Marketing automation is critical for every business. Automation reduces costs and increases efficiency. And email marketing has one of the highest ROIs out of all marketing automation platforms.
But with so many email marketing services available, it is challenging to decide which to use for you. In this review, we’ve outlined the best email marketing services based on two factors:
- Cost – Most email marketing platforms determine the price based on the size of your list (how many subscribers) and the sophistication of features. Simply put, your cost will increase as you add more advanced automation features and subscribers. However, most email marketing tools will come with a free plan.
- Functionality – The best email marketing service for you depends on your industry, business size, unique needs, and advanced marketing features.
No matter which email service provider you select, investing in email marketing tools is a worthwhile investment for every marketer.
Table of Contents
Why does email marketing matter?
Running email marketing campaigns manually is difficult. Enter marketing automation.
You need to track who unsubscribed, bounced, and opened each email. And gather leads from landing pages and pop-ups. Then, upload those leads to your newsletter or lead nurturing system.
Email marketing platforms automate all of these tasks for you. And they do it much better than you can on your own. This is why email marketing platforms are a valuable asset for every marketer.
There are many reasons why email is a wise investment for marketers.
Here are a few statistics that speak to the effectiveness of email.
- In 2019, an estimated 3.9 billion email users─half the world’s population. That figure is set to grow to 4.3 billion in 2023.
- With an ROI of 4200%, you could earn $42 for every $1 you spend on email marketing.
- Every day, 99% of consumers check their email. In fact, consumers prefer to get marketing offers through email over other channels.
What is an email marketing service?
An email marketing service is a platform that helps you create and send mass emails. The best email marketing services will automate your email campaigns and provide valuable insights into your subscribers.
Email marketing software makes it easy to manage your contact lists, design beautiful newsletters, and track the performance of your email campaigns. All of this can be done from one central location.
You can automate tasks like welcome emails, lead nurturing, sales follow-ups, and more with advanced email marketing automation features.
And the best email marketing platforms will also provide valuable insights into the behavior of your subscribers. This data can be used to improve the effectiveness of your email campaigns.
What are the best email marketing services for marketers?
1. ConvertKit – Best email marketing software for marketers, online course creators, creatives, and bloggers
2. Sendinblue – Best for advanced features on a budget
3. AWeber – Best for easy email designs
4. Constant Contact – Best for small businesses and nonprofits that are just getting started
5. GetResponse – Best for creating sales funnels and landing pages
6. ActiveCampaign – Best overall for deliverability, advanced features, and metrics
7. Moosend – Best email marketing service for beginners
8. Sendpulse – Best for managing email, text, and social media channels
9. Drip – Ideal for e-commerce businesses with sophisticated marketing funnels
10. Hubspot – Best for marketers and larger companies with CRMs
Best email marketing solutions for marketers
ConvertKit
ConvertKit was created by a creator for creators. In 2013, Nathan Barry built ConvertKit, an email marketing platform that focuses on helping bloggers and creatives build their communities.
Today, thought leaders like Tim Ferriss and Pat Flynn use ConvertKit and consider the platform one of the best email marketing service providers on the market.
The email marketing platform is a favorite for self-employed marketers, bloggers, and creators because it’s easy to create automation and sell digital products as an alternative revenue stream.
It is ideal if you’re considering adding online courses, newsletters, ebooks, and other paid resources to your marketing efforts.
Standout features
- Customizable email templates
- Advanced automation features
- Landing page builder and signup forms
- Option to monetize your newsletter through paid subscribers
- Ability to create and sell digital products, content, and courses.
Pricing
ConvertKit has a free version that allows you to sell your digital products. The free version is limited to 1,000 subscribers.
Once you have over 1,000 subscribers, you’ll need to purchase a monthly or yearly plan.
There are two paid options: Creator and Creator Pro. The paid plans start at $29/month and increase based on the number of subscribers.
The price can be high if you have a list over 100K, but the Pro plan includes advanced reporting, all the tools, and a newsletter referral system.
We use ConvertKit for our Marketer to Consultant newsletter.
Sendinblue
Sendinblue has some powerful email marketing features on a budget. Sendinblue also plays well with other tools and platforms and can easily integrate with WordPress. This feature makes it easy to create landing pages on your website.
You can also track email contacts that visit your website and create personalized automated email sequences based on their actions.
SendInBlue is an email marketing tool with many integrations like Shopify, WooCommerce, and Elementor, making it one of the most versatile options to support your marketing efforts.
Standout features
- Advanced features on a budget
Pricing
Sendinblue has a free plan with unlimited contacts. However, it limits some features, like automated emails, to 2,000 contacts and sets a daily limit of 300 emails per day.
There are 3 paid plans–Lite, Premium, and Enterprise. The Lite option starts at $25/month and will work for most growing businesses.
Like many other email marketing services, Sendinblue’s plan prices increase when you have more subscribers and add on more advanced features.
AWeber
AWeber is a popular email marketing service because it’s user-friendly with lots of design templates. Their drag and drop builder is among the most useful compared to other email marketing providers.
If you’re like most marketers that use Canva for your designs, then you’ll like the Canva feature inside AWeber. The email marketing platform allows users to create Canva designs without leaving AWeber.
Standout features
- An easy-to-use drag and drop editor
Pricing
AWeber has a free plan with a limit of 500 email subscribers. The paid plan starts at $16/month and goes up from there.
Constant Contact
Many nonprofits and small businesses in their early stages choose Constant Contact because it is easy to get started and has affordable pricing.
One of the benefits of using Constant Contact is that you can easily create a website for your business if you don’t already have one.
Constant Contact has a 24/7 live chat and phone support, a helpful resource for beginners. Their support team also has in-house marketing advisors that can assist you.
Standout features
- Live customer support
- Budget-friendly
Pricing
Constant Contact does not have a free plan option but a long 60-day free trial period. They also give a 30% discount to nonprofits on select plan options. They have a standalone website builder and three paid email marketing plans that start at $20/month.
GetResponse
As its name suggests, GetResponse is designed to help businesses get customer responses. GetResponse shines at creating automated sales and lead funnels.
The email marketing platform does this with impressive features like prebuilt automated funnel templates, automated product recommendations, and unlimited landing pages.
Its Conversion Funnel feature takes the work out of creating lead generation and sales funnels so that you can use it with little to no previous experience. It also has a webinar builder that you can use to host webinar events, manage marketing, and capture leads.
Standout features
- Pre-built and automated sales funnels
Pricing
There is no free plan, but there is a 30-day free trial. The Basic Plan starts at $15/month for 1,000 subscribers and goes up based on subscriber numbers.
Moosend
Moosend’s email marketing software is targeted at beginners. Like Constant Contact, Moosend has live chat and phone support to assist customers.
It has all the basic email needs for most small businesses, but its unique and low-cost personalization features to set it apart from other platforms.
Moosend makes it easy for e-commerce businesses to recommend relevant products to customers based on their past purchases or purchases from similar audiences.
Standout features
- Budget-friendly
- Customized product recommendations
Pricing
There is a free plan option. If you have more than 1,000 subscribers, you’ll have to upgrade to the paid Pro plan starting at $8/month.
ActiveCampaign
When it comes to email marketing services, ActiveCampaign is a powerhouse. It regularly ranks in the top one or two spots for deliverability, so you don’t have to worry about emails not reaching subscribers’ inboxes.
Overall, it has all the features that marketers could need for their email marketing and then some.
ActiveCampaign is designed for any industry or size (e-commerce, B2C, B2B, enterprise). Plus, it has the most sophisticated automation features.
Its automation features include the basics and automated chatbots that help with customer support and relationship building.
With so many features, it can be overwhelming for beginners. There is a bit of a learning curve to get started. Once you are familiar, there is little that you can’t do with the platform, from omnichannel marketing to sales automation.
Standout features
- Top of the line automation and reporting features
- Automated chatbots
Pricing
There is a 14-day free trial and four paid plans: Lite, Plus, Professional, and Enterprise. The Lite plan starts at $15/month for 500 subscribers.
It is expensive in comparison to other email marketing platforms. If you don’t need every feature out there, consider other options.
SendPulse
Founded in 2015, SendPulse is a relative newcomer. SendPulse is billed as a multichannel marketing platform, so it does more than just email marketing.
SendPules is one of the marketing tools designed for busy marketers that helps them send emails and easily manage SMS marketing and social media marketing.
Chatbots are a helpful perk. You can have chatbots for Instagram, Whatsapp, Facebook, and Telegram.
You can also link your marketing channels together to create targeted messages based on customer behaviors.
Standout features
- SMS campaigns and notifications
- Social media chatbots
Pricing
The free plan option is limited to 500 subscribers. From there, there are three paid plans. The Standard starts at $8/month, increasing as your subscriber list grows.
It limits features like landing pages and automation workflows. For example, you can only have three landing pages with the Standard plan. If you need more functionality and automation features, it’s not an ideal choice.
Drip
E-commerce businesses have a unique set of email marketing needs. It can often take a lot of experimentation and learning to build up an effective email marketing strategy.
Luckily, Drip is an email marketing software created for e-commerce businesses. The company Drip gets its name from drip marketing.
Drip marketing sends your customers drip campaigns or automated messages at a specific time and based on specific actions. For example, when a customer provides their birthday, you can easily schedule to send them a custom happy birthday message, gift, or special offer.
Features like abandoned carts and automated product recommendations can be found on other platforms. However, Drip takes its options a step further.
Drip’s intuitive interface helps you understand what your customer data means so that you can create campaigns that convert to sales. When a shopper views a product, you can trigger an automated email that follows up with the product and includes similar product recommendations.
It also features pre-built email workflows set up specifically with e-commerce in mind.
Standout features
- E-commerce specific features and reporting
- Personalized, automated emails based on customer behavior
Pricing
Drip offers a free 14-day trial. There is one paid plan option based on your number of email contacts. The paid plan starts at $19/month and increases as you get more email contacts.
HubSpot
HubSpot’s founders built it for marketers. However, businesses of all sizes use it. Since it was built with inbound marketing, it has some powerful analytics.
For email, you can see if a subscriber read your email or just skimmed or glanced.
The metric can signal what your subscribers care about and help you hone your content to be more engaging.
HubSpot serves as a hub for all your marketing and advertising campaigns. You can track the ROI of email campaigns, SEO, website analytics, blogs, and more through the platform.
Standout features
- All-in-one dashboard to manage marketing and ad campaigns
- Sign-up forms and landing pages
- Advanced CRM tools and free marketing resources
Pricing
HubSpot has a 14-day free trial but no free plans. It’s one of the more expensive platforms, with the paid Starter Plan priced at $45/month with 1,000 contacts. The contacts include email and other marketing contacts. Their Professional Plan jumps up to $800/month with 2,000 contacts.
If you have many marketing campaigns and channels to manage, then HubSpot may be your best email marketing tool. Otherwise, you can satisfy most of your business needs with other email marketing services at a fraction of the cost.
Wrapping up – Best Email Marketing Services for Marketing Consultants
Email marketing is more than just another marketing channel. It gives marketers more control over the content they share with their community.
Picking the best email marketing solution can help you generate sales, maximize ROI, and build strong relationships with your customers and clients.
The best email marketing service for you depends on your industry, cost, functionality, and individual business needs.
However, out of the email marketing services reviewed, we highly recommend ConvertKit.
With ConverKit, you’ll get the best-advanced email marketing services on the market. You can send email marketing campaigns to your list of subscribers whenever you want. You can also use ConvertKit’s visual automation builder to create workflows that automate your email marketing sequences.
What’s more, ConvertKit integrates with numerous other online services to give you more power and flexibility over your email marketing campaigns.
Email marketing can be a powerful tool for businesses of all sizes. If you’re looking to improve your email marketing campaigns, then ConvertKit is the answer. ConvertKit offers all of the features you need to run successful email marketing campaigns and more.
With ConvertKit, you can easily segment your list, create automated email sequences, and track your results. If you’re looking for the best email marketing service available, then ConvertKit is the answer.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
How much does email marketing cost?
Email marketing services typically charge based on the number of subscribers you have. The prices can range from $10/month to over $200/month, depending on the service and features you need.
What are some common features of email marketing services?
Standard features of email marketing services include automation, segmentation, list management, deliverability, and reporting.
Some also offer e-commerce specific features like abandoned cart emails and product recommendations.
What is lead nurturing?
Lead nurturing is building relationships with your leads over time to turn them into customers.
It involves sending targeted emails at different stages of the buyer’s journey, such as when they first subscribe to your list, when they haven’t bought anything from you yet, and when they have made a purchase. You use an automated email sequence for lead nurturing.
What is an automated email sequence?
An automated email sequence is a predetermined series of emails automatically sent to your subscribers over time.
You can use email sequences to welcome new subscribers, send educational content, promote sales or products, and build customer relationships.
How do I create an email marketing campaign?
You’ll need to take several steps to create an email marketing campaign. First, you’ll need to gather a list of subscribers. Next, you’ll need to create compelling content for your emails.
Finally, you’ll need to send your email campaigns and track the results.
What are some common email deliverability problems?
Email deliverability problems can include bounced emails, spam complaints, and messages that go to the recipient’s spam folder.
You can improve your deliverability by following best practices like keeping your list clean and engaged, avoiding purchasing lists, and using an email marketing service that offers good deliverability.
What is the best day to send an email marketing campaign?
The best day to send an email marketing campaign depends on your industry and audience. However, Tuesday is generally considered the best day to send emails.
How can I improve my email click-through rates?
You can do several things to improve your email click-through rates, such as segmenting your list, writing compelling copy, and including a CTA in every email. You can also avoid common mistakes like using too much HTML or sending emails at the wrong time.
What are some common mistakes people make with email marketing?
Some common mistakes people make with email marketing include not segmenting their list, not using a CTA, and sending too many emails.
