2. Marketing (Including Automation)
Marketing is the oxygen of your startup — but in the early days, it can feel like shouting into the void. You know you need to show up. You just don’t have a team of five marketers, a content budget, or an extra 20 hours a week to figure it all out.
This is where smart marketing tools can save your sanity.
Automation, segmentation, landing pages, lead gen, email flows — all of it is accessible now without needing an enterprise budget. And the best part? You can set a lot of it up once, and let it quietly work in the background while you focus on product and growth.
Founders often assume they need to “wait until they grow” before getting serious about marketing. Wrong. Marketing is how you grow.
Tools like Omnisend, Mailchimp, and Brevo let you build automated campaigns, capture leads, and create brand credibility for free (or nearly free). ScoreApp even lets you build quiz funnels and lead magnets without needing a dev or designer.
According to Campaign Monitor, email marketing generates an average ROI of $36 for every $1 spent. Not bad.
Whether you’re pre-launch, post-MVP, or pushing for traction, these marketing tools give you leverage — without hiring a full team or getting sucked into complexity.
👇 Explore the tools below, and when you're ready, dig into the rest of the toolkit series. Or get in touch if you want help building a marketing engine that fits your stage and budget.
ScoreApp
🔗 share.scoreapp.com/7103c372 Get 50% off a paid plan
Summary: Quiz funnel builder for lead generation.
Price: Free for testing (20 leads/mo). Paid from £26/month.
Pros:
Unique lead-gen approach
Nice user experience
Qualify/score leads immediately in your funnel
Cons:
Free plan can seem limiting if you want large monthly numbers
Paid plans can seem pricey until you realise the
Monday Work Management
Summary: Offers marketing automation features inside a Work OS platform.
Price: Free for up to 2 users. Paid plans start at $12/user/month.
Pros:
Visual campaign tracking with dashboards
Automates repetitive tasks
Cons:
Lacks advanced analytics on free plan
Limited user/item cap on free plan
HubSpot Marketing
Summary: Full marketing automation including email, landing pages, and forms.
Price: Free. Paid from $20/month.
Pros:
Seamless CRM integration
Generous free features
Cons:
2,000 email/month limit on free
Paid plans get expensive fast
Transpond
🔗 get.capsulenow.io/peaktranspond
Summary: Transpond is a simple but powerful email marketing and automation tool designed for startups and small teams. It offers drag-and-drop email creation, scheduling, automation flows, and CRM-lite features — without the complexity (or cost) of bigger platforms.
Price: Free for up to 500 contacts. Paid plans start at £9/month.
Pros:
Clean UI with drag-and-drop builder
Integrated email automation and contact management
Easy-to-understand analytics and tracking
UK-based support and data hosting (GDPR win)
Cons:
Less well-known than Mailchimp/Brevo
Fewer advanced integrations
No SMS or multi-channel options
Mailchimp
Summary: Email marketing tool with templates and basic automation.
Price: Free for 500 contacts. Paid from $13/month.
Pros:
Well-known platform
Easy to use
Good email templates
Cons:
Contact and email send limits
Automation is basic on free plan
Omnisend
Summary: Omnisend is a powerful email and SMS marketing platform built for ecommerce—but still a great fit for startups wanting fast, effective campaigns without getting bogged down in complexity.
Price: Free for up to 250 contacts and 500 emails/month. Paid from $16/month.
Pros:
Super clean and intuitive drag-and-drop email builder
Built-in automation flows for welcome series, abandoned cart, etc.
Pre-built templates make setup fast
Includes SMS marketing and push notifications even on free tier
Cons:
Best features are ecommerce-specific
Contact limits are tight on free plan
SMS credits run out quickly unless you top up
Brevo
Summary: Email and SMS platform with automation.
Price: Free (300 emails/day). Paid from $25/month.
Pros:
Unlimited contacts
Good automation
Cons:
Daily send limits
Brevo branding on free tier emails
ScoreApp
Summary: Quiz funnel builder for lead generation.
Price: Free for testing (10 leads/mo). Paid from $49/month.
Pros:
Unique lead-gen approach
Nice user experience
Cons:
Free plan heavily capped
Paid plans are pricier than alternatives
SurveyMonkey
Summary: Long-standing survey tool that’s still solid for gathering structured feedback from users, customers, and prospects.
Price: Free basic plan. Paid from $25/month.
Pros:
Easy to set up surveys
Wide range of templates
Export data and view analytics
Cons:
Free plan limits responses
No branding unless you pay
UX feels a little outdated compared to newer tools
Looka
Summary: AI-powered platform for logo design and brand kits.
Price: Free to try, paid packages from $20 one-time.
Pros:
Quick, professional branding
Easy to use, no design experience needed
Cons:
Customisation is limited compared to a designer
Paid downloads for full brand kit
Canva
Summary: Canva is the go-to design tool for non-designers who still want things to look pro. Ideal for pitch decks, social media, ads, one-pagers — whatever.
Price: Free tier available. Paid from $12.99/month (Canva Pro).
Pros:
Easy drag-and-drop editor
Huge template library
Brand kits and team collaboration (Pro)
Great for quick visual content creation
Cons:
Some of the best templates/assets locked behind Pro
Can feel limiting for experienced designers
Freshmarketer
🔗 freshworks.com/crm/marketing/
Summary: All-in-one marketing automation by Freshworks, including email marketing, CRO, and journey builders.
Price: Free for basic usage. Paid plans start at $19/user/month.
Pros:
Great for CRO (conversion rate optimization)
Integrates well with Freshworks suite
Cons:
Limited advanced automation features on free tier
Learning curve for full setup
Like what you’re reading? This is just one piece of our Ultimate Lean Startup Toolkit. Next up: tools for managing projects and workflows without the chaos. And if you’re spinning too many plates right now, book a call — we’ll help you simplify and scale smart.
