Best Email Marketing Software of 2024

Best Email Marketing Tool: 1-minute summary

What’s the bottom line? (Click on it for a detailed explanation)

Best for small business

Small businesses have fewer than 100 employees and make less than $50 million in annual revenue. Others define it as having between 100 to 1,500 employees. Whatever the case, if you’re planning to use email marketing software with multiple people/teams, e.g., sales reps, marketers, etcetera, the best email marketing software is ActiveCampaign. If you only want to use it for sending a newsletter, I suggest MailerLite. If you’re unsure, read my ActiveCampaign review and MailerLite review.

Best for Shopify (i.e., ecommerce)

The best email marketing tool for Shopify, i.e., ecommerce companies, is Klaviyo. Note that all email tools offer ecommerce integrations, including the most inexpensive email tool MailerLite. Whether you should go for Klaviyo or a less expensive tool depends on your situation. For example, Klaviyo has great segmentation features, but that’s only useful when you have lots of ecommerce order data. Moreover, if you don’t have the time or don’t want to send frequent emails, I’m unsure if Klaviyo is worth the money.

Best for WordPress (i.e., bloggers)

The best email marketing tool for bloggers should have great opt-in form functionalities since your blog posts will be your most important source of new subscribers. The email marketing tool with the best opt-in form features is GetResponse, and in shared 2nd place are MailerLite and ConvertKit. Skip here for a more detailed explanation. If you’re on a budget, keep in mind that GetResponse is the most expensive option, while MailerLite is the least costly option.

Best for non-profits

Most email marketing companies offer a discount for non-profit organizations. The email tool that provides the most significant discount is GetResponse, up to 50%. However, looking at the monthly price instead of the discount percentage MailerLite is the cheapest option. For more information regarding the non-profit discounts, skip here.

Best for real estate agents

The best email marketing tool for realtors is ActiveCampaign. A cheaper alternative is Sendinblue. Why? ActiveCampaign and Sendinblue offer CRM features, which I highly recommend when making one-on-one sales. ActiveCampaign allows you to automate many little things when a new lead enters your sales funnel/pipeline. Further reading: ActiveCampaign review or Sendinblue review.

Cheapest email marketing tool

The cheapest email marketing tool is MailerLite or Sendinblue, depending on your sending frequency. Note that these two tools have the best value for money, i.e., the most inexpensive email marketing tools that still offer many features. In many cases, they have even more features than their more expensive competitors.
If you send a few emails monthly, Sendinblue is probably cheaper. If you have to send more frequently, MailerLite is perhaps less expensive. But do note, MailerLite offers unlimited monthly emails to up to 50,000 contacts. After that, there’s a cap of 12X your contact count. If you send daily emails and have more than 50,000 subs, you might want to check out GetResponse or ConvertKit. They both offer unlimited email sending, no matter your subscriber number.

Best for beginners

The best email marketing tool for beginners is MailerLite or ConvertKit. Why MailerLite? Because it’s the most budget-friendly option. Why ConvertKit? Because it’s the most user-friendly email tool I’ve come across—further reading: MailerLite review, ConvertKit review, MailerLite vs ConvertKit.

Best free email marketing tool

The bottom line is that MailerLite has the best free plan as it allows you to send 12,000 emails per month to up to 1,000 subscribers and offers full email marketing automation, a feature that many competitors don’t offer in their free plan. See this page for a more detailed answer regarding what email tool provides the best free plan.

The best robust email tool

Not everyone is looking for the best price or the most simplistic email tool. Maybe budget and skill aren’t your problems. Perhaps you prefer a more robust marketing tool. In that case, I suggest considering GetResponse or ActiveCampaign. GetResponse is cheaper than ActiveCampaign but ActiveCampaign also offers CRM functionalities (e.g., pipelines, deals, tasks, etcetera). If you’re looking for a more robust ecommerce email marketing tool that also allows you to do SMS marketing, I suggest considering Klaviyo.

Best email tool with CRM features

The best email marketing tool with CRM features is HubSpot, ActiveCampaign, or Sendinblue. HubSpot and ActiveCampaign offer more sophisticated features, while Sendinblue is far cheaper. If you’re unsure what CRM features are and what they can do for you, check this part of my ActiveCampaign review.

Best for affiliate marketing

The best email marketing software for affiliate marketing is GetResponse and ConvertKit. Why? They are the most likely to allow you to add affiliate links to your newsletters. Remember that some email tools like Mailchimp don’t allow you to add affiliate links in your newsletters. Not following their policy most likely result in a ban from their platform, which often also means no refund.

Why not use these 3 email marketing tools

Firstly, we have Mailchimp. Mailchimp is relatively expensive while not offering the best product features, i.e., I don’t recommend it because I feel there are better alternatives available, which might be weird to you since they are highly recommended on some of the top pages of Google when searching for best email tool. It does make me wonder how much time and effort those websites put into their reviews. Read my full Mailchimp review here.

Secondly, there’s Constant Contact. Constant Contact was a popular email tool back in the day, but no longer (see Google Trends). It doesn’t offer the best marketing features, and it also doesn’t provide the best price. In other words, what’s the ideal Constant Contact customer? I don’t know. That I’m not recommending Constant Contact might surprise you since many websites recommend them. Read my Constant Contact review here to understand why I’m not a fan.

Third, AWeber. Do I recommend using AWeber for your email marketing? The short and generalized answer is no. AWeber has many great features, so I’m not saying it’s a bad product or that my opinion cannot change when it adds/improves on its product. In my view, looking at all its features, AWeber doesn’t stand out. Read my full AWeber review here to understand my opinion better.

Pricing

The hardest part for email marketing companies is to stand out from the competition. Brand loyalty is entirely different with email marketing companies compared to companies like Apple or Nike. People spend more money on a Nike shoe or an Apple product because of the status it gives them. It’s cooler to showcase your new Apple laptop than your new Dell. The challenge for email marketing companies is that you cannot see from the outside what email tool a business uses. So it’s not necessarily cooler that a business uses email marketing tool X over Y.

Long story short, if an email marketing tool is more expensive than its competitor, it should also offer a better product, i.e., a better user experience or more extensive features. The emphasis is on should because this isn’t always the case. Currently, the email marketing tool MailerLite offers the best price and, in some cases, even a superior product over its competitors, which is almost impossible to beat.

In this pricing section, I’ll discuss the topics below. Click on […] and skip to that section.

Different plans […]
Price comparison […]
Discounts […]
Discounts for non-profits […]
Extra discounts (special occasions) […]
Cancellation process […]
Refunds […]
Hidden fees […]

Different plans

Aside from Klaviyo, most email tools offer multiple tiers, i.e., payment plans. Warning: don’t let some email tools’ first tiers fool you into thinking that those are inexpensive, i.e., worthwhile your time and money. I advise avoiding these tiers: Constant Contact Core, ActiveCampaign Lite, AWeber Lite, Mailchimp Essentials, and GetResponse Email Marketing. This is mainly because these tiers either lack essential features or are overpriced. Most often, it’s a combination of both, lacking features and more expensive than other tools that offer more features. For more details, please read the individual software reviews.

Price comparison

The table below shows the annual prices of the most popular email marketing companies, including discounts for purchasing annually, if applicable. Remember that Sendinblue isn’t included in the table below because it doesn’t calculate its price based on the number of subscribers in your account.

By scrolling to the right, you can find higher contact numbers up to 20,000. Click here for a full-width version if you’re on a laptop or PC.

	500	1,000	1,500	2,000	2500	3,000	4,000	5,000	6,000	7,000	8,000	10,000	15,000	20,000	20,000	50,000	100,000	200,000	300,000	500,000	700,000	900,000	1,200,000	1,500,000	2,000,000	2,500,000	3,000,000	4,000,000	5,000,000
MailerLite Growing Business	$10	$15	$25	$25	$25	$39	$39	$39	$59	$59	$59	$73	$109	$139	$139	$289
MailerLite Advanced	$20	$30	$40	$40	$40	$50	$50	$50	$80	$80	$80	$110	$150	$180	$180	$340	$440	$820	$1,200	$1,900
ConvertKit Creator	$29	$29	$49	$49	$49	$49	$79	$79	$99	$99	$99	$119	$149	$179	$179	$379	$679	$1,279	$1,879
ConvertKit Creator Pro	$59	$59	$79	$79	$79	$79	$111	$111	$139	$139	$139	$167	$209	$251	$251	$519	$879	$1,579	$2,179
Zoho Standard	$4	$7	$17	$17	$17	$18	$24	$31	$35	$38	$41	$49	$61	$74	$74	$138	$242
Zoho Professional	$6	$12	$29	$29	$29	$30	$40	$52	$58	$63	$69	$81	$101	$123	$123	$230	$403	$748	$1,035	$1,380
Sender Standard	$19	$19	$19	$19	$19	$33	$33	$33	$57	$57	$57	$57	$87	$107	$107	$227	$367	$697
Sender Professional	$35	$35	$35	$35	$35	$60	$60	$60	$120	$120	$120	$120	$200	$250	$250	$460	$860	$1,660
Constant Contact Lite	$12	$30	$50	$50	$50	$80	$80	$80	$120	$120	$120	$120	$180	$230	$230	$430
Constant Contact Standard	$35	$55	$75	$75	$75	$110	$110	$110	$160	$160	$160	$160	$210	$260	$260	$460
Constant Contact Premium	$80	$110	$150	$150	$150	$200	$200	$200	$275	$275	$275	$275	$325	$375	$375	$575
ActiveCampaign Marketing Lite	$39	$39	$61	$61	$61	$99	$99	$99	$174	$174	$174	$174	$286	$286	$286	$486
ActiveCampaign Marketing Plus	$70	$70	$125	$125	$125	$186	$186	$186	$287	$287	$287	$287	$474	$474	$474	$699
ActiveCampaign Marketing Professional	$187	$187	$187	$187	$187	$262	$262	$262	$424	$424	$424	$424	$686	$686	$686	$1,011
ActiveCampaign Bundles Plus	$116	$116	$171	$171	$171	$232	$232	$232	$333	$333	$333	$333	$520	$520	$520	$745
ActiveCampaign Bundles Professional	$482	$482	$482	$482	$482	$557	$557	$557	$719	$719	$719	$719	$981	$981	$981	$1,306
GetResponse Email Marketing	$19	$19	$29	$29	$29	$54	$54	$54	$79	$79	$79	$79	$174	$174	$174	$299	$539
GetResponse Marketing Automation	$59	$59	$69	$69	$69	$95	$95	$95	$114	$114	$114	$114	$215	$215	$215	$359	$599
GetResponse Ecommerce Marketing	$119	$119	$139	$139	$139	$169	$169	$169	$199	$199	$199	$199	$299	$299	$299	$444	$699
Mailchimp Essentials	$27	$45	$45	$75	$75	$110	$110	$110	$180	$180	$180	$180	$230	$270	$270
Mailchimp Standard	$20	$45	$45	$60	$60	$100	$100	$100	$135	$135	$135	$135	$230	$285	$285	$450	$800
Mailchimp Premium	$350	$350	$350	$350	$350	$350	$350	$350	$350	$350	$350	$350	$465	$535	$535	$815	$1,025	$1,600
AWeber Lite	$15	$25	$25	$25	$25	$45	$45	$45	$65	$65	$65	$65	$145	$145	$145	$388	$788
AWeber Plus	$30	$40	$40	$40	$40	$60	$60	$60	$80	$80	$80	$80	$160	$160	$160	$403	$803
AWeber Unlimited	$899	$899	$899	$899	$899	$899	$899	$899	$899	$899	$899	$899	$899	$899	$899	$899	$899	$899	$899	$899	$899	$899	$899	$899	$899	$899	$899	$899	$899
Klaviyo Email	$20	$30	$45	$60	$60	$70	$100	$100	$130	$150	$150	$150	$350	$375	$375	$720	$1,380	$2,070
Klaviyo Email & SMS	$35	$45	$60	$75	$75	$85	$115	$115	$145	$165	$165	$165	$365	$390	$390	$735	$1,395	$2,085
Beehiiv Launch	$0	$0	$0	$0	$0
Beehiiv Grow	$49	$49	$49	$49	$49	$49	$49	$49	$49	$49	$49	$49
Beehiiv Scale	$99	$99	$99	$99	$99	$99	$99	$99	$99	$99	$99	$99	$99	$99	$99	$99	$99
HubSpot Marketing Hub - Starter	$20	$20	$40	$40	$60	$60	$78	$96	$112	$128	$144	$176	$256	$336	$336	$816	$1,616
HubSpot Marketing Hub - Professional	$890	$890	$890	$890	$1,140	$1,140	$1,140	$1,140	$1,140	$1,140	$1,390	$1,390	$1,640	$1,890	$1,890	$3,190
HubSpot Marketing Hub - Enterprise	$3,600	$3,600	$3,600	$3,600	$3,600	$3,600	$3,600	$3,600	$3,600	$3,600	$3,600	$3,600	$3,700	$3,700	$3,700	$4,000	$4,450	$5,250	$5,950	$7,350	$8,550	$9,750
Moosend Pro	$9	$16	$24	$24	$32	$32	$48	$48	$64	$64	$64	$88	$160	$160	$160	$315	$624	$1,216	$1,808	$2,896	$4,080	$5,840

The table below shows the regular prices of Sendinblue’s email marketing tool. The numbers in the top horizontal line (see the table below) represent the emails you can send monthly. On all levels, there are unlimited contacts/subscribers. Remember that these are annual prices, including the 10% discount. Also, note that the prices of the Starter tier include the add-on to remove Sendinblue’s branding.

Company	Tier	20,000	40,000	60,000	100,000	150,000	250,000	350,000	500,000	750,000	1,000,000
Brevo	Starter	$396	$504	$660	$876	x	x	x	x	x	x
Brevo	Business	$696	$804	$960	$1,392	$1,824	$2,580	$3,120	$4,308	$6,036	$7,224

Aside from subscription pricing models, Mailchimp and Sendinblue also offer pay-as-you-go credits (see table below), which can be handy if you’re an infrequent sender, i.e., don’t send monthly emails. The left column shows the number of email credits, columns 2 and 3 show the total price, and columns 4 and 5 show the cost per email credit.

	Brevo	Mailchimp	Brevo	Mailchimp
5,000	$32	$200	$0.0064	$0.0400
10,000	$59	$260	$0.0059	$0.0260
15,000	x	$390	x	$0.0260
20,000	$95	x	$0.0048	x
50,000	$165	$1,300	$0.0033	$0.0260
75,000	x	$1,950	x	$0.0260
100,000	$275	x	$0.0028	x
200,000	x	$2,600	x	$0.0130
500,000	$940	x	$0.0019	x
1,000,000	$1,600	x	$0.0016	x
2,000,000	x	$3,300	x	$0.0017
5,000,000	x	$6,500	x	$0.0013
25,000,000	x	$13,000	x	$0.0005

Remember that Mailchimp’s email credits expire after 12 months, and Sendinblue doesn’t have an expiration date on its email credits.

Discounts

Most email tools offer a discount when purchasing an annual subscription. When done heavily testing the tool, I suggest you buy a yearly subscription because it can save you a lot of money in the long run. Remember that I already added the discount for purchasing an annual subscription in the pricing tables above.

Company	12-month plan	24-month plan
MailChimp	❌	❌
GetResponse	18%	30%
AWeber	2% – 33%*	❌
ConvertKit	+- 17%	❌
MailerLite	15%	❌
Sendinblue	10%	❌
HubSpot	10%	❌
ActiveCampaign	+- 20%	❌
Constant Contact	15%	❌

*AWeber – AWeber offers up to 33% off annual plans, but the discount rapidly decreases as the subscriber count increases. At 25,000 subscribers, the yearly discount is minimal and not worth it, i.e., only a few percent.

Discounts for non-profits

Aside from ConvertKit, all email tools offer a discount for non-profit organizations.

HubSpot	40%
Constant Contact	30%*
GetResponse	30 – 50%*
AWeber	25%*
ActiveCampaign	20%
Sendinblue	15%*
MailChimp	15%
MailerLite	15 – 30%*
ConvertKit	❌

*GetResponse – If you add a link on your website to the GetResponse website, you can get a 50% discount on monthly plans. If you prefer not to link to their website, you can get a 30% discount on monthly plans, which is still relatively good. Further reading: check this page on GetResponse’s website.
*AWeber – Non-profits can receive three free months of AWeber Pro and a 25% discount. Further reading: check this page on AWeber’s website.
*MailerLite – If you purchase an annual plan as a non-profit organization, you receive a 30% discount because you can stack the annual discount plus the non-profit discounts. You aren’t obligated to purchase the annual plan while still benefiting from the 15% non-profit discount.
*Sendinblue – Sendinblue only offers a 15% discount to non-profit organizations that subscribe to their most expensive plan, the Enterprise plan, which starts from $1,000 per month. For more information, visit this page on Sendinblue’s website.
*Constant Contact – To receive the 30% discount for non-profit organizations, you must purchase the annual subscription.

Extra discounts (special occasions)

Some companies go all-out on special occasions, e.g., Black Friday, Cyber Monday, etcetera, which might be an excellent opportunity for you to subscribe at that moment.

Click on […] to read further about how special discounts work with these companies (see table below).

MailerLite	✔️ 25% […]
Sendinblue	✔️ 30% […]
ConvertKit	✔️ 31% […]
Constant Contact	✔️ Up to 40% […]
GetResponse	✔️ Up to 40% (lifetime!) […]
MailChimp	❌
AWeber	❌
HubSpot	❌
ActiveCampaign	❌

Cancellation process

Most software tools have an easy cancellation process, but some don’t.

✔️ = You can cancel a paid account online

❌ = Not the best cancellation process

MailChimp	✔️
GetResponse	✔️
AWeber	✔️
MailerLite	✔️
Sendinblue	✔️
HubSpot	✔️
ActiveCampaign	✔️
ConvertKit	❌ By email or chat support
Constant Contact	❌ By phone

Warning: Constant Contact has the worse cancellation process because the only option to cancel is by phone, on specific days, and between certain hours. You probably will be charged hefty phone provider fees if you’re not from the US.

Refunds

Most software companies do not offer refunds – especially not for unused time or unused credits resulting in reviews like the one below. This Mailchimp customer had unused email credits and wanted a refund that Mailchimp didn’t provide. Remember that, most likely, no email tool will give you a refund.

Furthermore, in most of their terms of use policies, you can read that they also won’t provide a refund when they deny you access to their platform, i.e., block your account, when you violate their terms. Term violations often happen when you have a high spam score or use content in your emails that their terms prohibit.

❌ = no refund

ConvertKit	✔️ 30-day refund guarantee*
Constant Contact	✔️ 30-day refund guarantee*
MailChimp	❌
GetResponse	❌
AWeber	❌
MailerLite	❌
Sendinblue	❌
HubSpot	❌
ActiveCampaign	❌

* Keep in mind that these refunds only apply to new accounts, i.e., if you forgot to cancel your annual subscription, I’m unsure if they would grant you a refund.

The number of contacts (subscribed vs unsubscribed)

Some email tools like Mailchimp charge you for contacts that are either subscribed or unsubscribed from your email list. In other words, with Mailchimp, if 500 people unsubscribed from your email list, you still pay for those email addresses. Others only charge you for active contacts, i.e., real subscribers to your email list. I call these the hidden fees since, in most cases, they don’t clearly explain them on their pricing pages.

❌ = charges you for non-active contacts, too, i.e., unsubscribed email addresses

✔️ = charges you only for active contacts

GetResponse	✔️
ConvertKit	✔️
HubSpot	✔️
ActiveCampaign	✔️
Constant Contact	✔️
MailerLite	✔️*
Sendinblue	✔️*
MailChimp	❌
AWeber	❌

*MailerLite doesn’t charge you for inactive contacts, i.e., unsubscribed contacts, but it uses the Unique active subscriber principle. It means that it counts the number of contacts you have sent an email to in the last 30 days and not the number of contacts subscribed to your mailing list. Not a big fan of this either. See this page on MailerLite’s website for further reading.

*Sendinblue uses a different pricing structure, so charging for contacts doesn’t apply; instead, it charges you for the number of emails you send.

Best Newsletter Features

In this best newsletter features section, I’ll discuss the topics below. Just click on […] to skip to that part.

Maximum contacts & monthly emails […]
Google Analytics UTM builder […]
Newsletter […]
Segmentation […]
Email Scheduling […]
Audiences / Email lists […]

Maximum contacts & monthly emails

In the table below, you can find how many emails you can send monthly.

10X = 10 times your contact number, e.g., if you are on a 1,000 subscriber tier, you can send 10,000 monthly emails
N/a = the platform doesn’t allow you to choose that particular plan on higher contact numbers; see, for example, MailerLite’s Business plan.
Unknown = the platform doesn’t provide details. You have to contact them for custom pricing.

		20,000	50,000	100,000	200,000	300,000	500,000	700,000	900,000	1,200,000	1,500,000	2,000,000	2,500,000	3,000,000	4,000,000	5,000,000
MailerLite	Growing Business	Unlimited	Unlimited	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a
MailerLite	Advanced	Unlimited	Unlimited	12X	12X	12X	12X	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown
Mailchimp	Essentials	10X	10X	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a
Mailchimp	Standard	12X	12X	12X	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a
Mailchimp	Premium	15X	15X	15X	15X	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown
Klaviyo	Email	10X	10X	10X	10X	10X	10X	10X	10X	10X	10X	10X	10X	10X	10X	10X
HubSpot Marketing Hub	Starter	5X	5X	5X	5X	5X	5X	5X	5X	5X	5X	5X	5X	5X	5X	5X
HubSpot Marketing Hub	Professional	10X	10X	10X	10X	10X	10X	10X	10X	10X	10X	10X	10X	10X	10X	10X
HubSpot Marketing Hub	Enterprise	20X	20X	20X	20X	20X	20X	20X	20X	20X	20X	20X	20X	20X	20X	20X
GetResponse	All tiers	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
ConvertKit	All tiers	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown
Constant Contact	All tiers	24X	24X	24X	24X	24X	24X	24X	24X	24X	24X	24X	24X	24X	24X	24X
AWeber	All tiers	Unlimited	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown
ActiveCampaign	All tiers	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	10X	10X	10X	10X	10X	10X	10X	10X	10X	10X	10X

The bottom line is that if you’re a high-frequency email sender, you have to consider that some tiers have limits, i.e., you have to purchase a higher tier to send more emails resulting in a higher monthly price. In other words, at first, it might seem that tool X is cheaper than tool Y, but if you consider the sending limitation, it might be the other way around (just food for thought).

Google Analytics UTM builder

Google Analytics is a powerful tool that allows website owners to track visitor behavior and gain valuable insights into their website’s performance.

Most tools offer a feature where you can easily enable a setting that automatically adds UTM parameters to your emails’ HTML links. For example, in the screenshot below, you can see an example of the email tool MailerLite where you can check a box to enable the UTM tags.

Although it might seem obvious to offer such a feature, not every email tool does, i.e., you have to manually create and add the UTM tags to your HTML links, which costs lots of time and is error sensitive.

❌ = the tool doesn’t have an automatic UTM tag builder/setting

✔️ = the tool does have a UTM tag builder

MailChimp	✔️
GetResponse	✔️
ConvertKit	✔️
MailerLite	✔️
Sendinblue	✔️
HubSpot	✔️
ActiveCampaign	✔️
AWeber	❌
Constant Contact	❌

First, I mean by newsletters regular newsletters and not automation builders/emails.

Secondly, some differences make one newsletter builder more flexible than others, but overall, there’s no newsletter builder where I have had a bad experience.

For example, ConvertKit’s newsletter has fewer features than GetResponse’s newsletter, but that doesn’t mean ConvertKit has a bad newsletter builder.

See the table below for a ranking of best to least-best in terms of having a feature-rich newsletter editor. Click on […] for further reading.

MailChimp	5-star […]
ActiveCampaign	4-star […]
Constant Contact	4-star […]
GetResponse	4-star […]
HubSpot	4-star […]
MailerLite	4-star […]
Sendinblue	4-star […]
AWeber	4-star […]
ConvertKit	3-star […]

Click here to find out more about how we test products.

Segmentation

Every email tool allows you to segment your contacts before sending a newsletter. The screenshot below shows an example of MailerLite’s segmentation feature when sending a newsletter.

Email Scheduling

Every email tool allows you to send your newsletter at a future date, i.e., email scheduling.

The difference is that some email tools have extra scheduling features, e.g., delivering the email at a specific time despite timezone differences or finding the best time for individual contacts to send the newsletter. Especially the one to deliver the email at a particular time for each timezone can be handy if you have a worldwide audience and prefer to deliver your emails at 9 am sharp.

❌ = the tool doesn’t offer extra scheduling features

✔️ = the tool does provide extra scheduling features

MailChimp	✔️
GetResponse	✔️
MailerLite	✔️
Sendinblue	✔️
HubSpot	✔️
ActiveCampaign	✔️
ConvertKit	❌
Constant Contact	❌
AWeber	❌*

*AWeber has a delivery by Time Zone feature for its automation emails but not for its regular newsletter emails.

Audiences / Email lists

Some email tools allow you to create multiple email lists. For example, if your business has B2B and B2C customers, you probably communicate differently with these two audiences. Creating two email lists in the same email account will help you do that. Another example is if you also have an internal newsletter, i.e., for your employees. If you want to segment your audience on interest, I usually prefer to use tags or custom fields instead of different email lists. I see the use case for email lists to separate one audience from the other, but not so much that you need a different account.

As you can see in the table below, there are email tools that don’t offer the option to create more than one email list.

MailChimp	5-star
GetResponse	3-star
AWeber	3-star
Sendinblue	3-star
HubSpot	3-star
ActiveCampaign	3-star
Constant Contact	3-star
ConvertKit	❌
MailerLite	❌

Mailchimp has a 5-star rating because they are the only tool that allows you to set up a custom default from email address, from name and physical address for each email list (or audience, as Mailchimp calls it). The other email tools don’t have this option resulting in a higher risk of you sending an email to email list X with the incorrect from email address, from name, or physical address.

Best Email Automation Features

The bottom line is that ActiveCampaign offers the most comprehensive email marketing automation functionalities.

Click on […] for further reading and examples.

ActiveCampaign	5-star […]
GetResponse	4-star […]
Sendinblue	4-star […]
HubSpot	4-star […]
ConvertKit	3.5-star […]
MailChimp	3-star […]
AWeber	3-star […]
MailerLite	3-star […]
Constant Contact	2-star […]

Do note that a lower rating for email automation isn’t a bad sign, i.e., if you don’t need fancy email automation, please don’t spend money on software that offers it.

Best Landing Page Features

Nowadays, every email tool offers you to create and publish landing pages. Below is a list of functionalities of how an email marketing tool can differentiate itself from its competitors:

Pricing, i.e., from what tier (plan) can I start using the landing pages?
The number of pages you can create (some offer unlimited pages while others limit you to X pages)
Landing page customization features (some allow you to change everything while others are very limited in what you can do)
Custom domain (Constant Contact is the only email tool that doesn’t allow you to add a custom domain)
The flexibility to add and edit a sign up form on your landing page
Website features, i.e., can I create a website-ish look and feel?
Landing page templates

Click on […] for more information and screenshots of the landing page features of all the email tools.

ActiveCampaign	4-star […]
GetResponse	4-star […]
HubSpot	4-star […]
Sendinblue	3.5-star […]
AWeber	3.5-star […]
MailerLite	3.5-star […]
ConvertKit	3-star […]
MailChimp	3-star […]
Constant Contact	2-star […]

The reason why ConvertKit has a 3-star rating is that they don’t have a lot of extra functionalities. On the other hand, ConvertKit is one of the most user-friendly tools because it doesn’t have a massive library of features. In other words, the question is; what do you need? Do you need a tool that allows for maximum flexibility? In this case, ConvertKit wouldn’t be my top choice for you. But if you’re looking for a tool to create a landing page for your free ebook quickly, ConvertKit does a fantastic job.

Screenshot of HubSpot’s landing page builder

Best Opt-in Form Features

Opt-in forms will be your number one tactic for growing your email list if you have an active blog.

Every email tool allows you to create a sign-up form. Below is a list of functionalities of how an email marketing tool can differentiate itself from its competitors:

Different opt-in forms: pop-ups (e.g., banner pop up, welcome pop-ups, exit pop-ups, page-specific pop-ups), sign-up forms (e.g., newsletter sign-up form, free ebook giveaway sign-up form), and banner pop up.
Great flexibility regarding displaying the form (e.g., start and end dates, frequency, link-click pop-ups, page-specific pop-ups, etcetera)
Design options (some tools offer limited design customization)
Limited in the number of forms you can create (e.g., Mailchimp and Constant Contact limit you to only one pop-up and sign-up form)
GDPR options (i.e., does the tool allows you to receive consent from your subscribers?)
Double-opt-in setup (e.g., Sendinblue doesn’t have a smooth process for setting up double-opt-in emails)
Opt-in form design templates
Pricing
Already subscribed setting (i.e., is there a feature that recognizes already subscribed contacts?)

The table below shows that many email tools can improve their opt-in form features. However, none offer a 5-star opt-in form experience, and some aren’t even close (e.g., Mailchimp and Constant Contact).

Click on […] for more information and screenshots of all email tools’ opt-in form features.

GetResponse	4-star […]
MailerLite	3-star […]
ConvertKit	3-star […]
AWeber	2.5-star […]
ActiveCampaign	2-star […]
HubSpot	2-star […]
Sendinblue	2-star […]
MailChimp	1-star […]
Constant Contact	1-star […]

Best CRM Features

If you’re unsure what CRM features are and whether you need them, read this part of ActiveCampaing’s review, where I cover their CRM features and how they can help you.

As shown in the table below, only a few email marketing companies offer CRM features besides email features.

❌ = doesn’t offer CRM features

✔️ = does offer CRM features

Sendinblue	✔️
HubSpot	✔️
ActiveCampaign	✔️
MailChimp	❌
GetResponse	❌
AWeber	❌
ConvertKit	❌
MailerLite	❌
Constant Contact	❌

Best Support Features

Every tool offers support (duh!), but not all of them offer great support. What weighs the heaviest for me is a combination of 24/7 chat support and knowledgeable customer service reps.

Disclaimer: not every company offers chat support on all its tiers. For example, MailerLite only offers chat support on its Advanced tier. For more information regarding support for the free plan, users check this page.

Click on […] for more information.

GetResponse	✔️ 24/7 chat support […]
ConvertKit	✔️ 24/7 chat support […]
AWeber	✔️ 24/7 chat support […]
MailerLite	✔️ 24/7 chat support […]
HubSpot	✔️ 24/7 chat support […]
MailChimp	✔️ 24/7 chat support […]
ActiveCampaign	❌ […]
Sendinblue	❌ […]
Constant Contact	❌ […]

Best Reporting Features

Especially when you’re reporting to your manager or client, having great reporting features is a must.

What weighs the heaviest for me are features to see my subscriber growth, statistics of my regular newsletter, automation emails, sign-up forms, and landing pages. So important to add is that I preferably want the option to add a custom period, i.e., I want to see the results of month X.

Surprisingly, excellent reporting features are too much to ask since most email marketing companies don’t offer them, or it’s not great.

Keep track of subscriber growth

Ideally, you want to see your growth in any custom period you enter. Most likely, you report monthly reports to your manager, client, or yourself, i.e., you want to know how much your email list grew or shrunk in the last month.

❌ = No great feature to keep track of subscriber growth

✔️ = Offers a feature to keep track of subscriber growth

GetResponse	✔️
ConvertKit	✔️
ActiveCampaign	✔️
Constant Contact	✔️
MailerLite	❌
MailChimp	❌
Sendinblue	❌
AWeber	?
HubSpot	?

Email reporting

Note that every email tool offers individual email reporting, i.e., you can see how many people opened, clicked, etcetera. When reporting to your manager, client, or yourself, you want to see the overall results of the entire month or year, not individual email results.

I want to see how many emails I sent last month or any other custom period. Note that some email tools mix automated emails with a regular newsletter, which will mess up my data, i.e., I prefer to have access to that data separately.

❌ = No great feature for email reporting

✔️ = Offers a feature for email reporting as described above

GetResponse	✔️
MailerLite	✔️
MailChimp	✔️
Sendinblue	✔️
ConvertKit	❌
Constant Contact	❌
AWeber	?
HubSpot	?
ActiveCampaign	?

Automation reports

Note that every email tool offers reports of your individual automated campaigns. You don’t want to report individual results when reporting to your manager, client, or yourself. Instead, you want to share the data of an entire month or year.

I want to see how many emails I sent last month or any other custom period with my automated campaigns. Remember, preferably, I don’t want to see mixed data, i.e., I don’t want to see regular newsletter data included in my automated campaign’s data.

❌ = No great reporting feature for automated campaigns

✔️ = Offers a reporting feature for automated campaigns

Constant Contact	❌
MailerLite	❌
MailChimp	❌
Sendinblue	❌
GetResponse	?
AWeber	?
HubSpot	?
ConvertKit	?
ActiveCampaign	?

Sign-up form reports

Ideally, I want to see how many new sign-ups I generated last month or any other custom period. Moreover, I want to know my top-performing forms, the conversion rate of my forms, the number of opt-ins versus the number of people confirming their email addresses, etcetera.

❌ = No great reporting feature for sign-up forms

✔️ = Offers a reporting feature for sign-up forms

ActiveCampaign	✔️
GetResponse	❌
AWeber	❌
ConvertKit	❌
Constant Contact	❌
MailerLite	❌
MailChimp	❌
Sendinblue	❌
HubSpot	?

Landing pages reports

Ideally, I want to see how many people visited my landing pages, how many opted-in, how many confirmed their email addresses, and my conversion rate. Furthermore, I want to see what my top-performing landing pages are. And don’t forget; I need the option to see last month’s data or any other custom period.

❌ = No great reporting feature for landing pages

✔️ = Offers a reporting feature for landing pages

ActiveCampaign	?
GetResponse	❌
AWeber	❌
ConvertKit	❌
Constant Contact	?
MailerLite	❌
MailChimp	❌
Sendinblue	?
HubSpot	?

Frequently asked questions

Which email marketing software is the best?

I’ve thoroughly tested all the different email tools and find ActiveCampaign to be the best in email marketing overall. Note that this doesn’t mean that ActiveCampaign will be most suitable for you and your business. Why? Not everyone has a similar skill level, needs, and the same plans for using the software. So, for example, if you’re looking for a newsletter tool for your soccer team, ActiveCampaign would be a bit of an overkill. In that case, MailerLite will suit you much better.

Is HubSpot better than Mailchimp?

Yes, HubSpot is better than Mailchimp. However, HubSpot has way more features than Mailchimp. Note that HubSpot is also more expensive than Mailchimp.

Is Klaviyo better than Mailchimp?

Yes, Klaviyo is a more sophisticated email marketing tool than Mailchimp. Keep in mind that Klaviyo is more focused on helping ecommerce businesses, while Mailchimp is more of a jack of all trades.

Are there better alternatives to Mailchimp?

Yes, there are many better alternatives to Mailchimp. In a nutshell, Mailchimp is relatively expensive while not offering the best product features. Click here to learn more about Mailchimp’s alternatives.

Do people still use MailChimp?

Yes, many people and businesses are using Mailchimp. As a matter of fact, in September 2021, Mailchimp had 13 million users and 800,000 paying customers (they also offer a forever-free plan). Check out this documentary I created about Mailchimp’s founders on YouTube.

How can I contact you?

If you have any questions, email [email protected]. I’ll do my best to reply quickly.