15 Best Email Marketing Platforms You Should Look Into (2024)

I’ve been working across eCommerce, DTC, SaaS and B2B for a long time now (over 8 years in fact), and I can say I’ve seen it all when it comes to email marketing software and platforms to execute. 

Yep, I’ve certainly seen the good, the bad and, the ugly. 

We all know email marketing is one of the highest ROI-driven channels as part of any company’s marketing matrix, yet I’ve seen many companies fall short of their potential based on picking the wrong platform for their needs.

A lot of platforms do promise a lot. Many of them (which I mention below), do live up to expectations, but there are many others that do lack poor user experience (e.g. clunky email builders), have limited design-friendly email options, limited advanced customisation features, poor API documentation, (etc). 

Let’s make something clear though. 

No email marketing platform is 100% perfect. 

There are pros and cons for each of them. It’s about balancing and prioritising the critical features you absolutely need.

Regardless of what tool you use, the success of email marketing comes down to great strategy and the team behind building an email machine.

What are the critical factors to consider when choosing email marketing software?

There are a few factors involved and questions to ask yourself. Choosing the right platform which you use for the long term is a big decision. 

With clients I advise, as well as businesses I build, I have a list of key criteria I look for when it comes to investing in a platform.

These are the particular criteria I consider (and questions I ask myself): 

• The growth stage of your business - requirements are very different for 500 subscribers or customers, compared to 100,000 of them.
• The type of business you run - each type of business has its unique use cases.
• The volume of emails you need to send hourly, daily, weekly or monthly 
• Your email strategy - if you’re starting out, you need to have a baseline idea of how your emails will work as part of your business. Don’t go in blind, otherwise, you will fall into the trap of jumping between tools.
• Your marketing stack (i.e. Integrations and API requirements) - this is definitely important to consider for experienced marketers and established companies. Flexibility with API’s (with good documentation), as well as what integrations are pat of your stack is important as a consideration. There’s normally a lot of setup to get it right. 
• The talent on your team - if you’re starting out, watch some YouTube videos, and read articles on the tool. For established businesses and startups growing fast (i.e. sending minimum 50k+ emails per month), have a dedicated email marketing manager or specialist. Worth the investment.

Quick tip: One of the best things I recommend doing when going through this article, as well as the different websites, is writing notes in a spreadsheet. Setup a ‘matrix’ that includes some of the key criteria above, in addition to your own criteria. 

Alright, let’s get into my 15 favourite email marketing platforms I recommend. 

1. Mailchimp

When choosing your email marketing platform, there are plenty to choose from, so much so that it becomes overwhelming to decide which one is the best for you. Thankfully, there are features that you can watch out for such as automation, scalability, integrations, and ease of use to help make the process easier. You'll be glad to know that the first entry in our list of best email marketing platforms can do this and more.

What started as a humble web design agency 20 years ago, Mailchimp has now become an online marketing powerhouse with over 14 million active users across 178 countries.

It is undisputedly one of the most popular platforms on the market now offering more than just email marketing but also including web hosting, social media management, and even lead capture features. If you're looking for a comprehensive email marketing platform that can handle everything from sending out newsletters, capturing leads, to then automating your sequences across your key segments that doesn't break the bank, then Mailchimp is one of your best bets.

Pros & Benefits

• The email marketing software features plenty of drag-and-drop templates that will help you create eye-catching and professional emails without too much effort.
• The automation features will help you to easily schedule and manage your newsletters and automated sequences, so that you're always sending out the right messages at the right time.
• It also includes several integrations with other popular platforms such as social media, leads capture forms, and CRM systems, so you can easily track your progress and measure the success of your campaigns.
• Overall, it is one of the most comprehensive email marketing providers on the market and it's also very easy to use, making it an ideal choice for small businesses or startup companies who are just starting in their email marketing journey.

Getting the Most Out of It

• Though there are more than a hundred templates to choose from, Mailchimp also offers you the option to import your custom templates. This gives you the flexibility to design your emails in the way that best suits your brand and strategy. You can explore this feature and see how you can find design inspiration from their content-rich templates while incorporating some of your creative ideas.
• The platform has many features that will help you to track the success of your flows. An example of this is their automated Customer Journey Builder. You can track how many subscribers you've acquired, which emails are being opened and clicked on, and even see where in the world your emails are being sent from. This information is then fed to the Customer Journey Builder to help you optimise your campaigns and ensure that you're sending out the right messages to the right people, at every stage of their customer journey.
• You can also maximise the analytics capabilities through the use of its Click Maps. Similar also to heat maps, you can see where people often click on your email so you can improve the design and placement of your buttons and CTAs. The product also offers many other features that can help you to fine-tune your email flows, including Segmentation, A/B Testing, and Custom Fields.

Plans and Pricing

Mailchimp offers a free plan that allows you to send up to 10,000 emails per month, to up to 2,000 contacts. This is a great and economical way to kick off your email marketing campaign especially if you're starting your business. There are also paid plans that offer a higher send limit and automation. The paid plans include their Essentials Plan for $11/month, followed by their Standard Plan for $17/month, and for more pro features, they have their Premium Plan for $299/month.

2. Klaviyo

Klaviyo is another popular email marketing platform that helps you with your campaign design the moment you sign up. Other than the usual user information, Klaviyo guides you through the process of setting up your email marketing campaign by asking for your business information and eCommerce platform or website. You are also asked to clarify your marketing objectives, with options of increasing your audience or leads, reinforcing brand loyalty from your customers, or driving more sales. It then provides you with a variety of templates to get you started, and the platform offers a wide range of integrations to help you with your email campaign. Right off the bat, the product offers plenty of marketing solutions for a budget-friendly price (more about that in a while). With more than a quarter-million of businesses around the world relying on Klaviyo to help them grow, you can be sure that it delivers results that translate to sales.

Pros & Benefits

• One of the key features I love is their powerful segmentation tool that allows you to create personalised email flows for your customers. This is a great way to improve the engagement and response rates from your site visitors, as well as increase the lifetime value of your customer base. Additionally, they also offer a wide range of automation features that makes it easy to set up and manage your campaigns.
• Other than emails, you can also make use of Klaviyo's SMS marketing platform. Again, the key here is targeted personalisation which this platform helps you excel in. Plus, it lets you create what it calls multi-step forms and other tools to ask customers for their mobile numbers. This is done with consent and transparency to build trust from customers.
• The platform also integrates well with several third-party platforms from your marketing stack. You can even create customised integrations using the open API allowing you to extend the reach of your campaigns even further.
• Using machine learning and the product's unique data science engine, their marketing platform can predict which types of customers will most likely purchase your product. You can use this insight to create targeted email and SMS campaigns that speak directly to your customer's needs.

Getting the Most Out of It

• There is so much you can get out of Klaviyo, but what makes it stand out is its powerful automation features and predictive abilities. Beyond its email and SMS marketing capabilities, you may also take full advantage of its data science engine to create targeted campaigns that speak directly to your customer's needs.
• Maximise your acquisition channels to see which of them bring in more customers. You can use the CLV Calculation Template to have a pretty good grasp of your campaign's ROI or return on investment.
• Use Send Time Optimisation to know the best time to launch your email, regardless of your customers' timezones and profiles. This software will do the heavy lifting in terms of getting your emails delivered to your customers' inboxes on time, so you can focus on what you do best: creating engaging content and driving conversions.

Plans and Pricing

Klaviyo offers a free plan that allows you to send emails to up to 250 contacts. In addition to that, you also get access of up to 50 contacts for SMS messaging. Afterward, the paid plans are customisable and fees will depend on how many target contacts you wish to reach out to. They offer price plans for Emails and SMS only or a combination of both.

3. MailerLite

Like Mailchimp, Mailerlite has gone beyond being a web design company in 2005, to an all-in-one eCommerce solution provider that provides you with all the essentials that you need to launch your business online. Seeing the potential and reach of the humble email, led them to refocus their vision 5 years later to become one of the best email marketing platforms available. With a team of 130 designers and engineers across 40 countries, their all-encompassing principle is to make their platform as easy and user-friendly as possible without sacrificing the features that make Mailerlite the choice of email marketing platform for 1.4 million customers worldwide. At the core of this email marketing platform is its ability to simplify your marketing tasks from the moment your site visitors sign up, and, throughout their customer journey.

Pros & Benefits

• This email marketing software helps you create captivating email campaigns from any of its three feature-rich editors: a Drag-and-Drop, Rich-Text, or Custom HTML editors. You can also find inspiration from their collection of professionally designed newsletter templates and image libraries.
• You also have the product's advanced marketing workflows at your disposal. You can use certain automation triggers to send your campaigns automatically at pre-determined times, or even when a certain event occurs. Set up RSS campaigns to keep your audience subscribed and updated.
• The customer segmentation features allow you to tap into Facebook and create custom email campaigns, depending on your target audience's interests, demographics, and behaviours. You can also use the powerful segmentation features to send personalised email campaigns to new and returning customers.
• In addition to automating your email marketing tasks, Mailerlite also offers you insights into your campaign performance. You can see how many subscribers you've gained, open and click-through rates on your emails, and the impact of different marketing channels on your business.

Getting the Most Out of It

• Mailerlite can also easily integrate with your choice of eCommerce site (such as Shopify or WooCommerce) to create a tailor-fit email campaign based on your customers' purchases. You can also use the powerful A/B testing features to determine which email content and design works best for your business. Be sure to maximise this feature to get the most of their platform.
• Keeping your email list secure is a must. That's why Mailerlite also comes with MailerCheck which allows you to scan your email list for malicious addresses and automatically remove them from your list.
• Be sure to take advantage of the app's send triggered emails. You can select from any of its pre-defined triggers and let the software automatically send customised responses. For example, you can it up to respond when a subscriber joins a group, when a form is completed, or when a link is clicked.

Plans and Pricing

You can use Mailerlite for free to up to 1,000 subscribers, with an allotment of 12,000 monthly emails. The best part is that you can still have access to all of the platform's core features including its design editor and email automation builder. You also get to have 10 landing pages and a free website with branding included. The paid plans offer more customisation for your marketing needs. You have the option of selecting the Growing Business Plan ($9/month) or its Advanced Plan ($19/month). And if your business needs a larger, more tailor-fit solution, then you can call their sales to inquire about their Enterprise Plan. 

4. ConvertKit

If you're a content creator, then this next email marketing tool has you and your work in mind. Created specifically for bloggers, influencers or those that thrive by sharing their unique content, ConvertKit provides an all-in-one platform for creating, managing, and sending campaigns that drive engagement from followers and audiences. It’s simply the email marketing platform designed from the ground up to help content creators reach out to a larger audience. Whether you’re a musician that wishes to offer your brand of music to the world or a coach instructor that aims to have more individuals benefit from his or her course, ConvertKit is the right marketing tool for you. As of to date more than 420,000 independent content creators have signed up for ConvertKit's email marketing services, helping them reach out to 253 million fans worldwide. Some of the big names in various industries that benefited from this software include Tim McGraw, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Neil Patel, and more.

Pros & Benefits

• The platform allows you to create landing pages and forms that suit the content and genre that you create. It even allows you to embed your videos and create links to your social media pages to help build your community of fans and followers.
• With industry-standard customer segmentation features, you can easily target your audience with relevant offers and messages. You can also track the effectiveness of your campaigns with detailed reporting that provides you with all the data that you need to make informed decisions about your marketing strategy.
• Automation is also included in all of its plans. Use this feature to schedule your emails, set up rules for when your emails are sent, and see how many people have opened and followed through with your offers.
• What is also great about ConvertKit is that it allows you to create anding pages that are linked to your email campaign. This is a great way to keep your audience interested and anticipating your next podcast for example.

Getting the Most Out of It

• Like the other tools listed here, this product also features an intuitive scheduler and automated email triggers that lets you either manually select the best time to send emails to your fans or customers, or have them send out emails automatically based on specified conditions (like when someone signs up for a new email list, downloads a newsletter, or attends a live event). This feature does the heavy lifting of keeping everyone in the loop so you can focus more on making engaging content.
• ConvertKit also features what it calls Sequences. These are automated email campaigns that track your visitors’ journey as they engage with your content until they become a subscriber. From a personalised, welcome message to finally committing themselves to a course or product, Sequences make it easy to create a custom experience for your audience that keeps them coming back.
• Managing your contacts is pretty straightforward. Instead of having multiple mailing lists, you can import your contacts into one centralised mailing list. From there, you can manage all of your contacts in one place, create custom segments, and send automated emails to them based on their tags and profiles.
• On a side note, ConvertKit allows for the migration of contacts from any other email marketing services though this feature is included in their paid plans.

Plans and Pricing

You can try and use ConvertKit for free to up to 300 subscribers or contacts. You also get to have unlimited landing pages and forms with payment functionalities in case you're planning to sell your digital content. This software grows with you, and in case you need to unlock more features or increase your subscription base, then you can opt for their Creator Plan priced at $15/month and their Creator Pro Plan for $29/month. Do take note that this fixed amount only unlocks other advanced features and pricing will vary depending on the number of your target audience or subscriber.

5. Drip

For startups and small businesses, email marketing services need not be expensive or complicated. Drip is a self-hosted email marketing platform that specifically caters to budding entrepreneurs. Drip has made these tools accessible to raising brands and startups. You can now have access to powerful marketing tools that will help you level up and stand toe-to-toe with some of the big names in your market niche. Simply put, this email marketing software provides any online business or shop the same level of access to customer data and automation features that were usually offered only to the largest, most well-funded businesses. The mission of Drip is to provide all independent businesses, regardless of their size, with the necessary marketing tools that help them connect with customers and compete with other big names in the industry.

Pros & Benefits

• You can easily build automated emails, where you can schedule emails that are automatically deployed based on certain customer behaviours that you set up within your email marketing workflow. There are also promotional broadcasts that are one-shot messages that are effective in announcing sales or one-time events. Whichever you choose, this product offers plenty of templates that you can use or customise depending on your need.
• It excels in its visual workflow builder that helps you conceptualise your workflow so you can better understand how your email campaign will workout, and break down complex processes and procedures. On top of that, you can also create what Drip calls as Workflow Split Testing where you can test which of these workflows will do well in your email campaign. This is something unique to Drip and opens a variety of helpful options to its user.
• Like other email marketing platforms, it also comes with its form builder. But unlike its contemporaries, the form builder can be used to further segment your audience and reach out to them where you can easily find them. With the form building feature, it allows you to reach out to your audience via SMS, Facebook, and Instagram ads, or via your website.
• You can also integrate with some of the most commonly used eCommerce platforms such as Magento, Shopify, and WooCommerce, including APIs that further provide a customised customer experience.

Getting the Most Out of It

• Drip offers a simple-to-use email builder with an intuitive drag-and-drop editor. Its liquid templating and WYSIWYG design let you craft more appealing and targeted email content that drives your subscribers' attention back to your content or product. Use these features at every step of your customer's journey whether they are just casually browsing or has abandoned their shopping cart.
• Maximise the use of the People Tab. This is your central hub where your subscribers' emails are collected including profile data that you can use to further segment them and track their buying behaviour or purchase history. The number of tags or segments that you can create is virtually up to you.
• As mentioned earlier, you can even split-test your email marketing strategies and see which of them is most effective. For example, you can compare the efficacy of your email campaign versus that of SMS. Or you can see which among your email templates is better in drawing back your customers if and when they abandoned their shopping cart. This can be done at various levels of complexity depending on what you need to be done.

Plans and Pricing

The platform also offers a 14-day trial and access to all of its features whether you want an email-only marketing platform or a combination of email and SMS, good for 500 subscribers. Afterward, the Email Only service will cost you a modest amount of $19/month with unlimited sends and full email support. Their Email and SMS services start at $22/month. Do take note that their costing adjusts if you have a growing subscriber base.

6. SendinBlue

SendinBlue is not just your typical email marketing platform. Because at the core of its features, is its emphasis on helping you build a strong relationship with your existing client base while attracting new ones. SendinBlue's platform consists of email and SMS marketing, coupled with chat functionalities that you can immediately add to your website. It’s CRM functionalities are straightforward and relatively easy to set up. All it takes is your list of contacts that you can copy and paste from your records or simply import from a CSV file. From here on, you can take full advantage of the platform's features that allow you to nurture, engage and convert leads into paying subscribers. And speaking of contacts, SendinBlue offers unlimited contact storage keeping true to its promise of helping you grow your client base exponentially. This is one of the key selling points, making it a better alternative to MailChimp if you need to have an email marketing platform designed to reach out to a larger audience without breaking the bank. Founded in 2012 by Armand Thiberge, it has since then served more than 300,000 customers and companies in more than 160 countries.

Pros & Benefits

• It is a complete marketing platform that lets you communicate and convert your audience through a personalised CRM solution. It does this through a robust combination of beautifully designed emails. targeted SMS messages, and a seamless chat experience for your customers.
• With unlimited contacts for all of its paid plans, and even for its forever-free plan, you only get charged for the number of emails that you send. This is more cost-effective as compared to the other options since you only spend what you need.
• Aside from allowing you to use email and SMS across your multichannel workflows, its Tracker lets you automate workflows depending on how customers and visitors interact with your website or eCommerce platform.
• The product's goal is to help you convert your visitors to paying customers or subscribers. And with its eye-catching landing pages, you can have dedicated pages for each of your campaigns.

Getting the Most Out of It

• Similar to Mailerlite, SendinBlue follows a strict account validation process to make sure that your contact list is free from any malicious or spam accounts so you can focus on nurturing relationships with authentic and validated subscribers. Explore more on how SendinBlue guarantees 100% email deliverability and watch your sales grow.
• If you wish to switch from your current email marketing platform, SendinBlue offers a quick and easy way to migrate your contacts list.
• Take full advantage of its AI-powered split-testing features so you can better see what email works best with certain groups of customers. You can even automate these split-testing emails to respond to whatever your site visitor or customer is doing on your site, turning your website into an interactive marketing tool.
• And speaking of automated campaigns, you can also make your emails more beautiful by using 40+ professionally designed email templates.

Plans and Pricing

The application offers a free plan with unlimited contact storage and up to 300 emails sent per day. You also have access to its email template library plus SMS marketing capabilities. If you need to send more emails beyond what the free plan offers, it also has paid plans that you can choose from Lite ($25/month), Premium ($65/month), and Enterprise (quote available upon request).

7. AWeber

Aside from the fact that AWeber is one of the cheapest email marketing software providers available, it does not sacrifice good email aesthetics and landing pages for the sake of slashing its price. Built from the ground up with what customers have in mind, AWeber offers a minimalist interface, easy-to-use drag and drop email editor, powerful automation features, as well as tons of templates to choose from. You don't need to be a professional designer to unlock the potential of this application, especially since it has partnered with Canva to help you create stunning email designs. With 50% lower fees as compared to other major players, it has managed to position itself as a viable alternative that delivers results without going overboard with your email marketing expenses. Founded in 1998 and with headquarters in Philidelphia, US, AWeber is a consistent leader in the email marketing space empowering more than 100,000 businesses and clients worldwide. This dedication to what they do and the quality of customer support and feedback that they offer has landed them the Stevie Awards for 6 consecutive years since 2015.

Pros & Benefits

• It's a great choice if you're just starting your business and are looking forward to having an email marketing platform that is user-friendly and cost-effective yet powerful. It provides you with all the necessary tools - from crafting beautiful and professional-looking emails that cater to a specific segment of your target audience, to keeping them engaged and glued to what you offer - that help you launch your business and achieve your desired results.
• The product is simply a powerhouse when it comes to email marketing software. With its vast array of features, including templates, integrations with other popular platforms such as MailChimp and Hootsuite, as well as the ability to create automated sequences of emails, it has everything that you need to get started and take your business or eCommerce into new heights.
• Apart from email marketing, AWeber is also known for its powerful CRM (customer relationship management) platform that helps you manage your customers better and keep them engaged with what you have to offer. It's a one-stop shop for all your customer needs, from communication, engagement, and retention to lead nurturing and sales funnel optimisation.

Getting the Most Out of It

• What makes AWeber stand out with its automation features is that you can create targeted emails wherever your customer is on their purchasing journey. For example, you can customise an email that welcomes new contacts, celebrates a special occasion, and come up with suggestions to celebrate this event, upsell after making a purchase, or even send a reminder for abandoned carts. You can do this and a lot more so be sure to check out the Email Automation Builder.
• You can also maximise your email campaign with plenty of integrations right off the bat. You can use AWeber together with Facebook to further connect with your audience, or integrate with your WordPress site to create eye-catching landing pages and collect emails from those that engage with your site. With more than a hundred integrations across every aspect of your business, there's a good chance that this software has integration for what you need. Be sure to check out their website for the list of the available integrations that they offer.
• What I also like about it is it's Smart Email Designer. If you're not sure how to begin your first email, you simply type in your website's URL and it will come up with 7 or more suggested templates that are aligned with your brand and genre. You can still further customise the fine details of these templates and it’s a great start to get some inspiration into your message to your audience.
• As I've mentioned earlier, one of the strengths is its design tools that let you create easy, but beautifully striking emails. Not only you can do using its integration with Canva, but the platform also gives you free access to its library of gorgeous, high-quality stock images.

Plans and Pricing

It offers its platform for free to up to 500 email subscribers. Even with its free version, you still have access to its drag and drop builder, basic email automation and web push notifications, and a host of free features that are enough to create buzz around your niche. For larger audiences and more advanced features, you can try out the Pro plan which starts at $19.99/month for 500 subscribers, and further access to more advanced features. Price tiers can range from $29.99/month for 2,500 subscribers, $49.99/month for 5,000 subscribers, $69.99/month for 10,000 contacts, and $149.99/month for 25,000 contacts.

8. SendGrid

Since it was founded more than a decade ago, SendGrid has become more than just a digital marketing agency. Its collection of robust email marketing tools caters has something to offer whoever you are in your email marketing circle. Whether you're a designer, developer, or marketing specialist, SendGrid works with you whatever your skill sets are. Additionally, it ranks high as the preferred email marketing platform for some of the world's leading brands. And these features that make SendGrid standout among these large businesses are now made available to everyone, wherever you are at the stage of your business. One of its strengths lies in its use of automated transactional emails and impressive customer support. It also features a wide variety of powerful custom APIs, responsive promotional emails backed by AI, and a high-volume email marketing capacity that lets you target up to a quarter-million subscribers. And since its start in 2009, it has had access to more than 56% of the world's organic and verified email addresses, with 100 billion emails sent every month. That speaks a lot about what they can do for any business regardless of its size.

Pros & Benefits

• As I've mentioned just above, SendGrid powers the email marketing campaigns of some of the world's known and trusted brands. SendGrid is still at the top of its game and a significant competitor to Mailchimp and Mailerlite when it comes to transactional emails. The platform has extensive capabilities to create automated transactional emails that can automatically capture leads and convert them into customers.
• No matter where you are in your career as a marketing specialist, or if you're a business owner that wants to immediately launch an email campaign, it has the features and functions that you need without hurdling a tough learning curve.
• This email marketing software offers a wide variety of powerful custom APIs. If you have a specific need or want to use an extra feature not available on the standard platform, then you can easily integrate it through its custom APIs. This allows for more flexibility in creating your campaigns and gives you more control over how your email content looks depending on your subscribers’ purchasing or browsing behaviours.
• Analytics is also at the core of its email marketing services. The platform provides powerful insights to customer engagement data that can help you optimise your email campaigns, understand customer behaviour, and measure the impact of your marketing initiatives. All of these and much more are bundled in easy-to-understand reports that bring results to life.

Getting the Most Out of It

• The product features what it calls choose-your-path editing options. Whether you’re a visual designer or a programmer comfortable working with codes, SendGrid offers you a customisable approach to designing your email and its content. Be sure to explore what the WYSIWYG Design Editor and Code Editor have to offer.
• Email Automation and Testing is relatively straightforward. You can provide personalised messages for every segment of your subscribers and track the results of each email campaign. You can also use the A/B testing capabilities to determine which messages are most successful and adjust your content accordingly. These features are available even with the free plan so be sure to check this out.
• One of the nice features of SendGrid is that it allows you to preview your email across different browsers or clients. You can see how it will look over at Gmail, Outlook, iOS, and other platforms so you can have a better look at how your message will be perceived across a wider audience. There's also spam testing available using Sendgrid's spam filters. This further protects your messages and your subscribers from any unwanted and harmful email content.

Plans and Pricing

This application offers two marketing services both of which come with free forever plans. The Email API Plans let you integrate email marketing directly into your app or website. Its free plan lets you send up to 100 emails every day with limited but sufficient deliverability, security, and analytics. Email API Plans come in three price tiers depending on the number of subscribers you wish to target and the depth of functionalities that you require: Essentials ($14.95/month), Pro ($89.95/month), and Premier (custom pricing available). Similarly, the Marketing Campaign Plans also comes with a free version that allows you to build a contact list of up to 2,000 subs and up to 6,000 emails every month. Again, this is where SendGrid shines since it lets you build a sizeable subscriber base of up to 200,000+ contacts. You can opt for their Basic Plan for $15/month or the Advanced Plan which starts at $60/month.

9. Mailjet

Mailjet has a lot of features, and it's one of the more affordable email marketing providers out there that is designed for collaboration. It comes with an impressive array of collaboration features not found in most marketing platforms. Created in 2010 with the vision of bringing together marketers, designers, and developers, Mailjet has since served more than 130,000 companies across 150 countries. Its main headquarters is located in Paris, with offices located in New York, Toronto, Berlin, London, Barcelona, and Ho Chi Minh City. And as of to date, it managed to send more than 2 billion emails per month, with a 99.99% send-in rate to subscribers around the globe. True to its vision, one of Mailjet's key strengths is providing a platform wherein a team of diverse talents can work together to come up with an email campaign that is both effective and efficient. From a collaborative perspective, it also offers tons of automation features that power both its email and SMS marketing services. Since it thrives in collaboration both with designers and developers, creating integrations is relatively easy, and you can customise your codes (for example to create a sign-in form that targets a specific group of subscribers) that can be embedded right on any website.

Pros & Benefits

• Like other email marketing tools in this list, Mailjet features an impressive collection of email templates that you can instantly use to draw inspiration. But what makes Mailjet's email editor unique is its intuitive drag-and-drop features. The Passport allows you to create minimalist but beautiful emails using certain blocks of elements and links to your social media channels. You can also either preview the email or send a test email to see how it will work and look across different devices, screens, and operating systems.
• Creating a workflow that brings together the best talents in your team is easy. Your team of designers, marketers, and developers can work together in real-time, cutting back and forth times to create custom integrations. Comments and actions can be made in real-time so your team can finish the task in half the time.
• It also offers a variety of reports that lets you track your email marketing performance including open rates, click-through rates, unsubscribes, and more.
• For digital marketing agencies, Mailjet is also a great choice of email marketing platform. You can have all your clients' accounts displayed in one comprehensive dashboard and manage all your campaigns in one place. It allows you to create your own White Label marketing solutions with your customised email builder built on Mailjet's infrastructure.

Getting the Most Out of It

• Developing a secure and flexible contact list is one of the most useful features. You can use the fully customisable email capture widget with minimal to no coding required. You also have the option of uploading your contact list via text or spreadsheet files.
• The targeted subscriber segments let you send emails to the right people, at the right time. You can further personalise email templates that are relevant to subscribers, and align them with your subscribers' features and interests. You can create dummy campaigns and test different messages to see which ones perform best.
• With a wide range of integrations, this product seamlessly works with Salesforce, Shopify, and Mixpanel.

Plans and Pricing

You can use Mailjet for free with unlimited contacts and up to 6,000 emails per month, with access to its advanced email editor, APIs, web hooks, and standard fare analytics. If you need a larger email volume, you can upgrade to their paid plans starting with their Essential Plan at $15/month (with 15,000 email allotments per month) or to their Premium Plan for $25/month with access to their advanced statistical reports and more robust marketing automation features.

10. Constant Contact

If you're always on the go and need an email marketing tool that is flexible enough to work with wherever you are, then Constant Contact is the right choice for you. You can create campaigns on the fly through Constant Contact's companion mobile app, and can even let you create catchy and attractive email messages using their 100+ templates. Created with mobile users in mind, this email marketing software allows you to manage your email marketing campaigns and track results in real-time even if you're away from your PC or workstation. Starting their digital marketing journey way back in 1995, founder Randy Parker saw an opportunity to promote a suite of online marketing tools that can help small businesses at that time connect with potential customers. It is one of the oldest email marketing platforms in existence, and its wide range of features makes them a top contender for the email marketing platform of 2022. Today, the platform has 4 headquarters in the US and is a trusted name in email marketing by more than a million global customers.

Pros & Benefits

• Creating campaigns using Constant Contact is quite simple. Once you set up your account, you are asked what particular campaign you intend to run. You are then given the option to choose from creating your first campaign email, or if you have an existing one already, to create the necessary automation to respond and engage with subscribers in a more effective manner. More than just an email marketing service provider, you can also instantly post on your social media pages, and ads, and even create stunning landing pages and websites.
• Other than its drag-and-drop editor and customisable templates, Constant Contact's email design is optimised for mobile browsing considering how most internet users are now accessing the web on their smartphones. You can put your brand front and centre with more than 200 highly customisable templates to choose from.
• You can quickly grow your mailing lists using dynamic sign-up forms via your websites. By offering incentives like free ebooks, downloadable content, or a free consultation, you can turn your visitors into leads in half the time.
• In-depth analytics and reports are also one of the key features worth mentioning. You'll receive a comprehensive engagement report, campaign comparison across 5 email campaigns, click segmentation, and access to click-tracking heat maps to name a few.

Getting the Most Out of It

• Constant Contact has recently levelled up its integration with its partnership with Canva and Vimeo to create more engaging emails and landing pages. You can use your favourite design tools in Canva and export it to the platform, while Vimeo users can now embed gifs in their emails and even measure how well their video performed in their email campaign. Explore and see how these content creation features can be maximised in your campaign.
• Machine learning and AI is also of the key features that really makes this email marketing software stand out. Let the platform create engaging subject lines for every segment and context of your subscribers.
• More and more behavioural triggers are added to the repertoire of automation tools. Using real-time data, you can set up the application to automatically adjust your email content and tone depending on the actions of your subscribers.
• Security and privacy are non-negotiables for Constant Contact. They've also strengthened their privacy controls to allow customers to have better control of what they share online. Ensuring your customer’s privacy and security will help keep them engaged with your email marketing and build trust along the way.

Plans and Pricing

This platform gives you a 14-day trial period where you can explore the basic features. You have complete access to its contact list builder, campaigns, reporting and analytics, and other integrations. Afterward, you can choose from their Core or Plus Plans depending on the depth of features that you need to have access to, and the volume of subscribers that you want to reach out to. The Core Plan starts for as low as $9.99/month, while the Plus Plan is offered at $45/month.

11. Campaign Monitor

If you need a strong email marketing software or platform that presents you with a visually stunning collection of templates, then Campaign Monitor deserves a closer look. One of the things that make this next entry stand out is its collection of 300, professionally-looking email templates. It may not be that much as compared to AWeber, but its selling point lies in the beauty of its customisable templates, which are both intuitive to build and responsive to any type of display or platform it is viewed from. Similarly, they also couple their email marketing tool with SMS marketing so you can double your ROI and reach out to more subscribers. Campaign Monitor also allows you to build what it calls "hyper-segmented" audiences so you can create highly customised emails catered to your customers' profiles. You can tell that Campaign Monitor has a good grasp of its market considering that it is a part of the CM Group that supports small to medium-scaled businesses, helping them create an impact and develop their unique brand across the internet.

Pros & Benefits

• The product excels in the drag-and-drop editor arena. And similar to AWeber's Smart Email Designer, you can simply type in your website's URL and let Campaign Monitor do its email magic for you.
• You can organise your subscribers into segmented lists and create custom fields like location and interests while giving due diligence to observe your subscribers' privacy and data security. Campaign Monitor gives the freedom to subscribers to control the information that they share, and the delivery of their email messages, opting for push notifications or even being mailed the email on their schedule.
• The transactional email service is also one of its core features. As a digital marketer, properly designing and utilising your transactional email can spell the difference between a repeat sale or an entirely abandoned shopping cart. You have complete control over how your transactional emails will look like and when and where will it be deployed.
• You can also connect and integrate Campaign Monitor to more than 100+ of your favourite apps and services from advertising to eCommerce to landing pages.

Getting the Most Out of It

• It has numerous ways on how you can capture your audience's data, and not just their email addresses. Be sure to maximise the use of their Subscribe Button, Landing Pages, and Embedded Forms.
• If you're using Salesforce as your CRM of choice, then you'll be glad to know that Campaign Monitor integrates well with the former. Directly integrate email marketing to your Salesforce dashboard with no switching required. It's like putting your Salesforce tool into email steroids and seeing your marketing efforts rewarded two-fold.
• Broken links can be a pain in the neck, especially if you're in the business of publishing content. The good thing though is that it offers its Link Review Tool added to its email builder so you will get an instant notification if any of your links are missing or broken. This is a great tool to double or triple check your email before sending them so you can be sure that they're error-free and your subscribers will not be turned off by missing content from your website.

Plans and Pricing

Campaign Monitor offers a free account that gives you access to their full set of features to try them out. But what I think is a bit of a letdown is that it only allows you to have at the most five subscribers under this account. You'll be needing a higher subscriber allotment of course, so the platform gives you three paid plans to choose from. They offer a Basic Plan for 2,500 subscribers ($9/month), the Unlimited Plan with no subscriber caps (for $29/month), and the Premier Plan that also offers an unlimited subscriber base and more advanced segmentation and support ($149/month).

12. EmailOctopus

Another great alternative to other more expensive email marketing tools will be EmailOctopus. With half the price of other mainstream providers such as MailChimp or ConvertKit, EmailOctopus is a cost-saver and perfect for small businesses and startups. Right off the bat, some of its noticeable features include a simple and easy-to-use editor, 34 email templates, autoresponders, and a landing page builder. The nice thing about EmailOctopus is that its free plan already comes with an allotment of 2,500 contacts with an email quota of 10,000 sends per month. Though the platform is relatively young since it was founded in 2015, it already managed to cater to more than 53,000 businesses and organisations, with more than 21 billion emails deployed across the planet.

Pros & Benefits

• It may not offer as many templates as others mentioned in this list, but it does offer high-quality and professionally crafted designs that will not disappoint. Plus, these templates are categorised according to your niche so you can be sure that your messages will resonate well with your subscribers.
• Its Drag and Drop email editor also focuses on simplicity and efficiency. Other than the usual text, you can instantly add media, CTAs, and social links to make your email more engaging.
• This is perhaps where EmailOctopus shines. You can easily create and plot rules for your drip campaign and see how you can nurture your existing subscribers and attract new ones as well. The email sequences ensure that your subscribers are thoroughly guided in every step of their customer journey.
• You can increase your subscribers' engagement using EmailOctopus' targeted emails and intelligent customer segmentation. Couple these targeted emails with automation for consistency and watch the results of your efforts soar.

Getting the Most Out of It

• You may want to explore further how to maximise the use of landing pages in EmailOctopus. Other than providing the usual CTAs, their landing pages also have their analytics so you can decide how you want them to be seen on search pages and social media. This is a great feature that adds more traffic to your website or online content.
• Using sign-in forms is also relatively easy. It features the same drag and drop method in designing your forms so you can immediately deploy them.
• Monitor your campaign in real-time. You can see in real-time how many of your subscribers or target audience clicked and opened your email, or have responded to your CTAs. You can use this data to further optimise your current email sequences and campaigns.
• It also lets you integrate your most-used and essential apps, with more options to explore via Zapier.

Plans and Pricing

As I've mentioned earlier, EmailOctopus offers a free plan that you can use to send up to 2,500 subscribers. Understandably, there are some limitations - the EmailOctopus branding will be included in your messages, and analytics are only available for 30 days. But if you think that their email marketing platform is the best fit for what you need, then you can opt for their paid Pro Plan that starts at 8/month for 500 subscribers and full access to all of their features. Their paid plan is scalable meaning you only pay for the number of subscribers that you have.  

13. Moosend

Moosend may not be on the scale as compared to its biggest competitors in the email marketing platform, but its steady rise in popularity among marketers and agencies in the US shows there's a lot of potential for this relatively new player since Sitecore bought the platform last year. As a leading email marketing services provider in Europe, it has offices in London and Athens, including a major presence in other European countries. Moosend's email marketing fare comes with all the standard fare features that were already mentioned in this list. However, what makes Moosend stand out as a new player in the field is its eCommerce AI that helps you automate your email marketing efforts and improve the response rate of your emails. From tracking and managing your contacts to creating personalised recommendations, Moosend is built to guide and keep customers on your platform.

Pros & Benefits

• It comes with a 30-day free trial that lets you try advanced features like multi-step automation workflows, advanced personalisation, and split-testing. They also offer unlimited emails even on this free trial plan.
• Speaking of automation, the application offers a user-friendly interface that simplifies your automation rules and triggers. You can now send in your emails or newsletters depending on how your subscribers interact with your content. It also offers automation templates that are flexible enough to accommodate any customisation that you may require.
• Moosend saves you time in coming up with significant and insightful reports that comprehensively show how your campaign is performing. All you need to do is input the data points and it takes care of the rest. Data on customer o subscriber click-through rates, bounce rates, or unsubscribes can have to be analysed from a fresh new perspective. Plus, their customer support team is available 24/7 to help you with any queries.

Getting the Most Out of It

• At just less than $10/month, you can have full access to their features plus a subscriber base for up to 500 email accounts. You only pay for the actual subscriber that you need in case you need a higher subscriber allotment. This is a cost-effective way of ensuring that you are getting the most out of your email marketing platform for less cost as compared to others.
• Be sure the make the best out of the comprehensive reports and easy-to-understand visual reports. Have a bird's eye view of your campaign's progress plus all the data about your subscribers or customers such as geolocations, heat maps, and profiles.
• If you're running a marketing agency, Moosend allows you to create sub-accounts for clients and see all their campaign results in one dashboard. You can also customise reports that are relevant to them so you can provide the information that your clients will require.

Plans and Pricing

After its 30-day trial period, Moosend will offer you its fully scalable Pro Plan. Monthly fees start at $9/month for 500 subscribers and the fees increase depending on the number of subscriptions that you need in addition to the first 500.

14. Omnisend

Staying true to its name, Omnisend is not just a catchy moniker but lives up to its promise of providing an all-in-one platform for email marketing, SMS, web push notifications, and more. Omnisend is perfect for agencies and businesses who want to streamline their email marketing process with other marketing channels to provide a wider reach to their subscribers. What makes this email marketing software unique is its focus on bundling its email marketing services with other tools that reach out to subscribers wherever they are on the internet. While other platforms offer the standard fare of email + SMS marketing strategies, Omnisend simply does more. In one centralised platform, it lets you see how these different marketing channels perform and which among them is most effective in converting subscribers and visitors. Simply put, it's like having five marketing tools in one. Primarily designed for eCommerce marketers since 2014 (when the company was founded and first called Soundest), it now has offices in Lithuania, the United Kingdom, and the US.

Pros & Benefits

• You simply pay less for the benefits that you get from Omnisend. As I emphasised, users get more value from their money since it's like having five marketing tools instead of one. And what is cool about this arrangement is that in terms of customer segmentation, these segments are also shared across these channels and are all utilised simultaneously.
• Likewise, the design editor features what they call dynamic blocks that follow the theme of your products as you build and select the images, fonts, and other media that you want to use in your emails. This is a great way to personalise your message for each recipient while emphasising your brand's identity.
• It also has a built-in audience sync that allows you to reach out to your clients via Facebook and Google based on their segmentation.

Getting the Most Out of It

• Not just your average email marketing tool, you can also use Omnisend's SMS marketing features and push notifications on the web. These ensure that your customers are kept aware and informed about your product and services even when they're not using your email marketing platform. The platform is also one of the few options that effectively integrates with Facebook and Google to reach your marketing objectives.
• It offers a variety of ways you can capture audience data and convert them to subscribers. From pop-ups to landing pages, and even some form of gamification in the form of a Wheel of Fortune game, you can try different combinations of these tools to effectively harvest your customers' data.
• Since Omnisend utilises five different marketing tools in one, you can also expect that its automation also works across these multiple platforms. It means that you can set up rules like sending an email based on particular customer behaviour, then have this trigger an action to send a targeted Google or Facebook ad.

Plans and Pricing

Omnisend comes with a free plan that is a winner by itself. You can reach up to 250 contacts with an email allotment of 500 sends, and an SMS allotment of 60 text messages. You also get 500 web push notifications so you can see how these channels perform. Plus, you also get access to other features like pre-built automation and workflows, split-testing, and sales and performance reports. If you need a higher volume of emails and text messages, you can simply upgrade to their Standard ($16/month) or Pro Plan ($59/month). 

15. Ortto (previously Autopilot)

Creating a completely integrated marketing and eCommerce ecosystem is sometimes elusive for most entrepreneurs. But with Ortto, it's easy to get started and scale quickly. You can use Ortto to automate your customer acquisition process, drive website traffic and conversions, and run your automated emails. Plus, you can also use this product to manage your fulfilment process, create customer profiles, and track sales performance. How does Ortto do this? It saw the need to develop automation that seamlessly integrates all the tools that you need in every aspect of your eCommerce business. Dubbed "The Ortto Way", it's a sort of paradigm shift on how you utilise your customer data platform and feed this data using AI across all of your integrations. And part of this ecosystem is its completely automated email marketing software (more of that in a while). Formerly branded as AutopilotHQ, Ortto has its office in Sydney, Australia. Since 2015, they have empowered more than 20,000 A-lister companies including big tech names such as Microsoft, Vodafone, and Bitly among others. There's simply much to talk about its marketing services. However, since we're zeroing in on its email marketing platform, let's dive in on what its particular email marketing tool has to offer.

Pros & Benefits

• This platform allows you to see and measure which campaigns bring in desired results with detailed analytics. You can further dive in and see which email brings actual revenue through its built-in revenue attribution.
• Email marketing campaigns should be timed to send at the right time zone for recipients, to improve performance. Ortto's Playbooks can automate messages based on customer actions, landing in their inboxes at the right time.
• Another cool feature in the email marketing arsenal is its liquid and dynamic email content personalisation. This is especially helpful in cases of abandoned carts where you can automatically send or insert these supposed purchases into one personalised and thoughtful message.
• It comes with A/B testing that lets you see which part of your email content can drive the most conversions. You can also use the AI-powered insights to better personalize your email content for different segments of your customer base.

Getting the Most Out of It

• Reactions to your content can help you understand how well it's received by your subscribers. The platform provides convenient and easy-to-use survey forms that can be deployed immediately to get customer feedback promptly. Be sure to add this to your email campaign or product reviews as well.
• The visual editor allows you to stay consistent with your brand styles and save its design profile in what it calls a Brand Book. This is a great way to ensure that your email's content and design stay consistent throughout your email marketing campaign. Be sure to look into this feature as well.
• The powerful AI engine helps you in coming up with effective email subject lines and content that drive open and click rates. Through this, you can measure success by tracking email KPIs such as opens, clicks, and unsubscribes.

Plans and Pricing

Ortto offers a pretty tempting free-to-use plan that covers 2,000 contacts, including 8,000 email sends per month. The nice part is almost all of the core features of Ortto are included even on its free plan. You get access to its dashboard and reports builder, drag-and-drop editor, widgets to capture customer data, and more. If you need to go to the next level of your marketing campaign, then you have the choice of subscribing to their Campaign Plan ($29/month), Professional Plan ($99/month), Business Plan ($299/month) or the customisable Enterprise Plan.

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⚡ Frequently Asked Questions ⚡

What is the most cost effective email marketing tool?

It really depends on a few things, such as the maturity of your business, what features you need, design customisation capabilities, how many emails you want to send either daily, weekly or monthly, and of course, the goals you’re aiming for. These are the key factors I would be personally be taking into account for ensuring you pick the best solution that is cost-effective. I’ll make some suggestions for some popular personas. For creators, I would choose Mailerlite. For eCommerce brands, I would choose Klaviyo. Finally, for SaaS or B2B businesses that rely on both transactional and automation advanced features, I recommend SendGrid.

Which email marketing software is best for beginners?

Whether you’re just starting out in digital marketing, or potentially you’re starting your first business, the top email software tools I’d recommend for beginners would be Mailchimp, ConvertKit, and CampaignMonitor. Each of them have a friendly UX which is designed for beginners, to even advanced email marketers. They are also all feature-rich, so the more you learn overtime, the more advanced actions you will be able to perform.

What is an email automation flow?

In simple terms, it means sending automated email communications from a dedicated platform, that sends based on what a specific user does. For example, when a user signs up for a newsletter, they will receive a welcome email which is sent normally seconds or minutes later into their inbox. Another good example is when you sign up for a paid plan for a particular tool you want to use, you will receive probably a number of automated emails. First, you will receive a receipt. Second, you will receive a ‘thank you’ upgrade email. Then, you will most likely receive a few emails over the span of the next two weeks after you upgrade, with content that is relevant to the features and tools you’re using.

What companies do email marketing best?

I’ve signed up to a few SaaS, B2B and eCommerce companies over time, and I’m going to share 3 top recommendations for each type of business. For SaaS, my favourite companies who send great emails are Notion, Airtable, and Monday. For B2B enterprise-based emails, I’ve enjoyed Slack, Dropbox and Clearbit. Then for eCommerce, I love the emails by Magic Spoon, Athletic Greens and Finn.

What is the best Mailchimp alternative?

In this article, I’ve mentioned quite a few tools that can potentially be Mailchimp alternatives. It comes down to what features you really need. The two most similar platforms to Mailchimp that are packed with value and are cost-effective are ConvertKit and Mailerlite.