Mailchimp Competitors & Alternatives
By Lloyd Park |
Are you considering purchasing Mailchimp for your email marketing campaigns? Before making the purchase, it’s best to learn about the top...Read More >
Best Email Marketing Software 2021
Email marketing software helps businesses execute successful email marketing campaigns. These solutions offer features that assist with the entire email marketing lifecycle from creating email templates to email delivery, and tracking email campaign performance.
There are a few different types of email marketing software. The email marketing software created for business-to-business companies is materially different from the email marketing software created for business-to-consumer companies. In addition, email marketing software varies greatly depending on the size of the company using it. Smaller companies need more basic solutions, while enterprises require highly customized solutions.
Email marketing software is often used in combination with SMS marketing software, social media management software, and SEO software by marketers at larger organizations. Read our full introduction to email marketing software.
Research Led By:
Research Analyst
Highest Rated Email Marketing Software
Email marketing software helps businesses better understand their audiences and execute successful marketing campaigns. We tested the best and most popular email marketing solutions currently available, and ranked them from best to worst.
Starting Price: $9.99 per month
Founded in 2001 and headquartered in Atlanta, MailChimp has quickly grown into one of the most recognized email marketing services in the world, and is currently used by over 14 million businesses. One of MailChimp's primary selling points is that it requires minimal technical expertise, and no coding capabilities, in order to create professional marketing campaigns.
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Starting Price: $9 per month
Campaign Monitor is an email marketing platform used by more than 250,000 businesses worldwide. This solution is typically used by small to medium size B2C businesses. Campaign Monitor is well priced, and includes unlimited email sends in every subscription plan. Its features are well organized, easy to use, and is sufficient for most moderately-advanced marketing needs.
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Starting Price: $20 per month
Klaviyo is a popular email marketing solution used by over 50,000 businesses. Klaviyo is ideal for e-commerce businesses, and offers integrations with many e-commerce platforms. This solution is less affordable than many of its competitors. However, its sophisticated data integration & storage, segmentation, and A/B testing tools make it an ideal option for businesses that are willing to invest in a robust platform.
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Starting Price: $9 per month
ActiveCampaign is a Chicago-based tech company with over 250 employees. Their SaaS-based marketing platform helps small and medium-sized businesses automate a wide range of marketing processes, to help grow their business. ActiveCampaign is reasonably priced, making it a suitable option for small and medium-sized businesses.
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Starting Price: $8 per month
SendPulse is a email marketing platform used by more than 1,300,000 customers. Most SendPulse customers are small and medium-sized businesses with an average email volume of 6,000 to 20,000. This solution includes features such as data integration and storage, segmentation, A/B testing, subscription forms, and a drag-and-drop email builder. SendPulse is more affordable than many other solutions that offer similar functionality.
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Starting Price: $10 per month
Moosend is an affordable email marketing platform used by businesses of all sizes, from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies. With an easy-to-use interface, intuitive automation and advanced list segmentation, Moosend provides a robust set of tools needed to build and maintain strong customer relationships.
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Starting Price: $6.99 per month
Mailmunch is a lead generation and email marketing platform used by more than 100,000 businesses. Mailmunch’s core offering is lead capture, but has grown to include other tools like landing pages and email marketing. Mailmunch is primarily used by B2B businesses, and about 80% of Mailmunch customers are SMBs. Mailmunch’s email marketing features are very limited compared to standalone email marketing systems, like Mailchimp and Campaign Monitor.
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Starting Price: $25 per month
Sendinblue is a marketing automation platform used by more than 200,000 businesses worldwide. Sendinblue’s core offering is email and SMS marketing, but includes other tools including a CRM and live chat. The majority of Sendinblue customers are small and medium-sized businesses. Sendinblue is a solid option if you prefer to pay solely based upon monthly email volume.
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Starting Price: $19 per month
Robly is an email marketing platform used by more than 25,000 businesses. The majority of Robly customers are B2C companies with an average email send of about 2,500 emails. Robly is worth considering if you’re looking for a lightweight email marketing solution. However, Robly is not as sophisticated as many other similarly-priced email marketing solutions.
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Starting Price: $19 per month
With over 150,000 customers, AWeber has gained a strong reputation in the industry with its easy-to-use software and award-winning customer service. The software incorporates an intuitive drag-and-drop editor and has over 700 customizable templates, making it quick and easy to build simple autoresponder sequences. The company is available 7-days per week via phone or online chat, while an online knowledge base of video tutorials helps to educate customers and provide valuable email marketing information.
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Starting Price: $20 per month
Constant Contact is an email marketing platform used by more than 600,000 businesses worldwide. Its target audience is small businesses with basic email marketing needs. Pricing starts at $20 per month, and subscription costs increase depending on your number of contacts. Constant Contact offers a large library of integrations and email templates, but its segmentation, automation, and A/B testing capabilities are not as robust as top competitors.
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Email Marketing Software Prices
Email marketing software ideal for SMBs typically cost between $10 to $350 per month. Here are some details that will help you compare prices for the most popular email marketing tools.
| Software Vendor | Starting Monthly Price | Free Trial | Additional Information |
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| Mailchimp | $9.99 | Yes |
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| ActiveCampaign | $9 | Yes |
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| Moosend | $8 | Yes |
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| Klaviyo | $20 | Yes |
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| SendPulse | $6.40 | Yes |
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| Mailmunch | $6.99 | Yes |
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| Mailshake | $59 | No |
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| Sendinblue | $25 | Yes |
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| Robly | $19 | Yes |
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| AWeber | $19 | Yes |
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| Constant Contact | $20 | Yes |
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Email Marketing Software FAQs
Email marketing software helps grow businesses by improving communications with their audiences. This type of solution is used to collect & analyze contact data, and create & send personalized emails to their recipients.
Email marketing software pricing ranges from $10 to $1500 per month. Pricing typically depends on the customer's number of contacts and email volume sent.
The best email marketing solution for you depends on the specific needs of your business. Here are some questions to consider throughout the purchasing process.
- What is your budget?
- How many contacts do you currently have?
- Do you desire sophisticated segmentation tools?
- Do you conduct complex A/B tests, and do you require multivariate testing?
- Do you want to integrate your e-commerce platform?
The most popular email marketing solution is Mailchimp. Currently, Mailchimp is used by over 14 million customers and owns more than 60% of the market share.
The most common email marketing software features are:
- A/B testing
- API
- Analytics dashboard
- Data integration and storage
- Deliverability
- Drip campaigns
- Email editor
- Marketing automation
- Reporting
- Segmentation
- Third-party integrations
Email Marketing Industry Research & Advice
ActiveCampaign vs. Mailchimp
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Is ActiveCampaign or Mailchimp the better solution for you? This in-depth, feature-by-feature breakdown will help you decide which email...Read More >
What is Email Marketing Software?
By Lloyd Park |
This introduction to email marketing software will help you understand what it is, and if it’s necessary for your business. We share tips...Read More >
Constant Contact vs. Mailchimp
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Is Constant Contact or Mailchimp the better solution for you? This in-depth, feature-by-feature breakdown will help you decide which email...Read More >
Email Marketing Statistics
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The data-rich email marketing channel produces numerous insightful statistics. We have aggregated statistics across several categories...Read More >
The Most Common Email Spam Words
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Are you having email deliverability issues? To get more emails into the inboxes of your customers, be sure to avoid the 250 spam words...Read More >
The Importance of Customer Retention
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Strong customer retention is vital to business success. Below, we define customer retention, share insights from academic research, and...Read More >
Best Email Marketing Conferences 2021
By Bruce Hogan |
Discover the best email marketing conferences happening in the United States in 2021. Read More >
How to Create Your First Mailchimp Newsletter
By Bruce Hogan |
Mailchimp is a popular marketing platform that helps millions of businsses create email marketing campaigns, no graphic design or technical...Read More >
Why You Should Trust Our Recommendations
The team at SoftwarePundit has been testing software since 2017. We’ve hand-tested over 250 software products in that time, including 10 in the email marketing category. We applied the same rigorous process to each piece of email marketing software that we analyzed. The specifics of our email marketing software category research process are outlined below.
Lloyd led our analysis of email marketing software. He has spent more than 150 hours evaluating leading email marketing software systems.
In addition, all research and content was overseen by Bruce Hogan, SoftwarePundit’s Co-founder & CEO. Bruce has more than a decade of experience researching, building, and reviewing the world’s best software products. His technology advice has been featured on a wide range of media sites such as AngelList, CMSWire, Dental Economics, iPhone Life, Reader’s Digest, Thrive Global, U.S. News, and the Zapier Blog.
How We Selected the Best email marketing software
We selected the best email marketing software based upon a number of criteria. The most important criteria were each software tool’s features, usability, price, and customer support. The details of our analyses are captured in the in-depth reviews we publish about each software tool.
There are a handful of critical features that you should look for in email marketing software. We prioritized the following features in our analysis:
- Data Integration and Storage: Good email marketing solutions allow you to easily and efficiently collect and store audience data.
- Segmentation | The best email marketing solutions allow you to create complex segments of your audience. Good segmentation tools are key to increasing the relevancy of your emails, and saving cost by reducing send volume.
- A/B Testing: Most email marketing solutions have A/B testing to optimize different variables like email content, send times, and subject lines. The best solutions allow you to test more variables and email variations in a single test.
- Drip Campaigns: Email marketing solutions allow you to send a series of automated emails to your audience. The best solutions allow you to build complex workflows with splits and branching points based on your contacts' behavior and data.
How We Evaluated Email Marketing Software
We used the same rigorous process to evaluate email marketing software as all other software categories. For the email marketing category, Lloyd invested several months researching, testing, and writing about the tools.
We interviewed the teams at the software companies listed above. Our conversations with the companies included questions about each company’s product, customer base, pricing, customer support, and business strength. After a general interview, Lloyd spent additional time participating in a product demo led by each company. This provided Lloyd with the opportunity to ask detailed questions about the features and functionality of the email marketing software.
Lloyd also obtained a free trial of each software tool listed above. He spent several hours testing the key user journeys in each software product. This allowed us to validate the features offered by each product, and to gain an understanding of the software’s usability.