The Best Email Marketing Platforms (Free & Paid)


Quick links for the Best Email Marketing Platforms

1) Best Overall 🏆

Mailchimp

Simplifying Email Marketing, Connecting Businesses, and Customers Effortlessly.

Read Review

2) Top Integrations🥈

Brevo

Streamlined Email and SMS Marketing for Businesses, Ensuring Effective Communication and Engagement.

Read Review

3) Best Add-ons.🥉

ActiveCampaign

Powering Customer Experience with Intelligent Automation, Email Marketing, and CRM Solutions.

Read Review


In this article, I’ll show you the 10 best email marketing tools with advantages and disadvantages, comparisons, features, discounts and a complete list.

Choosing an email marketing tool is not easy. You start researching, comparing and going crazy with the features, the prices, the plans…. you don’t know exactly what you need and everything gets complicated.

You know that sending emails one by one with Gmail or Hotmail is crazy.

And then there’s the email marketing strategy you need to follow, which we’ve already talked about.

In this post I will solve all your doubts and you will choose the best email marketing tool for your particular case.

Choose the best email marketing tool:

An Email Marketing plugin or an external tool?

I’ve been there too. I thought that if I had everything integrated into my WordPress it would be better. I was wrong.

Using a WordPress email marketing plugin like Mailster (formerly MyMail) or Mailpoet is not recommended:

  • It will overload your WordPress unnecessarily
  • If you do the sending yourself with your server (that of your hosting) it will take hours or days to send it, in addition to the sending errors (including spam) that you will have because you are not a specialised server
  • If you set it up to use another email marketing tool to send out your mailings your features will be limited
  • You will not have detailed statistics
  • You will suffer more frequent falls from the domain
  • Possible safety issues

In short, what seemed like a good idea for having everything in one place is not so good and in fact is a bad idea as you have seen.

Okay, so we’re clear that we need an email marketing platform that we can access outside of our WordPress.

Should I go for a free or paid email marketing tool?

And now, do I have to spend money? am I going to make it profitable? how much do I spend?

In most cases if you’re not yet generating income from your blog, website or online shop then I recommend you start small and use the free or trial plans that offer the best email marketing tools I’ll show you.

If on the other hand you’re already earning money and want to start using email marketing then it may be interesting to directly use some payment option that allows you to grow faster.

However, starting with the free or trial plans may be enough.

And finally, if you already have a list of subscribers and are considering migrating your users (emails) to another more advanced email marketing tool, then you should hire the option that fits the number of emails you have and the number of shipments you make.

With regard to profitability, you should know how much money you earn with each subscriber to see if it’s worth it. It’s usually profitable if you offer products and services and have a defined strategy (or at least a small roadmap of what you want to achieve month by month).

You should know that email marketing is key to improving SEO and making money online.

Being able to make a mass mailing by type of user allows you to segment and make each user receive what they need.

How to get leads or subscribers to your email list

Having the best email marketing tool is of no use if you can’t get quality leads or subscribers.

To get a person’s email or other data you need to create a form with plugins such as Contact Form 7, Gravity Forms or with Thrive Leads for example so that they are integrated with the design of your website.

Here’s a list of the best strategies for getting leads through email marketing:

  • Create a Lead Magnet (Ebook, webinar, course, template, file…)
  • Newsletter
  • Generate content with subscriber-only access
  • Offer Consultancy/Mentoring
  • Form on Facebook

And once these points are defined, it is time to send traffic to these landing pages, posts or pages through SEO, Facebook Ads, sponsorships…

Automation and sales funnels?

Automations or workflows allow us to send different emails depending on dates or actions taken by users.

For example, send an email every day for 5 days to users who have signed up for my free SEO course. Or for example send another email to people who have not opened the last 5 emails.

The sales funnels allow us to segment and send emails focused on sales, also based on the actions that users do inside and outside the email.

We can send specific emails to users who have clicked on a link in an email or even visited a page on our website (if we have your email and have previously added a code), to segment users by labels or lists.

If someone visits your payment page and does not buy, it is a good time to send them an email in case they need help.

This way we can create email sequences for each type of user depending on the phase they are in (they just met you, they are starting, they already have knowledge, they want to buy something…).

Therefore, that your email marketing tool has automation is essential and also allows you to make funnels in a simple way (at least emails. Not so much automation) is also quite important especially when you start generating revenue.

This allows you to have more control and put part of the business on “autopilot” (sounds great but is very complicated).

The good thing is that we can always switch from one email marketing tool to another in a simple way so don’t worry if you use one or another tool right now.

Top 10 Email Marketing Tools

Now that we know the basics of email marketing, I’m going to show you the best email marketing tools:

1. Email Benchmark: For bloggers and websites that are growing.

In addition to the automated features, Benchmark incorporates automated sales funnels with drag and drop functionality.

That is, you can design a visual way to send your emails.

Advantages:

👍 Free version with capacity for 2,000 contacts and 14,000 sendings per month

👍 With self-responders

👍 With visual sales funnels

👍 Good prices

👍 Good technical support

👍 Perfect for blogs, web or online shops

Disadvantages:

👎 Free limited version

👎 No user labelling

👎 No CRM (You can use Teamleader)

👎 No advanced options

2. SendinBlue: E-mail and SMS campaigns for everyone

SendinBlue is one of the most powerful and intuitive email marketing tools on the market.

Advantages:

👍 Easily create effective newsletters

👍 Segment your audience without limits

👍 Analyse and optimise your campaigns

👍 Automate your emails with your visual manager

👍 Visual sales funnels

👍 Retargeting

👍 8 ready-made scenario templates

👍 Sends at the best time automatically

👍 Real-time statistics

👍 Heat maps

👍 Insert countdown in emails

👍 Free plan with unlimited contacts and 300 emails/day

👍 Connection with CRM and other apps

Disadvantages:

👎 Fairly unknown.

👎Unlimited Marketing Automation in Premium plan

3. Active Campaign: For bloggers who already earn an extra income.

One of the most fashionable email marketing tools.

Advantages:

👍 With automations and labels

👍 With basic CRM

👍 With visual sales funnels

👍 With Lead Score

👍 With funnel templates (you can use templates created by other users)

👍 Large community and many tutorials

Disadvantages:

👎 Not fully translated

👎 No free version (you can only try 14 days for free)

👎 Limited technical support in Spanish (they only have one Spanish-speaking person)

👎 Expensive in some versions

4. Getresponse: For SMEs

A tool that has been renewed and has learned from the needs of its customers.

It has become a very complete suite to help entrepreneurs.

Advantages:

👍 Very complete solution at a very good price

👍 Web Event Tracking

👍 With visual sales funnels

👍 With Lead Score

👍 With automation and segmentation

👍 Very complete CRM

👍 Includes the possibility of creating webinars, landing pages and sending emails when you 👍 Abandoned cart automation

👍 Large community and many tutorials

👍 Can be integrated with SalesForce, Paid Membership Pro and Zoho CRM among others

Disadvantages:

👎 No free version (you can only try 1 month for free)

👎 Complicated to use

5. Mailify: easy to use.

Mailify is a tool for sending email marketing, mass SMS and automated emailing sequences in a few minutes. Mailify has a modern graphic editor, EmailBuilder, and a wide range of customizable responsive templates that make it easy for you to effectively create multi-channel campaigns.

Advantages:

👍 67 customisable responsive templates.

👍 Graphic editor with drag&drop system to design newsletters in a few minutes.

👍 Management of contacts, blacklists, correction of emails, etc.

👍 Integration with PrestaShop, Magento, WordPress, Google Analytics, etc.

👍 Design of landing pages and forms.

👍 1,000 royalty-free images from Getty Images.

👍 Configuration of automatic responses.

👍 Technical support in Spanish, English, German, French and Portuguese.

👍 Real-time campaign tracking.

👍 Geolocation.

👍 Automatic multi-channel campaigns (welcome message, birthday message, update message)

👍 Sending of automated SMS (confirm purchase of event reminders, birthday greetings, etc)

Disadvantages:

👎Little known.

6. Mailrelay: For bloggers

One of the best known and most used email marketing tools that also sponsors my SEO podcast for bloggers.

I use it in many of my own and clients’ projects.

It’s perfect if you start with your professional blog or if you already have thousands of subscribers but don’t make much money with them (or nothing).

But also for big companies that send millions of emails a week.

Advantages:

👍 The free version with the most capacity (15,000 subscribers and 75,000 mailings per month) of all email marketing tools and no limitations

👍 If your blog is a personal brand, they offer 600,000 postings per month and 120,000 free subscribers

👍 Good auto-responders

👍 With Smart Delivery technology that sends first to those who open the most emails

👍 Very good technical support

👍 Highly optimised anti-spam servers

👍 Responsive templates

👍 Very good prices

Disadvantages:

👎 No sales funnels

👎 No user labelling

👎 Poor usability

👎 No advanced options

One of the best email marketing tools at a great price.

7. Infusionsoft (now Keap)

The benchmark for successful infoproducers.

Advantages:

👍 Highly specialised sales solution

👍 Web Event Tracking

👍 With visual sales funnels

👍 With Lead Score

👍 With automation and segmentation

👍 Very complete CRM

👍 Can be integrated with many platforms

Disadvantages:

👎 No free version (they only show you a demo)

👎 Limited and poor quality technical support according to comments

👎 Very expensive

8. Clickfunnels: For Infoproduct launches

Infusion soft’s direct competitor they call Confusion soft.

They use a very aggressive marketing strategy to the Hollywood show.

Created by marketer Russell Brunson. From my point of view they make more noise than they are but that’s just my point of view.

Nevertheless it is among the best and they also offer many free resources such as the Perfect webinar, the DotCom secrets book on paper for free or the Expert Secrets book on paper for free.

Advantages:

👍 Very specialized solution in selling

👍 Web Event Tracking

👍 With visual and webinar sales funnels

👍 With Lead Score

👍 With automation and segmentation

👍 Very complete CRM

👍Can be integrated with many platforms

Disadvantages:

👎 No free version (you can only try 14 days for free)

👎 Limited technical support

👎 Expensive but not limited to functions in the basic plan of $97/month

9. Hubspot: For large companies.

The default for large companies. Also, the most expensive.

Advantages:

👍 Very complete solution with marketing tools

👍 FREE versions of all HubSpot products

👍 Web Event Tracking

👍 With Lead Score

👍 With automations and segmentation (Price starts at 740 ? per month)

👍 Very complete CRM

👍 Can be integrated with many platforms

👍 Good technical support with academy

Disadvantages:

👎 No sales funnels

👎 Not all is translated

👎 Very limited free versions

👎 The most expensive. The version with email marketing starts at 185 euros/month

10. Convert Kit: Best for B2B

I add a bonus email marketing tool to the ideal list if you have an online business and you speak English. It is the tool used by Pat Flynn from the Smart Passive Income and Askpat podcasts.

Advantages:

👍 Unlimited email sending

👍 Web Event Tracking

👍 With Lead Score

👍 With automation and segmentation

👍 Complete CRM

👍 Can be integrated with many platforms including Zero BS CRM, Paid Membership Pro and Zapier

Disadvantages:

👎 They ask for payment details even to prove

👎 Expensive

Other Email Marketing Tools Reviewed

More about Email Marketing Tools

The Full List of Email Marketing Tools

In addition to the top 10 email marketing tools listed above, I’ve also created this page using other email marketing tools.

They all have their strengths and weaknesses. I don’t think there are any perfect ones but I’m sure you can review them and maybe some will be a better fit for your particular situation.

SendPulse: Simple marketing now in Spanish with visual sales funnels and good prices. They also incorporate integrated web push notifications such as Onesignal and SMS.

Romymail: Simple and direct. With good design.

Mailerlite: For bloggers who do not want to complicate themselves with automation.

Psmailer: Up to 5000 free subscribers.

Mailjet: Boost your business with marketing and transactional emails. Good prices with free options. (Read Review)

Sendinblue: Email Marketing, Mass Mailings, SMS and Marketing. Very good prices. (Read Review)

Mailify: Easy to use.

Mailup: Solution for sending newsletters and SMS.

iContact: Simple.

Mdirector: With integrated programmatic purchase. Very expensive.

Acumbamail: Spanish email marketing company that allows the sending of SMS. 

SalesForce: Complete CRM with very expensive email marketing for companies.

Elasticemail: In English. Send 5000 emails every day for free.

Mailchimp: In English and expensive.

Myemma: Intelligent email marketing in English.

Marketo: Very complete but in English and expensive.

Campaign Monitor: For companies in English.

Autopilot: Simple automation but in English.

AWeber: Expensive and in English. (Read Review)

Mailigen: Good price but in English.

Dotmailer: For companies in English.

Constant Contact: Shows prices in a PDF… Regrettable. In English. Integration with Paid Membership Pro.

JangoMail: Fair design in English.

Ontraport: Automation in English. Expensive.

MadMimi: Simple email marketing in English.

Convertfox: Automated email marketing in English.

Phplist: Open source email marketing in English (not free).

Mailster: Plugin for WordPress. I don’t recommend plugins.

MailPoet: Plugin for WordPress. I don’t recommend plugins.

In conclusion, the best email marketing platform

What Email Marketing Software would you recommend?

In short, It’s Mailchimp.com

Mailchimp is a leading marketing automation platform, empowering businesses to create, send, and analyze email campaigns. With user-friendly tools, it helps businesses grow by building strong connections with their audience through email marketing, landing pages, and more.

“🚀Try Mailchimp.com For Free, It’s my favorite Email Marketing software to use and recommend.” -Scott Max

Mailchimp.com is an intuitive marketing platform offering advanced tools. Ideal for diverse business needs including service, sales, CMS, operations, and marketing solutions, enabling efficient workflows and impressive results.

For more details, read our Mailchimp.com Review.

Do you already know about these email marketing tools? Do you use one? Which one? What result are you getting?

Tell me in the comments!

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