What does a B2B marketing automation platform need to do?
A B2B marketing automation platform has to do five jobs: score leads, sync them to the CRM your sales side uses, capture them with forms, follow up with sequences, and show which campaign produced each deal. The four platforms below handle these jobs on different plans, and that's where the price gap comes from.
| Job | Why a B2B team needs it | Where it sits (pricing pages, checked 5 Nov 2026) |
|---|---|---|
| Lead scoring | Sales calls the warm few first, not the whole list | ActiveCampaign: in the Pipelines add-on, on Plus and above. Brevo: contact scoring on Professional. Account Engagement: Lead Nurturing and Scoring on Growth+ |
| CRM sync | Marketing and sales see the same record | HubSpot: contacts live in HubSpot's CRM, and non-marketing contacts are stored free. ActiveCampaign: premium CRM integrations such as Salesforce on Enterprise only. Account Engagement: native CRM integration listed among its features |
| Forms | Demo requests and downloads land as contacts | Brevo: forms from Starter. ActiveCampaign: custom branded forms from Plus. Account Engagement Growth+: 50 forms |
| Sequences | Follow-up runs while you do other work | ActiveCampaign Starter: 5 actions per automation. Brevo: unlimited multi-step workflows from Standard |
| Attribution | Budget goes to the channel that produced pipeline | ActiveCampaign: attribution and conversion tracking from Pro |
If your scoring rules aren't written yet, the lead scoring framework for teams without a data analyst gives you a starting set before you pay for a scoring feature.
What do HubSpot, ActiveCampaign, Brevo and Account Engagement cost?
Entry prices run from $7 a month per seat (HubSpot Starter's new-customer price) to $1,250 a month (Account Engagement Growth+, billed annually), and each vendor counts something different. All figures are from each vendor's US-dollar pricing page, checked 5 Nov 2026.
| Platform | Entry paid price | Billing basis | Contact tiers | Limits worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HubSpot Marketing Hub | Starter $20/mo per seat, shown at $7/mo per seat as a new-customer discount | Per seat, plus marketing contacts | Starter includes 1,000 marketing contacts; Professional 2,000; Enterprise 10,000 | Starter sends up to 5x your contact tier a month. Professional is shown at $800 or $890 a month depending on billing period with 3 seats and a required one-time $3,000 onboarding. You can't drop to a lower contact tier until the contract renews |
| ActiveCampaign | Starter $15/mo, billed yearly, for 1,000 contacts | Contact tier; plan sets sends and seats | The contact menu jumps 1,000, 2,500, 5,000, 7,500, 10,000 and up | Sends are 10x contacts on Starter and Plus, 12x on Pro, 15x on Enterprise. Plus has 1 seat, Pro 3, Enterprise 5 |
| Brevo | Starter $9/mo billed monthly ($8.08 billed yearly), 5,000 emails | Monthly email volume, with a contact allowance tied to it | On Standard (billed yearly): 10,000 emails include 1,500 contacts; 15,000 include 2,500; 20,000 include 500,000 | Automation workflows start on Standard ($18/mo, $16.17 billed yearly). Extra marketing seats are $10.80/mo each |
| Salesforce Account Engagement | Growth+ $1,250 per org per month, billed annually | Per org, annual contract | 10,000 contacts included on Growth+, Plus+ and Advanced+; 75,000 on Premium+ | Extra contacts cost $100/mo per 10,000 on Growth+. Plus+ is $2,750, Advanced+ $4,400 and Premium+ $15,000 per org per month |
Note the Brevo line: its contact allowance is set by the email tier you pick, so a list of 2,000 people needs the 15,000-email tier even if you send far fewer emails than that.
How much does B2B marketing automation cost a year for 2,000 or 10,000 contacts?
For one marketer, a year runs from about $529 (Brevo Standard, 2,000 contacts) to $15,000 (Account Engagement Growth+, either size). The worked example below uses the prices above, yearly billing where offered, and one assumption: each contact gets two emails a month.
| Plan (1 user) | 2,000 contacts, per year | 10,000 contacts, per year |
|---|---|---|
| Brevo Standard | 15,000-email tier (2,500 contacts): $44.08 x 12 = $528.96 | 20,000-email tier (500,000 contacts): $62.08 x 12 = $744.96 |
| HubSpot Marketing Hub Starter, list seat price | Seat $20 x 12 = $240, plus 1 extra block of 1,000 contacts at $50 x 12 = $600. Total $840 | Seat $240, plus 9 extra blocks: 9 x $50 x 12 = $5,400. Total $5,640 |
| ActiveCampaign Plus | 2,500 tier: $95 x 12 = $1,140 | 10,000 tier: $189 x 12 = $2,268 |
| ActiveCampaign Pro (adds attribution) | 2,500 tier: $149 x 12 = $1,788 | 10,000 tier: $375 x 12 = $4,500 |
| Account Engagement Growth+ | $1,250 x 12 = $15,000 (10,000 contacts included) | $1,250 x 12 = $15,000 |
Three checks on these sums. First, the HubSpot contact price comes from its bundle calculator, which says extra marketing contacts are sold in increments of 1,000 from $50 a month; "from" means the calculator may quote less at higher tiers, so treat $5,640 as the figure at that rate, not a quote. At the $7 new-customer seat price, the seat line falls from $240 to $84, making $684 and $5,484. Second, ActiveCampaign has no 2,000 tier, so 2,000 contacts are priced at 2,500. Third, two emails a month fits inside every plan's send limit here: 2,000 contacts x 2 = 4,000 emails, and HubSpot Starter allows 5 x 2,000 = 10,000.
Which B2B marketing tool fits which team?
Pick by the CRM you already use and the one job you can't do without. This table uses only the pricing-page facts above.
| If your team... | Look first at | Deciding fact |
|---|---|---|
| Has no CRM yet and wants marketing and CRM in one place | HubSpot Starter | Non-marketing contacts are stored free (up to 15 million), so you only pay for the people you email |
| Emails a large list rarely and watches cost | Brevo Standard | Billed by email volume; 20,000 emails include 500,000 contacts |
| Needs scoring and campaign attribution on a mid-size list | ActiveCampaign Pro plus the Pipelines add-on | Attribution is on Pro; lead scoring sits in the add-on |
| Already runs sales on Salesforce | Account Engagement Growth+ | Native CRM integration and scoring on the entry edition, at $15,000 a year |
A small team that only sends a welcome series and a monthly update may not need any of these yet; what to automate first and what to keep human covers that order.
Can you load a bought or scraped B2B list into these tools?
The platforms bill you for every contact you load, and the law still applies to B2B email. The FTC's CAN-SPAM compliance guide says "The law makes no exception for business-to-business email", and each email in violation can cost up to $53,088. This isn't legal advice; read the guide before you import a list.
That's why these tools work best on people who came to you: form fills, event sign-ups, customers. Finding new accounts to contact is a separate job. Siela's Lead Finder, for example, looks for people with a reason to hear from you now, scores each lead hot, warm or cold with a one-line reason, and saves them to a built-in CRM that can connect to HubSpot or Salesforce. If your inbound flow is thin, the B2B inbound marketing plan shows what feeds a marketing platform in the first place.
How do you choose a B2B marketing automation platform this week?
Then open each pricing page again on the day you buy. The HubSpot discount is labelled limited-time for new customers, so these figures will move.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best B2B marketing automation platform for a small team?
It depends on your CRM and list size. In the yearly costs worked out from pricing pages on 5 Nov 2026, Brevo Standard was cheapest at 2,000 and 10,000 contacts, HubSpot Starter suited teams wanting marketing and CRM together, and Account Engagement started at $15,000 a year for Salesforce users.
Which platform is commonly used for B2B lead generation?
For capturing and nurturing leads, HubSpot, ActiveCampaign, Brevo and Salesforce Account Engagement are common choices, each with forms, email sequences and some form of scoring. For finding new prospects, teams usually add a separate prospecting or lead-finding tool, because these platforms work on contacts you already have.
What are the four marketing tools a B2B team needs?
A simple stack has a CRM to hold every contact and deal, a marketing automation tool for forms and email sequences, analytics to see which channel produced pipeline, and a way to find new prospects. Some platforms combine the first two, such as HubSpot, where marketing sits on its own CRM.
How is marketing automation priced?
There are four common bases. HubSpot charges per seat plus a marketing-contact tier, ActiveCampaign charges by contact tier, Brevo charges by monthly email volume with a contact allowance tied to it, and Salesforce Account Engagement charges a flat fee per organisation on an annual contract with 10,000 contacts included.
What is the 3-3-3 rule in marketing?
Marketers use the phrase for several different rules of thumb. For a marketing platform, a more useful check is three numbers: contacts you will email in a year, emails per contact per month, and seats. Those three set your price on every plan in this comparison.
Sources
- HubSpot: Marketing Hub pricing (USD) (checked 5 Nov 2026)
- HubSpot: Create a bundle (price calculator) (checked 5 Nov 2026)
- ActiveCampaign: Pricing (USD) (checked 5 Nov 2026)
- Brevo: Pricing plans (USD selected) (checked 5 Nov 2026)
- Salesforce: Marketing Cloud Account Engagement pricing (checked 5 Nov 2026)
- FTC: CAN-SPAM Act compliance guide for business (checked 5 Nov 2026)