Best Marketing Software: One Platform for Email, Automation, and CRM

If you ask me what the best “all-in-one” marketing software is, my answer is “it depends.”

Are you a SaaS company? An eCommerce brand? A professional services agency? An education business? A media company?

And how do you sell? Direct to checkout? Phone sales? Demos?

The best marketing software for you will depend on what you sell and how you sell it. And also how much control you're willing to give up, for the sake of convenience.

We're going to help you think through that decision. We won't pretend to be impartial, because Bento IS the best all-in-one marketing software for almost every business model and sales process. And you're on OUR blog.

TL;DR: Quick Picks by Niche/Business Type

Here are the mental “shorlists” people choose their email marketing service from, based on niche/business type:

• B2B (consulting, services): Bento, Hubspot, ActiveCampaign, GoHighLevel
• eCommerce: Bento, Klaviyo, Omnisend, Privy, Mailchimp
• Online education (courses, coaching): Bento, Kit, ActiveCampaign, GoHighLevel
• SaaS: Bento, Loops.so, Customer.io, Hubspot, Brevo
• Affiliate & direct response marketing: Campaign Refinery, ActiveCampaign, GoHighLevel
• Content creators: Kit, Substack, beehiiv

This type of categorization makes sense. If you're a B2B that needs CRM and sales pipeline features, Hubspot is a better choice than Klaviyo. If you're a newsletter business that sells ads placements, beehiiv is a better choice than ActiveCampaign. Different email marketing services excel in different areas.

So why is Bento in every shortlist except Affiliate & Direct Response? That's easy. Because we're the only full-stack marketing platform with the necessary tools for every niche and business model. More on that in a minute.

So why we don't allow affiliate marketers and direct response companies on our platform? It's is because they tend to be extremely aggressive marketeers and they also tend to sell slop. And by slop I mean low-quality products or outright scams. That eventually leads to a poor email engagement and lot of spam complaints, which negatively effects deliverability for all our customers.

And who wants that hassle, am I right?

Why Marketing Software Choice Matters in 2026

Convenience vs Control

Before you choose your marketing software you have to make a decision. Do you want convenience or do you want control?

MOST people prefer convenience because, let's face it, no one loves building, maintaining or scaling Frankenstein's ~~monster~~ tech stack. And marketing teams have more important things to do than waste time jumping between 15 different tools.

The thing is, though, all-in-one marketing platforms know this. And they charge accordingly. So, if you really want convenience, get comfortable with the idea of paying $7,500/month (or more, at scale) to send some emails, manage your sales pipeline, and schedule social media posts. (Unless you're smart enough to use Bento.)

On the other end of the spectrum are the tech-comfortable and tech-curious marketers. They want the control. Because they want to use the best tool for the job. And they don't mind getting their hands dirty and jury-rigging integrations to get the tools in their tech stack to play nice together.

These marketeers enjoy far lower technology costs and as a result, lower CPCs (cost per click) and CACs (cost to acquire a customer). But that comes at an additional cost (and operational load) of maintaining a cobbled-together system which can, and does, break often.

Bad deliverability kills revenue

Email marketing is our specialty, so we're admittedly biased. But no matter what marketing software you use, your number one concern ought to be email deliverability. Your emails need to reach the inbox. Simple as that. If 10% more emails reach the inbox, you make 10% more from every campaign or book 10% more sales calls.

With many all-in-one marketing platforms, deliverability is an afterthought. Even if they pay lip-service to it in their marketing material. Hubspot, GoHighLevel, ActiveCampaign: 3 of the most popular all-in-one marketing software and all 3 notorious for poor email deliverability.

Not only that, many of these platforms don't offer built-in deliverability management tools. You're expected to manage that on your own, separately. This is fine if you're an email marketing expert and know what you're doing. But what about for everyone else who just want to email their list and make sure it gets to their contacts' inboxes?

(FYI, Bento comes with several deliverability tools and guardrails out-of-the-box.)

Core Evaluation Criteria

Deliverability infrastructure

You need SPF, DKIM, and DMARC set up from day one. Your provider should help you monitor reputation, control send speed, catch bad addresses. Bento includes all this stuff. No extra charges for basic inbox placement tools.

Automation depth vs. usability

Complex workflows are great if someone can actually build them. You want branching logic, behavior triggers, personalization. But you also want to ship campaigns this week, not next quarter. Find platforms with visual builders and templates you can actually use.

Bento's new AI-mode lets you chat your automations to life.

Pricing that rewards clean lists

Most platforms charge by total contacts. Got 100,000 contacts but only email 30,000 active ones each month? Too bad. You still pay for all 100,000. That's $800 monthly for people who never open your emails.

Bento charges for what you send, not what you store. Email your engaged 30,000 subscribers, pay for 30,000. Save 70% while your deliverability improves because you're not blasting cold contacts.

Data flexibility and CRM connections

Your marketing platform needs to talk to other tools. Good APIs matter. Webhooks matter. Can you get your data out if you need to switch? Some platforms make exports painful on purpose. Check before you commit.

Bento offers native integrations to many of the most popular software tools used by eCommerce, B2B, SaaS, content, and online education businesses. And if we don't have a native integration for a tool you use, you can simply use Zapier to get it to talk to Bento.

Platform-by-Platform Breakdowns

Bento: Deliverability-first all-in-one

Bento puts marketing, product, and transactional email in one place. Deliverability tools come standard. Authentication setup, domain warming, send throttling, all included. You pay for what you send, not your total database size.

The automation builder handles onboarding sequences, drip campaigns, win-back flows. Real-time triggers fire based on what users actually do. Developers get solid APIs. Marketers get an interface that makes sense. Both can work without stepping on each other.

ActiveCampaign: Marketing automation plus light CRM

ActiveCampaign mixes email automation with basic CRM features. Deal tracking, lead scoring, pipeline management. The workflow builder gets complex fast. You can build 5 or 6 levels deep with branching logic everywhere.

It takes time to learn. Most teams need 2 to 3 weeks before they're comfortable. Pricing starts at $145 monthly for 10,000 contacts, then jumps to $350. Deliverability tools exist but you'll configure them yourself. Pick ActiveCampaign if you need CRM features and have patience to learn the system.

Klaviyo: Ecommerce powerhouse

Klaviyo owns the Shopify space. Over 40,000 stores use it. The platform predicts customer lifetime value pretty accurately after just three purchases. Cart abandonment flows typically save 10 to 15% of lost sales.

But it's expensive. At 50,000 contacts you're paying $1,250 monthly. Doesn't matter if half those contacts never buy. If you're not running an online store with real product data, you probably don't need Klaviyo's complexity.

HubSpot Marketing Hub: All-in-one for HubSpot CRM users

HubSpot makes sense if you already use their CRM. Marketing, sales, service teams all see the same data. Campaign automation, landing pages, reporting, it's all there.

Pricing adds up fast though. Every add-on costs more. Deliverability features need manual setup. Still, if your whole company runs on HubSpot, the marketing hub fits naturally.

MailerLite: Budget-friendly automation

MailerLite gives you a decent free tier. Basic automation, segmentation, drag-and-drop editor. Good for small businesses getting started. The workflows aren't as powerful as pricier options. You'll need separate tools for deliverability monitoring. But for simple email marketing that doesn't break the bank, it works.

Brevo (Sendinblue): Unlimited contacts on the free plan

Brevo limits daily sends, not contact count. Store a million contacts if you want. Just can't email them all at once. Good for businesses that email occasionally. Automation and transactional emails work fine. Deliverability help is mostly DIY. Pick Brevo if you send infrequently and want to avoid contact limits.

ConvertKit (Kit): Creator-focused automation

ConvertKit works for creators, course sellers, newsletter writers. The tagging system makes sense. Easy to segment subscribers based on what they've bought or clicked. Paid newsletter features built in. Product launch sequences ready to go.

The automation isn't as deep as enterprise tools. Deliverability support comes from the community, not dedicated help. Fine for creators who want simplicity. Teams needing serious automation should look elsewhere.

Customer.io: Product-led engagement

Customer.io targets product teams at SaaS companies. Send emails, push notifications, in-app messages based on user behavior. Strong API for developers.

You'll need engineers to set it up and maintain it. Pricing reflects that enterprise focus. Use Customer.io when you have technical resources and need messages across multiple channels.

Other notable tools

Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Marketo, Oracle Eloqua. These serve huge companies with big budgets. Powerful? Yes. Six-month implementations? Also yes. Professional services bills? Definitely.

Mid-market teams usually regret going enterprise too early. Start with something you can actually use today.

Migration and Implementation Roadmap

Audit your current workflows and deliverability health

List every automation you run. Every email list. Every transactional message. Check your deliverability scores in Google Postmaster Tools and Yahoo Postmaster. Know where you stand before you move anything. This baseline helps you prove the switch was worth it.

Plan a phased rollout

Don't move everything at once. Start with your most important automations. Then regular campaigns. Save transactional emails for last since they're usually the most complex.

Bento's send throttling helps warm up new sending domains without hurting delivery. Test everything before you switch completely. Set deadlines but be realistic.

Train teams on the new process

Your team needs to know what's changing. Show operators the new workflow builder. Walk through the dashboards they'll monitor. Get developers involved early for API setup. Make sure sales knows how to access marketing data in their CRM.

Write down the new processes. Record training videos if needed. A smooth switch depends on everyone knowing their part.

Ready to Pick Your Marketing Platform?

Picking marketing software isn't about counting features. It's about emails reaching inboxes, automations that run themselves, teams that work together. All without burning cash on tools you barely use.

Bento includes deliverability infrastructure from the start. You pay for emails sent, not contacts stored. Everything works in one platform. Book a walkthrough or email sales@bentonow.com to see it in action.

For more comparisons, check out our guides on best email marketing services, email automation software, and Mailchimp alternatives.