In their constant quest for improvement in marketing, business owners recognize the enduring potency of email marketing, which yields a return on investment of $36 for every $1 spent. Therefore, selecting suitable software is crucial to fully capitalize on the potential of email marketing.
Email marketing software offers more than just the ability to send and monitor emails. By providing tools that expand your audience, organize your lists, and integrate with other marketing channels, the software becomes an effective solution for expanding your business and generating increased revenue.
We assessed several email marketing software providers to select our top choices, considering price, ease of use, and functionality. The finest email marketing software is user-friendly, provides a free trial, and facilitates the consolidation of all marketing channels.
Best email marketing software
1. Mailchimp
Mailchimp is considered the top email marketing software due to its provision of necessary features for businesses without being excessively intricate or bewildering. Businesses using it are able to plan campaigns, conduct A/B tests on copy, and receive comprehensive reports that encompass open rates, click-through rates, unsubscribe rates, and additional metrics. Furthermore, it offers the most accommodating free-forever plans out of all the software we assessed.
Mailchimp offers a free plan that allows you to have up to 500 contacts and send up to 2,500 emails per month. The platform is user-friendly, with drag-and-drop features to customize your emails. In addition to the free plan, there are three paid plans available at different costs, depending on the number of subscribers (nonprofits receive a 15% discount).
Mailchimp is an ideal solution for businesses seeking a straightforward method to send emails to their customers. With its user-friendly email editor, and upon upgrading to the initial paid plan, businesses can unlock additional advanced features like A/B testing and multi-step journeys.
Business owners can easily determine if readers are responding to the content by identifying open rates and click-throughs, which are included in the easy-to-understand reporting that users will enjoy.
2. ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign is considered the top email marketing software for automation due to its extensive collection of ready-made automations, enabling you to customize campaigns for every subscriber. As you set everything up, the platform offers assistance through various help guides, and ActiveCampaign’s customer support is known for its prompt and amiable service.
ActiveCampaign is a software that focuses on customer experience automation (CXA) and includes email features. With its primary purpose being the management of contacts and sales processes, it provides a wide range of over 900 integrations.
Firstly, there is an opportunity to test the software for free for a duration of 14 days. Following the trial period, it is required to select one of the four paid plans in order to continue using the software. These plans can be paid on a monthly or annual basis. The discount for annual payment varies between 15% to 40% depending on the chosen plan. Additionally, the cost for each plan is dependent on the number of contacts, with non-profit organizations receiving a 20% discount.
By carefully tailoring the plan to the number of contacts you have, you can still obtain the essential features while making adjustments. For instance, for $687 per year, you can start with the Lite plan containing 500 contacts and steadily expand it to accommodate up to 100,000 contacts. Additionally, the Plus, Professional, and Enterprise plans enhance the customer relationship management (CRM) functionalities of your platform.
ActiveCampaign has the advantage in this category as it enables businesses to create personalized automations that boost engagement with subscribers. The platform offers a user-friendly and intuitive interface, along with resources to address any queries that may arise during the process. Additionally, it incorporates sales automations, ensuring seamless collaboration between marketing and sales to generate higher revenue.
3. MailerLite
MailerLite is known for being the most user-friendly email marketing software due to its drag-and-drop interface that allows users to easily create the desired design. The software’s clean and streamlined appearance aligns with the company’s mission of simplicity.
If users encounter any issues, MailerLite offers email support to help troubleshoot and answer any questions, making it the top choice for ease of use based on their superior user-friendly platform.
A paid plan is available for those who require additional bandwidth or desire more advanced features, such as the ability to remove MailerLite branding. The free-forever plan includes 1,000 subscribers and 12,000 email sends.
The cost is determined by the number of subscribers you have, and you have the option to make monthly or yearly payments. However, if you choose the yearly plan, you will receive a discount of 15%. Additionally, nonprofits are eligible for a 30% discount.
MailerLite is an email marketing solution that offers all the necessary features without overwhelming users with advanced functionalities. As a result, it is ideal for businesses seeking a simple and effective approach to email marketing that can be easily learned within a short period of time, typically days rather than months.
4. Brevo (formerly Sendinblue)
Brevo is a comprehensive platform that encompasses various forms of business communication such as Email, SMS, Facebook, Chat, CRM, and more. The company’s objective is to support businesses in their customer interactions, aiding them in concentrating on important tasks and automating the remaining ones.
You can quickly create professional-looking emails using its email builder, but the real power lies in the platform’s mix of features. By incorporating chat, SMS marketing, Inbox, CRM, and automations, you can easily create more intelligent and captivating email campaigns. Additionally, the platform includes built-in Facebook Ads functionality, allowing you to retarget contacts and attract new leads.
Brevo offers free usage for sending up to 300 emails per day, with no restrictions on the number of contacts. If the user requires additional email capacity, the pricing plan starts at $25 per month and allows sending up to 20,000 emails.
5. SMTP
Unlike many other email tools on our list, SMTP’s solutions are primarily focused on delivery rather than offering various features to enhance the visual aspects of creating marketing emails.
To put it simply, SMTP provides affordable SMTP relay (the standard communication protocol for sending emails) and email delivery services that are reliable for sending and tracking large volumes of emails.
Each month, their secure and reliable email delivery platform is utilized to send out billions of emails, ensuring effective delivery as the top priority of every email marketing campaign. Additionally, it serves as a valuable resource for sending transactional emails promptly and automatically.
The pricing begins at $25 per month and covers up to 50,000 monthly emails.
6. Omnisend
Omnisend provides an all-inclusive email marketing automation platform specifically designed for eCommerce brands. This platform empowers users to enhance their newsletters and increase sales through automated emails, segmentation, and the incorporation of SMS. Additionally, Omnisend offers pre-built automations for cart abandonment, welcome series, and transactional emails, enabling streamlined buyer engagement.
Omnisend offers a free plan allowing for up to 500 emails per month. The pricing begins at $16 per month. SMS services incur additional costs, but higher plans include SMS credits.
7. EmailOctopus
EmailOctopus is an email marketing software platform that aims to offer simpler, more intuitive, and better value email marketing compared to its competitors. Users can customize templates using a drag and drop editor or start creating emails from scratch.
The app provides a landing page builder that has all the necessary features to help you generate leads and expand your email list. Agile brands are particularly attracted to the integrations offered by EmailOctopus. This tool is appealing, especially for brands with ambitious goals, as it seamlessly integrates with many existing tools such as Shopify, Gravity Forms, and WordPress.
EmailOctopus provides a complimentary plan that accommodates a maximum of 2,500 subscribers and allows sending up to 10,000 emails each month. If you require additional features, you can opt for their paid plans which begin at a cost of $8 per month.
8. Convertkit
ConverKit is suitable for both eCommerce businesses and creators as it offers a clean interface that results in a pleasant user experience and provides a wide range of features.
ConvertKit includes various features such as opt-in forms, landing pages, email workflows, tagging systems, data management, list segmentation, personalization, automation, and more. Additionally, ConvertKit offers integrations with platforms commonly used by creators, including Woocommerce, PayPal, Stripe, and WordPress.
ConvertKit provides a free plan that accommodates a maximum of 300 subscribers, and also offers paid plans that begin at $9 per month.
