as an add-on. Sending isn't a multiple of your list size, seats aren't rationed, and unsubscribed contacts stop counting toward the bill.

Starts at
$19/mo at 10,000 contacts
Free tier
5,000 contacts and 5,000 emails a month
Marketing
The whole product — campaigns, live segments, multi-step flows and behavioural triggers
Data region
United States (Amazon SES, us-east-1)
What it does well
  • No send multiplier. Most of this list caps you at 10–15× your contact count; sending here is uncapped under fair use.
  • Unlimited team seats on every plan, including free — seats are the quiet upsell everywhere else.
  • Unlimited sending domains, also on every plan.
  • Unsubscribed and bounced contacts stop being billable, so the number you pay for is your real audience.
  • The transactional API, SMTP and inbound email are included, not add-ons.
  • A CLI, an MCP server and agent skills cover the same surface as the API, including creating the account itself.
What to watch for
  • No sales CRM — no pipelines, deals or lead scoring. If you're replacing ActiveCampaign's sales side, this isn't it.
  • No SMS or WhatsApp. Email and inbound email only.
  • No landing page or form builder.
  • US-only sending; no EU data region.
  • A much smaller integration catalogue than the incumbents' hundreds of connectors.
  • The free plan puts a 'Powered by Email Bump' badge on marketing footers.
02Open source

Mautic

Best for: Owning your marketing automation stack outright

The largest open-source marketing automation project — campaigns, segmentation, landing pages, lead scoring — running on your own PHP and MySQL. Free as software, expensive in attention.

Starts at
Free to run; you pay for hosting and a sending provider
Free tier
Self-hosted — the software is free
Marketing
Full campaign builder, segmentation, landing pages, forms and lead scoring
Data region
Wherever you deploy it
What it does well
  • No per-contact pricing, ever. The list can be any size.
  • Feature coverage close to the commercial platforms, including lead scoring.
  • Your data stays on your infrastructure, which answers most privacy requirements.
  • Over 10,000 GitHub stars and years of production use.
What to watch for
  • PHP, MySQL and correctly configured cron — this is a system you administer.
  • Upgrades are known to be involved.
  • You bring your own sending provider and own the deliverability.
  • The interface feels its age next to the commercial tools.
03Commercial one-time licence

Sendy

Best for: Large lists on a one-off licence and Amazon SES rates

A $69 one-time PHP application you install on your own hosting, which sends through your Amazon SES account. No subscription, ever, at any list size.

Starts at
$69 one-time licence; you pay Amazon SES for sending
Free tier
Not free, but there is no recurring cost
Marketing
Lists, campaigns, autoresponders and reports
Data region
Wherever you host it
What it does well
  • $69 once. No monthly fee at any subscriber count, forever.
  • Amazon SES rates underneath — roughly $1 per 10,000 emails.
  • Runs on ordinary PHP and MySQL hosting, like WordPress.
  • Multi-brand support makes it popular with agencies.
What to watch for
  • You install, update and secure it yourself.
  • You bring your own SES account and own the deliverability entirely.
  • Automation is autoresponders, not branching journeys.
  • The interface is functional and dated.
04Commercial, with a separate self-hosted licence

Mailcoach

Best for: Developers who want unlimited contacts and their own sending provider

From the Spatie team. Hosted Mailcoach is pay-as-you-go with unlimited contacts, lists and automations, and it will send through your own provider for half the per-email rate. A self-hosted licence is sold separately.

Starts at
Hosted from $9.99/mo base, including 2,000 emails
Free tier
None; the hosted base plan is $9.99/mo
Marketing
Campaigns, lists, automations and transactional sending
Data region
Wherever you deploy the self-hosted version
What it does well
  • Unlimited contacts, lists and automations on the hosted plan.
  • $0.001 per email if you bring your own sending provider, $0.002 if Mailcoach delivers.
  • A self-hosted licence exists for teams who want their own infrastructure.
  • Built by a well-regarded open-source team, with the code quality that implies.
What to watch for
  • Pay-as-you-go means a big send month produces a big bill.
  • No free plan.
  • Smaller ecosystem and integration catalogue than the mainstream tools.
  • Self-hosted pricing isn't published on the hosted pricing page.
05AGPL-3.0

listmonk

Best for: Newsletters at volume, on hardware you already pay for

A single Go binary and a Postgres database that will push millions of newsletters through whatever SMTP you point it at. Mature, fast, and list-first by design.

Starts at
Free to run; you pay your SMTP provider for the sending
Free tier
Self-hosted — the software is free
Marketing
Lists, subscribers, campaigns and templates
Data region
Wherever you deploy it
What it does well
  • Over 22,000 GitHub stars and years of production use.
  • One binary plus Postgres — no queue broker, no Redis.
  • Handles very large lists on modest hardware.
  • No per-contact cost at any size.
What to watch for
  • No automation builder. It sends campaigns to lists.
  • Bring your own SMTP and your own deliverability.
  • No CRM, no ecommerce data, no landing pages.
  • The admin UI is functional rather than beautiful.
06AGPL-3.0

Keila

Best for: Privacy-minded newsletters that want open source with a hosted option

AGPLv3, self-hostable, and unusual among open-source tools in offering a straightforward European hosted plan — with unlimited contacts at every tier and the option to send through your own server.

Starts at
Keila XS €8/mo for 2,000 emails on the hosted plan
Free tier
Self-hosted — the software is free
Marketing
Campaigns, a visual editor, segmentation and analytics
Data region
European Union hosting, or wherever you self-host
What it does well
  • Unlimited contacts and projects on every hosted tier — you pay for sends, not list size.
  • Genuinely open source and self-hostable, with a hosted option if you'd rather not.
  • You can use Keila's sending or point it at your own server.
  • Priced in euros on European hosting, from €8/mo.
What to watch for
  • No lifecycle automation — campaigns and segments rather than branching flows.
  • A small project with a small ecosystem and few integrations.
  • Self-hosting means Elixir, Postgres and your own sending provider.
  • No transactional API for a product.
07Hosted service

EmailOctopus

Best for: The cheapest way to email a list of a few thousand people

Deliberately minimal and priced accordingly. No CRM, no funnels, no ecommerce data model — a list, a campaign, a simple automation, and a bill that stays small.

Starts at
Pro from $9/mo billed yearly
Free tier
2,500 subscribers and 10,000 emails a month, with EmailOctopus branding
Marketing
Campaigns, simple automations, landing pages and forms
Data region
United Kingdom
What it does well
  • 2,500 free subscribers and 10,000 free emails a month — ten times most free tiers.
  • Pro adds unlimited users, which is rare at $9/mo.
  • Reports kept forever on Pro, against 30 days on free.
  • Nothing to learn. It does one thing.
What to watch for
  • Free puts EmailOctopus branding on your email and limits you to 1 landing page and 1 form.
  • Automation is basic — no branching journeys.
  • No CRM, no SMS, no ecommerce data.
  • Not the tool you grow into.
08Hosted service

Brevo

Best for: Large lists you email infrequently, and teams that want EU-based billing

Formerly Sendinblue. The structural difference from almost everything else here is that Brevo meters emails sent rather than contacts stored — so a big dormant list costs nothing to keep.

Starts at
Paid plans start at 5,000 emails a month; the price scales with send volume
Free tier
300 emails a day, forever, with contact storage into the tens of thousands
Marketing
Campaigns, automation, plus SMS, WhatsApp, a CRM and landing pages
Data region
European Union (France)
What it does well
  • Priced on emails sent, not contacts stored — the cheapest way to hold a large, rarely-mailed list.
  • French company with EU data handling, which settles a lot of procurement reviews.
  • SMS, WhatsApp, CRM and landing pages included in the platform rather than bolted on.
  • The free plan is genuinely usable for a small list.
What to watch for
  • The free plan's 300-a-day ceiling is a hard daily wall, not a monthly allowance.
  • Breadth over depth — the automation builder is less capable than ActiveCampaign's.
  • Deliverability on shared infrastructure gets mixed reports; warm up carefully.
  • The interface carries the scars of a product that has absorbed a lot of modules.
09Hosted service

MailerLite

Best for: Small teams who want a clean builder and a cheap entry price

The most consistently recommended ActiveCampaign alternative for people who found ActiveCampaign too much. Well-designed, inexpensive, and the Power plan drops the send multiplier entirely.

Starts at
Comfort from $12/mo; Power from $25/mo
Free tier
250 subscribers and 2,500 emails a month, 2 seats, 3 automations
Marketing
Campaigns, automations, landing pages, forms and websites
Data region
European Union (Lithuania)
What it does well
  • Power removes the send cap entirely — unlimited monthly emails and unlimited seats.
  • $12/mo entry is among the cheapest real plans in this category.
  • The editor and templates are genuinely pleasant to use.
  • 24/7 support even on the cheaper paid tier.
What to watch for
  • Free is 250 subscribers and 3 active automations — small.
  • Comfort caps you at 50 active automations and a 10× send multiple.
  • Automation logic is shallower than ActiveCampaign's; complex branching gets awkward.
  • No sales CRM.
10Hosted service

Sender

Best for: The most generous permanent free plan in marketing email

Free forever at 2,500 subscribers and 15,000 monthly emails — with automation, landing pages, forms and transactional sending included rather than held back for paid tiers.

Starts at
Paid plans are priced by subscriber count and aren't shown as a static table
Free tier
2,500 subscribers and 15,000 emails a month, with automation included
Marketing
Campaigns, automation, landing pages, forms and pop-ups, plus SMS on paid tiers
Data region
European Union (Lithuania)
What it does well
  • 2,500 free subscribers and 15,000 free monthly emails — the largest free allowance in this comparison.
  • The free plan includes automation, which most competitors reserve for paid tiers.
  • SMS on paid plans, with free credits on Standard and Professional.
  • Transactional sending is part of the platform.
What to watch for
  • Paid prices weren't rendering on their pricing page when we checked, so budgeting means signing up.
  • Smaller company and integration catalogue than the well-known names.
  • Automation depth is closer to MailerLite than ActiveCampaign.
  • A very generous free tier means a broad shared sender base — warm up carefully.
11Hosted service

ActiveCampaign

Best for: Teams that need marketing and sales automation in one system

The deepest automation builder in the mid-market, with a CRM alongside it. Four tiers, priced on contacts, with sending capped at a multiple of your list and most of the interesting parts sold as add-ons.

Starts at
Priced per tier and contact count; no static price table is published
Free tier
None — a 14-day trial
Marketing
The whole product, plus a sales CRM on the higher tiers
Data region
United States (Chicago-headquartered)
What it does well
  • Automation depth that most of this list doesn't match.
  • Marketing and sales in one system, with custom objects on Enterprise.
  • Over 1,000 integrations.
  • Free migration and onboarding, and no setup fees.
What to watch for
  • Sending is capped at a multiple of your contacts: 10× on Starter and Plus, 12× on Pro, 15× on Enterprise.
  • Seats are rationed — 1 user on Starter and Plus, 3 on Pro, 5 on Enterprise.
  • Starter limits automations to 5 actions each.
  • CRM, transactional email and SMS are paid add-ons on top of the plan.
  • No free plan, and the price scales with contacts whether or not you email them.
12Hosted service

Mailchimp

Best for: Teams who need the name procurement already recognises

The default answer for a decade, now part of Intuit. Enormous integration catalogue, and a pricing model built around send multipliers and seat counts that gets expensive at the top.

Starts at
Essentials $13/mo at 500 contacts
Free tier
250 contacts and 500 sends a month, capped at 250 a day, 1 seat
Marketing
Campaigns, journeys, landing pages, forms, ads and a light CRM
Data region
United States
What it does well
  • The largest integration catalogue in the category.
  • Template and content tooling that non-marketers can use without training.
  • Predictive segmentation and reporting on Standard and above.
  • Every agency and freelancer already knows it.
What to watch for
  • Free is 250 contacts and 500 sends — a demo, not a plan.
  • Send multipliers apply: 10× on Essentials, 12× on Standard, 15× on Premium.
  • Seats are rationed at 1 / 3 / 5 until Premium, which is $350/mo at 500 contacts.
  • You pay for unsubscribed contacts unless you archive them yourself.
13Hosted service

Kit (formerly ConvertKit)

Best for: Creators, newsletters and anyone selling their own digital products

Built for individual creators rather than marketing departments, and it shows in the best way: unlimited sending, a free tier that goes to 10,000 subscribers, and commerce built in.

Starts at
Creator $33/mo at 1,000 subscribers ($390/year)
Free tier
Up to 10,000 subscribers with one basic visual automation
Marketing
Broadcasts, sequences, visual automations, landing pages, forms and digital product sales
Data region
United States
What it does well
  • The most generous free tier here by subscriber count — 10,000, not 250.
  • Unlimited email broadcasts on every paid plan; no send multiplier.
  • Sells digital products and subscriptions natively.
  • Pro includes unlimited users, which most competitors reserve for their top tier.
What to watch for
  • The free tier allows one basic automation — the sequences are the paid product.
  • Creator is $33/mo at 1,000 subscribers, well above MailerLite or Mailchimp at that size.
  • Commerce takes a transaction fee on product sales.
  • Built around a creator's mental model; a B2B lifecycle team may find it thin.
14Hosted service

GetResponse

Best for: Course creators and anyone who needs webinars in the same tool

An all-in-one that includes things nobody else bundles — webinars, course hosting, a website builder — with unlimited sending on every plan.

Starts at
Starter $19/mo at 1,000 contacts ($15.58/mo billed annually)
Free tier
None — a 14-day trial with feature limits
Marketing
Campaigns, automation, funnels, landing pages, webinars and courses
Data region
European Union (Poland)
What it does well
  • Unlimited monthly email sends on every plan, including the $19 entry tier.
  • Webinars, courses and a website builder in the same subscription.
  • Polish company, so EU data handling comes as standard.
  • Abandoned-cart recovery and sales funnels on Marketer.
What to watch for
  • Starter allows exactly 1 automation workflow — the automation is really on Marketer at $59/mo.
  • No free plan.
  • Users are capped at 3 on Starter and 5 on Marketer and Creator.
  • Breadth means some modules feel less finished than the email core.
15Hosted service

Klaviyo

Best for: Ecommerce, where revenue attribution per email is the point

The ecommerce standard. Deep Shopify and store-data integration, segmentation built on purchase behaviour, and reporting that ties sends to revenue better than anything else here.

Starts at
Priced by active profiles on a slider; no static price table is published
Free tier
250 active profiles and 500 email sends a month, plus $5 of mobile messages
Marketing
Campaigns, flows, ecommerce segmentation, SMS and push
Data region
United States
What it does well
  • Best-in-class ecommerce data model — orders, products and browsing drive segments directly.
  • Revenue attribution per flow and per campaign, out of the box.
  • SMS and push in the same platform as email.
  • Predictive analytics on customer lifetime value.
What to watch for
  • Free is 250 profiles and 500 sends a month.
  • Priced on active profiles, and the definition of active is broader than 'subscribed'.
  • It gets expensive fast as the list grows; that's the standard complaint.
  • Overkill, and overpriced, if you aren't an ecommerce store.
16Hosted service

Omnisend

Best for: Small ecommerce stores that want Klaviyo's shape at a lower price

Ecommerce-focused automation with email, SMS and web push in one plan, priced well below Klaviyo at the sizes most stores actually operate at.

Starts at
Standard $11.20/mo for 500 contacts; Pro $41.30/mo for 2,500
Free tier
250 contacts, 500 emails a month and 500 web push notifications
Marketing
Ecommerce campaigns and automations, SMS and web push
Data region
European Union (Lithuania)
What it does well
  • Pro gives unlimited monthly emails at $41.30/mo.
  • Web push is unlimited from the Standard plan.
  • SMS from $0.007 with no separate platform fee.
  • Free migration and 24/7 support even on the entry plan.
What to watch for
  • Free is 250 contacts and 500 emails.
  • Standard's 6,000-email allowance is small if you send weekly.
  • Built for stores; a B2B SaaS will find the data model a poor fit.
  • Reporting is thinner than Klaviyo's.
17Hosted service

Loops

Best for: SaaS teams who want lifecycle email without assembling it

Contact-priced, opinionated, and quick to set up, with transactional sending folded in at no extra charge. Less configurable than ActiveCampaign by design.

Starts at
Priced by subscribed contacts via a slider, not published as a fixed table
Free tier
1,000 contacts and 4,000 sends a month, with a Loops footer on your email
Marketing
Campaigns and loops (their term for automations), plus transactional
Data region
United States
What it does well
  • Transactional sending included rather than billed as a second product.
  • Genuinely fast to set up — hours, not a fortnight.
  • The free plan runs a small product.
  • Clean, modern interface with no legacy modules.
What to watch for
  • Free adds Loops branding and caps you at 10 emails/second.
  • Paid pricing sits behind a slider, so budgeting means signing up.
  • Automation is deliberately simpler than ActiveCampaign's.
  • No CRM, SMS or landing pages.
18Hosted service

Bento

Best for: SaaS and store teams who want marketing and transactional at a very low flat price

A small, opinionated platform with unusually blunt pricing: $29/mo for up to 5,000 active users with unlimited sends, automations and seats, and transactional email metered separately at cents per thousand.

Starts at
$29/mo for up to 5,000 active users
Free tier
100 transactional emails a month; the marketing platform has a 30-day trial
Marketing
Campaigns, automations, CRM, segmentation, forms and pop-ups
Data region
United States
What it does well
  • $29/mo covers 5,000 active users with unlimited marketing sends, automations and seats.
  • Transactional at $5/mo to 12,500 emails, then $0.09 per 1,000 — among the cheapest anywhere.
  • A 30-day trial with no charge during it.
  • Deliverability tooling and analytics included rather than upsold.
What to watch for
  • Small company; fewer integrations and less public track record.
  • Bento Chat is a separate $30/mo add-on and requires the marketing platform.
  • Marketing and transactional are metered separately rather than as one plan.
  • Less polished than the established names, which is the trade for the price.
19Hosted service

EngageBay

Best for: Small teams who want a HubSpot-shaped suite at a tenth of the price

An all-in-one marketing, sales and service suite priced per user rather than per contact. The free tier is unusually functional and explicitly allows teams of up to fifteen.

Starts at
Basic $12.74/user/month on biennial billing, 500 contacts
Free tier
250 contacts, free for teams of up to 15 members
Marketing
Campaigns, sequences, landing pages, forms and pop-ups, plus a CRM and helpdesk
Data region
United States
What it does well
  • A free plan that allows fifteen team members — almost unheard of.
  • CRM, marketing and helpdesk in one suite at a fraction of HubSpot's price.
  • Growth at $55.24/user/month includes 5,000 contacts and real marketing automation.
  • Per-user pricing means a big quiet list doesn't inflate the bill.
What to watch for
  • Per-user pricing gets expensive fast for a large team.
  • Headline prices are biennial; monthly billing costs more.
  • Free is 250 contacts with 2 lists, 5 forms and 2 email sequences.
  • The breadth means individual modules are less polished than the specialists'.
20Hosted service

Moosend

Best for: Unlimited sending on a budget, with a long trial to prove it

A Sitecore-owned platform that leads on unlimited sending and a 30-day no-card trial. There's also a credits model — buy 350,000 sends for $350 — which suits anyone whose volume is lumpy.

Starts at
Pro is priced by subscriber count on a calculator
Free tier
None — a 30-day trial with no credit card
Marketing
Campaigns, automation, landing pages, forms, plus SMTP and transactional email
Data region
European Union (Greece)
What it does well
  • Unlimited email campaigns and sends on every paid plan.
  • A 30-day trial with no card, which is unusually long.
  • A credits option — $350 for 350,000 sends — for irregular volume.
  • SMTP and transactional email included rather than a separate product.
What to watch for
  • No permanent free plan.
  • Pro pricing is a calculator rather than a published table.
  • Smaller integration catalogue than the big names.
  • Brand recognition is low, which matters if you need internal buy-in.
FAQ

FluentCRM alternatives, asked and answered

What is the best FluentCRM alternative?

Staying self-hosted: Mautic if you want a real campaign builder, Sendy if a $69 one-time licence outside WordPress appeals, listmonk if it's really newsletters.

Going hosted: EmailOctopus at $9/mo is the cheapest escape, MailerLite at $12/mo is the best-rounded, and we're the option where the transactional API comes on the same plan.

Is FluentCRM actually cheap?

The licence is — $90/year for unlimited contacts on one site is remarkable against per-contact SaaS pricing.

The total isn't only the licence. Add your sending provider, the hosting to run large sends reliably, and the time you'll spend on deliverability, because none of that is included.

Can FluentCRM handle a large list?

It can, with a properly configured cron job and hosting that can take it. The failure mode at volume is stalled sends rather than lost data.

If your list is large enough that this is a question, that's usually the signal to move sending outside WordPress.

When sending should leave WordPress

Managed sending, with the site out of the path

Amazon SES underneath with reputation handled, plus campaigns, flows, segments and a transactional API on one contact-priced plan. 5,000 contacts and 5,000 emails free.

Start free Read the API docs

Keep reading

Email Bump vs FluentCRMThe head-to-head, including where FluentCRM is the better buy.Every comparisonAll the platforms we've priced and compared, in one index.Email Bump pricingWhat contact-based pricing costs at every list size.