There’s too many email marketing services out in 2019.
And you just don’t know which one is perfectly right for you so you need a simple guide to help you quickly choose which one is the best for your personal business.
But you need a little bit more information and you don’t want to pick the wrong one and have to transfer your email list ALL OVER AGAIN so you want to make sure you choose the right one.
So in this guide I decided to include:
- A one-sentence summary (For skimmers who want to get to the point)
- An overview (A brief summary and who this is meant for)
- Pros
- Cons
How Do I Choose The Best Email Marketing Service Specifically For Me
There are different email marketing services for different people.
Some things to consider when you sign up for one are:
- Price
- Ease Of Use
- Deliverability of your emails
- A/B Split Testing
- How much control you have in your campaigns
- Analytics
- Reports
- Automation
- Form Builders
- Integration with third-party apps
- Landing Pages
- Customer Service
For example, bloggers and small business owners will have different needs compared to a giant company like Apple (and therefore a different email marketing service.)
So here are the different email marketing services I’m going to cover and want to skip around if you did some research already. Otherwise, just skip this.
- Mailchimp
- Aweber
- Drip
- Convert Kit
- Constant Contact
- SendinBlue
- Cakemail
- Mad Mimi
- ReachMail
- Campaigner
- InfusionSoft
- Zoho Campaigns
- Vero
- Campaign Monitor
- GetResponse
- Keap
- MailerLite
- Active Campaign
- Vertical Response
- Mailify
- Mailjet
- Klaviyo
- Omnisend
I tried to make it as easy as possible to navigate and skim through depending on where you are at for your business so let’s get started.
Mailchimp
A One Sentence Summary
- It’s free and for me.
Who is this meant for
- People with no email subscribers (and want to build one)
- Small/medium business owners with a small subscriber list (under 25,000) who want a decent email marketing service.
Summary
Let’s start off with the incredibly well-known email platform service MailChimp. MailChimp has a reputation for the forever free plan (2,000 subscribers and 12,000 monthly emails) and the ability to integrate with many other web services (eCommerce, WordPress, Shopify, etc.) Mailchimp’s giant corporation also means that it has the ability to have great deliverability rates.
Pros
- Free up to 2,000 subscribers and 12,000 monthly emails. (However, there is a small Mailchimp badge at the bottom of your email)
- The HTML design templates are user-friendly and intuitive
- Very easy to Integrate (Shopify, WordPress, Google Analytics)
- Sign-up Forms are easily customizable and can be embedded onto your website
- Now includes automation in all plans
- Allows you to preview emails you are currently working for on a campaign
- Ability to have multiple collaborators who can post comments and send test emails
Cons
- Their acceptable use policy is strict and limiting and can punish you without warning (No using their services for work from home, make money online, lead generation opportunities, and affiliate marketing)
- Support service is not the best (only have a contact form and may take awhile to respond)
- Limited by lots of features until you get the pro feature ($199)
- Don’t have full control with segmentation in the free plan
- Fewer email templates than its other competitors
- No easy way to delete inactive subscribers
Pricing Examples
- Forever Free plan
- minimum $10 once you pass your 2,000 subscriber limit
- 2,000 subscribers = $30 per month
- 20,000 subscribers = $150 per month
- 200,000 subscribers = $875 per month
Aweber
A summary in one sentence
Mailchimp’s biggest competitor.
Who Is This Meant For
- Small businesses with under 25,000 subscribers.
Summary
Aweber is your typical friendly small business email marketing service. The biggest takeaway compared to MailChimp is it is not free. However, they do offer unlimited emails and a 30-day guarantee to try out their email marketing platform.
One of their biggest advantages is its solid customer support where they can provide you help via telephone, web chat, or email any day of the week (no matter what your price plan is.)
Pros
- Provides full access to all of its features
- unlimited emails
- autoresponders available
- email tracking
- 30-day free guarantee
- Easy Of Use for designing emails
- Detailed Analytics (compare results across your past 20 emails)
- Easy Guides To Get Started
- Comes with 700 email templates and 6000 stock images.
- Compare your email performance against others in your industry
- Awesome customer service
- WordPress website, landing page builder, or opt-in form builder with ease.
Cons
- Restrictive in designing some templates (although you can hire Aweber’s design team to work with you)
- Data importing is a bit weird
- High monthly Cost
- Seems to be falling behind on the social media front
- You can preview emails but have no option to see how it looks on mobile.
- Requires a credit card to try out their free trial (not too big of a deal.)
Pricing
- 500 subscribers = $19/month
- 2,500 subscribers = $29/month
- 5,000 subscribers = $49/month
- 25,000 subscribers = $149/month
Drip
Summary In One Sentence
Automation nerds who want to take your automation skillz to the next level
Who is it for
- Automation geeks who want to automate their entire business
- Small/medium businesses who want an intuitive interface on creating detailed automated segments
- SaaS owner who collects emails from your PPC landing page and wants to import them into an automated email campaign
Summary
Drip is a popular email marketing service perfect for non-coders who want an easy interface to set up all their customizable automation.
They create each email sequence through workflows where you can customize each segment depending on the customer’s “journey.”
This email marketing service is more suited towards medium weight businesses (not as powerful as Infusionsoft but has more control than Mailchimp)
Pros
- Friendly user interface
- Lots of control over campaigns (for automation nerds)
- Lots of resources to get started (five-day email mini-course at no charge)
- Great Analytics
- free trial for 3 weeks
- free for 100 subscribers
- built-in split-testing
- Over 3 landing page integrations (Instapage, Leadpages, Unbounce)
- Drip is in active development where Rob (the creator) is really responsive to suggestions.
- built-in performance tracking (KPIs, conversation rate, subscription rate, open rate)
- Event Tracking
- “If, Then” Rules (Customize different segments of your audience)
- Drip will help you import your existing email list for free,
Cons
- No Free version
- Not as well known compared to Mailchimp/Aweber (integrations are iffy)
- No Landing Page Builder Included
- Pricey
Pricing
- Basic = $49/month (2,500 subscribers)
- Pro = $99/month (5,000 subscribers)
- Business = $149/month (12,500 subscribers)
Convert Kit
A summary in one sentence
Bloggers and content marketers like this email service quite a lot.
Who is this for
- Small businesses
- Bloggers
- Content Marketers
- Youtubers
- Podcasters
Summary
ConvertKit is a great email marketing service mainly for content creators like bloggers and youtubers. It simplifies email marketing with intuitive controls and a simple design that makes it easy to integrate with WordPress. The only problems are that it is a little pricey for the first plan and has very basic template designs.
Pros
- Built-In split testing
- Built-in landing page builder
- 30-day guarantee
- Easy To Use
- Intuitive Landing Pages
- Automation
- Easy Opt-in forms
- Send out emails
- integrates nicely with WordPress (great for bloggers)
- Slightly cheaper than Drip on a per-subscriber basis (if you have a large list or send out high volumes of email)
Cons
- Not Free
- Does not offer concierge service (so you have to write your own emails compared to Drip)
- Landing page templates are Limited
- Lacks some third-party integrations
Pricing
- $29/month for 1,000 subscribers
- $79/month for 5,000 subscribers
- $119/month for 10,000 subscribers
Constant Contact
Summary in one sentence
Solid marketing service with its own wikipedia page.
Who is meant for
- Small businesses starting out in email marketing
Summary
A professional tool that helps you with real-time analytics and a contact management system. It doesn’t have the fancy a/b split testing and is mainly used for a simple tool for small business owners to operate their business.
Pros:
- 60-day trial guarantee
- Great customer service (Live chat, emails, discussion forms)
- Lots of resources to get started
- High deliverability rates
- Simple Design
- Good stock photos
Cons
- Limited automation
- Editor lacks some features
- No customization for opt-in forms
- Spam testing isn’t available
- Free trial limits you to 10 subscribers only
Pricing
It comes with two pricing versions and depends on whether you start with email or email plus.
- Starts at $20/month or 45/month
- 5,000 subscribers: $60/month or $85/month
SendinBlue
Summary in one sentence
- Pay by emails rather than by subscribers
Who is meant for
- Beginning email marketers
- Small business owners
Summary
It offers you the standard tools you need but doesn’t come with A/B split testing.
What mainly sets this one apart is that it charges you per the number of emails you send rather than how much subscribers you have.
Pros
- Free up to 9,000 emails per month
- Transactional emails made easy (trigger email)
- SMS marketing
- Decent reports
- Marketing automation
- Email builder
- Great on Mobile
- Easy to use
Cons
- Lack of email templates
- Not enough customizability (fonts and designs)
Pricing
- Free up to 9,000 emails/mo
- $7 for 40,000 emails/mo
- $66 for 120,000 emails/mo
Cakemail
A summary in one sentence:
Cheaper than Mailchimp when you have above 2,000 subscribers
Who is this for:
- Small businesses on a budget
Summary:
They strip out a ton of complicated stuff making it very clean and easy to use. You do get some customization, analytics, and automation but not any of the fancy stuff with detailed analytics.
Pros
- Free 30 day trial guarantee
- Cheap
- Simple
- Easy To Use
- No hassle setting it up
- A/B split testing
Cons
- Not much features
- No autoresponders
- No detailed analytics
Pricing
- Starts at $8/month.
- 5,000 subscribers = $39/month
- 25,000 subscribers = $119/month
Mad Mimi
Summary in one sentence
An alternative affordable service
Who is this for
- Businesses on a budget
Summary
It offers your typical email marketing services but many of the functions like CakeMail is toned down. It is also a lot cheaper than most of the other email marketing services out there.
Pros
- Cheap
- Typical Email marketing services such as customizing emails
- Interesting add ons
- Fresh design look
- Simple
Cons
- Limited functionality
- Not many templates to choose from
- Autoresponder feature is limited
- Analytics are simple
- No A/B split testing
- No Free Trial
Pricing
- Starts at $10/month
- 5000 subscribers = $27/month
- 25,000 subscribers = $89/month
ReachMail
Summary in one sentence
Free-er than MailChimp.
Who is this for
- People on a really small budget
Summary
Reachmail is free for 5,000 subscribers and up to 30,000 emails per month in comparison with Mailchimp with 2,000 subscribers and 12,000 emails. This comes at the cost of limited functionality and capability.
Pros
- Super Free
Cons
- Limited functions
Pricing
- Free up to 5,000 subscribers
- Paid plans start at $10/month
- 25,000 subscribers = $70/month
Campaigner
Summary in one sentence
Another affordable email marketing service for small businesses
Whos it for
- Small businesses with a limited budget
Summary
Campaigner has been around for a while, rubbing shoulders with giants such as Subway, Warner Bros, and UPS. One word that sums Campaigner up is ‘thorough’: it has over 700 templates, precise email automation complete with workflows, A/B Testing, and detailed email tracking. Not too shabby.
Pros
- 30 day free trial
- Great customer service
- Flexible email template editor
- Automatically remove unsubscribes from your reports
Cons
- Some issues with Gmail importing
- Can get costly with extra features
- No spam score tool
Pricing:
- Starts at $20/mo
- 5,000 subscribers = $50/month
- 25,000 subscribers = $150/month
Keap (Infusionsoft)
Summary in one sentence
You are going to be building an empire with this advanced CRM
Whos it for
- Serious businesses who want full control over their entire business and automations
Summary
This is time for the big guns. This is a serious CRM software going into sales and payment automation. You are actually forced to talk with a salesperson and a Kickstart program that gives you coaching tailored for your needs.
Pros
- Cheapest plans provide email marketing
- Landing page builder
- Analytics
- Navigation is intuitive
Cons
- Pricey
- Have to pay for the Kickstart program
- Customer service is alright
- No split testing
- May become a problem if the domain is blacklisted
Pricing
- Essentials = $199/month (marketing automation only)
- Deluxe = $299/month (choice of either sales automation or e-commerce software)
- Complete = $379/month (all software)
- Team = $599/month
Zoho Campaign
A Summary in one sentence
Consider this if you use the Zoho CRM system
Who is this for
- Businesses who abuse the Zoho CRM system to reap all of its functions
Summary
This is just a regular email marketing service that provides the usual email marketing tools. It integrates well with the Zoho CRM system so consider using this if you use that as well.
Another thing that it does extremely well is it’s a mobile platform if you enjoy tweaking your emails on your phone.
Pros
- Integrates extremely well with Zoho CRM system and G suite
- Mobile platform
- A/B testing
- Integrates well with WordPress
Cons
- Customer support is alright
- Not enough customization
- Lots of configuration in the beginning
Pricing
- Free up to 2,000 subscribers
- Paid plans start at $5/month
- 5,000 subscribers = $45/month
- 25,000 subscribers = $125/month
Vero
Summary in one sentence
The social media of email marketing
Who is this for
- Small business owners who want more control
Summary
Vero creates a unique profile for each customer allowing for a more personalized campaign. This allows you to easily segment based on the customer preference and creates a complex automation that tries to keep it user-friendly.
Pros
- User friendly
- All features available in cheapest plan
- Integrates with mobile app
- Powerful
Cons
- It takes a ton of clicks to send an email to a customer
- No built in email editing
- Pricing structure is a bit expensive (if you exceed the email limit you get bumped to the next plan)
Pricing
- Starter = $99/month (12,500 subscribers)
- Growth = $299/month (100,000 subscribers)
- Pro = $599/month (175,000 subscribers)
Campaign Monitor
Summary in one sentence:
Super duper powerful
Who is this for:
- Big boy companies
- Businesses with a lot of money and who wants a powerful marketing service
Summary:
This is for the bougie companies who go on about their daily business and looks down upon us peasants. This is the big guns. It’s powerful. It’s high-tech. It’s cool. It’s also incredibly expensive.
Pros:
- Awesome customer support
- Sleek, modern design
- Advanced controls
- Powerful
Cons:
- Not cheap
Pricing:
- Starts at $29/mo
- 5,000 subscribers: $99/mo
- 25,000 subscribers:
- $399/mo 50,000 subscribers:
Getresponse
Summary in one sentence
An all for one email marketing software for businesses
Who is this for
- Medium sized businesses
Summary
Your all in one marketing platform. Getresponse creates intuitive drag and drop landing page builders along with many fancy features such as A/B split testing, creating webinars, and a function called Perfect timing.
Pros
- Landing page builder
- Webinar creator
- Autoresponders
- Integrates well with 3rd party
- In-depth guides
Cons
- Template looks a bit dated
Pricing
Email plan:
- 1,000 subscribers = $15/month
- 2,500 subscribers = $25/month
- 5,000 subscribers = $45/month
Mailerlite
Summary in one sentence
Strips down the non-essentials for email marketing
Who is this for
- People who want to keep things simple for email marketing
- Freelancers
- Web owners
Summary
If you want to keep things simple this is the email marketing service you probably want. It strips down to the most essential features that you basically need without getting into advanced analytics and reports.
Pros
- Beginner friendly
- Seamless design
Cons
- No advanced features
Pricing
- 1,000 subscribers: Free
- 2,500 subscribers: $10 per month
- 5,000 subscribers: $25 per month
Active Campaign
Summary in one sentence
Their goal is to send fewer emails with better results
Who is this for
- Need some serious automation work done for your business
- Small/medium sized businesses.
Summary
An email marketing service which specializes in automation and its abundance in features to help you get the results you need. It also specializes in different marketing tactics such as SMS marketing, personalized site messages, and Facebook Ads.
Pros
- Known for its automation
- Detailed analytics
- Awesome deliverability rates
Cons
- Not necessarily a problem but it has too many features that can be quite overwhelming
- No customer surveys
- No landing page builder
Pricing
- 500 subscribers = $15/month
- 1,000 subscribers = $29/month
- 2,500 subscribers = $49/month
- 5,000 subscribers = $89/month
Vertical Response
Summary in one sentence
A clean email marketing service with basic and advanced features
Who is this for
- Small businesses
- Non-profit organizations
Summary
This is your typical email marketing service that is decently cheap but with many of the functions that you need for a small business. It seems to be a heavy image newsletter with access to an image library.
Pros
- A/B testing
- Automation
- Detailed analytics
- Free version
- Easy to use
Cons
- No Drip campaigns
- Not mobile optimized
- No landing page builder
- May land in Gmail’s promotion tabs or spam folder
Pricing
Starting Price = $8.80/month
Mailify
Summary in one sentence
An alternative to an all-in-one marketing platform
Who is this for
- Someone who is on a budget and wants to centralize all their marketing
Summary
Mailify is a great email marketing service for in-house data management and creates an all-in-one marketing platform with SMS marketing, marketing automation, and a web version of the application.
Pros
- Upload an unlimited amount of contacts
- Tons of templates to choose from
Cons
- Deliverability isn’t too good
- Can’t add forms to landing pages
- Quite expensive compared to other email marketing services with similar features
Pricing
- 5,000 subscribers = $69/month
- 1,0000 subscribers = $99/month
- 2,5000 subscribers = $139/month
- 5,0000 subscribers = $179/month
Mailjet
Summary in one sentence
Mailjet specializes in maximizing email deliverability
Who is this for
- Small businesses
- Companies
Summary
Extremely easy to set up and use for an email marketing service. It comes with your typical package of A/B testing, drip campaigns, and an image library.
Pros
- Free Trial/version available
- Extensive resources on training
- Easy to use and setup
- Decent customer support
Cons
- No autoresponders
- Not mobile optimized
Pricing
Starts at $8.69/month
Klaviyo
Summary in one sentence
If you are running an ecommerce store…
Who is this for
- Ecommerce store owners
Summary
A solid email marketing platform designed for eCommerce stores. The cool thing about this email marketing platform is the number of rules and segmentation you can create for your customers and what type of actions they do. It is a little bit pricier compared to the other email marketing services though.
Pros
- Integrates with Shopify
- Have automated flows and easy to setup
- No need to code
Cons
- Learning curve for some features
- Can be buggy at times
- Customer support is alright
Pricing
- Free for 10 contacts.
- 300 contacts = $25/month
- 600 contacts = $50/month
Omnisend
Summary in one sentence
Another alternative for ecommerce email marketing.
Who is this for
- eCommerce stores
Summary
Omnisend is incredibly intuitive and powerful email marketing platform with its easy to set up email campaigns and automation sequences.
Pros
- Connects with ecommerce platforms (Shopify, Woocommerce, Bigcommerce, Magneto, etc.)
- A/B testing
- Drip campaigns
- Landing page builder
- Mobile optimized
Cons
- Lack of facebook integration
- You have to pay more to use more features
Pricing
15,000 emails = $16/month
Unlimited emails = $99/month
Enterprise = $2,000/month
Conclusion
Here are my personal recommendations.
- If you are an aspiring email marketer or a small business who wants to test out email marketing for free, I recommend you to try out Mailchimp
- If you are a blogger or a one-man publisher, then I recommend you get ConvertKit.
- If you own an eCommerce store I would choose Omnisend or Klaviyo.
- If you are someone who wants a medium weight software I recommend you get Drip.
- If you are looking for a big boy company I recommend you to go with Infusionsoft.