Planning to implement marketing automation and considering Pardot? We advice to look at resembling software to make a decision.

When customers choose marketing automation app, most often they are looking for functionality for email builder, marketing lead database, website builder, lead nurturing, A etc.

Comparing Pardot with competitors users pay attention to the automation builder, marketing lead database, help desk, conversations, survey builder, segmentation, number of triggers and actions and so on.

We’ve made a list of top 10 competitors that are very similar in cost and features to Pardot. The list is based on similarity, so if Pardot doesn’t suit you in any way, here you can easily choose the best variant for you.

E2 Shop System

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We help shops and manufacturers of all kinds and sizes work smarter for improved efficiencies, greater flexibility and bigger profits.

Cforia.autonomy

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Cforia Software is the leading provider of end-to-end order to cash solutions, enabling even the most complex organizations to achieve a single view of A/R across business units and functional point solutions.

iAuditor

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iAuditor puts the power in your teams¿ hands. Every person and every device can be a window to your worksite.

EngageBay

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With a limit of 1,000 contacts and 1,000 emails/month, Enagebay CRM suggests its users the cheapest paid plans of the 3 providers. The basic plan will cost you $12 a month per user, and it includes 10,000 contacts and the same amount of emails.

Katana

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Smart and visual inventory management software tailored for scaling manufacturers using Xero or QuickBooks and selling on eCommerce (Shopify, WooCommerce). It makes production management & inventory control easier than ever for online merchants. Suitable for businesses looking to scale and bring structure to their everyday operations. Raw material inventory management, bill-of-materials and batch tracking included. Seamless integrations with Xero, QuickBooks, Shopify, and WooCommerce.

Elastic Email

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Elastic Email is an all-in-one email delivery platform. We offer an SMTP Relay, robust HTTP API, and a User Interface that has a complete suite of tools and features for managing contacts, templates, campaigns, and reports.

Sendinblue

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SendinBlue is an email marketing automation software that helps you with email marketing, SMS, list management and transactional emails. It also comes with a landing page builder and a gallery of responsive email templates.

Resolver

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Resolver’s Compliance Management application helps easily organize, manage and keep up with regulatory requirements for efficient and comprehensive compliance.

SendX

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SendX is an Intuitive, Affordable & Feature-rich Email Marketing Software for marketers & business owners. SendX prides itself on enabling marketers with one of the simplest UIs in the industry. SendX provides unlimited email sends with every plan, powerful automation capabilities, 24x7 live support, best of breed email deliverability. 3000+ companies worldwide trust SendX for their Email Marketing. **Start with 14 days free trial (no credit card required). **Pricing starts at $7.49/month

Act-on

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Act-On is a subscription-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) product for marketing automation. Its software products are for email marketing, landing pages, social media prospecting, CRM integration, lead management, webinar management, and analytics.

Tridens Monetization

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Tridens Monetization enables service providers to quickly launch innovative digital subscription and usage-based services that differentiate against competitors, develop recurring revenues, and deepen customer relationships.

How to choose Pardot substitute

Many marketing automation tools are similar to each other. Platforms with identical features can differ in cost by 2 times. The first feature you should look at is the availability of funnel builder. This is a basic feature of marketing automation apps and if it doesn’t include this feature, most likely this app isn’t formed yet. All funnel builders look almost the same. It's important not to look at the UX, but pay attention to the functionality.

In a month, you'll get used to the UI, but the lack of features will always spite you. Changing marketing automation apps is very expensive. If you have the usual email set up, it's not that difficult to switch to another tool. But if you've already configured integrations, workflow, and have complex funnels, it can take months to change the tool. That's why you should be attentive to choosing an alternative.

What to look for when analyzing the automation builder? It has 4 important features categories.

1. Triggers. For instance, "Form submit" is a trigger that launches a business process. The most often used triggers are: opening an email, clicking a link in an email, reaching a goal, adding or removing a tag, closing a deal, visiting a page, etc. In each platform for marketing automation this set is different. The more, the better.
2. Action. For example, "Send email". This is the most simple action you can have. The most often used actions are: add or remove a tag, send a text message, send a messenger message, set a salesperson task, update a transaction, notify someone by email, move a transaction to another stage, etc.
3. Delay. For instance, "Wait 2 days. Customer fill in the form on the website and get in the marketing automation app (Trigger), the software sends a Welcome email (Action). Then the app waits 3 days (delay) and sends a second email. This is the most simple automation. But there are other options. For example, "Wait until something happens". Or wait until November 30th, or wait until 9 PM in the subscriber’s time zone.
4. If/else. For instance, "If a client, has the tag "Bought product #1", send the email, if the subscriber doesn't have the tag "Purchased product #1", wait 2 days and send the email. The most often used if/else parameters are: was on the site page, bought certain items, opened certain emails, user field the contact card matches some requirements. This is information according to which you can segment the contact base.

Analyzing the automation builder, you need to look carefully at all four categories of functions. The more, the better. Often it appears that good-working marketing automation software with the biggest number of features look uncomfortable. New systems look nice, but they have few functions. You need to the tool you plan to implement very deeply. Otherwise, it will be very painful to change it in the future.

Once you've analyzed the automation builder, you understand whether there are integrations with the apps you need. Fortunately, Apiway can help you. Usually, tools like Pardot are the center of business IT infrastructure. It's kind of digital hub for all your subscriber. This kind of software is like an octopus, which is putting its tentacles into other system. App like Pardot need to integrate with most other ones. Or you’ll have to waste a lot of money and time developing custom integrations.

Also those who are looking for alternatives to Pardot use tools from other categories like email marketing software, chat on website software, CRM system, lead management software