Drip vs Userlist: a store-first tool against one built for SaaS accounts
The two prices cross somewhere between 7,500 and 10,000 people. Drip is cheaper below that, from $39 at 2,500 to $124 at 7,500, and Userlist Basic is cheaper above it, a flat $149 up to 10,000 users and $10 for each extra 1,000. The product difference matters more than the price: Drip's own pages talk about Shopify orders and revenue per email, while Userlist treats users and the companies they belong to as the unit of messaging.
By Julian Pryor · Updated 7 Oct 2026
Short answer
Pick Userlist if you sell software to teams and want messages that know about the account, not just the person, and your list is above 8,000 users. Pick Drip if you sell products through a store, or you run a small SaaS list under that size and want the lower bill. Neither is a payment-failure specialist, so ask each vendor which Stripe events it actually receives.
Six list sizes, one table
Drip's figures are its slider readouts. Userlist's 10,000 figure is its listed Basic price, and the larger rows apply its listed $10 per additional 1,000 users, which matches its own readouts of $229 at 18,000 and $369 at 32,000. Read on 7 Oct 2026.
| List size | Drip per month | Userlist Basic per month | Cheaper by |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2,500 | $39 | $149 (plan covers up to 10,000) | Drip, $110 |
| 5,000 | $89 | $149 | Drip, $60 |
| 7,500 | $124 | $149 | Drip, $25 |
| 10,000 | $154 | $149 | Userlist, $5 |
| 25,000 | $369 | $149 + 15 × $10 = $299 | Userlist, $70 |
| 50,000 | $699 | $149 + 40 × $10 = $549 | Userlist, $150 |
Userlist Professional runs at $349 for up to 10,000 users and $12 for each extra 1,000, so 25,000 users cost $349 + 15 × $12 = $529. Professional adds A/B split testing, conversion goals, advanced workflow features and advanced integrations. Userlist's page shows an annual toggle labelled "Save 20%", so the monthly rates above are the higher figures.
What the price includes
- Drip prices on active people and the volume of emails you send in the month. Its readouts include unlimited email sends up to 30,000 people, dynamic segments, onsite campaigns, up to 50 workflows on the lower readouts, and the Drip MCP connector, free on every plan. There is no ongoing free plan, only a 14-day trial with no card.
- Userlist Basic includes marketing and lifecycle email, in-app messages, broadcasts, visual workflows, transactional email, segments for users and companies and a 60-minute roadmapping session for new accounts. Each plan carries a monthly message allowance of 5 times your tracked users, with a floor of 500,000, which covers every account under 100,000 users at the floor. Beyond it, Userlist adds $1 per 1,000 messages (Userlist billing docs).
Store orders against company accounts
Drip's pricing page describes one-click integrations with Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce and "90+ more", ready-made playbooks for welcome series, abandoned cart and win-back, segmentation on browsing, buying and returning, and revenue "traced back to the email that earned it." That is a retail vocabulary. Userlist's pricing page says it "includes all features a SaaS company can possibly need", and its Basic plan "now includes company accounts", and the company-accounts model lets a message be driven by what happens in the company as well as by one person. If one buyer invites five colleagues, Userlist is the one of the two built to treat that as one account with six users.
Stripe events on each side
- Drip. The Stripe integration page lists example automations: tag a subscriber on a completed payment, subscribe someone to a campaign when a payment attempt fails, remove a tag on a refund, and enroll a customer who signs up for a new plan. The help article adds that Drip records an event and updates lifetime value on charge events, creates the person if missing, and does not import history, so only purchases from the connection date appear (Drip's Stripe help).
- Userlist. Its integrations page puts Stripe and Chargebee under Billing and Churn Buster and Stunning under Payment Recovery, with native Segment, RudderStack, Zapier and Make connections and code libraries for Ruby, Rails, PHP, Laravel and JavaScript. The Stripe listing links a Zapier guide and does not itemize synced events (Userlist integrations). Say in your sales call which events you need: trial ending, past due, cancelled.
Moving from one to the other
- Export people with tags and custom fields. Drip tags usually map to attributes in Userlist, and company membership must be added as a second import.
- Carry over unsubscribed status; never re-import opted-out people as active.
- Recreate workflows one by one, starting with the welcome sequence, and keep both live for one full billing cycle.
- Reconnect Stripe in the new tool and note that history will not be rebuilt automatically.
- Move DNS authentication for the sending domain last.
Which to choose
- Userlist if your customer is a company with several seats and you expect past 10,000 users.
- Drip if you sell through a store, or you are a small SaaS under about 8,000 people.
- Neither if you need a free plan; both start with a trial only.
Related reading: all comparisons, Vero vs Userlist, Loops vs Userlist, Loops vs Drip, Klaviyo vs Drip and onboarding tools.
Drip vs Userlist: common questions
At what list size does Userlist become cheaper than Drip?
Between 7,500 and 10,000 people. Drip lists $124 at 7,500 and $154 at 10,000, while Userlist Basic is $149 for anything up to 10,000 users. Above that, Userlist adds $10 per extra 1,000 users, so at 25,000 it works out to $149 + 15 × $10 = $299 against Drip's $369.
Is Userlist better than Drip for a SaaS product?
Userlist is built around SaaS data: users and companies, in-app messages, and segments across both. Drip's pricing page talks about ecommerce stores, one-click Shopify, WooCommerce and BigCommerce integrations, and tracing revenue to the email. If your customers are accounts with several users, Userlist matches the model; if your customers are shoppers, Drip does.
How does each handle failed payments from Stripe?
Drip's Stripe page lists subscribing someone to a campaign when a payment attempt fails, and its help center says it records an event and updates lifetime value on charge events, going forward only with no historical import. Userlist lists Stripe under Billing integrations and links a Zapier guide, but its listing does not spell out which Stripe events sync, so ask support for the event list.
Do these tools limit how many emails I can send?
Drip's pricing readouts say unlimited email sends up to 30,000 people, then 480,000 sends at 40,000 people and 600,000 at 50,000. Userlist gives every plan a monthly allowance of 5 times your tracked users with a 500,000-message floor, and charges $1 per 1,000 messages above it.