10 Best Email Marketing Services For Beginners

Email marketing is one of the most effective ways to grow a business. If you want to use this marketing channel to reach your audience, you’ll need an email marketing service.

Over the years of growing our own email list, I’ve had the opportunity to try out a number of email marketing platforms. In this post, I will break down the best email marketing tools available today and give you some tips for what you should look for in a service.

10 Top Email Marketing Platforms

How to Choose an Email Marketing Software?

When considering an email marketing service, you should consider ease of use, features, price, and several other factors. The exact qualities to look for will vary based on your specific needs.

However, there are some core features required of any good email marketing service. This includes:

• List building
• Segmentation
• Third-party integrations
• User-friendliness
• Automation
• Tracking and reporting
• Deliverability

When it comes to the monthly cost, the most important factor is not the starting price of a monthly plan but how it changes as your email subscriber list grows.

To help choose the best cost affordable email marketing service, we’ve compared the monthly cost of having 10,000 contacts.

As you can see below while some plans start low, they increase considerably as your list grows.

In our product reviews, you can also find the cost of having more contacts and the additional features you get with a paid plan.

Email Marketing Platforms Reviews

1. MailChimp

Founded in 2001, MailChimp is a widely popular email marketing service packed with tons of useful features. With the software, you can do everything from managing your email list to creating marketing campaigns and sending transactional messages like order confirmations.

Best Email Marketing Features

Mailchimp boasts many high-quality features. Of these, the most impressive is its email design functionality.

The platform includes an intuitive drag-and-drop email builder that makes it easy to create attractive email messages. With dynamic content, you can create one based email that is then dynamically personalized for each individual recipient.

It even has a Creative Assistant that can help create your designs for you based on your branding.

If you’re an eCommerce seller, you can connect the platform to a large number of eCommerce platforms. This will allow you to quickly insert products into your messages.

Pros

• The user-friendly email design interface
• Plenty of integrations with other platforms
• Customer Journey Builder for automated workflows
• Create ads for Google and Facebook
• Embed forms to your website
• Easy to apply tags and manage your email list

Cons

• Prohibits affiliate marketing
• No automation series for free plans

Pricing

Mailchimp has both free and paid plans. With the free version of Mailchimp, you get up to 2,000 contacts and can send up to 10,000 email messages per month.

The free plan also includes the Creative Assistant and you can build 1-step email automation.

For the paid plans, pricing is based on your number of contacts, starting as low as $11 for the Essentials plan.

If you plan to have 10,000 contacts, you’ll need to pay the following:

• Essentials plan: $87 per month
• Standard plan: $115 per month
• Premium plan: $115 per month

With the Essentials plan, you get three user seats, and key features like basic segmentation, tags, behavioral targeting, pre-made templates, and the Customer Journey Builder.

You’re able to send up to 10 times your plan’s contact limit in emails each month. This means that if you have a 10,000 contact plan, you can send a max of 100,000 emails per month.

2. Active Campaign

Active Campaign is a powerful email marketing platform designed to help users maximize the results of their email marketing efforts. It has all the key features you’d expect from a great email marketing service including list building, automation, and performance tracking.

Best Email Marketing Features

Active Campaign is one of the best emailing services due to its strong automation features.

With the automation builder, you can quickly create completely automated email sequences to suit a variety of campaign types.

The campaigns start with a pre-defined trigger before completing the actions you add using the builder. The tool also lets you apply all sorts of conditions and rules to determine what actions occur and who is part of the campaign.

Pros

• Robust drag-and-drop email builder
• Strong personalization features
• Tagging and segmentation
• Support for various types of sign-up forms

Cons

• No free plan
• Can be more difficult to learn

Pricing

Unlike some of the other email marketing platforms on our list, Active Campaign does not offer a free version.

Pricing for paid plans is determined by contacts, starting as low as $15 per month for the Lite plan.

With this subscription, you get up to 500 contacts, segmentation, drag-and-drop email building, and marketing automation.

With all paid plans, you can send unlimited emails up until the point of having 250,000 contacts.

When your list grows to 10,000 contacts, pricing is as follows:

• Lite: $174 per month
• Plus: $287 per month
• Professional $424 per month

3. Constant Contact

Constant Contact is an email marketing service built to help small businesses gain new customers. The platform has a wide range of quality features that you can use to improve your communication with your audience.

Best Email Marketing Features

Constant Contact’s standout feature is its easy-to-use A/B testing. With the feature, you can quickly create two subject lines for each message.

The software will then test the different subjects on a portion of your audience before determining the winner, which is then sent to the rest of your audience.

You can specify the length of time to run the test and view real-time reporting over the duration of the experiment.

Pros

• Hundreds of customizable email templates
• Drag-and-drop email editing
• Schedule emails and create drip campaigns
• Solid integrations for major platforms

Cons

• Limited workflow builder
• Some automation sequences are limited to a higher plan

Pricing

Constant Contact requires a paid subscription. Like other email marketing services, pricing is tiered based on contacts.

This starts at $9.99 per month for the Core plan with 500 contacts. The Core plan also includes sign-up forms, the drag-and-drop editor, A/B testing, and an automated welcome email series.

The Core plan doesn’t include abandoned cart reminders or automated behavioral email series. These features require the Plus plan, which costs $45 per month and upwards.

Below are the prices for when you want to have 10,000 contacts on your list:

• Core plan: $80 per month
• Plus plan: $125 per month

4. Sendinblue

Sendinblue is an email marketing tool designed for users that need to send a high number of email messages to their audience. The platform seamlessly connects with your website and there are several features for managing your contacts and creating email messages.

Best Email Marketing Features

Sendinblue is great for sending email messages at scale. One of the areas where this can have the greatest impact is with transactional email messages.

Order confirmations, shipping updates, and other types of transactional messages are a necessary part of running a business.

Website builders and eCommerce platforms typically come with native support for sending these messages. However, you’re able to customize the messages and their delivery is often limited.

With Sendinblue, you can connect the email platform to your website using API, SMTP, or an eCommerce plugin to have the service handle your transactional emails.

By using Sendinblue, you’re able to customize the design of your messages however you’d like while enjoying top-notch deliverability.

Pros

• Send a high number of emails
• Segment your audience by interests and behavior
• Drag-and-drop workflow builder
• Real-time reporting and analytics

Cons

• Limited list-building features
• The high starting price point for marketing automation

Pricing

Sendinblue has free and paid versions with pricing based on how many emails you send. With the free plan, you get unlimited contacts and you can send up to 300 emails per day. The plan does not include marketing automation.

For paid plans, pricing starts at $25 per month for the Lite plan. This lowest pricing tier allows you to send 20,000 emails per month.

The Lite plan comes with A/B testing and there is no daily send limit, however, it doesn’t include marketing automation. For that, you’ll need the Premium plan which starts at $65 per month for 20,000 emails and 2,000 marketing automation contacts.

5. Moosend

Moosend is a newer email marketing service having launched in 2011. With a bounty of useful features, the platform can easily serve as an all-in-one email solution.

Best Email Marketing Features

Moosend’s strength is its personalization features. The platform goes beyond the standard options like inserting names to help you send individuals highly targeted messages.

For example, the platform can use AI to analyze your data to come up with automated product recommendations for individuals.

Another example is the option to leverage weather-based recommendations to send people customized messages based on the weather in their area.

Pros

• Advanced audience segmentation
• A/B testing for subject lines
• 40+ high-quality email templates

Cons

• No free plan
• Limited analytics

Pricing

Moosend is a paid email marketing service. Pricing is based on contacts, starting at $9 per month for the Pro plan with 500 subscribers.

With this plan, you get unlimited email sends, automation workflows, and sign-up forms.

Prices remain affordable as you scale your plan. A monthly subscription for 10,000 subscribers costs $88 per month.

If you are new to Moosend, you can start with a 30-day free trial.

6. ConvertKit

ConvertKit is an email marketing software designed to help content creators grow and engage their audience. You can use the software to gather contacts, design emails, set up automation campaigns, and send email broadcasts.

Email Marketing Features

ConvertKit stands out for its ability to help users capture leads and grow their audience. The signup form editor is easy to use and you can customize your forms to maximize effectiveness.

There are plenty of pre-made templates and you can add your own custom fields to capture the data that is important to your business.

ConvertKit also streamlines lead magnet delivery as you simply need to add your files to your account and the platform will automatically deliver the file once someone subscribes.

Pros

• User-friendly email editor
• Create custom audience segments
• Workflows and automated email funnels

Cons

• Limited design templates
• Reporting and analytics are basic

Pricing

ConvertKit comes with both free and paid plans.

The Free plan allows 1,000 subscribers with unlimited landing pages, sales pages, and sign-up forms.

For paid plans, pricing is based on subscriber count, starting at $15 per month for 300 contacts on the Creator plan.

This plan comes with most of ConvertKit’s features excluding deliverability reporting and subscriber engagement scoring.

To give you an idea of how pricing scales, here is the cost for having 10,000 contacts:

• Creator plan: $119 per month
• Creator Pro plan: $167 per month

Convert Kit offers a 14-day free trial to new users.

7. Aweber

Aweber is a well-established player in the email marketing space. Founded in 1998, the software helps over 100,000 businesses use email to reach their customers and grow.

Best Email Marketing Features

Aweber’s best feature is its list management functionality.

The platform makes it easy to create segments based on a variety of user activities such as purchases, email opens, clicks, page visits, or their location.

You can create dynamic segments using custom fields to send more personalized messages to your audience.

Aweber also allows you to apply limitless tags to contacts.

Pros

• Lots of features in the free plan
• Intuitive email designer including built-in support for Canva
• Easy to create segments for personalized marketing

Cons

• High starting price for a paid plan
• No visual workflow builder for email automation

Pricing

There are two versions of Aweber; Aweber Free and Aweber Pro.

With Aweber Free, you can add up to 500 subscribers and send up to 3,000 monthly emails. The plan also includes email automation, drag-and-drop email building, tagging, and sign-up forms.

Aweber Pro pricing is determined by your number of subscribers, starting as low as $29.99 per month for 500 subscribers. This plan comes with all of Aweber’s features.

When you grow your list to 10,000 contacts or more, the monthly cost increases to $79.99 per month.

You can save 33% off the total cost by enrolling in annual payments.

8. OmniSend

Omnisend is an email marketing software for eCommerce businesses. With the platform, you can leverage your customer data to create targeted campaigns that feature your product offering.

Email Marketing Features

Omnisend stands out from other email marketing services for its eCommerce functionality.

The drag-and-drop content editor has several dynamic content blocks for eCommerce elements. This includes product pickers, unique discount codes, and product recommendations.

The platform also has pre-made workflows for order confirmations, shipping confirmations, cross-selling products, and product browsing.

Pros

• Dynamic eCommerce content editor
• Support for third-party data
• Strong pre-made email sequences for eCommerce sites

Cons

• Designed primarily for eCommerce companies
• Limited email design options when compared to other platforms

Pricing

Omnisend has free and paid versions.

The Free plan lets you reach up to 250 contacts and send 500 emails each month. It also comes with A/B testing, sales and performance reports, segmentation, and pre-built automation.

There are two paid plans, Standard and Pro. Prices for the plans start as low as $16 and $59 per month respectively.

These prices are for plans allowing up to 500 contacts. The Standard plan, this tier allows you to send 6,000 emails per month.

The Pro version allows for unlimited emails. It also comes with advanced reporting.

If you want to scale your contact list up to 10,000, it will cost $115 per month for the Standard plan and $150 per month for the Pro plan.

9. Get Response

Founded in 1998, GetResponse is another well-established email marketing service. The platform serves as an all-in-one email platform enabling everything from list building to automated campaigns and audience segmentation.

Best Email Marketing Features

GetRepsonse has several top-notch features. Chief among them is the workflow builder.

With the tool, you can create detailed email sequences using a variety of conditions, actions, and filters.

Some of the conditions you can use include a message opened, a special occasion (birthday, anniversary, etc.), a purchase, an abandoned cart, and a URL visit.

The workflow builder works using a robust flowchart design system. This makes it easy for you to visualize the campaign you’re creating.

Pros

• Easy to use drag and drop email builder
• In-depth analytics and real-time reporting
• Visual automation campaign builder

Cons

• Marketing automation limited to a higher-tier plan

Pricing

GetResponse has a free version and three paid plans.

The Free plan supports up to 500 contacts and you can send unlimited newsletters. However, it does not include autoresponders, segmentation, or marketing automation.

Pricing for paid plans is based on your number of contacts, starting at $19 per month for 1,000 contacts on the Email Marketing plan.

This plan comes with everything in the Free version plus autoresponders, email scheduling, and basic segmentation.

Note, that the Email Marketing plan does not include marketing automation or advanced segmentation. For that, you’ll need the Marketing Automation plan which starts at $59 per month.

When you need to scale your email list up to 10,000 contacts, it will cost at least $79 per month for the Email Marketing plan.

10. Klaviyo

Klaviyo is an email marketing tool for eCommerce companies. The platform is meant to serve as an omnichannel marketing solution and it has a healthy amount of high-quality email features.

Email Marketing Features

Klaviyo’s best feature is the built-in email automation flows specifically designed for eCommerce. Some of the premade automation campaigns include

• Welcome series
• Browse abandonment
• Order updates
• Birthday discounts
• Back-in-stock updates
• Win-back campaigns
• Cross-selling campaigns

All of these ready-made campaigns are fully customizable so you can tailor them to meet your specific needs.

The platform also has hundreds of integrations for eCommerce platforms and other solutions. You can use these connections to integrate your data with the email service to create highly personalized campaigns.

Pros

• Dynamic product recommendations for email messages
• Automated A/B testing
• Strong deliverability and data compliance features
• Pre-made eCommerce marketing automation workflows

Cons

• Less-friendly user interface
• Pricey compared to other email marketing services

Pricing

Klaviyo has a free version that you can use to build a list of up to 250 contacts with 500 email sends per month. The free plan includes all the key features available in the paid plans.

Pricing for a paid Klaviyo subscription starts at $20 per month for up to 500 contacts. This tier allows you to send 10,000 emails per month.

When you need to scale your contact list to 10,000 and beyond, plans cost $150 and upwards.

Methodology

To help you choose the best email marketing service for your business, we’ve looked at the most popular email marketing platforms from reputable companies. We know that starting with email marketing is confusing for beginners that’s why we analyzed the cost and features of each platform in detail.

When choosing a company to build your email list and send out emails, go with the one that has all the features you need and with reasonable pricing. As your email list grows, email marketing will become one of your biggest monthly expenses, so have this in mind and choose wisely.

We send our first email newsletter in 2002 and since then we sent thousands of emails to our subscribers through our platform of choice, MailChimp.

Related Guides

• Best Email Marketing Courses – a list of courses to master email marketing techniques from start to finish.
• Best Digital Marketing Courses – a list of the best online courses to learn digital marketing and not just email marketing.
• Best Social Media Management Tools – the best tools to manage your social media presence.
• Best Digital Marketing Tools – a collection of tools for managing all aspects of digital marketing.