IN-DEPTH REVIEWS OF THE BEST EMAIL MARKETING SERVICE PROVIDERS FOR 2021
Email is one of the most powerful tools at your business’s disposal.
It can drive engagement and build relationships. Email campaigns also deliver a higher ROI than every other type of marketing category. Set up your emails properly, and it can be extremely lucrative.
But to have a successful email marketing strategy, you need to find the best email marketing service. That helps you manage your subscribers, content, and campaigns.
Most email marketing services will have similar features. That’s why finding the best email marketing software for your business or website can be difficult.
What makes one email platform better than others?
Throughout my career, I’ve managed multiple email lists with more than 100,000 subscribers and used about every email marketing tool in existence. I know what it takes to run successful email marketing campaigns, and I know which software will get the job done.
Whether you’re starting a new email list from scratch or looking to switch to a new provider, this guide will help you find the best email marketing service for your situation.
Top 05 Best Email Marketing Services
#1. Constant Contact – Most Beginner-Friendly Email Builder
Constant Contact is a great platform we recommend to those of you who are newer to the email marketing world.
That’s because of their intuitive drag-and-drop email builder. It allows you to easily create new emails that look good and on-brand—no coding knowledge needed. Adding text, image, video, coupons, polls, and events to any message is simple and straightforward.
It couples excellently with their more than 100 pre-built, mobile-optimized templates.
With Constant Contact, you can track the results of your campaigns in real-time. You’ll see everything from open rates to click-through rates, as well as data for each individual subscriber.
Automation is a key benefit of Constant Contact. You can trigger welcome messages for new subscribers and set up drip campaigns based on their actions.
Constant Contact offers a 60-day free trial, which is one of the best offers you’ll find in the industry.
Pricing for Constant Contact’s email software is straightforward. There are two plans for you to choose from—Email and Email Plus.
Like most email marketing platforms, your rate will be based on the number of subscribers on your list.
Here’s what some of the prices look like for each plan:
- 0 – 500 Subscribers — Starting at $20 per month
- 501 – 2,500 Subscribers — Starting at $45 per month
- 2,501 – 5,000 Subscribers — Starting at $65 per month
- 5,001 – 10,000 Subscribers — Starting at $95 per month
Email Plus
- 0 – 500 Subscribers — Starting at $45 per month
- 501 – 2,500 Subscribers — Starting at $70 per month
- 2,501 – 5,000 Subscribers — Starting at $95 per month
- 5,001 – 10,000 Subscribers — Starting at $125 per month
These tiers continue all the way up 50,000. Once you eclipse 10,000 subscribers, you’ll automatically be upgraded to the Email Plus plan.
For basic and professional emails, the cheaper plan will be fine. But for those of you who want to get the most out of your email campaigns, I highly recommend Email Plus.
This plan comes with more advanced features like subject line A/B testing, dynamic content, and automated behavioral campaigns. You’ll also get access to personalized demographic data, coupons, polls, and surveys. Learn more and sign up for free at Constant Contact.
#2. Sendinblue – Best for Growing Your List
Sendinblue offers a fully-automated email marketing solution for growing businesses.
That means if you’re just beginning your business and looking to grow your list (and your sales), Sendinblue is a top contender.
They offer a combination of drag-and-drop editors along with automation to optimize your email marketing campaigns.
They also offer a host of lead nurturing tools to help you grow even more including:
- Landing pages. Create actionable and engaging web pages to collect leads for you.
- Sign up forms. Place forms anywhere on your website to get user information.
- Facebook ads. Leverage the power of Facebook marketing to nurture more leads.
- Retargeted ads. Powerful ads based on a user’s previous online interactions.
With all this, Sendinblue helps cultivate audience, lead, and customer growth.
The platform is available via a fantastic free plan that gives you unlimited contacts and up to 300 emails per day. That’s a pretty great deal—especially if you’re running a bootstrap startup or solo operation.
Their email builder is incredibly intuitive with a drag-and-drop editor allowing you to easily create the look and feel of your email.
They currently offer four different pricing tiers:
Free — 0$ per month
- Up to 300 emails per day
- Unlimited contacts
- Chat
- SMS marketing
- Email template library
Lite — $25 per month
- Up to 100k emails
- No daily sending limit
- A/B testing
- Remove the Sendinblue logo
Premium (Most popular) — $65 per month
- Up to 1MM emails
- Marketing automation
- Facebook ads
- Retargeted ads
- Landing pages
- Telephone support
Enterprise — Customized pricing
- Customized email volume
- 20+ landing pages
- Customer success manager
- Access for 10+ users
- Dedicated IP
The Lite plans should be more than enough for most small businesses and startups.
However, as your business scales, the Premium option is always a great option. That comes with even more marketing features such as Facebook and retargeted ads, along with telephone support.
Try Sendinblue today
#3. MailerLite – Simplest Email Marketing Service
MailerLite offers all of the essentials with none of the fat.
It’s a great option for anyone who wants a straightforward email marketing service. You’re a creator who doesn’t need a ton of bells and whistles. You just need the tools to start your newsletter or send emails—and do so well.
It’s also nice for teams. Nobody is going to be intimidated by this platform, which means everyone is going to use the core features at their disposal.
The platform still offers tools for automation, landing pages, pop-ups, and surveys, so it’s not like you’re extremely limited. But even the UI for each one is fairly spartan and straightforward.
MailerLite has a drag-and-drop editor, which makes it easy for anyone to design a high-quality message. Segment your subscribers to enhance personalization and optimize your campaigns with features like A/B testing.
I’d recommend MailerLite for those of you who want simple email software at an affordable rate.
Here’s a look at the price points for MailerLite:
- Up to 1,000 subscribers — $10 per month
- 1,001 – 2,500 subscribers — $15 per month
- 2,501 – 5,000 subscribers — $30 per month
- 5,001 – 10,000 subscribers — $50 per month
- 10,001 – 15,000 subscribers — $75 per month
- 15,001 – 20,000 subscribers — $100 per month
- 20,001 – 25,000 subscribers — $120 per month
- 25,001 – 30,000 subscribers — $140 per month
The pricing tiers continue to rise at about $20-$40 per 10,000 subscribers. MailerLite offers a 30% discount if you sign up for annual billing, making it one of the most affordable options on our list.
There is a free plan for up to 1,000 subscribers, but you’re limited to just 12,000 emails per month, and you don’t get every feature. You can use this option as an extended free trial when you’re just starting out. Learn more and try Mailerlite for free.
#4. HubSpot – Best for Automated Email Marketing
Hubspot is the king of marketing automation–so it’s no surprise they offer a fantastic email marketing solution.
They allow you to quickly and easily create, personalize, and optimize your emails without the need for designers or IT.
Where their software really shines is in the automated workflows. This allows you to easily set triggers for your email subscribers and nurture the leads into customers (or whatever else you want them to do).
The software’s handy mapping tool allows you to visualize this as well for greater clarity and easy optimization.
Think of it as a choose-your-own-adventure journey that you set for your subscribers. Depending on the specific actions they take, you can have them branch off to experience different, targeted things via email.
The email marketing service is just one tool in the Swiss Army Knife that is Hubspot. It can stand alone or be used in tandem with their other offerings such as Marketing Hub and their CRM. Your email marketing only becomes stronger when coupled with those products too.
They also have plenty of premade email templates to help you out. With their drag-and-drop builder, you’ll be able to create great emails with no coding or development knowledge needed.
HubSpot is simple to use and allows you to customize your layout, add calls-to-action and images, and modify your content and colors to match your brand.
Use their advanced personalization tools to personalize your emails in order to boost your open and clickthrough rates with ease. You can use any information in an email subscriber’s contact records to automatically serve up the most relevant subject lines, content, links, attachments, and calls-to-action.
Their A/B testing tool is top notch. Use it and dive into the in-depth analytics after you send your emails to see which performed better—and why.
Use this data to determine which subject lines get the most opens and the content and calls-to-action that will earn you more sales. You can also leverage this with landing pages and signup forms to accurately get a sense of ROI of email campaigns.
The HubSpot email tool is free for up to 2,000 email sends per month, with upgrade solutions starting at $50/month.
Join HubSpot for free to create and send email campaigns that look professionally designed and display perfectly across any device—all by yourself.
#5. Moosend – Best for AI-Powered Ecommerce Sales
Moosend offers an email marketing solution no matter if you’re a complete beginner or if you’re a seasoned pro.
From their easy drag-and-drop email builder, to their easy segmentation tool, to their accurate real-time analytics, they have all the features you need to nail your email marketing campaigns.
Our favorite thing about Moosend is their ecommerce AI. It leverages machine learning and collaborative filtering to target customers with products they might like based on the shopping habits of similar customers.
You’ll also be able to easily cross sell based on customer shopping habits, and keep track of how often they buy certain products (e.g. perishables) so you can regularly promote the products they need to them when they need it.
I haven’t seen any other email marketing service do this. But it has the potential to really help out the newer ecommerce business looking to level up their targeting and segmentation game.
Moosend also does the basics of email marketing very well. Their advanced personalization features allows you to create emails unique for your target customer. Their segmentation tool allows you to spit your audience by purchasing behavior, cart abandoned products, and more.
They don’t offer that many themes with just 40 responsive themes to choose from. However, they’re all highly customizable and eye-catching.
Pricing starts free with their premium plans starting at $8 per month. More detailed information is below:
Free — $0/month
- Unlimited emails
- Signup and subscription forms
- Reporting and analytics
- No credit card required
Pro — $8/month
- Landing pages
- Transactional emails
- Phone support
- SMTP server
- 5 team members
Enterprise — Custom pricing
- Custom reporting
- Dedicated account manager
- SSO & SAML
- On-boarding and migration
- 10 team members
- Service-level agreement
How to Find the Best Email Marketing Service for You
The best available email marketing service is going to be unique to you. After all, the multi-million dollar info product business is going to have very different needs than the humble blogger.
But there are specific factors that we took into consideration, because we believe that they tend to be the most important ones for most businesses.
I’ll break down the details of our process for making this list and explain what matters, what doesn’t, and what you need to know to find the best option for you.
Use our methodology to help guide your ultimate decision.
Easy Automation
There’s nothing quite like the “set it and forget it” approach to business.
When an email marketing service is automated, you don’t have to worry about making sure that each and every one of your new subscribers is in the right sales funnel. Once you’ve set it up, they’ll receive the emails they should receive automatically.
That’s why you want to find an email marketing service that will let you easily set up automated emails without a lot of fuss and complex tagging schemes.
Constant Contact is a standout when it comes to automating emails. It lets you trigger welcome messages for any new subscribers and put them into specific drip campaigns depending on their actions. The simple design allows you to do this easily, too, with no headaches involved.
GetResponse is another option to definitely consider if automation is your game. Its Autofunnel platform allows you to easily create fully automated sales, leads, and webinar funnels in just a few clicks.
