Email marketing is one of the most powerful marketing tools you can share your message, sell your services, and build a relationship with your clients.
In fact, companies who send automated emails are 133% more likely to send relevant messages that correspond with a client’s purchase cycle. Over 75% of email revenue is generated by triggered campaigns, rather than one-size-fits-all campaigns. Automated email campaigns account for 21% of email marketing revenue.
That means that email marketing is an effective way for any size of business to reach engaged customers—as long as you do it well.
Unlike social media marketing (SMM), you own your email list. So long as you have an email subject line that stands out in their inbox, you can almost guarantee that potential customers will read your professional email marketing campaigns.
To get started with email marketing, you’ll need an email marketing platform that helps you collect emails, manage your email list, and send email marketing campaigns.
The problem? There are tons of email marketing service providers to choose from, each offering different features, pricing plans, and use cases.
To help you speed up the decision making process, we examined some of the most popular email marketing services to bring you this list of the 12 best email marketing platforms by their best features, pros, cons, and price—so you can choose the right one for your business.
Read on to find out the key things you should consider when choosing your email marketing service and our recommended email marketing solutions.
What to consider when choosing the best email marketing software
There are tons of email marketing services to choose from because every company has different needs. What you need from your email marketing software will be dramatically different from what another company requires.
Picking the best email marketing solution comes down to what you need.
The most basic email marketing platform will help you create, send and track emails. For more advanced email features, consider an email marketing tool that provides more than email sends. Look for all-in-one email marketing solutions that let you create landing pages, set up web intake forms and include automation to make your work easier.
According to a recent survey, 60% of marketers state that email marketing is producing a significant ROI and 32% state that it eventually will. In short, choosing the right email marketing solution for the job is crucial to your efforts.
So, before committing to a decision, consider these four things to choose the right email software for you:
Type of emails
The type of emails you plan to send can significantly sway your decision. You will need to choose an email service provider that specializes in the emails you will create. Which of these email types do you plan on using?
- Content-based newsletters. If your emails are more content-driven like newsletters or educational updates, choose an email marketing service with advanced content management systems. You should be able to change the format of your emails, create lead magnets, and design landing pages within the platform.
- Transactional emails. They are emails sent in response to a customer taking an action. They include order confirmations, abandoned cart, and password reset emails. These are usually sent by ecommerce brands or course creators. Make sure your chosen platform can send this type of triggered email.
- Paid newsletters. More creators are monetizing their business with paid newsletter, where audiences pay a subscription fee to access exclusive content in their inbox. Look for email marketing services that allow you to process payments, manage subscriptions, and customize your emails to build a professional customer experience.
- Drip campaigns: A drip email campaign is a series of emails sent at automatic intervals. Drip email marketing covers a wide range of techniques, but some of the most popular types of drip email campaigns involve onboarding new customers, recommending products, and nurturing leads.
- A combination: Many businesses send more than one type of marketing email. If that is your need, pay careful attention to a platform’s capabilities. For example, newsletter-focused software might not have the automation features you need to create a drip campaign.
Price
Most businesses have a marketing budget to cover their expenses. The cost of email marketing platform comes from that budget, but the cheaper you can get your email marketing solution, the more money you’ll free up to experiment with.
Compare the pricing plans for each email marketing plan on your shortlist. Some email marketing companies have free plans ideal for beginners, only for them to become one of the most expensive options once you hit a certain amount of subscribers. Make sure the email marketing solution you choose can grow with you… without costing a fortune.
If the email marketing platform is particularly expensive, see whether it offers a free trial. Before committing to an expensive subscription, play around with the platform and check whether it has the features you need.
Email features
Before choosing a platform, check if it offers the features you need.
Not only can this help you manage your professional campaigns in the short-term, but choosing an email marketing platform with the features you might need in future can prevent you from having to migrate later down the line.
The most important email features include:
- Email automation tools: Look for a platform that allows you to create triggered emails, personalize customer journeys, and sync data from your ecommerce platform or customer relationship management platform.
- Migration: Can you easily migrate customer data from an existing email marketing platform into the new one?
- Autonomy and customization: How much control do you have over the look and feel of your emails and newsletters? Does the tool have the functionality you need? Will your clients see the platform’s logo on your emails? You’ll want to check for HTML editing if you plan on editing your emails’ code.
- Email reporting and analytics: Save time by finding an email marketing tool that offers insights into open rates, click-through rates, conversion metrics, and subscriber behavior. These analytics help you fine tune your email marketing strategy to convert more customers.
- Reading and viewing options: 43% of people now check their emails on their smartphone every single day.In today’s world, fewer and fewer people are opening their emails from a traditional desktop setting, which means selecting an email marketing solution with functionality and mobile-optimized templates is essential. If someone opens an email on their mobile device and it can’t display correctly, they will bounce immediately, and your efforts will be redundant.
- Design: Do the available templates and customization options fit your business? Do the free themes and templates include features that serve your needs? You’ll have more options to choose from when you need to create a new email layout or look.
- A/B testing: It is the tactic of sending out two versions of an email with one different component and comparing their performance. If you focus heavily on email optimization, you will want a platform with A/B testing capabilities.
- Integrations: When you work in digital marketing, your customer relationship management (CRM) software is your best friend. Updating lists and sending emails manually is time-consuming, so picking an email marketing platform that integrates seamlessly with your CRM or online store, will offer you with a hassle-free solution for managing valuable content and customer data, as well as offering you with an overview of key metrics (open rates, click-through rates) to see which campaigns are performing the best.
- Send volume: Many email marketing solutions scale their pricing based on the number of emails a client sends out
- Ease of use: Is iteasy to find the features you are looking for? How easily can you create and send an email or set up an automation? Will you need to hire an email specialist, designer or coder to build emails? A software that is easy to navigate will save you time in the long run.
- Segmentation features: The most successful emails are personalized. When searching for an email marketing tool, look for features that allow you to segment your readers based on various criteria—such as demographics, behavior, or purchase history.
- Compliance and deliverability: The best platform complies with email marketing regulations such as GDPR and CAN-SPAM. Strong deliverability features, including spam testing and monitoring, also help emails reach your subscribers’ inboxes—instead of being flagged as spam.
Deliverability rate
Email marketing services with a high deliverability score means they are least likely to be marked as spam. In other words: you will have the best chance of hitting your subscribers’ inbox when you use the tool to send professional emails.
When evaluating your options, look for email marketing tools with a high deliverability rate. Anything above 95% is good, but the higher their score, the better.
Now that you understand what you are looking for in your email marketing platform, let’s look at the some of the best tools available for the job.
The 12 Best Email Marketing Platforms of 2024
- Mailchimp: Best email marketing service for all-in-one marketing
- ActiveCampaign: Best email marketing software for more advanced automated email marketing
- Drip: Best email marketing service for e-commerce
- GetResponse: Best email marketing software for small to medium-sized enterprises
- Zoho Campaigns: Best email marketing service for fully integrated business suite
- Moosend: Best email marketing service for legacy companies
- Campaigner: Best email marketing service for experienced digital marketers
- MailerLite: Best email marketing service for selling paid subscriptions
- Brevo: Best email marketing service for unlimited contacts
- Constant Contact: Best email marketing service for small businesses
- ConvertKit: Best email marketing service creators and bloggers.
- HubSpot: Best email marketing service for sales teams already using HubSpot’s CRM
Note: The email marketing platforms are listed in no particular order. Read their individual features, pros, cons, and price to choose your best email marketing platform.
Best email marketing software for all-in-one marketing
- Mailchimp
Mailchimp is one of the market’s most well-known email marketing platforms. Over 12+ million customers use the platform and make $1.7K in revenue per campaign, on average.It’s known best for its flagship email marketing tool, which pioneered the forever free plan for users with less than 2,000 contacts.
The platform offers a standard-setting drag-and-drop editor and email templates designed to meet a variety of business goals for publishers, coaches, service providers, e-commerce businesses, and more. Mailchimp’s modern design makes it easy to use, from creation to analytics.
Along with email marketing, this offers a suite of products to help you build and market your business online, all in one platform, including a free website builder, online stores, domains, landing pages, social media ads, appointment scheduling and even a full mailing service for postcards.
Who should use it:
Mailchimp is a go-to platform for brand-new businesses and digital creators because its free plan gives users a user-friendly interface, up to 2,000 contacts, and 12,000 email sends per month–more than enough if you’re looking to get started with email marketing.
If you want to experiment with email marketing techniques, such as segmentation, landing pages and autoresponders, while you have a small audience, give Mailchimp a try. Just bear in mind that while the platform can start out as a free email marketing tool, it can wind up being pricey as you scale.
Mailchimp features
Mailchimp is a well-known email marketing service provider because it offers the following features:
- Beginner-friendly email builder
- 24/7 customer support available
- Personalized onboarding service for customers on paid plans
- Mailchimp app to send emails on Android and iPhone
- 300+ integrations with marketing tools like Quickbooks, Stripe, and Squarespace
- Deliverability statistics to see how many people receive your emails
- Customizable automations like cart abandonment emails
- Sync your email analytics with data from Shopify and Google Analytics
- Generative AI to create subject lines, subheadings, and email copy
Pros & Cons of Mailchimp
- All-in-one marketing platform
- Free version for up to 2,000 subscribers
- Well-known and trusted brand
- Vast template library
- Appointment scheduler
- Intuitive landing page and email builder
- Templates aren’t very easy to customize
- Limited customer support
- It becomes expensive if you have more than 2,000 subscribers
- The free plan come with restrictions—you need to upgrade to a premium plan to access features like A/B testing and predictive audience segmentation
Mailchimp pricing
Whether you are starting up, growing your business, or enterprise, Mailchimp has a plan that will work for you. The platform offers a free email marketing tool that includes email templates and email support for your first 30 days. It is more than enough for brand-new businesses and digital creators who want to get started with email marketing. Their premium plans starts at $13 per month.
Free Plan
- Email support for 30 days
- 300+ integrations
- Creative assistant
- Pre-built email templates
- Basic reporting and analytics
- Forms and landing pages
Essentials Plan: Starting at $13.00 per month
- 24/7 email and chat support
- Automated customer journeys
- Pre-built email templates
- Email scheduling
- Remove Mailchimp branding
- A/B testing
- Forms and landing pages
- SMS marketing add-on
- Basic reporting and analytics
- 300+ integrations
Standard Plan: Starting at $20.00 per month
- Personalized onboarding
- Email marketing campaign manager
- Automated customer journey (advanced)
- Predictive segmentation
- Custom-coded templates
- Comparative reporting
- Pre-built journeys
- Content optimizer
- 300+ segmentations
- Send time optimization
- 24/7 email and chat support
- A/B testing
- Basic reporting and analytics
- SMS & MMS add-on
- Generative Al feature (Beta)
- Forms and landing pages
Premium Plan: Starting at $350.00 per month
This plan is designed for mid-sized businesses.
- Phone and priority support.
- Comparative reporting
- Multivariate testing
- Basic reporting and analytics
- Advanced segmentation
- Forms and landing pages
- Dedicated onboarding specialist
- Automated customer journey (advanced)
- Custom –coded templates
- Content optimizer
- 300+ segmentations
- Send time optimization
- Predictive segmentation
- Dynamic content
- SMS & MMS add-on
- Generative Al feature (Beta)
Best email marketing software for automated email marketing
- ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign is not the best option for those who want a beginner’s email marketing solution, is easy to use, and does not require any technical skills.
It offers several plan options that can work for small businesses, large enterprises or solo marketers. It even segments its tools for your needs, whether you are looking for a simplified email marketing tool or a full-fledged marketing automation solution with CRM features, SMS communications and predictive analytics.
Depending on the plan you pick, you can set up split testing for up to five emails at once, so you can figure out which subject line, body text, and CTAs work best for your audiences.
All of the automation for your email and SMS campaigns comes at a cost, though. ActiveCampaign starts at $15 per month (paid annually) for one user, and it’s a lean plan. The Plus and Professional plans cost $49 per month and $79 per month, respectively, paid annually. Enterprise plan starts at $145.00 per month.
Who should use it:
ActiveCampaign is a great choice for you if you’re ready to put money into automation and predictive analytics for your marketing efforts.
ActiveCampaign features
ActiveCampaign is a powerful email marketing solution because it offers the following features:
- Superb email deliverability score
- Data syncs with a built-in CRM to offer sales teams with advanced lead scoring
- Integrations with 850+ other apps like Facebook, Shopify, WordPress, and more
- The onboarding and support teams offer helpful resources and guidance when needed
- Landing page builder to create landing pages optimized for conversion in minutes
- Site tracking to see how people interact with your website
- The interface is intuitive, making it easy to navigate for beginners
- Training and tutorials to get the most out of the platform
- Free migration means no need to worry about losing data or starting from scratch
Pros & Cons of ActiveCampaign
- E-commerce integrations available
- More than 850 integrations available
- Email marketing automation on most plans
- SMS automation on high-level plans
- Advanced reports across all plans
- Robust CRM and customer behavior tracking
- Slightly more expensive compared to other email marketing solutions
- Tags can be confusing and challenging to keep track of
- No free plan. The more subscribers you have, the higher the monthly price.
- Restrictive opt-in forms
ActiveCampaign pricing
With a 14-day free trial, you can explore all of ActiveCampaign’s features without any commitment.
There are four different pricing plans to pick from once that trial is up, from $15 to $145. Look at different pricing plans below and see what plan and features meet your budget and needs.
Starter Plan: Starting at $15.00 per month
- 24/7 chat and email support
- Basic and inline forms
- 5 actions per automation
- Site tracking
- API & Webhooks
- 900+ integrations
Plus Plan: Starting at $49.00 per month
- Landing pages
- Inline, pop-up and modal forms
- Al content generation
- Unlimited automation actions
- APL & Webhooks
- Integrations with Shopify, Squarespace and WooCommerce
- Facebook custom audiences and lead ads
- Email marketing
- Marketing automation
Pro Plan: Starting at $79.00 per month
- Predictive sending Al
- Advanced reporting and analytics
- Advanced segmentation
- Landing pages
- Inline, pop-up and modal forms
- APL & Webhooks
- Microsoft Dynamics 365, Salesforce, Shopify, Squarespace and WooCommerce integrations
- Conditional content
- Al content generation
- Unlimited automation actions
- Attribution reporting
Enterprise Plan: Starting at $145.00 per month
- Advanced segmentation
- Advanced reporting and analytics
- Al content generation
- Unlimited automation actions
- Conditional content
- Predictive sending Al
- Landing pages
- Inline, pop-up and modal forms
- APL & Webhooks
- Attribution reporting
- Custom reporting
- Uptime SLA
- HIPAA support
- Premium CRM integrations
Best email marketing software for e-commerce
- Drip
Drip provides email and SMS marketing for e-commerce businesses. It includes pre-built automated series optimized for driving purchases through abandoned cart reminders, post-purchase campaigns, product discounts and more.
The platform integrates with major e-commerce platforms including WooCommerce, Shopify and BigCommerce, so you can target your marketing campaigns to clients based on what they purchase and where they browse on your website.
There is no free plan, but you can start with a 14-day free trial to try out the platform. After that, Drip’s pricing is refreshingly straightforward—you will get all features in an email-only or email and SMS account for a flat monthly price based on how many subscribers you have.
Who should use it:
Drip is designed specifically for independent e-commerce businesses. It lacks some of the features bigger businesses or publishers would want, but its narrow focus means it offers all the integrations and features an e-commerce website needs.
Drip features
Its top features include:
- Behavioral automation triggers
- Advance segmentation
- Ready-to-use automation templates
Pros & Cons of Drip
- Specially designed for e-commerce businesses
- 14-day free trial
- Straightforward pricing based on volume and contacts
- Detailed analytics
- Expensive compared to other top email marketing platforms
- No free plan
- No A/B testing email content
Drip pricing
Drip has 2 pricing plans, from a free trial to $39. Look at different pricing plans below and see what plan and features meet your budget and needs.
Free Trial: 14-day free trial
- No credit card needed
- Free migration
- Access to all features
Basic: Starting at $39.00 per month
- 2500 subscribers
- Free migration and workflow implementation
- Unlimited email send
- Phone, email, and live chat support
Best email marketing software for small to medium-sized enterprises
- GetResponse
GetResponse is an all-in-one online marketing platform for small, medium and large businesses, with plans ranging from very basic and free, to custom pricing with full marketing automation for enterprise organizations.
It has professional features to help you grow and manage your email list, alongside tools to combine email marketing with other strategies—like building a website, creating email newsletters and landing pages, hosting webinars, running SMS and social media ads.
The real standout feature is Autofunnel—a tool with 30+ ready-made landing pages, email templates, and sequences to generate sales. If you want to drive lead generation, product sales, or webinar registrations, you can do it with this GetResponse feature.
GetResponse’s free version is available for an audience of up to 500, but it limits key features. You’ll likely use this version more as a free trial and need to upgrade to a paid version quickly to achieve substantial business goals.
Who should use it:
GetResponse could be a fit for any size of business. Its interface and free plan make it a more attractive choice compared to other robust platforms, so this is a good fit if usability is a high priority for your need. The platform offers an unintimidating way to access advanced marketing features.
GetResponse features
GetResponse is a well-known email marketing service because of these standout features:
- Great deliverability score (99%)
- Conversion funnels to move people through your marketing funnel
- Autoresponders to give people immediate response via email
- Generous affiliate program if you love GetResponse and want to get paid when promoting them
- Drag-and-drop website builder that’s very intuitive and makes designing a breeze
- AI email generators to save time creating new content for your newsletters
- Web push notifications to convert website visitors into email subscribers
- Host webinars from the same platform that powers email
Pros & Cons of GetResponse
- Free version for up to 500 subscribers
- Unlimited sends with free version
- Detailed analytics dashboard
- Prompt support and intuitive documentation
- HTML and visual email editor
- No automation or segmentation with free plan
- Some templates look a bit outdated
- Advanced features have a steep learning curve
- Pricing can get pricey as you scale operations
GetResponse pricing
GetResponse has 6 pricing plans. A free trial of GetResponse is also available. Look at different pricing plans below and see what plan and features meet your budget and needs.
Free Plan
Up to 500 contacts
- Unlimited newsletter
- Signup forms and popups
Email Marketing Plan: Starting at $13.30 per month
Up to 1000 contacts
- AI email generator
- Free package PLUS
- Unlimited landing pages
- Basic segmentation
- Email scheduling
- Integrations and API
- Autoresponders
Marketing Automation Plan: Starting at $41.30 per month
Up to 1000 contacts
- Email marketing package PLUS
- Contact scoring
- Sales funnel
- Advanced segmentation
- Marketing automation
- Webinars
- Event based automation
Ecommerce Marketing Plan: Starting at $83.30 per month
Up to 1000 contacts
- Product recommendations
- Ecommerce segmentation
- Web push notifications
- Transactional emails
- Cart abandonment emails
MAX: Starting price (contact GetResponse)
- AI recommendations
- Dedicated priority support
- Landing pages
- 10 users per account
- Email marketing
- Shared IP address
- Marketing automation
- SMS marketing-1000 SMS
- Web push notifications
- Webinars for up to 500 attendees
MAX2: Starting price (contact GetResponse)
- Dedicated priority support
- Enterprise-grade API limits
- Unlimited users
- Unlimited email marketing volume
- Dedicated IP address
- Marketing automation strategy consulting
- SMS marketing-5000 SMS
- Webinars for up to 1000 attendees
- Dedicated CRM and priority support
- Single sign-on (SSO)
Best email marketing software for selling premium subscriptions
- MailerLite
MailerLite is a well-known email marketing service used by over 1.4 million customers.
It’s an email marketing solution for small businesses because Mailerlite offers flexible tiered plans based on the size of your contact list. You can set up automations to engage B2B prospects, integrate with an e-commerce store, sell digital downloads and even set up a paid newsletter subscription.
MailerLite also offers a website and blog builder, so you can manage your online presence all in one place.
You can start with their free version if you have less than 1,000 email subscribers, and it does not limit how many emails you can send as a free user, which is rare. Its templates are not available with a free account, but you can design your own emails in a drag-and-drop editor.
This platform is best known for its easy user interface, responsive email designs, and excellent 24/7 phone support and email support.
Also, you can track your email marketing results with a click map and opens by location reports.
Who should use it:
MailerLite is a great option for small businesses, but it stands out from others in this list for features that will appeal to digital creators, especially bloggers. Its free plan is for small audiences and support for premium subscriptions could make this a good platform for bloggers and small media companies looking to monetize their content directly.
MailerLite features
Mailerlite is a popular email marketing tool because it offers the following features:
- Amazing email deliverability
- Live 24/7 customer support via live chat and email
- A powerful and easy-to-use landing page builder
- Template gallery to browse and customize email, website, landing page, and pop-up templates
- Ecommerce integrations with the top platforms
- Designed to be minimal and functional
- Email surveys to learn more about your potential clients
- Paid newsletter subscriptions to monetize your email marketing strategy
Pros & Cons of MailerLite
- Free version for up to 1,000 subscribers
- Integrated with website and landing page builder
- Unlimited emails with paid versions
- No templates included with free plan
- HTML editor only included at highest tier
- Limited analytics and reporting features compared to other email marketing solutions
MailerLite pricing
The platform has 4 pricing plans. A free trial of MailerLite is also available. Look at different pricing plans below and see what plan and features meet your budget and needs.
Free Business Plan: Starting price- Free per month
- 12000 emails per month
- Email support
- Signup forms and pop-ups
- Email automation builder
- 10 landing pages
- Websites
- Drag and drop editor
Growing Business Plan: Starting at $10.00 per month
- Unlimited emails
- 3 users
- 24/7 email support
- Website builder
- Signup forms and pop-ups
- Sell digital products
- Unlimited templates
- Auto resend campaign
- Drag and drop editor
- Landing pages
- Unlimited websites and blogs
- Unsubscribe page builder
- Email automation builder
Advanced Business Plan: Starting at $20.00 per month
- 24/7 live chat and email support
- Website builder
- Unlimited emails
- Unlimited users
- Auto resend campaign
- Facebook integration
- Drag and drop editor
- Signup forms and pop-ups
- Promotion pop-ups
- Custom HTML editor
- Sell digital products
- Unlimited websites and blogs
- Unsubscribe page builder
- Email automation builder
- Enhanced automations
- Multiple trigger in automations
- Unlimited templates
- Landing pages
- Unlimited monthly emails
Enterprise Business Plan: Starting price (contact the company)
- Dedicated success manager
- Dedicated IP & deliverability consultations
- Custom landing page design
- Custom HTML editor
- Custom newsletter design
- Email automation builder
- Enhanced automations
- Email automation builder
- Unlimited templates
- Unlimited emails
- Unlimited users
- Unlimited monthly emails
- Unlimited websites and blogs
- Unsubscribe page builder
- Signup forms and pop-ups
- Promotion pop-ups
- Facebook integration
- Drag and drop editor
- Sell digital products
- 24/7 live chat and email support
- Website builder
- Auto resend campaign
Best email marketing software for fully integrated business suite
- Zoho Campaigns
From team email, CRM and bookkeeping to docs, spreadsheets and HR management, Zoho powers small businesses from the ground up—at competitive prices.
Zoho Campaigns offers a drag-and-drop email editor with dedicated, dynamic designs. You can create workflows to automate communications with clients and track information directly into an integrated Zoho or third-party CRM.
Zoho Campaigns falls a bit flat in its design—both on the back end and customer-facing sides—compared with other popular email marketing solutions. Its style is sufficient but lacks some of the clean, modern feel you’ll find with Mailchimp or Moosend.
Who should use it:
Zoho Campaigns is popular with India-based companies and others outside the United States, but it’s been expanding rapidly into the U.S. in recent years and could make a viable competitor for Google Workspace and other mainstays here.
Zoho Campaigns features
Zoho Campaigns is a well-known email marketing platform because it offers the following features
- Unlimited emails
- Dynamic content
- A/B testing
- All-in-one business platform
Pros & Cons of Zoho Campaigns
- Free version for up to 2,000 contacts
- Up to five users in free plan
- Low monthly price for paid versions
- Up to five free business email addresses
- Outstanding reports feature
- Max of 20 users
- Pricing jump based on number of contacts
- Initial setup takes time
- Some dated template designs
Zoho Campaigns pricing
The platform has 5 pricing plans, from $0 to $583. Look at different pricing plans below and see what plan and features meet your budget and needs.
Forever Free Plan: Starting price- Free
- Signup and pop up forms
- Compliance check
- Basic email templates
- Reports and analytics
- Admin + 4 users
- 6000 emails per month to 2000 contacts
Pay-As-You-Go Plan: Starting at $14.00
- Pay by email credits
- Signup and pop up forms
- Compliance check
- Admin + 4 users
- 6000 emails per month to 2000 contacts
- Basic email templates
- Reports and analytics
Standard Plan: Starting at $3.00
- Unlimited emails
- Advanced email templates
- Advanced segmentation
- Advanced email schedule
- A/B testing
- Dynamic content
- Signup and pop up forms
- Compliance check
- Reports and analytics
- Admin + 4 users
- 6000 emails per month to 2000 contacts
Professional Plan: Starting at $4.50
- Autoresponders
- Unlimited emails
- Advanced email templates
- Advanced segmentation
- Advanced email schedule
- A/B testing
- Dynamic content
- Signup and pop up forms
- Compliance check
- Reports and analytics
- Admin + 4 users
- Drag and drop workflow automation
- Campaign managerial approval
Agency Plan: Starting at $583.00 per year
- Unlimited emails
- Agency console
- Up to 10 clients
- License sharing
- Client invite
- Content sharing
Best email marketing software for legacy companies
- Moosend
Moosend is an effective email marketing service provider behind major brands, such as TEDx, Vogue and Domino’s. Users love the value—lots of features at much lower price points than traditional competitors.
Moosend does not provide a website builder, SMS or advertising support, so you will have to go elsewhere for all of your marketing needs. But it provides everything you need for email marketing including transactional emails, landing pages, a drag-and-drop newsletter editor, automation workflows, countdown timers, shopper behavior tracking and much more.
Plus, the platform integrates with more than 100 other apps, so you can make sure all your marketing data and strategies are on the same page.
Who should use it:
Moosend is popular with larger companies and provides unlimited email sends at any subscription plan. The only variable you pay for is the size of your audience. Its user-friendly interface makes marketing feel friendly and uncomplicated, so it could be a good option if you or your team is just diving into email marketing for the first time.
Pros & Cons of Moosend
- 30-day free trial
- Advanced tracking and reporting
- Clean, user-friendly interface
- CRM and email marketing in-one
- No forever free version available
- Max five users without an Enterprise account
Moosend features
Moosend offers the following features:
- Email marketing
- Landing pages
- Advanced tracking
- CRM
- e-commerce
- AI product recommendation
Moosend pricing
Moosend has 2 pricing plans, from a free trial to $9. Look at different pricing plans below and see what plan and features meet your budget and needs.
Free Plan: 30 Day Free Trial
- Unlimited emails campaigns and sends
- Marketing automation
- Landing pages
- Custom reports
- Subscription forms
- No Moosend Logo/ branding
Pro plan: Starting at $9.00 per month
- Unlimited emails
- Unlimited subscription forms
- Unlimited landing pages
- Email newsletter builder
- Marketing automation workflow builder
Best email marketing software for experienced marketers
- Campaigner
Campaigner is a classic brand management software that provides advanced marketing features for complex campaigns for small and medium-sized enterprises and transactional businesses.
Through the software, you get access to automation, conversion tracking, segmentation and a drag-and-drop builder with templates. You can also build landing pages and pop-up forms for lead collection.
Its emails provide advanced personalization through audience segments and purchase behavior, so you can create dynamic emails to meet the reader where they are in your customer journey.
Who should use it:
Campaigner’s advanced features are best for experienced and robust marketing teams within small or enterprise businesses. The platform would be overwhelming for new marketers or individual creators, who would not need the complex features it provides.
Campaigner features
Top Campaigner marketing features include:
- Email marketing
- SMS marketing
- Full code editor
- Geolocation and other customization options
Pros & Cons of Campaigner
- 30-day free trial
- Automate campaigns around conversions
- Multi-workflow enrollment
- Advanced segmentation, automation and reporting
- No free plan
- Expensive
- Campaigner branding included in lowest paid tier
- Version limits key features such as campaign scheduling and A/B testing
Campaigner pricing
The platform has 12 pricing plans. A free trial is also included. Look at different pricing plans below and see what plan and features meet your budget and needs.
Starter Plan: Starting at $59.00 per month
Up to 5000 contacts
- Full code editor
- Geolocation
- Experiments
- Drag and drop editor
- 900+ templates
- Social integration
- Landing pages
- Basic segmentation
- Suppression lists
- Facebook audience builder
- Recurring campaigns
- CDN media hosting 50 gb
- Conversion tracking
Light Plan: Starting at $29.00 per month
Up to 1000 contacts
- Full code editor
- Facebook audience builder
- Geolocation
- Basic segmentation
- 900+ templates
- Recurring campaigns
- CDN media hosting 50 gb
- Experiments
- Drag and drop editor
- Landing pages
- Social integration
- Suppression lists
- Conversion tracking
Essential Plan: Starting at $179.00 per month
Up to 25000 contacts
- Dynamic content
- Custom footer
- Remove campaigner branding
- Full code editor
- Facebook audience builder
- Geolocation
- Basic segmentation
- 900+ templates
- Recurring campaigns
- CDN media hosting 50 gb
- Experiments
- Drag and drop editor
- Landing pages
- Social integration
- Exclusion lists
- Conversion tracking
- eCommerce integrations
- Localization
Advanced Plan: Starting at $649.00 per month
Up to 100, 000 contacts
- Sales engineering
- API access
- Dynamic content
- Custom footer
- Remove campaigner branding
- Full code editor
- Facebook audience builder
- Geolocation
- 900+ templates
- Recurring campaigns
- CDN media hosting 50 gb
- Experiments
- Drag and drop editor
- Landing pages
- Social integration
- Suppression lists
- Conversion tracking
- Purchase behavior
- Automation workflows
- Static segment sampling
ECommerce, Starter Plan: Starting at $79.95 per month
Up to 30, 000 emails
- Magento integration
- Unlimited contacts
- Shopify integration
ECommerce, Essential Plan: Starting at $99.95 per month
Up to 45, 000 emails
- Magento integration
- Unlimited contacts
- Shopify integration
ECommerce, Advanced Plan: Starting at $149.95 per month
Up to 75,000 emails
- Magento integration
- Unlimited contacts
- Shopify integration
Enterprise Plan: Pricing (contact the company)
Up to 18% off
- Unlimited contacts
- High volume CPM pricing
- Custom setup & API access
- Dedicated client success manager
- Magento integration
- Unlimited contacts
- Shopify integration
- SMS marketing
SMS, Starter Plan: Starting at $45.00 per month
SMS volume 1000
- Segmentation
- SMS campaigns
- Recurring SMS campaigns
- Geolocation targeting
- Personalized SMS content
SMS, Advanced Plan: Starting at $550.00 per month
SMS volume 10, 000
- Everything in SMS, Starter
- SMS automation workflow
- Purchase behavior targeting
SMS, Enterprise Plan: Pricing (contact the company)
SMS volume unlimited
- Everything in SMS, Advanced
- Unlimited contacts
- High volume CPM pricing
- Custom setup and API access
- Dedicated client success manager
Best email marketing software for unlimited contacts
- Brevo
Brevo (formerly known as Sendinblue) provides multiple plans that can work well for any size of business. Brevo stands out for providing unlimited subscribers on all its plans. The free plan restricts you to 300 emails per day, but that is generous for a free version. Creating email campaigns on Brevo’s platform is easy with its drag-and-drop editor.
Along with most email marketing solutions, Brevo gives you features to help you build the best email and SMS campaigns possible. Set up split testing for subject lines and content, use automation to send emails at the best time for your audiences and use the workflow editor to create journeys.
Who should use it:
Businesses that have large email lists can make excellent use of Brevo’s plans, which offer unlimited subscribers at no extra cost.
Brevo features
Brevo’s top features include:
- Email marketing
- SMS Email marketing
- Segmentation
- Landing page builder
- Custom forms
- Workflow editor
Pros & Cons of Brevo
- Unlimited subscribers on all plans
- Human -friendly email editor with drag-and-drop interface
- Advanced segmentation on all plans
- No daily sending limit on paid plans
- Advanced automation workflows, including prebuilt ecommerce automation
- Limited free version
- More expensive than other robust email marketing platforms
- Boring and repetitive templates
Brevo Pricing
Brevo marketing platform has 4 pricing pans. A free trial of Brevo marketing platform is also included. Look at different pricing plans below and see what plan and features meet your budget and needs.
Free Plan
- No credit card required
- API access
- Email support
- Real-time reporting
- Transactional emails included
- Responsive and HTML design tools
- Advanced contact manager and sign-up forms
Starter Plan: Starting at $9.00 per month
- Email support
- No daily sending limit
- No Brevo logo
- Transactional emails included
- Advanced contact manager and sign-up forms
- Responsive and HTML design tools
- API access
- Real-time reporting
Business Plan: Starting at $18.00 per month
- Multi-user access
- Advanced statistics
- Email and phone support
- Send time optimization
- Unlimited marketing automations
- No daily sending limit
- No Brevo logo
- Transactional emails included
- Advanced contact manager and sign-up forms
- Responsive and HTML design tools
- API access
- Real-time reporting
Brevo Plus Plan: Starting price (contact the company)
- Flexible contract
- Dedicated support
- Tailored onboarding
- Advanced integration
- Sub-account management
- Enterprise-grade security
Best email marketing software for small businesses
- Constant Contact
Constant Contact offers different content marketing tools in one interface—including automation, growing your email list, social media, SMS and email marketing.
It’s the perfect all-in-one email marketing solution for small businesses. The biggest difference between it and other robust email marketing platforms is that Constant Contact gives far more support options.
In addition to traditional email or ticket support, Constant Contact offers live chat and phone support, which is one of the most unique features among email marketing platforms. Plus, all of those support options are available for all plans. Higher-tier users get onboarding calls to help with setup and training.
Constant Contact’s growth tools make it easy to grow your email list to reach more clients. You can build beautiful email newsletters to engage your clients and encourage them to buy, and post to social media from the same dashboard.
Who should use it:
Constant Contact is great for small businesses and new users who aren’t familiar with email marketing programs, as they may feel more comfortable learning it with a safety net of live chat and phone support available.
Constant Contact features
Here is why Constant Contact is well-known as one of the best email marketing software for small businesses:
- User-friendly interface that is easy for beginners to navigate
- Professionally-designed templates for those who want to create beautiful email newsletters, but do not have the time or design skills to do so themselves
- Email deliverability is above average
- Automation features to send welcome emails to new subscribers and follow up with customers who have not bought anything
- Growth tools—including a landing page builder, forms, and polls—make it easy to grow your email list
- Mobile app to check email performance on the go
- A/B testing allows you to test different versions of your email newsletter or campaign to see which one performs better
Pros & Cons of Constant Contact
- Low-priced plans
- Ad management included on high tiers
- Unique ecommerce marketing features
- Social media management and marketing
- Robust customer support options
- AI-generated content available
- Advanced A/B testing
- Only subject line A/B testing
- Limited users on most plans
- Questionable email deliverability
- Basic email editor and limited template library
- Expensive
Constant Contact pricing
Constant Contact marketing platform has 3 pricing pans. The platform does not have a free version. To use its email software, you will need to subscribe to one of its premium plans. A free trial of Constant Contact marketing platform is also included. Look at different pricing plans below and see what plan and features meet your budget and needs.
Lite Plan: Starting at $12.00 per month
- Basic email marketing with easy-to-use templates
- Landing pages and web sign up forms
- Automated welcome email for new contacts
- Event management
- Social media marketing
Standard Plan: Starting at $35.00 per month
- Prebuilt automation templates
- Audience segmentation
- Advanced reporting
- A/B subject line tests
- Drill down reporting
- Resend emails to non-openers
Premium Plan: Starting at $80.00 per month
- Advanced email marketing with dynamic content
- Advanced ads with a dedicated ad manager
- Search engine marketing recommendations.
- Custom contact segmentation
- Custom automations
- Revenue reporting
- SMS messaging
Best email marketing software for creators and bloggers
- ConvertKit
The platform is built by creators, for creators. They understand their customer’s needs and know what it takes to grow an online following, hence why we have ranked ConvertKit as the top-notch email marketing service for bloggers and creators.
For bloggers and creators looking to send personalized, text-based emails, their designs look like they are coming right from Gmail.
The platform gives you attractive signup form templates that you can customize for more control over your customer experience. You can also increase conversion rates with automated emails and organize your contacts to maximize engagement.
ConvertKit features
ConvertKit is a strong choice for a few main reasons:
- It’s GDPR compliant
- Built-in newsletter referral scheme to partner with other creators and grow your email list
- Text emails look professional and do not have annoying email branding
- Landing page and form templates look great on a blog
- Advanced segmentation based on different actions to personalize your email funnels
- Join a community of bloggers in your niche through ConvertKit’s Creator Network
- Commerce features, such as tips and premium subscriptions, to make money online through email marketing
Pros & Cons of ConvertKit
- Good deliverability
- Landing page editor
- Lead magnet automation builder
- Offer paid newsletters
- Flexible user-subscription management
- Audience nurturing automation
- Poor design options
- Limited reporting
- It can get pricey as your email list grows
- Free plan is limited to 1,000 subscribers
ConvertKit pricing
ConvertKit does offer a free version for new creators. It includes unlimited landing pages, forms, and broadcasts, but you’re limited to 1,000 subscribers.
Once you pass this subscriber limit or realize you need access to advanced features, you will have to pick from one of the following premium plans:
- Creator: $25 per month based on 1,000 subscribers – includes live chat and email support, free migration from another email marketing service provider, and automated email sequences.
- Creator Pro: $50 per month based on 1,000 subscribers- includes everything in the Creator plan plus subscriber scoring and advanced email reporting.
Best email marketing software for Sales teams already using HubSpot’s CRM
- HubSpot
Are you looking for an email marketing service and CRM option that is easy to use? HubSpot offers the right mix of both, allowing you to serve your clients with excellent experiences that will enable your business to scale.
With various hubs for sales, marketing, and operations, HubSpot has all the tools needed for any size of business. Its email marketing tool is one of the easiest ways to design, optimize, and send fantastic-looking emails.
The best part: HubSpot has many custom features and you can choose, plan, and upgrade whether you are a small business or a large enterprise.
Personalization is another strength of this email marketing platform. You can personalize email content based on merge tags like:
- List segment
- The user’s device
- The recipient’s first name
- Geographic location
HubSpot features
If you are considering whether to add this email marketing platform to your shortlist, here are some of its best features that might help you make your decision:
- Analytics dashboard gives you data on your opens and clicks, plus unique information on the amount of time spent viewing your email
- Drag-and-drop email builder with templates to add text, buttons, images, and dividers
- A/B test your subject lines and content to maximize your open rates and click rates
- Smart Send functionality to adjust your send time to maximize engagement
- AI writing tools to help you compose new emails at record speed
- Use HubSpot’s GDPR-compliant sign-up forms and opt-ins to protect customer data
- Preview your email design on different recipients, devices, or email clients
- The support team at HubSpot is very responsive and helpful
Pros & Cons of HubSpot
- Landing page and marketing automation builder
- Great list management and segmentation
- Free CRM
- Quite expensive than other top email marketing platforms
- Feature restrictions on lower plans
- Steep learning curve
- Onboarding training could be more direct and concise
HubSpot pricing
HubSpot marketing hub has 4 pricing pans. The platform does not have a free version for email marketing. To use its email software, you will need to subscribe to one of its CRM or Marketing Hub plans. A free trial of HubSpot marketing hub is also included. Look at different pricing plans below and see what plan and features meet your budget and needs.
Marketing Hub Free
- Live chat
- Contact management
- Contact activity
- Forms
- Contact and company insights
- Conversions inbox
- Team email
- Conversional bots
- Reporting dashboards
Marketing Hub Starter: Starting at $20.00
- Advanced email marketing.
- Mobile automation
- HubSpot branding removed
- Live chat
- Contact management
- Contact activity
- Forms
- Contact and company insights
- Conversions inbox
- Team email
- Conversional bots
- Reporting dashboards
Marketing Hub Pro: Starting at $890.00
- Advanced email marketing.
- Marketing automation
- HubSpot branding removed
- Live chat and Phone support
- Contact management
- Contact activity
- Forms
- Team email
- Conversional bots
- A/B testing
- Custom reporting
- Blog and content creation tools
- SEO and content strategy
- Social media
- Landing pages
- Calls-to-action
- Subdomain availability
- Contact and company insights
- Conversions inbox
- Goal-based nurturing
- Standard SSL certificate
- Video hosting and management
- Smart content
- Attribution reporting
- Reporting dashboards
- Salesforce integration
- Google Search Console integration
- Account based marketing (beta)
Marketing Hub Enterprise: Starting at $3600.00
- Advanced email marketing.
- Marketing automation
- HubSpot branding removed
- Live chat and Phone support
- Contact management
- Contact activity
- Forms
- Team email
- Conversional bots
- Al-powered A/B testing
- Custom event reporting
- Custom event triggers
- Blog and content creation tools
- SEO and content strategy
- Social media
- Landing pages
- Calls-to-action
- Subdomain availability
- Contact and company insights
- Conversions inbox
- Goal-based nurturing
- Standard SSL certificate
- Video hosting and management
- Smart content
- Multi-touch revenue Attribution
- Reporting dashboards
- Salesforce integration
- CMS membership
- YouTube integration
- Google Search Console integration
- Account based marketing (beta)
- Content positioning
- Email send frequency cap
What Is Email Marketing Software?
Email marketing software is a platform designed to enable you to easily create and send marketing emails to leads and customers. They provide features to help you manage your contacts, segment audiences and track interactions with your emails. In addition, they can help you stay compliant with your email marketing efforts by ensuring you only send marketing emails to those who have subscribed and agreed to receive communications from you.
Many email marketing platforms include tools, such as drag-and-drop email editors, landing page builders, custom forms for your websites for lead generation and workflow automation. All of these tools help you create digital marketing campaigns. Then run various reports to help you see what you need to tweak to better interact with your readers, such as click-through rates (CTRs) and open rates.
What Does Email Marketing Software Cost?
Email marketing software varies wildly in price, depending on the level of plan you pick. There are free plans that restrict your sends per day or month and low-cost plans that could run you around $5 to $10 per month with similar restrictions on sends or on the size of your contact list. The average cost of email marketing platforms for up to 500 contacts is around $20 per month.
Is Email Marketing Effective in 2024?
Email marketing is a form of digital marketing and direct marketing that is highly Powerful for several reasons. Whether you use email marketing as your main marketing tool or as a supplement to other forms of direct marketing, it remains a cost-effective strategy that can drive sales.
More than 4 billion people worldwide use email, so it is an ideal place to meet clients with sales, marketing and information. In fact, email marketing seems to be improving over the years. In 2022, nearly 67% of email marketers reported an increase in open rates. And email marketing is designed to open lines of communication between consumers and businesses, unlike traditional direct marketing strategies.
6 Tips to Improve Your Email Marketing Strategy
The key to running successful email marketing campaigns boils down to the methods you use. It starts with the email marketing tools you use, how you build and segment your email list and studying the results of your email marketing campaigns. Here are a handful of email marketing tips to help you improve your strategy:
1. Measure Your Email Marketing Campaign Results
One of the best ways to find out if your email marketing campaigns are working is to check the reports. Most email marketing platforms include at least the basic reports, such as open rate, bounce rate and CTR.
If you are using split testing, or A/B testing, for subject lines, body text and CTAs, you will be able to see what worked best and what did not. Use the data you gather to hone your email marketing strategy so you can increase your open rate and CTR.
2. Segment Your List by User Intent
Segmentation is one of the key factors of effective email marketing. When you divide your readers into groups that separate user interests, you can create more personalized campaigns. At the very least, you can segment your readers by purchase history i.e. customers vs. leads. Try segmenting by geographical location, types of purchases and website interactions.
You can even send surveys or set up sign-up forms to let your customers and leads tell you what they are interested in, which makes it easier to segment them. Some of the best email marketing solutions include automated segmentation, which creates lists based on sales history or how a user has interacted with your website.
3. Use Tools Made for Email Marketing
Standard email services, such as Microsoft Outlook and Gmail are not meant to be used for email marketing. When you use email marketing platform, you can easily manage a contact list, generate leads and send and track bulk and blast emails. Many of the tools made for email marketing include features or integrations with other types of software to help with marketing, such as CRM and landing page builders.
4. Build Your Email List Proactively
You may already collect email addresses from customers after an interaction with them, but there is more you can do to build your email list. Whether you sell physical products, digital items or services, you should have some information that is valuable to offer for free—or for an email address. Offer e-books, coupons, free trials, or a webinar to leads and all they have to do is offer an email address.
These free offers you create can live on your website and you can promote them on social media platforms or through digital advertising. As you grow your email list, you can then start segmenting, which helps you market to each group with better intent.
5. Scrub, Rinse and Repeat
You are going to have bounced emails. It is only a cause for concern if it happens too often or you do not scrub the bad emails. A high bounce rate can affect where your email ends up for your readers; that is, your emails could end up in spam folders and not the inbox as you want.
Just ensure you scrub those email addresses that were not delivered for whatever reason. You should be able to easily remove the bounced email addresses and carry on with your campaigns.
6. Engage Your Readers at Every Step
Crafting an effective marketing email is about more than just the body of your email. You can improve your open rates and CTR by tweaking many elements of your emails, starting with the from and subject lines.
- From: Try to avoid generic “from” names. Use your brand name or a name your users will recognize.
- Subject line: Several email marketing platforms help ensure you keep your subject line short so it is eye-catching for the recipient. The preheader line is what shows up after or below the subject line, which can be a bit longer and include more enticing info to encourage a click.
- Body text: This is the meat of your message. You want to keep it short but informative and lead directly to the action you want your audiences to take.
- Call to action (CTA): These are buttons or links that drive the email recipients to click through to your website, a form or a product page.
Also, make sure to optimize the send time. The best time to send an email varies, but the consensus is that 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on weekdays is the optimal window. To hedge your bet even more, send on a Monday; data from HubSpot shows that 22% of marketers say Monday is the best day for high open rates.
Best email marketing platforms for your business: FAQs
What is the best email marketing platform?
Which email marketing platform is best for your business depends on your goals and needs. Most platforms offer basic features including newsletters, landing pages, automations, audience segmentation and reporting. To find one that stands out for you, look for differences in pricing, integrations and additional features, such as website builders and social media ads.
What is the most cost-effective email marketing tool?
Mailchimp is one of the most well-known free email marketing platforms. You can use the platform for free with up to 500 contacts, and automations and segmentation are available on the free plan. Its price is not competitive once you have more than 2,000 subscribers, however, so you may need to migrate to a new email marketing service as you grow.
What is the best email marketing platform for small businesses?
Mailchimp is our highest-rated email marketing platform for small businesses. Its free plan is robust, which makes it a great place to start when your audience is small. Depending on the type of business you run, you might want to consider Drip for e-commerce campaigns or MailerLite for selling paid subscriptions.
Why should I use email marketing platform?
Email marketing platform makes it easy for you to create email campaigns and journeys and then automate the sending process. It is an affordable way to create customer loyalty and thereby customer retention, and you get measurable results of your marketing efforts.
What are the different types of email marketing?
There are several types of email marketing strategies that go beyond promotional emails and newsletters. You can send surveys to collect your own data, welcome emails, milestone emails, lead nurturing emails, reengagement emails and transactional emails. One of the most common marketing emails is the abandoned cart recovery email, which helps you win back sales.
How does email marketing make money?
The easiest way you can make money using email marketing is by sending transactional emails to sell specific products. You can also use historical purchase data to send timely reminder emails for customers to stock up on a product they bought before. Promotional emails can encourage clients to save money with a promo code. You can even use your emails or newsletters to promote other businesses’ products or services, use the space for upselling or include sponsored content.
Is email marketing preferable to social media marketing?
Both social media and email marketing strategies can be highly effective for small businesses, but usually, email marketing has a high return on investment (ROI). With that said, the two marketing methods can be used simultaneously for different purposes. Social media marketing is better for building brand recognition and attracting new clients, while email marketing is better for building and maintaining relationships with current clients.
Can I run email marketing for free?
Some of the best free email marketing platforms make it possible for you to run an email marketing campaign at no cost to you. You may have to make concessions for the free account, such as having the email marketing service’s branding on your own emails and forms. There are likely to be restrictions to your daily or monthly sends, as well.
Choose the best email marketing platform for your business
There are tons of email marketing platforms to choose from. Your choice is ultimately about knowing your price point and which email features you need.
Startups require different email features than an already-established business, so by focusing on price, template designs, ease of use, deliverability, and the important features you need; you will be able to find the right fit.
To recap the best email marketing platforms we have shared:
- If you want a free email marketing software with the basic tools to get up and running, choose Mailchimp.
- If you are a creator or blogger looking to grow and monetize your email list, choose ConvertKit.
- If you are looking for a powerful email service provider with advanced automation, go with ActiveCampaign.
- If you are just starting out and need an email marketing platform that can build your website, create landing pages, and host webinars, try GetResponse.
- If you want excellent email deliverability and the all-around best platform for small businesses, Constant Contact is the best option.
- If customer support is important to you, go with pick Mailerlite
- If you are looking for omnichannel marketing tool, HubSpot is your best option.
- If you’re planning to send more than one type of email, email marketing tools like Mailchimp, Brevo, and ConvertKit cover multiple email types.
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