Automation Guides

The one matching your shortlist, not the one at the top of this page. Rank candidates on the homepage comparison, model entry cost in the pricing snapshot, then read one or two guides in full. If you have no shortlist yet, read the guide for the tool you are most likely to buy and the guide for its closest rival — the disagreement between those two pages is where the real decision lives.

Every figure is copied from the vendor's official pricing page, linked beside the claim, and stamped with the check month — September 2026 for the current set. Scaling prices that depend on list size are labeled approximate when the vendor does not publish the grid. Our verification policy publishes the full cadence for each figure type, and the vendor page always wins when the two disagree.

Through readership, not vendors. Outbound links go to official pricing and documentation pages so every figure can be re-checked in one click. The scoring axes decide the order of every ranking, and no vendor reviews copy before it is published. The full method lives on the about page.

The linked official pricing page reflects the change immediately; our guide does not. Re-check the vendor page at purchase, and if you spot the drift first, treat the guide as stale and the vendor as correct — figures are re-checked quarterly and after major announcements, not continuously. The pricing snapshot carries the same dates for quick scanning.

The homepage ranks the tools on five weighted axes — trigger depth, lifecycle coverage, AI assistance, segmentation, pricing fairness — in roughly a screen of prose per tool. A guide goes deep on one platform: verified figures with sources, the billing axis at several list sizes, lifecycle fit stage by stage, limits with actual rates, and wrong-fit cases. Ranking tells you where to look; the guide is where the purchase decision gets made.

Ten guides ship where we can verify an official pricing page and write a full lifecycle assessment. Vendors without verifiable public figures stay out of the snapshot and the guides rather than collecting invented numbers; they remain visible in the homepage ranking with that gap stated. Completeness of the table is not worth a fabricated cell.

Only where the vendor officially offers them and we can verify how they are billed — Brevo's bundled channels, Klaviyo's separate expiring SMS credits, Drip's separately billed SMS. Multi-channel capability is never assumed: where a platform is email-only in our coverage, the guide says so rather than implying channels that the vendor does not sell. Channel plans change faster than email pricing, so each guide links the official page beside any non-email claim.

Yes — most of the value is deciding what not to buy. The limits sections and wrong-fit cases are written so you can rule platforms out at your list size and cadence before any trial starts. When you do move, the verification links in each guide and the snapshot take you straight to the official page, where the live number replaces ours at the moment of purchase.

Bookmark the official pricing page linked in the guide, not the guide. Our figures are re-checked quarterly and after vendor announcements — good for research, insufficient for checkout. If you spot drift first, the vendor page wins and our page is stale until the next pass; the verification policy publishes exactly which figure types move on which cadence so you know what to re-open before an annual prepay.