If you ever wondered what the peanut butter and jelly of email marketing would be, it would be the combination of email marketing efforts and excellent customer relationship management software.
CRM platforms are designed to help email marketers manage their pipelines, capture a complete view of their leads, and automate personalized marketing campaigns.
If you are looking to enhance your email marketing efforts in 2025 and are looking for a great CRM solution, you are in the right place.
Join us as we go through a few of the best email marketing CRM currently available.
Below, we’ll discuss some of the best CRM platforms for email marketing, highlighting their pricing, free plans, key features, pros, and cons.
Each CRM on this list caters to various business needs and budgets, so you’ll find options whether you’re a startup or an enterprise.
Starting with the star of our list, Active Campaign. If email automation is your first priority, then Active Campaign is right up your alley.
The platform boasts the most powerful email automation we can currently find. That is not to say the system's other features are lacking.
The system allows you to carry unlimited pipelines and easily design and create email campaigns.
One important thing to note is that Active Campaign offers its email marketing and CRM in different plans, so you must subscribe to a plan that offers CRM to use the features to their full advantage.
Pricing starts at an affordable monthly rate, with various plans tailored for small businesses and startups.
There is a free plan on Active Campaign that has the basic features.
Pros: Out of all the options, Active Campaign is the most intuitive and affordable, making it an excellent pick for startups and small businesses that need email marketing tools but don’t want to spend a fortune.
Cons: Advanced features like in-depth analytics are only available in higher-tier plans.
If you are looking for a simple and intuitive way to generate leads and set up automation, Mailmunch should be your partner.
The platform offers easy-to-use pop-up forms to generate leads and, with its automation features, can help you easily set up email series such as welcome, cart abandonment, and more.
This isn’t to say that these two features are the only two that the system offers. You can also use the email builder to create and manage your email marketing campaigns and, with the help of generative AI, find images and subject lines to help set you apart from others in the business.
Pricing starts at an affordable monthly rate, with various plans tailored for small businesses and startups.
Yes, Mailmunch offers a free plan with basic features.
Pros: Mailmunch is intuitive and affordable, making it a great choice for startups and small businesses that want essential email marketing tools without a high price tag.
Cons: Some advanced features like in-depth analytics are only available on higher-tier plans.
The entry-level Salesforce plans start at only $25 per month and go up to the enterprise level, which is excellent for growing businesses since they will just have to update their plans as the business grows.
On a smaller scale, you can use CRM plans to generate and capture leads and the audiences you require for your business with management and email marketing tools.
You can also set up automation to help customer representatives deal with customer issues and queries.
The entry-level plan starts at $25 per user/month.
It has a free trial, so you can check out the platform’s reach in advance.
Pros: It’s highly customizable and scalable, so it's great for growing big businesses with advanced needs.
Cons: Although you can’t afford to pay the higher price point, the steep learning curve makes it unlikely for small businesses to have basic needs.
While some email marketing tools come equipped with CRM capabilities, Hubspot is a full-fledged CRM system.
It is also the most popular one currently on the market, with over 31.6% of the market share.
Hubspot offers a free plan and comes equipped with a range of CRM capabilities, such as email forms, landing pages, tracking website activity, and more.
The basic level plans start at $50 per month.
Free is a limited option but comes with HubSpot’s basic CRM and email tools.
Pros: For businesses that wish to combine sales and marketing, HubSpot is perfect because it’s all in one.
Cons: Once a team grows more prominent, specific tools cost money, and advanced features get expensive.
Pipedrive is a customer relationship management (CRM) platform designed to streamline sales processes and help teams close more deals efficiently.
Built with salespeople in mind, Pipedrive provides a user-friendly interface focused on visual pipeline management. It allows teams to track and manage each sales journey stage easily.
With automated workflows, AI-driven insights, and various integrations, Pipedrive empowers businesses to stay organized, prioritize leads, and boost productivity.
It’s especially popular among small—and medium-sized businesses looking for a CRM that enhances sales without overwhelming users with unnecessary complexity.
Pipeline charges $14.90 per user/month.
All plans are on a free trial.
Pros: Simple interface for sales teams tracking leads due to its simplicity.
Cons: Not many of the marketing automation features of other CRMs.
Most businesses can afford it at the low price of $14 per user/month.
Up to 3 users with limited functionality, free.
Pros: It is a budget-friendly app that integrates easily with other Zoho apps.
Cons: It’s got so many features that some users might find it overwhelming.
Starts at $19 per user/month.
All plans have a free trial.
Pros: It is known for its customer support functionalities and is excellent for teams working in customer service.
Cons: They have fewer email marketing options and are primarily support-focused.
Starts at $10 per user/month.
Each plan has a free trial.
Pros: It is flexible and visually attractive for small teams.
Cons: Limited advanced email marketing tools compared to dedicated email CRMs.
It's $11.99 per user per month.
Available free but contains limited features.
Pros: Perfect for small startups with a simple marketing need.
Cons: CRM platforms with a more straightforward interface can be less intuitive than interfaces on more giant CRM platforms.
At the lower end of the spectrum, the plan would be $25 per month for a business looking for an excellent budget-friendly option.
To test out email marketing, a complimentary plan called Starter, suitable for startups and small businesses, allows 300 daily emails.
Pros: Strong email marketing tools and user-friendly interface. Generous free tier limits in cheap pricing.
Cons: For businesses with basic CRM needs, limited advanced CRM features, and is best for businesses.
It starts at $15 per user/month and is a cost-friendly CRM solution for the Growth plan.
It offers up to 3 users for free.
Pros: Development of strong AI capability and an easy-to-use but efficient CAD design.
Cons: Few customization options; lacks some competitors' integration library.
If you are a small team, the Starter plan starts at $12 per user/month for value.
There is no free plan. However, there is a 15-day free trial.
Pros: It’s inexpensive, easy to work with, and has automation and calling features to help.
Cons: Limited advanced marketing tools and a thinner reporting experience.
It starts at $39 per month, with pricing based on the number of contacts, making it better suited for businesses that primarily focus on email marketing and eCommerce.
No free plan, though Drip offers a 14-day free trial for users to test the platform.
Pros: Excellent for eCommerce businesses, with powerful email marketing and automation tools.
Cons: Higher cost and limited CRM features compared to full-fledged CRM platforms.
To help us review each CRM platform, we determined which platforms would work best for email marketers working for different types of businesses.
Here are the key criteria we used:
To access the various business sizes, from startups and freelancers to large enterprises, we found it right away; each gave pricing plans.
CRMs have flexible pricing structures: some scale features with the user’s needs and budget, others charge flat rates, and some even offer free basic plans.
We looked at entry-level pricing for small businesses and enterprise-level solutions for larger organizations, keeping it inclusive.
A good CRM can make a huge difference in when, if ever, team adoption and productivity happens.
We analyzed CRM design interfaces, ease of navigation, and availability of guided tutorials or support resources.
Ease of use (via platforms with intuitive workflows, drag-and-drop, or easy setup) scored higher.
This is important for businesses without internal IT support since a simple CRM eases the learning curve and enables teams to run from day one.
Not all CRM capabilities are created equal, so we looked at each platform's email marketing and automation abilities and CRM-specific tools like lead scoring, segmentation, and campaign tracking.
We also looked at comprehensive CRMs that offer everything from simple email campaigns to robust marketing automation workflows and everything in between, like A/B testing, drip campaigns, and behavior-based segmentation.
We also became interested in those CRMs that let us adjust to suit our marketing tactics.
Good support can be a game changer when achieving CRM potential. Our analysis focused on each CRM’s level and type of customer support, including access to live chat, email, phone support, knowledge bases, and community forums.
In addition, we considered the availability of onboarding services, dedicated account managers, and technical support for more advanced or platform-specific platforms.
Choosing the perfect CRM means adapting the platform's features to your team's needs and business goals.
Here are five steps to help guide your decision:
Write down your clear budget: the upfront setup costs and your recurring monthly or annual fees.
Remember that some CRMs will come at an extra cost for upgrades like premium features, incorporating advanced integrations, or more users, which can impact the long-run affordability of CRMs.
Watch out for scalability. If you can choose a CRM with tiered pricing or add-ons, you can grow into them immediately without paying for an upgrade.
Figure out what email marketing needs must have to run your campaigns. Imagine you need automation to send behavior-triggered emails, segmentation to send targeted lists, or analytics to measure campaign performance.
Ensure your list includes the items you need to sync the CRM with other tools, such as social media, e-commerce, or site support systems.
The degree to which your team’s workflows align with CRM adoption and success mainly depends on the extent to which they fit in with the CRM's streams.
Talk to your marketing, sales, and support team members and involve them in taking a comprehensive view of what they need and what they like.
This can serve as a step to uncover undiscovered specific needs, such as workflow automation, reporting, or integration features.
As a bonus, knowing your team even further—what their workflow entails and any possible challenges they may have with existing tools—can gauge their priorities once they have a usable tool.
After your budget and list of features, look into many CRM options. To see if the CRMs are working OR working well, you can check user reviews on platforms such as Capterra or G2 and find out if the CRMs have free plans or trials.
Analyze the platforms based on how long they will take to learn, the cost of the platform, the functionality of the platform, the support options available, and the feedback from someone in a similar business type.
It will enable you to disqualify CRMs that don’t support your primary needs.
The best way to ensure the CRM aligns with your workflows and expectations is to test it.
Many CRMs offer free trials or demo accounts, allowing you to explore the platform’s functionality firsthand.
Use these trials to test critical features, such as email segmentation, automation, and reporting, and assess whether the interface feels intuitive and fits well within your workflow.
Testing the CRM also helps identify potential limitations before making a financial commitment.
Integrating a CRM into your email marketing strategy has many advantages; it helps reduce costs, boost customer engagement, and generate additional income. Here are some key benefits:
How you choose the best CRM for email marketing in 2025 will primarily depend on your specific needs, budget, team size, etc. Affordable, easy-to-use CRMs like Mailmunch or Engagebay can be useful for startups, but if you’re more extensive, you’ll need something more significant: Salesforce or HubSpot.
With this guide, you can compare your options and take full advantage of looking into free trials to see which CRM is the best fit for your email marketing strategy.
Ayesha Ejaz is a passionate writer who loves diving into research to explore new topics and broaden her knowledge. With a keen interest in learning through writing, Ayesha crafts informative and engaging content across various subjects. You'll find her unwinding with music or challenging herself with word search puzzles when she's not writing.
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