10 Best Marketo Competitors in 2026
Leaving Adobe Marketo Engage for another custom quote keeps the same problem. Short answer: HubSpot Marketing Hub Professional at $890/mo, billed annually, when finance needs a number before the demo. Account Engagement Growth+ at $1,250/org/mo when the CRM is already Salesforce. Eloqua when you still want an enterprise platform and will read Oracle's US price list.
Dupple data: Toolradar, our software directory, evaluated 343 marketing automation tools (September 2026) on its marketing automation ranking. Prices below were read on vendor sites on September 24, 2026. A first platform, with Marketo still in the set, is marketing automation software.
Quick comparison
| Tool | Best for | Starting price | Why it beats Marketo |
|---|---|---|---|
| HubSpot Marketing Hub | A published mid-market bill plus a CRM | Professional $890/mo, yearly | Free tools exist, and non-marketing contacts are not billed |
| Account Engagement | The CRM is already Salesforce | Growth+ $1,250/org/mo, yearly | 10,000 contacts included, and Salesforce says there is no end-of-life plan |
| Oracle Eloqua | An enterprise MAP with a public list | Basic $2,000/mo up to 10,000 contacts | The June 12, 2025 US price list is still the file Oracle hosts |
| Dynamics 365 Customer Insights | The CRM is already Dynamics | $1,700/tenant/mo, yearly | Unlimited users, with 10,000 interacted people included |
| ActiveCampaign | A small team leaving an enterprise contract | Starter $15/mo at 1,000 contacts, yearly | Plus, at $49/mo, is the first plan with unlimited automation actions |
| Act-On | Pay for contacts you email | Professional $900/mo | The meter is active contacts, and the contract is annual |
| Customer.io | Messages fired by product events | Essentials $100/mo, billed monthly | 5,000 profiles and 1 million emails, seats not metered |
| Braze | A consumer app, not a B2B lead queue | No list price; one AWS contract is $75,000/year | Dormant profiles you store do not count as monthly active users |
| Iterable | Cross-channel consumer messaging | No list price; one AWS contract is $115,000/year | The published package is 5 million users, not a starter seat |
| Mautic | A server you operate | No subscription on the project site | Open source, self-hosted, so the license is not the invoice |
What you are replacing
A Marketo competitor is a marketing automation platform that scores leads, nurtures them, and passes a sales-ready record to the CRM. Pick by the bill you are leaving: a quote, a gap under Salesforce, or a database you pay for whether anyone is emailed.
Adobe's pricing page lists four Marketo Engage packages and asks for a custom price, and there is no public USD sticker. The directory record is Marketo on Toolradar, and if the complaint is the CRM under the automation, start with CRM software.
How we chose
Toolradar's marketing automation category holds those 343 tools, updated September 2026, and this page keeps 10 a Marketo customer can set beside a renewal. Each vendor was checked on September 24, 2026, nobody paid for a row, and the links to HubSpot and ActiveCampaign are affiliate links.
Order follows the limit people hit on Marketo: no public price, then the CRM you already own, then a smaller contract, then a consumer platform that should not be the default B2B exit. Louis Corneloup, founder of Dupple and Toolradar, editorially reviews this ranking for 720,000-plus readers, and the editors are named on the about page.
HubSpot Marketing Hub, when the quote is the objection
HubSpot Marketing Hub is the switch when marketing and the contact record should share one portal and the price has to be on a page. The product and services catalog, for new customers after March 5, 2024, prices Starter per seat and Professional and Enterprise as a base plus contacts.
Starter starts at $20/mo per seat with 1,000 marketing contacts. Professional starts at $890/mo with 3 core seats, extra seats at $50/mo, 2,000 marketing contacts, and required onboarding of $3,000. Enterprise starts at $3,600/mo with 5 core seats, extra seats at $75/mo, 10,000 marketing contacts, and required onboarding of $7,000. Enterprise is billed annually, and the Professional contact language is an annual subscription. Non-marketing contacts are free, up to 15 million total contacts.
The catch: Crossing a marketing-contact tier bills immediately, and you cannot drop the tier until renewal. The next Professional band, 2,001 to 22,000 marketing contacts, is $250 per 5,000 contacts each month. Starter form automation stops at 10 actions.
Buy Professional when nurture, not a form, is why you had Marketo. Stay off Starter if the programs are the product. The wider CRM exit, if HubSpot itself is the next thing you might leave, is HubSpot CRM alternatives.
Account Engagement, when sales already lives in Salesforce
Account Engagement, still the product many teams call Pardot, is the exit when scored leads should land on Salesforce records without a second sync project. Salesforce's B2B automation pricing is in USD, per organization, and every per-month product needs an annual contract.
Growth+ is $1,250/org/mo, Plus+ is $2,750/org/mo, Advanced+ is $4,400/org/mo, and Premium+ is $15,000/org/mo. Growth+ through Advanced+ include 10,000 contacts, Premium+ includes 75,000, and extra contacts are $100 per 10,000 contacts each month. Growth+ includes 50 forms, 50 landing pages, and 50 automation rules, and those three caps lift on Plus+. A dedicated IP on Plus+ is $500/mo, and Premier Success is 30% of net license fees.
The catch: Account Engagement+ opens Marketing Cloud Next, and Salesforce says those features consume Einstein, messaging, and Data 360 credits you buy separately. Growth+ is nurture and scoring, not the account-based analytics on Plus+.
Take Growth+ when the CRM is Salesforce and 10,000 contacts cover the database you actually mail. Move to Plus+ when account-based programs are the reason you outgrew Marketo. Salesforce's own FAQ says there is no end-of-life plan for Account Engagement.
Oracle Eloqua, when you want the other enterprise list
Eloqua is the peer platform when the replacement should still be an enterprise marketing cloud and the price should be a contact band, not a conversation. Oracle's Marketing Cloud global price list, dated June 12, 2025, is priced in US dollars, and new customers must buy an Eloqua platform before the bands apply.
For up to 10,000 contacts, Marketing Basic is $2,000/mo and Marketing Standard is $4,000/mo. The list's own example puts Basic at $4,500/mo for the 100,000-contact band, and that same row puts Standard at $9,000/mo. An in-between count rounds up to the next band, so 10,001 contacts is the 20,000-contact band, where Basic is $2,500/mo, and an extra marketing user is $840 a year.
The catch: The platform fee is the database you store, not the mail you send, so a quiet list still sits in the band. Implementation is a services purchase on top, and the price list tells sellers to add an education pass.
Use Basic when 10,000 stored contacts and a public band are the whole requirement. Use Standard when scoring depth is why Basic would be a downgrade from Marketo.
Dynamics 365 Customer Insights, when the CRM is Dynamics
Dynamics 365 Customer Insights is the exit when journeys should sit on Dataverse, not in a tool that syncs to it.
The US pricing page lists $1,700 per tenant each month, paid yearly, with unlimited users, 100,000 unified people, and 10,000 interacted people. The August 2026 licensing guide states that rate in USD and says the license covers both Journeys and Data. An interacted person is a Dataverse record you touch outbound, or that touches you inbound, including a form fill, and packs add capacity above those allowances. A lower attach rate exists for tenants with 10 or more qualifying Dynamics licenses, and a free trial is offered.
The catch: The interacted-people allowance is a small Marketo database. Email, text, and form fills draw the same quota, including interactions sent through an outside system.
Buy the tenant when Dynamics is already the system of record and headcount should not multiply the marketing line. Skip it when sales is on Salesforce or HubSpot, because the journeys would come with a second CRM.
ActiveCampaign, when the enterprise minimum is the complaint
ActiveCampaign is the downshift when a handful of people run branching programs and the Marketo contract was the expensive part. The USD pricing summary bills annually at 1,000 contacts: Starter $15/mo, Plus $49/mo, Pro $79/mo, Enterprise $145/mo. The Constant Contact comparison, which matches those 1,000-contact rates, lists a 14-day trial with no card and a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Starter is 1 user and 5 actions per automation, too short for a Marketo-style program. Plus stays at 1 user and adds unlimited automation actions and landing pages. Pro is 3 users, with predictive content and attribution. Enterprise is 5 users, with SSO, custom objects, and a dedicated account team. At 10,000 contacts that comparison lists Starter at $149/mo and Plus at $189/mo, still on the annual bill.
The catch: The action cap on Starter is a short flow, and a second login is a plan change until you reach Pro.
Start on Plus when the job is nurture and the list is near 1,000 contacts, and move to Pro when three people need logins. Treat Enterprise as the SSO tier, not the default escape from Marketo. Email-only tools that are not this kind of automation are in email marketing software.
Act-On, when the whole database should not be the meter
Act-On bills the contacts you engage in a month, not every record sitting in the system. The pricing page, with USD selected, lists Professional at $900/mo. Anticipated pricing starts at that figure and can move with add-ons, configuration, and implementation, and an annual contract is required.
Professional includes engagement programs, visitor tracking, scoring, landing pages, forms, and AI predictive lead score. CRM integration, the data studio, and account-based marketing are add-ons on Professional and included on Enterprise. Enterprise does not print a second monthly sticker on that page, and automated SMS is an add-on on both.
The catch: A lighter email month costs less, and you still owe the annual term, because leaving early is a contract question, not a toggle.
Use Professional when the pain was paying for contacts you never mailed, and budget the CRM connector as an add-on. Skip it when the connector and account programs have to be on from day one.
Customer.io, when the trigger is a product event
Customer.io fits a product-led company whose Marketo programs were really "user did X in the app," and without those events it is an expensive way to send a newsletter. The pricing page prices in USD, and Essentials starts at $100/mo, billed monthly, for profiles, including 5,000 profiles (people and objects), 1 million emails a month, and 2 object types. Premium starts at $1,000/mo, billed yearly, and Enterprise is a sales conversation.
Extra profiles are $0.009 each, extra email is $0.12 per 1,000, and extra AI credits are $10 per 100,000. The pricing FAQ says you can add as many teammates as you want, and you pick a US or EU data center at signup. Companies that raised under 10 million can get a full year free through the startup program.
The catch: Premium's profile volume is custom, so the $1,000/mo floor is not the Essentials allowance at a larger list.
Take Essentials when engineering can send events and the profile count is near 5,000. Take the startup year if you qualify before you sign a Marketo-sized renewal. Leave it if the work is account-based outbound to a bought list.
Braze, when the audience is an app, not a lead
Braze is a consumer engagement platform: journeys across channels, with the bill tied to people who are active. Braze's pricing page publishes no list price. One 12-month contract on the AWS Marketplace listing is $75,000 for 100,000 monthly active users, 5 million emails, 2 IP addresses, 750,000 US SMS messages, and message notifications.
That listing says a monthly active user is someone who interacts with the brand, and dormant profiles you store do not count toward the active-user total. Overages bill after you pass the entitlement, and the contract is one package, not a starter rate for a small B2B team.
The catch: A database full of inactive leads is the wrong mental model, and there is no public seat price to set beside Professional.
Shortlist Braze when the product is an app or a consumer brand. It is the wrong cheap B2B exit, because the only public dollar is that annual contract.
Iterable, when consumer messaging is the whole job
Iterable is the other cross-channel consumer platform teams name when they are done with a B2B marketing automation product. Iterable's pricing page publishes no list price, and iterable.com adds no smaller public tier. One 12-month contract on the AWS Marketplace listing is $115,000 for 5 million users, 75 million emails, 2 IPs, 750,000 US SMS messages, 250 million push messages, Gold setup, and support.
The listing describes journeys across web, email, SMS, and in-app.
The catch: Setup and support sit inside that contract, and a smaller brand has no cheaper printed plan.
Use the marketplace contract as a ceiling check for a large consumer program, because lead scoring into Salesforce is a different product. B2B pipeline credit is a separate buy, covered in marketing attribution tools.
Mautic, when you will run the server
Mautic is open-source marketing automation. The project site tells you to self-host on your own infrastructure so the data stays there, and it does not sell a cloud subscription with a printed seat price. Managed hosting, when you want it, is a separate arrangement from the project.
There is no Mautic license line to set beside Professional or Growth+. You pay for the server, the person who patches it, and deliverability you no longer rent from Adobe.
The catch: You inherit uptime, upgrades, and inbox placement. A Marketo admin who does not want an operations ticket will feel that in the first month, and a Salesforce-native sync is something you assemble rather than something the contract includes.
Install it when leaving the vendor is the goal and you have someone to run the box. Skip it when the board asked for a vendor with an SLA and a phone number. How vendors hide or show the rate is the subject of software pricing transparency.
What you will actually pay
The useful comparison is a database near 10,000 people, because that is the included band on Growth+, Eloqua Basic, and Customer Insights, and it is already past the marketing contacts included on HubSpot Professional.
| Exit | What 10,000 people costs before extras | The extra that shows up in year one |
|---|---|---|
| HubSpot Professional | $10,680 for twelve months of the base rate | Required onboarding is $3,000, and contacts above 2,000 are the $250 block |
| Account Engagement Growth+ | Twelve org-months at the Growth+ rate, with 10,000 contacts included | Credits for Marketing Cloud Next are separate, and Premier Success is 30% of license fees |
| Eloqua Basic | $24,000 for the 10,000-contact band | The 10,001st contact jumps the band to $2,500/mo, and each extra marketing user is $840 a year |
| Customer Insights | $20,400 for twelve months of the tenant | Interacted people above 10,000 need a capacity pack |
| ActiveCampaign Plus at 10,000 contacts | $189/mo on the annual comparison | A second and third user means Pro, not Plus |
| Act-On Professional | $10,800 for twelve months at the printed start | CRM integration is an add-on, and the term is annual |
| Customer.io Essentials | The $100/mo start, if you stay inside 5,000 profiles | The 5,001st profile is $0.009, and 10,000 profiles is not this plan |
Seat math and flat fees behave differently once the team grows. That split is laid out in per-seat versus flat pricing. HubSpot's catalog also caps sends: Starter at 5 times the contact count per calendar month, Professional at 10 times the contact tier, Enterprise at 20 times.
How to choose
Match the system of record first. Salesforce means Account Engagement, and lead scoring can stay on Growth+ until account-based analytics forces Plus+. Dynamics means Customer Insights, after you count interacted people rather than user seats. Everyone else who wants one CRM and a number on a webpage starts at HubSpot Professional, then checks the contact block before treating the base rate as the invoice.
Match the complaint second, because a small team leaving an enterprise minimum should buy ActiveCampaign Plus, not Starter. Paying for people you never email points at Act-On, with the CRM connector budgeted as an add-on. Campaigns that should fire from product events point at Customer.io Essentials.
Braze and Iterable are consumer platforms with one public contract each. Mautic is the install-it-yourself option when a vendor contract is what you are refusing. Net-new names, before any of these nurture them, still come from lead generation tools.
Common mistakes
- Buying HubSpot Starter to replace programs leaves you on a $20/mo seat whose form automation stops at 10 actions, while the programs you are migrating live on Professional, where the onboarding fee is required.
- Marking the whole CRM as marketing contacts throws away records that stay free until you flag them, and the tier then bills immediately and does not drop until renewal.
- Stopping at Account Engagement Growth+ for account-based work leaves the program under 50 automation rules and 50 landing pages, while Plus+ is the account-based tier at more than twice the org rate.
- Quoting Eloqua Basic for a list that is slightly over the band ignores the round-up, so one contact past 10,000 is the 20,000-contact Basic rate, $2,500/mo, not the $2,000 band.
- Treating the Braze or Iterable marketplace contract as a small-team price misreads a consumer package, because those contracts match the user counts in the comparison table, and a 15-person B2B team is not that package.
- Ignoring the annual term on Act-On and Account Engagement makes a light month look like savings, since both require a year and a cheaper month you cannot exit is not a cheaper renewal.
FAQ
What is the best Marketo competitor for most teams in 2026?
HubSpot Marketing Hub Professional, at $890/mo billed annually with 3 core seats and 2,000 marketing contacts, for a team that needs a public price and a CRM in the same place. Choose Account Engagement Growth+ when the CRM is Salesforce, and Eloqua Marketing Basic on Oracle's published contact band when you want that enterprise list. Prices were checked on vendor pages on September 24, 2026.
How much does a HubSpot replacement for Marketo cost?
Twelve months of the Professional base is $10,680 before contact blocks and before onboarding, and required onboarding is $3,000. Starter at $20/mo per seat stops form automation at 10 actions. Enterprise starts at $3,600/mo with $7,000 of required onboarding.
How much is Salesforce Account Engagement compared with Marketo?
Growth+ is $1,250 per organization each month, billed annually, with 10,000 contacts. Plus+ is $2,750, Advanced+ is $4,400, and Premium+ is $15,000, the last of those with 75,000 contacts. Marketo Engage publishes no list price, so the comparison is this ladder against whatever Adobe quotes you. Extra contacts are a block rate, and Marketing Cloud Next features draw credits sold separately.
Does Adobe Marketo Engage publish a public price buyers can quote?
No. The pricing page offers four packages and a request for customized pricing, with no public USD amount. That is why a competitor with a printed rate is easier to take to finance. Eloqua, the other large enterprise option here, does publish a US price list, dated June 12, 2025.
Is there a free Marketo alternative a team can actually run?
HubSpot has free tools, and non-marketing contacts on a paid Marketing Hub plan are not a separate contact fee. ActiveCampaign's trial is 14 days with no card, not an ongoing free plan. Mautic is open source and self-hosted, so the project does not charge a subscription, and you still pay for the server. Customer.io's startup offer is a free year for companies that raised under 10 million, not a permanent free tier.
Is Braze or Iterable a real replacement for Marketo Engage?
Only when the audience is a consumer or an app. Braze publishes no list price on its own pricing page, and one AWS contract is $75,000 for a year at 100,000 monthly active users. Iterable publishes no list price either, and one AWS contract is $115,000 for a year at 5 million users. A B2B lead queue is HubSpot, Account Engagement, Eloqua, or ActiveCampaign, not these two.
Should you pick Eloqua or HubSpot when leaving Marketo?
Eloqua Marketing Basic is $2,000/mo for up to 10,000 stored contacts, and an extra marketing user is $840 a year. HubSpot Professional includes a smaller marketing-contact allowance plus required onboarding, on top of the base rate in the comparison table. Choose Eloqua when you want the contact-band contract and an enterprise implementation. Choose HubSpot when marketers should work in the same CRM the sales team already opens.
Bottom line
Take HubSpot Marketing Hub Professional when the Marketo problem is a quote and the team will live in one CRM. Take Account Engagement when that CRM is Salesforce, Eloqua when you want a published enterprise band, and Customer Insights when the CRM is Dynamics. ActiveCampaign Plus and Act-On Professional are the smaller contracts. Braze, Iterable, and Mautic are the consumer and self-hosted exits, not the default B2B shortlist.
A Dupple X trial is a way to keep comparing the rest of the stack, starting from the tools worth paying for.
Cite this: Dupple, "10 Best Marketo Competitors in 2026," September 2026.
Across our whole catalogue the median is $24 a month and 33% of tools advertise a free tier. Figures are the lowest recurring monthly price quoted in our own review of each tool, read on 2026-08-19. Full method and every category.
