Drip Campaign Software (2026): The Cheapest Plan That Runs a Sequence

The cheapest drip campaign software that runs a complete sequence, with a trigger, timed waits, a condition and an exit, is Moosend Pro: $16 a month at 1,000 contacts and $48 at 5,000, billed monthly, as of 18 Oct 2026, with no workflow cap printed on its pricing page. GetResponse Starter is cheaper at $19 and $54 only if your drip never needs a tag or event condition, because those arrive on Marketer. Everything else in this field either caps the number of steps or charges for the condition.

This page is about opt-in drips: sequences sent to people who asked to hear from you. Cold outreach sequences to people who never subscribed follow different legal rules and use different tools, and nothing below applies to them.

What counts as a drip campaign, and what does not

A drip is a pre-written series of emails sent automatically on a schedule after something happens. To be useful it needs four parts, and the cheapest plans usually drop one of them.

1. A trigger that starts the sequence: a signup, a download, a purchase, a tag being added.
2. Waits between emails, measured in days or hours.
3. A condition that changes the path: did they click, did they buy, are they tagged as a customer?
4. An exit, so that someone who converts stops getting the sales emails.

An autoresponder series with fixed delays has the first two. A drip that stops selling to people who have already bought needs the last two as well, and that is the line where most plans start charging more. Our workflows explainer covers each part in detail; this page is about the price of getting all four.

Opt-in drips and cold sequences need different tools

Many "best drip software" lists mix marketing platforms with cold-email senders as if they were interchangeable. They are not. A marketing platform is designed for contacts who opted in; read its acceptable-use policy before importing anyone who did not. A cold-email sender is built for one-to-one prospecting from your own mailboxes, under the rules for unsolicited commercial email in each recipient's country.

If your sequence goes to people who asked for it, choose from the table below. If it goes to prospects who did not, the consent rules come first and the software second; check the law where your recipients are, and treat any vendor's compliance claims as theirs, not as legal advice.

The first plan that runs a real sequence, per tool

Read from the vendors' own pricing pages as of 18 Oct 2026. "Full sequence" means trigger, waits, at least one condition and an exit within one automation.

Mailchimp is included because so many people start there, but it pays this site nothing and is not linked. Its Essentials limit of four steps per flow means a five-email drip with waits between them does not fit; Standard, with room for 200 steps in a flow, does. On 18 Oct 2026 ActiveCampaign listed each plan only as a "starts at" price billed annually for 1,000 contacts, with no monthly-billing or 5,000-contact figure, so its row prints the cap only. The last full ladder we read is in our ActiveCampaign review.

Moosend: the cheapest complete drip

Moosend Pro publishes multi-step automation workflows with no cap against them, and the price is the contact step: $9 at 500, $16 at 1,000, $48 at 5,000 and $88 at 10,000 billed monthly, or $7, $13, $38 and $70 a month billed annually. The free trial lasts 30 days and allows one published workflow, which is enough to build and test one complete drip before paying. More in our money page.

GetResponse: cheap until the drip needs a condition

GetResponse Starter lists drip campaigns, autoresponder series, click and open follow-ups and split automation, plus one custom workflow. It does not include contact tagging, scoring, or abandoned-cart, visited-URL, event and purchase triggers; those start on Marketer. A drip that branches on a click works on Starter. A drip that exits when someone buys needs Marketer at $59 a month at 1,000 contacts, as of 18 Oct 2026.

Encharge: built for product-led sequences

Both of Encharge's plans include unlimited flows and unlimited team members, and the price rises with your subscriber band. Up to 2,000 subscribers, Growth costs $99 a month, or $79 billed yearly; Premium costs $159, or $129 yearly, and adds integrations such as HubSpot, Salesforce, WooCommerce and Shopify plus transactional email. It is priced for software companies whose drips react to product events, and it is expensive for a newsletter.

Cost at 1,000 and 5,000 contacts

At 1,000 contacts the full-sequence options range from $13 a month (Moosend Pro, annual) to $99 (Encharge Growth, monthly). At 5,000 the spread is Moosend's $38 annual to GetResponse Marketer's $95 monthly and Mailchimp Standard's $100. The tools at the top of that range are not overpriced; they include things a simple drip does not use. Pay for them only if your sequences will use the triggers.

HubSpot is the exception that does not fit a contact-based comparison. Marketing Hub Starter is priced per seat, $20 a month regular price with a $7 offer for new customers on its page, and includes 1,000 marketing contacts and up to 10 automated actions. Unlimited automation starts on Professional at $800 a month with an annual commitment, plus a required one-time $3,000 onboarding fee.

CRM-led drips: when the sequence belongs in the CRM

Searches for the "best CRM for drip campaigns" usually come from small sales teams who want follow-ups to stop the moment a deal moves. That is a real reason to run drips inside a CRM: the exit condition is a pipeline stage, not an email click. HubSpot, Keap and Ontraport all combine a contact database with automation, and each comes with a pricing catch, set out on our CRM with marketing automation page. HubSpot's, read on 18 Oct 2026, is the jump from 10 automated actions on Starter to unlimited on Professional, which carries a required $3,000 onboarding fee.

If your sequences are marketing (newsletter subscribers, leads from a download) and the sales conversation happens elsewhere, a CRM is more than you need. If a salesperson has to see and stop the sequence, start there.

A five-email starter sequence, mapped

Here is a welcome drip that fits every full-sequence plan in the table, written as the four parts so you can rebuild it in any of them.

1. Trigger: someone joins the list through your main signup form. Send email 1 immediately: the thing they signed up for, and nothing else.
2. Wait two days, then email 2: the most useful thing you have published, with one link.
3. Wait three days, then email 3: a short story of a customer problem you solve.
4. Condition: has the contact clicked any link in emails 1 to 3? If yes, send email 4a, your offer; if no, send email 4b, a plain question asking what they are working on.
5. Wait four days, then email 5, and exit anyone tagged as a customer before it sends.

That is five sends, three waits, one condition and an exit, which is six or more actions in most builders. It will not fit ActiveCampaign Starter's five actions or Mailchimp Essentials' four steps, and it uses GetResponse Starter's only custom workflow. That arithmetic, more than any feature list, is what decides the plan.

Edge cases

Very small lists. Under 500 contacts, Moosend Pro at $7 a month annually is hard to beat for a full sequence, and HubSpot's free tools allow one automated action, which is a single follow-up rather than a drip.

Many short drips. If you run a separate drip for every lead magnet, the cap that matters is the number of workflows, not steps. GetResponse Starter's single custom workflow is the tight one; Moosend and Encharge print no workflow cap.

Sending volume. GetResponse prints unlimited monthly sends on every plan; Mailchimp and Encharge tie sends to a multiple of your contacts. A daily drip to a large list reaches those multiples faster than a weekly newsletter.

The short version

For the lowest price on a complete drip, use Moosend Pro. For drips that react to purchases and tags, pay for GetResponse Marketer. For product-event sequences in a software company, look at Encharge. For follow-ups owned by salespeople, start from a CRM.