I run HubSpot's Marketing Daily Newsletter, so I know quite a bit about email marketing and why an email marketing platform is one of the first additions to a marketer's tool belt.
Email marketing is an effective way to engage and nurture leads into loyal customers. It's also extremely cost-effective — some studies show an ROI of $40 for every $1 spent.
Leveraging email marketing can be difficult, especially if you're trying to grow your list or manage the massive list you already have. Fortunately there are plenty of email marketing services available to help.
Here are 18 of the best ones I've found. I've even tested a few. Let's dive in.
Why is an email marketing service important?
Today, email marketing services continue to be an integral, strategic tool for businesses of all sizes across all industries — it helps businesses build strong relationships with prospects and customers all while moving them through the buyer's journey and maintaining strong communication throughout.
Not to mention, as ESPs continue to develop, features like A/B Testing, automation, and personalization have made the tools even more valuable to a marketer looking to engage with an increasingly fragmented audience.
What to Look for in an Email Marketing Service
1. Security: Email addresses are personal and sensitive customer data that you're responsible for protecting. Your email marketing service provider should have robust precautions in place and use best practices to protect this data like DMARC email authentication standards.
2. Ease of Use: If you're using email marketing to nurture and convert customers, it should be easy to create an email and send it to your audience. Look for drag-and-drop features and templated workflows in your email tool.
3. Audience Segmentation: Personalization is a key component of a successful email marketing strategy, and for this, you'll need audience segmentation included in the tool you choose.
4. Automation: Automated workflows, triggered sends, and scheduled emails are all parts of email marketing automation that come in handy for small and large teams alike. Look for these automated features when choosing an email marketing service.
5. Third-Party Integrations: Odds are, you and your team aren't handling your marketing tasks manually. A great email marketing provider will be able to integrate with many of the other tools you use, especially a CRM.
6. Data Analytics: Keep track of open rates, bounce backs, and CTR with data analytics weaved right into your next email marketing tool
7. Customer Support: Even after learning your new email marketing service tool through and through, you'll need help from the support team at some point. Make sure the provider you choose has a helpful and accessible customer support team that you can lean on when you need help.Now let's look at some of the best email marketing services today — one of which you might choose to implement at your company. (And psst: If you need help writing your emails once you've found the right provider, this video can help you do so seamlessly.)
For each of the following services, I've listed notable features and pricing details. I also tested the ones I had access to so you'll have greater details.
1. HubSpot Email Marketing Software
Best for: Email marketing that’s powered by CRM data.
Okay, so I might be a bit biased; however, I'm being honest when I say HubSpot's free email marketing software is secure and easy to use, has an extremely high deliverability rate, and includes all the bells and whistles you'd expect to see within an ESP.
HubSpot Email Marketing Software Features
I use HubSpot Email Marketing Software to create and distribute the marketing email newsletter, so I am quite familiar with the software's features.
So, here's a walkthrough.
When creating an email, I can choose from one of many drag-and-drop templates or craft a custom template tailored to my brand. Once I've got my template, incorporating content is simple and intuitive.
I can also personalize and preview my emails for different recipients based on device type, country, or list inclusion — or use a simple personalization token to ensure that each email includes content specific to each recipient.
When it comes time to send an email, I can use the smart send feature to ensure recipients receive my messages at an ideal time.
Additionally, I can run A/B tests to compare different versions of an email to understand which one resonates the most with your audience.
Furthermore, I won't have to worry about deliverability—HubSpot maintains a 99% deliverability rate across the network for all marketing email sends.
Outside of the email marketing functionality, HubSpot offers a wide range of reports on my emails' performances, letting me judge what's resonating with my audience so I can optimize my strategy accordingly.
In their email marketing software guide, Venture Harbour put it like this:
"By connecting the dots between your marketing, website, and sales activity, HubSpot is able to attribute which campaigns influence your sales — which means you can invest more in what works and less in what doesn't."
For instance, users can report on something as broad as their overall email performance in Q1, or they get granular and see how one particular lead is interacting with their emails.
Users can also leverage tools like HubSpot's Email Writer and Campaign Assistant to create email marketing campaigns.
Lastly, HubSpot's automation platform makes it easy to scale my email marketing strategy, which will help me quickly turn leads into loyal customers.
And if I want help tracking my emails' open rates and other insights, I can leverage our Marketing Analytics & Dashboard Software in tandem.
HubSpot Email Marketing Software Price
Hubspot's Email Marketing Software (and CRM for small to enterprise companies, for that matter) is free forever. However, if you need enhanced capabilities, paying for one of the upgraded Marketing Hub plans may be worth it.
2. Brevo
Best for: Sending automated nurturing and text message campaigns.
Brevo is an email marketing platform that helps customers send a total of over 30 million automated emails and text messages every day.
Brevo Features
My favorite Brevo feature is its forms tool that allows me to collect new leads, which I can then segment into specific lists and enter into email nurturing campaigns.
Let's say I'm not sure how to kick off my email nurturing campaign. No problem. Brevo has workflows that provide access to a number of pre-made automation campaigns tailored to my specific goals.
If I want to run a more nuanced email nurturing campaign, I can always create a campaign from scratch to meet my specific business needs.
Brevo Price
Brevo has four main plans: one free, two between $9 and $18 per month, and one enterprise plan that requires a customized quote. The plans vary in cost based on the number of emails sent per day/ month.
3. Sender Email Marketing Software
Best for: Affordable email marketing platforms with high inbox deliverability.
Sender is an all-in-one marketing automation platform that goes beyond just offering a basic email marketing service.
Sender Features
After testing Sender, I've found that it's a powerful yet affordable email marketing service and provider with accessible, premium features.
I can use the automation builder module with powerful conditional flows to build a series of email and SMS steps that can fire based on quickly definable trigger conditions such as cart abandonment, product purchase, link clicks, email opens and more.
Its Segmentation feature allows me to group my subscribers based on powerful considerations such as basic information, engagement, and custom fields.
Along with emailing, I can choose from a range of solid and highly responsive popups or embeddable forms, customize them with my brand, and offer and deploy it on my landing pages and website in no time.
With Sender's SMS capabilities, I can sync my emails and SMSes as immediate, one-off broadcasts or schedule them together for a later date and time easily in just a few clicks.
Sender Price
I love that Sender’s pricing plans are wallet-friendly at every price point. Its Free Forever plan comes with all the top premium features.
The features include automation and segmentation, apart from the ability to maintain 2,500 contacts and send a maximum of 15,000 emails every month.
Its paid plans start at just $15.83 per month for the ability to send up to 60,000 emails a month.
4. Moosend Email Marketing Software
Best for: Creating automation and sending personalized emails.
Moosend is an email marketing and marketing automation platform that offers a variety of features at an affordable price.
Moosend Features
By testing Moosend's platform, I found out it allows me to quickly craft email newsletter campaigns, landing pages, and subscription forms to capture, nurture, and convert my audience.
With the drag-and-drop editor, I can either create an email newsletter from scratch, using interactive elements like videos, or use one of the responsive email templates.
I can also use advanced automation features to build specific campaigns for segments of my audience or create custom workflows, such as welcome, engagement, or abandoned cart sequences.
The real-time reporting and analytics tools give you measurable results about campaign performance and user engagement, enabling me to make informed, data-backed decisions.
Then, I can use the A/B Testing feature to find the best element variations for my target audience to optimize my email marketing strategy for better results.
I especially appreciate that Moosend simplifies every aspect of building and testing a campaign into steps and provides accessible resources for new users.
Moosend Price
Moosend's pricing model is subscriber-based and consists of three pricing tiers. The 30-day free trial includes most features and allows users to send unlimited email campaigns.
The Pro plan starts at $9 per month and allows subscribers to send unlimited emails, create automation workflows, forms, and landing pages, and send transactional campaigns to up to 500 contacts.
The Enterprise plan is based on custom pricing and offers more advanced functionality and additional support.
5. EngageBay Email Marketing Software
Best for: Account-based email marketing and social media marketing.
EngageBay is an all-in-one marketing, sales, and customer support software designed specifically for small businesses.
EngageBay Features
With EngageBay’s powerful platform, I can launch personalized email campaigns, design stunning landing pages, capture leads through forms, and quickly close deals.
The visual multistep automation builder helps me automate the most complex tasks without writing a single line of code.
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I can choose from various triggers that can launch workflows and create custom workflows for various scenarios, including drip campaigns, cart abandonment alerts, welcome emails, and birthday wishes.
Social media is a powerful channel for lead generation.
With EngageBay’s social media management, I can engage with my social audience with a single tool. Manage your Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts, and use streams to keep track of retweets, mentions, posts, and events.
I can also utilize social listening to find out what is trending and what your audience is talking about. To post ahead of time, users can schedule their posts smartly for the best conversion rates.
EngageBay Price
EngageBay offers four plans. The Free plan includes essential features to help small businesses get started. The Pro plan starts at $101.99 for unlimited contacts and offers account-based marketing, advanced automation, traffic analytics, and other pro tools to help you scale your business effectively.
6. Omnisend Email Marketing Software
Best for: Creating custom workflows.
Omnisend is an easy-to-use platform that offers automation workflows for any stage of the customer journey.
Omnisend Features
What I believe separates Omnisend from other email marketing tools is the omnichannel functionalities, which offer greater control over how and where users connect with their audience.
While testing the automation workflow, I found I can add email, SMS, push notifications, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and more.
Let's say I'm trying to reach a specific audience that might not respond well to traditional email communication. In such a case, using a tool like Omnisend can help me build and manage more customized, targeted communication workflows.
This would not only help me better connect with my audience but also provide a less disruptive, more personalized experience for my contacts.
Omnichannel features combined with user-friendly segmentation mean I can send the right message to the right person at the right time on the right channel.
Omnisend also offers templates for email capture, campaigns, and automation workflows so I can get started quickly.
Omnisend Price
Omnisend has three pricing plans — one of which is free with very limited capabilities as well as a customizable pro plan. Its plans come with a free trial so you can experiment with the service to determine what works best for you.
7. Mailmodo Email Marketing Software
Best for: Creating and sending AMP emails.
Mailmodo is a complete email marketing software that helps marketers create app-like experiences in email without coding.
Mailmodo Features
By testing Mailmodo, I found that it could help email marketers like myself build and scale their email automation engine with an intuitive visual builder that has drag-and-drop workflows to automate time-based drip series.
It makes checking responsiveness for different devices easy and has an in-built open rate suggestions feature to fix errors in an email before sending it.
I especially love that Mailmodo’s AMP technology allows me to add calendars, forms, surveys, live ratings, reviews, polls, and widgets to gamify emails like spin the wheel, quizzes, etc., inside the email to reduce redirections and boost engagement.
Mailmodo Price
Its Lite plan starts from $39 and lets users send emails to 2,500 contacts and 20,000 email sending credits. Its Pro plan costs $99, allowing users to send emails to 2,500 contacts with a monthly limit of 25,000 sends.
Finally, its Max plan is priced at $249 and lets subscribers send emails to 2,500 contacts with a monthly limit of 37,500 sends. If you want to try Mailmodo before buying, its pricing plans include a free trial period.
8. Pabbly Email Marketing Software
Best for: Delivering bulk emails.
Pabbly Email Marketing is an email marketing software that enables you to send bulk emails either by connecting via SMTP or external SMTP.
Pabbly Email Marketing Features
Pabbly provides access to SMTP routing, workflow automation, email scheduling, and much more without any restrictions.
With the help of marketing automation and autoresponders included in the tool, I found I can schedule emails in advance and create triggers to avoid manual follow-up responses.
Additionally, Pabbly offers responsive email templates and a drag-and-drop email editor for easy customization.
The email tracking feature allows me to track data such as bounce rate, open rate, and click-through rate so I can improve upon my email marketing and campaigns.
Pabbly Email Marketing Price
Pabbly offers multiple plans based on your number of subscribers. Its free plan allows you to send unlimited emails to up to 100 subscribers, and an advanced plan is tailored to websites with large audiences.
9. SendX Email Marketing Software
Best for: Offering visual email marketing performance data.
SendX is an intuitive, affordable, and feature-rich email marketing software for marketers and business owners.
SendX Features
With SendX, I can send unlimited emails to opted-in subscribers across all pricing plans. Users get charged per subscriber - not per email sent - no matter how many lists, tags, or segments you have them in.
While testing, I discovered I could optimize my email campaigns based on 30+ parameters, including past open behavior, time zone, domain name, email client, ISP, etc.
I can automate my email marketing with a rule-based interface and send the right message to the right user using email drip sequences and audience segmentation.
SendX can also help users grow their email lists with forms and popups. Users even get pre-built email templates, which they can further design with the drag-and-drop email editor without HTML.
The tool also features a heatmap report for different types of campaigns to give you a quick visual overview of which CTAs are working and which links people are clicking.
SendX Price
SendX’s pricing is based on the number of subscribers you have. For 1,000 subscribers, plans start at $7.49 per month for the annual subscription (or $9.99 for a monthly subscription). They also offer a 14-day free trial.
10. Constant Contact Email Marketing Software
Best for: Creating email drip campaigns and easy-to-use templates.
Constant Contact is a popular email marketing service that works well for many industries.
Constant Contact Features
I appreciate that the service comes with over 100 email templates that I can either use as-is or customize. Once my email looks good, I can easily schedule it to send to my contacts at any time I choose.
In addition to drip email campaigns, I can also have emails go out at a regular cadence to celebrate specific events — for example, I could have a regular email go out on each customer's birthday.
Once an email contact list is uploaded, bounces and unsubscribes are automatically updated. Constant Contact also has "Plus" features that allow me to execute specific types of campaigns, such as coupon offers, donation collections, or surveys.
Constant Contact Price
Constant Contact has three plans depending on the features you need that start at $12, $35, and $80 per month. The price differentiation is related to your number of contacts.
It offers a free trial, so you can experiment with the service prior to committing to it.
11. Campaign Monitor Email Marketing Software
Best for: building personalized emails.
Campaign Monitor prides itself on providing powerful, personalized email marketing tools that are simple and easy to use.
Campaign Monitor Features
Its drag-and-drop email editor is intuitive, and the included analytics make it simple to optimize my email strategy and create targeted customer segments.
Personalization is key for campaign monitoring.
It uses data to increase personalized content and inform my list segmentation, boosting my engagement. It also offers a visual marketing automation tool so I can create a unique customer journey at scale.
Not to mention, Campaign Monitor has an extensive library of resources available to help users become email marketing pros.
Campaign Monitor Price
There are three major plans you can choose from with Campaign Monitor ranging from €10 up to €149 per month.
You can choose to pay annually rather than monthly and take advantage of the option to pay per campaign if that schedule works better for your needs.
12. TargetBay Email Marketing Software
Best for: Shopify email marketing and SMS marketing
TargetBay is an all-in-one email marketing service with over 380 email templates, drag-and-drop functionality, pop-up builder, SMS marketing, coupon builder, email automation, A/B testing, advanced reports, sign-up forms, and more.
TargetBay Features
TargetBay’s innovative platform allows me to generate sales and will help me until the leads convert to customers.
After testing it, I suggest using its sign-ups to capture leads and designing attractive emails with over 380 pre-written content templates.
I also suggest segmenting your subscribers to send relevant and targeted emails that will have more chances to get opened or clicked and adding coupons with TargetBay’s very own coupon builder.
With TargetBay, I can set up email automation to keep communication with my subscribers going.
With TargetBay’s easy-to-use interface, I can also A/B test every element of my email to find the best working email for my subscriber list. This is done using accurate real-time data on the email campaign performance.
TargetBay's Price
TargetBay has a forever free plan with a 2500 email limit per month and a 250 subscriber limit/per month. The basic paid plan starts from $10.
If you want to explore TargetBay before you make a decision, they provide a free 14-day trial period in its pricing plans
13. MailChimp Email Marketing Software
Best for: Actionable data insights to improve your email marketing strategy.
Over the years, MailChimp has added landing pages and various ad tools to its capabilities, but its email marketing service remains its claim to fame.
MailChimp Features
MailChimp has millions of customers in over 175 countries and it use the data it collects off those customers to provide users with actionable insights to improve their email strategy.
The tool is flexible enough for an enterprise company, yet simple enough for someone just getting started with their startup's email marketing strategy.
Best of all, MailChimp has over 300 integrations that help you customize the tool to your business. By using these integrations to further personalize your marketing, you'll get the most out of your email strategy.
MailChimp Price
MailChimp offers four plans, ranging from free to $350 per month. Aside from the free plan, your monthly payment increases with the number of contacts you have, depending on the option you choose.
14. Canary Mail Email Marketing Software
Best for: AI email management and advanced security.
Canary Mail is your go-to email client if you're in pursuit of AI-powered productivity, advanced security, and a highly customizable email experience.
Canary Mail Features
Canary Mail offers a comprehensive email solution. I like that its AI Copilot helps me craft excellent content with eye-catching subject lines and persuasive email body copy.
The app’s AI categorization intelligently organizes my inbox, making sure that important responses and feedback from my campaigns are front and center.
Canary Mail’s SecureSend and PGP support ensure that sensitive campaign data and communications remain locked down.
When it comes to customization, the app offers various options: custom swipe and thread actions, custom snooze times, and a customizable interface with dark and light mode options.
Additionally, the read receipts feature helps me track when my campaign emails are opened, giving me real-time feedback on my content's engagement.
Canary Mail Price
Canary Mail offers a flexible pricing structure. The annual subscription for iOS, macOS, and Android is $20/year each.
15. AWeber Email Marketing Software
Best for: Small businesses and entrepreneurs just starting to build their email lists.
Aweber is an email platform built specifically for small businesses and entrepreneurs.
AWeber Features
The goal of AWeber is to make it simple for those who are just getting started with email marketing to segment their contacts, design a professional email, and start nurturing leads.
Customers praise AWeber for its deliverability — AWeber's deliverability team monitors their servers around the clock to ensure your campaign consistently reaches the inboxes of your recipients.
Aweber Price
AWeber offers multiple plans ranging from free to $899.
16. Ortto Email Marketing Software
Best for collaborative email marketing teams.
Ortto differentiates itself from its competitors with its visual marketing tools.
Ortto Features
I'm a fan of how everything from Ortto's email editor to its automation tool is set up to work via a drag-and-drop interface, making the system intuitive and easy for me to use.
Ortto offers collaborative tools to help teams work together effectively — it allows me to quickly share my work with my team, ensuring everyone is on the same page before I launch a campaign.
And with the "annotate & collaborate" feature, I can quickly mark-up a customer journey and ask my team for feedback and assistance.
Ortto Price
Ortto offers three plans, which range in price between $509/m and $1699/m.
17. Ontraport Email Marketing Software
Best for creating detailed email marketing campaigns.
Ontraport offers a full suite of marketing automation tools including ecommerce functionality for businesses with online stores.
Ontraport Features
Ontraport's visual campaign builder allows you to create detailed campaigns to engage your audience.
You can create a campaign from scratch or tap into the marketplace where they offer dozens of the most common marketing campaigns to choose from, including abandoned cart nurturing or webinar sign-up and follow-up.
The service also provides insight into detailed reports so you can gain insight into your pipeline, traffic sources, and conversion timelines.
Ontraport Price
Ontraport's basic plan starts at $24 per month and its most expensive plan, Enterprise, starts at $249 per month.
Choose Your Email Marketing Service
During my time in email marketing, I've found that most email marketing tools offer the essentials needed to craft a basic email newsletter.
However, there are fewer options if I want a range of top-notch features such as complete customization, available support, and data analysis.
Furthermore, marketers like myself often prefer combining our email marketing service with a CRM to provide even greater functionality that can impact email marketing, sales, and service efforts.
But take it from me: The best email marketing tool for you depends on your team's goals and particular needs. So review the options I provided and the services' product and pricing pages to get started.
Editor's note: This post was originally published in April, 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.
