# Email marketing platforms: what AI models recommend, October 2026

GTM AI Recommendation Index, October 2026 Edition. Asked as "email marketing platform" and as "email marketing tool", six framings each, to fourteen models with search on, on behalf of a mid-market B2B company. Page: https://gtm-ai-index.com/marketing/email-marketing/

**Standing:** HubSpot Marketing Hub leads with 35% of first choices; verdict contested. 57 first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts.

## First-choice share

| # | Product | Share | Negative rate | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | HubSpot Marketing Hub | 35% | 8% | 52 |
| 2 | ActiveCampaign | 28% | 11% | 56 |
| 3 | Brevo | 12% | 8% | 37 |
| 4 | MailerLite | 9% | 21% | 28 |
| 5 | Sender | 4% | 0% | 10 |
| 6 | Klaviyo | 2% | 15% | 26 |
| 7 | Moosend | 2% | 9% | 11 |
| 8 | Mailchimp | 2% | 52% | 50 |
| 9 | Omnisend | 0% | 0% | 14 |
| 10 | Kit | 0% | 7% | 15 |
| 11 | Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement | 0% | 17% | 12 |
| 12 | GetResponse | 0% | 21% | 14 |

## Each model's first choice on the direct prompt

- Claude Haiku 4.5: HubSpot Marketing Hub; alternatives ActiveCampaign, Brevo, GetResponse
- GPT-5.4 mini: HubSpot Marketing Hub; alternatives Adobe Marketo Engage, Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: HubSpot Marketing Hub; alternatives ActiveCampaign, Customer.io, Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement
- Perplexity Sonar: HubSpot Marketing Hub; alternatives ActiveCampaign, Outreach, Salesloft, ZoomInfo Marketing
- Grok 4.1 Fast: HubSpot Marketing Hub; alternatives ActiveCampaign, Adobe Marketo Engage
- Mistral Small: ActiveCampaign, HubSpot Marketing Hub
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: HubSpot Marketing Hub; alternatives ActiveCampaign, Klaviyo, Salesforce Marketing Cloud
- Llama 4 Maverick: ActiveCampaign; alternatives Dotdigital, Salesforce Email Marketing
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: HubSpot Marketing Hub; alternatives ActiveCampaign, Adobe Marketo Engage, Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement, SharpSpring
- Kimi K2: ActiveCampaign, HubSpot Marketing Hub
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: HubSpot Marketing Hub; alternatives ActiveCampaign, Brevo, Klaviyo
- MiniMax M2.5: ActiveCampaign; alternatives HubSpot Marketing Hub, Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement
- GPT-6 Luna: HubSpot Marketing Hub; alternatives Adobe Marketo Engage, Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement
- Muse Glimmer 30B: ActiveCampaign, HubSpot Marketing Hub; alternatives Adobe Marketo Engage

## Sources the answers cite

72 of 84 answers came back with a source list, from 14 of 14 models. Sites named in the most answers:

- sequenzy.com: 33 answers, 42 citations
- mailtrap.io: 29 answers, 43 citations
- activecampaign.com: 24 answers, 38 citations
- emailvendorselection.com: 24 answers, 25 citations
- emailtooltester.com: 22 answers, 34 citations
- pipeline.zoominfo.com: 20 answers, 31 citations
- sender.net: 20 answers, 31 citations
- hostinger.com: 20 answers, 20 citations

Pages named in the most answers:

- https://emailvendorselection.com/best-email-marketing-platforms (23 answers)
- https://mailtrap.io/blog/email-marketing-platforms (21 answers)
- https://hostinger.com/tutorials/best-email-marketing-platforms (20 answers)
- https://pipeline.zoominfo.com/marketing/email-marketing-platforms (18 answers)
- https://uk.pcmag.com/email-marketing/3708/the-best-email-marketing-software (15 answers)
- https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/best-email-marketing-services (12 answers)
- https://mailtrap.io/blog/b2b-email-marketing-software (12 answers)
- https://sequenzy.com/email-marketing-for/b2b (12 answers)
- https://emailtooltester.com/en/email-marketing-services (11 answers)
- https://pipeline.zoominfo.com/marketing/b2b-marketing-tools (11 answers)

## Warned against

- Mailchimp: 26 of 50 labels negative. "One comparison explicitly says to avoid it if many contacts unsubscribe or bounce, because you may still be billed for them." (Perplexity Sonar, negative prompt)
- Constant Contact: 8 of 17 labels negative. "Mentioned as a platform to avoid if you have a high list churn rate, as costs can escalate quickly." (Mistral Small, negative prompt)
- Adobe Marketo Engage: 9 of 18 labels negative. "Platforms to Strongly Avoid... notorious for poor out-of-box deliverability" (Grok 4.1 Fast, negative prompt)
- ActiveCampaign: 6 of 56 labels negative. "some tools look affordable at small list sizes but leave the budget bracket quickly as subscriber counts rise, including Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign, and Constant Contact" (Perplexity Sonar, negative prompt)

## Movement since September 2026

Floor: 11 points of share, measured on the calibration repeat.
New leader: ActiveCampaign (40%) to HubSpot Marketing Hub (32%). Margin 2 points, within noise.

- ActiveCampaign: 40% to 30%, −10. Inside the floor by 1 point · rank 1 → 2 of 65.
- Sender: 11% to 4%, −7. Inside the floor by 4 points · rank 4 → 5 of 65.
- MailerLite: 4% to 10%, +6. Inside the floor by 5 points · rank 5 → 4 of 65.
- Brevo: 16% to 10%, −6. Inside the floor by 5 points · rank 3 of 65, unchanged.
- HubSpot Marketing Hub: 27% to 32%, +5. Inside the floor by 6 points · rank 2 → 1 of 65.
- Klaviyo: 0% to 2%, +2. Inside the floor by 9 points · rank 12 → 6 of 65.
- Moosend: 0% to 2%, +2. Inside the floor by 9 points · rank 10 → 7 of 65.
- Mailchimp: 0% to 2%, +2. Inside the floor by 9 points · rank 50 → 12 of 65.
- Omnisend: 0% to 0%, ±0. Inside the floor by 11 points · rank 7 → 13 of 65.
- Kit: 0% to 0%, ±0. Inside the floor by 11 points · rank 8 → 14 of 65.
- GetResponse: 0% to 0%, ±0. Inside the floor by 11 points · rank 26 → 15 of 65.
- Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement: 0% to 0%, ±0. Inside the floor by 11 points · rank 14 → 16 of 65.

## Record

- Method: https://gtm-ai-index.com/methodology/
- Raw judge labels and full responses: https://gtm-ai-index.com/data/
- License: CC BY 4.0. Cite as GTM AI Recommendation Index, October 2026 Edition, gtm-ai-index.com.