Choosing the best email marketing software that suits your needs is essential to the success of your business. In this article, we have put together a list of the best email marketing platforms to help you make the most suitable choice for you and your business.
What Are The Criteria Of The Best Email Marketing Software in 2023?
There are many criteria that you need to take into account when choosing your email marketing software. Here are some of the most important ones:
List Segmentation
When your subscribers join your email list, they will likely be at different buying cycle stages. As a result, they will also be interested in the different products or services that you offer. This is why the best email marketing software should allow you to divide your list into various segments. This will help you send more personalized email campaigns to your subscribers and maximize your chances of converting them into paying clients.
Automation
The best email marketing software should allow you to automate your emails and email sequences. Automating your emails is a great way to increase your sales and convert your subscribers into paying clients without putting in extra time and effort to send your campaigns manually every time. For example, you can send your subscribers a welcome sequence when they join your list or a discount code when they abandon the cart at check-out.
A/B or Split Testing
A/B testing, or split testing, is a great tool to increase the click-through rate on your email campaigns. If your email marketing software offers this option, it can help you significantly increase your conversion rates by optimizing subject lines and other email campaign elements.
Landing Page Builder
A responsive landing page builder is one of the most important criteria of the best email marketing software. It may not be a necessity for every business owner, but having the option to set up a functional landing page within your email marketing platform will allow you to capture leads without the need to have a separate website.
Pricing
Pricing is another essential factor to consider when choosing the email marketing software that suits your needs. Some email marketing platforms allow you to start for free up to a certain list size or the number of emails sent. Other tools offer plans suitable for businesses with more extensive email lists and more sophisticated needs.
What Is The Best Email Marketing Software in 2023?
Let’s analyze the features, benefits, flaws, and pricing of some of the most popular email marketing platforms on the market.
Active Campaign – Best Email Marketing Software for Entrepreneurs
Active Campaign offers many functional features that make it one of the best email marketing platforms among entrepreneurs and bigger businesses. This platform provides intuitive email automation, A/B testing, email analytics, list segmentation, and other essential tools that can help you increase sales and build stronger relationships with your subscribers. ActiveCampaign is an email marketing platform with great potential. However, learning to navigate through all of its different tools can be challenging and requires some time and effort. ActiveCampaign offers a 14-day free trial that allows you to test the platform and decide whether it’s suitable for your needs. The paid plan starts with the Lite plan at $15 per month.
MailChimp – Best Email Marketing Software for Beginners
MailChimp is another great email marketing software tailored to beginners and small entrepreneurs. It offers everything you might need as a new entrepreneur or a small business owner who is just starting with email marketing. MailChimp is so popular among beginners thanks to its clean interface and easy-to-use tools. Their free plan allows users to send up to 10,000 emails a month to 2,000 subscribers. In addition, MailChimp’s free plan will grant you access to tools like email templates, opt-in tools, landing pages, integration with other tools, and basic list segmentation. So if you’re looking for simple, affordable, and easy-to-navigate email marketing software for beginners, MailChimp is the right choice!
HubSpot – Best CRM and Email Marketing Software
HubSpot offers a unique approach in their free plan, as it offers the main features for free with the option to add on other features that the user might need. This makes it the best CRM and email marketing software for small and medium-sized businesses looking for a customizable and scalable approach. In addition, HubSpot offers users all the necessary tools to create engaging emails in an easy, intuitive way. Amongst other features, HubSpot offers email templates that you can easily edit with the drag-and-drop builder, as well as advanced analytics and A/B testing to help you optimize your emails for better performance. Pricing-wise, HubSpot offers different models. Their most affordable paid plan starts at $45 per month.
Constant Contact – Best Email Marketing Software for Small Businesses
Contact Contact is possibly one of the oldest email marketing platforms. It has been around since 1995 and has had over 650,000 customers ever since. However, even though Constant Contact is a well-established platform in the email marketing industry, it is far from being the best. Constant Contact targets small businesses and its features are simple. One of the strongest characteristics of Constant Contact is high deliverability rates. Constant Contact also offers unique additional features that other email marketing platforms lack, such as the ability to schedule your social media posts or create your own logo. Constant Contact offers a free plan for 30 days, no matter how many contacts you have. After that, their paid plan starts at $20 per month.
SendinBlue – Best Free Email Marketing Software
As a new business or a beginning entrepreneur, you may not have a big budget to invest in business tools such as good email marketing software. In this case, SendinBlue is an excellent option. It offers users the possibility to build their email list for free. SendinBlue’s free plan allows you to add unlimited leads to your email list and send out up to 300 emails per day. Thus, it is a perfect solution for startups and businesses that are just starting to build their list. Apart from that, SendinBlue allows users to segment their lists to optimize the communication with their subscribers, conduct A/B testing to see what email campaigns perform best, and integrate the platform with other tools to increase overall productivity. Moreover, SendingBlue offers additional features such as a landing page builder. However, some of these features are only available on the paid premium plan, starting at $25 per month.
ConvertKit – Best Email Marketing Software for Content Creators
ConvertKit is becoming increasingly popular amongst bloggers and content creators looking for an intuitive, easy-to-use email marketing software platform that allows them to set up email campaigns hassle-free. ConvertKit is an excellent solution for content creators and bloggers. It is easy to navigate and offers plenty of features that make it easy to create effective email campaigns. ConvertKit offers many key features, such as landing page templates optimized for conversions, workflow automation to increase productivity, and list segmentation for better conversions. In addition, ConvertKit allows users to attach content updates to their forms and create unlimited, automated sales funnels with drip campaigns to generate recurring revenue. ConvertKit offers a free plan of up to 1,000 subscribers, giving you access to all the features, except for the automated sales funnels. It also includes two digital courses teaching you how to create a digital product and sell it to your subscribers using ConvertKit!
AWeber – Simple Email Marketing Software for Small Businesses
AWeber is one of the oldest email marketing platforms that has been on the market for several years. AWeber is an excellent choice for small businesses looking for email marketing software that they can navigate in a few clicks. One of the features that make AWeber so easy to use is our email campaign templates that you can customize in minutes. AWeber also allows users to set up email automation easily, create registration forms, and analyze data to improve conversion and click-through rates. Another strong suit of this email marketing platform is its high-level customer support! While using this platform, AWeber experts are always available and ready to help you if you run into any trouble. AWeber offers a free plan for an email list of up to 500 subscribers and 3,000 emails sent per month. The free plan also gives you access to all its features, except for split testing, automation, and advanced analytics. However, if you wish to unlock all features, the paid premium plan starts at $19 per month. It increases accordingly, depending on the number of subscribers you add to your list.
MailerLite – The Most Affordable Email Marketing Software
MailerLite is the best choice for beginner entrepreneurs and small businesses looking for a simple, easy-to-navigate, and affordable email marketing software. MailerLite offers an excellent free plan for users with less than 1,000 subscribers, which allows access to all of the basic features and the possibility to send up to 12,000 emails per month. MailerLite’s paid plan, however, is one of the most affordable premium plans on the market, starting at only $10 a month. At this price, MailerLite offers all of the critical features businesses look for in an email marketing software. These features include A/B testing, opt-in forms and pop-ups, landing page builder, and advanced email analytics. One of MailerLite’s strongest features is its landing page builder. With MailerLite, you can design your landing page using its editor and host it on your own domain.
Pabbly – Best Deliverability Email Marketing Software
No matter how good and well-optimized your email campaigns are if they end up in the spam box or don’t reach your subscribers’ inboxes, they won’t convert. Pabbly prides itself on high deliverability rates, making it one of the most reliable email marketing platforms on the market. High deliverability rates guarantee more conversion and engagement from your subscribers. Besides that, Pabbly offers a range of standard email marketing software features, including a drag-and-drop tool to design your emails and email automation. Pabbly offers a free plan with limited features to let its future users test out the platform before committing to the paid plan. The paid subscription starts at $29 per month for 5,000 subscribers and increases according to the number of subscribers.
GetResponse – Best Multi-Functional Email Marketing Software
GetResponse is probably one of the most popular and most trusted email marketing platforms on the market. It offers a range of features that make it a multi-functional platform that allows users to generate leads easily and increase their revenue. GetResponse has an easy-to-use, drag-and-drop editor to create and design emails, landing page templates, opt-in forms, and pop-ups, among many other features. It also offers an intuitive sales funnel builder. Thanks to these tools, its users can create effective email campaigns, build automatic funnels and even use paid ads to generate more leads. Without a doubt, one of the strongest suits of GetResponse is its automation tools. Additionally, GetResponse offers its users a built-in webinar software, which can be very useful for businesses looking to automate their lead generation process through webinars. However, since GetResponse offers so many advanced features, it is not a very affordable choice. It provides a 30-day trial period, after which you can upgrade to one of their premium plans. The basic plan starts at $35 a month for 1,000 subscribers. This makes it an excellent choice for medium-sized and big businesses looking for a complete, multi-functional email marketing software and are ready to pay a higher price for it.
Gist – Best All-in-One Email Marketing Software
Gist is the best all-in-one email marketing software on the market. Gist offers its users everything that an email marketing platform should. It also provides additional features that help businesses create better interactions with their customers. These features include live chat, chatbot widgets, and more. Gist is a complete CRM platform that provides businesses with all the tools they need to turn website visitors into leads and engage with their email list subscribers. Its services are meant to help companies to acquire, engage and support their customers. Gist also offers standard email marketing software features, such as a drag-and-drop email builder, email automation, drip campaigns, sales funnels, and the ability to up-sell and cross-sell email every time customers purchase specific products. Gist offers a Free Forever plan with access to all the core features. The paid plan starts at $29 per month and allow users to access more advanced features and use the platform to its full potential.
Benchmark – Best Drag-and-Drop Email Marketing Software
Benchmark focuses on providing businesses with all the tools they need to help them grow with email marketing. It is an easy-to-use email marketing software that offers all the core features businesses might need to grow their email lists and turn visitors into customers. These features include an intuitive, drag-and-drop email builder, list segmentation, opt-ins, and pop-ups, as well as advanced automation campaigns. One of Benchmark’s strengths is its beautifully designed, easily customizable email templates. Benchmark also offers many beautiful landing page templates that are easy to edit and can be customized to your brand. Benchmark also provides automated email workflows. For example, you can use them to send automatic email campaigns to your customers based on their behavior. These include abandoned cart emails, post-purchase email sequences, or automated up-sell emails. The free plan gives you access to all the basic email marketing features. Unlike other email marketing platforms, Benchmark doesn’t limit the number of subscribers you can have on your list. However, on the free plan, you can only send up to 250 emails per month. If you decide to update, the premium plan starts at $15 per month.
Moosend – Best Commercial Email Marketing Software
Moosend is not a very popular email marketing software. Yet, it is an excellent platform for businesses at all stages of growth. It is a perfect choice for beginners and small businesses. It offers excellent customer support and video tutorials to help newbies figure out how to work with the platform to its fullest potential. Moosend is an email marketing software that covers it all. It offers users all the tools they need to generate leads with beautiful, easy-to-design landing pages, segment email lists for better conversions, send automatic email campaigns to build better relationships with subscribers and increase sales through marketing automation workflows. Moosend offers a free plan for users with up to 1,000 subscribers. There is no limit to the number of emails that can be sent on this plan, but some features are restricted. The paid plan starts at $10 per month.
Drip – Best Email Marketing Software for E-commerce Brands
Drip is an email & SMS marketing software. It is targeted towards e-commerce brands to help them increase their sales. Drip is an email marketing platform fully customized to e-commerce brands. It offers unique, advanced features that e-commerce brands will find very useful, such as content personalization options to recommend products and offer special discounts to their subscribers. Drip provides e-commerce businesses with a range of standard email marketing tools, such as A/B testing and integration with major e-commerce platforms. It also offers complex email automation with previously designed workflows that have been tailored to different e-commerce scenarios. Apart from email marketing, this platform can also be used for SMS marketing. Drip offers a 14-day free trial to allow potential users to test the platforms. After that, paid plan starts at $19 a month for up to 500 subscribers and increases based on the number of contacts.
SendPulse – Best Multi-Channel Marketing Automation Platform
SendPulse is a relatively new email marketing software on the market. What makes SendPulse different from any other email marketing software is its unique approach to communication between business and their customers. SendPulse brings together a variety of communication channels, such as email, live chat, instant messaging, and more. This makes it a perfect choice for brands that value building relationships with their audience. Apart from the standard email marketing features, SendPulse offers its users the ability to connect with their audience via chatbots or automatic SMS campaigns. As a SendPulse user, you can also send automated email campaigns and set up sales funnels for subscribers at different consumer journey stages. Another reason why SendPulse differentiates so much from its competitors is its unique subscription model. Apart from the standard subscription model based on the number of subscribers, SendPulse also has a Pay As You Go option, where you pay based on the number of emails sent per month. In addition, SendPulse also offers a generous free plan for up to 500 subscribers with a limit of 15,000 emails sent per month.
Automizy – Best Email Marketing Automation Software
Automizy opens its website with a simple slogan: improve your open rate by 34%. This email marketing software aims to help its users increase their email open rates by focusing on efficient email automation. Automizy provides businesses with various test tools to help them choose the best headlines and topics that their audience would prefer, such as an AI-based predictive analysis feature, split testing for automated emails, and website behavior tracking. Apart from these unique features, Automizy also provides standard features such as landing page templates, a fully integrated email automation builder, and a drag-and-drop email editor. Automizy offers a free 14-day trial period for anyone who wishes to test out the platform before committing to their paid plans, which start at $9 per month for 200 subscribers. After that, it follows the standard subscription model where the price increases based on the number of contacts added to the email list.
Mailigen – Best Email Newsletter Marketing Software
With more and more marketing campaigns from brands and businesses across different industries, people are looking for a personalized approach. Therefore, many brands are focusing on interacting and building relationships with their audience via their marketing channels. Mailigen aims to bring the personalization aspect to email marketing thanks to beautifully designed emails and tools to collect customer feedback. Key features that Mailigen offers to help users create human connections with their audiences are behavior-based automation series, advanced sign-up forms, and pre-designed email newsletter templates. Mailigen also provides a drag-and-drop email builder, automation workflows, campaign analytics, A/B testing, and online surveys to help businesses optimize their email campaigns for better conversions. Additionally, Mailigen offers integration with many important plugins, such as Zapier or WordPress and social media. You can try Mailigen out for free for the first 30 days. After that, the paid plan starts at $8 per month for up to 500 contacts. Apart from the standard monthly subscription plans, you can also opt for the Pay As You Go plan based on the number of emails sent.
MailJet – Best Email Marketing Software for Teams And Agencies
MailJet is an all-in-one, easy-to-use email marketing platform. It is tailored specifically to those looking for email marketing software that allows them to manage their email campaigns as a team. This is why MailJet is an excellent choice for teams, agencies, and companies that send large amounts of emails per month. MailJet delivers emails quickly and guarantees high deliverability rates. MailJet allows its users to invite team members and assign them specific roles and tasks in their accounts. Thanks to their email API and SMTP replay designed to send large amounts of emails, MailJet can send up to 15 million emails per hour! An added benefit for users who sign up for MailJet’s email marketing service is that every Enterprise account gets assigned a Technical Account Manager, who is responsible for providing the users with guidance at every stage of the process. Apart from that, MailJet offers features such as A/B testing, list segmentation, intuitive email builder, email analytics, and online customer support. MailJet offers a free plan that allows you to send up to 6,000 emails per month and doesn’t limit the number of contacts, unlike most of its competitors. The paid plan starts at $9.65 per month for up to 30,000 emails sent.
Omnisend – Best Email Marketing Software to Increase Sales
The first phrase on the Omnisend website invites visitors to increase their sales rather than their workload. With this slogan, Omnisend makes it clear that its goal is to help its users increase their revenue by reducing the amount of work necessary to create effective email marketing campaigns. Omnisend targets mainly e-commerce businesses that are looking for efficient email marketing software. Omnisend focuses on making email marketing simple by offering features like pre-built e-commerce marketing automation, list segmentation, SMS marketing, and integrations with major e-commerce platforms such as Shopify or WooCommerce. Omnisend offers a free plan for up to 250 contacts, 500 emails per month, and 60 international SMS. The free plan includes access to the majority of features, except for customer support and advanced reporting. The paid plan starts at $16 per month.
Mailify – Best Desktop-Based Email Marketing Software
Mailify has made its entrance into the email marketing world with its leading, desktop-based email marketing software. Initially, Mailify differentiated itself from its competitors by offering an outstanding service to companies that wanted to manage their email marketing in-house. Since then, Mailify has expanded. Now it also provides its users with a cloud-based email marketing software that can be accessed from any place, time, and device. Besides email marketing tools, Mailify also offers marketing automation and SMS marketing. One of the most prominent features that Mailify offers is its beautifully designed email and landing pages templates. It also provides users with an easy-to-navigate email editor. Mailify prices itself based on the number of emails sent per month rather than the number of subscribers on the user’s email list. The paid plan starts at $69 per month for 5,000 email credits.
CleverReach – Best Dynamic Content Email Marketing Software
CleverReach is a German email marketing software that is now conquering the English-speaking market. CleverReach offers its users a straightforward email newsletter platform. In addition, this platform offers some very unique features, such as a responsive newsletter editor, seasonal templates, RSS feeds, dynamic content, and HTML editor. Apart from these, CleverReach also offers standard features such as email automation, list segmentation, A/B testing, and advanced reporting and tracking. Another strength of CleverReach is its high deliverability rates. With CleverReach’s free plan, users can add up to 250 subscribers to their email list and send 1000 emails. In addition, the free plan gives you access to most of the features that the platform offers. The paid plan starts from $30 per month. If you decide to sign up directly for a paid plan, you get a 30-day trial period to try it out first.
Campaigner – Advanced Email Marketing Automation to Drive Sales
Campaigner advertises itself as a powerful multi-channel marketing automation tool that aims to help businesses drive sales and increase their revenue using advanced marketing automation, intuitive reporting, and powerful personalization through email and SMS. Campaigner differentiates itself from its competitors by providing businesses with a complete list of tools to take their subscribers through the entire customer journey, from attracting, nurturing, and converting leads into paying customers. Campaigner is an excellent email marketing platform to create unique customer journeys with an easy-to-use automation workflow builder. Some of the key features that Campaigner offers are a drag-and-drop email builder, responsive landing pages, fully customizable opt-in forms, email automation, list segmentation, dynamic content fields, and advanced reporting and tracking. You can try Campaigner out for 30-days by signing up for their free trial period. After that, the paid plan starts at $59 per month for up to 5,000 subscribers.
Salesforce Pardot – Best B2B Email Marketing Software
Salesforce Pardot is a B2B marketing automation CRM that focuses on helping companies engage buyers and generate more sales. In other words, Salesforce Pardot aims to blur the lines between email marketing and sales by allowing its users to create strong relationships with their subscribers. Salesforce Pardot is an excellent email marketing solution for larger businesses with a higher budget, as its most basic plan starts at $1,250. However, at this price, Salesforce Pardot offers a range of very advanced features that professional marketers will find particularly useful! Amongst standard email marketing software features like email builder, A/B testing, and list segmentation, Salesforce Pardot offers more advanced list-building features, campaign rules, lead-scoring packages, and complex automation capabilities.
Autopilot – Best Marketing Automation Platform for E-commerce
Autopilot is a marketing automation platform dedicated to providing outstanding automation features for e-commerce businesses at any stage. Autopilot has been designed to help companies convert store visitors into subscribers through branded pop-ups and opt-in forms, send out branded emails, improve audience targeting through advanced list segmentation, and increase sales through easy-to-set-up, automated marketing workflows. Autopilot also provides an intuitive AI to predict the best email subject lines, understand what content your audience likes and send messages at the right time. Autopilot offers a free plan for up to 2,000 subscribers, with limited features. The paid plan starts at $29 per month for 2,000 subscribers with access to all the features. Apart from the standard subscription plan, you can also opt-in for separately priced add-ons, such as a custom email IP, more audiences, or more advanced reports. [“]
Email Octopus – Simple Email Marketing Software for Growing Businesses
EmailOctopus is an email marketing platform aiming to help emerging businesses grow through email marketing. EmailOctopus allows users to create email campaigns quickly, easily, and effectively with simple and powerful email marketing tools, such as a drag-and-drop email editor, easily editable email templates, intuitive list segmentation, and customizable opt-in forms. EmailOctopus also allows its users to engage with their audience through easy-to-set-up email automation, such as pre-designed welcome sequences and other automated workflows. EmailOctopus is an affordable email marketing software for growing businesses. You can test out the platform by signing for the free plan. The free plan limits are 2,500 subscribers and 10,000 emails sent per month. The Pro plan starts at $24 per month for 5,000 subscribers and 50,000 emails sent.
NotifyVisitors– Best Email Marketing Software for Shopify
NotifyVisitors offers a wholesome experience with its email marketing software. This email marketing software has a wide range of features so that you can attract, engage and retain users in the best way possible. Its features include automated campaigns, personalization, segmentations, in-depth analytics, an easy-to-use dashboard, A/B testing, and much more. These features offer a huge potential to Shopify store owners, small businesses and enterprises to get started with their email marketing. Pricing- Free plan is available. Paid plan starts from $49. So, if you are new in this sphere and looking for a simple and quick way to get started, NotifyVisitors is the best choice for you.
What is the difference between direct emailing and spam?
The main difference between direct emailing and spam is whether or not the recipient has agreed to receive emails from you. Emails sent to someone who did not agree to be on the recipient list would be considered spam. This depends, however, on the recipient’s mindset, as some people would also consider getting a large amount of emails spam, even though they agreed to be on the recipient list.
What is the difference between email marketing and digital marketing?
Digital marketing is a term that encompasses all of your efforts to promote your business through digital channels, such as social media, search engines, or your website. Email marketing is part of digital marketing and only focuses on promoting your business via email.
What is a cloud-based email marketing service?
A cloud-based email marketing service is an email-sending platform that can be fully managed on the web. With a cloud-based email marketing system, all of your data is stored on remote servers, and you can access it anytime from any device. This means that you do not need to install any application on your desktop. You can access your email marketing platform on any device if it is connected to the internet.
What is email automation?
Email automation allows you to send previously prepared emails to your subscribers at the previously scheduled time. This means that you can prepare these emails ahead of time and program them to be sent out automatically at the right time, to the right people, based on specific triggers. For example, email automation can be used to send welcome sequences to new subscribers or abandoned cart reminders to customers who didn’t finish the check-out process.
What is an email blast?
An email blast, or eblast, is a marketing strategy that consists of sending a single email to a large group of recipients. In other words, everyone on the sender’s email list receives the same email, and there is no list segmentation or personalization involved.
What is the best day to send an email blast?
The best day and time to send an email blast to your subscriber list will differ depending on your audience type. However, email marketers have established that the best days to send an email blast are Tuesdays and Thursdays, as people are more likely to open it during these days.
What is viral email marketing?
Viral email marketing is a strategy that aims to get people to forward and share emails on their social media platforms. This strategy aims to create emails engaging enough to get people to share them with their friends and spread the content as quickly as possible.
What are the four types of marketing emails?
The first type of marketing email is email newsletters. Businesses use email newsletters to send their subscribers emails with helpful tips and updates. The second type is acquisition emails. The goal of acquisition emails is to convert your subscribers into customers. The third type of marketing email is retention emails. These emails aim to retain customers and increase their engagement. The fourth type is promotional emails, which are strictly dedicated to promoting and selling products or services that your business provides.
Conclusion
If you’re looking for the best email marketing software for your business, there are many options to choose from. Even though it may seem that all of the email marketing platforms mentioned in this article are similar, there are some significant differences between them. Each software offers a unique combination of features and focuses on a specific target market or goal. To choose the right one for you, think about your business needs and consider which features are the most important for you in email marketing software. About