Have you ever looked in Google for free email campaign service? If you want to grow your business and acquire new customers through email marketing, creating your own list of potential customers is one of the core strategies you need to implement. An easy way to get started is by using a free email list.
In this review, I will be explaining the most outstanding email campaign services out there and whether or not they are free or not.
Sender – easy does it
A simple interface and smooth user experience make Sender one of the easiest email marketing tools to use. Its free plan also has a substantial allowance of 2,500 subscribers and up to 15,000 emails per month. You get a nice amount of features included too – automations, transactional emails, push notifications and forms.
What we liked: The automations included on the free plan are surprisingly advanced – you’ve got options to send abandoned cart campaigns, for example, and to perform actions such as moving subscribers to different lists or updating custom field values. In general, the simplicity of the tool is a nice change from the overcomplexity of other similarly-featured tools.
Where they should improve: While the email template designs aren’t bad, it would be nice to have a few more on offer. Integrations are limited to just a handful of third-party applications, including WordPress, WooCommerce and Magento.
Who is the free plan suited to? If you’re after an easy-to-use, no-nonsense email marketing service (with a few nice extras thrown in), you’ll appreciate Sender’s simplicity and utility.
Free Trial: sender.net
Zoho Campaigns – the Swiss Army Knife
Zoho are kind of a big deal in the sales and marketing world. Their impressive suite of services means that marketers and small business owners can find all that they need under one roof.
Zoho Campaigns is where the email marketing magic happens, and with a great selection of well-designed templates and an easy-to-use editor, it’s well worth checking out if you’re on a budget.
What we liked: Well-designed interface that is easy to navigate. The editor is fast and offers all the main elements, including columns, video and polls. A cool feature is that you can upload images from Unsplash directly in the editor. Segmentation is also possible. We particularly liked their range of email and form templates.
Where they should improve: It’s a bit disappointing that no kind of automations are included in the free plan, though if you want this feature you can get it for as little as $5/month. The form builder could be easier to use with the use of drag and drop technology.
Who is the free plan suited to? Zoho Campaign’s free plan is for anyone looking for an easy-to-use email marketing service with decent subscriber and email allowances. If you need basic email marketing automation and don’t want to pay, you’d be better off going with MailerLite.
Moosend – packed with all the extras
Here’s an email marketing platform that really caught our attention. Design-wise, it’s probably one of the more eye-pleasing ones out there, with a colorful interface and fun branding. Although the free plan only allows for up to 1,000 subscribers, the rest is actually pretty generous – you get unlimited emails, access to almost all features (landing pages and team accounts excluded), and, amazingly, no Moosend branding in your emails.
What we liked: The drag-and-drop email editor is easy to use and flexible, allowing you to create 3 and 4-column layouts. You’ve also got a nice selection of around 40 email templates to choose from, plus cool extras such as spam testing, A/B testing and automations.
Where they should improve: Although it works well for the most part, there are a few things that could run smoother, such as the email and automations editor. We also encountered a few issues with deliverability at the beginning, and would recommend keeping a close eye on campaign performance rates.
Who is the free plan suited to? If your list is on the smaller side and you want to take advantage of perks like spam testing and unbranded emails, Moosend could work well for you.
Free Trial: Moosend.com
MailerLite (www.mailerlite.com)
MailerLite is one of the best free email marketing services that gained popularity in the last two years. This tool makes it easier for users to improve interaction using pop-ups and surveys.
How many emails/subscribers do you get for free?
The free plan will let you send up to 1,000 emails without having to spend a dime. And while the free version will give you access to nearly all of the essential email marketing features, you might have to miss out on some advanced features.
By that, I mean you won’t be able to create templates, get live chat support or check CTR using a heatmap, or perform A/B testing. You can unlock all this for $10 per month. If you want to increase the subscribers limit to 2,500 then you need to spend $15 per month instead.
What makes this one of the best free email marketing software?
- You can create beautiful email newsletters, pop-ups, and surveys.
- Easily design a mobile-optimized email template for free.
- Send a newsletter to your global subscribers at optimum time using delivery-by-time-zone.
- You’d be able to control your backend using the custom HTML editor.
- Find the most converting landing page using A/B split testing and heatmap analysis.
- The dedicated support team for providing high-class live chat experience (premium plan)
- Get access to 49+ newsletter templates for blog, eCommerce, business, and more.
- Has an API for developers built on HTTP and REST.
Who should use it?
MailerLite can be used for creating landing pages (for webinars, for example), pop-ups, and surveys from a single dashboard. All this plus the heatmap testing makes it ideal for startups, small to mid-sized businesses and eCommerce stores who need good deliverability.
Benchmark (www.benchmarkemail.com)
Benchmark boasts a speedy email designer made just for busy marketers. You can edit photos right in the editor and the templates are great for a wide variety of businesses. At the same time, their free email marketing tool is easy enough to use that your people will be able to subscribe/unsubscribe without added hurdles.
How many emails/subscribers do you get for free?
The free plan lets you have unlimited subscribers and send up to 250 emails per month, which is almost exactly what you get with Mailchimp.
If you’d like to upgrade, you can start with 600 subscribers and unlimited sends per month for $13.99.
What makes this one of the best free email marketing services?
- It doesn’t take much time to craft email marketing campaigns using their drag-and-drop email builder.
- You can easily custom code your emails.
- The email automation options include welcome emails, abandoned carts, and follow-ups.
- Polls and surveys are included.
- You receive tools for A/B testing and integrating with hundreds of apps.
Who should use it?
Since the free plan is one of the best on the market, I would recommend this platform to those who can’t afford to pay anything for an email marketing tool. Otherwise, it works well for bloggers and eCommerce stores (running on WooCommerce and other tools).
Mailchimp
Free Plan: 10,000 emails/month for 2,000 subscribers
Best for: eCommerce, Publishers
Unique feature: Behavioral targeting tools
Mailchimp is one of those free email marketing services that are too popular to miss. The platform will equip you with basic email newsletter templates, A/B testing, and even a built-in CRM to help out with your venture.
When it comes to creating emails, Mailchimp has a Creative Assistant that resizes your designs based on your brand. If you rely heavily on visuals, Mailchimp also gives you access to its content studio to store photos, graphics, and more.
What’s more, Mailchimp’s behavioral tagging will help you create targeted marketing campaigns like abandoned cart emails. Website engagement is also something Mailchimp offers in the free plan, allowing you to monitor site views.
Overall, Mailchimp’s free newsletter service can benefit your first email marketing endeavors. Nevertheless, like some of the other free Mailchimp alternatives in this list, you can’t get rid of the branded footer.
Mailchimp Features
- List management tools to keep your contacts organized
- Behavioral targeting for more relevant email content
- Basic email newsletter templates to get started
- Integrations with popular apps including Gmail
- Single-step automation
Mailchimp Pricing
The platform’s free plan will give you access to some great features to get started. For more, Mailchimp’s pricing starts at $9.99, offering social post scheduling and retargeting ads.
Zoho Campaigns
Free Plan: Up to 2,000 subscribers and 12,000 emails per month
Paid plans: Start at $4 per month
Zoho is a collection of multichannel CRM software that allows you to engage prospects, automate your sales process, and close more deals. It offers a vast range of integrated apps – more than 40 – covering a whole range of business functions. They integrate into Zoho One.
Zoho Campaigns is the part of the suite relate to running email campaigns (it is also part of the larger tool, Zoho CRM). You can obtain the Zoho Campaigns app separately, as part of the Zoho CRM package, or in the full Zoho One suite.
You can access some of the features on the Forever Free Plan, sending up to 12,000 emails per month to 2,000 subscribers. The free plan gives you access to a drag and drop editor and pre-designed newsletter templates. You can also import templates and use the template library.
Even free plan users can manage and segment their mailing lists. You can schedule email campaigns, including adjusting for recipient time zone delivery. You can carry out A/B testing on your emails, determining the better performer.
The main feature set removed from the Forever Free plan is marketing automation. If that is an area that interests you, you will need to set up a subscriber-based plan.
Conclusion
Email Marketing is the marketing practice of sending emails to a group of people, businesses or other organizations. The strategy is increasingly becoming popular for small businesses to gather leads & increase sales through sending information about current offers or helping their customers to gather more information.