# Encharge alternatives for SaaS teams in 2026

> Seven Encharge alternatives compared on price, product events, channels and AI writing, checked on each vendor’s site, and when Encharge is still the pick.

Source: https://behavly.io/compare/encharge-alternatives · Updated October 10, 2026 · Competitor details checked October 10, 2026 on each vendor’s own site

Loops, Customer.io, Bento and Behavly are the best Encharge alternatives in 2026, and three more tools fit specific cases.

- **Loops**: best for a simpler, much cheaper email tool with transactional email included.
- **Customer.io**: best when you need SMS, push and in-app messages.
- **Bento**: best for a low price with an AI assistant built in.
- **Behavly**: best for follow-ups written for one person from what they did in your product, sent from your own mailbox.
- **Userlist**: best for B2B products that email at the company level.
- **ActiveCampaign**: best for teams that want automation with a CRM.
- **Brevo**: best for the lowest-cost start with email, SMS and transactional email.

#### Why teams look for an Encharge alternative

Encharge does a lot right for SaaS. It connects to the billing tools SaaS teams use: Stripe, Chargebee, Chargify, Paddle and Recurly. It runs A/B tests on a single email, a sequence or a whole flow, and segments on website and email interactions.

It also has an AI writer in the editor, and flows and team members are unlimited. If your lifecycle runs on billing events and that’s working, staying put is a reasonable choice.

When teams do look elsewhere, it’s usually for one of these reasons:

- **Product events cost extra.** The Ingest API, event-based segments, the Segment integration and transactional email are all Premium only. Premium starts at $159/month, or $129 billed yearly, for 2,000 subscribers.
- **Sends are capped.** Monthly sends are limited to 10 times your subscribers on Growth and 12 times on Premium, with overages beyond that.
- **Email is the only customer channel.** Your team gets email and Slack notifications, but users get no SMS, push or in-app messages.
- **The price climbs with subscribers, and there’s no free plan.** Growth is $179/month for 5,000 subscribers and $249 for 10,000, billed monthly.

#### Encharge alternatives at a glance

Entry prices from each vendor’s own pricing page, checked October 10, 2026, billed monthly unless marked.

| Tool | Best for | Starts at (per month) | Priced on | Channels | AI writing |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Encharge (for reference) | Lifecycle email driven by billing and behavior | $99, or $79 billed yearly (2,000 subscribers) | Subscribers, sends capped at 10x | Email | Magic Writer and AI Autocomplete |
| Behavly | Follow-ups written for each user from their in-product behavior | Free (100 tracked contacts); $79 (2,500 tracked contacts) | Tracked contacts, plus a monthly AI-email allowance | Email, from your own mailbox | Writes each email for one person from their activity |
| Loops | Developer-friendly product, marketing and transactional email | Free (your 1,000 newest contacts); $49 (5,000 contacts) | Subscribed contacts, unlimited sends | Email | None built in; works with external AI agents |
| Bento | Affordable email automation with an AI assistant | $29 (5,000 active users) | Active users | Email; push, SMS, WhatsApp and chat with a $30 add-on | Tanuki AI drafts flows and writes copy, included |
| Customer.io | Multi-channel messaging, with engineering support | $100 (5,000 profiles) | Profiles | Email, SMS, push, in-app, WhatsApp, LINE | AI Agent (beta) helps draft messaging |
| Userlist | B2B SaaS that emails at the company level | $149 (10,000 users) | All users, active or not | Email, in-app | None found |
| ActiveCampaign | Marketing automation plus CRM | $15 billed yearly (1,000 contacts) | Contacts, sends capped at 10x | Email; SMS and WhatsApp as add-ons | AI content and automation builders, limited on Starter and Plus |
| Brevo | Low-cost email, SMS and transactional in one account | Free (300 emails a day); $9 (5,000 emails, 500 contacts) | Email volume | Email, SMS; WhatsApp and mobile push on Professional | AI content generator (Starter and up) |

#### What 5,000 and 10,000 contacts cost

Monthly price for the same audience, from each vendor’s published numbers.

| Tool | 5,000 contacts | 10,000 contacts | Note |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Encharge Growth | $179, or $139 billed yearly | $249, or $199 billed yearly | No product events, Segment or transactional |
| Encharge Premium | $269, or $219 billed yearly | $399, or $319 billed yearly | Adds product events, Segment and transactional |
| Behavly | $249 (Growth) | $249 (Growth) | Tracking, heatmaps, 8,000 AI-written emails a month, 5 Agents |
| Loops | $49 | $99 | Unlimited sends, transactional included |
| Bento | $29 | $79 (at $0.01 per active user above 5,000) | AI assistant included; transactional priced separately |
| Customer.io | $100 | $145 | All channels and transactional included |
| Userlist | $149 | $149 | Email and in-app, transactional included |
| ActiveCampaign (billed yearly) | Starter $79, Pro $205 | Starter $149, Pro $375 | A/B tests in automations from Pro; transactional is an add-on |
| Brevo | $69 (Standard, 20,000 emails) | $69 (Standard, 20,000 emails) | Priced on emails sent |

#### Behavly: best for follow-ups written for each user from what they did

We make Behavly, so weigh this section accordingly. If your flows hang on billing events and lead scores, Encharge’s billing integrations and lead scoring fit them better. Behavly starts from what happens on your pages instead. It’s an AI agent that tracks what each signed-in user does in your product and writes every email from that person’s own activity.

That tracking is on every plan, where Encharge keeps product events for Premium. One script tag picks up page views, clicks, scrolling and pointer movement for each signed-in person, merged across devices, without an identify call. For product actions such as `trial_started`, add a `behavly.track` call.

To pick who hears from you, Behavly finds groups of users who behave alike, or you describe a group in plain language. You see who matches before it’s saved, and a saved pattern runs again on current data each time it’s used.

A one-time campaign writes to that group once. A **Behavly Agent** keeps going, taking each new person along a path of emails, waits and branches. Branches check whether they opened, clicked, logged in, visited a page, replied or did an action in your product. You can also describe the path in words and let Behavly lay out the steps.

Then there’s the writing. Encharge’s Magic Writer helps you draft an email in the editor. Behavly writes a separate email for each person who receives it, from their activity, in any of 80 languages. Each one goes out from your own mailbox over IMAP/SMTP. When someone replies, the reply lands in Behavly’s Inbox with their activity beside it.

- **Where it’s strong**: Product behavior on every plan rather than a higher tier, with heatmaps of your own site included. Each email is about what that person did, not one draft sent to everyone in a flow. It comes from a real person’s address, and replies land next to that person’s history, with AI reply drafts. You approve the emails before they go out. That’s on by default for one-time campaigns, and **Hold Behavly-written emails for approval** does the same on an Agent.
- **Where it falls short**: Email only: no SMS, push or in-app messages. No transactional email, and not built for newsletters to a big list. It sends from your own mailbox, so it suits one-to-one style follow-ups at lower volume. Mailboxes connect over IMAP/SMTP with an app password rather than one-click Google or Microsoft sign-in. No billing integrations, so a moment like a failed payment has to reach Behavly as a product action you send with `behavly.track`. No Segment, HubSpot or Zapier integration and no lead scoring, and A/B tests run per email step rather than across a whole flow. At small sizes it’s priced near Encharge Growth: $79/month for 2,500 tracked contacts, against $79/month billed yearly for 2,000 subscribers. But Loops and Bento cost far less per contact, because Behavly includes tracking, heatmaps and per-person AI writing.
- **Pricing**: Free (100 tracked contacts, 50 AI emails a month, no credit card). Starter $79/month (2,500 tracked contacts, 2,000 AI emails, 1 Agent). Growth $249/month (10,000 contacts, 8,000 AI emails, 5 Agents). Scale $699/month (40,000 contacts), sold through a conversation.

#### Loops: best for a simpler, cheaper email tool

Loops is a clean, developer-friendly email platform for SaaS startups, covering product, marketing and transactional email. Workflows start when a contact is added, updated or joins a list. They can also start on an event from the API or an integration such as Segment, RudderStack or PostHog.

Each workflow moves people through email, timer, audience filter, branch and experiment steps. Loops connects to Stripe, Zapier, Make, Supabase, Clerk, HubSpot and Fivetran. It also offers an API, a CLI and an MCP server for developers and AI agents.

- **Where it’s strong**: Far cheaper than Encharge at the same size: $49/month for 5,000 contacts against Encharge Growth’s $179. Unlimited sends on paid plans, with no send cap. Transactional email included on paid plans, and no seat fees. A generous free plan that sends to your 1,000 newest contacts.
- **Where it falls short**: Email only. No built-in AI writer is documented, so you give up Magic Writer; copy comes from your team or an external AI agent. Cost follows every subscribed contact, active or not. The free plan reaches only your 1,000 newest contacts and adds a “Powered by Loops” footer.
- **Pricing**: Free (your 1,000 newest contacts). $49/month (5,000 contacts), $99 (10,000), $199 (25,000).

#### Bento: best for a low price with an AI assistant included

Bento is an email platform for indie and small SaaS and ecommerce teams. People and events come in through a JavaScript SDK (`bento.identify`, `bento.track`), server SDKs and an Events API that triggers flows. Flows branch on tags, fields, segments or Liquid expressions.

Its AI assistant, Tanuki, builds flow drafts, writes and edits email content and creates segments. An Ask mode waits for your approval. Bento integrates with Stripe, Shopify, WooCommerce and Zapier.

- **Where it’s strong**: Much cheaper than Encharge: $29/month for up to 5,000 active users, against $179 for 5,000 subscribers on Encharge Growth. Pricing counts active users, with unlimited marketing email under fair use and no seat fees. The AI assistant drafts whole flows as well as copy, with unlimited usage included. Transactional email is very cheap: 100 a month free, then $5/month for up to 12,500.
- **Where it falls short**: A/B testing is documented for broadcasts only, where Encharge tests whole flows. Push, SMS, WhatsApp and live chat need the $30/month Chat add-on. Segment works through a destination function rather than a native catalog app. No free plan, though there’s a 30-day trial.
- **Pricing**: $29/month for up to 5,000 active users, then $0.01 per active user up to 50,000 ($229 at 25,000).

#### Customer.io: best for email, SMS, push and in-app in one platform

Customer.io is a full engagement platform for product and growth teams with engineering support. Data comes in through APIs, SDKs (including iOS and Android), webhooks and Segment. A visual journey builder with true/false, multi-split and random-cohort branches runs on every plan. Email, SMS, push, in-app, WhatsApp and LINE are all included on the entry plan, and so is transactional email.

- **Where it’s strong**: Cheaper than Encharge Growth at 5,000 and 10,000 people ($100 and $145, against $179 and $249 billed monthly), with every channel included. Mature journey logic, with A/B and multivariate testing on every plan. Unlimited seats. An AI Agent, labeled beta, helps draft messaging and build journeys.
- **Where it falls short**: It bills every identified profile and object, not only subscribers, and emails beyond the included 1M a month cost $0.12 per 1,000. Salesforce, HubSpot and warehouse integrations need Premium, from $1,000/month billed yearly. Your team designs the journeys and owns the copy. No free plan; there’s a 14-day trial, and a year free for startups that have raised under $10M.
- **Pricing**: Essentials from $100/month (5,000 profiles, 1M emails), $145 at 10,000 profiles, $235 at 20,000. Premium from $1,000/month billed yearly.

#### Userlist: best for B2B SaaS that emails at the company level

Userlist is built around the B2B data model: users and the companies they belong to, with many-to-many relationships. Campaigns can trigger on company data, and it sends marketing, lifecycle and transactional email plus in-app messages.

Data comes from its HTTP API, libraries for JavaScript, PHP, Ruby, Rails and Laravel, Segment or RudderStack. It also connects to Stripe, HubSpot, Zapier, Intercom and Slack.

- **Where it’s strong**: Cheaper than Encharge at 10,000 people: $149/month against $249 on Encharge Growth. Company-level data and company-triggered campaigns. Email and in-app messages in one tool, with transactional email included from Basic rather than kept for a higher plan. Hands-on onboarding, starting with a 60-minute roadmapping session. Companies that have raised under $500k get 50% off for 12 months.
- **Where it falls short**: Every user counts, active or not, measured at the high-water mark of the past 30 days. Basic caps custom events at 20, and A/B testing and conversion goals need Professional at $349/month. We found no AI writing features, so you’d give up Magic Writer. No SMS or push. The 14-day trial asks for a card upfront.
- **Pricing**: Basic $149/month for up to 10,000 users, plus $10 per additional 1,000. Professional $349/month for up to 10,000 users. Annual billing saves 20%.

#### ActiveCampaign: best for marketing automation with a CRM

ActiveCampaign is a marketing automation and CRM platform for small and midsize marketing and sales teams. Site tracking and an Event Tracking API feed an “Event is recorded” automation trigger, and Segment syncs both ways.

There are 950+ automation recipes and 1000+ integrations, including Stripe, PayPal, Zapier and Shopify. Its AI, Active Intelligence, generates content and images and helps build campaigns, automations and segments.

- **Where it’s strong**: Very deep automation, with CRM options. A huge integration catalog. A low entry price for small lists, and a 14-day trial with no card.
- **Where it falls short**: Price climbs steeply with contacts: Starter goes from $15 at 1,000 contacts to $149 at 10,000. Starter allows 5 actions per automation, and A/B tests inside automations need Pro. SMS, WhatsApp and transactional email are paid add-ons. AI use is limited on Starter and Plus, and sends are capped at 10 times your contacts on those plans. Listed prices are billed yearly; monthly prices aren’t shown.
- **Pricing**: Billed yearly, at 5,000 contacts: Starter $79/month, Plus $145, Pro $205, Enterprise $375. One user on Starter and Plus, 3 on Pro.

#### Brevo: best for low-cost email, SMS and transactional email

Brevo is a broad marketing suite for small and midsize businesses, priced on monthly email volume rather than on contacts above its smallest tiers. Email and SMS are on every plan, with SMS credits sold separately. Transactional email through a REST API, SMTP and webhooks is included everywhere, and there are 150+ integrations, including Stripe and Zapier.

- **Where it’s strong**: A free plan and a very low entry price. Transactional email on every plan, where Encharge keeps it for Premium. A wide channel catalog. Volume pricing, so a big list you rarely email stays cheap: Standard sends 20,000 emails a month to up to 500,000 contacts for $69.
- **Where it falls short**: The $9 and $18 tiers cap contacts at 500, and marketing automation and web and event tracking start at Standard. WhatsApp, mobile push and multiple seats need Professional at $499/month, a big jump from Standard. Segment and warehouse integrations are Enterprise-managed.
- **Pricing**: Free (300 emails a day). Starter $9/month and Standard $18/month (5,000 emails, 500 contacts); Standard with 15,000 emails and 2,500 contacts is $49. Professional $499/month (150,000 emails).

#### How to choose

| If you… | Look at |
| --- | --- |
| Want the same kind of lifecycle email for much less, with transactional included | Loops |
| Want a low price plus an AI assistant that drafts flows and copy | Bento |
| Need SMS, push, in-app or WhatsApp next to email | Customer.io |
| Want each email written for one person from their activity, sent from your own mailbox | Behavly |
| Sell to companies and need account-level email plus in-app messages | Userlist |
| Want marketing automation with a CRM and a huge integration catalog | ActiveCampaign |
| Want the lowest entry price, with SMS and transactional in one account | Brevo |
| Depend on Chargebee, Paddle or Recurly data, lead scoring and whole-flow A/B tests | Stay on Encharge |

Before you move, list which Encharge flows start from billing events or lead scores. Then check how many subscribers were active last month. The first tells you what a new tool must receive, and the second what it will cost. Weighing Loops too? See [Loops alternatives](https://behavly.io/compare/loops-alternatives).

## Questions

### What is the best alternative to Encharge?

It depends on what you need. Loops is the simpler, much cheaper option, with transactional email included. Customer.io adds SMS, push and in-app messages. Bento is the low-cost pick with an AI assistant. Behavly writes each follow-up for one person from what they did in your product and sends it from your own mailbox.

### Is there a free alternative to Encharge?

Encharge has a 14-day trial but no free plan. Loops’ free plan sends to your 1,000 newest contacts, and Brevo’s allows up to 300 emails a day. Behavly’s covers 100 tracked contacts and 50 AI-written emails a month.

### What is cheaper than Encharge?

At 5,000 people, Encharge Growth is $179 billed monthly or $139 billed yearly. Against that, Bento is $29/month, Loops $49, Brevo $69 for 20,000 emails, ActiveCampaign Starter $79 billed yearly and Customer.io $100. Behavly is $249 at that size, so it isn’t the cheaper option.

### Which Encharge alternative includes transactional email?

Loops includes it on paid plans, Customer.io and Brevo on every plan, and Userlist from Basic. Bento sells it separately from $5/month, and ActiveCampaign offers it as an add-on. Behavly doesn’t send transactional email.

### Does Encharge have AI writing?

Yes. Its Magic Writer generates subject lines, outlines and whole emails in both of its editors. AI Autocomplete completes, rewrites or expands a short selection in the Simple builder.

## Related

- [Loops alternatives for SaaS teams in 2026](https://behavly.io/compare/loops-alternatives)
- [Customer.io alternatives for SaaS teams in 2026](https://behavly.io/compare/customer-io-alternatives)
- [Userlist alternatives for SaaS teams in 2026](https://behavly.io/compare/userlist-alternatives)
- [Trial-to-paid emails: what to send during a free trial, based on usage](https://behavly.io/guides/trial-to-paid-emails)