When considering the best platforms for email marketing, it can be difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff and ensure that you’re using the best platform for your company and its needs. That’s why it’s important to thoroughly research any and all potential platforms, and to ask yourself some serious questions regarding what you want from your chosen platform.
Here is a complete guide to the best email marketing platforms – find the one that is best suited to your needs.
Table of Contents
Is Email Marketing Still Relevant In 2023?
It certainly is! Though email is often perceived to be outdated and old-fashioned in the social media age, the fact of the matter is that it consistently offers one of the best ROIs of any marketing channel. In fact, since most people have their email accounts tied to their smart phones, it’s easier than ever to reach people instantaneously. Email marketing is, therefore, very much still an important tool available to businesses and marketers in 2023.
As mentioned, there is no end of great platforms for email marketing; it’s just a matter of choosing the right one for your business.
Let’s take a look at our top picks for email marketing platforms.
Overview of Best Platforms For Email Marketing – Our Top Picks
- Best all-in-one email marketing platform incl. free option: HubSpot
- Best multi-channel email marketing platform: Campaigner
- Most generous free package: MailChimp
- Best integration with WordPress: AWeber
- Best email & social media management platform for small businesses: EngageBay
Read on for more information and a detailed review of these and other email marketing platforms.
Some of the descriptions in this post may contain affiliate links.
In-Depth Review of EMail Marketing Platforms
Hubspot
There’s a reason why HubSpot is frequently cited as the best of all the email marketing services. For a start, Hubspot is completely free to use at a basic level – and even this package offers a lot of fantastic email marketing tools to make sure you’re getting the most out of it.
Hubspot features an accessible and intuitive email builder, which uses drag-n-drop elements to ensure that it’s both beginner-friendly and eminently customizable. It’s even possible to customize these templates down to the color and fonts, ensuring that it’s completely in line with your brand.
Beyond the basic features, Hubspot offers a level of automation and CRM that quite simply blows most competition out of the water. Emails can be personalized to an amazing level of granularity; from device type to country of residence and type of list subscribed to, it’s possible to ensure that your email is perfectly pitched to each individual person, rather than being a generic, off-putting mass template.
Where Hubspot really shines, though, is with its expansive suite of powerful email marketing tools. Huspot features fantastic analytics that enable you to fully break down your marketing campaigns and see what’s working, what isn’t, and who is/isn’t opening your emails. Its extensive automation options also facilitate drip campaigns, batch sending mass mails, full marketing automation, and integrated customer relationship management (CRM).
How Much Is HubSpot?
Hubspot offer a completely free option for up to 2,000 emails per month. Their first paid account starts at $45/month.
Campaigner
A favorite among those looking for multi-channel email marketing solutions, Campaigner is one of the best email marketing platforms for small businesses (and big businesses, for that matter!). Its extensive array of management tools makes it perfect for advanced email automation, and you can use it to create workflows, fine-tune email personalization and keep track of your conversions.
It’s perfect for beginner email marketers, too. Campaigner has a catalog of hundreds of ready-made templates, with the unique ability to team-manage the templates (so that you and your team can work on your email together) and proprietary image-editing software that means you don’t need to switch to another piece of software in order to tweak a photo – simply do it within the template editor.
Campaigner also offers some robust analytics tools. Among the regular and expected stats like click/open rates, you can use geolocation analytics to inspect how your campaigns are doing by location.
How Much Is Campaigner?
Campaigner offers packages beginning at $59/month, which offers support for up to 5,000 contacts. They also offer a free 30-day trial.
Omnisend
Omnisend is a platform for email marketing that doesn’t just stop at emails, but also offers full SMS support. Their free package is extremely generous, offering several potent email marketing tools such as pre-constructed automation workflows, A/B testing, performance analytics, subscriber segmentation options, and SMS/email push notification optimization.
Unusually for a free plan, Omnisend offers almost unrestricted access to their suite of marketing tools. It’s only when you hit a certain number of subscribers that you’ll need to upgrade your plan, and this gives you a great deal of scope in checking out what Omnisend has to offer before committing to something bigger.
Omnisend is particularly good for those who are looking to integrate their email marketing platforms with their eCommerce ones. It is fully compatible with BigCommerce, Shopify and other eCommerce platforms, and it’s possible to integrate other common web features like help desks and live-chat software.
Omnisend’s automated workflow options are second to none. From cart abandonment follow-ups to welcome emails, Omnisend takes a lot of the busywork out of management your various automated emails. It’s also easy to set up and customize your mass mails, and Omnisend offers robust personalization options.
One of the standout options touted by Omnisend, however, is their full SMS support. It’s included in their standard package and allows you to send messages in a whopping 209 countries and territories worldwide.
How Much Is Omnisend?
Omnisend offers a free plan capped at 250 subscribers, and paid plans beginning at $16/month.
MailChimp
One of the most well-known and ubiquitous email marketing services, MailChimp has long boasted a solid suite of email marketing options for free users, and some great additional features for paid subscribers.
One of MailChimp’s biggest strengths is just how straightforward it is to use. Its drag-n-drop mass mail designer couldn’t be easier to use (if a little harder to customize on a nuts-and-bolt level), and campaigns can be scheduled to be sent out at a later time or drip-sent. On top of that, its free package is easily the most generous of the different email marketing platforms we researched, making for a big tick in the plus column for MailChimp.
Its paid plans open up even more possibilities and are great for more advanced marketing solutions. MailChimp offers A/B testing, multi-step journeys, and detailed reports that go into open/click and unsubscribe rates.
How Much Is MailChimp?
MailChimp’s free package is, as mentioned, not bad at all, allowing up to 500 subscribers and 2,500 emails per month. Its first paid package starts at $13 and opens up a boatload of extra features not included in the free plan.
AWeber
One of the most well-established and popular platforms for email marketing, AWeber offers an extensive suite of tools and is one of the best email marketing platforms for small businesses.
AWeber offers great integration with other platforms – particularly with the ever-popular WordPress – and allows users who are familiar with that platform to use their skills to create great bespoke mass mails without having to learn new systems and tools.
In addition to this, AWeber offers all the standard email marketing tools. List management, auto-responder tools, A/B testing, email tracking, analytic reports and auto-schedulers are all options on this powerful email marketing platform.
AWeber’s customer support is also second to none. With phone support, live chat and a vast back-catalog of webinars and how-to tutorials, AWeber makes it easy not only to get support when you need, but also to improve your email marketing skills by accessing their huge library of training tools.
How Much Is AWeber?
AWeber is free for users who have up to 500 subscribers. Paid packages start at $19/month, with savings available for those who opt to subscribe for longer periods.
SMTP
SMTP is a platform for email marketing that’s less concerned about the visual aspects of email marketing, and more invested in creating a smooth and speedy delivery service.
SMTP stands for “simple mail transfer protocol”, which is the usual protocol used when sending emails, and the company has taken this name for a reason. The platform sends out billions of emails monthly, and offers unparalleled delivery rates as well as ensuring that all deliveries are secure and reliable. What’s more, SMTP offers fantastic and prompt auto-response techniques, ensuring that any queries your customers have are answered promptly and accurately.
In addition to detailed reports, SMTP takes a lot of the headaches out of dealing with transactional emails such as password-reset requests, privacy policy amendments and account management. There is also the option to opt into a feature called “Reputation Defender”, which authorizes the email platform to proactively suppress non-functional email addresses to promote the health of your email lists.
How Much Is SMTP?
SMTP unfortunately doesn’t offer any free packages, their paid options are competitive. The cheapest package is $25, and allows for a massive 50,000 emails per month.
Constant Contact
One of the fastest-growing platforms for email marketing, Constant Contact has quickly established itself as a player in the industry. It’s also great for beginners, with plenty of easy-to-use features that are quick to get to grips with.
The list of features included with an account is staggering. With inbuilt tracking/reporting, unlimited emails, an extensive (and free) media library, tools for facilitating social media sharing, list segmentation, Shopify eCommerce segmentation and integrated Facebook ads, Constant Contact offers an extensive and powerful suite of email marketing tools that are perfect for beginners and old hands alike.
Those who need a little more oomph from their email marketing packages can opt for the Email Plus account. The automated tools packaged with this are invaluable; drip campaigns, polls/surveys, online donations, A/B testing and coupons all help to tailor the level of personalization you’re able to incorporate into your campaigns, which will give your open rate a huge boost.
But Constant Contact’s impressive array of features isn’t just aimed purely at your customers. The company offers live, in-person seminars that can help you to take your email marketing game to the next level, and coupled with their fantastic customer service (Constant Contact has a live helpdesk, as well as phone/email support and community forums) you can be sure that Constant Contact will take care of your every need.
How Much Is Constant Contact?
No free packages are offered, but Constant Contact starts at a very reasonable $9.99/month, with 20% off for your first three months.
Moosend
An eminently affordable email marketing platform, Moosend is great for beginners with its intuitive drag-n-drop editor and options for subscription forms and landing pages.
Moosend has plenty to offer the veteran email marketer, too. Interactive video elements can be embedded into your mass mails, and next-level automation tools allow you to differentiate emails between different lists or demographics with very little input on the part of the user.
Real-time analytics give you an edge over many other email marketing platforms, offering you prompt, measurable feedback on your campaigns from the moment they’re sent. This, along with the A/B testing tool, provides you with mountains of data that can be put to use fine-tuning your next campaign and making sure that you’re getting the most out of every single mass mail you send.
How Much Is Moosend?
Moosend offers a free trial that has almost full functionality, allowing you to get a taste of the platform before you jump in. If you’re happy to proceed, packages begin at $9/month, which allows for 500 subscribers and offers unlimited emails.
SendInBlue
Another of the email marketing services to offer integrated SMS support, SendInBlue is a European platform that offers a simple yet effective suite of tools that makes it easy for beginners to dive straight in.
As is almost de rigeur among the different email marketing platforms at this stage, SendInBlue offers a drag-n-drop template editor that makes creating your marketing campaign child’s play. The suite of automation tools further cements this beginner-friendly platform; automated workflows facilitate the sending of transactional emails, and AI tools determine the best time to send pre-scheduled mass mails so that you don’t have to.
SendInBlue doesn’t stop at offering a solid experience for newer users. You can integrate their services with WordPress-powered sites, and it’s possible to get Facebook ad integration and access to a landing page builder. Top that off with first-rate customer service, and you have a fantastic email marketing platform for small businesses and large businesses alike.
How Much Is SendInBlue?
SendInBlue offers a very generous free package that allows for unlimited subscribers and 300 emails per day – with the caveat that all emails will carry the SendInBlue watermark.
Paid plans start at $25/month, with integrated SMS functionality available for an extra fee (which depends upon which paid plan you have).
EngageBay
Possibly the best email marketing platform for small businesses, EngageBay features a potent and wide-ranging collection of mass mail tools that make your life easy. It’s a straightforward affair to personalize emails, create fantastic-looking landing pages, and use contact forms to ensure an increased conversion rate.
There’s also a huge level of workflow customizability available – all of which can be controlled through an intuitive GUI that make automation easy for even the most novice of email marketers. Tweak your campaign and transactional email responses to account for drip campaigns, birthday and welcome emails, cart abandonment follow-ups, and much more.
EngageBay also offers full social media management support, making it extremely desirable for those who use such channels as Facebook and Instagram frequently. Manage all of your social media marketing from EngageBay’s centralized hub, eliminating the need for your social media manager to micromanage 6-7 different social media channels on a regular basis.
Another social-media-friendly feature is ‘social listening’. This enables you to keep an eye on popular hashtags and trending issues to make sure you stay ahead of the curve. Smart scheduling tools also help you to ensure that your social media posts are published at the best time to reach the audience you need to reach.
For an all-in-one solution to not only email marketing but social media management, you can’t really go wrong with EngageBay.
How Much Is EngageBay?
EngageBay offers a free package that can be handy for small businesses who are just getting started. If you want to make full use of the platform, however, it’s worth upgrading to the pro package, which starts at $99/month and offers unlimited subscribers and a variety of tools to help you optimize your email marketing strategy.
Conclusion
When thinking about how to choose an email marketing platform, it can be easy to feel overwhelmed by the sheer plethora of options on display. However, if you’ve got a solid idea of what you want from your email marketing service, it’s not too difficult to narrow the playing field and shortlist two or three potential platforms that you think might be right for you and your business.
Whatever platform you ultimately end up going with, we can only hope that this guide has been instructive and useful for you in making the best possible choice for your company. Best of luck in your search, and may you send a great many opened emails!
