With more than half of the world’s population using email, the power and reach of email marketing remain undisputed. By definition, however, it involves scale, meaning that you would need to trust your email marketing efforts into a software solution. But how do you find the best email marketing software for your needs? We’ve done the legwork, compiling a list of the best of the best, backed by our extensive methodology and a short but useful buying guide. Read on to know more!
Given the multitude of email marketing platforms catering to different business needs, we needed a list of very specific criteria to make our premium selection. Read on to learn what we took into consideration — our requirements will also aid you in choosing the right email marketing software for your business needs.
One of the key elements of successful software of any kind is its UI and ease of use. As email marketing can be a complex task, the best email marketing platforms need to have a simple and clean interface and a good overview of all the options and features. In the case of more complicated but feature-rich mass email marketing software, we made sure that they came with helpful guides and courses to counter the learning curve.
Any software is as good as its features, and email marketing solutions are no exception. Below, we’ve listed the features that we took into consideration when evaluating the platforms, from basics such as email builder to more complex functionalities like A/B testing.
The main feature to consider when looking for email automation software is how well the email builder is made. It should be easy to utilize and have an intuitive interface to make setting up emails as easy as a breeze.
A good automation platform needs a lot of templates available to the users since the needs of business marketers might differ greatly from person to person. The best email marketing tool would have a template for each possible situation.
Email autoresponders, along with other types of automation, are a useful feature of email campaign software — they save time, and when used correctly, nurture customer relationships. That’s why we made sure that the solutions on our list of top email marketing software feature autoresponders.
Various trackers, such as email tracker, website visitor tracker, revenue tracker, deal tracker, call tracker feature, and so on, are proven to help users boost their success and improve sales strategies. Along with these trackers come various reports and analytics needed to give users insight into their work success.
Good customer relationship management, or CRM for short, is also considered one of the key elements to a successful business. While in some cases using full-blown CRM platforms is the better choice, we made sure that all the automated email marketing software listed here come with strong CRM functionalities.
Marketing segmentation is a helpful process for ecommerce salespeople; that’s why we sought software that has list segmentation and timeline segmentation tools for the better organization of marketing campaigns.
Split testing, or A/B testing, is an important user experience research method and tool that gives accurate analyses of user engagement, helping it improve, along with reducing things such as various risks and bounce rates. That’s why it should be featured in the best email marketing tools.
Many email marketing campaign software offer page builders to their clients. With them, you can make your own websites and landing pages and some even let you make ads for Facebook and other websites.
Even the best email marketing platform can have a glitch. That’s why it’s important to have reliable assistance that can help you through it. So, as part of our selection process, we also evaluated the customer support that comes with these solutions, to make sure that you have someone to help you out, should you run into technical trouble.
While making our selection, we wanted to make sure that our own experience with the different platforms was not the exception but the rule. That’s why we went through multiple email marketing software reviews, looking for any repeating issues. We also evaluated how vendors respond to negative user feedback.
Naturally, the best bulk email software is the one you can afford. For that reason, we listed both cheaper and more expensive solutions and made sure to include some platforms with a free version for entrepreneurs on a tight budget. In any case, we made sure that all the solutions on our list offer good value for your potential investment.
Campaigner is an excellent fit for ecommerce marketers, thanks to its multiple features focused on segmentation and personalization. While less tech-savvy marketers might find it slightly difficult to navigate, Campaigner offers plenty of courses and onboarding to accommodate both up-and-coming and veteran industry professionals.
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Cons
Campaigner regularly ranks among the best email automation software, as a dependable platform with many useful features.
The email design features of this platform are exceptionally well-made, with a drag-and-drop email builder and more than 900 templates available. Apart from these features, Campaigner offers a lot of automation tools, automation workflow, and many trackers and analytics.
The software’s personalization features are nothing short of amazing, with advanced segmentation being among the most helpful. Along with those, some of the additional interesting features on Campaigner are forms and landing pages, geolocation, and API access. Due to the complexity and number of features, Campaigner also has many insightful online courses to help new users navigate the platform better.
One downside we found is that Campaigner’s email marketing automation software does not offer a free version. The vendor, however, offers four pricing plans that all suit different needs. The starter plan costs $59/month and offers the basics, the essential plan starts from $179/month, while the advanced pricing plan comes in at $649. The vendor also has a special ecommerce plan with a starting price of $79.95/month. A free trial is available for all plans for those who wish to try this software out before deciding.
Our email marketing software comparison continues with GetResponse which makes a good fit for businesses of any size. With multiple features, a functional free version, and reasonably-priced premium packages, GetResponse is an excellent choice regardless of where you are just starting out or scaling up your email marketing efforts.
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As one of the best email marketing automation software, GetResponse has a lot to offer to its buyers, depending on the plan they choose to get. Apart from having both email and SMS marketing tools, the website also offers great marketing automation, as well as web push notifications. This platform’s integrated website builder is also a nice touch.
In addition, GetResponse has both basic and advanced segmentation features, ecommerce segmentation, landing pages, integrations and API, and many more tools that are sure to boost your revenue and profits.
This relatively cheap email marketing software has a free plan available for marketers on a budget, however, it only covers up to 500 contacts and one landing page. Other than that, the website has three other pricing plans: the email marketing plan which starts at $15.58/month for 1,000 contacts, the marketing automation plan starting at $48.38/month, and finally, the ecommerce marketing plan for $97.58/month.
In case you aren’t sure whether any of these plans are the right choice for your business, this business email marketing software comes with a free trial for 30 days which will help you make up your mind about this email marketing app.
Moosend is often used by larger-scale companies given its unlimited emails that come with all pricing plans, making this solution incredibly cost-effective. It’s no wonder then that the vendor counts the likes of Vogue, Sephora, Gucci, and GQ magazine among its clients, with its quality features such as CRM, automation, and segmentation features often have the upper hand over other email marketing automation software.
Pros
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Features
Although Moosend doesn’t have features such as a website or page builder, it makes up for that by having other tools that are highly useful for email automation, enabling you to set up high-quality marketing emails and newsletters.
Moosend’s powerful tracker, report, and analytics features make this bulk email marketing software an incredibly valuable tool in expanding your business and developing new and improved business strategies. It offers custom reports, which give you only the relevant data for your business or team.
Apart from that, the website has CRM and segmentation features that will help you manage your audiences. These features are often considered key to successful marketing plans.
This CRM and email marketing software does not have a free plan, but it does offer a free trial period of 30 days that requires no credit card and features unlimited emails and automation workflows. The platform has two other plans: the pro plan starting at $9/month for up to 500 subscribers, and a custom, enterprise plan with an account manager and priority support whose price is available upon request.
MailerLite is one of the best email marketing software for small business owners, as well as individual marketers, bloggers, and solo entrepreneurs. This platform is available both as a free product and budget-friendly, yet worthwhile paid plans. Although this software is a common choice for small businesses, companies of any size could benefit from MailerLite’s features.
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The features which make this one of the best software for email marketing are the website and blog builder, along with the newsletter editor, which let you personalize your content to suit your marketing style. The fact that MailerLite has a user-friendly UI and it’s easy to navigate only makes the platform more attractive.
In addition, MailerLite is an excellent choice for making landing pages, along with the custom landing page and newsletter designs at the highest pricing tier. The paid plans also have an unlimited number of monthly emails, as well as templates that users can utilize to make their content better.
MailerLite has a free version for its users which makes it possibly the best email marketing software for nonprofits that are looking to save every cent, though the features of this plan are somewhat limited: most notably, you cannot use templates. For those with some money to spend, the platform has three paid plans, starting with the growing business plan at $9/month, an advanced plan for $19/month, and the enterprise plan for large organizations with special requirements, whose pricing is available upon request.
This Indian company has been rapidly expanding in recent years, and its automation software quickly became one of the most popular ones among ecommerce marketers. It’s therefore an excellent ecommerce email marketing software solution for small ventures, as many of its tools are aimed towards improving marketing strategies and helping small companies quickly reach a bigger audience.
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Part of the larger Zoho family, Zoho Campaigns offers fantastic and original templates in its email builder tool, which makes it a breath of fresh air among rivals.
While some users find the platform’s interface challenging, Zoho Campaigns’ powerful automation tools and A/B testing make it worth the effort. Additionally, you have tracking and workflow automation tools to further streamline your email marketing operations.
This cheap email automation software has a forever free tier with some of the basic but useful tools and options, covering 6,000 monthly emails to 2,000 contacts. In addition to that, there is the standard pricing plan which costs only $3/month, and a professional plan which starts at $4.50/month. Both plans are billed annually. This marketing email software also offers users the option to buy credits for email campaigns without a subscription.
HubSpot is CRM email marketing software mainly used by small businesses and ecommerce marketers. If you are in search of a powerful CRM tool that has other great automation options along with it, this might be the right software for you or your company. This platform is focused not only on tracking various parameters, but also on optimizing your marketing experience and helping you improve your marketing strategies.
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Cons
The main focus of this bulk email marketing software is on optimization, helping you automate your marketing and increase your engagement across many other channels as well. It has the A/B testing feature, which is a highly valued tool for increasing user engagement.
Marketing automation of forms and emails are the core feature of this software, along with various trackers, reports, and analytics for your marketing data.
This software’s interface is not as user-friendly compared to some alternatives, but don’t let that discourage you — HubSpot provides content available in multiple languages, in order to make even non-native English speakers feel more comfortable using the platform.
HubSpot is one of the priciest automated email marketing software out there. The starter pricing plan costs $45/month for up to 1,000 contacts, while the price of the more advanced plans has a steep expense curve. The professional plan goes up to $800/month for 2,000 contacts, and the enterprise plan is $3,200/month for the same contact number. However, HubSpot does have some basic tools which marketers can use for free.
Those looking to start with email automation and get themselves or their business such a software will be quite content with SendInBlue, which makes good email marketing software for small business purposes. The software is budget-friendly and offers great services for those in need of CRM tools and automation for their marketing.
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Cons
Due to its powerful automation tools and CRM features which you can use even with the free plan, SendInBlue has been named one of the top 100 software companies in 2021, and rightfully remains one of the best email marketing software.
It has both email and SMS marketing automation features, along with the email API and a live chat option which many find very useful. In the more advanced pricing plans, the tools include not only CRM but also A/B testing, as well as landing pages and the option to make Facebook ads, which can significantly improve your marketing reach.
Apart from that, the more advanced your pricing plan, the more users will have access to the software, which can prove practical for larger marketing teams.
The SendInBlue email and text marketing software does have a free plan, but its features are very limited. It is useful mostly for trying out the software before choosing one of the paid plans. The other plans are the lite plan which costs $25/month, a premium plan which comes in at $65/month, and the enterprise plan where you need to contact the vendor for the exact price and the features that come with it.
This platform caters well to the marketing needs of businesses of any size. It’s a great tool for expanding your reach and earning potential customers, as it has all the tools you need for boosting your sales and making eye-catching emails and newsletters. As one of the best email marketing software on the market, it has an impressive template library in which you will be able to find any kind of template you want.
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Omisend comes packed with multiple features that even free plan users can take advantage of.
The software boasts a rich template library, along with good automation, workflows, and segmentation features. A/B testing is available to free plan users, which is unusual for most mass email marketing software.
Other than that, there are many reports with which you can get helpful insights for your marketing, although advanced reports are only available with the highest pricing tier. The software also has live chat support available, but if you’re using the free plan, you only have the option of using the email customer support.
Omnisend has a free plan, with significantly more features than a lot of competitors. The other pricing plans include the standard plan which costs $16/month and the pro plan which you can get for $59/month. Both of the paid plans come with some good additional features, such as advanced reports and live chat.
Another top email marketing software, ActiveCampaign, is mainly used by businesses and companies which seek to utilize automations to their maximum potential, by increasing their reach, engagement with their audience and customers, and revenue. It can also be good for beginners in email marketing automation on account of the user-friendly interface.
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ActiveCampaign has highly convenient email marketing and transactional email marketing automation. The CRM feature of this B2C and B2B email marketing software is also available to users, albeit not with the most basic plan. Segmentation, another important feature for ecommerce marketers, meanwhile is available even with this plan.
Other features of this software include landing pages, website personalization, custom reports, and templates. Though the sheer number of features might be overwhelming, the vendor offers guides to help the users out.
Although ActiveCampaign’s email automation software has no free plan, it does have a free trial of 14 days. There are four plans on this website: the basic, Lite plan which costs $29/month, the plus plan at $49/month, the professional pricing plan you can get for $149/month, and the enterprise plan with prices available upon request. You can also choose which business type you want to consider plans for, with options including B2B, B2C, and ecommerce.
All of these marketing automation products have a lot going for them, however, it’s important to know how to choose the right one for your business, as every marketer has a unique set of needs.
As we have seen so far, many of these solutions are suitable for all sorts of businesses and company sizes, however, there are platforms that are better for smaller or bigger businesses, depending on their features and pricing plans. So, consider the size of your business, taking into account any plans for scaling up, and eliminate all of the automated email marketing software that won’t be appropriate size-wise
Choosing the right features for your marketing strategy is vital to improving your engagement and business success. Generally, having features such as A/B testing, segmentation, and CRM are considered to be the most useful in email marketing, but a large number of marketers puts live chat, templates, and trackers, and reports high on the list of priorities.
It can be somewhat challenging to choose the best email marketing software plan for yourself, as many have a vast number of features that come with specific plans. It is best to check each plan individually and compare them to your list of prioritized features so that you can see which pricing plan checks off most of the boxes on your list. Once you do this, choosing the right software will be a piece of cake.