6 Email Marketing Software Reviews: Software For Every Budget
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Looking for email marketing software that has all the features you want at the price you’re looking to pay?
These are unbiased reviews of six email marketing providers for any budget ranging from free to enterprise email marketing solutions.
Read through the reviews and decide which is best for your email marketing needs.
1. Constant Contact
Features
Constant Contact offers more than 400 customizable email templates. You also have the option to use a blank template or code directly with HTML and CSS.
They also have a WordPress plug-in as well as a Facebook Fan Page app which gives your Facebook fans a way to sign up for emails directly from your Facebook Fan page.
Constant Contact also allows you to change the From line on your email without requiring creation of a new account. This is important if you want your emails to come from multiple people within your organization.
Key metrics and reporting data are very thorough – you can view bounces, complaints, opt-outs, click-throughs, forwards and social shares.
Cons
There is an additional monthly fee to send surveys to your contacts. There is also a 5,000-response monthly limit. Google Analytics reports are not available. There is no free version for small-scale email marketers.
Pricing
Constant Contact’s pricing is monthly and is based on your number of email addresses ranging from $15/month for up to 500 addresses to $75/month for up to 10,000. They also offer discounts for pre-paying customers and non-profits. Not ready to commit? Try Constant Contact free for 60 days.
2. MailChimp
Features
MailChimp also has more than 400 templates to choose from. They recently implemented a drag and drop editor for quick, easy and aesthetically pleasing email layouts. Many of their templates are optimized to display on mobile devices. You also have the option of coding your email directly with HTML and inline CSS.
Like Constant Contact, MailChimp, too, allows you to change the From name of your email without having an account set up for that name.
MailChimp uses an open API and encourages other applications to integrate with it. PayPal, Google Analytics, Shopify, FreshBooks, Salesforce, SurveyMonkey and many more currently integrate with Mail Chimp.
The provider has a summary of each email send which reports on the number of opens, clicks, unsubscribes and complaints. They also lend performance advice by comparing your open rate with your industry average and your list’s average.
Cons
MailChimp does not allow you to send one campaign to multiple subscriber lists. Also, while the free version of MailChimp is an outstanding benefit, there are some limitations including the ability to send auto-responders.
Pricing
If you have less than 2,000 subscribers and are sending less than 12,000 emails per month, MailChimp has a free version just for you. If you exceed those numbers, MailChimp has a number of monthly plans to choose from ranging from $10/month for up to 500 subscribers to $240/month for up to 50,000 subscribers. All paid plans have an unlimited number of sends.
3. ExactTarget
Features
ExactTarget is a more robust system than most email service providers. It’s primarily used by larger businesses who have many emails to sent out. Customers have a dedicated Account Representative to assist them.
They’re great for social media integration – they recently acquired CoTweet and are continually adding to their list of add-ons. Like Mail Chimp, ExactTarget features integration with many third-party services like Salesforce.
ExactTarget’s tracking and reporting features are top-notch. They allow you to drill down into individual subscriber data like times of opens, links clicked and survey results.
Cons
No pricing is listed on their website. It will likely require knowledge of HTML to get your email to appear how you want it. A new user account must be created for every sender you want your emails to come from.
Pricing
ExactTarget does not offer monthly plans. The pricing is determined by speaking with one of their Account Executives who will put a plan together based on your email volume.
4. Emma Mail
Features
Emma has about 40 templates to choose from, but offers custom design services (for a fee). They also have a drag and drop email editor similar to MailChimp. Emma’s main value proposition is their design qualities which are far superior to most other email marketing software.
Emma integrates with Bigstock, Aviary, Google Analytics and social media sites. Their response reporting is easy to interpret, but more importantly, can be easily transformed into usable actions. For example, you can view a list of subscribers who have taken an action (like opened or clicked) and turn that list into a new send list.
Cons
Not many templates. No automatic A/B testing.
Pricing
Prices range from $30/month for 1,000 emails to $125/month for up to 10,000 emails. They also offer a 20% discount for pre-paying and special nonprofit pricing. Like Constant Contact, Emma offers a 30 day free trial.
5. AWeber
Features
AWeber has more than 150 templates to choose from. It integrates with WordPress, PayPal, Eventbrite and a few others. AWeber also allows you to quickly segment your lists by subscriber opens or clicks, location, and even what pages subscribers visited on your website.
This provider has an option for custom HTML and also allows you to add attachments to your email.
Cons
No survey feature. No image hosting. No option to send the same email to multiple lists. No ability to forward a message to a friend. Not integrated with Google Analytics.
Pricing
AWeber offers a variety of pricing options, but their monthly plans range from $19/month for up to 500 subscribers to $149/month for up to 25,000 subscribers.
6. InfusionSoft
Features
InfusionSoft combines CRM, email and social marketing, and e-commerce solutions. It is most known for it’s easy ability to segment subscribers by activity to help you send very targeted emails. They also provide detailed customer records so you can see what emails were sent to who and which actions your subscribers took.
Cons
Not as user-friendly as its competitors – expect a learning curve.
Pricing
InfusionSoft has three tiers of pricing starting at $199/month for 5,000 contacts/500,000 emails. Their premier pricing is $499/month for 100,000 contacts/500,000 emails.
Selecting the right email marketing application is a difficult decision. Each one has different features, drawbacks and price points. Keep in mind what your current needs are as well as your future goals. Once you have all your lists and data in one program, it may be a hassle to switch providers when you need a system with more features. Select a provider now that can grow with your business and subscriber lists in the future.
Which email marketing platform is your favorite? Know of another that’s not listed here? Give us the details in the comments!
About the Author: Angela Noble is a designer at Kovalent, a website and design studio in Chicagoland. She specializes in print and web design. You can find out more about her and view her portfolio at angelanoble.com or follow her on Twitter @AngelaNoble_.
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Contact25 COMMENTS
Angela Noble
Gregg, thanks for sharing about Mail Gun – it looks awesome! I agree their pricing is quite reasonable. I know my developer friends will be very interested in them!
December 18, 2012
James
We use and recommend Campaign Monitor to our customers. (Other than being a happy customer we don’t have a relationship with Campaign Monitor.) We really apprciate how simple their platform is to work with, how intuitive the UI is, and their customer support is excellent. Every time we’ve had a question, which hasn’t been often, they have been on it with a fast and clear response.
December 18, 2012
stephen vardy
I also use Campaign Moniter – wonderful to use.
My partner is a complete technophobe but is comfortably able to create content.
They are anal about no spam.
Your opt-in policies will be very tight when you are “in the fold”.
Bounce rates are consequently lower than most other providers IMHO.
They are profitable – very important in a world of vanishing startups.
You pay only for what you use.
Great when you only send 4x newsletters a year
You can manage a newsletter for a client to with the client just adding content.
I am not affiliated in any way.
Just luv em…
S
Jules Webb
I agree with James, Campaign Monitor is my first choice. As a developer I find their interface effient, and can easily add my own custom templates. For non techy clients they have the best gui interface that makes it easy to use and intiitve to work with. I haven’t needed much support, but when I did they were very responsive.
December 18, 2012
David Burch
Aweber has a multiple list broadcast feature, with automatic deduplicating, which allows you to send the same email to multiple lists.
December 18, 2012
Jonathan
I just came across Mad Mimi. I am really digging them for their UI style, templates, pricing ($15 for under 2,500 contacts), free version (like MailChimp) and features that allow me to use autoresponding, triggers, and drip campaigns (just like InfusionSoft – who, in their defense, have a great support team). At this point, I’m recommending my clients that would fit with Mad Mimi to test theit experience and see what the affiliate pay-off will be like.
I really like Campain Monitor for all the reasons Juiles, Stephen, and James said. I also like the fact that I can white label it and be a provider – not just a service installer.
I was surprised to see #1. I am not really a fan of ConstantContact. I had trouble trying to control the user-experience of signing up for a specific newsletter without them having to manually choose it themselves (the client had several other subscriber lists). I also found the template theme choices to be stuck in the 90s. It’s great for people with practical face-face businesses that are unfamiliar with online marketing and resources.
Thanks for this list and your reviews! Saw it as a screen grab of a KISSmetric article and was like, “Ooh! I gotta read that one!”
January 8, 2013
John Goslino
Nice succinct article, good to know there are several good options including two I had not heard of (will check them out). I use and recommend MailChimp and just love it, very easy to use, consistent service, good reporting, plenty of options, decent template choices and many useful integrations, the limitations like not being able to send a campaign to multiple lists is not a major worry, and I am using the free version!
January 9, 2013
Russ Henneberry
MailChimp is doing great things — although I have heard from more than one person that sending affiliate offers is against their terms of service. I find this very hard to believe.
January 9, 2013
osian
I found one called MarketMailer, i compared MailChimp with it for 25k PAYG credits chimp was $250 and mm £83. I’m not sure what the exchange rate is at the moment but uhh… tbh, I thought it was either a mistake or was missing some kind of catch, but I got an account and checked out it’s pretty impressive software (I’d say the editor rates about a 7/10) and I asked their support why their prices are that low and it turns out there is no catch, although the terms state that the prices may change in the future, but for now I’m using MarketMailer. Not bad at all!
January 31, 2013
Derek
Osian, agreed.
I have been with Market Mailerfor over a year now and their price, quality and customer service has never failed to impress 
Al
Constant Contact now offers Google Analytics integration. Their deliverability rates are usually good, but they are quite stringent about the content in your email campaigns.
I wouldn’t recommend Infusionsoft to someone who just wants to use it for email marketing, because of high costs. If you are needing a CRM and an ecommerce solution, then it would be worth paying what they ask for.
Sandeep Kumar
Awebdesk is worth notable if you are looking for a self hosted solution and full data privacy. It also offers ESP software to run aweber or constant contact clone
April 3, 2013
Al
These are all email marketing “services” not email marketing software.
Instead of these “pay by the month” or “by the email” services, we bought email marketing software, which we installed on a hosted web server.
It cost us a one off price of $500 USD, and we now send regularly to our list of 240,000, up to 3 times a month, all for that initial one off payment of $500 USD, plus the minimal cost of hosting a web server.
It is called Interspire Email Marketer. It has all the features of all the others. I am not affiliated with them in any way, but I am a happy customer of theirs.
Sooooo much cheaper doing it yourself, and its GUI is very easy to use.
Al Gera
It may be cheaper, but your webserver will not be able to have the same deliverability results that an “email marketing service” can offer. Consider 99% email deliverability by an email marketing service like Getresponse vs. 75% or less with your host’s webserver. If you are sending 240k emails and 60k (i.e. 25%) of your emails never see the inbox, you can potentially lose a lot of business.
Read this for more information: http://email-marketing-software-solutions.com/23/desktop-or-an-online-based-software-solution/
Maita Siquijor
Has anyone had experience with iContact? I’ve tried them, but looking for something cheaper. What I like about iContact is the ease of use for uploading/creating new lists, and the ability to send a single campaign to multiple lists. I understand MailChimp doesn’t do this.
Further, I just tried MadMimi. It looks nice on the interface, and simple to use. What I find a bit inconvenient is that when you upload a .csv file, most of the fields are lost, except the email field. And when you try to create a list, it doesn’t immediately give you the option to design the fields/database structure–a bit presumptuous of the input flow for data, as you’d have to tailor-fit the database for the audience list.
April 8, 2013
Al Gera
With Getresponse and Benchmark Email you can send your campaign to multiple lists. iContact’s deliverability rates are not that great and they are more expensive.
April 9, 2013
Kathryn Aragon
AWeber lets you send emails to multiple lists, and it’s a good service. You’re right about MailChimp. While I love its interface, you have to manually move people to different lists or duplicate the email to send it to another list.
April 9, 2013
Harneet
hey…need a little bit of help in purchasing one. Are there any benefits of going for the online marketing service instead of the software. My business will be catering to more than 2,00,000 users so the monthly cost of the service will fetch high costs. Any other alternative to get high deliver rates at good prices. Also please review the Mailing list manager pro software for me.
April 16, 2013
Al Gera
There are several benefits of going with online marketing service. For example, they ensure your emails display properly in many different email readers and they upgrade their systems to ensure the compatibility with the latest versions; they offer high deliverability rates (most likely the revenues that you get from high deliverability will end up covering your expenses on an online markting service.); stock images, templates, pre-scheduled delivery of messages; tracking reports; online archives etc.
However, if your list is not opt-in, then they won’t let you use it. If you are planning to send your messages to an opt-in list and are not frequently ensuring that your subscribers want to continue receiving messages, then you should go with a software and maybe use your webhost’s servers to send out messages. You can also consider buying a service from companies that rent out their SMTP servers. They will be a little cheaper and will offer better deliverability rates than a web host server.
Mike Sweeney
Angela,
This list provides a good list of options for email marketing tools. There is another I would suggest you take a look at as well. Think people will find they offer a great product for the best price I’ve found. Pure Leverage is a marketing company that develops online marketing tools.
They recently released a new marketing tool suite that offers 10k subscriber auto responder, video email, web conferencing and lead capture system. Very reasonable low price at 24.95 per month.
Mike Sweeney
April 28, 2013
Gregg Anderson
Have you heard of Mail Gun? They were just acquired by RackSpace and we’re testing them out. Our new website will be build on Python and Djano, which Mail Gun integrates with. I think the pricing is very reasonable for mass email campaigns, although the are not a main stream provider, so the user interface isn’t up to speed yet: http://www.mailgun.com/ — what do you think?
December 18, 2012