Email marketing is a great way to promote your website and business. Here are a few options for setting up email marketing services for your WordPress site, each with their own benefits and drawbacks.
Mailchimp (mailchimp.com)
Mailchimp is a favorite of many bloggers and small businesses because it was one of the first big email services to offer a completely free plan. Not only that, but Mailchimp has some excellent eCommerce and email marketing tools.
How many emails/subscribers do you get for free?
The free plan includes 10,000 emails per month for up to 2,000 subscribers.
If you would like to upgrade to unlimited emails it costs $10 per month – the catch is that you can only have up to 500 subscribers – which isn’t the case for some alternatives.
What makes this one of the best free email marketing services?
- The drag-and-drop editor, along with the beautiful templates that you can personalize, are some of the best in the business.
- You get a landing page builder – use them to promote special offers.
- Mailchimp has tools for Instagram and Facebook ads and posts.
- Connect with tools like Shopify, Eventbrite, and Salesforce.
- The automation tools include options for abandoned carts, welcome campaigns, and product recommendations.
- A/B testing and segmentation make your emails more effective.
- Great award-winning customer support available 24/7.
Who should use it?
We like Mailchimp for any small business owners and bloggers who appreciate great designs and stellar deliverability (it will also help you optimize your open rates). It’s also nice if you have an eCommerce store or plan on automating emails and you’d like to make your workflows more efficient.
Sender (www.sender.net)
Sender is yet another email service with a wonderful free plan. It also offers push notifications to go along with its segmentation, integrations, and stunning designs that you can customize.
How many emails/subscribers do you get for free?
The free plan lets you have up to 2,500 subscribers and send 15,000 emails per month.
The next upgrade is $10 per month for 5,000 subscribers and 60,000 emails per month.
What makes this one of the best free email marketing services?
- It has plugins for most popular content management systems.
- Video gets converted into animated GIFs inside emails.
- The analysis tools include click maps and Google Analytics – so you can track all your metrics effectively.
- Adding eCommerce products is done by quickly copying and pasting links.
- It can help you automate your social media marketing efforts.
- It will also give you pointers on how to optimize your subject lines.
Who should use it?
Sender has some wonderful tools, but I like it best because the pricing remains fairly low as you upgrade.
Constant Contact
Constant Contact is one of the largest and fastest growing email marketing service in the world. It is also the most easy to use and beginner friendly email marketing service.
You can easily manage your email lists, contacts, email templates, marketing calendar, and more.
Each account gives you access to unlimited emails, easy tracking and reporting, built-in social media sharing tools, free image library, list segmentation, Facebook ads integration, and a powerful eCommerce integration for Shopify stores.
Their Email Plus accounts also come with powerful features like email automation, drip campaigns, surveys & polls, coupons, online donations, and subject line A/B testing which helps you send targeted emails to maximize your open rate.
Constant Contact offers unmatched customer support with live chat, phone calls, email, community support, and a vast library of helpful resources.
Aside from online training, they also offer in-person live seminars across the United States. This allow small business owners to quickly learn the basics of email marketing and start using it to grow their business like a pro.
For all the reasons above, we rate Constant Contact the best email marketing service for small businesses and startups.
Constant Contact has a 60-day free trial (no credit-card required). After that their pricing starts as low as $20/month.
WPBeginner users can use our Constant Contact coupon code to get an additional 20% off.
ConvertKit
ConvertKit is a robust email marketing platform for professional bloggers, authors, and marketers. It is extremely easy to use and incredibly powerful.
ConvertKit’s unique feature is that allows you to easily offer content upgrades and incentives with email signup forms. It also comes with easy to manage auto-responders allowing you to send drip emails from their emailing service.
With ConvertKit, you can easily segment subscribers into those who are interested and those who have already purchased. This helps you increase conversions with automated emails that feel more personal. In marketing terms, this is called targeted email marketing.
They have all the powerful features you’d expect from a top-notch email marketing service such as a/b testing, beautiful email templates, landing page builder, smart workflows, and more.
ConvertKit offers email based support and have extensive knowledge base with great learning material.
A lot of ConvertKit features such as paid newsletters are specifically designed for creators and professional bloggers that’s why we rate them the best email marketing service for professional bloggers.
They even added the ability for you to sell digital products & subscriptions from the same platform.
ConvertKit offers a 14-day free trial, and their pricing starts from $29/month. They also offer a 30-day refund policy.
Their Creator Pro plan also includes advanced functionality like newsletter referral system, subscriber scoring, advanced reporting, and Facebook custom audiences.
AWeber
AWeber is one of oldest and most popular email marketing service providers in the world. They offer a wide-range of tools for small and medium sized businesses to manage their email marketing.
Getting started with AWeber is easy. It connects seamlessly to most platforms including WordPress. For detailed instructions, see our ultimate guide on how to connect AWeber to WordPress.
You get access to ready to use html email templates, list management, autoresponders, a/b testing, and email tracking with detailed insights.
AWeber also has other powerful email marketing features such as AMP emails, automatic RSS-to-email for bloggers, and tag based subscriber segmentation.
Support options include live chat, phone support, email support, live webinars, and a vast library of how-tos and tutorials.
AWeber offers a limited free plan for up to 500 subscribers. After that, their pricing starts from $19/month. You can also signup for quarterly or annual plans to save even more.
EmailOctopus
After Mailchimp and Moosend, here’s another animal in the email marketing zoo. EmailOctopus is a special breed: it used to be built on top of the Amazon SES service that provides the email infrastructure. The AWS account is optional now, though, meaning that you can use it just like any other newsletter service.
They let you have a generous 2500 subscribers for free, with a sending limit of 10,000 emails per month. If you are using Amazon’s servers, you can even use the free quota of currently up to 62,000 emails. “Currently”, because this can always change.
What we liked: prices on the paid plans are on the lower end (e.g. 50,000 subscribers for $115 per month) and once set up, the Octopus proved a well-spirited newsletter tool that is extremely easy to use. There’s an API available as well as a Zapier integration.
What they should improve: The range of features is a bit limited, though, if you are only looking to send classic newsletters and autoresponders you may have everything you need.
Who is the free plan suited to? I’d recommend EmailOctopus mainly to cost-conscious marketers who maybe already have an Amazon SES. They also seem to be relaxed about senders dealing with cryptocurrency and affiliate marketing. Industries other email providers often reject.
HubSpot – A place to manage your contacts
Collect contacts through HubSpot’s forms, manage contacts in their advanced CRM and send up to 2,000 emails a month for free. You can also add unlimited users and assign contacts to each of them.
The drag and drop editor is pretty smooth and helpfully points out anything you might have missed. Unfortunately, they do not offer anything special when it comes to email templates – you just have one basic newsletter or promotion template to customize. It’s also not possible to unload your own or code it in HTML.
If you want access to templates, automations and landing pages, you’ll have to upgrade to their Sales or Marketing Hub.
What we liked: You have access to a robust CRM, form builder, ads and a few other cool features. In terms of ease of use, the software doesn’t feel overwhelming at all. Primarily a CRM, they are generous when it comes to contacts, allowing you to store up to 1 million for free!
Where they should improve: Though there is (virtually) no cap on contacts, you might find that 2,000 emails a month isn’t enough. You’ll also have to put up with the HubSpot branding being present at the end of every email you send. They could also include a few nice templates in the free plan or at least the option to upload your own.
A limitation to HubSpot’s free plan is that you’re not able to properly authenticate an email sending domain through SPF and DKIM – that said, they didn’t score too badly in our deliverability testing.
Who should use the free plan: Small to medium-sized businesses who are in need of a decent CRM – because this is where HubSpot really shines. You’ll need to take into account that the monthly sending limit is quite low compared to other tools (though one-to-one sales emails don’t count towards this) and neither A/B testing nor automations are included.
MailerLite – Best For the Essentials at an Affordable Price
- PRICE STARTS AT $0
- PREMIUM PLANS START AT $10/MO
- ALL BASIC EMAIL FEATURES
- A/B TESTING TOOLS
MailerLite offers all of the essentials with none of the fat.
It’s a great option for anyone who wants a straightforward email marketing service. You’re a creator who doesn’t need a ton of bells and whistles. You just need the tools to start your newsletter or send emails—and do so well.
It’s also nice for teams. Nobody is going to be intimidated by this platform, which means everyone is going to use the core features at their disposal.
The platform still offers tools for automation, landing pages, pop-ups, and surveys, so it’s not like you’re extremely limited. But even the UI for each one is fairly spartan and straightforward.
MailerLite has a drag-and-drop editor, which makes it easy for anyone to design a high-quality message. Segment your subscribers to enhance personalization and optimize your campaigns with features like A/B testing.
I’d recommend MailerLite for those of you who want simple email software at an affordable rate.
Here’s a look at the price points for MailerLite:
- Up to 1,000 subscribers — $10 per month
- 1,001 – 2,500 subscribers — $15 per month
- 2,501 – 5,000 subscribers — $30 per month
- 5,001 – 10,000 subscribers — $50 per month
- 10,001 – 15,000 subscribers — $75 per month
- 15,001 – 20,000 subscribers — $100 per month
- 20,001 – 25,000 subscribers — $120 per month
- 25,001 – 30,000 subscribers — $140 per month
The pricing tiers continue to rise at about $20-$40 per 10,000 subscribers. MailerLite offers a 30% discount if you sign up for annual billing, making it one of the most affordable options on our list.
There is a free plan for up to 1,000 subscribers, but you’re limited to just 12,000 emails per month, and you don’t get every feature. You can use this option as an extended free trial when you’re just starting out.
Moosend – Best for AI-Powered Ecommerce Sales
- STARTS AT $0
- AI-POWERED ECOMMERCE
- UNLIMITED EMAILS
- REPORTING & ANALYTICS
Moosend offers an email marketing solution no matter if you’re a complete beginner or if you’re a seasoned pro.
From their easy drag-and-drop email builder, to their easy segmentation tool, to their accurate real-time analytics, they have all the features you need to nail your email marketing campaigns.
Our favorite thing about Moosend is their ecommerce AI. It leverages machine learning and collaborative filtering to target customers with products they might like based on the shopping habits of similar customers.
You’ll also be able to easily cross sell based on customer shopping habits, and keep track of how often they buy certain products (e.g. perishables) so you can regularly promote the products they need to them when they need it.
I haven’t seen any other email marketing service do this. But it has the potential to really help out the newer ecommerce business looking to level up their targeting and segmentation game.
Moosend also does the basics of email marketing very well. Their advanced personalization features allows you to create emails unique for your target customer. Their segmentation tool allows you to spit your audience by purchasing behavior, cart abandoned products, and more.
They don’t offer that many themes with just 40 responsive themes to choose from. However, they’re all highly customizable and eye-catching.
Pricing starts free with their premium plans starting at $8 per month. More detailed information is below:
Free — $0/month
- Unlimited emails
- Signup and subscription forms
- Reporting and analytics
- No credit card required
Pro — $8/month
- Landing pages
- Transactional emails
- Phone support
- SMTP server
- 5 team members
Enterprise — Custom pricing
- Custom reporting
- Dedicated account manager
- SSO & SAML
- On-boarding and migration
- 10 team members
- Service-level agreement.
Conclusion
Email Marketing for eCommerce: A Tutorial for Sending MailChimp Campaigns From Your WordPress Website: A blog about the best ways to use email marketing to promote your brand.