Email marketing software remains a necessity in today’s digital marketing. It offers businesses an affordable and effective way to nurture leads and drive conversions.
With an average return on investment of $36 for every $1 spent, email marketing continues to outperform many other marketing channels. However, the key to success lies in choosing the right tool that aligns with your specific needs and goals.
To help you navigate the crowded landscape of email marketing software, we’ve conducted extensive testing on the top 10 tools available today, exploring each platform’s strengths and unique features.
Let’s dive in.
Skip the list and get the best email marketing software for ecommerce!
Methodology: How we chose the best email marketing platforms
To provide an objective overview of the best email marketing software, we analyzed testimonials and ratings from popular peer-to-peer review platforms like G2 and Capterra.
We focused on tools with high ratings (4.2 and above), free plans, and strong customer support reviews. Our evaluation considered features, channels and integrations, reputation, price, customer support, and limitations.
Additionally, we evaluated each platform’s ease of use to offer first-hand insights and ensure they meet various business needs. This comprehensive approach enabled us to provide an objective overview to help you decide the best email marketing software for your business.
$9/month for 5,000 emails and no daily sending limit
G2: 4.4 Capterra: 4.5
Let’s explore the top email marketing software available today. We’ll highlight each platform’s unique features, benefits, and drawbacks to help you make an informed decision.
Omnisend proves that a quality marketing tool doesn’t have to break the bank.
Omnisend is an email and SMS marketing software designed specifically for ecommerce stores to build customer loyalty and generate more sales. With one-click integration with Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce and more, you can seamlessly sync your data and start designing campaigns.
Omnisend is a powerful platform with a suite of features designed to enhance your email marketing’s return on investment — even on the free plan. If you need to send more than 500 emails each month, Omnisend offers affordable paid plans starting at just $16 per month.
Get access to a large library of modern templates, automatically incorporating your store’s branding for quick and easy email customization.
Omnisend’s capabilities extend beyond email, covering the entire on-site marketing funnel. It includes tools for collecting subscribers via popups and landing pages, and automated workflows like abandoned cart triggers or welcome messages to increase sales in less time.
Intuitive drag-and-drop builder for easy email template design and editing
Integrations with major ecommerce platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, and Magento as well as with Zapier for custom integrations via API
Reports for campaign performance and automation results, featuring click-map reports, open rates, click-through rates, and sales data
Automatic integration of your store’s branding on your email and popup templates
Customizable and TCPA and GDPR-compliant forms for capturing visitor contact details, along with popups and landing pages
Flexible segmentation for better customer targeting and personalized communication
AI-assisted customer lifecycle segmentation for increased customer lifetime value
Why choose Omnisend?
Omnisend simplifies the process for ecommerce brands to attract and retain customers with high-converting email, popup, workflow, and segmentation templates. Plus, it’s consistently 40% cheaper than other leading ESPs, offering merchants a much higher ROI.
Moosend is a newer email marketing software that many consider cheap and effective. It’s a good platform for new ecommerce stores becoming familiar with email marketing and offers tools for improving performance, such as the ecommerce AI.
When testing Moosend, we found the user interface to be clean and intuitive. The campaign editor makes it simple to design professional emails, even for those without technical skills.
The template library offers a good variety, and customizing these templates is straightforward. We particularly appreciated the real-time reporting, which provides instant insights into campaign performance.
Key features
Campaign editor for creating professional-looking emails
Forms and popups for building your email list
Real-time reporting, analytics, and customer insights
Email personalization features for better customer targeting
Ecommerce AI tool that provides suggestions to improve email marketing performance
Although it doesn’t offer a free plan, Moosend offers a 30-day free trial to allow users to test its features. For 500 subscribers, pricing is as follows:
Pro: $9/month
Moosend+: Custom pricing
Enterprise: Custom pricing
3. Drip
Best email marketing software for extensive automations.
Drip is well-known for having great automation workflows that can be combined with segmentation. This integration allows you to better target your customers and send them relevant messages at the right time.
Drip offers 16 workflow templates that encompass the entire customer journey. They’re easy to customize, and with list targeting and segmentation, you can create more personalized experiences for various customer groups.
The email builder is user-friendly, although it could benefit from enhanced drag-and-drop functionality.
HubSpot is all-encompassing, equipped with a multitude of features to support your marketing, sales, affiliates, and creative teams. For that reason, we find that it’s best suited for larger companies, especially SaaS businesses.
HubSpot impresses with strong deliverability, native integrations, and a host of popular marketing and sales tools. The platform offers intuitive A/B testing for content and template designs, along with powerful segmentation and personalization features that enable highly targeted campaigns.
However, the sheer number of features may be overwhelming for small-to-medium businesses.
Key features
Easy-to-use email editor and well-designed templates to adapt to your brand
Native integration with HubSpot’s free CRM to enhance sales outreach and customer communications
A/B testing for different content and template designs
Robust landing page editor for quickly creating campaign-specific pages
Powerful segmentation and personalization to extend customer LTV
Pros and cons
Pros
✅ Ability to collect data on more of your marketing efforts
✅ Easy lead generation
Cons
❌ Can be overwhelming for small or medium businesses
❌ Gets expensive quickly
Why choose HubSpot?
If you have a SaaS business, HubSpot can help you streamline customer management. Plus, you can integrate extra customer support features such as live chat and chatbots.
Pricing
There’s a free plan to generate email leads for up to five users. The paid plans are as follows:
Marketing Hub Starter: $20/month/seat for up to 1,000 contacts
Starter Customer Platform: $20/month/seat for up to 1,000 contacts
Marketing Hub Professional: $890/month for 3 seats and up to 2,000 contacts
Marketing Hub Enterprise: $3,600/month for 5 seats and up to 10,000 contacts
5. Mailchimp
Best email marketing software for solopreneurs and startups.
Mailchimp is one of the most popular email marketing platforms for good reason. It’s user-friendly and effectively supports communication for businesses of all types.
Due to its focus on budding businesses and entrepreneurs, this email marketing software doesn’t offer as many advanced features as other tools on this list. As a result, many brands often look for Mailchimp alternatives as they grow.
Key features
Content optimizer with suggestions for more engaging emails
Great reporting features for tracking email campaign efficiency
Advanced automation for sending triggered emails
Segmentation tools to better target customers
Pros and cons
Pros
✅ A generous free plan
✅ Easy-to-use interface for building campaigns
Cons
❌ Gets expensive for larger contact lists
❌ Not for established or advanced marketing
Why choose Mailchimp?
Mailchimp is one of the easiest email marketing platforms for startup businesses. It helps beginners grasp the essentials of email marketing and effective practices.
However, once you’re established, you might find the need for a more robust email marketing software.
Pricing
A free plan is available. For up to 500 contacts, the pricing is as follows:
Essentials: $13/month
Standard: $20/month
Premium: $350/month
Discover how the equestrian apparel brand Kerrits seamlessly combines its Shopify store data with Omnisend’s user-friendly platform after switching from Mailchimp. This move resulted in revenue of $6.50 per email and an impressive 23% of sales generated through automated messaging.
MailerLite has earned a reputation over the years as one of the best email marketing platforms for small businesses. Its intuitive interface gives small ecommerce businesses more time to focus on other areas.
It’s one of the free email marketing platforms with essential features that are useful even for established brands, although it may lack more advanced features for larger teams.
We enjoyed features such as the website builder and surveys, which can help small businesses innovate and stay competitive.
Key features
Website builder to help you create landing pages without the need for separate apps
Pre-built workflows to automate your marketing campaigns
Email verifier to clean and optimize your subscriber list for better deliverability
Drag-and-drop interface for quickly and easily designing emails
Wide selection of email templates
Pros and cons
Pros
✅ Easy and simple to use
✅ A good number of email templates
Cons
❌ Not many integrations
❌ Can take a while to set up an account
Why choose MailerLite?
MailerLite isn’t just easy to use — it’s simple enough for small teams or solopreneurs to effectively manage essential email marketing with no problems.
Pricing
A free plan is available. Here is the pricing for up to 500 contacts:
Growing Business: $10/month
Advanced: $20/month
Enterprise: Custom pricing
7. ActiveCampaign
Best email marketing software for email marketing with built-in CRM integration.
Like HubSpot, ActiveCampaign boasts a built-in CRM, including sales automation. The Sales Suite includes contact lead scoring and SMS prospect nurturing.
For brands needing these features, ActiveCampaign serves as a powerful workhorse that could eliminate the need for subscriptions to other sales tools. However, it’s best suited for larger businesses that have more comprehensive processes and bigger budgets.
This tool also offers special pricing options tailored for non-profit entities.
Key features
Easy-to-use automation workflows with a simple drag-and-drop interface
Triggers to notify sales teams, create new tasks, and automate lead nurturing
AWeber is one of the top email marketing platforms for creating professional and on-brand emails. Its email editor integrates well with the popular graphic design tool Canva.
AWeber also has an extensive library of email templates to help you get started more quickly. Beyond that, it has excellent deliverability, ensuring that your emails reliably reach your customers’ inboxes.
Key features
Drag-and-drop email editor with 600+ pre-built email templates
Landing page editor for easily creating campaign-specific pages
Email segmentation to target specific customer groups
Automated email campaigns to win back abandoned carts or welcome subscribers
Web push notifications for more ways to reach your shoppers
Pros and cons
Pros
✅ Large library of email templates
✅ Web push notifications
Cons
❌ Free plan has limited features
❌ Segmentation options are limited until the higher plans
Why choose AWeber?
AWeber has wide-ranging features. If you genuinely value extensive options for email templates, this might be the email marketing system for you.
Pricing
A free plan is available. Meanwhile, here are the prices for paid plans with 500 subscribers:
Lite: $15/month
Plus: $30/month
Unlimited: $899/month
9. GetResponse
Best email marketing software for startups and SMBs.
GetResponse has a lot to offer, especially with its inbound marketing features. These features, combined with affordable pricing plans, make it best suited for startups and small businesses.
The impressive visual automation builder allows you to easily create custom automated workflows. Its pre-built email templates and product recommendations also make it a great overall email marketing software.
Key features
Email and SMS marketing to reach customers in more ways
Smart product recommendations to encourage upsells and cross-sells
Behavioral targeting for more personalized messaging
Wide-range of useful ecommerce integrations
Website and landing page builders to acquire and engage visitors
Pros and cons
Pros
✅ Excellent, affordable marketing automation
✅ Live chat and webinar capabilities
Cons
❌ Imperfect drag-and-drop for landing pages and forms
❌ Limited customer support
Why choose GetResponse?
GetResponse offers a comprehensive email and SMS marketing suite, but it would best suit startups and small businesses focused on inbound marketing.
Pricing
GetResponse provides a free trial for 30 days. For up to 1,000 contacts, here are the paid plan pricing:
Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) is one of the email marketing automation tools that can integrate email and SMS marketing to boost your conversions. Its most impressive feature might be its affordability, as it offers 20,000 emails for just $25 per month.
However, we found a catch. It costs an extra $12 per month to remove the Brevo logo and use certain features, such as A/B testing and heat maps. Nevertheless, for small businesses on a tight budget, even the basic plan can get the job done.
Key features
Integrated email and SMS marketing to reach more customers
Easy-to-customize email templates
User-friendly drag-and-drop editor that requires no technical knowledge
60+ advanced integrations
Insightful reporting and subscriber analytics
Pros and cons
Pros
✅ Easy-to-use email marketing
✅ A good variety of email templates
Cons
❌ Limited email layout options
❌ Limited customer support
Why choose Brevo?
If you’re eager to get started with an email marketing platform but have a limited budget, Brevo offers a good suite of features for a reasonable price.
Pricing
A free plan is available where you can send 300 emails per day. For 500 contacts and 5,000 emails per month, paid plans are as follows:
Starter: $9/month
Business: $18/month
Enterprise: Custom pricing
How to choose the best email marketing software
There are quite a few email service providers (ESPs) and CRMs available. This can make it rather difficult to determine which of these is the best fit for your business.
To help you decide, we analyzed the following factors in email marketing software:
Price: We considered various business sizes and needs, favoring email software that offer free-forever plans, free trials, or good bang for your buck
Ease of use: It’s 2024, and you shouldn’t need technical skills to use email marketing software. We favored email software that both novice and experienced marketers can use with little to no difficulty
Deliverability: It’s important that your emails land in your customers’ inboxes, so we gave higher priority to software with excellent email deliverability
Integrations: You should be able to connect your tech stack with your email software, so the number and breadth of integrations is key
Customer support: You should receive timely help when you need it, so we assessed customer support based on ratings given on review platforms
Use our email pricing calculator below to quickly compare costs and features with other top platforms. Input your desired number of contacts, choose up to two other email marketing providers from the list, and see how Omnisend stacks up against them.
Quick email provider pricing comparison
Quickly and easily compare the top email marketing providers so you can find the best platform for your ecommerce store needs.
Total number of contacts:
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You can compare Omnisend and 2 more providers at once.
Omnisend
Klaviyo
Mailchimp
Drip
Moosend
Active Campaign
Get ResponseGetResponse
MailerLite
You can compare Omnisend and 2 more providers at once.
Choosing the right email marketing software can significantly impact your business’s success in reaching and engaging your audience.
Each tool on our list offers unique features to cater to varying business needs, from ecommerce-focused solutions to all-in-one marketing platforms.
Consider your specific requirements, budget, and growth plans when making your decision. Remember, the best tool is the one that aligns with your goals and helps you effectively connect with your subscribers.
Once again, here are the best tools for email marketing based on reviews from trusted platforms:
Omnisend: Great for ecommerce businesses focused on increasing sales
Mailchimp: An easy-to-use tool if you’re just starting out
Drip: An extensive library of automation workflows
HubSpot: Best for SaaS businesses
MailerLite: Simplified email marketing for small ecommerce stores
ActiveCampaign: Best for both email marketing and CRM
Moosend: An affordable email marketing tool for new ecommerce stores
AWeber: Offers lots of ready-made email templates
GetResponse: Email marketing that works best for startups and SMBs
Brevo: An affordable option for budget-conscious businesses
Join the free forever plan of the top-rated email marketing software for ecommerce
For more info, review the FAQ below for answers to common questions about email marketing:
1. What is email marketing software?
Email marketing software is a tool that helps businesses manage and automate email campaigns. It allows you to build email lists, segment your audience, design professional newsletters, and track results.
2. How do you choose an email service provider?
Choosing an email service provider depends on your needs. Consider factors like list size, budget, desired features, and ease of use. Popular email service provider options include:
Email marketing is different from CRM. CRM software is all about managing customer relationships through contact management and lead scoring for sales teams.
On the other hand, email marketing software focuses on communication through email. It helps you to build subscriber lists, design and send email campaigns, and track performance.
4. Which are the best tools for email marketing automation?
Choosing the best email marketing automation tool depends on your specific needs and budget. Some factors to consider include the size of your contact list, the level of automation you require, industry, and budget.
Some of the email marketing software with strong automation capabilities include:
Omnisend
Drip
MailerLite
Moosend
5. Which email marketing tools are free?
Several free email marketing tools are available to jumpstart your campaigns. Some of the popular ones include:
Omnisend
HubSpot
Mailchimp
MailerLite
AWeber
Brevo
6. Which email marketing software uses AI?
The best email marketing software programs that use AI are Mailchimp, Omnisend, and Brevo. They offer AI-assisted features like personalized content recommendations, predictive analytics to optimize campaign performance, and automated customer segmentation for targeted messaging.
7. How to get started with email marketing software?
Getting started with email marketing is easier than you think. Here are some resources to help you:
Bernard is the Sr. Director of Communications & Creative at Omnisend, with a passion for good research, helping ecommerce businesses with their marketing automation needs, and beating absolutely everyone in Mario Kart 64.
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