Scale Faster With 15+ Powerful Email Automation Tools

Email automation isn’t just a time-saver—it’s a total game-changer.

Why? Because when done right, it transforms the way you connect with your audience, making your messages more personal, relevant, and impactful.

For me, staying on top of email automation trends isn’t optional—it’s how I make sure we keep delivering real value to our clients, no matter how the landscape shifts.

I understand the importance; hence I’ve put together this blog featuring the top tools across four key categories where email automation truly shines:

Cold emailing
Email marketing
CRM solutions
Email list-building tools

Each of these tools goes beyond the basics, taking automation to the next level. And to make your decision easier, I’ve shared insights from my experience and customer feedback.

So, if you’re ready to step up your email game and pick the right tools to hit your goals, let’s dive in.

Email Automation Tools: Table of Contents

• Choose the Right Automation Tool for Your Business
• Powerful Email Automation Tools
• Key Takeaways
• FAQs

Choose the Right Email Automation Tool for Your Business

Check this quick TL;DR section to find the perfect automation tool for your business.

• Saleshandy – Best suited for “Cold Email Outreach Automation & Advanced Email Deliverability.“
• ActiveCampaign – Best suited for “Email Marketing & Marketing Automation.”
• Hubspot CRM – Best suited for “CRM, Lead Management & Sales Automation.”
• OptinMonster – Best suited for “Lead Generation, Email Collection, Lead Segmentation, & CRO.”
• Clay – Best suited for “Automatic Contact Enrichment (Waterfall Enrichment), Deep Contact Insights & PRM.”

All of these automated email services are trusted and loved by users, so that you can choose them without hesitation.

However, I have included more tools in each category below if you want to have some options before deciding.

Powerful Email Automation Tools

We will be covering the categories mentioned below in the blog to find out the best automation tools for each of them.

• Cold Emailing Tools for Email Automation
• Email Marketing Tools for Email Automation
• CRM Tools for Email Automation
• List Building Tools for Email Automation

Cold Emailing Tools for Email Automation

In this section, we will learn about automated email services best suited for cold emailing.

Tools in this section

• Saleshandy
• Lemlist
• Instantly
• Woodpecker
• Smartlead

1. Saleshandy

We are starting with the tool with most advanced cold email features – Saleshandy.

• It is designed to solve your daily issues, like
• Taking care of many factors of deliverability,
• Sending too generic email content to hundreds of prospects,
• Messed up email sender’s reputation,
• Poor follow structure.

To solve this, Saleshandy comes with email automation features like,

• Email warmups – Using this feature, you can make sure your emails don’t end up in the spam folder because ESPs are considered to be from spammers.
• Hyper-Advanced Email Content Personalization – Using this feature, you can stand out your message from hundreds of generic emails that your prospects receive.
• Sender Rotation – Using this feature, you can save your sender’s reputation by not alerting the ESPs by using a single domain. This feature rotates your secondary domains randomly while sending emails to your prospects. This ensures the ESPs that no one is spamming the user and protects the email deliverability.
• Automated Follow-Ups – Using this feature, you can set up follow-up emails in advance to increase your chances of reply rate from prospects.
  

Saleshandy’s email automation features—like Merge Tags, Spintax, and Variable Tags—let you personalize your emails effortlessly, delivering tailored content in just seconds.

Next up is Saleshandy’s exclusive feature, Sequence Score.

With this feature, you can analyze the technical, sequence, and email writing setup of your cold email campaign before hitting the send button.

It automatically analyzes your campaigns and scores them based on industry best practices—helping you improve performance ahead of time.

Pros and Cons

Pricing

• Outreach Starter: $25/Month (Billed Annually)
• Outreach Pro: $74//Month (Billed Annually)
• Outreach Scale: $149/Month (Billed Annually)
• Outreach Scale Pro: $219/Month (Billed Annually)

Also Read: Saleshandy Review

2. Lemlist

Lemlist is next up in our line for choosing the best cold email automation tools.

Let’s have a look at their features.

Their most popular features include multichannel prospecting for emails and linkedin, but you have to buy their multichannel expert plan costing $99/user/month.

One of Lemlist’s best features is its highly customizable sequence builder. It allows users to create drip campaigns triggered by specific lead information or actions.

To reduce the efforts (automation), you can also duplicate the campaign structure to reuse it.

They also have personalization and lemcal for booking and scheduling meetings.

Pros and Cons

Pricing

• Free: $0
• Email Starter: $32/Month (Billed Annually)
• Email Pro: $55/Month (Billed Annually)
• Multichannel Expert: $79/Month (Billed Annually)
• Outreach Scale: $129/Month (Billed Annually)

3. Instantly

Instantly offers a solid option for cold email automation, particularly for businesses looking to hit the ground running with minimal setup.

The platform features a Done-for-You email setup, allowing users to quickly connect their email accounts and start sending campaigns right away.

While this convenience is a paid add-on, it saves time by offering a pre-built system designed from the ground up.

It also allows you to automate your whole campaign, personalize it, and A/B test it.

Other than that, not much is available in automation, and their add-ons also charge quite a bit, so if you are tight on budget, this might be a point to consider.

Pros and Cons

Pricing

• Growth: $30/Month (Billed Annually)
• Hypergrowth: $77.6/Month (Billed Annually)
• Light Speed: $286.3/Month (Billed Annually)
• Enterprise: Custom

Also Read: Instantly review

4. Woodpecker

Next up on our list of top-notch cold email automation tools is Woodpecker, and here’s why it stands out.

Woodpecker offers condition-based campaigns that run entirely on autopilot, ensuring a hassle-free experience.

These campaigns continue seamlessly until you choose to opt-out, allowing you to focus on other important tasks. (this is AI generated so sort it out in your tone).

Woodpecker is a good choice for sales automation and has some good email automation features. These features include personalization and A/B testing up to 5 variants, email warmups, etc.

When sending cold emails, you can create personalized follow-up sequences in Woodpecker that react automatically to prospect actions.

Pros and Cons

Pricing

• Cold Email: $20/Month (Billed Annually)
• Agency: $33/Month (Billed Annually)
• Custom: Custom

5. Smartlead

Lastly, we have Smartlead on our list for finding cold email automation software.

Go for this: Lastly, on our list of cold email automation software, we have Smartlead. They also have a compose with AI feature where you can connect your ChatGPT account and create personalized sequences.

For personalization, it has spintax & variable tags (inbuilt and custom).

They also have a sender rotation feature that automatically rotates attached email accounts, giving users safety for email deliverability and support in scaling.

Pros and Cons

Pricing

• Basic Plan: $34/Month (Billed Annually)
• Pro Plan: $79/Month (Billed Annually)

Also read: Smartlead.ai Review

Email Marketing Tools For Email Automation

In this section, we will learn about the top automated email software best suited for the email marketing industry.

Tools covered in this section are,

• ActiveCampaign
• Get Response
• Brevo
• Mailchimp
• Klaviyo

6. ActiveCampaign

First up on our list of marketing automation tools is ActiveCampaign. This tool is one of the top when talking about automation tools.

Let’s start with the most amazing features. It has features like a visual automation builder, conditional content blocks, and predictive sending to improve delivery time. They have more than 135 triggers to build marketing automation.

It offers split testing of the whole email campaign and is not limited to 1 email.

That means, when you plan your sequence of 5 emails, you can A/B test the entire sequence rather than testing 1-1 email at a time. It is also a customizable tool, letting you personalize almost every step.

Pros and Cons

Pricing

• Starter: $15/Month (Billed Annually)
• Plus: $49/Month (Billed Annually)
• Pro: $79/Month (Billed Annually)
• Enterprise: $145/Month (Billed Annually)

7. Get Response

If you’re looking for an efficient email automation tool, you can’t skip GetResponse. It packs everything you’ll need to capture, nurture, and convert leads on autopilot. 

Starting with popups, landing pages, and webinars, you can be sure your contacts list will grow swiftly. Next, you have autoresponders for setting up simple drip campaigns and automation workflows for building multi-step, multi-channel automation to deliver the right message to the right people at the right time.

Finally, you’ve got content monetization features like courses, premium newsletters, paid webinars, and conversion funnels. With these, you’ll be able to convert your leads and generate sales without having to connect other tools.

But if you want to connect it with your existing tech stack, you can be sure it connects with all major e-commerce platforms and CRMs, either natively, via API, or through apps like Zapier or Make.

Pros and Cons

8. Brevo

Previously known as Sendinblue, Brevo is a good choice for finding the best marketing automation tool for you.

You can easily automate your marketing emails using Brevo.

Moreover, you can easily segment and prioritize leads based on web activity, email activity, contact details, purchase history, and more.

They also have advanced automation in their customer data platform, which helps in having customer data consistency and customer analysis.

Pros and Cons

Pricing

• Free: $0
• Starter: $9/Month (Billed Annually)
• Business: $18/Month (Billed Annually)
• Enterprise: Custom Price

9. Mailchimp

Next up on our list of the best marketing automation tools is Mailchimp. It has more than 300 integrations, which help ensure a smooth email marketing experience.

They have an automated customer journey builder.

It also has different triggers, which send customer responses as soon as customers interact with your website. It also offers a campaign manager that allows users to automate omnichannel campaigns.

Apart from this, Mailchimp also has AI-powered tools that empower users to enhance their marketing outcomes with minimum effort.

Pros and Cons

Pricing

• Free: $0
• Essential:$4.61/Month (Billed Annually)
• Standard: $6/Month (Billed Annually)
• Premium: $136/Month (Billed Annually)

10. Klaviyo

The last marketing automation tool is coming up, Klaviyo.

Klaviyo offers pre-built automation for email sequences like welcome emails, abandoned cart series, and more. You can also build custom flows tailored to your needs.

It has AI tools that can read customers’ behaviors and suggest or send them messages they need to push them towards making the purchase.

You can also automate customer engagement features to ease maintaining customer relationships.

Pros and Cons

Pricing

• Free: $0
• Email: $45/Month (Billed Annually)
• Email + SMS: $60/Month (Billed Annually)

CRM Tools for Email Automation

This section will find the best CRM automation tools to make customer management easy and super fast!

Tools covered in this section are,

• Zoho CRM
• Pipedrive
• Hubspot CRM
• Salesforce

11. Zoho CRM

Zoho CRM is the first on our list of CRM lead email automation platforms. While Zoho is big in email marketing, users appreciate its CRM tool for its automation capabilities.

A fantastic feature for agencies is automatically assigning tasks to your team members once any set conditions are met. This saves redundant tasks of assigning tasks to people on time.

Their AI tool, Zia, also takes automation to the next level by predicting the outcomes using the users data, and it also suggests workflows around the same.

Pros and Cons

Pricing

• Standard: ₹ 800/Month (Billed Annually)
• Professional: ₹ 1400/Month (Billed Annually)
• Enterprise: ₹ 2400/Month (Billed Annually)
• Ultimate: ₹ 2600/Month (Billed Annually)

12. Pipedrive

The next CRM email automation platform is Pipedrive.

Pipedrive offers automation services like automated follow-ups and deal progression. Their AI also recommends automation based on user behaviors it observes.

It also integrates easily with many tools, making it very easy for marketers to create extensively customized workflows. The tool also allows users to tailor the workflow according to their requirements.

Pros and Cons

Pricing

• Essential: $12/Month (Billed Annually)
• Advanced: $24/Month (Billed Annually)
• Professional: $49/Month (Billed Annually)
• Power: $59/Month (Billed Annually)
• Enterprise: $79/Month (Billed Annually)

13. Hubspot CRM

While HubSpot is mainly known for its CRM features, it also offers email automation in its Marketing Hub.

It lets you create dynamic lists, segment your contacts, route leads, and set up internal notifications.

These features are great for fostering collaboration between your sales and marketing teams.

Plus, HubSpot’s CRM integration can be beneficial for sending more targeted emails.

For instance, within HubSpot, you can group your email recipients based on where they are in their lifecycle journey.

This lets you send them emails with relevant subject lines, attachments, links, and CTAs.

With HubSpot Workflows, you can also establish personalized automated email sequences triggered by various actions.

Pros and Cons

Pricing

• Hubspot CRM is free with basic features.

14. Salesforce

Salesforce is last on our list of the best CRM automation tools.

With Salesforce’s automation features, you can automate campaign workflows, A/B tests, and automate lead scoring.

Lead scoring allows users to predict which lead is most likely to get converted based on its behaviors. Sales teams can manage and receive automated alerts whenever the prospect engages with the product.

While promoting, AI automation helps maintain consistent information in all customer touchpoints. Automated chatbots solve basic queries, letting support agents work on only complicated queries.

This AI can also send the query to the right agent, article, or help doc based on the information.

Pros and Cons

Pricing
Note: Salesforce offers 30 days free trial.
Salesforce charges differently for each industry. You can check the details for your business on their website.

List Building Tools for Email Automation

Now, we will learn about automation tools for list-building. For your ease of understanding, I have divided this section into 2 categories, as many tools are providing different services in email list-building automation.

This section is divided into,

A: Email Collection Tools for Email Automation

• OptinMonster
• Aweber

B: Lead enrichment Tools for Email Automation

• Clay
• Persana
• BetterContact

Email Collection Tools for Email Automation

15. OptinMonster

Optinmonster has mastered the art of increasing your email list by capturing audiences with its opt-in forms. These forms are available in various formats and are highly customizable, too.

Of course, these forms are automated, and you can easily create one form and copy-paste the format for the next time if needed.

It also has intelligent targeting and personalization features based on visitor behaviors and demographics.

They also have their exit intent feature, a patented product that provides precious insights by studying users’ exit behaviors.

Pros and Cons

Pricing

• Basic: $7/Month (Billed Annually)
• Plus: $19/Month (Billed Annually)
• Pro: $29/Month (Billed Annually)
• Growth: $49/Month (Billed Annually)

16. Aweber

While Aweber is an all-around email automation and marketing solution, it is also great for anyone looking for great list-building features.

You can create custom sign-ups and landing pages to grow your email list quickly.

In addition to this, you can also segment users based on their purchases and other criteria.

Aweber provides comprehensive tracking and analytics tools to help you gain insights into your email performance.

Pros and Cons

Pricing

• Free: $0
• Lite: $ 12.50/Month (Billed Annually)
• Plus: $20/Month (Billed Annually)
• Unlimited: $899/Month (Billed Annually)

Lead enrichment Tools for Email Automation

17. Clay

Clay is a powerful lead enrichment and automation tool designed to streamline the entire sales process.

Automating tasks like list building, data enrichment, and personalized outreach enables teams to create highly targeted campaigns, boosting the likelihood of conversions.

With AI-powered research and tailored insights, Clay helps businesses engage prospects more effectively and efficiently.

Despite being a newer player in the market, its robust capabilities have quickly won the confidence of users, making it an essential tool for modern sales teams.

Pros and Cons

Pricing

• Free: $0
• Starter: $134/Month (Billed Annually)
• Explorer: $314/Month (Billed Annually)
• Pro: $720/Month (Billed Annually)
• Enterprise: Custom

18. Persana

Persana is next in the choice of finding lead enrichment tools. Persana is very new in the market.

Persana automates the complete list enrichment process for its users.

Automation features like data enrichment give you personalized prompts to connect with leads, create AI-generated email copies to communicate with them, and much more.

Another helpful feature in Persana is its AI-powered insights. These can help you make better decisions about nurturing your leads.

All the email prompts and content generated using this tool’s automated data collection can be easily copied and pasted into your email automation software, and you can proceed from there.

Pros and Cons

Pricing

• Free: $0
• Starter: $85/Month (Billed Annually)
• Growth: $189/Month (Billed Annually)
• Pro: $500/Month (Billed Annually)
• Enterprise: Connect Team

19. BetterContact

BetterContact is the last tool in this section but not least for sure.

When it comes to automation, BetterContact stands out by streamlining your lead enrichment process with ease. You can kick things off with 50 free, enriched leads to see how it works from their website!

Simply enter basic details about your leads, and BetterContact can enhance them by providing their email addresses and mobile numbers.

Just a heads up: if you want to retrieve a contact number, you must include their LinkedIn URL.

Here’s how the credit system works: finding a valid email address costs you just 1 credit.

However, if you’re looking to snag a valid phone number, it will use up to 10 credits from your trial plan. It’s an efficient way to get the contact info you need!

Pros and Cons

Pricing

• Starter: $15/Month (Billed Annually)
• Pro: $49/Month (Billed Annually)
• Enterprise: $799/Month (Billed Annually)

Key Takeaways

Now that we have examined many different kinds of email automation tools, you can easily choose the one that solves your pain point.

For example, if you send bulk cold emails and feel stuck doing it manually, Saleshandy solves your issue perfectly. It has all the advanced automation you need to achieve your business goals and scale faster.

Remember, human efforts to do basic tasks should be reduced as technology advances!

FAQs

What is an email automation tool?

Email automation tools help you automate workflows to reach your prospects at the right time, with personalized messages with minimal effort.

Email automations like following up, scheduling campaigns, and automating complete workflows are done using email automation tools.

Are email automation tools suitable for small businesses?

Yes, there are pocket-friendly automation tools available for small businesses and startups. Small companies can leverage automation to scale faster depending on the workflow.

Which is the best email automation tool?

Depending on your use case, multiple options provide advanced email automations. For example, Saleshandy is a great automation tool for cold outreach, Activecampaign is excellent for email marketing, Clay is amazing for waterfall enrichment, and so on.

Why should I use email automation tools?

Email automation tools help scale your business by eliminating daily manual efforts. These tools are also advanced in providing information and suggestions by studying user behaviours from the data.

Is there a way to automate emails?

Yes, an email automation tool for email marketing or cold outreach (depending on your requirement) could help you automate the workflow.

What is email automation in RPA?

RPA (Robotic Process Automation) in email automation is used for automating regular tasks like replying to emails, monitoring inbox activities, and collecting data points from emails.

How do I automate email processing?

You can do that by using email automation tools, canned responses from Google, and automating replies in Outlook.