Choosing the right email marketing software is crucial to building a list of loyal customers. From sending personalized emails to tracking engagement, the best email marketing software can help you meet your goals. In this guide, I ranked and reviewed the 7+ best email marketing software, along with my top 5 choices, so that you can pick the best one.
ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign gives you the email marketing, automation, and CRM tools you need to create incredible customer experiences.
Constant Contact
Grow your audience, send awesome emails, create social ads, and sell online with our all-in-one digital marketing platform.
HubSpot
With HubSpot Email create, personalize, and optimize your marketing emails without waiting on designers or IT.
Sendinblue
Thrive digitally with Sendinblue as it guides your business with the right marketing & sales tools through automation.
Moosend
Moosend makes sending personalized mass emails easy while helping you create beautiful email newsletters.
Want to jump straight to my top picks? My favorite email marketing software are Campaigner and ActiveCampaign.
Email marketing software gives you the highest return on investment (ROI) among marketing channels – $38 for every $1 spent.
Plus, there are 1.5 billion active Gmail users – all of them could be potential customers.
How do you get started with choosing the right email marketing software?
The best email marketing services, software, and platforms have different price points and features.
Whether you are sending cold emails or looking for Gmail add-ons and extensions to help send more emails, there’s a tool for you.
This guide will help you:
- Pick the best email marketing software based on your needs
- Save the most money on this business tool.
What Are The Best Email Marketing Services?
To choose from the best email marketing software, research price, reliability, technical support, template designs, ease of use, deliverability, automation, integrations, and any additional features you need.
The best email marketing software should allow you to design emails easily, segment your list, personalize your messaging, and view analytics reports, all to build an email list for your business.
And they should, most importantly, hit users’ primary inboxes.
In the end, email marketing is about sending the right message to the right user at the right time.
Here are my picks for the best email marketing software and services to try this year:
- ActiveCampaign.
- Constant Contact.
- HubSpot.
- Sendinblue.
- Moosend.
- Campaigner.
- Mailerlite.
- GetResponse.
- Pabbly.
- ConvertKit.
- Omnisend.
- Gist.
- Automizy.
- AWeber.
- Mailigen.
- Benchmark.
- SendPulse.
- MoonMail.
- Ontraport.
- Campaign Monitor.
- MailChimp.
- Mailjet.
Best for CRM ($29/month)
Arwa’s Take
If you want to drive your customer experience, then ActiveCampaign is the way to go. From email list automation to a top-notch lead scoring system, I recommend ActiveCampaign for those serious about email marketing.
ActiveCampaign is a great email marketing software where machine learning plays a key role.
With Predictive Actions, ActiveCampaign answers tough questions about your customers to automatically take action for you and lead them down the sales funnel.
You can integrate ActiveCampaign with 850+ other apps like Facebook, Shopify, WordPress, and more.
Automating your list segments is intuitive, and you can build list triggers and move users based on dynamic email content, sales follow-ups, and more.
Email workflows are robust and easy to manage.
This data syncs with their built-in CRM to provide sales teams with advanced lead scoring.
Their lead scoring system is flexible too. If you’re unfamiliar with lead scoring, it’s a way to award points to individual email subscribers based on your chosen actions.
Then once they hit a point threshold, they either enter a new automation funnel or can be contacted by your sales team.
Here are the steps:
- First, you select your engagement metrics. These could be anything from an email open or click to a content download or consultation request.
- Next, you add your lead-scoring rules and points based on these conditions. These should be set based on effort and propensity to convert.
- Maybe an open email is worth two points, and a link click is worth five points. Or actions like non-opens or unsubscribes are worth negative points. Once a subscriber reaches a pre-determined point threshold, subscriber data flows to the Deals CRM, where they enter a new stage of automation:
It’s a great system that large companies use to nurture email leads in the most personalized way possible.
Another strong selling point is email deliverability, ranking higher than all other platforms on this list. Their email sends are the least likely to be marked as spam and have the best chance of hitting primary inboxes on Gmail and Outlook.
Check out this full ActiveCampaign review for a more detailed look at this tool.
You can also check out my Constant Contact vs. ActiveCampaign review article to compare these two platforms directly.
Key Features:
- One-on-one training lets you get the most out of ActiveCampaign, and their team is always available to answer any questions.
- Free migration means no need to worry about losing data or starting from scratch.
- Beautiful email marketing allows you to create stunning newsletters and campaigns that will engage your customers and encourage them to buy
- Set up a welcome series to introduce new subscribers to your brand, and message your customers to keep them updated on new products and sales.
- Site Tracking helps you see how people interact with your website, so you can make changes to improve your conversion rate.
User Experience:
Once you sign up, a step-by-step automation builder allows you to create your first marketing campaign quickly.
After that, the intuitive interface makes it easy to keep track of your progress and make changes as needed.
In addition, the visual elements give you a clear overview of your progress and help you to focus on the most critical tasks.
You can add triggers, set delays, and edit your campaign anytime.
Pricing:
Pricing is based on the account features and the size of your email list.
- Lite: $29/month
- Plus: $49/month
- Professional: $149/month
- Enterprise: Custom Pricing
All plans come with a 14-day free trial.
What I Like/Dislike About ActiveCampaign:
Like:
- The interface is intuitive, making it easy to navigate for beginners.
- The onboarding and support teams provide helpful resources and guidance when needed.
- Additionally, managing campaigns is a breeze with ActiveCampaign.
Dislike:
- Reporting and integrations are sometimes challenging to understand and use.
- The use of tags can be confusing and challenging to keep track of.
Product Updates:
- Improved App Studio authentication log lets you quickly and easily see who has accessed your account.
- Create your custom objects. You can now create custom fields to store needed data without coding.
- Add a signature personalization tag to personal emails to make them unique and stand out in the inbox.
ActiveCampaign is the best tool if you’re looking for the best email marketing, CRM, and automation tool in one place.
Get started with ActiveCampaign.
Best Email Marketing Service for Small Businesses ($20/month)
Arwa’s Take
I recommend Constant Contact as the email marketing software for various small businesses. ConstantContact provides all the digital marketing tools in one interface for email marketing, growing your list, social media, and automation. These all provide an all-in-one solution for small businesses.
Constant Contact has been in the email marketing space since 1995, taking the name Constant Contact back in 2004.
In 2015, they became a part of Endurance International Group, a powerhouse that other companies, including Bluehost, HostGator, and Domain.com.
As stated on its website, the company’s ultimate goal is to help small businesses navigate the web’s promise, power, and potential.
They feature 100+ modern, mobile-optimized templates to engage and convert customers, real-time reporting and analytics, and bonus features like coupons, polls, and events.
One of its most unique features is its event management system and the ability to manage invitations, registrations, and tickets:
Email deliverability is above average and one of the highest among email service providers at over 90%.
Key Features:
- Email Marketing: With Constant Contact, you can create beautiful email newsletters and campaigns to engage your customers and encourage them to buy.
- List Growth: Constant Contact’s growth tools make it easy to grow your email list to reach more customers.
- Social Media Posting: With Constant Contact, you can post to social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to keep your customers updated on new products and sales.
- Automation: Constant Contact’s automation features allow you to send welcome emails to new subscribers, follow up with customers who haven’t bought anything, and more.
- A/B Testing: A/B testing allows you to test different versions of your email newsletter or campaign to see which one performs better.
- Landing Pages: Constant Contact’s landing pages allow you to drive more traffic to your website and increase conversions.
User Experience:
Being a very visual platform, you can use a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor to customize your email templates easily.
You can also experiment with the many pre-built automation options to find the perfect fit for your business.
You can also create your landing website easily, having a blog, landing pages, and email forms all in one place.
Pricing:
Constant Contact pricing is tiered based on the number of email contacts in your list.
Their paid plans start at $20/month for up to 500 contacts.
Their drip campaigns are easy to use and intuitive.
You can create simple sequences, but combining conditions or using advanced filtering is impossible.
What I Like/Dislike About Bluehost:
Like:
- Specialized marketing messages make it easy to create targeted campaigns to engage your customers and encourage them to buy.
- Additionally, the ease of creating lists is a huge time-saver.
- I also appreciate that Constant Contact offers professionally-designed templates for those who want to create beautiful email newsletters but don’t have the time or design skills to do so themselves.
Dislike:
- More options for reports would be helpful to help understand email marketing performance.
- Sometimes, changes made to content don’t get saved, which can be frustrating.ding training can
- Support could be faster in responding to questions.
Product Updates:
- Reset your authentication factors without contacting support so you can quickly get back into your account if you lose your phone or 2-factor authentication device.
- You can export from Canva directly to the Constant Contact image library to quickly and easily add images to your email newsletters and campaigns.
Constant Contact is a good choice if you’re looking for niche features like event management and want top-notch email deliverability.
They are my #2 choice for email service providers this year.
With my link, you can get started today and take 10% off your first 12 months.
Best Email Marketing Software for Marketers (Free – $50/month)
Arwa’s Take
Are you looking for a combination of marketing power that’s easy to use? In that case, my pick would be Hubspot, as it provides the right mix of both, allowing you to serve your customers with excellent experiences that will enable your business to scale. With various hubs for sales, marketing, and operations, you will find all the tools you need for your business.
HubSpot is the most integrated marketing package on the market.
Using their email marketing software is one of the easiest ways to design, optimize, and send fantastic-looking emails.
They provide many custom features, and you can pick, plan, and upgrade whether you’re a small business or a large enterprise.
When creating an email, you either use one of their pre-made email templates or start from scratch.
These templates allow you to add text, images, buttons, dividers, and all kinds of assets and layouts.
I found their email editor the easiest to use on the market. It’s much faster and more user-friendly than other tools on this list:
Once you’re happy with your email design, preview it based on different recipients, devices, or email clients like Gmail, Apple Mail, and Office 365.
Email subject lines, preview text, and the content itself can look very different based on the end user’s email client.
These previews ensure your emails look great in any inbox.
Personalization is another strength of HubSpot. Like standard tools, you personalize content based on common merge tags like the recipient’s first name.
HubSpot takes it a step further.
You can also personalize content based on a user’s device, list segment, and geographic location.
Plus, you can A/B test your subject lines and content to maximize your email open rates and click rates.
Next, when you’re ready to hit send and publish your email, you can use their Smart Send functionality. This feature allows you to adjust your send time to maximize engagement.
After sending your email, it’s time to view your metrics.
The HubSpot analytics dashboard gives you data on your opens and clicks, plus unique information on the amount of time spent viewing your email.
Viewing whether subscribers Read, Skimmed, or Glanced at your email is one of the best reporting tools to observe how engaging your email content is:
For example, you may see that subscribers are only glancing at your emails for a short time.
This data helps you know which email content types need improvement.
Consistently hitting users’ inboxes is another benefit of HubSpot. They have a healthy 99% email deliverability rate.
These substantial numbers are due to proper domain validation settings with DKIM and SPF records and the ability to thoroughly preview and test emails.
The main reason that HubSpot is #1 on my list is that their email marketing platform is just one aspect of their product.
The real benefits come with their Marketing Hub Starter Package.
Key Features:
With solutions that integrate all your marketing tools into one place, HubSpot provides a streamlined experience.
The visual interface lets you quickly see your progress and results for each campaign.
You can also create custom reports to get more insight into your marketing performance.
In addition, you can analyze the health of your marketing campaigns with built-in analytics tools.
There are also help features right there on the platform, so you can get answers to your questions quickly.
Pricing:
I recommend you get started for free, then upgrade to their Marketing Hub Starter Package for $45/month.
What I Like/Dislike About HubSpot:
Like:
- Workflow: You can easily automate your email marketing processes with HubSpot’s workflow tool. This huge time-saver allows you to focus on other aspects of your business.
- List-building functionality: With HubSpot, you can quickly and easily build lists of subscribers, allowing you to grow your email list and reach more customers.
- Support people are great: The support team at HubSpot is very responsive and helpful. They are always willing to answer any questions and help you troubleshoot any issues you may be having.
Dislike:
- Not always obvious how to accomplish tasks leading to a bit more of a learning curve
- Onboarding training can be more direct and concise.
Product Updates:
- Custom feedback surveys: You can now create custom feedback surveys to collect customer data. These feedbacks provide a great way to gather insights about your products or services and improve your customer experience.
- HubSpot’s payments feature: You can now use HubSpot’s payments feature to accept payments and donations directly through your website. Payments increase conversions and revenue.
- 50+ new HubSpot-built data sync integrations: HubSpot has added 50+ new data sync integrations, so you can easily connect your account with other software platforms. These integrations streamline your workflows and save time.
Best Email Marketing Service with Automation on a Budget ($25/month)
Arwa’s Take
Whether you want to speak to your clients over email, SMS, or chat, Sendinblue allows you to communicate in the best way possible. If you’re interested in getting in touch with your list using multiple methods, I suggest you check out Sendinblue.
Sendinblue is an easy-to-use email marketing service with a free plan that allows unlimited contacts and 300 email newsletters daily.
If you’re serious about growing your list, you can use their Lite plan, which starts at $20/month and allows up to 40,000 sends per month and no daily sending limit.
Their free platform is all built on ease of use.
Its simplicity allows you to easily create clean-looking templates, automated welcome emails, and website opt-in forms.
They also offer live chat and CRM in their free plan, which includes one automation workflow for up to 2,000 contacts.
Sendinblue also uses machine learning and AI to send emails at the best time of the day to maximize engagement.
You can also view real-time statistics with necessary reports that provide metrics like open rates, click-through rates, deliverability, and heat maps.
One of their best features is their email automation workflows.
These allow you to set triggers and put your subscribers through custom workflows based on actions they take on your website and in the funnel:
Key Features:
- SMS Marketing means that you can now send text messages to your contacts in addition to email. This channel is a great way to reach more people and get more engagement.
- Chat allows you to communicate with your contacts in real-time, which is a great way to build stronger customer relationships.
- Transaction Email helps you keep track of your transactions and follow up with your contacts, increasing sales and conversions.
- Get more engagement by launching Facebook ads directly from Sendinblue. This engagement is a great way to reach more people and get more leads.
- Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is integral to any marketing strategy. With Sendinblue, you can A/B test your emails to determine which version gets the best conversion rates.
User Experience:
With a walkthrough to help you get started, Sendinblue makes it easy to create your first marketing campaign.
The intuitive interface makes it easy to keep track of your progress and make changes as needed.
You can also let the platform find the best times to send emails based on your recipients’ previous best engagement times.
Pricing:
You can get started with their Lite Plan for $25/month if you want advanced email marketing automation software on a budget.
What I Like/Dislike About Cloudways:
Like:
- It’s straightforward to integrate this platform into any third-party service.
- You can also create an email marketing campaign within minutes.
Dislike:
- Sometimes, the search does not find the right contacts, which can be frustrating.
- The free plan can feel insufficient for testing and exploring all the platform’s features.
Excellent All-In-One Email Marketing Automation Tool (Free – $9+/month based on list size)
Arwa’s Take
With a focus on having a single interface for email marketing and automation, Moosend is easy to use for small business owners and freelance professionals that want a visual campaign builder to design personalized campaigns.
Moosend is an email automation tool that helps you build your email list, personalize your messages, and automate tasks so you can focus on customer relationships.
They have intuitive drag-and-drop email templates in their campaign builder. This tool lets you add images, text blocks, social icons, and more to your emails.
They have an extensive library of email templates with different responsive layouts that look great on desktop or mobile.
Key Features:
The area where Moosend stands out is the automation features. Using their “Recipes” (pre-built automation templates), you can automate messages via upsells, customer engagement, and customer loyalty.
Every automation has three main components: the triggers, control steps, and actions.
When you combine all three, you can filter email list segments and send sequences when your specified actions occur.
Some other critical Moosend features include:
- Landing Page Builder Tools: Create custom webpages with email sign-up forms to increase conversions.
- Automation Workflows: These templates let you easily personalize your emails and nurture customer relationships.
- Custom Opt-In Forms: You can design and create custom forms to let visitors subscribe to your email list.
- List Segmentation: Segment your list based on customer behavior, like engagement metrics, abandoned cart emails, and more.
- Reporting Tools: Their analytics tools provide a bird’s eye view of your essential email metrics.
- Customer Support: Each paid plan provides phone support. Custom enterprise plans all give an account manager and support via email, phone, and live chat. They also have video tutorials and a vast knowledge base to answer your questions.
User Experience:
There’s a wide range of actions and conditions that you can use to trigger your emails, making it easy to create very sophisticated marketing automation campaigns.
You can also use the visual interface to see your progress and results for each campaign.
You can also define many settings that help you fine-tune your campaigns for better results.
Pricing:
The pricing reflects the number of subscribers in your email list.
They provide a free plan for users with under 1,000 subscribers and include sign-up forms, reporting, and the ability to send unlimited emails.
Moosend’s paid plans start at $9 per month and increase with the number of subscribers.
Every paid plan can access transactional emails, page builders, and SMTP servers.
Their enterprise plans provide migration and onboarding support and Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML).
What I Like/Dislike About Moosend:
Like:
- The user-friendly interface and the dashboard are very intuitive.
- The campaign reports and performance monitoring are also beneficial when optimizing your campaigns.
Dislike:
- The importation of a CSV file is a bit tough to understand and follow.
- The Moosend landing page builder interface can be confusing to use at first.
Product Updates:
- You can now see the most recent action taken on your site.
- Filter and sort automations by name, list, or date, allowing you to find the automation quickly you’re looking for.
If you’re looking for advanced email automation tools, give Moosend a try.
Best Overall Email Marketing Software
Campaigner provides more than email automation.
It helps you create entire customer journeys that are highly personalized, starting from the very first interaction and continuing throughout the whole customer lifecycle.
Campaigner’s ability to attract and capture more leads, convert them into paying customers, and keep them engaged with your brand long-term.
With an intuitive automation workflow builder and a wide range of features, Campaigner is an excellent choice for businesses.
Key Features:
- Create workflows that allow you to send highly personalized messages to your contacts at scale automatically.
- With Autoresponders, you can quickly turn one-time visitors into lifelong customers by automatically sending them targeted and timely emails.
- Launch Triggered Campaigns based on specific interactions (such as opening an email or clicking a link) and Recurring Campaigns that send on a regular schedule.
- Embrace SMS marketing to reach your contacts where they are the most.
- Social media integration helps you to share your message with your network and increase the visibility of your brand.
User Experience:
The ability to build emails using professional templates, or code your own from scratch, is one of the things that makes Campaigner stand out.
The email builder is easy to use and offers a wide range of customization options, so you can create emails that perfectly reflect your brand.
A top menu makes navigating the different features easy, providing an intuitive user experience.
Pricing:
There are four pricing plans available on Campaigner:
- Starter: $59/ mo
- Essential: $179/ mo
- Advanced: $649/ mo
There is also an eCommerce plan, at $79.95/ mo, that includes Shopify and Magento integration, unlimited contacts, and other ecommerce features.
What I Like/Dislike About HostGator:
Like:
- A ton of functionality is included in Campaigner, ranging from email automation to SMS marketing.
- I also like the different customization options for email templates, which allow you to create emails that perfectly reflect your brand.
- The delivery rate is also relatively high compared to other products.
Dislike:
- Getting the exact look you want when designing an email takes a bit of adjusting.
Product Updates:
- With a new two-factor authentication (2FA) feature, Campaigner makes it easier and more secure for customers to log in and manage their accounts.
Get started with Campaigner.
Best Ease of Use and 24/7 Support (Free – $10/month)
Over 600,000 customers around the world use Mailerlite.
They have flexible tiered plans based on the size of your contact list.
You can start with their forever-free plan if you have less than 1,000 email subscribers.
They are best known for their easy user interface, responsive email designs, and excellent 24/7 phone support and email support.
This free plan has limited features and allows you to send up to 12,000 emails per month.
Upgrading to their $10/month plan gives you access to all features that help your email marketing strategy, including a landing page builder, embedded forms, and pop-ups.
With Mailerlite, you can track your email marketing results with a click map and opens by location reports.
They also provide some other great features, including:
- Live 24/7 customer support via chat and email
- A powerful and easy-to-use landing page builder
- Ecommerce integrations with the top platforms
- Email surveys
- Template Gallery
- Amazing email deliverability
Pricing:
With a free plan for up to 1000 subscribers, Mailerlite’s pricing plans offer something for everyone.
Overall, if you’re looking for flexible pricing, want excellent deliverability, and don’t have an extensive list yet, give Mailerlite a try.
What Are Email Marketing Services?
A simple email marketing definition is the use of email to promote products or services.
Even better, email marketing is a way to use email to nurture and develop relationships with your email subscribers to complete an end goal like a sale.
Email marketing is just one form of digital marketing, including search engine marketing, social media, SEO, blogging, etc.
Before email, direct mail was a way to reach consumers in their mailboxes.
Email marketing takes this strategy online by sending messages to users electronically to their email inboxes.
Unlike direct mail, email requires users to opt-in to your email list to receive your messages.
Summary
That’s a wrap.
I hope this list of top email service providers helps you choose the right platform for your online business.
As there are many great tools, it’s ultimately about knowing your price point and which features are most important to you.
Startups require different features than an already-established business, so by focusing on price, deliverability, template designs, ease of use, and the unique features you need, you’ll be able to find the right fit.
My final recommendations:
- If you’re looking for an excellent new email service with advanced automation, go with ActiveCampaign.
- If you want excellent email deliverability and the all-around best platform for small businesses, Constant Contact is your winner.
- If you are looking to add email marketing to your CRM and integrated marketing toolkit, HubSpot is your best choice.
What did you think of this list? Are there any platforms not mentioned? Let me know in the comments.
