Every business needs one of the best email marketing solutions to grow their business and reach their target audience. Email marketing is one of the most powerful marketing tools which is specifically recommended to build a personal connection with your audience.
Research shows that on average, email drives an ROI of $36 for every dollar spent, higher than any other channel. However, the success of your email marketing campaign depends a lot on the effectiveness of email marketing solutions.
Good email marketing solutions are able able to craft engaging email newsletters with an easy user interface like a drag-and-drop editor.
It must enable you to send bulk emails which are actually personalized as well as segment your mailing list into multiple groups and track the performance of your email campaigns. It should make sure that your emails are actually delivered to the inbox of recipients and do not end up in the spam folder.
We have here listed the 7 most used email marketing solutions and compared them based on their price, functionality, features, ease of use and more to give you the best alternatives depending on your requirements.
1. MailChimp:
MailChimp is one of the most popular email marketing solutions all around the globe. Their sheer popularity is also because they offer a free lifetime plan.
| Pros | Cons |
| Free-forever plan up to 2000 contacts and 10,000 monthly emails | Free plan offers very limited features. For more advanced features like email templates, A/B testing, time optimization, comparative reporting etc. you have to buy one of their paid plans. |
| Easy drag and drop builder | Expensive for larger contact lists |
| Integrates with hundreds of different platforms | Although there is a huge library of MailChimp tutorials, due to its huge market but, it provides very low phone support |
| Simple tracking for analytics | It provides a bit low automation than other more advanced marketing solutions. |
| Paid plans have advanced features like A/B testing, time optimization, advanced segmentation etc. | The free plan requires you to display their branding in your emails |
| Allows you to set up delivery times based on users’ time zones | |
| It provides segmentation of the mailing list based on geo-location |
MailChimp is a good option if you are just starting up and low on budget. But, for more advanced email marketing tools, you may look for other options as well. Also, their phone support is very limited, which is not a problem if you are a hobbyist. But, serious businesses, need to have reliable support as well. It has a free plan while paid plans start from $9/month up to $299/month.
2. ActiveCampaign:
ActiveCampaign ranks among the most used email marketing solutions due to hundreds of pre-built automation. They also provide live chat support which is quite important as well.
| Pros | Cons |
| It has great automation features | The Lite plan is very limited not offering many advanced features |
| They provide quick customer support | The Lite plan includes ActiveCampaign branding |
| ActiveCampaign allows 850+ integrations | Plans become expensive as the number of contacts increases |
| It also has an easy drag and drop builder and a built-in landing page builder | The learning curve can also be a challenge |
| Their lite plan allows campaign and automation reporting | |
| It also allows geo-tracking and segmentation based on user’s location | |
| Having CRM functionality, they help sending only interested people to your sales team using a feature like lead scoring | |
| All plans include free data migration |
ActiveCampaign does not offer any lifetime free plan like MailChimp, but it does offer 14-day free trial. Moreover, as it has CRM functionality it allows you to do lead tracking as well. One of the main differences between their basic and premium plans is also that the more expensive plan provides premium CRM features. However, you can also remain on the lite plan but increase the number of contacts from basic 500 to 100,000 for $405 annually.
Its paid plans start from $9/month to $149/month while the enterprise plan can be customized based on your needs.
3. SendinBlue:
SendinBlue combines multiple communication channels like email, SMS, Facebook, and chat to give an enhanced marketing experience. With the Facebook ads integration, you can retarget contacts and attract new leads as well.
| Pros | Cons |
| It provides great automation and lets you focus on important tasks | The graphic representation of the results over time is only available in the Pro version |
| It has a built-in Facebooks ads integration for lead generation | It has a free plan but the pro plans can quickly become quite expensive |
| It has built-in SMS and chat functionality | They provide only 2 variations on the split testing and you can not do split testing on your first email |
| It has contact segmentation which allows making your emails more relevant by targeting smaller groups of contacts | Initial account set up can be a bit tedious |
| It is free for up to 300 emails per day for unlimited contacts. | |
| A shared inbox to keep track of your customer’s email history | |
| It has lead capturing forms and pre-made automation campaigns to meet your specific needs |
SendinBlue does a great job in providing a comprehensive marketing solution by integrating multiple forms of communication. It is also quite impressive to get new leads through its Facebook ads, retargeting ads, lead capture forms or sign-up forms. If you are trying to increase your customer base, you should give it a try as it also offers a free plan that allows you to send 300 emails daily.
It has a free plan and the other two plans start at $25/month and $65/month while the enterprise plan requires a quote.
4. Hubspot:
Hubspot is quite popular among all sizes of businesses because it is all in one marketing platform which includes CRM, email and social media marketing, automation workflows, website builder, operations hub, and a wide range of statistical reports including ads tracking as well.
| Pros | Cons |
| Full marketing suite with CRM, email and social media marketing, ads tracking, email personalization, and much more | As it has a built-in CRM, it is difficult to integrate a separate CRM |
| Provides maximum email deliverability rated up to 99% | A steep learning curve to unlock full potential |
| You can personalize the email based on device type, country, list membership, or any other custom information you might have on the individual subscriber | You can use a free plan but it has HubSpot branding as well.
HubSpot’s paid plans are more expensive than the above 3 options. |
| It provides detailed performance analytics | |
| It tracks leads throughout their buying process | |
| Drag and drop template builder which makes it very easy to design emails. |
If you have a growing customer base and want expert marketing tools, you can go for HubSpot. However, it has a steep learning curve which makes it a little bit difficult to understand at first. If you are just starting and not an expert in the marketing field, try using a simpler solution.
HubSpot offers three plans which start at $45, $800 and $3200 monthly and the price fluctuates according to the number of contacts.
5. Moosend:
Moosend is the most affordable option in email marketing solutions for small businesses as it offers two types of billing options. You can pay either by the number of contacts or by the number of emails sent to whichever option is most suitable for you.
| Pros | Cons |
| Comfortable billing options | Not a very compelling user interface |
| Marketing automation features are available in the free plan as well | Limited integrations |
| It has an automation workflow designer to design professional-looking newsletters | It does not include CRM |
| It also offers detailed analytics including email opens, clicks, bounces, product views and much more | Need Zapier to connect Moosend to Gmail |
| All plans come with powerful conversion optimization features like newsletter signup forms, popup forms, A/B testing etc. | |
| You can either design your own email or choose one from the templates library | |
| It offers a free plan for up to 1000 email subscribers |
One of the most important disadvantages of Moosend is that it does not offer many integrations. Also, it does not have a very sophisticated user interface as well.
But, it offers many basic features which allow you to design and send awesome email newsletters and track your campaigns which is quite a lot at their lower price. It offers a free plan and a 30-day free trial, after which its pro plan starts at $8 per month.
6. Drip:
Drip is a powerful eCommerce marketing software because of its refined workflows, advanced segmentation, and CRM. It also integrates seamlessly with many e-commerce platforms like Woocommerce, Shopify, and Magento. All of these specifications help in personalized marketing and crafting sales funnels based on customer behavior.
| Pros | Cons |
| Ecommerce CRM gives more data about customers to make personalized email campaigns like retargeting the customers who abandoned their carts | No drag and drop functionality to design templates |
| It has introduced an SMS notification feature as well | Support only available on weekdays in working hours |
| Connect your eCommerce store with Drip to collect revenue attribution data and know exactly how much revenue is generated by each marketing campaign | It lacks a few key integrations |
| They provide excellent support through live chat, webinars, detailed courses, excellent documentation and free guides. | It is quite expensive as their lowest plan starts at $49.month although they offer a free trial |
| It provides expert segmentation based on clicks, open rates, purchase history etc. | |
| Integrates beautifully with many eCommerce platforms | |
| Offer valuable metrics depending upon customer intent and purchase behaviour |
If you are looking for email marketing solutions for eCommerce, bloggers and digital marketers Drip is an ideal choice for you. Its advanced segmentation features based on customer behaviour help to target and retarget customers. Its CRM data and sophisticated workflows help to craft excellent email campaigns and sales funnels to increase sales.
Its price starts at $19/month for 500 subscribers and increases as the number of subscribers increases.
7. Constant Contact:
Constant Contact is mostly popular among email marketing solutions for its easy drag and drop builder which helps to create beautiful email campaigns without any coding. If you are not a tech-savvy person, its smart email editor will enable you to design great looking emails with polls, text, images, coupons, and videos.
| Pros | Cons |
| Easy and beginner-friendly and comes with an awesome drag and drop email builder | It is difficult to cancel your account. You have to call them during business hours to cancel the account. |
| Unmatchable customer support with live chat, phone calls, community support and many other resources | They charge a premium price for not so advanced automation features. |
| A 60-day free trial | Templates look a little outdated |
| Email marketing automation with an automated welcome email, resending emails to non-openers, triggered email series and contact segmentation | A/B testing is only available for subject line |
| Social media marketing with built-in social media sharing tools and Facebook ads integration for posting ads and scheduling content | |
| An easy integration with your eCommerce store |
Constant Contact offers 2 types of plans Email and Email Plus depending upon the features. You need to start at $9.99/month and $45/month respectively. However, they offer a 60-day free trial which is quite impressive. You can easily experiment with it before making a final decision.
The Best Email Marketing Solution?
Most of these email marketing solutions offer basic features to craft a simple and basic email marketing campaign. To get optimum results, you will need to have a CRM along with an email marketing platform.
You can either go for a marketing platform with a built-in CRM or you will have to integrate a separate CRM. Also, check each software’s website to check their complete packages and features which are included in each package to choose the one which is most suitable to your needs and requirements.
You might be wondering why marketing automation has become a buzz in the marketing world. Check out our article here to understand why you need it to run successful marketing campaigns.
If you need expert advice to pick the most suitable marketing software for your e-learning or membership website, our LMS crafters can help you. To book a free call or to hire an expert check our services page here.
