Plan limits · read 24 September 2026
CRM with marketing automation: what the combined suites cost
When somebody replies, an automation stops being enough. These are the platforms that keep the contact record and the sequence in one place — what each includes, where the seats run out, and the fees that are not on the monthly line.
The run, stage by stage
A combined CRM and marketing automation suite is worth paying for at one specific moment: when a sequence ends with a human conversation and nobody can remember what the last message said. Until that moment, an email platform with a workflow builder does the job for less money. After it, the cost of keeping two systems in step — exports, tags that drift, a sales note nobody in marketing can see — starts to exceed the price difference.
The complication is that these suites do not meter the way email platforms do. Email platforms charge by contacts. Most of these charge partly or wholly by seats, and two of them add a fee that never appears on the monthly line at all.
What changes when the CRM is in the same box
Three things, in the order they usually matter. The automation can branch on pipeline state, not just on email behaviour — a sequence can stop because a deal moved, not just because somebody clicked. A salesperson sees the sequence history on the contact record without asking anyone. And the contact count stops being the only meter, because a second login now costs money.
That last point is the one that surprises people. On a pure email platform, adding a colleague is usually free or cheap. On these suites it is a line item, and on one of them it is not possible at all at the entry tier.
Ontraport: one seat on the entry plan, and one is the ceiling
Ontraport's Plus plan includes marketing automation, email and SMS, pages, membership and payment handling, and exactly one user. Not "one included, more available" — the page gives it as one included, one maximum. A second person needs the Pro plan, which includes two users with a maximum of five. Enterprise includes three with no stated maximum.
Starting prices read on 24 September 2026: Plus $99 a month billed monthly, $83 billed annually; Pro $149 and $124; Enterprise $299 and $249. The annual term is described as two months free. Contacts are chosen separately, so these are starting figures rather than final bills. If you are a solo operator, Plus is genuinely complete. If there is any chance of a second person, price Pro from the start — the $41 monthly difference on annual billing is much cheaper than discovering the ceiling later.
Keap: the suite with an implementation fee
Keap sells the combined story hardest: contacts, pipeline, quotes, invoices and automation together, aimed at small businesses that would otherwise run three tools. Its pricing page showed one plan starting at $299 a month, billed at $2,988 a year, with two user licences included and further users at $39 a month each.
Two gaps matter. The page does not publish the contact allowance that price covers, and it states that implementation services are required without publishing their cost. So the first-year figure is $2,988 plus an unknown, and the only way to learn the unknown is a sales conversation. That is a legitimate way to sell software and an impossible way to budget from a website, and it should weigh against Keap for anyone who needs a number before they talk to somebody. Keap's referral programme also requires commission to be claimed within six months, which tells you something about how the company thinks about paperwork.
HubSpot: free to start, and the ceiling is an action count
HubSpot is the suite most small teams meet first, because the CRM itself is free and the free tier does include automation — one automated action. Starter raises that to up to ten automated actions. Professional and Enterprise both say unlimited actions with omni-channel marketing automation.
The figure that decides it is not monthly. Professional carries a required one-time onboarding fee of $3,000 and Enterprise $7,000. A team that outgrows ten automated actions meets that fee at the same moment it meets the higher subscription, and it is worth knowing about a year in advance rather than a week. HubSpot's free CRM remains a genuinely good answer for a small team that needs contact records more than it needs sequences, and this site earns nothing when you sign up for it.
When a pure email platform is still the right answer
If your sequences run start to finish without a person stepping in — a newsletter welcome, a course drip, a renewal reminder — the CRM half of these suites is money spent on a filing cabinet nobody opens. ActiveCampaign sits usefully in the middle here: it carries CRM features on its higher tiers while pricing on contacts rather than seats low down, which keeps the entry cost closer to an email platform's.
The test is not the size of your list. It is whether anybody, this quarter, will need to know what an automation said to a contact before they pick up the phone. If the answer is no, the automation platforms compared on their workflow caps is the page you want instead.
How to price one of these honestly
- Count the seats you need, including the person who only ever looks. On these suites that is the meter, and it is the one people forget.
- Find the automation ceiling on the tier you were going to buy — an action count, a workflow count, or a tier that simply does not include automation.
- Ask, in writing, what implementation or onboarding costs. Two of the three suites on this page require it, and only one publishes the number.
- Add a year of the subscription to the one-time fee before you compare anything. A $3,000 onboarding fee is $250 a month spread over the first year, and it belongs in the comparison.
Then, and only then, put the total next to an email platform plus a separate CRM. Sometimes the suite wins comfortably. Often it does not, and the honest answer is two cheaper tools and a Tuesday-morning habit of keeping them in step.