Email Marketing Battle: GetResponse vs AWeber vs MailChimp vs Constant Contact vs Vertical Response vs iContact & More!

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If email marketing isn’t a part of your business, the number one question we ask you is: what are you waiting for?! Email marketing has become a must to keep your customers engaged and your business booming. As with most things tech-related, email marketing is growing exponentially, not just with the number of service providers out there but with the increasingly advanced tech features that are becoming the norm. There are SO many good ones to choose from (in fact, we review over 20 here!). But how do you even begin to weed them out? That’s where we come in. We’ve broken down the most popular email marketing service providers out there and given you recommendations on our Top three winners for Best Email Marketing Service provider. You’ll also find our “Best of” reviews helpful to choose the best email marketing software specific to the type of business you have and your needs.

Top Email Marketing Companies

Below you’ll find more details on features, pros, cons, and pricing plans for each provider. Or continue reading to learn more about email marketing service providers (EMSPs) in general, common features you should expect, industry terminology and more.

What Should Most Email Marketing Services Have in Common?

It’s important to know what email marketing companies have in common, so we can leave these criteria out of our pro and con lists below. In order to even stay in business, an EMSP needs to have relationships with the major ISP’s (Internet Service Providers) such as Comcast, Verizon, Juno, etc. If they didn’t, emails would get blacklisted and clients, unable to reach their customers, would not be happy. They all advertise as having the best “whitelisting” relationships with ISP’s, but the truth is – the arrangements are more or less the same. The important thing is that the email marketing provider have the support and staff necessary to maintain the relationships, analyze the SMTP send logs, etc.

Anti-Spam Policies

Along the same lines, an email marketing brand must have an anti-spam policy in place to keep many users from being blacklisted in the event that one user misbehaves. Constant Contact, Vertical Response, StreamSend, and iContact and the rest of the lot typically take the same anti-spam measures. Common anti-spam measures, in accordance with CAN-SPAM (an official anti-spam policy), are the requirements to include a postal address, unsubscribe option, information on how the recipient joined the list in each email newsletter, and not using false or misleading headers and subject lines.

A Note on Newsletter Archiving and SEO

Many service providers, such as Constant Contact, offer a free or paid service that will archive your organization’s old email newsletters on their website. This is not always ideal for you, from an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) point of view. Your email newsletter contains valuable content relevant to your business that could be indexed by search engines. If the content is archived/hosted on the EMSP’s servers, however, you won’t get credit for it, and may miss out on valuable website traffic. Look to either archive your old newsletters on your own website, or find a way to copy/paste the archive from their service over to yours.

Best Entry Level EMSP’s

From our research, Benchmark, Get Response, Campaigner, Mail Chimp, Stream Send, Vertical Response, Constant Contact, iContact and Active Campaign provide the best entry-level opportunities for small businesses. These services offer a good balance of pricing (low-cost per month per subscriber and email send count), reliability, flexibility (email template design and management) and reporting (bounce, unsubscribe, spam reports, etc.). In addition, they all provide online support communities where users can interact with other users, share their opinions on the service, as well as get support from administrators and extensive knowledge bases.

GetResponse Review

#1

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GetResponse is our winner for best email marketing service. Their user-friendly interface and email intelligence makes GetResponse one of the easiest programs to jump into and get emailing in no time, and they have more than 350,000 customers to prove it. GetResponse actively helps you improve your campaigns to better reach and connect with your audience every step of the way. Other no cost perks include: online surveys, inbox preview, autoresponder and social networking integration. And, they get high marks for customer service, which goes a long way in our book. Monthly pricing starts at $15/month for 1,000 subscribers (our readers have access to a 10% discount if they use the links above). You get a lot of bang for your buck with their monthly accounts – more than most other email marketing service providers. What are their limitations? Advanced list segmentation and html-based email customization.

Get Response offers a 30-Day Free Trial.

Pros

Cons

Time Travel sends your email at the optimal local time to maximize open rate Creating a newsletter is incredibly intuitive with Email Creator; advanced users have access to a full HTML editor List Booster allows you to import email addresses 16 ways Social sharing with Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn and Pinterest Interconnect with 100+ apps/software, including PayPal, Google & more Customer support is available via email, phone and 24/7 live chat Built-in statistics tracking service 1,000+ free iStock photos Free survey feature QR code generator Multimedia Center: create audio and video files Email Intelligence & enhanced reporting features Spam Assassin is integrated into message editor RSS to email Inbox preview iPhone and Android app Landing Page Creator Webinars

No free plan Once you have uploaded images to their database, it might prove difficult to find the imported images to actually use them Email customization is limited compared to other services No phone support on weekends Must pay extra for dedicated IP address List segmentation is limited

Read our full review of GetResponse

Coupon Code

Our readers have exclusive access to 10% off of GetResponse (you must use the link to the left to get this offer)! You can discuss this discount and others on our dedicated GetResponse coupon page.

Campaigner Review

#2

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Campaigner is our #2 choice for best email marketing service. Campaigner has an entry price at $19.95 for up to 1,000 subscribers. This paired with a 30-day free trial will likely be just what most small businesses need to get rolling. They also have one of the best reputations for customer service, offering around the clock, 24/7 support. Boasting more than 800 email templates, they have one of the largest libraries of creatives to help you make a unique impact on your customers. Lastly, they include 50mb CDN media/image hosting, A/B testing, social media integration and autoresponder at no additional cost. The only real negatives would be if you plan to do any online surveys, this will cost you more with Campaigner than some which include it in the monthly email cost but the tradeoffs may still make it worth your while. A unique feature offered by Campaigner is the Template Builder, which is easy to use. If you don’t like the editor you can upload your own design.

Try a 30-day free trial of Campaigner.

Pros

Cons

Excellent customer service reputation with little to no wait times Large number of customizable email newsletter templates A solid and flexible newsletter template editor Fast sending of email newsletters (a couple of minutes) Contact manager that lets you import your contacts from popular email providers Automatically removes unsubscribes and bounces Reports best performing links, click trends, heat maps, workflows & more API integration into existing data systems Trigger campaigns based on specific dates, times, events, form submissions, etc. SMTP Relay ensures transactional emails get delivered to customers’ inboxes Automated opt in/opt out Provides high volume contact options for larger businesses Excellent resource center with video tutorials, webinars and email marketing how-to brochures RSS feed integration

No internal support for surveys or event marketing features Spam checking is very limited; no spam score tool Advanced features can get costly Doesn’t offer nearly as many app/software integration choices as other top services Must pay extra for dynamic content in emails Google Analytics isn’t fully integrated No Android app Credit card required for free trial Must have a plan that allows more than 15,000 contacts to remove Campaigner logo from emails

Read our full review of Campaigner

Coupon Codes

Campaigner occassionally has seasonal coupon codes, visit our dedicated Campaigner coupon page.

iContact Review

#3

 

iContact remains our third choice for best email marketing service provider this year. iContact offers very competitive pricing plans for their basic services (starting at $14/month for 500 subscribers) with a wide array of features. Their premier services, however, seem to be their best-selling point. With i Contact premier you get a dedicated account manager to focus on your email design, campaign and analytics, but it’s unclear how much this will cost you — you have to contact them for pricing. How reliable are they? Read the pros and cons to find out how iContact compares to others.

iContact also offers a free trial account.

Pros

Cons

Competitive pricing Good advising support with premier level Offers flexible options for subscriber sign-up forms HTML editor for email newsletter templates Seamless integration with Salesforce for stronger CRM programs List segmentation by demographics, interests, and subscriber behaviors Supports 5mb for online image storage iPhone and Android mobile apps Developer portal and API Comprehensive contact manager with bounceback handling & history reports 97% delivery success rate Spam checking Data tracking, see who opens, clicks, and unsubscribes from your emails Autoresponders Social media management tools Split A/B testing No credit card required for free trial

No weekend customer support Responsive landing pages not available with basic level No internal survey support RSS to email is limited and hard to use Integration of software/apps is fairly limited We’ve heard reports that their support system is not nearly as good as the competition (i.e. inexperienced support staff, long wait times, etc.) Support community appears to be more of a “content blog” where people can post content on various topics completely unrelated to email marketing

Read our full review of iContact

Coupon Code

iContact occassionally has seasonal coupon codes, visit our dedicated iContact coupon page.

Our “Best of” Email Marketing Reviews

Now that you have an idea of what EMSP’s can offer you and our picks for the overall best three EMSPs, we’re going to dig a little more deeply into this industry so you can find the email marketing provider that fits the unique needs of your business or organization. Click on one of the links below to go to a “Best of” review you’re interested in.

• Best for Small Businesses & Nonprofits: Benchmark
• Best for Large Companies: Pinpointe
• Best for Ecommerce: SendinBlue
• Best Overall Value: Mailigen
• Best Free Plan: MailChimp

Email Marketing Service Comparison Table

To help you sort through the email marketing madness, we’ve created an email marketing comparison table that highlights the main features of each EMSP (Email Marketing Service Provider), along with their pros and cons.

Due to the large size of our EMSP comparison table, we are putting it on a separate page so you can reference it more easily. Please visit our Email Marketing Services Comparison Table (or click on the image at left) for pricing and feature details of the EMSP’s we review in this article. We’ll continue adding EMSP’s to the table as we gather data, and update existing ones as they add and support new features.

Best for Small Businesses & Nonprofits: Benchmark Review

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A solid and progressive email marketing provider, Benchmark has stepped up its competitive edge with their Free Plan for Life, which gives you up to 2,000 contacts per month with many standard and advanced features that other service providers don’t offer for free. On top of that, Benchmark offers free surveys, polls and event marketing, as well as the option of having a private IP address ($28.95 per month) and a dedicated server ($199 one-time set up fee) for large volume senders. The majority of providers don’t even offer these extended features. What we really like is that they genuinely care about their customers’ concerns, and this is showcased by their in-dash feedback forum where you can voice your concerns without ever navigating away from the page. Benchmark pricing starts at $11.95 per month for 600 emails, and they give nonprofit 501(3)(c) organizations a 25% discount on all services. Click here to get started with their Free Plan for Life.

Pros

Cons

One of few providers that offers a free forever plan Interactive video and links make email campaigns look great and stand out from other template designs Fantastic systematic approach and drag and drop features make designing and producing templates easy to understand and easy to do 10mb image hosting, 50mb for high-volume accounts Social sharing with Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn Html template archive Split A/B testing, inbox preview API access, RSS to email Event marketing, polling and survey features with easy to use templates Dozens of app integrations, including Google Analytics, Zapier, PayPal, Salesforce and more Solid tracking and reporting features and list management Mobile apps for iPhone and Android Intuitive marketing team will assume all responsibility and create marketing campaigns for you with only an email list, pictures, and an idea of what you want to say Fantastic customer service

Private IP address costs an extra $28.95 per month, regardless of your subscriber plan Does not allow for the use of attachments in marketing campaigns but they do give you up to 10mb per file to store and link to them on their server Built-in import features for third-party address books are very limited Limited phone support (hours are unlisted), but they do offer live chat 24/7 No social media or sales tracking

Read our full review of Benchmark

Best For Large Companies: Pinpointe Review

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Pinpointe touts itself as “Email Marketing for Power Users,” a cloud-based, advanced service geared toward B2B (business to business) email marketers and larger volume senders. They deliver all the features advanced email marketers want and their automation is one of the best we’ve seen. Including sub-accounts for universities and larger companies (in the Enterprise version), surveys, advanced reports including click heat maps, easy to use campaign builders and trigger and drip campaigns with flexible and dynamic segmentation. While some of the more sophisticated services can get overwhelming, Pinpointe offers a surprisingly easy, intuitive interface, and users rave about their knowledgeable and responsive customer service. Pinpointe’s pricing scale is clearly geared toward power users. Their lowest monthly plan listed online starts at $49 per month for 5,000 contacts, but you do get a 10% discount if you pre-pay for 6 months or more. They also offer pay as you go pricing and a 15-day free trial period (no credit card required).

Try Pinpointe’s 15-day free trial.

Pros

Cons

Unlimited image hosting and more than 1,000 templates They offer unbranded emails with any paid account User friendly interface and wizard make the process easy Unused email credits roll over each month up to one year 30-day money back guarantee Inbox preview with 50+ email clients Excellent autoresponders, A/B split testing, behavioral targeting and triggered campaigns Real-time tracking and analytics Google Analytics and Salesforce integration XML API connector for developers Social sharing with Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, including tracking and reporting RSS archiving Robust survey feature with drag and drop, customizable editor and analytics

Cheapest monthly plan listed starts at $49 for 5,000 contacts Could use more customer support hours considering they’re a higher end service – no weekend phone or live chat hours Apps/integrations don’t appear to be nearly as numerous as competitors

Best For Ecommerce: SendinBlue Review

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Originally designed for online merchants, SendinBlue is a relative newcomer to the email marketing software world. But they’ve made great strides (20,000 global customers), considering they’ve only been in business since September of 2012. Their approach combines email marketing campaigns, transactional emails and SMS (text) mobile messaging to best meet their users’ needs, and many of their best features are geared to the customer sales process. There are some substantial missing features, but there’s been a lot of buzz about SendinBlue recently, so we think they’re worth trying out. And you can do so for free! One of their most attractive features is their free forever plan that includes 9,000 emails per month (unlimited contacts). Pricing starts at an amazing $7.37 for 40,000 emails per month, and they also offer a pay as you go plan, which starts at $27 for 5,000 email credits. Learn more in our interview with CMO, Amalia Bercot.

Pros

Cons

Monthly pricing is very competitive, and SendinBlue offers a pay as you go plan Drag and drop editor, emails ready for mobile and tablet screens A major focus on transactional emails (product ordering, confirmations, etc.) SMS (text) messaging, including transactional SMS feature Solid tracking and reporting – order tracking, real-time tracking, SMTP module specifically designed for transactional emails Autoresponders Google Analytics integration You can import sales orders Behavioral segmentation and personalization based on customer purchase habits Heat mapping tells you which areas of your email are being clicked through Dedicated IP address (added cost) API available Social media sharing with Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn Full feature plug-ins with Magento, Prestashop, WordPress and Drupal, WooCommerece, Jimdo and Wix Fully featured, free forever plan gives you 9,000 emails per month with unlimited contacts Optional SMS plan, which starts at $1.34 for 100 credits

No internal survey feature (and no integration with third-party survey app that we could find) No RSS to email or split A/B testing, which are fairly standard features these days You can only import contacts using CSV or TXT files Your only customer support option is via their email ticketing process and by phone, but they don’t list their hours (they’re based in the US and in Paris) Limited integrations than many of their competitors, but you can connect with Salesforce, Shopify and Highrise via Zapier Email template selection is very limited, but they have been adding more templates, are working on adding more in the future and do offer transactional email templates as well

Best Overall Value: Mailigen Review

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Mailigen is a great option for beginners and experts alike due to its effortless customizations and wide array of features that make crafting a unique marketing strategy fun and effective. There are a few shortcomings, however, like limited stock images and template selections. All things considered, Mailigen is a fantastic option loaded with features that make for a solid product. Pricing starts at $10/month for up to 500 subscribers and $20 for 1,000 email credits (used like postage stamps). They offer discounts for 6 and 12 month pre-pay accounts and 25% off for nonprofit 501(c)(3) organizations.

Try Mailigen’s 30-day free trial.

Pros

Cons

Their custom template design services are a reasonable $200 with a 100% satisfaction guarantee Employ deliverability specialists and strategic account representatives which provide top of the line help and support You can request your own IP address which will further protect you against spam and malware Best SMS (text) integration we’ve seen includes SMS list segmentation, tracking and reporting, plus you get 200 free SMS credits with every monthly account Solid integration with Google Analytics, WordPress, Magento, Zapier, Facebook,Shopify and more Social media sharing options are impressive – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Reddit, and more Dynamic Content and Behavioral Segmentation Features allow you to target very specific interest groups which makes for creating custom emails cost-effective Email Setup Wizard walks you through email content creation so novice users can showcase professional-looking products Drag and drop editor is one of the best we’ve seen, letting you incorporate, video, images, social media buttons and more into mobile-ready templates One of the most affordable services we’ve found for the number of features you get Email support 24/7

Mailigen’s branding appears on every email for free trial users Contact importing is limited, only allowing Excel, cvs and txt files Their resource section could be more helpful After your 200 free SMS credits you must pay for additional credits No weekend customer support for phone and live chat on weekends

Best Free Plan: MailChimp Review

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MailChimp is one of the more popular choices for email marketing software, largely because they offer the best free plan compared to all other services. And it’s an impressive plan – you get 2,000 subscribers and 12,000 emails per month, free forever. They offer a simple and fun interface and have a lot of features for beginners and budget conscious users. MailChimp has added an enterprise-level Pro plan that has some sophisticated advanced features, but you’ll pay for these features (starting at $199 per month).

Pros

Cons

Free for up to 2,000 subscribers MailChimp’s HTML templates are easy to use, and you can use their WYSIWYG editor to customize your own designs An Inbox Inspector add-on that lets you generate over 25 screenshots of your email in all major email applications, as well as live tests from all the major ISPs to see if spam filters are triggered Track where your sign-ups originated from, which will help you optimize your opt-out prevention methods Hundreds of integrations, including Google Analytics Sign-up forms can be customized and embedded anywhere Straightforward contact list management and easy import of contacts via cvs file Live chat Internal surveys Automation feature makes autoresponding, segmentation and triggering easy Automatically removes old/incorrect email addresses that bounce to keep lists healthy

Importing of contact lists could be easier Importing templates from existing website graphics would be a great add-on. It takes some work to get your email template looking like you want it to Many advanced features only available with Pro plan (starting at $199 per month) Slow to refresh and can be slow when the site is busy Segmentation is very limited with free plan No internal survey support No phone support and live chat often has long wait times We’ve found a number of negative customer reviews about their customer service reliability Fewer templates than other email marketing services Customer complaints about their Acceptable Use Policy

Read our full review of MailChimp

Other Email Marketing Services Reviews

To jump straight to an in-depth review of an email marketing provider you’re interested in, click on one below:

Active Campaign | AWeber | BigHip | Boomerang | Campaign Monitor | Constant Contact | Contactology | ConvertKit | Emma | ExactTarget by Salesforce | FireDrum | FreshMail | Google Groups | GraphicMail | INinbox | JangoMail | Mad Mimi | Omnistar Mailer | SharpSpring Email+ | SharperEmail | Streamsend | Vertical Response

ActiveCampaign Review

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Although not widely considered one of the big players in the email marketing service provider world (yet!), ActiveCampaign is certainly giving them a run for their money. They have one of the slickest and most intuitive interfaces out there, and all the features you’ll need, whether you’re a novice or a pro. In addition they have fully built-in CRM sales and automation, a ton of apps and integrations and full API. But there are a few drawbacks that keep them from rising to the top — if you need to do affiliate marketing, for example, look elsewhere. It’s strictly not allowed with ActiveCampaign. Still, this service brings a wow factor with its ease of use and affordable pricing, which starts at just $9 per month for 500 contacts and unlimited sends. They do offer 15% off all annual pre-pay accounts and 20% off for nonprofit organizations 501(c)(3).

ActiveCampaign has a 14-day free trial.

Pros

Cons

Incredibly streamlined, user-friendly interface Solid automated importing of contacts — txt, cvs, Excel, Gmail, Salesforce and more Provides more than 10 different types of email marketing campaigns you can run Excellent personalization and customization features 150+ apps and integrations, including Google Analytics, Salesforce, Zapier, PayPal, WordPress and more SMS (text) marketing capability All the advanced features – RSS email, autoresponders, A/B split testing, inbox preview, geotracking, reporting Free email design customization with your logo, colors, branding Allows attachments, one per campaign up to 1 mb Multiple users, even with Basic plan Dedicated IP address for added fee Mobile apps, iPhone and Android 50,000+ global clients, including Canon, Audi and Gannett

No internal surveys, only integration with Survey Monkey No affiliate marketing allowed in email campaigns, including no links in emails to affiliates No phone support included with Basic and Plus plans (only with Enterprise plan, which starts at $149 per month) No customer support hours listed, although they do offer free live chat and email for all plans Social sharing is limited to Facebook and Twitter SMS (text) marketing is an added fee

AWeber Review

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What began as an autoresponder service is now a full-fledged email marketing provider – one of the more popular ones out there. And they recently acquired Omnistar, another popular email marketing provider, so AWeber continues its growth as one of the major players in this space. AWeber prices themselves competitively, and is a strong contender in the email marketing battle. Their basic plan starts at $19 per month or $194 annually for up to 500 subscribers and an unlimited number of emails – and you get a lot of standard features with that price. What’s missing? AWeber isn’t as up to date on social media integrations and tracking as other top services, and their lack of assimilation with Google Analytics and other standard complimentary products could turn some away. One cool feature is its broadcast archive, which optimizes the newsletter archiving process by turning newsletters into easy to use web pages for your visitors.

Check out AWeber’s 30-day free trial.

Pros

Cons

Good WYSIWYG editor – AWeber has one of the better WYSIWYG drag-and-drop editors we’ve seen. It’s easy to format text, add images, hyperlink text, etc. 700+ email templates API access – you can use their services to build your own app Clean, polished, easy to use interface Easily managed subscriber lists You can add attachments to newsletters (up to 1 mb), and for larger files, they offer integration with Digioh, a digital download app Extensive reporting and tracking — number of emails sent, open rate, click-through, undelivered emails, and more. Good list management They are can-spam compliant and take spam seriously Split A/B testing Unlimited image hosting and 6,000+ stock images Social Sharing with Facebook Mobile apps for iPhone and Android HTML editor Broadcast archive archive your newsletters by publishing them as an easy to navigate web page They are well-known for solid and easy to reach customer support via phone or email. They also offer an extensive knowledge base, video tutorials, great webinars, etc. on their website Shopping cart integrations: PayPal, Shopify, and Magento App Showcase with 50+ apps you can integrate with your account: Zapier, Salesforce, WordPress, Facebook, etc.

No Google Analytics integration Social sharing is limited vs.competitors (only Facebook) No social media tracking or reporting You can’t custom build your own email template Subscriber importing isn’t the best. You can only import xls, xlsx, tsv, csv, txt files. Can’t directly import from Gmail contacts, LinkedIn, Outlook, Quickbooks, etc.

Read our full review of AWeber

Coupon Code

AWeber offers three months free to non-profits and 25% off after that. Students get 20% off. Click here to take advantage of AWeber coupons!

BigHip Review

BigHip email marketing is no longer in business. We couldn’t find any information online about what happened to them.

Boomerang Review

Boomerang is no longer an email marketing service. Since our review in 2015, the company has morphed into a paid service to enhance Gmail capabilities through adding email sending and receiving settings.

Campaign Monitor Review

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Campaign Monitor is an email marketing software built specifically with graphic designers in mind, but their drag and drop editor is easy to use for beginners. This interface is very pleasing to the eye and allows for multiple account management. Campaign Monitor has most of the basics you’ll need to run successful email marketing campaigns, but if you’re looking for seriously advanced features, you may need to look elsewhere. Prices start at $9 for 2,500 emails or $29 for unlimited emails — both rates are for up to 500 subscribers. They also offer a 15% discount for nonprofits.

Campaign Monitor has a free trial if you’re sending to five people or less.

Pros

Cons

Design emails with your favorite design tools Screenshot gallery of their 100 best email client designs with expert commentary No Campaign Monitor branding, logos, watermarks or links in emails 250+ integrations, including Google Analytics API integration with your CMS, blog, or other third-party software 10% discount for creative agencies to partner with their services 24/7 customer support Personalized email content beyond subscriber’s name

No live chat customer support Extra cost for unlimited email sends per month Limited training resources, tutorials Additional cost for spam testing with Basic and per-campaign payment options No internal survey or event marketing support

Read our full review of Campaign Monitor

Constant Contact Review

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Constant Contact is one of the oldest email marketing companies around – they’ve been in business since 1996. Although perhaps the most well-known EMSP, ConstantContact has some pretty substantial limitations compared to many other services, depending on what you’re looking for. Constant Contact covers the basics, but more advanced features like split A/B testing and trigger-based messaging are absent. Pricing starts at $20 per month for 500 subscribers and unlimited sends. But, they charge for additional services that many other EMSPs include in their monthly pricing.

Follow this link to receive 60 days free.

Pros

Cons

Have been in business since 1996 Event and survey features Hundreds of apps/integrations, including Google Analytics Discounts for nonprofits and pre-pay accounts Track your campaigns in real time to see what works and what doesn’t 400+ email newsletter templates Interface is easy to learn and use 30-day money back guarantee Create your own designs with the HTML editor No credit card needed for free trial Phone support available late at night during the week

Hard to cancel your subscription No trigger messaging Only one sign-up form per account Stores only 5 images for free, then you have to upgrade, but they do offer thousands of free stock images Template design is limited and the typical “what you see is what you get” (WYSIWYG) editor is not available with your own HTML designs No phone support on weekends Charges extra for additional features that competitors include at no extra cost Can’t live chat unless you have an account

Read our full review of Constant Contact

Contactology Review

j2 Global, Inc., a global provider of Internet services which owns Campaigner email marketing service provider, acquired Contactology in July 2014. Contactology’s website is still functional but leads you to Campaigner’s services. For more details, read our full review of Campaigner, our #2 pick for best email marketing software.

ConvertKit Review

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It’s difficult for us to review ConvertKit because unlike other companies, this one doesn’t display all of its features. What do we know? ConvertKit was built for bloggers, podcasters, service-based business owners, and YouTubers. We’re unsure if ConvertKit offers surveys, autoresponders, image hosting, and other common features customers have come to want. If you’ve had experience with ConvertKit, please share with us what you liked and disliked in the comments below.

Emma Review

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Emma boasts over 45,000 customers and they’re growing fast, having made Inc 500/5000 four times. Emma emphasizes the service end of email marketing and it shows in rave reviews of their customer service. Their drag and drop email editor is easy to use and they offer full image integration from Facebook and Flickr, which could mean the world to a small business looking for free image hosting. With prices starting at $89 per month for 10,000 subscribers, Emma is significantly more expensive than some other services, but as you work up the pricing scale the prices become much more competitive.

Emma has a 14-day free trial.

Pros

Cons

Easy to use drag and drop interface Social media marketing with Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn Fully integrated with Facebook and Flickr for image hosting, as well as other social media for automatic content sharing Solid integration offerings, including Salesforce, Shopify, a number of Formbuilder and CMS services (WordPress, Drupal) Many of the standards: A/B testing, automation, list segmentation, contact management, tracking and reporting Top notch customer service and professional services available

Among the most expensive options we’ve reviewed, but they do offer 20% off for nonprofit 501(c)(3) organizations and prepay annual accounts No weekend customer service hours No RSS to email No Google Analytics integration No inbox preview No dedicated IP address feature

ExactTarget by Salesforce Marketing Cloud Review

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ExactTarget has been around since 2000 and tags themselves as the future of marketing. While claiming to be from “humble” beginnings, this company now operates one of the more dominant email marketing and comprehensive marketing solutions on the market today. Unfortunately, this growth into big business has created somewhat of an intimidating appearance for many smaller businesses seeking these services. But, if you are looking for a comprehensive marketing integration tool to put everything in one place and makes it easy to analyze all of your online marketing efforts, Exact Target may be perfect for you.

Pros

Cons

RSS feeds can easily and quickly be integrated in to email sending Email attachments can be activated for ExactTarget accounts if needed WYSIWYG email editor as well as an HTML email editor Individually based pricing – Pricing for the ExactTarget email marketing solution is based on an individual basis which is catered to each company’s unique needs Comprehensive marketing integration across email, mobile, social media, web, data and analytics make cross-platform marketing simpler Live chat customer service allows for access to customer service without long phone wait times Integration with third-party apps like SalesForce and Google Analytics 100% secure cloud-based data Online database of step-by-step tutorials, videos, webinars and more A/B testing, inbox preview Coupon and barcode management Automation, triggered messaging, drip campaigns

No image hosting service No listed customer service hours You must have knowledge of AMPScript to use email attachments with ExactTarget No immediately available pricing information Difficult learning curve – you need to be pretty tech savvy to best utilize their services

Read our full review of ExactTarget

FireDrum Review

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FireDrum offers a multitude of email marketing and automation services, from DIY (best for freelance to small businesses) to plans for marketing agencies and large companies. When you search their website, it can be overwhelming, because they have a wide variety of plans and services they offer for each plan. The DIY plan starts at a free forever level, but it’s limited (only 100 subscribers and 500 emails per month), but their paid pricing levels are very competitive and include all the basic features you’ll need to get your email marketing up and running. What’s great about FireDrum is the a la carte services they offer if you don’t have time to take on the details, i.e. list assistance, HTML programming, campaign management, etc. All charge a fee, of course, but it’s a great option to have.

Pros	Cons
Competitive pricing Extremely intuitive interface Multiple programs for DIY, agencies, private label, enterprise and many more All of the standards: A/B testing, automation, list segmentation, contact management, tracking and reporting Social media marketing with Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn Customer support via email, phone and live chat	Standard Fire Drum footer appears on all email templates – you must pay added fee to customize footer No SMS (text) feature Very limited online resources to help you DIY Hours unlisted for tech support (they claim it’s unlimited)

FreshMail Review

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FreshMail, based in the UK, is a new addition to our annual reviews, and we’re highly impressed with what we’ve seen. They have a good free plan, but there are some limitations (can’t rebrand your emails, limited inbox testing). But what’s really impressive is FreshMail’s paid plan that is extremely affordable compared to similar EMSPs. You get a number of advanced features with an intuitive interface that makes the process simple and fun. The downside of Fresh Mail? Since they’re based in the UK, their phone support hours are extremely limited. But we’ve seen some excellent reviews about the high quality of their customer service. FreshMail offers a 10% discount on their monthly paid plan if you pre-pay for 6 months and 15% for 12 months. Pay-as-you-go rates start at $30 for 5,000 emails.

Pros

Cons

Very competitive pricing and free plan Interface is extremely intuitive All templates are responsive and beautifully designed Good contact importing, including from Google, Basecamp, etc. Inbox preview lets you see your email in 20+ email clients without sending test mails 40+ integrations, including Google Analytics, Salesforce, Zapier and more Many advanced features included in affordable paid plan, including A/B testing, trigger messaging, social media reporting and more Pay-as-you-go credits don’t expire Email support 7 days a week

Free Forever Plan doesn’t include phone support, limits your inbox testing and their logo appears on your emails Phone support is only available M-F 2am-10am (they’re based in UK) No RSS to email No option to purchase dedicated IP address Some consumer complaints about slow moderation process

Google Groups Review

In 2013, Google rolled out a new Google Groups for Business platform but the focus is no longer email marketing. Today, this is a tool for improving online collaboration between team members, groups and communities who frequently interact in digital discussions. This product been removed from this article to make room for true competitors in this space.

GraphicMail Review

After more than a decade of providing email marketing services, GraphicMail has rebranded as SharpSpring Mail. See our review of SharpSpring Mail below.

INinbox Review

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INinbox is another email marketing provider that offers a generous free forever plan — one that even rivals MailChimp (in the numbers of contacts and emails you can send each month). Their paid plans are among the lowest prices we’ve seen. But once you dig deeper into what INinbox has to offer, what you get for that free plan (and even their paid plans) isn’t quite as enticing — unless you only need basic email marketing. There are a lot of features lacking with INinbox that other providers have offered for years, i.e. social media marketing and RSS feed integration being the most notable. And since IN-inbox is based in the Netherlands, customer support hours are limited for those of us in the U.S. (although we couldn’t find anything other than an email form online for customer support). But if you don’t need much support and are only looking for basic email marketing service, INinbox’s free plan and prices are unbeatable.

Pros	Cons
Generous free plan and among the lowest paid plans Great free template selections (although not clear if all are responsive design) Robust Developer API Easy to use interface Google Analytics integration via Zapier A/B split testing, trigger based emails, decent automation Allows attachments to emails (many don’t)	Lack of some advanced features that are becoming the norm Very limited customer support outside of online articles and email Limits on number of emails sent per month until you get into the Enterprise solution (over 250,000 contacts) No social media marketing capabilities (huge negative) Integrations are limited – no Salesforce, for example No ability to purchase a dedicated IP address

JangoMail Review

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JangoMail began in 1998 as an elegant solution to a complicated problem. How to pull data from multiple servers (some local, some halfway around the world) and assemble it into a single mass email? That feature is JangoMail’s unique claim to fame, although it incorporates many other features, including foreign language support, in-depth personalization options and fully customizable RSS to email conversion. For all of Jango Mail’s incredible feature options, it comes with a price. They are one of the more pricey services out there and probably better for larger businesses or marketing agencies (they offer pretty extensive agency features, including multiple-users). And they base their pricing on number of emails sent per month, rather than the standard number of contacts per month, so depending on your business needs you can end up spending a lot more than you would with their competitors. Pricing starts at $90 per month for up to 18,000 emails.

JangoMail has a 30-day free trial.

Pros

Cons

Social sharing with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ We can’t stress “fully customizable” enough. If you don’t see a feature, just ask. They’ll make it happen Offers dedicated IP address and dedicated server (for additional fee) No JangoMail logo (“powered by JangoMail”) in your email sends App/software integration with Google Analytics, Salesforce, Magento and more Allows email attachments (maximum message size 100 Kb; $1 per each 10 mb per month) SMS (text) messaging capability Connect to desktop and Internet databases in real-time Many innovative features, including their customizable RSS and foreign language support in both plain text and html Among the best contact importer we’ve seen Excellent spam checker Easy-to-use HTML editor

Tutorials aren’t as sophisticated and numerous as many of their competitors Dashboard not as user-friendly as competitors Could use a wizard as you move through their multiple processes and features It’s a powerful system, but often reads like a tech manual. If you’re not a pro, you might feel like you’ve gotten over your head Among the more costly services we’ve seen

Mad Mimi Review

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Mad Mimi doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of the top guns when it comes to email marketing providers. But in Mad Mimi’s case, that’s okay. Sometimes less is more if you don’t want to wade through features you won’t use. Geared toward a simpler approach, Mad Mimi offers what most small businesses need with a very affordable price tag. Their standard features are solid, with the exception of split A/B testing and template selection variety. Yet they also provide a decent selection of apps/integrations, social sharing and a robust API, so they aren’t falling behind the technology times. MadMimi offers a modest free plan of 100 subscribers and unlimited emails sent, and their pricing starts at $10 for 500 subscribers.

Pros

Cons

Easy drag and drop email building tools Unlimited image hosting Customizable web forms Ability to have multiple users on your account Solid tracking and reporting tools Social sharing with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and more Autoresponders, RSS to email, drip/targeted campaigns 40+ apps/integrations, including Google Analytics, Salesforce, Zapier, and WordPress Robust API for developers Friendly, responsive customer service A great value if you have larger mailing lists but don’t need a ton of advanced features Live chat

Email design tools could be too simple for some Very limited template selection No split A/B testing, inbox preview or mobile-ready templates Their autoresponder is fairly basic compared to other providers Automated contact importing is limited to cvs files User resources are pretty thin — no webinars, video tutorials, or online community No phone support unless you set up an appointment time

Omnistar Mailer Review

Omnistar Mailer had been acquired by AWeber, a competing email marketing service provider that’s growing in popularity and becoming a contender as one of the top services. Omnistar got its start in 1999 in the real estate industry and became popular for its excellent autoresponder features. You can still access Omnistar Mailer through its original website for the time being, but all the links on that site drive you directly to AWeber. Check out AWeber to see how they compare to other services.

SharperEmail Review

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SharperEmail offers a clean and streamlined product with a number of pros and cons. Their lack of social media integration and several other features that are pretty standard these days shows that they are behind the times, but they offer a good product that is affordable on most budgets. Their pay-as-you-go pricing starts at $9.50 for 1,000 emails, so they are among the most affordable services. And they offer nonprofit 501(c)(3) organizations 5,000 free emails per month and 15% off additional services.

SharperEmail offers a 30-day free trial.

Pros

Cons

Users are given a choice of an HTML and a WYSIWYG editor as well as the ability to send emails in both HTML and text HTML form wizard is a great tool for those not into coding Provides a detailed set of reporting and analytics tools to measure marketing progress Users are offered the choice of utilizing a dedicated IP address Many basic features offered by other email marketing software are offered including: trigger based messaging, spam score checking, list segmentation, auto-responder services and RSS feed integration API and XML channels They offer SMS (text) capability 24/7 customer support: US, Europe and Asia Very affordable service. Aside from companies that offer free sending, Sharper Email offers the most affordable basic plan price

To date, SharperEmail gives no indication of integrating social media management in to their email marketing services No Developer API or integrations, including Google Analytics Next to no user resources such as webinars, video tutorials, blogs and online community You’re limited to 20 mailing lists, which could hinder your ability to target certain audiences They charge a one-time $250 fee to brand your emails No SMS tracking or reporting Once users exceed 5,000 subscribers their pay as you go pricing is not as appealing as it was for lower level service Email templates aren’t responsive No split A/B testing

SharpSpring Review

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GraphicMail has morphed into SharpSpring Mail+, a new EMSP enterprise that falls under parent company SharpSpring, a young but popular marketing automation software solution that has received excellent reviews from its users so far. SharpSpring Mail+ is a major step forward from GraphicMail in the way they approach email marketing. What’s exciting is their behavior-driven features, which bring together personalized emails, autoresponders, analytics and more so you can drill down to each customer’s specific activities (translation: you can target them in the areas in which they engage the most). Other EMSPs offer this feature as well, but customer behavior seems to be SharpSpring’s main area of focus. Still, they are so new that we haven’t been able to find much consumer feedback online, so check back with us for future updates!

SharpSpring Mail+ offers a 15-day free trial. 

Pros

Cons

Among the most competitive pricing we’ve seen for small businesses Extremely intuitive interface A/B testing, RSS to email, autoresponders, triggered campaigns You get a dedicated account manager with their Enterprise edition Hundreds of integrations through SharpSpring and Zapier, including Google Analytics and Salesforce Excellent in-App resources, including videos, articles, how-tos Social media campaigns with tracking and reporting tools

New software solution, so it’s working through some kinks (according to consumer feedback) Pricing is much higher than the competition Far fewer email templates than most EMSPs we review here No option to purchase dedicated IP address Limited customer support hours via phone and email compared to other services (no live chat)

StreamSend Review

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A power player for several years in the email marketing world, StreamSend offers a number of features and professional services. And they include many of these features in their standard pricing, where their competitors charge an added fee. This is a huge plus for smaller and budget-conscious businesses. But there are a few areas where StreamSend is falling a bit behind their peers – no unlimited email pricing options, no mobile apps, and very limited software integration capability. If your organization doesn’t need these features, then StreamSend remains one of the best out there.

Try StreamSend out for free for 30 days.

Pros

Cons

Fast and easy to use interface Unlimited image hosting Advanced automation, trigger-based messaging and list segmentation RSS to email Private IP address and A/B testing No extra fee for API access In-depth campaign reporting and analysis Integration with Google Analytics. Extensive spam filter Easy drag and drop video emails Every email you send can be repurposed to a landing page Customizable sign up forms Professionally designed templates HTML editor

On the pricier side vs peers No mobile apps No online chat and no phone/email support on weekends Very limited integration capability with online software/apps compared to peer services Importing contacts is limited to Excel or CSV format

Read our full review of StreamSend

Vertical Response Review

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Vertical Response has been in business since 2001, and they’ve come a long way – especially with some excellent new features launched in the last couple of years: a free plan that has a surprising bang (for no bucks!), the addition of an autoresponder (free for a limited time), and a new API and developer program that gives small businesses even more marketing tools to expand their reach. And, if you are a not-for-profit 501(c)(3), you can apply for a free credit program.

Pros

Cons

Great free plan 70 responsive email templates and HTML templates More than 1 million users – so they’ve got to be good VerticalResponse Social includes a Social Media Dashboard with which you can schedule a full month of social media posts (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn). Also provides relevant content based on your industry and interests Offers a free credit program to allow not-for-profit 501 (c)(3) organizations to use this program free of charge Real-time reporting and statistics, accessible from any web browser Google Analytics and Salesforce integrations Free webinars and support seminars, along with video tutorials, on how to make the most of your email newsletter campaigns You can segment your mailing list, and send out newsletters to sub-groups of your mailing list Pay as You Go option gives you flexibility each month Offers a whopping 25MB of online image storage for your newsletters Excellent support community. It appears that the support community has relatively fast response times, is well-organized, and has avid user interaction Free email archiving

Surveys are an additional hefty fee per month It’s important that you don’t provide a “from” address in opt-in forms as this may result in confirmation notices not reaching recipients. If you leave the “from” field blank, Vertical Response will auto fill it with one of its own. This should be more obvious When a recipient unsubscribes from a Vertical Response email they unsubscribe from all VerticalResponse user emails, so they might unsubscribe from yours unknowingly Their spam checking tools are very limited. For instance, you can’t get a spam score indicating the likelihood that your email newsletter will make it to your subscriber’s inbox No image hosting or event marketing features Poor contact management features

Read our full review of Vertical Response

How to Change Email Marketing Service Providers?

So let’s say you’ve decided you want to switch to another provider, such as from iContact to Constant Contact, or the other way around. How painful will the transition process be? Fortunately, any good email marketing provider should allow you to export your subscriber list. You can then import the subscriber list into your new email marketing provider. That’s the easy part. You should also consider how you will move your newsletter archives so you do not lose this valuable content you have created over the years. The more difficult part, depending on how your website is set up, will be replacing all the sign-up boxes you have scattered over the Web to gather sign-ups for your newsletter.

Content Management Systems (CMS) Make Transitioning Easier

If you’re using a back-end driven, dynamically generated site such as a CMS (Content Management System – i.e. WordPress, Joomla, Drupal) and you have a “block” or “snippet” for your newsletter sign-up box, you should be able to make one update and have it update across your website instantaneously. If you have more than one website, you’ll need to make this update for each website.

The last thing you’ll want to copy over is the design templates you use for your newsletters. Typically you’ll have access to the HTML for these, so copying these over shouldn’t be all too difficult in most services, as most email marketing service providers provide flexible template editing options.

Which Will You Select?

So now that you are informed about many popular email marketing companies and all they have to offer, you can select one that will meet your business’ needs. Email marketing is a great way to drive sales and stay top of mind with your consumers, so it’s a worthwhile service to invest the time and resources (learn more in our Introduction to Email Marketing article). We reviewed quite a few companies, but if for some reason the email marketing brand you’re looking for wasn’t reviewed, check the comments below where you’ll find that many of our visitors are posting their own reviews and opinions. We also do regular audits to ensure all info provided is as up to date as possible. Lastly, you can also subscribe to this article’s feed to stay up to date on the latest.

Who do you use for your email marketing needs? What do you like/dislike about them?

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