11 Best Email Marketing Services 2021

Free version

Mailchimp offers to host up to 2,000 subscribers for free and grants you a total of 12,000 emails you can send out every month. This is more than most other similar services, making it one of the best options for beginners on a tight budget.

Price

The paid plans start at $10 for 500 subscribers and scale from there. There’s also a “Pro” feature set, that allows you to segment your audiences and conduct split testing. Both of these features are invaluable when it comes to optimizing your profits and make the additional $199/month for the “Pro” package worthwhile.  Finally, there’s a “Pay As You Go” plan, where you only get charged when you send emails (there’s no monthly fee).

Ease of use

Generally it’s easy to use – apart from a few settings that weren’t too easy to find in the beggining. Happily, Mailchimp has a wealth of tutorials, which made it easy for me to find my way around it. Overall, it’s easy to hit the ground running with Mailchimp, for more reasons than one.

Features

It is a good fit for anyone from solo entrepreneurs to large organizations. You can create marketing campaigns with email, social ads, landing pages, Google remarketing ads, and more.

It is deservedly one of the most popular email marketing tools worldwide.

Support

Paid plans have email and chat support, while free plans offer email support for 30 days after registration.

Verdict

Mailchimp gives entrepreneurs a way to put their email marketing on autopilot, making it one of the best free email marketing tools. Its enormous user base only confirms this.

Free version

SendinBlue has put up a nice free plan with a daily limit of 300 emails. It’s tiny compared to other services’ free plans, but could do the job for marketers with short email lists.

Price

SendinBlue offers four paid plans: Lite($25 a month), Essential($39 a month), Premium($66 a month) and Enterprise(custom price). The more you pay for a plan, the more features and subscribers you get to manage. The Enterprise option even includes a dedicated account manager.

Ease of use

Easy to use.

Features

Like any self-respecting email marketing product, SendinBlue lets you build your templates through either an HTML editor, or the drag-and-drop interface. It is effortless to use even if you have no technical skills. You can launch SMS campaigns and check the detailed stats, including a heatmap and open&click-through reports.

Support

It provides both chat and email support for faster resolution of any issues you might encounter.

Verdict

SendinBlue is a low-cost email marketing solution that gives you all the instruments you need to reach your customers.

Free version

Unfortunately, ConvertKit doesn’t have one. The only “free” thing you’re going to get is a 14-day trial.

Price

Similar to most other products in the niche, ConvertKit charges based on the number of subscribers. The pricing is on the steep side: $29/month for up to 1000 subscribers, $49/month for up to 3000 subscribers, and $79/month for up to 5000 subscribers. If you have more than 5K subscribers, you will get a custom price plan.

Ease of use

It takes a while to get used to the campaign creation process.

Features

ConvertKit is NOT your run-of-the-mill service. It is tailor-made to help online content creators – bloggers, vloggers, artists and the like. This does explain the more expensive pricing structure, as it adds more value than your basic email marketing tool.

Support

Chat support is pretty great. The reaction was almost immediate, and the agent was polite, answering my question in a matter of minutes.

Verdict

ConvertKit is a good choice for content creators who want to make a difference. If you create your own content and can afford the higher-than-average price, you don’t need to look at other online email marketing tools.

Free version

None, just a 30-day free trial.

Price

GetResponse’s core plans are Email (from $15/month), Pro(from $49/month), and Max(from $165/month). Each of them build on the last and offers new features that help you customize your subscribers’ experience and, as a result, earn more money. If you have more than 100,000 subscribers, your only choice is the Enterprise plan, which starts from $1119/month.

Ease of use

Very easy to use.

Features

GetResponse markets itself as an “all-in-one marketing platform to grow your business”. Indeed, you get a nice set of functions. Of course, you have an email builder tool. Anything you build with it, you can then put on autopilot through marketing automation.

That’s what you’d expect to get, right? Well, here’s where things get interesting. With GetResponse you also get to create landing pages and even host webinars, making it a more full-featured offering than most bulk mail marketing tools.

Support

GetResponse has email and chat support. I only tested the chat support option (as it’s the one people prefer) and it was pretty good. A customer care agent showed up about 2 minutes after I asked for help. He instructed me politely on how to solve my problem.

Verdict

GetResponse is one of the more affordable email marketing platforms with lots of options for customizing how your emails look.

Free version

The free version allows you to add up to 1,000 subscribers and to send up to 12,000 emails per month. A really good offer, only beaten by Mailchimp and Benchmark’s option to add 2,000 subscribers for free.

Price

One of the most affordable (and still full-featured) services on the market. MailerLte starts at $10/month for 1,000 subscribers with unlimited emails sent and scales from there. A good option for marketers with a bigger list on a budget.

Ease of use

Easy to use.

Features

MailerLite keeps it simple. You get a low-cost solution with essential email marketing functions. No fancy stuff – just the common sense features you’d expect from that type of service. Still, it’s an excellent pick for the best email marketing services list based on value for money alone.

Support

MailerLite’s email support is reasonably good, albeit a bit slow. I sent a request for help and got an answer about an hour later. Email support is available for everyone, while paying customers also get chat support.

Verdict

MailerLite is a good email marketing software with flexible pricing and enough functions to justify the money you spend.

Free version

Benchmark has a sweet free plan that supports up to 2,000 subscribers. What’s even sweeter is the fact that you can send up to 14,000 emails each month, making it a slightly better offer, at least in terms of quantity, than Mailchimp’s free plan.

Price

The pricing starts at $13.99/month for 600 subscribers and scales from there. Overall, it is in the same price range as Mailchimp.

Ease of use

Easy to use.

Features

One of the unique features of Benchmark is its ability to process large lists with millions of subscribers. Other than that it has all the perks you can expect from an email marketing solution, including a drag&drop editor, a live editing function, and a built-in image editor.

Support

Benchmark has a chatbot that answers some of the most common questions. You can contact an agent through chat, or by sending a ticket. Chat support is timely, and you get the answer to your query right away.

Verdict

Benchmark’s capacity to work with massive lists makes it an excellent email newsletter service for large corporations. On the other hand, its Free and Medium plans are quite affortable and suitable for small businesses.

Free version

A 30-day free trial is all you get with this otherwise flexibly-priced service.

Price

Active Trail offers a total of eight plans. The cheapest costs $9/month, while the most expensive is $229/month. There is a ninth, custom-priced plan. It will suit you if you have more than 60,000 subscribers in your list.

Ease of use

Easy to use.

Features

Key features include predictive delivery, A/B testing and contact management. You can start SMS campaigns directly from your PC. It also has automation and can be integrated with platforms like Zapier.

Support

Chat support is kind of slow. I had to wait a couple of minutes for an agent. That said, the agent answered my questions in a well-mannered way.

Verdict

A fully capable email marketing service, and you can get it for a reasonable price.

Free version

Well, kind of. You can send 100 emails per day after the 30-day trial is over.

Price

SendGrid has three premium plans. The “Essentials” offer starts at $14.95/month, and the “Pro” version is quoted at $79.95/month and up. There is also a custom price “Premier” solution. With SendGrid, the more you pay for a plan, the more features you get, and the more emails you can send. You have to pay $10/month extra for every 10,000 contacts above the plan’s limits.

Ease of use

Easy to use.

Features

SendGrid has the standard features of an email marketing tool. What distinguishes it from the rest is its API. You can use it to add email functionality in your app or website.

Support

SendGrid has 24/7 email and chat support. You can get phone support, but it’s only available 7:00 AM – 5:00 PM MST, Monday to Friday.

Verdict

SendGrid ranks among the top email marketing services as it is a fully functional platform with superb integration abilities.

Free version

No free version. However, you get a 14-day trial to test the product.

Price

There are several paid plans to choose from: Lite($9/month), Plus($49/month), Professional($129/month), and Enterprise($229/month). Paying more will provide you with more items. For example, the Lite plan lacks most of the support and training features, as well as other functions like removing ActiveCampaign’s logo from emails.

Ease of use

Easy to use.

Features

ActiveCampaign beats most email marketing tools simply because it has the full range of elements to kickstart your campaign.  You get split testing, marketing automation (including event tracking and automation map), sales and CRM reporting. And let’s not forget messaging: SMS messages, site messages, etc.

Support

ActiveCampaign offers support by email, chat, and phone. I tested chat support, and it was OK. ActiveCampaign’s knowledge base is also helpful.

Verdict

An all-in-one email marketing solution, ActiveCampaign can suit the needs of small and medium enterprises.

Free version

As with some other products in this list, you only get a 14-day free trial.

Price

The Business plan starts at $7.49/month. There is a custom priced Enterprise plan that has more features and charges depending on the number of subscribers.

Ease of use

Very easy to use.

Features

With SendX you can create email marketing campaigns, forms, and follow-ups. It has a simple user interface, making it a good choice for people with no previous experience.

Support

Chat support is fast. The agent I got to chat with answered my question right away. I also got some predefined answers from the chatbot.

Verdict

You get an excellent solution for the price you pay, as long as you don’t want to be the next Picasso of email marketing.

Free version

Nope, but you do get a free 30-day trial.

Price

A $19/month plan will get you going with AWeber, as long as you have less than 500 subscribers. The $29/month solution can handle up to 2,500 subscribers, the $49/month plan is perfect for up to 5,000 subscribers, the $69/month offer is a good fit for up to 10,000 contacts. FInally, there’s a $149/month plan to manage a list of up to 25,000 contacts. Anything above that and you’ll need to contact the provider to get a custom quote.

Ease of use

It took some time to get used to the user interface. Creating a campaign is not as straightforward as other email marketing services.

Features

With AWeber, you can create full-feature email campaigns. There is a tagging system allowing you to segment subscribers according to the campaign’s needs.

You get detailed reports on campaigns, subscriber growth, demographics, follow-ups, etc.

Support

You get email, chat, and phone support. I tested live chat, and the agent was polite. He was quick to send me some educational articles and videos.

Verdict

AWeber is a solid email marketing instrument, but it lags behind the competition in terms of automation features.