Best Email Marketing Software & Services For 2020
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If you’re new to marketing, you may think it’s mostly about buying and selling ads. There is, however, a whole other realm of marketing that uses a more targeted approach to informing and influencing your audience — email marketing.
Email marketing provides a way to not only reach prospective customers but also shapes how they experience your business.
Finding the best email marketing service provider (ESP) for your needs can be a time-consuming process. Not every business has the same needs, resources, or clientele, all of which factor into what the “best” email marketing software for you will be. Nevertheless, some email marketing providers offer stronger packages than others. That’s why we’ve put together a list of the top email marketing service providers, so you can easily find the right ESP for your business.
Learn More About Our Top Picks
| Company | Summary | Next Steps |
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Best for small businesses that want a complete, straightforward package right out of the box. | |
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Best for small businesses that want to work with a well-known brand and don't want to spend a lot of money. | |
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Best for small businesses that want a free plan and room to grow. | |
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Best for businesses that want powerful automation tools. | |
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Best for price-conscious businesses with small campaigns or those looking to slowly ramp up their campaigns. |
Other Featured Options:
- AWeber: Best for small businesses with limited contacts who want automation at a low price.
- Constant Contact: Best for small businesses that are intimidated by the prospect of running an email marketing campaign.
- GetResponse: Best for businesses looking for a robust ESP at a reasonable price.
- iContact: Best for small businesses or nonprofits with simple needs that are looking for an alternative to the above providers.
- ActiveCampaign: Best for advanced users looking to run a finely-honed campaign and larger companies.
Read more below to learn why we chose these options.
1. Campaign Monitor
Campaign Monitor
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Best for small businesses that want a complete, straightforward package right out of the box.
Campaign Monitor is an ESP that gets minimalism right. It offers just about everything a typical small business will need to run a modest marketing campaign without a ton of confusing paywalled features (though a few higher-level analytic tools do come at a premium).
Campaign Monitor Pricing
Campaign Monitor charges based on the number of subscribers you have. Additionally, there are three tiers; higher tiers remove email caps and open up some additional analytic features. Plans run between $9 and $989 per month.
Campaign Monitor Features
Campaign Monitor has a small but well-developed set of features, including:
- Drag and drop editor
- Templates
- Previews
- Surveys
- Split campaigns
- Automation
- Email analytics
- Sign-up tools
- Segmentation
It’s easy to get an email marketing campaign up and running with Campaign Monitor. The sign-up process is painless, and you’ll be walked through your first email. Campaign Monitor allows you to send test emails to up to five recipients without utilizing any of your capacity.
After you’re pleased with your test, you can schedule the email to be delivered immediately or at a set time in the future.
Campaign Monitor also supports A/B testing, i.e., sending slightly different versions of the same email campaign to different test users to see which version gets the better response. This feature allows you to split subjects, your sender name, or the email content itself.
At a glance, Campaign Monitor’s customer support options are a bit sparse, lacking real-time support in the form of live chat or even phone service. The quick response time of its 24/7 email-based support team and a solid, searchable knowledge database somewhat alleviates this issue.
If you need to expand functionality, over 250 integrations are available.
When To Use
Campaign Monitor is a great entry point for small businesses that are running an email campaign for the first time and want to test out a suite of powerful, but not overwhelming, features.
Get Started with Campaign Monitor
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2. Mailchimp
Mailchimp
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Best for small businesses that want to work with a well-known brand and don’t want to spend a lot of money.
Mailchimp is, perhaps, the most well-known name in email marketing. It’s not all hype, either; Mailchimp is very good at what it does. It also distinguishes itself for having a generous free plan. It’s also feature-rich and frequently updated, so you’ll know you’re keeping up with the times. The only major downside here is uneven and hard-to-reach customer service.
Mailchimp Pricing
Mailchimp’s prices are based on a combination of caps on the number of subscribers and emails. The more you want of both, the more you’ll have to pay. The free plan grants you up to 2,000 subscribers and 12,000 emails per month and blocks some features, such as autoresponders, spam filter diagnostics, delivery by timezone, etc. Paid plans start at $10/month and go up more or less to infinity (ok, more like $410,800, but I mean, come on). You can also get access to the higher-level reporting features for a flat $199/month.
Mailchimp Features
Mailchimp’s features are a mix of the familiar and the experimental, with many of the latter paywalled. Features include:
- Drag and drop editor
- Multi-user accounts
- Mandrill (one-on-one transactional emails)
- Analytics and reports
- Automation
- Custom forms
- Email analytics
- Geolocation
- Delivery by time zone
Although Mailchimp has a reputation for being easy for first-time users, there’s actually a lot of product under the hood, although some of it lurks behind paywalls.
Sending campaigns is pretty straightforward. Once your email is designed and ready to go, you’ll have the opportunity to select (or change) the list to which it should be sent, test your subject line, and make any last-minute adjustments. You can either schedule the email to be sent on a future date or send it right away.
There are a variety of ways to add a list to Mailchimp. You can upload an existing list (CSV or XSL), or you can import your contacts from a different program, such as Salesforce, Highrise, Zendesk, Eventbrite, Batchbook, and Google. Like all legit ESPs, Mailchimp emphasizes the importance of permission-based opt-in lists.
Mailchimp has an exhaustive segmentation system, which allows you to breakdown and categorize your contact list according to a wide range of rules and labels.
If you’re the sort to use a lot of integrations, Mailchimp will delight you; it supports over 500 of them, ranging from staples such as Google Analytics to the relatively obscure.
Customer support for Mailchimp is responsive, but if you prefer speaking to someone on the phone, you’re out of luck. To control costs, Mailchimp doesn’t offer phone support.
When To Use
Straight up? When you don’t want to spend money on your email marketing campaign. You won’t have access to all the features needed to maximize your campaign, but if your goals are modest and you don’t mind Mailchimp branding on your emails, what have you got to lose?
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3. Benchmark
Benchmark Email
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Best for small businesses that want a free plan and room to grow.
While Mailchimp may be more well-known, Benchmark arguably offers the best free plan in the business. Combine that with quality customer service and a strong feature suite, and Benchmark is a great choice for small business email marketing.
Benchmark Pricing
The free plan lets you send up to 14,000 emails with up to 2,000 subscribers and provides access to most Benchmark features minus automation and multiple user support. Paid plans are based on the number of subscribers you have and start at $13.99/month.
Benchmark Features
Benchmark’s no slouch when it comes to features:
- Hundreds of email templates
- Video emails
- Surveys
- Dedicated email server
- Email delivery management
- Photo editing
- Autoresponders
- Sign-up forms
- Inbox checker
- RSS-to-email
- Segmentation
- A/B testing
Most of Benchmark’s features are available to all users, even the free ones, which make it a good ESP to cut your teeth on. Users that have run afoul of spam filters in the past may appreciate Benchmark’s dedicated email server, which comes with high-volume plans and is available to lower-volume users as a $30 add-on.
Benchmark is a bit leaner on standard integrations than many of its competitors, but the software’s API allows for expansions. The company even encourages users to suggest integrations to them.
Users who want a lot of variety but don’t want to build their email designs from scratch will appreciate the vast number of templates Benchmark offers.
Benchmark offers its users a lot of support resources. Customer service is generally responsive, with minimal waiting times. The site provides good learning resources but can be needlessly opaque at times. Key information is often buried and difficult to find, especially if you don’t precisely know what you’re looking for, particularly when it comes to minute details about plans.
When To Use
Benchmark is a great choice for businesses that aren’t sure what they need out of their ESP but also want some room to grow. The free plan removes most of the risk (sans Benchmark branding on your emails), making it a solid platform to get your feet wet.
Get Started with Benchmark Email
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4. Drip
Drip Ecommerce CRM
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Best for businesses that want powerful automation tools.
Drip is a modern, streamlined ESP that provides a powerful but easy-to-use set of automation tools, allowing you to see how your conditional statements will affect different parts of your campaign in advance. Best of all, all of Drip’s features are available at every price tier.
Drip Pricing
Drip’s plans begin at $49/month, which gives you up to 2,500 subscribers and unlimited emails. If you have over 5,000 subscribers, you’ll need to negotiate a price with Drip.
Drip Features
Drip’s features are pretty straightforward but well-rounded:
- Email builder
- Multi-channel marketing
- Customer tracking
- Automation
- Segmentation
Drip is designed to be usable for all levels of experience; you should have a solid grip on the software after a week or two of use. Some features, such as the email editor, are a little unpolished but still serviceable.
Drip comes with what is basically the standard set of customer service options in the software industry: FAQs, a knowledgebase, a blog, and email tickets. One thing that sets Drip apart, though, is the option to communicate with certified consultants who can help you understand how to use the various CRM features found in this app.
You can try Drip out free, but you’ll have to give them a credit card number to do so.
When To Use
Businesses that have outgrown free tools and have the know-how to make good use of conditionals should consider giving Drip a try.
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5. SendInBlue
SendinBlue
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Best for price-conscious businesses with small campaigns or those looking to slowly ramp up their campaigns.
SendInBlue is an accessible, low-cost ESP. With a free plan that allows for unlimited contacts and a premium plan that comes in at $66/month, all of SendInBlue’s features should be within reach of a typical small business. The only downside is that SendInBlue is a little more limited where integrations are concerned.
SendInBlue Pricing
SendInBlue offers a free plan with unlimited contacts but capped at 300 emails per day. Your emails will also carry SendInBlue branding. Listed pricing tops out at $66 for the premium plan. You can also negotiate an enterprise plan if you want a dedicated account manager and services pack.
SendInBlue Features
SendInBlue offers the following features:
- Email marketing
- SMS marketing
- Transactional emails
- Automation
- Segmentation
- Sign-up forms
- Facebook ads
SendInBlue’s calling card is its accessibility, both in terms of features and pricing, which allows new marketers to quickly create and ramp up campaigns without having to rely on too many complex integrations. Be aware, however, that the software does have some limitations that could make it ill-suited for more advanced users. That said, the software has grown into a pretty powerful set of features that includes automation and transactional emails.
When To Use
SendInBlue is a good entry point into learning email marketing, particularly those with a lot of contacts. Just be prepared to outgrow the service as you need to run more sophisticated campaigns.
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6. AWeber
AWeber
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Best for small businesses with limited contacts that want automation at a low price.
The curiously named AWeber isn’t the cheapest option in town. However, it provides a full set of features at every tier and grants powerful automation options at a relatively low price.
AWeber Pricing
AWeber’s plans are based solely on the number of your subscribers. Pricing begins at $19/month for 500 subscribers and goes up to $149/month for 25,000 subscribers. If you have more subscribers than that, you can negotiate a price with AWeber.
AWeber Features
AWeber’s features include:
- Email marketing
- Drag and drop editor
- Automation
- Split testing
- Sign-up forms
- RSS to email
AWeber finds a healthy balance between ease of use and functionality. Many features, such as autoresponders, are presented intuitively enough that you won’t be googling for tutorials very often. It’s a great, accessible toolset, though possibly overkill for small companies that only need to run a campaign once in a while.
When you do need help, you’ll find there are tons of resources available to walk you through the problem. Customer service is available through chat, email, and phone, so you shouldn’t have too much trouble getting hold of someone to answer your questions.
When To Use
AWeber is probably worth a look if you’re running a small business with limited contacts and need to run a relatively complex email marketing campaign.
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7. Constant Contact
Constant Contact
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Best for small businesses that are intimidated by the prospect of running an email marketing campaign.
Constant Contact is designed to be the ultimate streamlined email marketing campaign tool. It mostly succeeds on this note, but it comes at a higher cost than some of its competitors.
Constant Contact Pricing
Constant Contact’s pricing is based on the number of subscribers you have. It begins at $20/month (or $45/month for up to three users) for 500 subscribers. Once you reach 10,000 subscribers, it costs the same to have one user or three. Both plans top out at $335/month for 50,000. If you need more, you can negotiate a price with Constant Contact.
Constant Contact Features
Constant Contact’s features include:
- Email marketing
- Email templates
- Automation
- eCommerce
- Google ads
- Facebook and Instagram ads
On the whole, Constant Contact is intuitive and straightforward. Plenty of help is available if you should run into problems, and with only five headings, you won’t get lost or be given enough rope to hang yourself. Compared to some other options on this list, there aren’t that many templates, but the drag and drop tools are some of the better ones in the industry. Creating a contact list is uncomplicated and more easily done than in many ESPs. If you have an existing list, you’ll need to remove any “role” addresses (such as sales@ or marketing@), as these aren’t permitted under Constant Contact’s anti-spam policy.
Tutorials and pop-ups will guide you through your first email. When you need to reach out to customer service, you shouldn’t have much trouble getting a knowledgeable rep on the line.
When To Use
Give Constant Contact a try if you’re not familiar with email marketing and don’t want to be overwhelmed by complex features.
Get Started with Constant Contact
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8. GetResponse
GetResponse
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Best for businesses looking for a robust ESP at a reasonable price.
GetResponse will hopefully deliver what its name promises. To help you do that, it offers a competent set of features while providing more generous subscriber caps for your money. Just keep an eye on your auto-renewal dates, as it can be a pain to cancel when you want to move on.
GetResponse Pricing
GetResponse’s pricing is a tad complicated. There are four tracks. Basic gives you access to email marketing, autoresponders, landing pages, surveys, and more. It costs between $15/month and $450/month based on subscribers. Plus adds funneling features, webinar, and eCommerce support as well as the ability to have three users for between $49/month and $499/month. Professional adds advanced automation, contact scoring, and up to five users for between $99/month and $580/month. Finally, Enterprise offers dedicated IP addresses, an account manager, and an expanded webinar capacity. It starts at $1,199/month.
GetResponse Features
GetReponse’s features include:
- Email marketing
- Landing page creator
- Customer tracking
- Segmentation
- A/B testing
- Automation
- Custom forms
- Online surveys
- RSS to email
- Webinars
Advanced features are the name of the game when it comes to GetResponse. While they’re spread across several different types of plans, the upshot is you can take an a la carte approach to the plan you choose.
While many of the features aren’t unique to GetResponse, they’re frequently deeper here. For example, GetResponse’s A/B testing lets you compare up to five variants of email parameters, such as subject line, email content, form fields, and time of sending. Reporting tools have similar depth, offering detailed ROI analysis and side-by-side email comparisons.
If GetResponse has a weakness, it’s in the customer service department. There’s no phone support, and the email and live chat support seem to garner mixed reviews. The in-software help tools are pretty extensive, however, so you hopefully won’t need to connect with live support too often.
When To Use
Try GetResponse if your company has a big contact list, and you know what advanced features you do and don’t need.
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9. iContact
iContact
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Best for small businesses or nonprofits with simple needs that are looking for an alternative to the above providers.
iContact is yet another player in a crowded field. While it doesn’t particularly stand out, it does offer a low-cost plan for businesses with simple email marketing needs. It also offers a 20% discount to nonprofits, which increases the service’s value to organizations that qualify.
iContact Pricing
iContact’s plans start at $14/month for 500 subscribers and go up to $299/month for 50,000 subscribers. If you have more than 50,000 subscribers, you can negotiate a high-volume plan. Note that iContact does charge $99 for a Salesforce integration. You also have the option to buy marketing services from iContact, though the price may vary between customers.
iContact Features
iContact’s features include:
- Email marketing
- Drag and drop editor
- A/B testing
- Automation
- Segmentation
iContact has a strong core program, and its sheer ease of use sets it apart from many other programs on the market. The user dashboard is quite simple, providing a quick overview of your latest email statistics, contact lists, and social sharing sites. There are also links to the latest info on the iContact blog and a basic overview of the account’s “health.” There is a wealth of templates (over 700) to choose from. If you like having your social media marketing campaigns integrated with this kind of software, you’ll appreciate iContact’s Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn integrations.
Reporting tools are basic, providing a condensed overview of your campaigns. For individual campaigns, key statistics (such as opens, clicks, and bounces) are presented in both numerical and pie chart formats. You can also view the individual email addresses associated with opens and clicks. However, you can’t track the total number of opens — just uniques. On the main reports page, you can also view the activity your message has generated on your social media sites.
iContact touts its award-winning customer service, and it seems to be well earned. You can get live support through chat, phone, and email, with prompt responses.
When To Use
Try iContact if you need a solid suite of basic features at a low price, especially if you aren’t happy with your existing ESP.
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10. ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign
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Best for advanced users looking to run a finely-honed campaign and larger companies.
ActiveCampaign probably won’t be your first ESP, but it may be your last. It’s a feature-rich product with a fairly high learning curve, but if you’re willing to put the time into exploiting its tools, you can design very effective and highly targeted marketing campaigns. Even its low-tier plans allow multiple users, making it well-suited for businesses large enough to have marketing departments.
ActiveCampaign Pricing
ActiveCampaign’s pricing is based on the size of your contact list and the features you want to use. Lite starts at $9/month for 500 contacts and goes up to $369/month for 100,000. It supports three users, email marketing, automation, and chat and email support. Plus supports up to 25 users and adds sales automation, custom domain and branding, data integrations, SMS marketing, and one-on-one training. It starts at $49/month for 500 contacts. Professional supports up to 50 users and adds predictive sending, win probability, site messaging, and attribution. It starts at $129/month for 2,500 contacts.
ActiveCampaign Features
ActiveCampaign’s features, locked or unlocked depending on your plan, include:
- Email marketing
- SMS marketing
- Dynamic content
- Automation
- Segmentation
- Split A/B testing
- Event tracking
- Contact and lead scoring
At first glance, the amount of information that ActiveCampaign puts on the screen can be overwhelming. There are eight options on the top menu (including Contacts, Campaigns, and Reports). Within each of these options, you will find subcategories with even more choices. There’s a lot going on here, and it will take some time to familiarize yourself with all of it.
One of the standout features is the ability to create “dynamic content.” You can designate portions of your emails to have fields that substitute pieces of content, depending on your contact’s preferences. You could, for example, highlight two different products in the same template; your contacts would only see the one that more closely fits their tastes.
Customer support options are tiered. Most users will have access to chat and email support, but phone support is reserved for the enterprise level.
When To Use
If you’ve felt frustrated by the limited features of other ESPs and want to get deep into dynamic content and automation, ActiveCampaign may be for you. That goes double for businesses with marketing teams.
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How To Choose The Best Email Marketing Software
Finding an ESP is easy. Choosing the best one for your business, however, can be challenging. The differences between each ESP are, when all is said and done, pretty small. That said, your campaigns will be far more effective if you have a toolset that matches your needs and skills.
Know Your Company’s Needs
This one sounds obvious, but you should have a good sense of what the company hopes to get out of its email marketing campaign. If you’re only selling a couple of products, you probably don’t need highly-advanced dynamic content and list segmentation. If you don’t have a full-time marketing department, you probably want something that you can learn to use within an afternoon. On the other hand, if you’re managing thousands of subscribers and trying to craft “journeys,” you’ll need those precise targeting features and deep reporting tools.
Determine Your Budget
Email marketing can, potentially, give you a great return on investment, but there is some risk involved. Having a sense of what you can comfortably spend on email marketing will help narrow down your options. And remember, if you’re new to this, several ESPs offer free services you can mess around with.
See What Other Users Are Saying About The Provider
Most ESPs are well-known enough to have been exhaustively reviewed by a diverse swath of users. Everyone’s needs and experiences are different, but you’ll still notice certain “themes” emerge with any given provider. Pay special attention to what businesses similar to your own are saying.
FAQs
Do you still have questions about email marketing software? Here are some of the most common questions. If you don’t see your questions below, leave us a comment. We’re happy to help!
Are free plans really free?
Yes, but, of course, there’s a catch. In most cases, your free email will double as advertising for your ESP; their branding will appear somewhere in your email. If this doesn’t bother you, then there’s not much to worry about.[/accordion_item]
Final Thoughts
Hopefully, you’ve now got a better sense of who the big players in email marketing software are and how to find the best email marketing service for your business. We’ve only scratched the surface here, so be sure to read the in-depth reviews of any service that catches your eye.
In Summary: Best Email Marketing Software & Services For 2020
- Campaign Monitor: Best for small businesses that want a complete, straightforward package right out of the box.
- Mailchimp: Best for small businesses that want to work with a well-known brand and don't want to spend a lot of money.
- Benchmark Email: Best for small businesses that want a free plan and room to grow.
- Drip Ecommerce CRM: Best for businesses that want powerful automation tools.
- SendinBlue: Best for price-conscious businesses with small campaigns or those looking to slowly ramp up their campaigns.
- AWeber: Best for small businesses with limited contacts who want automation at a low price.
- Constant Contact: Best for small businesses that are intimidated by the prospect of running an email marketing campaign.
- GetResponse: Best for businesses looking for a robust ESP at a reasonable price.
- iContact: Best for small businesses or nonprofits with simple needs that are looking for an alternative to the above providers.
- ActiveCampaign: Best for advanced users looking to run a finely-honed campaign and larger companies.
Chris Motola
Finance Writer at Merchant Maverick
Chris Motola is a writer, programmer, game designer, and product of NY. These days he's mostly writing about financial products, but in a past life he wrote about health care and business. He's a graduate of the University of Central Florida.
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