Last Updated on December 29, 2022 by Alex Birkett
You already know how important email marketing is for your business. But are you sending boring, salesy emails? At best, they don’t work for you. At worst, they can hurt your reputation.
Neither option is looking appealing.
On the contrary, email marketing applications allow you to manage and send highly targeted and personalized email campaigns to a segment of your subscribers.
If you look at the statistics, personalization alone results in a 17.6% average email open rate.
Luckily, there are plenty of email marketing software tools out there for you to choose from. Whether you have five subscribers or five million, the right system will fit your needs and grow with you.
I’ll review ten such email marketing platforms in this article based on their key features, cons, G2 score, pricing structure, user interface, and more.
But before that…
What Features to Look for in Email Marketing Software?
Before starting with the review, let’s see all the features to consider while looking for an email marketing platform for your business.
- Attractive Email Templates – Let’s face it, we’re all automatically attuned to aesthetics. Almost everything in the world is about aesthetics. That’s why whenever we talk about the look of our email templates, we have to think about aesthetics and content. Naturally, a reader is likely to be more receptive to an email that looks appealing than one that looks bland, outdated, or downright garish.
- Automation – Email automation will allow you to send customized content or emails to your prospects/customers based on their specific actions, behaviors, and preferences. It will also help you engage with your audience at different stages of the buying cycle without you having to work 24/7.
- CRM – In the context of email marketing, CRM (customer relationship management) offers advantages such as segmentation, personalization, and better tracking of the user’s journey through the sales funnel.
- List Management & Segmentation – Successfully managing your email lists is vital for every business. You need to know who’s a lost customer from the past, who’s your current customer, what products they are buying, and their likes. This sounds easy, but it’s not; you must have a robust system to effectively manage your list.
- Reporting & Analytics – You’ll need reporting options available to analyze who opened your message, who clicked specific links, overall click-through rate, and how people interacted with your messages over time. These metrics will help you improve your future campaigns and eliminate the factors that didn’t work in your favor.
Other features you need to consider are ease of use, a visual drag-and-drop builder, text messaging, bulk emails, omnichannel marketing strategy, integrations, email deliverability, A/B testing, pre-built customer journeys, and more.
Note: I’m going to add some affiliate links where possible. This isn’t going to influence what I put on the list. I just want to make some money from my content, okay? You can also hire me to do your SEO and content. Or just use my affiliate links. Either way. But this content takes time!
Email Marketing Software Features Comparison Table.
Let’s see briefly how these email marketing services stack up against one another.
| Free Plan | Unlimited Contacts | Transactional Emails | SMS Marketing | Live Chat | Landing Pages | CRM | A/B Testing | |
| Sendinblue | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes; Only with plans above $65/mo | Yes | Yes |
| ActiveCampaign | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes; Only with plans above $129/mo | Yes; a full-scale CRM | Yes |
| Moosend | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | Yes; with plans above $8/mo | Yes | Yes |
| Benchmark | Yes | No | No | No | No | Yes; with plans above $13/mo | Yes | Yes |
| HubSpot | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes; a full-scale CRM | Yes |
| MailChimp | Yes | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Constant Contact | No | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes; for subject lines |
| ConvertKit | Yes | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | Yes |
| Keap | No | No | No | Yes | No | Yes; with plans above $112/mo | Yes | Yes |
| GetResponse | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| MailerLite | Yes | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Best Email Marketing Software
Here’s my list of the best email marketing software:
1. SendInBlue
Best For: Beginners and small companies.
G2 Score: 4.6
SendinBlue is one of the more popular companies in the email marketing space these days, and it’s not hard to see why.
For starters, they allow you to send marketing emails, transactional emails, and SMS at a reasonable price. It’s actually one of the few email marketing services that provide built-in transactional emails, SMS marketing, and live chat tools to go with email marketing features.
Even the tools of MailChimp caliber won’t let you send transactional emails – unless you use their paid add-on.
SendinBlue’s drag-and-drop email builder also provides you with everything you need to create an engaging email. Its intuitive interface makes the process fun and easy, even for less experienced users.
On top of that, they offer incredible CRM features that can cater to most of your needs. There’s no need to integrate it with a third-party CRM service.
One of the things I like the most about it is that you can track your leads and campaigns from the moment a contact becomes a lead on your form to when they open, then click on an email or even respond to an email. Plus, you can create notes, organize contacts, schedule tasks, and more.
Next, you get pre-built customer journeys and the ability to map orders to journeys to send out precisely the right message to the exact person at best possible time.
You can pick any customer journey based on your goals, including abandoned carts, digital marketing activity, host events, etc.
Other key features include:
- Email send-time optimization.
- Advanced list management and segmentation options.
- Pre-designed customer journeys.
- No daily sending limit.
- Facebook ads.
- Unlimited contacts even with the free plan.
- A/B testing.
- Real-time reporting.
- Heat map reporting.
The only thing they’re lacking in is their templates. While you get to choose from 65 templates, all grouped neatly in categories like ecommerce, events, and more, their design leaves much to be desired.
But all in all, it’s a versatile email marketing service provider with all the advanced features you might require while running your email campaigns.
Cons:
- Email templates need to be more attractive.
Pricing:
Starts at $25/month for 10,000 emails and unlimited contacts. There’s also a free plan that lets you send up to 300 emails/day to unlimited contacts.
2. ActiveCampaign
Best For: All business types, including small, mid-sized, and large enterprises.
G2 Score: 4.6
If there’s one tool that specializes in email marketing, then that is ActiveCampaign. It even came off with flying colors in a head-to-head battle with MailChimp in my in-depth comparison between ActiveCampaign and MailChimp.
It’s a feature-rich email marketing platform used by marketers to help queue and send important emails, reminders, and notifications via mail.
Not only can you save time using mobile-responsive email templates, but you can also send the most relevant emails and attachments, segment and automate the whole sales funnel from top to bottom until someone converts into a customer.
Talking of the sales funnel, they offer over 270 automation workflows that you can use to set up autoresponders, trigger emails, scheduled emails, and more. You can further combine multiple conditions, triggers, and actions to the workflow.
And not just email marketing, you get omnichannel marketing options with SMS marketing, live chat, and Facebook retargeting ads.
On top of that, there’s a full-scale CRM tool that eliminates the need to buy a separate CRM system. The built-in CRM system also streamlines with the automation system and lets you automate follow-ups, notify your team, create tasks, and more.
On the reporting front, the software lets you analyze metrics based on revenue, campaign site tracking, and more.
Other key features include:
- Real-time reporting.
- Send-time optimization.
- Predictive sending and content.
- Integration with WooCommerce, Shopify, and other ecommerce platforms.
- Advanced segmentation options, including lead scoring and the ability to combine email lists, custom fields, and tags.
The only downside I could think of is the lack of a free plan. But to make up for it, ActiveCampaign does offer a reasonably priced starter plan at just $9/month.
Cons:
- Need third-party integration to send transactional emails.
- No freemium plan is available.
Pricing:
Pricing plans start from $9/month for up to 500 subscribers and unlimited email sending.
3. Moosend
Best For: Small-sized businesses and those looking for an affordable email marketing platform.
G2 Score: 4.7
Moosend is a perfect alternative if you’re looking for an affordable email marketing service provider. And surprisingly, they don’t cut any corners when it comes to the features offered despite the low prices.
First, there’s a standard drag-and-drop builder and over 40 mobile-responsive, up-to-date templates.
I’m not knocking it, but the template designs could undoubtedly be better.
You see what I’m talking about?
Other than that, the platform offers top-notch segmentation features, including pre-defined segmentation recommendations and near-unlimited grouping options.
You can also send transactional emails, albeit only with the paid plans.
Finally, manage your subscribers with the CRM and monitor your email campaigns’ overall performance. Plus, you can create personalized subject lines using stored information, make bulk actions, and automate your workflows.
Like most of the tools on this list, Moosend also comes with pre-designed automation workflows for different goals.
Here’s an example of the abandoned cart automation workflow:
You can further customize every aspect of the workflow the way you want or map a journey from scratch.
You can use automation workflows for sending reminders, user onboarding, lead scoring, retaining customers, sending VIP offers, and more.
Their weather-based product recommendations are another bonus. Moosend is all about sending the right message, cross-sell, or upsell to the right person at the right time. So, for example, when it’s cold, people buy more coffee; when it’s sunny, more ice cream and so on.
The platform leverages AI to send these Amazon-like product recommendations based on different conditions and subscribers’ behavioral patterns.
Other key features include:
- Website and user tracking.
- Advanced reporting and real-time analytics.
- Weather-based recommendations.
- Filters and triggers.
- Email heat map analytics.
- Landing pages and countdown timers.
Cons:
- No SMS marketing or live chat option.
- Email templates could be more attractive.
Pricing:
Paid plans start from $8/month for up to 2000 subscribers. The free plan is sufficient for up to 1000 subscribers.
4. Benchmark Email
Best For: SMBs, agencies, and individual bloggers.
G2 Score: 4.1
Benchmark Email is an easy-to-use, all-in-one solution for your email marketing campaigns for ecommerce.
It comes with features like responsive email newsletter templates, landing page templates, custom HTML signup forms, drag-and-drop & WYSIWYG editor, sales & conversion tracking, and more.
You can even edit your pictures within the builder by adjusting colors, adding messages over the images, filters, effects, stickers, and more.
Coming to automation, they provide nine pre-built automation workflows to welcome new subscribers, for abandoned cart recovery, feedback requests, Facebook ad targeting, etc. Or you can map out the workflow from scratch.
You’ll get numerous actions and conditions that you can further add to the workflow. You can also visualize how subscribers interact with your automation funnels every step of the way and make subsequent adjustments.
One of the downsides is that you don’t get automation features with the free plan, aside from basic drip campaigns. For more advanced email automation features like behavioral targeting, pre-built journeys, website tracking, and advanced segmentation, you need to have at least the $13/month plan.
Other than this, you can create landing pages, polls, surveys, and registration forms, etc. On the reporting front, they provide heat map reports, live engagement reports, opens-by-device reports, etc.
Other key features include:
- Email delivery management.
- List management and advanced segmentation.
- Website tracking.
- Google analytics tracking.
- Multilingual customer support.
- Over 1500 third-party integrations.
Considering everything, it’s an email marketing service like any other on the list. There aren’t many advanced automation options or other advanced features, but it still stands on its own, and the fact that it’s reasonably priced is a huge bonus.
Cons:
- No omnichannel marketing options.
- Limited feature set.
Pricing:
Plans start from $13 per month for up to 500 subscribers, and unlimited email sends. The freemium plan also allows 500 subscribers but lets you send only 250 emails per month.
5. HubSpot
Best For: Medium and large businesses looking for a solid CRM and email marketing platform.
G2 Score: 4.4
HubSpot is an acclaimed name and is pretty much synonymous with CRM software and marketing automation. HubSpot also offers email marketing services and helps you personalize and send emails to contacts in your CRM.
They have a library of templates to create beautiful emails and an easy-to-use drag-and-drop email editor.
Note that all these email marketing features are available for free with the Marketing Hub plans as well as the free plans. In addition, the Marketing Hub also provides features like live chat, A/B testing, landing page builder, email reply tracking, and HubSpot’s coveted CRM software.
The software also keeps track of the email subscriber’s lifecycle stage and all the pertinent information in the CRM to help you craft relevant subject lines, CTAs, links, etc.
Syncing with the native CRM software allows you to organize your list, add tags, segments, and more.
Other key features include:
- Dynamic personalization.
- Multi-language content.
- Contact and company scoring.
- Campaign management.
- Contact create attribution.
- Website traffic analysis.
- Salesforce integration.
- Behavioral event triggers and reporting.
- Event-based segmentation.
- Predictive lead scoring.
However, some of these advanced features are only available with the Enterprise plan that costs $3200 per month. This is a hefty price to pay if you only want email marketing features and have no need for other advanced features offered by HubSpot.
Aside from this, they provide an automation builder that lets you map entire workflows and customer journeys. The software comes with pre-built pipelines and lets you choose from multiple actions, conditions, and more.
Cons:
- It’s a tad more expensive than most other email marketing services.
Pricing:
Paid plans start from $45 per month. In addition, there’s a free plan that lets you send 2,000 emails per month.
6. MailChimp
Best For: Best for beginners or companies with a bigger budget.
G2 Score: 4.4
MailChimp is one of the best email marketing tools. In fact, it is used by millions of businesses around the globe.
It’s also one of the first email marketing service providers to offer a drag-and-drop builder. So naturally, their builder and templates are also some of the best on the list.
You get to choose from a list of over 14 layouts and 100 mobile-responsive and attractive templates. However, some of them are only available with the paid plans.
It’s also perfect for beginners since they provide in-app recommendations every step of the way. For instance, the subject line helper gives recommendations to craft a subject line for maximum traction based on best practices.
Other than that, they have near-unlimited automation options and provide customer journeys and an easy-to-use automation workflow editor. Key automation-based features include multiple starting points, the ability to add up to 5 filters, three rules (If/else, Wait, Delay), etc.
Other key features include:
- Advanced real-time reporting.
- Pop-ups and registration form builder.
- Landing page builder and templates.
- Predictive recommendations.
- Analyze your email engagement metrics against your competitors.
- User profiles that give you a complete overview of your subscribers’ journey.
Now, coming to the segmentation and list management, MailChimp could certainly do better in this department.
While you get numerous advanced segmentation features like multiple conditions and pre-built segments, MailChimp doesn’t allow you to add subscribers from different lists to the same campaign.
This is one of the most significant flaws with MailChimp’s list management.
What’s more, if you add a single subscriber to two different lists, you might end up paying twice for that contact.
So, that’s another strike against it.
Nonetheless, it’s a suitable tool for small businesses, startups, or individual freelancers with a small list of up to 2000 subscribers. In that case, you can benefit from most of the features for free.
Cons:
- An inadequate CRM tool.
- The segmentation feature doesn’t let you combine two lists at once.
- Prices increase exponentially with more subscribers.
Pricing:
The initial free plan lets you send up to 10,000 emails/month to up to 2000 subscribers. The paid plans start from $10.46/mo for up to 5,000 emails/mo and 500 contacts.
7. Constant Contact
Best For: Ecommerce stores and event organizers.
G2 Score: 3.9
Constant Contact is not just an email marketing software; they also let you set up your online store and sync it with your email marketing campaigns. They even have a system for social media marketing (including Facebook and Instagram ads) in place.
All these different marketing processes work in sync to help you offer an omnichannel experience to your audience.
There’s a standard drag-and-drop builder and multiple mobile-responsive email templates to choose from. Then, they have standard list-building tools, contact segmentation, trigger-based emails, and more.
However, the builder to create automation workflows isn’t as advanced as other email marketing software. For example, you can’t add multiple actions or conditions, and there’s no way to map out the journey either.
Here’s your very basic automation “builder:”
Other key features include:
- Social media posting and scheduling.
- Shoppable landing pages.
- Event management & marketing.
- The ability to contact lists from Excel, Outlook, Salesforce, or social media.
- Real-time email tracking tools.
- SMS marketing.
- Predicted segments.
- Create polls, surveys, and landing pages.
- The ability to collect and track donations.
- Event creation and tracking with native Eventbrite integration.
While Constant Contact comes with most standard email marketing features, there’s no unique feature to write home about. Plus, you can’t even tag segments based on customer behavior – a feature that’s central to any email marketing software.
Cons:
- You can only test your subject lines with the A/B testing feature. A/B testing also costs extra.
- Outdated templates.
- There’s no freemium plan.
- Behavioral tagging isn’t available.
Pricing:
Paid plans start from $20 per month based on the number of subscribers. While they don’t offer any free plan, you get a 30-day free trial.
8. ConvertKit
Best For: Ecommerce store owners, bloggers, online course builders, or anyone building a personal brand.
G2 Score: 4.4
ConvertKit is a powerful email marketing and automation tool for bloggers and online business owners. You’ll get all email marketing features, including A/B testing, automation, landing pages, sales pages, sign-up forms, and segmentation.
You can welcome new subscribers, run events, sell a service, gather survey results, and more using automated workflows.
Within the workflow, you can tag buyers, set up sales funnels, survey with a click, track purchases, and much more. Setting up the campaigns, workflows, and CTAs, etc., is all quick and easy.
They also claim to provide a delivery rate of 98% and an average open rate of 30%.
However, one of the biggest letdowns is that ConvertKit doesn’t even provide pre-designed email templates. I thought attractive, and mobile-responsive templates were at the heart of any email marketing software?
The following are the only three basic “templates” you’ll get. Or you can create an HTML template on your own.
They do have a visual builder, though, that lets you style your email campaigns any way you want.
If you want to plug in the template, make some minute changes, and quickly send an attractive campaign to your subscribers, then ConvertKit is clearly not for you. On the other hand, if you want to build a personal brand and send simple, text-based emails with an image or two, then it’s a great tool.
Key features include:
- Add tags automatically based on your contacts’ actions.
- Create customizable segments.
- Automated email funnels.
- A/B testing.
- Create unlimited templates.
- Automation funnels to host a webinar and sell a service.
- Smart filters to exclude buyers from product pitches.
Cons:
- ConvertKit doesn’t provide pre-designed email templates.
Pricing:
Paid plans start at $29 per month and let you manage 1,000 subscribers. There’s also a free plan that also enables you to send emails to up to 1000 subscribers per month.
9. Keap
Best For: Large enterprises with ecommerce and sales teams.
G2 Score: 4.1
Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) doesn’t just offer email marketing but also a suite of other essential marketing features. Aside from email marketing, they provide a robust CRM solution, sales automation, customizable campaigns, ecommerce, and analytics.
Key email marketing features include:
- An extensive library of email templates.
- Trigger emails and automated follow-ups.
- Assign specific tasks to team members.
- Manage sales pipelines using the drag and drop interface.
You can also leverage tons of accounting features like invoicing, payment tracking, payment reminders, automatic payment set-up. There are even options to integrate with accounting tools like Quickbooks or Xero.
Note that many advanced accounting and automation features are only available with plans that cost $112/month and above. This is a hefty price to pay, especially considering other more reasonably priced options available on the list.
Cons:
- It’s more expensive than many other email marketing services.
- Steeper learning curve.
- No free plan or free trial period.
Pricing:
Keap starts at $56 per month for up to 500 contacts. There’s no freemium plan or even a free trial.
10. GetResponse
Best For: Businesses of all types and sizes.
G2 Score: 4.2
GetResponse is an all-in-one marketing software that provides a suite of features for email marketing, building landing pages, marketing automation, lead generation, building sales funnels, running paid ads, etc.
Talking of email marketing alone, GetResponse is a flexible email marketing solution that helps you plan, build and manage your email communication strategy.
It offers email templates with drag-and-drop editor tools to help you create engaging newsletters. You also get access to customizable website pop-ups, autoresponders, and other features so that you can give your audience what they want: more relevant messages at the time of their choosing.
Key email marketing features include:
- Automated email follow-ups and workflows.
- Design and schedule action-based, automated emails.
- Send-time optimization with Time Travel delivery tools.
- Share your blog posts via email automatically.
- Enhance your email campaigns with free GIFs and stock images.
- Custom segments & dynamic content.
What’s more, you can make your emails shoppable by integrating with your existing ecommerce store. GetResponse will pull the products on its own from your store and even recommend relevant products to your subscribers.
Cons:
- Limited email automation functionality.
Pricing:
Paid plans start from $15 per month for up to 1000 subscribers. There’s only a 30-day free trial, no freemium plan.
11. MailerLite
Best For: Small businesses, startups, marketers, and freelancers working on a budget.
G2 Score: 4.7
MailerLite is touted as one of the top MailChimp alternatives since their pricing plans are similar, especially their freemium plans.
Just like its counterpart, MailerLite also has a freemium plan that allows you to send up to 12,000 emails/month to up to 1000 subscribers. However, MailChimp ups the ante by letting you cater to up to 2000 subscribers in its freemium plan (and send 10,000 emails/month).
However, MailerLite’s paid plans have more to offer than MailChimp – starting from allowing up to 1000 subscribers and unlimited email sends per month at $10 per month.
Coming to the email marketing features, they come with the usual drag-and-drop builder and email templates.
You can also build landing pages, registration forms, manage subscribers, leverage advanced segmentation, create automated workflows based on different goals and scenarios, and more – even with MailerLite’s free plan.
Other key email marketing features include:
- Auto resend.
- Deliver by time zone.
- Click maps.
- Track all essential email marketing metrics.
- Built-in photo editing.
- A/B testing.
Cons:
- Limited third-party integrations.
Pricing:
Paid plans start at $10 per month.
That’s a Wrap.
Each email marketing software has its unique features, making it an ideal choice for some businesses and worse suited for others. It’s not about which one is the best or fits into particular criteria, but about what’s better for your business.
For example, if you are a startup or a small business working on a tight budget and have a small email list, then MailerLite or MailChimp may be the better option. But if you are a big organization, then GetResponse or ActiveCampaign can be great email marketing platforms.
And if you want to send transactional emails for free, you might want to try Sendinblue. It’s also the only software on this list to allow unlimited subscribers with all of its plans.
Review all these services carefully and choose the one that aligns the best with your requirements and budget.