Choosing the right tool from the growing list of top SMS and email marketing automation tools can directly determine whether your campaigns generate meaningful revenue or get buried in noise. On average, email marketing delivers a return of between $36 and $42 for every $1 spent, the highest ROI of any digital marketing channel. Add SMS to that mix and the numbers get even more compelling. SMS has a response rate of 45% compared to email's 6%, and 98% of text messages are opened and read, in sharp contrast to the average email open rate of approximately 37%.
The challenge is not convincing your team to invest. The challenge is picking the right platform before you waste months migrating, re-automating, and rebuilding workflows. This guide cuts through the noise and maps each tool to the business types and use cases where it actually delivers.
Key Takeaways
- Automated emails drove 37% of all email-generated sales in 2024, despite accounting for just 2% of email volume.
- SMS routinely sees 90 to 98% open rates and 18 to 35% click-through rates, benchmarks that email marketers can only dream about.
- No single tool wins for every business. Ecommerce, B2B SaaS, and small businesses each have a different best fit.
- Automated emails generate 320% more revenue than non-automated emails.
- Platforms that combine SMS and email in one workflow, without requiring separate tools, produce the most coherent customer journeys and the cleanest attribution data.
Why SMS and Email Automation Work Better Together
Email and SMS are not competing channels. They are complementary ones. These connections allow you to create cross-channel messaging where SMS and email work together to deliver a cohesive sales message. For example, a promotion can start with an email announcement, followed by an SMS reminder closer to the sale date.
The data backs this up. Research shows that sending a follow-up text asking "Have you read our email?" can increase email open rates by 20 to 30%. Meanwhile, businesses generate an average of $71 for every $1 spent on SMS marketing, and even conservative estimates put returns between $21 and $41 for every dollar invested, compared to the email ROI of $10 to $36.
The tools that make this pairing most effective are unified platforms where both channels share the same contact data, behavioral triggers, and reporting dashboard. Managing them separately means broken workflows, duplicate data, and attribution gaps.
If you want to get more out of your automation investment, it also helps to nail the fundamentals: strong email list segmentation strategies and a well-structured email marketing automation CRM setup are the foundation every platform in this guide is built on.
The Top SMS and Email Marketing Automation Tools
1. ActiveCampaign: Best for Advanced Automation and B2B Teams
ActiveCampaign is the best all-around tool for managing SMS and email marketing strategies. Some other tools may offer slightly better SMS features. However, you will not find a platform that offers a better mix of SMS, email marketing, automation, and personalization features.
One standout feature is ActiveCampaign's visual automation builder, which lets you create complex, multi-step workflows. These workflows can include emails, SMS, site messages, and even CRM updates, all from one platform.
For email marketing automation specifically, ActiveCampaign delivers the deepest automation logic for B2B and SaaS, with strong behavioral branching, lead scoring, and lifecycle workflows.
Best for: Mid-sized B2B businesses, SaaS teams, agencies managing complex automation sequences.
Notable limitation: To access ActiveCampaign's SMS features, you have to purchase an add-on. This includes 1,000 SMS monthly credits, and you will have to pay for any additional credits.
2. Klaviyo: Best for Ecommerce Behavioral Segmentation
Klaviyo delivers a data-first marketing automation platform designed for ecommerce businesses that want to leverage customer data for hyper-personalized email and SMS campaigns. The platform combines predictive analytics with flexible segmentation capabilities that transform raw transaction data into actionable marketing insights.
Klaviyo supports marketing automation across email, SMS, mobile push, and WhatsApp. In addition to marketing automation, the platform offers AI agents that can analyze and execute based on your commands.
Klaviyo pricing starts at $20 per month for 500 contacts. However, its credit-based pricing model can lead to unexpected costs, especially for larger message volumes.
Best for: Shopify and WooCommerce brands with large product catalogs that need predictive segmentation and tight ecommerce data integration.
Notable limitation: Users have reported that the SMS automation is basic and behind other tools, as Klaviyo invests most of its development resources in the email side of its product.
3. Omnisend: Best for Ecommerce Multichannel Automation
Omnisend combines email, SMS, and push notifications into a single unified platform, without the steep learning curve of Klaviyo or ActiveCampaign. This makes it a practical choice for growing ecommerce teams that want channel coordination without hiring a marketing operations specialist.
You can build a single automation that sends an email, waits 24 hours, fires a push notification if unopened, then follows up with an SMS, all within one visual workflow.
Omnisend customers generated $79 for every $1 spent in 2025 across email, SMS, and web push notifications.
Best for: Shopify and WooCommerce stores that want multichannel automation at a lower price point than Klaviyo.
Pricing note: Omnisend's plans run up to 35% less than Klaviyo's at comparable contact tiers, with all multichannel features included from the free plan upwards.
4. Brevo: Best for Budget-Conscious Teams Needing Email, SMS, and CRM
Brevo combines email marketing automation with SMS marketing and CRM integration. This multi-channel approach helps businesses communicate with customers via email, text messages, and customer relationship management tools, providing a complete engagement solution.
Brevo lets you send multi-channel campaigns including SMS and WhatsApp messages. Businesses can send transactional emails like receipts and order confirmations alongside promotional emails.
What stands out about Brevo is how much you can do for free. The free marketing platform plan includes 100,000 contacts and lets you send 300 emails a day.
Best for: Small businesses, startups, and lean teams that want email, SMS, and a basic CRM without enterprise pricing.
Notable limitation: Brevo is weaker on CRM depth compared to HubSpot and ActiveCampaign.
5. HubSpot Marketing Hub: Best for CRM-First Teams
HubSpot is a giant CRM software suite for sales, marketing, and customer service. Email marketing tools are included in its Marketing Hub, a powerful marketing automation platform.
It offers sophisticated automation tools, personalization, and detailed analytics. You can also run SMS and social campaigns alongside email.
HubSpot's email tool is at its best when used alongside the HubSpot CRM, which is free for unlimited users and stores up to 1 million contacts. The combination gives you a complete view of the customer journey, from first email open to closed deal, without switching platforms.
Best for: Sales-led businesses, agencies, and growth teams that want their email and SMS data living inside a CRM where sales teams can act on it.
Notable limitation: Once you move beyond the free plan, HubSpot can become very expensive very quickly.
6. Mailchimp: Best for Beginners and Small Business Email
Mailchimp's SMS marketing tool gives your team a direct line to customers' phones by letting you send text message campaigns, transactional notifications, and follow-ups right alongside your email and automation workflows. It appeals to small and medium businesses that already use Mailchimp for email and want to extend their outreach into SMS without adding a separate platform.
Mailchimp supports A/B testing of automation workflows. It lets you split your audience into two groups using percentage split rules and have them go through different paths. This helps you see how each path performs, so you can scale the one that generates the most ROI.
Best for: Small business owners and beginners who need a straightforward tool for email with the option to add SMS.
Notable limitation: Starting June 1, 2025, Mailchimp discontinued the Classic Automation Builder for free plan users. This tool previously allowed automated workflows like welcome sequences, abandoned cart reminders, and follow-up emails. Automation features are now only available on paid plans.
7. GetResponse: Best for Content Teams and Course Creators
GetResponse is an AI-powered email marketing automation platform designed to help businesses grow through channels they own, including email, SMS, landing pages, and signup forms. It is built for teams that want to launch campaigns quickly, automate customer journeys, and drive revenue without managing a fragmented tech stack. The platform combines email marketing, automation, and lead generation into one system.
GetResponse is the only major email marketing tool with built-in webinar hosting. You can run webinars and automatically follow up with attendees via email.
Best for: Content creators, coaches, and course businesses that need email automation, webinar follow-up sequences, and basic SMS in one platform.
Notable limitation: Some independent tests show GetResponse's deliverability trailing behind more focused tools, and it cannot match Klaviyo's ecommerce capabilities.
How to Choose the Right Platform
No tool wins across every use case. The right decision comes down to three questions:
- What is your primary channel mix? If SMS is central to your strategy, not an add-on, choose a platform where SMS and email share the same workflow builder natively (Omnisend, Brevo, Klaviyo).
- What is your business model? Ecommerce brands benefit most from Klaviyo or Omnisend. B2B and SaaS teams get more value from ActiveCampaign or HubSpot.
- What does your team's technical capacity look like? ActiveCampaign and HubSpot have steeper learning curves. Brevo, MailerLite, and Mailchimp are faster to launch with minimal training.
For a broader view of how automation fits into your marketing stack, the email marketing automation tips guide covers nine practical ways to save time and improve campaign performance once your tool is in place.
What to Look for Beyond the Feature List
The feature list rarely causes problems. What trips up teams post-purchase is less visible.
- Deliverability infrastructure. Campaigner has been a deliverability-first ESP for over 20 years, and independent inbox-placement tests consistently put it in the top tier alongside ActiveCampaign. Always test inbox placement rates before committing.
- Pricing model fit. Some platforms charge for emails used rather than contacts, which is an important difference when your list is large but your send frequency is low.
- SMS compliance and compliance tools. Compliance and governance are non-negotiable. Opt-ins, opt-outs, and audit trails must be built into the platform.
- Reporting depth. You need separate performance data for SMS and email to know what is driving revenue. Make sure the reporting features provide detailed insights for both SMS and email campaign performance.
Pairing your tool with solid email personalization techniques will help you extract the most value from whichever platform you choose.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best tool for combining SMS and email marketing automation?
ActiveCampaign is widely considered the best all-around tool for combining SMS and email marketing. While other tools may offer slightly better SMS-only features, no platform offers a better mix of SMS, email marketing, automation, and personalization capabilities. For ecommerce businesses, Omnisend and Klaviyo are strong alternatives with tighter native integrations.
Is SMS marketing worth adding to an email marketing strategy?
Yes. Survey data from 2024 to 2025 shows that companies using text message marketing are nearly six times more likely to report digital marketing success than those that don't. SMS works best as a complement to email, not a replacement, handling time-sensitive messages while email carries long-form content and nurture sequences.
Which platform is best for small business SMS and email automation?
Brevo stands out for how much you can do for free, including access to 100,000 contacts and 300 emails per day on the free plan. It also includes native SMS without requiring a separate provider, making it one of the most accessible entry points for small businesses.
How much does email marketing automation typically cost?
Pricing varies significantly by platform and volume. Brevo's paid plans start at just $8.08 per month for 5,000 emails. Klaviyo pricing starts at $20 per month for 500 contacts. ActiveCampaign and HubSpot scale higher for larger contact lists and advanced features. For most growing teams, the right platform is the one that matches your current contact volume and automation complexity, not the one with the longest feature list.
What automation types drive the most revenue?
Abandoned cart emails achieve an average CTR of 23.33%, the single highest-performing email type by click engagement across all automation types. Beyond cart recovery, welcome emails achieve an 83.6% open rate in ecommerce, the highest of any automated email type. Setting these flows up correctly, regardless of which tool you use, should be your first automation priority.
