The Best Email Marketing Services (Oct 2021): Top 11 Email Marketing Platforms Reviewed and Compared

The best email marketing service is still the most valuable way to connect with your audience. An email marketing service allows you to leverage all the benefits of email campaigns, without the headaches. Unfortunately, finding the best email marketing service is getting a little tougher.

There are tons of companies out there offering tools that combine automation with things like SMS marketing, CRM integrations, and even A/B testing. The better your choice of software, the more likely it is that you’ll be able to access ROI potential of email.

Through access to the best email marketing software, companies can set up automated strategies for building deeper relationships with their target audience. Over time, the more you connect with your customers, the more your sales opportunities evolve.

Today, we’re going to be taking a closer look at some of the most valuable and highest rated email marketing tools available.

Our Top Picks: Best Email Marketing Services

The Best Email Marketing Software

Finding the right email marketing tool is a matter of objectively considering your specific needs and requirements. Make sure you take the time to consider what you need carefully before jumping in. You could even consider trying a free trial of some of the products you like best.

Now that you know how to find the right email marketing solutions, let’s explore some of the best.

1. Sendinblue – Best Overall Email Marketing Service

One of the most popular email marketing solutions on the market today, Sendinblue started life as an affordable, simple solution for connecting with customers. Over the years, the service has evolved into a fully featured marketing system, complete with not just amazing email marketing and automation, but SMS connections and CRM support too.

Sendinblue is an intuitive email marketing tool designed to help you connect with customers wherever they might be. It’s one of the fastest growing email marketing platforms in the world, and it’s wonderfully easy to use, with various tools custom-made for beginners. You can choose from a host of pre-made templates for your campaigns, then drag-and-drop modules however you like.

Through Sendinblue, businesses can design automation flows based on triggered behaviors from customers. Sendinblue also offers AI algorithms to people on slightly more expensive packages, so you can predict the best time to send an email or SMS.

On top of email and SMS marketing, Sendinblue also has its own built in forms tool, so you can collect new leads for your campaigns too. Thanks to a series of pre-built automation campaign options, you also don’t have to start your automation strategy from scratch.

Features include ✨

• A huge range of customizable templates for emails
• Access to SMS marketing and social media integrations
• Live chat for customers on your website
• CRM support built in, so you don’t have to integrate
• Campaign analytics and in-depth tracking
• Pre-built automation workflows or custom options
• Integrations with various leading tools
• Simple environment with a drag-and-drop builder

Pricing 💰

Sendinblue ensures you have plenty of options when it comes to pricing. There’s even a free marketing plan which you can use to connect with unlimited contacts. The free plan allows for up to 300 emails per day, although you will have to make do with having Sendinblue branding on your content, which isn’t ideal.

When you upgrade to a premium plan, prices start at around $25 per month for the Lite product, which is ideal for beginners. The more emails you send per month, the more your prices will go up. There’s also a Premium service starting at $65 per month, and an Enterprise option with custom pricing.

Pros 👍

• Fantastic range of pricing plans
• Great email automation options
• SMS marketing, live chat, and social media
• Form builder for collecting leads
• Very easy to use

Cons 👎

• Some limitations to integrations
• Restrictions to the free plan

Who is it Best For? ✅

If you want a comprehensive email marketing service that any company can afford, Sendinblue is the perfect choice. There are tons of bonus features with this solution that you won’t find elsewhere, including an integrated CRM.

👉 Read our SendinBlue review.

👉 More about SendinBlue's Pricing plans here.

» Try SendinBlue «

2. HubSpot – Best Email Marketing Service

The popularity of HubSpot for email marketing has been skyrocketing lately, thanks to the company’s constant commitment to deliver new and improved features. The HubSpot solution is very easy to use, comes with a high deliverability rate, and you get a range of features that you can tap into as part of the various packages that are available from HubSpot overall.

The HubSpot email marketing solution is available to access for free, which is great if you’re a beginner just trying to figure out what you need from an automation tool. When you’re creating an email, you can choose from a host of pre-designed and professional looking templates or create something brand new. The editor is drag-and-drop, so customizing your content is simple.

HubSpot gives companies the freedom to preview their emails before sending them out, so you can ensure that everything works as its supposed to. When you’re ready to start delivering emails, the free CRM technology built into the platform will help to segment your audience. All that, and you can even A/B test the emails you send to see which ones work best.

HubSpot has an immersive backend environment, tons of fantastic marketing tools, and a wide range of reporting options so you can examine the outcomes of your campaigns on a deeper level.

Features include ✨

• Free access to a complete CRM solution
• Drag and drop editing for email templates
• Design from scratch or choose a pre-made solution
• Lots of social media and connection options
• Access to service and sales technology
• Easy-to-use backend for beginners
• Analytics, A/B testing, and great insights

Pricing 💰

You can access the email marketing service from HubSpot for free. However, you will need to upgrade if you want to access advanced features, like automation, and sales tracking. The more functionality you need, the more you’ll need to pay. The cheapest package for HubSpot starts at around $50 per month, but you can also pay thousands.

Pros 👍

• Great selection of free features
• Lots of CRM integration for customer segmentation
• Insightful analytics and A/B testing
• Suitable for beginners without much experience
• Wide range of templates and add-ons

Cons 👎

• Can get expensive fast

Who is it Best For? ✅

HubSpot is fantastic for email marketing with CRM functionality. The built-in CRM solution makes it easy to track your leads, and you can even upgrade to sales and services tools from the additional HubSpot packages. With the right budget, you can track the entire customer journey.

👉 Read our HubSpot Marketing Hub review.

👉 Read our HubSpot CRM review.

» Try HubSpot «

3. Moosend – Best for Growing Business

Though it might not have as much media presence as some of the email marketing tools on this list, Moosend is a fantastic competitor. The email marketing tool allows users to automate various repetitive marketing tasks, so they can save more time. There’s the option to design behavioural email campaigns based on subscriber activities and information too.

The advanced segmentation options are part of what makes Moosend so effective as an email marketing tool, because you can build better relationships with potential clients. The analytics are pretty impressive from Moosend too. Even beginners in email marketing can easily see some of the best ways to optimize their campaigns for stronger results.

From building sign-up forms to designing unique campaigns for each member of your list, Moosend will help you tackle all of the major parts of any email marketing strategy.

Features include ✨

• Lead collection tools like landing pages
• Subscription forms
• Analytics and in-depth reporting
• Team member accounts
• SAML and SSO support
• Onboarding support when migrating
• Custom transactional messages

Pricing 💰

Intended to help any company make its first steps into email marketing, Moosend is one of the less expensive products available today. There’s a free forever plan, as well as a premium plan starting at only $8 per month. The more features you want to unlock, the more you’ll need to spend. Creating a custom plan requires a call to the company.

Pros 👍

• Great for small businesses thanks to free plan
• Very simple and intuitive backend
• Easy to use when sending bulk emails
• Click-through analytics and custom reports
• Convenient email management options

Cons 👎

• Not the best email editor
• Limitation for automation features

Who is it Best For? ✅

Moosend is an ideal pick if you’re a growing company looking for an affordable way to get started with email marketing. You can link your email editor into your marketing tools with APIs, and you can keep a close eye on your subscribers too.

4. GetResponse

Certainly one of the most popular email marketing tools available today, GetResponse is a solution devoted to nurturing and converting subscribers. Easy to use and ideal for converting leads into customers, GetResponse is packed full of fantastic automation services and marketing solutions. You can connect with customers through one-off broadcasts, create full campaigns, and more.

GetResponse comes with a wide selection of fantastic templates to choose from, tons of segmentation features, and a range of trigger options so you can send emails based on what your customers do. A strong analytics and reporting system makes it easier to see which of your campaigns are really working. Plus, you can segment as much as you like.

GetResponse is brimming with responsive forms, A/B testing, landing pages, autoresponders, unsubscribe tracking, and more. You can also integrate your service with other third-party solutions like Salesforce and OptinMonster.

Features include ✨

• Trigger-based emails and automation
• One-on-one transaction emails
• Reporting and analytics
• Ecommerce sales functionality
• Opt-in forms and landing pages
• Webinar hosting
• Sales funnel guidance
• Custom templates

Pricing 💰

GetResponse has an impressively affordable pricing structure considering the number of amazing features you get. You can spend just $15 per month on the smaller package, and this comes with an unlimited number of emails. The Plus package is also available for $49 per month for extra functionality, and there’s a fully featured solution for $99 per month.

Pros 👍

• Extensive set of automation features
• Great for sales funnel management
• Reporting and analytics included
• Wide range of templates
• Lots of options for managing your account
• Easy-to-use interface

Cons 👎

• Some limitations to drag-and-drop functionality
• Not the best customer support

Who is it Best For? ✅

GetResponse is a great choice if you’re looking for a comprehensive marketing service that also supports you in building stronger relationships with customers. The segmentation and funnel options are excellent, and there are tons of extra bonuses too, like webinar functionality.

👉 Read our GetResponse review.

» Try GetResponse «

5. Omnisend

Omnisend is an extremely popular email marketing tool. Purpose-built for agile companies, Omnisend is designed to help you communicate more effectively withy our customers, without having to worry about things like tracking all your emails yourself. You can create beautiful professional looking emails from templates and edit it with a drag-and-drop builder.

One particularly great thing about Omnisend is how great it is at allowing you to build unique relationships with customers. You can access tons of analytics that help you understand customer preferences, and there’s a range of dynamic tools you can use in your emails too.

Beyond a host of insights for your email list, you can also access tools like the product picker. This functionality makes it easier to choose which products you want to focus on in your email newsletters. There’s access to A/B testing for your subject lines and content, tracking for open-rates and more.

Features include ✨

• Drag and drop content editor
• Dynamic content without a plugin
• Excellent almost real-time analytics
• Tons of insights for business owners
• Great templates for your contact list
• Integrations with multiple ecommerce platforms
• Automated follow-up email
• Various unique marketing features

Pricing 💰

There’s a free version of Omnisend, but you can only use it to send up to 15,000 emails per month. The free package does come with full campaigns and sales reports, however. Standard service starts at $16 per month, and the price increases based on how many customers you have. There are free SMS credits, web push notifications, advanced reporting, and so much more. You can also access enterprise packages (for a quote), and a premium option for $99+ per month.

Pros 👍

• Excellent analytics and insights
• Integrations with other marketing channels
• Simple email user interface
• Great list management functionality
• Dynamic features

Cons 👎

• Slight learning curve
• Can get expensive

Who is it Best For? ✅

Omnisend is ideal for online store owners looking for an all-in-one solution – especially those who have outgrown general email marketing tools. It’s simple to use and makes launching high capacity email campaigns a breeze. However, its omnichannel services are a tad on the pricey side – so if you’re on a budget.

» Try Omnisend «

6. Constant Contact

Among the fastest growing and largest email marketing solution available today, Constant Contact promises companies an easy way to bring their campaigns to life. Despite a huge selection of features to explore, Constant Contact is wonderfully easy-to-use. You can find solutions for service providers, small companies, and start-ups, with plenty of built-in templates and workflows.

Building trigger-based campaigns to convert and nurture customers is quick and easy. There’s also a handy marketing calendar to help you plan all of your advertising campaigns. Social media sharing tools, Facebook ad integrations, and Shopify connections all help to combine your marketing strategy into a more powerful solution too.

Constant Contact offers online training to help you maximize your outcomes, along with drip campaigns, online donations, A/B testing, and extensive community support. The company is even known to host live seminars around the US.

Features include ✨

• Fantastic email templates
• Range of automation and drip campaign tools
• Responsive and professional templates
• Smart tools for better selling
• Reporting, tracking and analytics
• Donation support
• Surveys, signup forms and polls
• Extensive connections with third-party tools

Pricing 💰

There’s a free version of Constant Contact available to access for a month, so you should have plenty of time to test all the features before you commit to a long-term plan. The premium plans start at around $20 per month, so they’re not as cheap as some of the other options out there. However, it’s worth remembering that you do get a lot of extra features with Constant Contact.

Pros 👍

• Excellent for automation and drip campaigns
• Great integrations with third-party tools
• Various polls and sign-up forms
• Drag-and-drop editing feature
• Lots of contact management options

Cons 👎

• No free forever plan
• May be tough to get support at certain times

Who is it Best For? ✅

Constant Contact will be a compelling email marketing service for companies keen to automate their marketing campaigns and get more work done. The trigger and automation tools in the system are some of the best around, perfect for building lead nurturing strategies.

👉 Read our Constant Contact review.

👉 More about Constant Contact's Pricing plans here.

» Try Constant Contact «

7. MailerLite

When MailerLite first emerged on the email marketing landscape, it promised companies an affordable way to begin building relationships with customers. The service is one of the less expensive options available today, but it’s still packed with plenty of great features. You can design your own landing pages and forms to collect leads, and experiment with fantastic email templates.

Easy to use, and intuitive, the MailerLite environment offers excellent value for smaller businesses and growing brands. You can even create pop-ups for your website to improve your chances of collecting customers wherever they are. There’s a built-in photo editor, and a rich text editing option included too.

If you’re looking for an effective way to both capture and nurture leads without spending a fortune, MailerLite is an excellent choice. The system will help you build and send all the perfect emails through a drag-and-drop environment that needs no extensive knowledge.

Features include ✨

• Lots of customizable templates
• Easy trigger and automation options
• Customer service and support
• Engagement rate tracking options
• Pop-ups and landing pages
• Custom reports
• Easy-to-use interface

Pricing 💰

MailerLite offers a very transparent and simple pricing structure. You get the same features and unlimited emails with every plan. With the free plan, there’s space for up to 1,000 subscribers. You also get an option for $15 per month for 2,500 subscribers too.

Pros 👍

• Cheap premium pricing and free forever option
• Ideal for beginners
• Good analytics and tracking feature
• No coding knowledge required
• Simple drag-and-drop building
• Great customer support

Cons 👎

• Tagging and segmenting is tough

Who is it Best For? ✅

MailerLite is a compelling choice if you’re looking for a feature-rich email marketing service which isn’t going to cost a fortune. You can build all kinds of great campaigns, and even design the initial popups and forms to capture your leads.

👉 Read our MailerLite review.

👉 More about MailerLite's Pricing plans here.

» Try MailerLite «

8. ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign is one of the most talked-about email marketing services available today. The solution is similar to GetResponse in its ability to help you capture and nurture leads throughout the entire buying cycle. ActiveCampaign makes it quick and simple to load contacts into your service and segment your audience according to their interests.

Building an email is easy, with tons of templates and module options to choose from. You can even design entire email flows with pre-existing templates or create your own. This ensures that you’re always sending the right messages at the best times to engage with your audience.

The email editing tool included with ActiveCampaign is fantastic for beginners, particularly if you don’t have a great deal of coding knowledge. However, there’s also the opportunity to design your messages from scratch if you prefer.

Features include ✨

• Subscription and sign-up forms
• Marketing automation and drip campaigns
• Tons of email templates
• Site and event tracking
• CRM solutions and marketing access
• Analytics and insights
• Segmented outreach and lead capture
• APIs and developer tools

Pricing 💰

Pricing for ActiveCampaign starts with a very basic Lite plan at $9 per month. However, it’s worth noting that you won’t get all of the features available with this service. The more functionality you need, and the more subscribers you have, the more likely it is that your costs will scale up.

Pros 👍

• Excellent for automation and pre-made campaigns
• Lots of templates and a drag-and-drop editor
• Insightful reporting and analytics
• CRM access available
• Segmentation and tagging are excellent
• Great for capturing leads

Cons 👎

• Can get quite expensive

Who is it Best For? ✅

If you want to create immersive end-to-end strategies for connecting with and nurturing your customers, ActiveCampaign is the choice for you. The segmentation and analytics features are excellent, and the service offers some of the best automation options on the market for long-term drip campaigns.

👉 Read our ActiveCampaign review.

» Try ActiveCampaign «

9. AWeber

Among the most popular email marketing tools in the world, AWeber promises companies a powerful way to reach their audience and learn more about their target market. Designed for small to mid-sized companies, AWeber’s service is flexible and easy to use for beginners. The system connects easily to most platforms for ecommerce and website building, so you can keep your digital strategy connected.

Unlike other email marketing tools, AWeber also offers access to a lot of advanced features like extensive A/B testing, autoresponders and AMP emails. There’s automatic RSS-to-email functionality if you have your own blog. Plus, you can assign tags to groups of your audience to ensure that you’re always sending the right content to the correct people.

AWeber supports all kind of marketing needs, from email tracking with detailed insights and reports, to amazing, branded click-tracking links for affiliate marketing. You can make your own landing pages and forms too.

Features include ✨

• Lots of professional templates and emails
• Cart abandonment and purchase tagging
• Behavioural automation and tagging
• Split-testing and analytics
• Immersive AMP emails and dynamic content
• Landing page building

Pricing 💰

There’s a free version of AWeber available if you only have 500 subscribers. If you need to upgrade then you’ll have to switch to the Pro version, which also comes with a huge selection of additional features. You need to request a quote for the price of the premium package now, though it used to start from $19 per month.

Pros 👍

• Excellent for analytics and reporting
• Wide range of advanced features
• Easy to use for beginners
• Free forever package for small companies
• Great automation and segmentation
• Landing page builder

Cons 👎

• Can have a slight learning curve
• Not the most transparent pricing

Who is it Best For? ✅

AWeber is a great marketing tool if you want to not just create emails but determine how each message you send effects your audience long-term. The behavioural insights and tracking services are second to none here.

👉 Read our AWeber review.

» Try AWeber «

10. ConvertKit

Another well-known email marketing solution with a huge selection of powerful features. ConvertKit often stands out as a compelling choice for bloggers, marketers, and authors alike. The easy-to-use backend is a delight to work with, and there are tons of unique features designed to strengthen your relationship with your customers, such as content upgrades, signup form incentives, and more.

ConvertKit is a great tool for segmenting subscribers into people who are interested in buying something, people who have purchased before, and so on. This ensures that you can deliver automated emails in the way that makes the most sense. ConvertKit also comes with various useful tools for optimizing your campaigns, like customizable templates, and A/B testing.

More than just a solution for email marketing, ConvertKit delivers everything from landing pages to digital subscriptions and transaction emails.

Features include ✨

• Excellent email templates and designer
• Landing page and conversion tools
• A/B testing and reporting
• Custom segmentation
• Automatic sales funnel
• Digital product selling
• Integrations with leading tools

Pricing 💰

Great for beginners, there’s a free version of ConvertKit you can access for up to 1,000 subscribers. Although there are limitations to this plan, it’s a good choice for people who are getting used to email marketing for the first time.

The first premium plans tarts at $29 per month, with access to a host of automated funnels and sequences that you don’t get in the free plan. There’s also a $59 plan which includes referral systems, Facebook custom audiences, advanced reporting, and subscriber scoring. Prices increase depending on your subscriber number.

Pros 👍

• Excellent range of conversion features
• Advanced reporting and analytics
• Free migration from other tools
• Easy to use and powerful backend
• Great for selling digital products
• Good subscriber segmentation

Cons 👎

• Some of the best features are restricted to more expensive plans

Who is it Best For? ✅

ConvertKit is an excellent choice for companies that don’t just want a basic email marketing solution, but an entire suite for conversion and customer nurturing. There are tons of tools to help you sell, including the option to sell straight from your account if you’re offering digital products.

👉 Read our ConvertKit review.

» Try ConvertKit «

11. Mailchimp

Easily one of the best-known email marketing tools in the world, Mailchimp has earned the attention of countless companies worldwide thanks to its wide selection of features, powerful functionality, and ease of use. There’s even a free email marketing service plan for beginners. Mailchimp comes with all the features you need to leverage email marketing, including tracking, segmentation, autoresponders, and an email builder with drag-and-drop.

One of the things that makes Mailchimp so compelling, is you can integrate the service with many of the tools you’re already using for marketing and sales, including Magento, WordPress, and Shopify. There’s also a host of automation features, though some customers believe that the drip sequences are a bit limited in comparison to more expensive tools.

Mailchimp is constantly updating its feature set with tools to help you create more effective campaigns. There’s a customer journey builder, access to A/B testing, and lots of great templates to choose from. Mailchimp also allows you to build social media marketing solutions that connect with email, and landing pages too.

Features include ✨

• Comprehensive drag-and-drop email builder
• Lots of professional templates
• Landing pages
• Social media and offline marketing
• Convenient automated drip sequences
• Powerful analytics
• Transactional emails

Pricing 💰

As mentioned above, customers of Mailchimp love the fact that it has its own free plan, although the features available are somewhat limited here. If you want to access things like multi-step journeys, more contacts, and A/B testing, you’ll need at least the $9.99 per month package which supports up to 50,000 contacts. There’s a Standard package for $14.99 which offers up to 100,000 contacts, and a premium package for more than 200,000 contacts, which also comes with advanced support, comparative reporting and more.

Pros 👍

• Very easy to use
• Creative assistant and website builder
• Send-time optimization and behavioural targeting
• Dynamic content
• Excellent customer journey builder
• A/B testing
• Lots of templates

Cons 👎

• Not the best customer support on low-cost tiers
• Limited in advanced features

Who is it Best For? ✅

If you’re looking for an easy way to get into email marketing, but you don’t want to spend forever learning how to use a new service, Mailchimp could be the perfect choice. This solution is easy to use and affordable, although you might find yourself paying more than you expected if you want some advanced features.

👉 Read our Mailchimp review.

» Try Mailchimp «

12. Drip

An increasingly popular pick for email marketing, Drip is convenient tool that promises today’s ecommerce shop owners, digital marketers, and bloggers a great way to reach their audience. The Drip solution comes with a convenient backend that’s very easy to use, you should have no trouble figuring out how everything works.

The email software also integrates well with many of the popular website builders on the market today, such as WooCommerce and WordPress. You can link in your audience members and create pop-ups and sign-up forms for your website to capture as many leads as you like. Drip differs from other tools because of its fantastic selection of marketing automation tools, email segmenting, split testing features, and more.

The Drip email marketing software comes with access to live chat support, webinars, automated training, detailed courses, and excellent all-around documentation to get you started. The eCommerce revenue attribution feature to helps you to see what you can get out of your campaigns too.

Features include ✨

• Tags and segmentation
• Unique range of multichannel marketing tools
• Tons of integrations
• Excellent analytics and reporting
• Drip campaigns
• Ecommerce revenue guidance
• Convenient for bulk emails

Pricing 💰

Although there’s a free trial for Drip, you won’t be able to maintain a free account for long. When you’re ready to commit, pricing starts at around $19 per month for an unlimited email send limit and up to 500 contacts. The more people you want to reach, the more you’ll need to pay. There’s also an add-on option for SMS notifications which costs more. Drip can be a little more expensive than its alternatives, but it’s brimming with features.

Pros 👍

• Excellent automation campaigns
• Fantastic for segmentation
• Lots of analytics and reporting tools
• Good integration capabilities
• Easy enough to use
• Wide range of multi-channel marketing options
• Pre-built workflows

Cons 👎

• Can be more expensive
• Takes some time to learn all the features

Who is it Best For? ✅

If you want the most advanced, segmented campaigns on the market, Drip will help you to create personalized experiences for all of your customers. There’s also a huge range of analytics and reports to ensure you’re earning a return on your investment.

👉 Read our Drip Ecommerce CRM review.

» Try Drip «

13. Sender

Though Sender is lesser known than solutions like Mailchimp and Convertkit, Sender is an increasingly popular tool for marketers in search of a solid email presence. If you need a quick and affordable way to get started with email marketing, it doesn’t get much better than this. Sender simplifies everything from automated to transactional emails for bloggers and ecommerce store owners.

You don’t need to know any HTML skills to get started, and there are plenty of wonderful templates to choose from. You can even add custom elements like videos, text, and images. Sender’s powerful analytics feature is one of the main reasons why it’s on this list. You can analyse a range of things, including who clicked and opened your emails.

Segmentation is another great feature that Sender gets right, ensuring that you can deliver more personalized content to everyone you speak to. Sender includes features like smart automations, GDPR compliance, and so much more.

Features include ✨

• High email deliverability
• Smart automations
• Success support
• Analytics and reporting
• Personalization and segmentation
• Tons of great templates
• GDPR compliance
• REST API for developers
• SMS marketing
• Push notifications

Pricing 💰

There’s a free forever plan which allows you to send emails for up to 2,500 of your subscribers in no time. There’s also no need for a credit card on this plan. Paid subscriptions start at $47 per month for up to 240,000 emails per month, and improved support

Pros 👍

• Great analytics and reporting
• Easy to use
• REST API access
• Good deliverability
• Smart automations
• Great segmentations

Cons 👎

• Can be a little basic for funnels

Who is it Best For? ✅

If you want a cheap way to dive into email marketing fast, Sender is a great choice. This tool will have you making sales and connecting with your customers in no time. You even get a very generous free package.

» Try Sender «

How to Define the Best Email Marketing Service

Before we jump into our reviews of email marketing tools, let’s take a closer look at the anatomy of an amazing email service. Email marketing software and services streamline all of your marketing efforts with a wide range of features. The more you’re willing to pay for your email solution, the greater the selection of capabilities you’ll generally discover.

Email marketing services are essential to running a successful campaign. Without these tools, it would be impossible to keep track of all the valuable conversations you’re having with each segment of your audience. Imagine having to send multiple emails to thousands of people every day.

Email marketing services also continue to develop features like A/B testing, personalization, and automation tools to help you strengthen your connection with your audience.

Finding the best email marketing tools will be a personal experience for each company. However, we do recommend looking at some of the following factors:

• Customer management: Ideally, your email marketing tool will allow you to manage your customers by splitting them into segments based on their preferences, activities, and other factors. Integration with CRM tools is often helpful
• Email templates: A wide selection of templates for your email marketing campaigns is always helpful. The more templates you have to choose from, the easier it is to build an email that’s perfect for your message and target audience.
• Customization: A powerful email builder will allow you to adjust your email templates with personalization, dynamic content, and various other components. Drag and drop features are especially popular, as they make it much easier to add and remove components.
• Mobile functionality: Emails should be just as easy to access and explore on a smart phone as they are on a desktop device. Hopefully, your email marketing service will allow you to see your campaigns in “preview” mode before sending them.
• Built-in testing: To make the most of your email marketing campaigns, you’ll need access to built-in spam testing. This ensures that you don’t have to worry about your email being flagged on the way to your customer.
• Unlimited options: This is a tough one, as many email service providers will adjust the amount you spend on your service, according to how many emails you send, or the number of subscribers you have. If you have a list of subscribers, make sure your email marketing tool can handle sending messages to all of them.
• Reporting and analytics: Email marketing is one of the most valuable tools for customer management and relationship building. The question is, how do you determine which of your emails are driving the most valuable results? Analytics and reporting tools help with this. Some solutions also include A/B testing so you can optimize your campaigns.
• Integrations: Most of the best email marketing service solutions come with access to plenty of great features built in. However, there’s always a chance you might want to add extra functionality too. Integrations allow you to link your email to things like Salesforce, Shopify, Zendesk, and many other helpful apps.
• Marketing automation: All of the best email marketing software should come with automation tools that allow you to schedule your messages at the perfect moment. Make sure you can reach your audience at just the right time with carefully structured messaging flows.

Why is Email Marketing Important?

By now, quite a number of studies have proven that email marketing drives more conversions than any other marketing channel, including social and search. Compared to Facebook, for example, a message is five times more likely to be read via email. And when we cross over to Twitter, email marketing still maintains a lead with a click-through rate that’s six times higher.

In fact, the overall average ROI of email marketing is an impressive 3800%. That essentially translates to $38 for every $1 spent.

Choosing the Best Email Marketing Service

With all these options available, the process of choosing the best email marketing service is bound to be hectic and overwhelming.

That said, there can never be a single best email marketing service for everyone. It all boils down to what’s suitable for you. And that depends on your marketing goals, budget, website structure, software platforms, team size, target audience, projected growth, mailing list volume, plus of course, the level of technical skills.

How to Choose the Best Email Marketing Service for Ecommerce

All ecommerce businesses share one common goal- to drive sales. Therefore, the best email marketing services for ecommerce websites are fundamentally optimized for lead generation, engagement, and conversion.

Now, apart from that, choosing the best email marketing service for this segment requires you to specifically focus on the options that can be integrated with not only your ecommerce platform, but also other software solutions in your website’s ecosystem. You need marketing software that can integrate into the whole ecosystem to generate contacts directly from your list of subscribers and customers.

Additionally, an ideal email marketing solution should be scalable to accommodate potentially changing needs as your business grows. It’s also advisable to focus on email marketing services that leverage advanced artificial intelligence to personalize campaigns for your target audiences.

Combine that with features like powerful automation capabilities, contact and workflow management, campaign triggers, detailed analytics, and you’ll be on your way to finding yourself a perfect email marketing platform for your ecommerce business.

Best Email Marketing Services for Small Business

SendinBlue

SendinBlue is built to boost your marketing efforts holistically through a cost-effective approach. This all-in-one email service provider offers advanced automation features at very reasonable prices.

There’s even a permanently free plan that grants you access to essential email automation tools, A/B testing, SMS marketing, email templates, and phone support. With it, small businesses can roll out a decent marketing strategy using 300 email sends per day, which over time should be enough to target a wide audience base. The trick is to simply capitalize on SendinBlue’s unlimited number of contacts.

In case you’d like more email sends, the premium packages start at just $20 a month. And for that price, SendinBlue completely removes restrictions on the number of emails you can send per day. The Essentials plan, on the other hand, costs only $39 a month while the Premium plan grants you professional-level tools for $66 a month.

But, get this. You could choose to go beyond the regular plans and instead pay for only what you use. SendinBlue is flexible enough to offer email credits starting from $40 for 5,000 emails. They come with pretty much the same features as the Essentials plan, without any expiration date.

Mailchimp

Mailchimp is one of the most popular email marketing solutions among small businesses. Business owners and digital marketers are particularly fond of its free plan, which supports email lists of up to 2,000 contacts, along with 10,000 email sends per month.

And as you roll out such campaigns, Mailchimp enhances your marketing efforts further through its behavioral targeting, CRM, and automation tools. it even goes beyond email to support 6 other marketing channels.

That said, upgrading is as cheap as $9.99 a month. This should stretch your contact allowance to at least 50,000, and the corresponding monthly email sends to 500,000. Then to top it off, Mailchimp throws in A/B testing and custom branding, among other solid marketing features.

MailerLite

MailerLite outshines the rest of the email service providers when it comes to elegance. Most users, including beginners, find its interface to be attractive, stylish, intuitive, and most importantly, user-friendly. It helps small businesses to build email automation workflows in no time, as well as design emails and landing pages without any technical knowledge.

Then get this – all these features will cost you nothing. MailerLite offers a decent free plan, which accommodates up to 12,000 email sends a month, and 1,000 subscribers.

You can leverage MailerLite’s email automation features, newsletter templates, pop-ups, landing pages, advanced segmentation, and email templates over the long haul without paying anything. But then again the pricing here is not bad at all and you won’t feel the pinch if you choose to upgrade. MailerLite’s premium plan costs as low as $7 a month.

And the best thing is, even the cheapest premium plan unlocks all the advanced features and integrations, including custom HTML editing. That means you’ll only upgrade further when your contact numbers swell beyond your plan’s allowance.

Best Email Marketing Services for Shopify

SendinBlue

Within SendinBlue’s impressive collection of integrations is a powerful app for Shopify, which is built to take your email marketing campaigns to the next level. Installing it from the Shopify App Store is completely free and it goes ahead and syncs with your contact list. Then as new customers purchase from your Shopify store, you can rely on SendinBlue to automatically add their details into its mailing list.

Apart from searching, segmenting and targeting the subsequent list of contacts, SendinBlue allows you to customize its free stylish templates and align them with your marketing strategy. You can even tweak its email automation tools and leave the system to send scheduled personalized messages. And since SendinBlue’s deliverability rates are essentially perfect, you can be certain that your targeted audiences will receive their emails.

Speaking of which, SendinBlue’s Shopify app is also great at multichannel promotions, thanks to its additional SMS marketing feature. It also tracks all the critical variables to give you detailed metrics, so you can make informed decisions about your marketing efforts.

Klaviyo

Klaviyo is another all-in-one email marketing service provider with just the right integration for your Shopify ecommerce store. It combines advanced segmentation with email capture and pop-ups, automated workflows, email campaigns, email templates, and so much more.

Its intuitive drag-and-drop builder is pretty handy at creating emails. You get a wide range of user-friendly options for quick and easy editing of your emails’ overall outlook and message content.

That said, the one area where Klaviyo truly shines is email automation. You could set up workflows for automatic email sends based on trigger parameters such as mailing list subscription dates, site activities, or purchase history. And if that sounds like too much of a hassle, Klaviyo comes with a Flow Library filled with customizable prebuilt workflows that stretch the entire customer lifecycle.

Constant Contact

Constant Contact happens to be one of the eldest email marketing software on the Shopify App Store. If you’ve tried out its primary web version, then you’ll be pleased that its Shopify integration is not that different. Embedding it with your Shopify store allows you to sync contact details based on information collected from your customers, newsletter subscribers and unsubscribers, etc.

Then using its smooth email builder, you should be able to conveniently work on any of its pre-designed email templates. The customization process itself takes only a couple of clicks and voila! You could proceed to launch an automated email marketing campaign with appropriately branded emails. In the meantime, the system will sync its contact info every 15 minutes to keep everything updated for increased campaign accuracy.

It also worth noting that Constant Contact boasts of maintaining an average deliverability score of more than 97%. That means it’ll always get your emails to their recipients.

Best Free Email Marketing Services

SendinBlue

Unlike most email marketing solutions on the web, SendinBlue doesn’t base its pricing on the number of contacts. It, instead, uses the number of email sends per month as the principal pricing guide.

Thankfully, however, it doesn’t charge for everything. SendinBlue offers a free email marketing plan for beginners, startups, as well as small businesses. And since it’s permanently free, you can take advantage of the package forever without paying a cent.

That said, the best thing about SendinBlue’s free plan is its generous allocation for subscribers. While the bulk of its chief competitors (including Mailchimp) limit the number of contacts you can save in their starter packages, SendinBlue allows you to keep as many as you want. The contact numbers here are unlimited.

Then to help you make good use of that, SendinBlue further throws in A/B testing, email templates, personalization tools, an email designer, customizable signup forms, advanced segmentation, sales CRM tools, flexible API, email support, real-time reporting, plus automation features. Combined, these features make SendinBlue one of the most powerful budget-friendly email marketing services.

The only problem is, you can only send up to 300 emails a day. Plus, the marketing automation workflows here cannot accommodate anything more than 2,000 contacts. So, if you’re conducting an extensively broad marketing campaign, you might want to stretch out each round of email sends over several days, and maybe build a separate workflow for every group of 2,000 contacts.

HubSpot Marketing Hub

HubSpot is a jack of all trades when it comes to digital marketing. It offers a range of software solutions optimized for different channels (including email software and landing page solutions), and their pricing stretches from tens of dollars a month to thousands of dollars a month.

All in all, HubSpot Free happens to be the most popular service for obvious reasons. It’s completely free regardless of how long you choose to use it.

But, make no mistake about it. HubSpot Free is not entirely an email marketing solution. Rather, it’s more of an all-in-one lead engagement suite with CRM, sales, customer support, and email marketing tools. They all work in tandem so you can holistically manage the lead conversion process from one centralized system.

As far as email marketing is concerned, HubSpot Free supports up to a million contacts. Its email scheduling feature allows you to get in touch with them at specific times, while the accompanying templates come in handy when you need to quickly create professional emails. HubSpot will then go ahead and track every single email to give you an accurate analysis of your marketing campaign in real-time.

Other than that, HubSpot Free integrates with email service providers such as Outlook and Gmail. So, you should be able to send emails conveniently from your Google account.

And while you’re at it, you might want to add your team to help you with everything. HubSpot supports an unlimited number of users per account, which I think is not a bad way to make up for its lack of advanced marketing automation tools.

MailerLite

MailerLite’s free package might not be as generous as SendinBlue’s when it comes to the number of mailing contacts. It has a maximum of 1,000 subscribers, whom you can engage with up to 12,000 emails a month. At least that beats SendinBlue’s limit of 300 emails a day.

MailerLite doesn’t stop there though. The best thing about the free plan is its outstanding array of features. Save for minor stuff like email click maps, email autoresends, and custom HTML editing, the free package provides pretty much the same type of features and capabilities you’ll find on MailerLite’s paid plans.

The subsequent privileges, in a nutshell, entail multi-user accounts, domain authentication, surveys, A/B testing, RSS campaigns, advanced segmentation, email automation, unsubscribe page builder, subscriber management, pop-up subscribe forms, embedded signup forms, landing pages, mobile-friendly email newsletters, a rich text editor, a drag and drop editor, and 24/7 customer support.

So, of course, the MailerLite free plan is worth considering if you’re planning to run your email marketing campaigns full-on, but with a limited number of contacts.

The Best Email Service: Finishing Thoughts

Choosing the right email marketing service can be a complex process. You need something that can do a lot more than just send a welcome email to your website visitors. The best email solution is a tool for lead generation, capable of integrating with social media, and the most popular website builders and ecommerce platforms alike.

There are plenty of options to choose from, so it’s important to think carefully about what matters most to you. Do you want more than just basic phone support and email support from the service team? Are you looking for an all-in-one marketing tool, or a solution that tracks click-through rates and conversions perfectly?

Here we’ve covered just some of our favorite email offerings, but there are tons of other free and paid plans out there to discover. Remember, whenever possible, start with a free trial and use that initial education as an insight into the kind of email service you need.

Further reading:

• Best Free Email Marketing Software
• Best Cheap Email Marketing Software
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• The Best POS (Point of Sale) Systems: The Ultimate Guide
• 6 of the Best Ecommerce Platforms and Solutions: Shopify vs Volusion vs BigCommerce vs Big Cartel vs 3dcart vs Ecwid
• Shopify Reviews: Is Shopify the Best Ecommerce Platform?
• WooCommerce Review: The King of Ecommerce Plugins on WordPress