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CRM · head to head

Keap vs Mautic

Keap logo

Keap

CRM

CRM and marketing automation for small business

From
$29/month
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: Keap the entry price is $299 a month and includes only 2 user licences, with each additional user at $39 a month; 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: Keap covers Contact management, Mautic covers Visual campaign builder.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Keap and Mautic actually diverge.

Attributes where Keap and Mautic differ
AttributeKeapMautic
Starting price$29/monthFree
Pricing modelsubscriptionOpen source, no licence fee
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsWeb, Ios, AndroidWeb, Linux, Self-hosted, Docker
CategoryCRMMarketing
Founded2000Unknown

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

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 Keap

  • Contact management
  • Pipeline management
  • Email marketing
  • Marketing automation
  • Sales automation
  • Reporting
  • Zapier
  • Slack

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.

Keap

  • Contact management and CRMnot Mautic
  • Marketing automationnot Mautic
  • Sales pipeline managementnot Mautic

Mautic

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

Where each one falls short

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

Keap

  • The entry price is $299 a month and includes only 2 user licences, with each additional user at $39 a month
  • Price varies with contact count, and the bands are only visible by entering a number into a calculator on the page
  • Implementation services are described as required rather than optional
  • Text marketing beyond the included 500 messages is a separate add on running from $24 to $279 a month

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

Keap

$29/month
  • Lite$29/month
    • Contact management
    • Email marketing
  • Standard$59/month
    • Everything in Lite
    • Sales automation
    • Pipeline management
  • Professional$149/month
    • Everything in Standard
    • Advanced automation
    • AI features

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 Keap if

  • You need contact management.
  • You work on Web, Ios, Android.
  • You also want pipeline management.
Keap 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 Keap or Mautic better?
Neither clearly leads. Keap starts at $29/month and Mautic at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Keap or Mautic?
Mautic has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at $29/month for Keap and Free for Mautic.
Does Keap or Mautic run on more platforms?
Keap runs on Web, Ios, Android. 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. Keap starts at $29/month.
What is Keap best used for?
Keap is most often used for contact management and crm, marketing automation, sales pipeline management. Of those, contact management and crm and marketing automation are not what Mautic is typically brought in for.
What can Keap do that Mautic cannot?
Keap covers Contact management, Pipeline management, Email marketing, Marketing automation. Mautic covers Visual campaign builder, Contact management and segmentation, Landing pages and forms, Lead scoring.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Keap: How much does Keap cost?

Keap costs $299/month billed at $2,988/year for the main plan, which includes 2 user licenses. Additional users cost $39/month each.

Source
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.

Keap: What text messaging fees does Keap charge?

Text marketing tiers range from $24 to $279/month with included message allotments. Overages are $0.015 per message and $0.01 per minute for voice.

Source
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.

Keap: Is implementation included in Keap pricing?

Implementation services are required at additional cost. Package pricing is available through Keap sales.

Source
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.

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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