How is this marketing ranking decided?

Mechanically. The 15 approved marketing listings on this page are sorted by their published rating, highest first, with the number of ratings behind each score as the tie-break and the product name as a final tie-break so the order is stable. Those ratings are aggregated from public sources, not collected from Softwr readers, this site hosts no reviews, so the order is a summary of what is already published elsewhere, not a verdict of our own. Nothing on this page is paid placement.

Is this list re-ordered for startups?

No, and it would be dishonest to imply otherwise. The catalogue records no data about which team sizes or roles each tool suits, so the ranking is the same published-rating order as the unsegmented list. What the startups framing changes is which of the figures below matter most. Startups are buying for a headcount they do not have yet, which makes the second and third tier of each ladder more important than the first. Check what the price becomes at ten people.

How much does marketing software cost?

Across the 15 marketing tools listed here, paid plans start between $5 and $99 a month, with a median entry price of $28.50. The most expensive single tier published in the category is $1,499 a month (Ahrefs). 3 of 15 also publish a $0 plan.

What is the cheapest marketing software?

Among the ones that charge, Buffer has the lowest published entry price at $5 a month. Cheapest and best value are different questions: check which tier the capability you need actually appears in before you compare starting prices.

Is there free marketing software?

Yes, 3 of 15 tools in this category publish a plan priced at $0. Each of those also sells paid tiers above the free plan. A tool is only counted as free here when it publishes a $0 plan, an open-source licence, or a starting price of zero, a free trial does not count.

What features should marketing software have?

Judging by what vendors put in their own published pricing tiers, the most frequently named capabilities in this category are advanced analytics (2 of 8 tools that publish plan detail), all optimize features (2) and dedicated customer success manager (2). Treat those as the category baseline. Anything named by only one vendor, such as a/b testing or all create features, is a differentiator rather than a standard, so it is worth deciding whether you need it before it narrows your shortlist to one.

How is marketing software usually billed?

subscription (4), freemium (2), quote (2), usage-based (1), counted across the 15 listings on this page. The distinction that costs money is per-seat versus flat: a per-user plan at the same headline price scales with your headcount and a flat subscription does not. 3 of 15 tools also keep at least one tier unpriced and sold by quote.

What does marketing software actually cover?

The 15 tools on this page do not describe themselves the same way. The subject tags they carry most often are marketing (5), analytics (4), enterprise (2), keywords (2), scheduling (2). That spread is the honest answer to what the category means in practice: it is not one product shape, and two tools filed under marketing may overlap on very little.

How many pricing tiers do marketing tools offer?

8 of 15 tools here publish a plan breakdown, and the median one has 4.5 tiers. 7 of 15 publish three or more. More tiers is not generosity, it usually means the capability you are buying for sits two rungs above the advertised price, so price your shortlist at the tier that contains it.

How many marketing tools are listed on Softwr?

15 approved marketing listings appear on this page, including Ahrefs, Buffer, Customer.io, Hootsuite. Each links to a full breakdown with its pricing tiers and plan detail, and the category can be filtered by price and sorted by rating above. You can also read the shortlist view at /best/marketing, which ranks the same set by published rating.

Marketing · ranked shortlist

Best Marketing software for Startups in 2026

15 approved marketing listings, ordered by published rating with the method stated below rather than assumed. Startups are buying for a headcount they do not have yet, which makes the second and third tier of each ladder more important than the first. Check what the price becomes at ten people.

Tools ranked: 15
Entry price range: $5-$99
Publish a $0 plan: 3 of 15

How this ranking is derived

The sort key

Published rating, highest first. Ties break on the number of ratings behind the score, then on product name so the order never depends on what the API happened to return first. That is the whole rule, there is no weighting, no score of our own, and nothing paid: no sponsored slot runs on these pages.

Where the ratings come from

No listing in this set carries a rating, so the order falls back to name. Those scores are aggregated from public sources rather than collected here, Softwr hosts no reviews of its own, which is also why no rating on this page is marked up as ours in structured data.

What the pool is

Approved marketing listings, capped at 20 per page; 15 came back for this one. It is not the whole market, and a tool being absent means we hold no record of it rather than that it failed a test. The unranked full set is on the marketing category page.

The ranking

Each entry lists why it sits where it sits, drawn from its own published rating and pricing.

#1
Ahrefs
Highest rated here
Everything you need to rank higher & get more traffic
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $29 a month, with no free plan.
- 5 published tiers, topping out at $1,499.
Billing
Model not published
Published tiers
5 tiers
Tags
seo, marketing, analytics, backlinks
Ahrefs breakdown Compare with Buffer
#2
Buffer
Build your audience organically on social media
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Publishes a $0 plan, with paid tiers from $5 a month.
- 3 published tiers, topping out at $10.
Billing
Model not published
Published tiers
3 tiers
Tags
social-media, scheduling, analytics, marketing
Buffer breakdown Compare with Customer.io
#3
Customer.io
Data-driven messaging for teams getting started, scaling and beyond
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
Billing
subscription
Customer.io breakdown Compare with Hootsuite
#4
Hootsuite
Save time and grow on social media
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $99 a month, with no free plan.
Billing
Model not published
Tags
social-media, marketing, scheduling, analytics
Hootsuite breakdown Compare with Instapage
#5
Instapage
Enterprise landing page platform with AI and experimentation.
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $99 a month, with no free plan.
- 3 published tiers, topping out at $159 plus a tier sold by quote.
Billing
subscription
Published tiers
3 tiers
Instapage breakdown Compare with Iterable
#6
Iterable
The AI customer engagement platform global brands trust to create experiences that drive growth…
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
Billing
quote
Iterable breakdown Compare with Leadpages
#7
Leadpages
AI-powered landing page builder with lead capture and A/B testing.
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $10 a month, with no free plan.
- 6 published tiers, topping out at $399.
Billing
subscription
Published tiers
6 tiers
Leadpages breakdown Compare with Mailgun
#8
Mailgun
Email delivery built for developers
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
Billing
usage-based
Mailgun breakdown Compare with MoEngage
#9
MoEngage
Essential solutions to help your growing teams build and retain customers
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
Billing
quote
MoEngage breakdown Compare with Moz
#10
Moz
SEO software for smarter marketing
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $39 a month, with no free plan.
- 2 published tiers, topping out at $99.
Billing
Model not published
Published tiers
2 tiers
Tags
seo, marketing, local-seo, analytics
Moz breakdown Compare with Postmark
#11
Postmark
No hidden fees, no guesswork. Just the features you need, at a price that makes sense
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
Billing
freemium
Postmark breakdown Compare with Typeform
#12
Typeform
People-friendly forms and surveys
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $28 a month, with no free plan.
Billing
Model not published
Tags
forms, surveys, data-collection, interactive
Typeform breakdown Compare with Unbounce
#13
Unbounce
Landing page platform with AI-powered conversion optimisation.
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $29 a month, with no free plan.
- 6 published tiers, topping out at $249 plus a tier sold by quote.
Billing
subscription
Published tiers
6 tiers
Unbounce breakdown Compare with Vimeo
#14
Vimeo
Professional video hosting and streaming platform
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Publishes a $0 plan, with paid tiers from $7 a month.
- 4 published tiers, topping out at $50.
Billing
freemium
Published tiers
4 tiers
Tags
video hosting, professional video, business video, marketing
Vimeo breakdown Compare with Wrike
#15
Wrike
Versatile & robust project management software
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Publishes a $0 plan, with paid tiers from $10 a month.
- 5 published tiers, topping out at $25 plus a tier sold by quote.
Billing
Model not published
Published tiers
5 tiers
Tags
project-management, collaboration, gantt-charts, resource-planning
Wrike breakdown

What marketing software costs

Counted from the published pricing of the 15 listings on this page. A tool counts as free only where it publishes a $0 plan, an open-source licence or a starting price of zero.

Cheapest paid plan: $5Buffer
Median entry price: $28.50across 10 priced
Dearest entry price: $99Hootsuite
Publish a $0 plan: 3of 15

Paid marketing plans in this set start anywhere from $5 a month for Buffer to $99 for Hootsuite. The median entry price across the 10 tools that publish one is $28.50, half of them start below that figure and half above it.

Entry price is not the ceiling. The dearest published tier anywhere in this category is Ahrefs's at $1,499 a month, 15.1× the highest entry price on the page. Read the top of each ladder as well as the bottom, because that is where you land after two years of growth.

3 of 15 publish a $0 plan, and every one of those also sells a paid tier above it. 7 tools have no free tier of any kind.

3 of 15 keep at least one tier unpriced and sold by quote, which in practice means the number you end up paying at the top end is not on this page or on theirs.

Buffer pricing Hootsuite pricing Ahrefs plans

How these vendors bill

The billing model each of the 15 marketing listings publishes, counted. Two tools at the same headline price are not the same purchase if one of them charges per seat.

subscription: 4
freemium: 2
quote: 2
usage-based: 1

Separately, 3 of 15 publish at least one tier with no price attached. Those are sold by quote, so the top of the ladder is negotiable, and unknowable, until you talk to sales.

What comes as standard, and what you pay extra for

Every capability named in a published pricing tier by any of the 8 marketing tools here that break their plans down, counted once per vendor. This measures what vendors choose to advertise as a selling point, not everything the software does, an absence below is silence, not a missing feature.

Named most often

Advanced analytics , 2 of 8
All Optimize features , 2 of 8
Dedicated customer success manager , 2 of 8
Heatmaps , 2 of 8
Smart Traffic , 2 of 8

Named by fewer

Unlimited pages , 2 of 8

Named by exactly one vendor: A/B testing, All Create features, Competitive analysis, Email management, Lead enrichment, Standard player. Those are differentiators rather than table stakes.

What “Marketing” covers in practice

The subject tags that recur across these 15 listings, with the number of tools carrying each. A category label is a filing decision; this is the closer read of what is actually filed under it.

marketing5
analytics4
Enterprise2
keywords2
scheduling2
seo2
social-media2

Carried by a single tool: backlinks, collaboration, conversational, forms, interactive, professional video, resource-planning, surveys. If one of those is the reason you are here, the category page is the wrong lens, go straight to that product.

How to choose between them

Four things the numbers above should change about your shortlist.

Start with the free tiers if there are enough of them

3 of 15 marketing tools here publish a $0 plan, which is enough to run a real trial without a purchase order. A free tier is worth more than a free trial when you are evaluating: a trial expires on the vendor's schedule, a free plan expires when you outgrow it. The thing to check before you commit is which of the capabilities below sit above the free line, starting with advanced analytics, the single most frequently named capability in this category's published tiers.

Read the spread before you read the features

$5 to $99 is a $94 spread on entry price alone, and a spread that wide is never about polish, it is about who the vendor built for. Tools at the bottom of this ladder are priced for one person or a small team; tools near $99 are priced for a department with a procurement process. Decide which of those you are before you compare capability, or you will shortlist four tools that were never competing for the same buyer.

Check which tier you actually land on

7 of 15 tools here publish three or more tiers, and the median vendor in this category ships 4.5 of them. The advertised price is the first rung, and the things teams tend to need, advanced analytics, all optimize features, dedicated customer success manager, are named in higher plans far more often than in entry ones. Price your shortlist at the tier that contains what you need, not at the tier on the pricing page's left edge.

The billing model matters more than the headline number

This category splits across 4 billing models: subscription on 4 listings, freemium on 2, and 2 other arrangements across the rest. A per-user price and a flat subscription at the same headline figure are not the same purchase, the first one grows with headcount and the second does not. Multiply by your real team size before you compare two numbers side by side.

Compare marketing tools directly

Every pairing below is a full comparison: the same checklist applied to both, so a gap in one is a gap in the other.

Go straight to the numbers

Build your own comparison See the shortlist instead

Questions people ask about marketing software

Answered from the listings on this page, and nowhere else.

How is this marketing ranking decided?: Mechanically. The 15 approved marketing listings on this page are sorted by their published rating, highest first, with the number of ratings behind each score as the tie-break and the product name as a final tie-break so the order is stable. Those ratings are aggregated from public sources, not collected from Softwr readers, this site hosts no reviews, so the order is a summary of what is already published elsewhere, not a verdict of our own. Nothing on this page is paid placement.
Is this list re-ordered for startups?: No, and it would be dishonest to imply otherwise. The catalogue records no data about which team sizes or roles each tool suits, so the ranking is the same published-rating order as the unsegmented list. What the startups framing changes is which of the figures below matter most. Startups are buying for a headcount they do not have yet, which makes the second and third tier of each ladder more important than the first. Check what the price becomes at ten people.
How much does marketing software cost?: Across the 15 marketing tools listed here, paid plans start between $5 and $99 a month, with a median entry price of $28.50. The most expensive single tier published in the category is $1,499 a month (Ahrefs). 3 of 15 also publish a $0 plan.
What is the cheapest marketing software?: Among the ones that charge, Buffer has the lowest published entry price at $5 a month. Cheapest and best value are different questions: check which tier the capability you need actually appears in before you compare starting prices.
Is there free marketing software?: Yes, 3 of 15 tools in this category publish a plan priced at $0. Each of those also sells paid tiers above the free plan. A tool is only counted as free here when it publishes a $0 plan, an open-source licence, or a starting price of zero, a free trial does not count.
What features should marketing software have?: Judging by what vendors put in their own published pricing tiers, the most frequently named capabilities in this category are advanced analytics (2 of 8 tools that publish plan detail), all optimize features (2) and dedicated customer success manager (2). Treat those as the category baseline. Anything named by only one vendor, such as a/b testing or all create features, is a differentiator rather than a standard, so it is worth deciding whether you need it before it narrows your shortlist to one.
How is marketing software usually billed?: subscription (4), freemium (2), quote (2), usage-based (1), counted across the 15 listings on this page. The distinction that costs money is per-seat versus flat: a per-user plan at the same headline price scales with your headcount and a flat subscription does not. 3 of 15 tools also keep at least one tier unpriced and sold by quote.
What does marketing software actually cover?: The 15 tools on this page do not describe themselves the same way. The subject tags they carry most often are marketing (5), analytics (4), enterprise (2), keywords (2), scheduling (2). That spread is the honest answer to what the category means in practice: it is not one product shape, and two tools filed under marketing may overlap on very little.
How many pricing tiers do marketing tools offer?: 8 of 15 tools here publish a plan breakdown, and the median one has 4.5 tiers. 7 of 15 publish three or more. More tiers is not generosity, it usually means the capability you are buying for sits two rungs above the advertised price, so price your shortlist at the tier that contains it.
How many marketing tools are listed on Softwr?: 15 approved marketing listings appear on this page, including Ahrefs, Buffer, Customer.io, Hootsuite. Each links to a full breakdown with its pricing tiers and plan detail, and the category can be filtered by price and sorted by rating above. You can also read the shortlist view at /best/marketing, which ranks the same set by published rating.

Keep reading

Neighbouring categories

Adjacent in the same taxonomy, not a ranking.

How this ranking is derived

The sort key

Where the ratings come from

What the pool is

The ranking

Ahrefs

Buffer

Customer.io

Hootsuite

Instapage

Iterable

Leadpages

Mailgun

MoEngage

Moz

Postmark

Typeform

Unbounce

Vimeo

Wrike