It’s the year 2022 and we’re seeing the digital economy expand like never before. It’s no surprise that many businesses are looking to invest in online marketing solutions to access larger audiences on a more personal level. And when it comes to personalized outreach, few channels work better than email marketing.
Given the effectiveness of email marketing, more and more companies are getting creative with introducing their email marketing software solutions. In fact, there are now some 450+ email marketing services that you can choose from!
To make this process a tad bit easier, we’ve shortlisted some of the best email marketing tools below.
*FTC Disclosure: This article may contain affiliate links. The recommendations below are based on my first-hand experiences and I earn a small commission at no cost to you. You can read my full affiliate disclosure in my privacy policy.
What Is Email Marketing Software?
An email marketing software is service-based software that allows businesses an affordable and simple way to market themselves via email. A typical email marketing software will do more than just send out a few emails. Most of these tools provide related solutions and services, such as CRM, marketing templates, etc. to make your marketing campaign smoother and more successful.
Why do you need an email marketing tool?
Successful businesses have been quick to notice the gap in CRM in today’s digital economy. Keeping a close and personalized connection with thousands of customers over the internet is not easy. Sending out emails is one way to achieve it and this is where reliable email marketing software comes in.
A dependable and affordable email marketing tool can streamline your whole marketing process, simplify and automate routine marketing tasks, and give you quick returns making it a must-have gear for your business.
How do you choose the best email marketing software?
When choosing the best email marketing service, try to find out if it offers features that can help you streamline your marketing process. Does it manage your contact list, segment customers into groups, track the performance of your emails, prevent them from landing directly into the spam folder, and provide real-time stats? There are obviously other things you must look out for that we’ll get to shortly.
17 Best Email Marketing Tools of 2021.
With the sea of email marketing tools out there, and more coming up by the minute, it is easy to get drowned in all the hype surrounding them. To make it easier for our audience, we’ve filtered the best email marketing tools for your business in 2021.
GetResponse – Best overall product.
Moosend – Best affordable service.
ConvertKit – Best for great service deliverability.
HubSpot Email Marketing Software – Best all-in-one marketing, sales, and service software.
AWeber – Best for individuals, creatives, small and large businesses.
Constant Contact – Best for having a simplified omnichannel marketing channel.
MailerLite – Best for a powerful suite of advanced tools.
Omnisend – Best for optimizing sales.
Sendinblue – Best for intuitive marketing tools.
ActiveCampaign – Best CRM management.
Campaign Monitor – Best for product recommendations.
Drip – Best for powerful automation features.
Mailjet – Best comprehensive free package.
Mailchimp – Best for great personalization.
Infusionsoft (Formerly Keap) – Best for medium to large businesses.
Benchmark – Best value for multilingual teams.
SendPulse – Best email and messenger marketing.
1. GetResponse.
Best for medium and large businesses.
GetResponse is another powerful and multi-faceted platform that is gradually becoming an industry preference. The software is a viable tool for small businesses because of its smart marketing solutions, webinars, such as automated builders, social media ads, etc.
Like several other email marketing solutions, GetResponse offers its own stack of templates for easy and quick email designs.
You can link the software with popular apps such as WordPress, Slack, Magento, etc. Its freshly added feature “Autofunnel” automates your sales funnel by bringing together resources like landing pages, social ads, audience creation, webinars, and payment processors. This makes it one of the best email marketing tools.
Features:
- Contains automated features such as landing page builders, email builders, and email templates for your utmost ease.
- Your sales funnel can be modified easily with segmentation and personalization.
- Provides automated workflows, email analytics, eCommerce integrations for easier, behavioral targeting, along with CMS integrations.
- A/B Testing.
Pros:
- You can easily integrate it with payment processors, such as Stripe, PayPal, etc.
- By subscribing to its Premium plan, you can lower your associated external costs by utilizing many of its omnichannel features.
Cons:
- Does not offer a free plan.
- For more advanced features, you will have to upgrade to its premium plan.
- A limited number of subscribers in all three of its plans.
Pricing:
- Free trial: 30 days
- Basic: $15/month
- Plus: $49/month
- Professional: $99/month
2. Moosend.
Best for businesses of all sizes.
A great benefit for Moosend users is its special feature allowing unlimited customer segmentation even when they are using the free plan.
Users can conveniently manage their email lists with Moosend’s powerful tools and ramp up their eCommerce sales. Read a complete detailed Moosend review here.
Features:
- Comes with free email newsletter templates for a variety of use cases.
- The newsletter templates are offered with user-friendly drag-and-drop editing options.
- Sign-up forms to secure your leads and list segmentation for an increased CTR.
- Automated email features to unburden you from repetitive tasks.
- Advanced email analytics and landing page builder.
- Popular service and app integrations.
Pros:
- You can send an unlimited number of emails.
- The software is seamless and dependable.
- 30-day free trial with all Pro features
Cons:
- You can only have a limited number of subscribers in its free plan.
Pricing:
The Pro plan starts at just $7/month. They offer a free 30-day trial of this with no credit cards needed. The price increases gradually based on the number of subscribers on the email list. For example, 475 subscribers will cost $7/month while 15,000 subscribers will cost $128/month. The subscriber limit is something to keep track of and make sure you set up an email scrubbing calendar to keep your costs down.
3. ConvertKit.
Best for bloggers, writers, and creative professionals.
ConvertKit intelligently marketed itself as bringing the best of Mailchimp’s ease of use and Infusionsoft’s powerful promotions.
It has cemented its place as one of the most sought-after email marketing platforms for its advanced automation and feature-rich suite.
Features:
- Selectable email builder with convenient drag-and-drop editor enabling targeted approach according to the user behavior.
- Latest landing page templates with a similar drag-and-drop feature for enhanced customization.
- Integration with leading lead generation tools, CRM platforms and eCommerce stores such as WooCommerce and Shopify.
Pros:
- Fast and robust marketing deliverability
- User-friendly functionality
Cons:
- Slightly more expensive for starters
- eCommerce integrations are somewhat limited
Pricing:
You can create a free account or join its Creator or Creator Pro plans for $29 and $59/month
4. HubSpot Email Marketing Software.
Best for large enterprises and businesses.
HubSpot is a thriving customer relationship management platform (CRM) that offers all of the critical email marketing tools such as sign up forms, landing page builder, email marketing, etc. With HubSpot, you can increase your clickthrough rates, optimize your campaigns for mobile, and customize your email templates. Here’s why it might be one of the best email marketing services.
Features:
- Contains templates and an email builder.
- Outcome-based templates.
- Customer retention through list segmentation and personalization.
- Premium and professional plans offer A/B testing and email analytics respectively.
- Automation workflows and comparison reports for quick email marketing campaigns.
Pros:
- Its free plan allows users to send out more emails than the average email marketing platform; you can send 2000 emails with unlimited contacts.
- Lead-capture forms to help you expand your list.
Cons:
- Rigid contracts
- Costly for small business
Pricing:
- Starter: $45/month
- Professional: $800/month
- Enterprise:3,200/month
5. AWeber.
Best for individuals, creatives, small and large businesses.
AWeber is a formidable email marketing software. It offers awesome opportunities for scalable sales funnels and accelerated business growth.
Its wide assortment of features includes chic email templates, automated newsletter campaigns, A/B testing, high-end list management, segmentation, ingrained autoresponders, and other automated features for smart omnichannel marketing.
Features:
- Automated email builder, features, list segmentation, and greater personalization.
- Contains a collection of over 700 modern email templates and a stock photo library.
- Additional features such as email analytics, behavioral targeting, automation workflows, CMS integration with Wix, WordPress, Weebly, Divi, Magento, and Ghost, as well as traditional customer support via phone.
Pros:
- Reliable analytics reporting around conversions, clickthrough rates, openings, etc.
- Increasingly affordable
Cons:
- The free plan allows a limited number of email subscribers.
Pricing:
AWeber offers a free email plan and a premium plan that starts at $19.
6. Constant Contact.
Best for non-profits and small businesses.
Constant Contact offers a wide range of email marketing tools that help users perform various valuable operations. You can generate professional-looking newsletter campaigns, track performance, maximize your email deliverability, manage your lists and accelerate your clickthrough rates.
Features:
- Offers A/B testing, email analytics, to visualize the performance of your subject lines, and more.
- Automated email settings to send out welcome messages, conduct behavioral targeting and resend emails to subscribers that fail to open them the first time.
- Survey pages, sign-up forms, and polls to help you on track and convert leads into prospects.
- Constant Contact comes with a built-in suite of integrated solutions for eCommerce.
Pros:
- Variety of customer support channels including live, online, email, phone, library resource as well as a Constant Contact community.
Cons:
- Working with templates can be problematic at times.
Pricing:
You can begin your free month trial by opening an account (also free) with Constant Contact and then upgrade to their premium plans that range from $20 to $45.
7. MailerLite.
Best for startups and small businesses.
MailerLite is another great platform that also offers free email marketing. Its resilient functionality and variety of features allow businesses to handle cross-channel marketing with great ease.
The software offers an abundant suite of landing pages, email templates targeted for different goals, pop-ups ads, and signup forms to record warm and cold leads. There are many other customization options to go with its tools.
Features:
- Provides email analytics and an inbuilt reporting system to keep tabs on your most lucrative marketing channels and performance, offers A/B testing
- Provides users with the options of line segmentation and personalization features (titles, links, call-to-action, etc.)
- Marketing automation workflows as well as automated polls.
Pros:
- Automatically Integrates with popular WordPress page builders such as Elementor, Thrive Architect, and others
- Offers great design optionality.
Cons:
- Text formatting can be challenging; template adjustment sometimes leads to glitches.
- A slightly longer onboarding process.
Pricing:
You can open a free account or subscribe to a paid plan set at $50/ month for unlimited emails.
8. Hunter
Best for small and medium-sized businesses.
Packed with tools like the Email Finder, Email Verifier, Domain Search, Bulk Tasks, Author Search, and Campaigns, Hunter is one of the most complete tools for businesses that rely on outbound marketing as a lead generation tool.
Features:
- Email Finder helps you find the email addresses of targeted decision-makers in seconds.
- Email Verifier makes sure your contact lists are updated and have valid email addresses, ensuring high email deliverability.
- Creating personalized email sequences and tracking outreach results is made easy using Hunter Campaigns.
- Domain Search allows you to find email addresses from targeted professionals associated with specific domains.
- Author Finder lets you find the email addresses of authors of specific articles on the web.
- Bulk Tasks make repetitive tasks easy as you can easily import a .CSV file and find or verify email lists quickly.
Pros:
- Offers a complete solution for effective cold email outreach.
- API that integrates with various tools such as HubSpot, Zapier, and Google Sheets.
Cons:
- Restricted to finding email addresses that are available publicly.
- No information is available on contacts’ social profiles.
Pricing:
Hunter offers a free plan that includes 25 email searches and 50 email verifications per month. Paid plans start at $49/month.
9. Sendinblue.
Best for both small and large businesses.
Sendinblue is an email and SMS marketing powerhouse. It is designed for creatives and all types of businesses.
Among its array of features, you will get templates for social media ads, email newsletters, marketing automation, landing pages, and SMS Campaigns.
Features:
- Offers emails lists, behavioral targeting, and segmentation, etc.
- Offers personalized marketing campaigns to attract customers based on behavioral patterns
- You can also send transactional emails connected to your website via Sendinblue
- Email Analytics, marketing automation, eCommerce integration, etc.
Pros:
- It’s more affordable as it allows users the option of free email marketing.
- The software offers a mobile-friendly email builder.
Cons:
- Is not the most reliable when it comes to tracking your customers and leads.
- Only email interactions are automated.
Pricing:
You can create a free account, or upgrade to one of its paid plans.
Lite: $25
Premium: $65
Enterprise: customized quote
10. ActiveCampaign.
Best for medium and large businesses.
ActiveCampaign gets to our list of the best email marketing tools because of its feature-rich suit. Their marketing automation tools are considered to be the best in the industry and perform with mind-blowing reliability and accuracy. Here are some of its features.
Features:
- Offers users to conveniently develop email sequences or campaigns regardless of their complexity.
- Businesses can also combine their own set of parameters with available ones for utmost ease and personalization.
- Email segment lists.
Pros:
- Regardless of the plan, you can send an unlimited number of emails
- Highly robust contact management.
- Ability to create customized pop-ups and live messages for new subscribers who arrive on your landing pages or website.
- Its customer support, segmentation features and list management are definitely more powerful than the alternatives.
Cons:
- It doesn't offer any free plan.
- Limited eCommerce and payment processor integrations
Pricing:
Lite:$9/month
Plus: $49/month
Professional: $129/month
Enterprise: $229/month
11. Campaign Monitor.
Best for eCommerce shops and businesses.
Campaign Monitor deals with both eCommerce shops and other businesses. Therefore, it offers two separate email marketing portals.
Its eCommerce email marketing version, called CM Commerce, enables users to link with popular eCommerce sites such as WooCommerce, Shopify, and BigCommerce. The suite includes robust features such as customer segmentation, automated templates, and others. Here are some other features focussed on all businesses.
Features:
- A/B testing, smart analytics, split testing, and marketing automation systems.
- Easy list management, personalization and segmentation.
- Automated email builder and modern email templates
- SMS messaging at an added cost.
- Behavioral Marketing targeted for the CM version as well as reliable eCommerce integrations
- Product Reviews, Recommendations, and UGC available for users of CM Commerce
Pros:
- You get nearly all of the essential marketing features in Campaign Monitor’s basic plan.
- Comprehensive email automation for up to 2500 emails in the basic plan alone
- You can upgrade to the Unlimited plan for bonus features such as time zone optimization, priority-based support, and countdown.
Cons:
- Additional features such as phone support and advanced users permission is reserved for premium users only
- A limited number of subscribers (1000) and emails (10,000) in the starter plan.
- Does not offer a free plan
Pricing:
Basic: $9
Unlimited: $29
Premier: $149
12. Drip.
Best for eCommerce enterprises and large businesses.
Drip is another heavyweight competitor when it comes to adjusting your email campaigns with automation tools. It is an allround platform that businesses can easily use for customer outreach via emails and SMS messages.
Features:
- Users can manage and segment contacts based on behavior and interactions with popular Drip campaigns.
- Using Drip’s API script you can gather user data to store in the form of events, tags, and custom fields.
- Marketing automation workflows help you in reaching customers at appropriate points of time within their buyer’s journey.
- Its personalization features include price notifications, recommendations, and discount codes.
Pros:
- Offers enhanced eCommerce integrations with WooCommerce, Shopify, and BigCommerce.
- Integrations are highly reliable and robust.
Cons:
- Does not offer a free plan and prices can escalate quickly
- Although a great platform for automation, its analytics and reporting are not as advanced as those offered by some of the competitors.
Pricing:
You can initiate at $ 19/month but prices will increase with the increasing number of contacts and messages.
13. Mailjet.
Best for individual freelancers, small and medium-sized businesses.
Mailjet is another marketing tool. It does more than just offering users an email marketing setup. Mailjet harnesses an API script that allows users to create transactional emails for their mobile apps or websites. You can easily trigger a range of invoice notices, interactive emails, notifications, upgrade and milestone messages.
Features:
- Contains a built-in system of A/B testing, email analytics, and SMTP Replay.
- Offers online customer support.
- Wide range of premium packages with role-based automation themes, permissions, list segmentation, personalization, customized templates etc.
Pros:
- It comes with a free package. Although it is limited but is good enough for beginners. Users can send 6000 emails per month with 200 emails per day.
- The free package comes with essential marketing tools such as targeted marketing analytics, an email editor, and the API.
- You can store an unlimited number of contacts.
Cons:
- Mailjet’s basic plan is quite restricted. Options for behavioral targeting and segmenting are non-existent.
Pricing:
You can sign up for a free account or upgrade to a paid plan.
Basic: $9.65
Premium:$20.95
Enterprise: customized quote
14. Mailchimp.
Best for small and medium-sized businesses as well as marketing consultants.
Mailchimp is another powerful and popular email marketing tool that prides itself on its vigorous personalization features that result in increased clickthrough rates for businesses. But there are other functionalities that contribute to the email marketing tool’s popularity.
Features:
- User-friendly navigation and features for growing your subscribers’ list
- Responsive email templates and trendy designs with a drag and drop email builder
- Automated email builder, list segmentation, targeted content based on user behavior
- Email-based analytics to help marketers make more informed decisions
Pros:
- Its automation features are easily set up even by users without proper tech skills
- Offers users inspiring route maps and marketing automation workflows
- Integrates with eCommerce platforms
- Decent CRM support features
- Free forever email marketing plan
Cons:
- The software shows glitches with scheduled campaigns
- Add-ons can prove costly for small businesses and freelancers
- Slow customer support
Pricing:
Mailchimp’s basic package starts at $10 and increases in pricing once you go past 500 subscribers. Unlimited subscribers will cost you around $299/month.
Be sure to check out my post on Mailchimp alternatives before taking the plunge, though.
15. Infusionsoft (Formerly Keap).
Infusionsoft, now known as Keap, is your two-in-one suite for both email management as well as CRM. You get to manage your emails as well as keep your customer history in one place with a fully automated funnel system. Here’s what else you can do with the tool.
Features:
- Personalize your bulk emails
- Optimize marketing with A/B tests
- Automated workflows
- In-built CRM and advanced analytics
Pros:
- Offers an in-built CRM and advanced analytics
Cons:
- No free email marketing plan is available
- Somewhat pricier
Pricing:
Starts at $100/month
16. Benchmark.
Best for multilingual teams.
Benchmark is a famous email marketing tool that has its cross-cultural marketing features designed for at least 15 different countries. While their advanced set of tools may be devoid of the brilliance offered by some of the other marketing tools, the platform makes it to our list due to the befitting suite of features offered in its basic and even the free plan.
Features:
- Surveys, polls, Email builder, list builder, for user management engagement.
- Basic analytics.
- Pro tools enable users to manage lists, craft customized welcome messages to new subscribers, sort out abandoned carts, issue follow-up emails, etc.
- Responsive emails optimized for mobile, laptops, tablets, and desktop, etc.
Pros:
- Good assistance for multilingual corporations and teams
- Better email support
Cons:
- Advanced features may not be very convincing as offered by many other email marketing platforms. This includes email automation, analytics and reporting.
- Benchmark’s free plan restricts you to mere 250 emails per month.
Pricing:
You can sign up with a free account or upgrade to one of the following paid plans.
Pro: $13/month
Enterprise: custom quote
17. SendPulse.
Best for multi-channel businesses.
Our last nominee is another handy email marketing platform. With Sendpulse, you can use chatbots, send push notifications, SMS, and emails.
Features:
- Vigorous functionalities including, A/B testing, email analytics, email builders, automation plans, etc.
- Segmentation and personalization tools for email lists and contacts.
- Push notifications, Facebook messages and SMS are offered after you pay an additional amount.
- eCommerce integrations and API scripts with behavioral targeting.
Pros:
- The free plan comes with an essential suite of marketing features like basic segmentation, and email builder templates.
- You can also utilize its push notification tool for up to 10,000 subscribers and Facebook messenger for up to 10,000 messages per month.
Cons:
- It is capable of offering marketing services across different platforms. However, it lacks an all-round package for such channels.
- Free plans come with feature restrictions and limited contacts. There are no analytics or advanced segmentation.
Pricing:
You can sign up for a free account. Alternatively, you can subscribe to their main plan, or follow along with their pay-as-you-go model.
18. Omnisend.
Best for small and large businesses.
Omnnisend is your one-stop solution for multi-feature email marketing. Its ultimate strength is the wide collection of functionalities in exchange for affordable pricing. You can also use the platform to send messages on WhatsApp, Facebook, SMS, and more. It also enables you to send web push notifications.
But there is still more to this multi-channel software.
Features:
- Its email builder feature offers stylish templates.
- Provides marketing automation schemes as well as transactional emails.
- Its pro plan offers powerful features such as A/B testing and web push notification. Moreover, it also allows users to combine the software with their eCommerce plans for behavioral targeting.
- There is a handy landing page builder along with editing options for personalization and segmentation.
Pros:
- Its wide variety of features makes it one of the best marketing tools for businesses targeting cross-channel marketing.
Cons:
- The free plan offers very limited features. You can only send 15,000 emails/month with no e-commerce integration features.
Pricing:
There are four different pricing plans: free, standard, pro, and enterprise.
Features build up along with the prices as you move from standard to pro to enterprise.
You’ll be charged up to $1.5 for every hundred messages on a pay-as-you-go model.
Best for Shopify store owners, Startups and small entrepreneurs.
NotifyVisitors is email marketing made easy – with its intuitive email builder and powerful email automation tools, you can quickly and easily create email campaigns to engage with your target audiences.
From email newsletters and drip email campaigns to personalized promotional offers, NotifyVisitors makes it simple to craft eye-catching emails that deliver results.
You can even use their drag-and-drop editor to easily customize email templates, or take advantage of the wide range of email marketing analytics they offer to monitor the success of your campaigns.
With NotifyVisitors, you get a comprehensive solution for all your email marketing needs.
Features.
- Drag and drop content editor to customize your templates
- In-depth campaign analytics to keep track of their effectiveness.
- Segmentation and personalization to target your audience in the right way
- Automated email campaigns to save you time and effort.
- A/B testing of different variations to find the best one.
Pros.
- Easy to create and send email campaigns.
- Sound customer support.
- Single dashboard to keep track of all campaigns.
- Real-time analytics to track performance.
- Advanced segmentation allows you to send more targeted content.
Cons.
Too many features make it complex to use.
Pricing.
- Free plan is available at $0 per month.
- Startup plan starts at $49 per month
- For the enterprise plan you need to contact them.
Try Omnisend for Free for 14 Days
Email Marketing Tools FAQ.
Here are a few commonly asked questions about the best and free email marketing software for a quick roundtrip.
What is email marketing?
Email marketing refers to marketing via sending out targeted and personalized emails to potential customers.
What is email marketing automation software?
These are software solutions that automate your email marketing by sending out emails in bulk, segmenting your subscribers, and managing customers, and keeping scores of important metrics.
What are the four types of marketing emails?
The four popular types of marketing emails are newsletters, promotional emails, acquisition emails, and retention emails.
What are the tools for email marketing?
Commonly used email marketing tools include SendinBlue, Omnisend, Moosend, Mailchimp, ConvertKit Constant Contact, MailerLite, AWeber, Mailjet, and some others.
What are the email marketing tools for small businesses?
Small businesses that are running a bit of a tight budget go for one of the following:
Active Campaign.
SendPulse.
Mailjet.
MailerLite.
What are the five email marketing tools that are widely used?
The most commonly used email marketing tools are Mailchimp, AWeber, Active Campaign, Moosend, and Omnisend.
What is the best email automation?
When it comes to email automation, the best tools are Moosend, Mailchimp, and Convertkit.
Which is the most popular email marketing platform?
Mailchimp and Moosend are two of the most popular email marketing service providers in the industry.
What are the best email marketing tools?
Constant Contact, Moosend, SendinBlue, Mailchimp, AWeber are some of the most popular and widely used email marketing tools that offer everything you need.
So, Which Email Marketing Tool Did You Find the Best?
Your marketing goals determine the best email marketing platform suited for you. If you categorize yourself as a solopreneur who is initiating marketing projects, you might benefit the most from free plans offered by MailerLite, Mailjet, SendPulse and SendinBlue. Beginning with simpler solutions and building your way to a database of reliable leads and prospects is the right strategy.
Regional and local data protection laws are getting stringent with every passing year. Make sure you don’t violate them at any cost. Buying email listings is risky and better be avoided. Subject lines must match your email’s content. People must have a clear option to unsubscribe your emails so that they don't mark them as spam.
Lastly, automation and personalisation can be great time-savers when it comes to repetitive tasks but they don’t guarantee results. Matching the needs of your audience with your email marketing strategy is the only method which can guarantee long-term success.
So, which of these email marketing platforms do you see yourself using in the future? Feel free to drop your favorites in the comment section below.