Drip vs Omnisend Comparison 2026
Drip has no free tier at all, starting at $39 a month with automation built around carts and purchases specifically. Omnisend has a genuine free plan instead, 500 emails and 250 contacts, and Standard starts at $11.20 a month with 30 percent off for paying three months upfront, well below Drip's entry price, though that rate rises with contact count and reverts higher once the introductory period ends. Omnisend also sends SMS from the same automation, which Drip's feature list does not mention.
At a glance
- Omnisend starts cheaper, at $11.20.
- Only Omnisend has a free tier.
Side by side
Drip | Omnisend | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price (they differ) | From $39 | From $11.20 |
| Pricing model (they differ) | Free trial, then paid | Free plan, paid tiers |
| Free tier (they differ) | No | Yes |
| Billing | Monthly or annual | Monthly or annual |
| Free trial (they differ) | 14 days | None |
Drip
Ecommerce email priced on active people
Drip is an ecommerce marketing platform that bills on how many people are active in your account and how much you send, rather than on a feature ladder. Everybody gets everything, which removes the usual argument about which tier has automations. It is aimed at stores, so a writer with a plain newsletter is paying for behaviour tracking they will never wire up.
Our note
Single-plan pricing is the appeal and the risk: nothing is withheld, and the bill moves on its own as the list grows. Model it at twice your current list size before committing, because that is the number that will arrive.
Omnisend
Email and SMS for people selling products
Omnisend is built around a shop rather than a newsletter: abandoned-cart flows, product recommendations in the email, and SMS on the same automation. For a creator selling merch or digital products through Shopify it does the job that a general email tool leaves to plugins. The free plan is 500 emails a month, which is a test rather than a starting point.
Our note
Why people weigh these two
- Omnisend instead of Drip
- Omnisend does email and SMS for people selling products, with a free tier and plans from $11.20, a cheaper entry to store-focused sending than $39.
- Drip instead of Omnisend
- Drip prices by active contacts rather than by email volume, built the same way around ecommerce as Omnisend but with no free tier to start on.
Which one should you pick
Pick Drip if the appeal of a single plan with nothing gated behind a higher tier matters more than the lowest possible entry price. It starts at $39 a month with no free tier, priced on active people and volume rather than contacts, and ties revenue straight back to the email that produced a sale.
Pick Omnisend for the free plan alone if a store is just starting out, then for SMS running on the same automation as email once it is time to pay, from $11.20 a month before contact count pushes the price up. The free tier's 500 emails a month is enough to test the abandoned-cart and post-purchase flows before committing to either tool.
Common questions
- Which one is cheaper to start?
- Omnisend, with a genuine free plan covering 500 emails and 250 contacts, and Standard from $11.20 a month after that. Drip has no free tier at all, starting at $39 a month priced on active people and send volume instead of contacts.
- Does Drip send SMS the way Omnisend does?
- No, nothing in Drip's own materials describes SMS. Omnisend sends both from the same automation, with SMS credits bought separately from $0.007 a message, which matters for a store that wants text reminders alongside cart-recovery email.
- Do both build automation around carts and purchases?
- Yes, that is the core of each. Drip ties revenue attribution directly to the email that produced a sale. Omnisend ships prebuilt abandoned-cart, browse-abandonment and post-purchase flows rather than requiring them to be assembled.
- Is Omnisend's $11.20 a month price permanent?
- Not exactly: that figure reflects 30 percent off for paying three months upfront, then billing reverts to a monthly rate after that period, and price also rises with contact count. Drip's $39 a month has no equivalent introductory discount to account for.
Ratings are the average of reviews readers left. The facts are stated by each tool’s own listing and are not verified by CloutStack. How we make money.