Today we’ll be looking for the best email marketing service for your situation.
Your email list is the key to profitability. It is the single best tool you have for extending your reach and growing your audience. But there are so many email marketing services out there. How are we supposed to find the right one for our business?
This post will break down each of the major email marketing services on the market and give you an honest view of their pros, cons, and prices. We aren’t trying to sell you on any one specific email marketing service. Instead, we want you to find the one that best fits your situation.
Do I Even Need an Email Marketing Service?
In short, yes. You do.
Why?
Email still remains the best point of contact with your customers. In fact, when it comes to ROI, email even surpasses social media. On average, every $1 spent on email marketing earns $44 in return.
Ok fine, so email is great. But why do I need an email marketing service?
These services are specifically designed to grow your email list and turn your prospects into customers. They let you build specific pathways for specific types of customers to follow. They let you tailor the email experience of your prospects to best serve both them and you.
Put another way: these services let you create a journey for each of your customers to embark upon.
I literally don’t know how someone could manually pull off everything an email marketing service does for your business.
They save time. They save money. They increase revenue, reach, and customer response.
Having said all of that, if your business does not have an email marketing strategy yet, you’re definitely missing out on a huge potential customer base. Becoming a pro at email marketing requires no special skills or talent. All you need is a little planning and a good email marketing service to make things simpler for you.
What Can Email Marketing Services Do for Your Business?
An email marketing service should ideally be a complete solution for your email marketing efforts.
It does not just help you send out email newsletters to your subscribers or promotional emails to potential customers. It should also cover other aspects of marketing such as automation, segmentation, relationship management as well as reporting.
What Are the Key Features of Email Marketing Services?
There are as many different features and functionalities as there are email marketing platforms.
What your business needs depends entirely on your marketing and business goals. From tools to payment plans to user experience, there are many variables involved in deciding on an email marketing service for your business.
The right email marketing service for you will not be the one ‘everyone is talking about’. It will be the one that has the features you need at a price you can afford.
This list will help you find exactly that.
Well, Ben, what features do I need?
Generally speaking, some of the essential features that small businesses look for in an email marketing service are:
- Automated messages
- Convenient content editor
- Advanced email list maintenance
- Precise list segmentation
- Easy integration with other platforms like CRM, social media, e-commerce, etc.
- Guaranteed deliverability
- Analytics and Reporting
All of the email marketing services chosen for this article meet all of these criteria (unless otherwise noted). Some are better at these than otters, and we will do our best to make that clear to you.
We will also share aggregate customer experiences taken from many places around the web (forums, review sites, industry sites, and personal experience).
So let’s get started!
Best Overall Email Marketing Service
Aweber (Our top pick)
Aweber is an email marketing tool that has been around for nearly 20 years now.
It is one of the most affordable tools and is trusted by most marketers.
One of the best things about Aweber is that it provides all the features with every plan and pricing is based entirely on the number of subscribers, which is not seen in most other tools. Aweber doesn’t bar you from tools you might need just because you are paying less per month.
This makes it a great choice for both growing businesses and start-ups.
Unique aspects
- Smart designer – Aweber has an AI-powered email template designer that helps create branded emails in minutes. You can design your landing pages and newsletters too. The drag-and-drop email designer and the free template library make things much easier.
- Automation – On Aweber, you can assign triggers and flows to your emails to send targeted automated emails to the right people at the right time. It also helps you personalize your emails for more impact.
- Guaranteed delivery – The platform does not outsource email delivery but manages everything itself, end-to-end. So they can assure that your emails will land in the recipients’ inboxes without fail.
- Pre-built analytics and reporting – You can gain easy-to-interpret and simple insights through the in-built dashboards and reports on the Aweber platform. You can measure the success of your email campaigns and optimize your strategy based on these insights.
- Easy subscriber management – Aweber lets you categorize your contacts and send targeted emails to individual subscribers based on their intent.
- Extensive integration – Aweber offers easy integration with a host of other platforms, including Facebook, Shopify, Paypal, Etsy, WordPress, WooCommerce, and more.
Pricing Info
The pricing plan on Aweber is quite unique as we have mentioned above.
There is a free plan that lets you add up to 500 subscribers and send up to 3000 emails per month.
The paid plans let you send unlimited emails. The pricing goes like this:
- 0 to 500 subscribers – $19 per month
- 501 to 2500 – $29 per month
- 2501 to 5000 – $49 per month
- 5001 to 10,000 – $69 per month
- 10,001 to 25,000 – $149 per month
The best thing about Aweber is that the pricing grows with your business. It lets you get started for free when money is tight, and as you grow and earn, the pricing increases as well.
It’s a huge help to new small businesses.
And there is a discount if you pay for one year at a time.
Why is Aweber our all-around favorite?
It is the best mix of features, customer service, affordability, and value. We love that you can ease into your expenses as your list grows.
Later in this article, we’ll show you how to use Omnisend as the cheapest option, but even with that, you will eventually want to switch and that’s a hassle. In our opinion, it’s better to just start with Aweber.
GetResponse (Runner-up pick)
GetResponse is an all-in-one tool for email marketing that lets you send emails, create pages and automate your campaigns.
It is quite popular with small businesses and is easy to use for beginners as well.
GetResponse helps businesses with email marketing, landing pages, conversion funnels, and marketing automation.
Unique aspects
- Newsletters – GetResponse lets you send one-time email broadcasts with special offers and updates.
- Autoresponders – Easy email scheduling by creating automated sequences of emails to follow up with and nurture your leads.
- Automation for engagement and sales – You can automate emails based on triggers and customer actions to drive engagement and sales.
- Free stock photos and GIFs – The easy drag-and-drop email creator has a wide collection of free GIFs and stock photos to make your emails more attractive.
- Multichannel campaigns – You can integrate your email marketing efforts with other channels. You can draw traffic to your landing page, promote your content through emails or integrate email with your e-commerce platform.
Pricing Info
There is no free plan on GetResponse.
The Basic plan starts at $15 per month, but there is a sliding scale. That means as your list grows, so does the cost. So for 1,000 contacts on the basic plan, you’ll pay $15 per month. But for 10,000 contacts on the basic plan, you’ll pay $79 per month.
GetResponse also has three tiers and reserves certain features for each tier. To get all features for 1,000 subscribers you’ll pay $119 per month. To get all features for 10,000 subscribers you’ll pay $199 per month.
If you pay for a year at a time, there is an 18% discount.
And if you pay for two years upfront, there is a 30% discount
All-in-all the pricing is not as clear-cut as it is with Aweber.
What is the Cheapest Email Marketing Service?
ConverKit (The cheapest way to start)
ConvertKit will let you send an unlimited number of emails to up to 1,000 subscribers. When you cross that threshold, they’ll ask you for a credit card.
It’s pretty straightforward, but watch out: if you cross the 1,000 mark and then slipped back under due to people unsubscribing from your list, I’ve heard it can be a pain to get ConvertKit to let you go back to the free plan.
What is the cheapest overall?
Well, that depends. These companies have staggered their pricing tiers and their subscriber counts to such a point that “the cheapest” could be any of them, depending on your situation.
In the long run, it’s best to choose the email service that has the best features that you will actually use and stick with them.
What Is The Easiest Email Marketing Service To Set Up?
MailerLite (The Most Simple and Easy)
MailerLite is popular among marketers and small businesses because of its simplicity.
It is a very basic email marketing software that provides all the basic features with none of the fluff. That makes it a great tool for new entrepreneurs who are still getting acquainted with email marketing and need a platform that is easy to handle.
Unique aspects
- Easy campaign designs – The easy drag-and-drop editor and the numerous newsletter templates available make email designing really easy on this platform.
- Increasing reach – Apart from emails, the tool also helps you with website building, landing pages, pop-ups, embedded forms, and subscriber management to give you a wider reach.
- Automation and personalization – You can automate sending, create interest groups, personalize your messages, segment your contact lists, and create targeted pop-ups on the MailerLite platform.
- Analysis and reporting – The platform helps you track and measure the performance of your campaigns through A/B testing, campaign reports, click maps, and more.
Pricing Info
MailerLite has a free plan which allows 1000 subscribers and 12,000 emails a month.
As you go on increasing the number of subscribers the price increases, starting at $10 a month for 1000 subscribers and unlimited emails.
Similar to Aweber, the cost for each tier scales with the number of users.
You can send unlimited emails to 1,000 subscribers for $10 per month (and a 10% discount if you pay for a year at a time).
MailerLite is the cheapest option by dollar amount per month, but the limited features mean that its value is not as high as others on this list.
What Is The Best All-In-One Email Marketing Service?
Constant Contact
Constant Contact is one of the most popular email marketing services among small businesses.
But what many people don’t realize is that Constant Contact is also a website builder, landing page creator, and (free) hosting provider.
If you have big plans for establishing an online brand presence, Constant Contact has everything you need.
Unique aspects
Make email templates and web pages and landing pages
The email editor on Constant Contact is extremely user-friendly and perfect for beginners. The drag-and-drop editor makes it very easy to customize your emails/landing pages by adding images and CTAs. There are more than 100 email templates to choose from. The email designs are automatically optimized to stand out on any device.
Customer Service
People rave about the customer service they receive from constant contact. The service team seems to genuinely understand the software and is great at making sure you get the answers you need.
Email marketing for e-commerce tools
The e-commerce tools on the email marketing platform of Constant Contact allow you to find potential customers and keep them engaged with segmented and automated emails. Basically, Constant Contact has done a great job of integrating with other software platforms.
Contact list management
You can upload or import your contact from any other platform, be it Excel, Outlook, Salesforce, or elsewhere. You can also add new contacts from your website or social media pages and the email marketing tool takes care of everything else such as segmentation, grouping, and so on.
Tracking tools
You can track your emails in real-time to check which subscribers are opening, clicking, and sharing your emails. Depending on the content they click on, you can create more targeted email lists for future campaigns.
Pricing Info
Constant Contact uses a tiered pricing plan that increases with the number of contacts you have.
Now, looking at this list, you’ll notice that the price goes up fast.
But you should remember that Constant Contact is more than just an email marketing service. It does a lot.
Take a careful look at everything it can do for you and decide if the prices make sense for your situation.
What are the Most Popular Email Marketing Services?
A quick caveat about this section. These guys are the big names in this business. They have big reputations and deep market penetration.
And that might actually be a bad thing for you.
Why?
We get the feeling these guys are sort of resting on their laurels. They have huge contracts and you just don’t matter that much to them. Why do we believe this?
We see it in the reviews. Actual user reviews for these guys tend to be lower overall.
Also, the smaller guys we recommended above have more to prove. In our opinion, they are more likely to bend over backward to keep your business than these next few.
ConvertKit
If you are new to marketing (any type; not just email marketing) ConvertKit is a fantastic choice.
ConvertKit is a complete marketing platform for entrepreneurs and creators.
It helps you connect with your audience and grow your following. Creators usually require help with engaging their audience, nurturing leads, running affiliate marketing campaigns, and more. ConvertKit makes these kinds of emails very easy to automate on its platform.
Unique aspects
Simple yet appealing email-designer
Lots of these email marketing services have email templates you can use. Which is fine. But, ConvertKit takes this one step further with its easy-to-use email designer.
You can create as many branded email templates as you like and also set default templates to make things faster. There are several inline styling options as well that let you easily add buttons, videos, or images to your email.
In short: Other email marketing services let you use their templates. ConvertKit lets you make the templates.
High delivery rate
ConvertKit has a delivery rate of 98% and an average open rate of 30%. Considering that a recent study done by Campaign Monitor states that the average email campaign open rate is 18%, which puts ConvertKit in a league of its own when it comes to getting your emails in front of your customer’s eyes.
The platform is well known to email providers which means your emails are going to land in the recipient’s inbox and not in their spam folder.
Email Broadcast
You can send email broadcasts to selected contacts. With ConvertKit, you set up groups of contacts within your email list. While your normal campaign is running, you can also blast emails to certain subgroups. This is great for special offers or product updates.
You can also select the contact list for the broadcast based on preferences given by subscribers through the opt-in forms. The emails can be written and scheduled on the calendar.
In short: It’s like having mini ‘clubs’ that your subscribers can join for special communication.
Automated emails
Yes, all the email marketing services on this page can automate emails. But, ConvertKit can also automate emails based on a subscriber’s journey.
You just need to define the path that a subscriber or customer is supposed to take through your funnel and add appropriate emails for every stage of your email series. The tool will automatically send the emails depending on where the customer is in their journey through your funnel.
This (plus the email broadcast feature) really lets you create a dynamic and living experience for your users. That way they don’t feel like they get the same canned treatment as everyone else.
Organized email lists
ConvertKit allows you to automatically add tags to your contacts based on the subscriber’s action. This way they can be grouped into beginners, experienced, or experts, for example.
You can also easily filter and segment your subscribers based on the action taken by them on your site or their location or other parameters.
This also pairs nicely with the broadcasts and automated lists to create a more dynamic user experience.
Pricing Info
Free Plan:
ConvertKit has a free plan that lets you add up to 1000 subscribers. You also get to send email broadcasts, sell digital products, email support, and create unlimited landing pages and forms.
The paid plans start with Creator which is $29 (for 1,000 subscribers) per month, up to the Creator Pro level, which has all the available features and costs $59 per month (for 1,000 subscribers).
There’s a free trial on both the paid plans too.
Pros:
- It is very easy to create templates and landing pages that look awesome
- Saves time and money
- Lots of integrations for other services
- You don’t pay for duplicate subscribers (same email on different lists). Most other email marketing services do charge you for duplicates.
Cons:
- Actual user reviews just aren’t that great. We want to see higher user scores before recommending this more.
- There is a learning curve. That being said, there is a ton of training on the site. Most reviews that cite the learning curve also state that the training material was excellent. Several have stated that the online chat was very helpful as well.
- At lower subscriber numbers the cost-per-subscriber is higher than average. But as your list grows, ConvertKit ends up being cheaper over time.
SendinBlue
SendinBlue is an email and SMS marketing software designed for growing businesses. It is an intuitive platform with all the marketing and sales tools a small business could need. With SendinBlue you can create beautifully designed emails that reflect your brand image. The easy-to-use editor makes it really simple to design attractive emails, even for newbies. You can design your emails, personalize your content and send targeted emails to your contacts from this platform. You can even support your email marketing strategy with SMS marketing and chat tools on Sendinblue.
Unique aspects
- Easy designing with an email editor – Designing an email is extremely easy on SendinBlue. It has an easy drag-and-drop editor and more than 60 responsive templates to choose from. Creating a professional-looking email on this platform demands no special skills so anyone can use it with ease.
- Personalization – SendinBlue helps you personalize your emails by bringing in elements such as the recipient’s name or conditional display based on the information available in the contact database. This helps create more targeted messages for each individual subscriber.
- Contact list management – SendinBlue lets you save unlimited lists and contacts. You can group your contacts according to your preference or the lists can be segmented based on some criteria that you choose, such as location, gender, age, purchase history, and so on.
- Automated sending – The machine learning-powered send time optimization feature in SendinBlue helps send your emails at the perfect time increasing your chances of opening and clicking.
- A/B testing – The A/B testing on the platform tells you which emails are performing best to help you with future decisions.
- Transactional emails – You can design and customize your transactional emails in line with your branding to increase engagement. SendinBlue also increases your email deliverability
Pricing Info
SendinBlue has a free plan that lets you add unlimited contacts and send up to 300 emails per day.
The paid plans calculate cost by the number of emails rather than subscriber count.
Here is the cost of the starter plan. You can get this one for $25 per month, but your emails will be branded with SendinBlue.
And here is the Business plan :
What Other Tools Work Well With Email Marketing Services?
OptinMonster
OptinMonster is a popular conversion optimization platform that can help you turn visitors abandoning your website into email subscribers. More than sending and automating emails, this email marketing service focuses on growing your email list. OptinMonster can help you create high-converting email capture forms for your website. It uses advanced targeting and automated behavior tracking to create the opt-in forms that pop up at the right moment in a visitor’s journey and boost conversions.
Unique aspects
- Design and customization of forms – OptinMonster offers you more than 65 high-performing templates for creating beautiful opt-in forms that are sure to increase conversions. You can customize the forms to go with your brand and message using the easy design builder on the platform. The opt-in forms you create are compatible with mobile devices as well.
- Targeting and personalization – OptinMonster has a powerful segmentation and personalization tool that helps you create highly targeted messages based on user behavior to increase your chances of conversions. It offers advanced page-level targeting and custom display rules. So, you can engage your visitors at the right moment for email capture.
- Conversion analytics – The platform offers built-in analytics and A/B testing to tell which formats are working best to get you more conversions.
Pricing Info
The Basic plan on OptinMonster currently starts at a discounted price of $9 per month and provides you with all the tools you need to get more leads from your current website traffic.
The Plus plan is currently priced at $19 per month and the Pro plan is $29 per month. The Growth plan, which is the most advanced plan on this platform is currently $49 per month.
That’s the short version. The truth is that each plan has a bunch of minute differences from the other plans and you’ll need to carefully consider each.
Drip
Drip is an email marketing solution designed especially for e-commerce businesses. It can integrate seamlessly with all the popular e-commerce solutions such as Shopify, WooCommerce as well as WordPress. It is trusted by entrepreneurs in e-commerce, bloggers, and digital marketers alike. Drip boasts of some really cutting-edge tools and technology including smart segmentation, visual workflow builder, intelligent automation, and more.
Unique aspects
- Customer data – Drip helps e-commerce merchants collect, organize and filter all the customer information available to help build better marketing strategies. It helps track customer behavior, tags, custom fields, and more to collect useful data.
- Personalization – Using deep segmentation and behavior-based automation, Drip can help you create personalized messages for every customer.
- Customer engagement – The platform helps drive customer engagement through meaningful messages and product recommendations over email.
- Optimization – Drip helps measure the impact of every email campaign and helps improve your strategies and optimize your tactics. It uses split testing, an insights dashboard, and automatic revenue attribution.
Pricing Info
Drip does offer a free 14-day trial but there are no free plans.
There is only one paid plan that is priced at $19 per month.
You can add more SMS sends to the plan on a pay-as-you-go basis.
HubSpot
HubSpot is probably one of the most popular marketing solutions out there. The email marketing platform on HubSpot helps create personalized campaigns that improve customer experience. HubSpot has solutions in marketing, sales, CRM, content management, and more. That makes it easy to integrate your email marketing tool with the other tools and enjoy a complete experience.
Unique aspects
Easy editor – HubSpot offers an easy email editor that helps you create professional emails without the help of any IT experts or web designers. There are goal-based email templates that can be customized to represent your brand.
Personalization for more opens and click-throughs – You can tailor each email depending on the subscriber’s lifecycle stage, list membership, or any other available information, to ensure that your emails are opened. The tool helps you add relevant content and subject lines to make your emails more targeted.
All-in-one inbound marketing – HubSpot offers more solutions in inbound marketing such as blogging, landing pages, marketing automation, lead management, social media, and much more.
Pricing Info
HubSpot gives free access to most of its tools. But several different paid plans offer different combinations of tools and features categorized according to goals.
So depending on what your marketing goals are, you can choose an appropriate plan.
The Starter plan, for instance, gives you all the free tools plus more tools for attracting audience attention, understanding your leads, and engaging your leads. This plan is priced at $45 per month.
ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign is an automation-driven email marketing platform that helps you create great customer experiences. It offers solutions in email marketing, marketing automation, and CRM tools. It is one of the most popular automation platforms that caters mostly to e-commerce businesses, digital businesses, and B2B companies.
Unique aspects
- Dynamic content – ActiveCampaign helps you create different content for different audiences. It combines tagging with conditional content to create personalized content that is relevant to each person.
- Sign-up forms – You can create amazing sign-up forms on the platform. You can start a welcome series, add tags to your leads when they sign up, for better segmentation, and organize your contacts coming from the sign-up forms into lists or groups.
- Goal tracking – The goal tracking feature lets you see how your customers are moving through your funnel toward the goals you have set. It also helps find out where they are dropping off in their journey through the sales funnel and helps you decide which automated email to send at that stage.
Pricing Info
The pricing plans are quite affordable on ActiveCampaign with the base price being $9 per month for the Lite plan. The other higher plans are priced at $49, $129, and $229 per month respectively.
Best Email Marketing Services for Small Businesses
Aweber gets our top pick for most non-eCommerce businesses.
Omnisend gets our top pick if you have an eCommerce business (or if you want to contact your customers via text messages or other channels).
Constant Contact is our top pick if you want to send a lot of emails each month (There is no limit with constant contact)
Best Email Marketing Services for Bloggers
Aweber is our top overall pick.
MailerLite is great for a dead simple solution as well.
Best Email Marketing Service for Nonprofits
MailerLite is the cheapest option (although it is also the most simple).
Constant Contact offers discounts for nonprofits.
Best Prices for Email Marketing Services (for 5,000 subscribers)
MailerLite: $30/month
GetResponse Basic: $31.50/month (paying for 24 months upfront)
Aweber Pro: $46.15/month (paying annually)
Omnisend Standard: $48/month (paying annually)
Mailchimp Essentials: $52/month
ConvertKit Creator: $66/month (paying annually)
ActiveCampaign Lite: $79/month
How To Choose The Best Email Marketing Service for You
When choosing an email marketing service for yourself, it is important to know your marketing goals first. Decide what you aim to achieve through your email marketing campaigns.
Once your goals are set, you will be able to identify what features and tools you may be needing to reach those goals.
When this is clear to you, choose an email marketing service that offers most of the features you need and fits within your budget. As most of the services have a basic free plan, it is advisable to try the free plan before investing in a paid package with advanced features.
FAQ
Can I easily switch from one service to another?
Yes. Switching from one email marketing service to another is entirely your decision. But when making a switch look at the bigger picture to see which options are more profitable for you. If the existing service is costing you more or not giving you the basic features you need, you should look for a better platform.
Can I add my affiliate links to these emails?
Yes, you can add your affiliate links directly to your emails. But it is always a better idea to have a separate affiliate marketing strategy for better results.
Can any of these help me make landing pages?
Yes. Many of the tools listed above have landing page solutions as well. You can try Aweber, HubSpot, GetResponse… but if we had to pick an all-in-one solution, it would Constant Contact
Final Thoughts On Email Marketing Services
There you have it. We hope this article has helped clarify the admitted confusing world of choosing and email marketing services.
We’ve tried to give you the most important information free of bias or branding. We want you to find the right service for your situation, no strings attached!
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