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Marketing · head to head

Freshpaint vs Mautic

Freshpaint logo

Freshpaint

Marketing

Privacy layer that lets healthcare organisations run marketing analytics without sending PHI

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Mautic logo

Mautic

Marketing

The main open source marketing automation platform, self-hosted and GPL licensed

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Mautic has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Freshpaint filtering necessarily degrades what advertising platforms receive, so campaign optimisation and lookalike modelling perform worse than an unfiltered pixel would, and the marketing team must accept measurably weaker targeting as the price of compliance.; Mautic mautic depends on reliably scheduled cron jobs to process segments and send campaigns, and a misconfigured or silently failing schedule stops sends without an obvious error, which is the most common way Mautic deployments fail in production.
  • They diverge on capability: Freshpaint covers PHI detection and redaction, Mautic covers Visual campaign builder.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Freshpaint and Mautic actually diverge.

Attributes where Freshpaint and Mautic differ
AttributeFreshpaintMautic
Starting priceOn requestFree
Pricing modelquoteOpen source, no licence fee
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsWebWeb, Linux, Self-hosted, Docker

Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated), category (Marketing).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Freshpaint

  • PHI detection and redaction
  • Business associate agreement
  • Event verification
  • Pixel replacement
  • Consent governance
  • Advertising destinations
  • Analytics and session tools
  • Audience activation

Only in Mautic

  • Visual campaign builder
  • Contact management and segmentation
  • Landing pages and forms
  • Lead scoring
  • Dynamic web content
  • Email builder and A/B testing
  • Self-hosted data control
  • No feature gating

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Freshpaint

  • A health system told by legal to remove its Meta and Google pixels that still needs to report cost per acquisition on service line campaignsnot Mautic
  • A provider running paid search for elective procedures that must send conversion signals without disclosing which condition page a visitor viewednot Mautic
  • A compliance officer who needs a field level record of exactly what patient related data leaves the website, for a privacy committeenot Mautic
  • A multi-site provider group standardising tracking governance across marketing agencies that would otherwise each add their own tagsnot Mautic

Mautic

  • A marketing agency running automation for many clients that cannot pass on per-contact SaaS pricing at scalenot Freshpaint
  • A European university or public body whose data protection position requires contact data to stay on infrastructure it controlsnot Freshpaint
  • A company with a list of several hundred thousand contacts where SaaS per-contact pricing has become the largest line in the marketing budgetnot Freshpaint
  • A team that needs to modify the automation logic itself, not just configure it, and wants source access to do sonot Freshpaint

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Freshpaint

  • Filtering necessarily degrades what advertising platforms receive, so campaign optimisation and lookalike modelling perform worse than an unfiltered pixel would, and the marketing team must accept measurably weaker targeting as the price of compliance.
  • Pricing is not published on the vendor site despite three named tiers, and third party reports of entry around 599 US dollars a month cover only the lowest tier, with audiences and advertising activation sitting above it.
  • It addresses web and marketing tracking rather than the whole protected health information estate, so it solves one exposure while patient data in the CRM, call centre and email tooling remains a separate problem.
  • The commercial case rests on a specific regulatory interpretation of online tracking technologies, and litigation and future guidance could narrow or widen it, which makes the size of the problem it solves less stable than a compliance purchase usually is.
  • It is built for healthcare and priced accordingly, so an organisation wanting a general customer data platform pays for a regulatory specialism it does not need and gets narrower general purpose functionality than Segment or RudderStack.

Mautic

  • Mautic depends on reliably scheduled cron jobs to process segments and send campaigns, and a misconfigured or silently failing schedule stops sends without an obvious error, which is the most common way Mautic deployments fail in production.
  • Email sending is not included: you must arrange, pay for and warm up your own sending infrastructure through Amazon SES, SendGrid or similar, and deliverability problems become entirely your problem with no vendor to escalate to.
  • Acquia owns the commercial descendant, Campaign Studio, and is the largest contributor, so the loudest commercial interest in the ecosystem benefits from a hosted product rather than from the self-hosted one being easy.
  • Upgrades between major versions have historically been disruptive, requiring database migrations and plugin compatibility checks, so a neglected instance can become expensive to bring current.
  • The interface and the reporting are noticeably behind commercial platforms, so marketing teams that came from HubSpot or ActiveCampaign will find everyday tasks slower and will need training.

Pricing, plan by plan

Freshpaint

On request
  • Comply$undefined/month
    • Governance and consent foundation
    • PHI detection and redaction
    • Web analytics, funnels and surveys
  • Perform$undefined/month
    • Everything in Comply
    • Audiences and demand side platform activation
    • Attribution, journeys and recommendations
  • Scale$undefined/month
    • Everything in Perform
    • Ad performance reporting
    • Full AI feature access

Mautic

Free
  • Self-hosted communityFree
    • GPL licensed, no licence fee and no contact limits
    • All features included, no paid edition
    • You provide hosting, database, cron scheduling and email sending
  • Managed Mautic hosting$undefined/month
    • Third-party managed hosting listed by the project
    • Updates, backups and cron scheduling handled for you
    • Pricing varies by provider and is not set by the project

Which should you pick?

Choose Freshpaint if

  • You need phi detection and redaction.
  • You also want business associate agreement.
Freshpaint review

Choose Mautic if

  • You need visual campaign builder.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, Linux, Self-hosted, Docker.
  • You also want contact management and segmentation.
Mautic review

Questions people ask

Is Freshpaint or Mautic better?
Neither clearly leads. Freshpaint starts at On request and Mautic at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Freshpaint or Mautic?
Mautic has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at On request for Freshpaint and Free for Mautic.
Does Freshpaint or Mautic run on more platforms?
Freshpaint runs on Web. Mautic runs on Web, Linux, Self-hosted, Docker.
Can I use Mautic for free?
Yes. Mautic has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Freshpaint starts at On request.
What is Freshpaint best used for?
Freshpaint is most often used for a health system told by legal to remove its meta and google pixels that still needs to report cost per acquisition on service line campaigns, a provider running paid search for elective procedures that must send conversion signals without disclosing which condition page a visitor viewed, a compliance officer who needs a field level record of exactly what patient related data leaves the website, for a privacy committee, a multi-site provider group standardising tracking governance across marketing agencies that would otherwise each add their own tags. Of those, a health system told by legal to remove its meta and google pixels that still needs to report cost per acquisition on service line campaigns and a provider running paid search for elective procedures that must send conversion signals without disclosing which condition page a visitor viewed are not what Mautic is typically brought in for.
What can Freshpaint do that Mautic cannot?
Freshpaint covers PHI detection and redaction, Business associate agreement, Event verification, Pixel replacement. Mautic covers Visual campaign builder, Contact management and segmentation, Landing pages and forms, Lead scoring.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Freshpaint: Why can a hospital not just use Google Analytics?

US Department of Health and Human Services guidance treats IP addresses and health related page URLs as protected health information in this context, and advertising and analytics platforms will not sign a business associate agreement, so the disclosure is unlawful without an intermediary that filters.

Mautic: Is Mautic free?

Yes, GPL licensed with no licence fee and no contact limits. You pay for hosting, email sending and the staff time to maintain it.

Freshpaint: Does Freshpaint sign a BAA?

Yes, and it holds SOC 2 Type II. That is the central reason it exists, because the destination platforms will not.

Mautic: Does Acquia own Mautic?

Acquia acquired the founding commercial entity in 2019 and sells Campaign Studio built on it, but the Mautic trademark sits with the Open Source Collective and the project is community governed.

Freshpaint: What does it cost?

Freshpaint does not publish prices. Three tiers, Comply, Perform and Scale, are all sales led, and third party sources report entry around 599 US dollars a month for the lowest.

Mautic: What breaks most often?

Cron scheduling. If segment rebuilding and campaign triggers are not running on schedule, campaigns quietly stop sending with no alert.

Freshpaint: Will my ad performance suffer?

Somewhat. Stripping identifiers reduces what platforms can optimise against. The trade is weaker targeting in exchange for measurement that a compliance committee will approve.

Mautic: Can it handle large contact lists?

Yes, but performance at several hundred thousand contacts depends on database tuning and queue configuration, which is work you must do yourself.

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