Email marketing has been around for decades and is still one of the most effective means of marketing. It also has the highest conversion rate compared to social media, SEO and other online channels. However, it can take a lot of effort to find free email marketing software that works well.
After testing out the top products available, I’ve compiled their strengths and weaknesses below.
HubSpot Email Marketing
HubSpot Email Marketing – All-in-one Email Marketing Automation Software
HubSpot has an email marketing tool that comes along with Inbound marketing & CRM features. The interesting part is that both email and CRM tools have forever free plans. Having both CRM and Email Marketing together allows you to fully personalize your emails, see how each individual contact is interacting with them, and personalize other marketing activities accordingly.HubSpot Email MarketingHubSpot Email EditorHubSpot Email MarketingHubSpot Email MarketingHubSpot Email EditorHubSpot Email MarketingHubSpot Email Marketing
Best Features: HubSpot Email Marketing stands out as being easy-to-use and mobile-optimized. You can create beautiful emails using a dozen templates or just drag-and-drop to customize. Not just that, you can schedule your emails up to one year in advance.
Every email you send is optimized for different device types. You can easily test your message to see what it’ll look like on any popular email app.
One more cool feature: HubSpot Email Marketing helps you get every detail right, from timing your messages to send at the right moment based on every recipients’ timezone, to giving you helpful suggestions on how to adhere to the latest best practices while crafting your email.
Integrations: HubSpot has integrations for all of their free tools including email marketing. If you’re looking to create multi-step workflows, Automate.io lets you connect HubSpot to 100+ other apps. It’s a certified HubSpot Partner, that lets you sync data and run workflows to automate your tasks.
Pricing: HubSpot’s Email Marketing tool starts with a free plan that comes with up to 2000 email sends per month. The next plans start at $50 along with the HubSpot’s Marketing Hub Starter pack.
Best Suited For: Existing customers of HubSpot’s Inbound marketing software should definitely think about trying out their in-built email marketing features too. Also, for businesses looking for a single platform for Email, CRM & Customer Sevice, this is a must-try option.
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.
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.
Omnisend (www.omnisend.com)
Omnisend is a must among these email service providers for users who are running online stores only. It quickly pulls products from your store and generates beautiful and fun emails and opt-in forms to grow your email list.
How many emails/subscribers do you get for free?
The free email marketing plan offers you 15,000 emails per month and 2,000 emails per day. It doesn’t matter how many subscribers you have.
Upgrading depends on whether you need more emails per month or more advanced features. The first option is $16 per month for 500 subscribers and 15,000 emails. The email count and pricing goes up with more subscribers.
If you’re interested in any of those paid plans, you can get a limited time discount of 20% – for Themeisle readers only. The discount is valid for six months on the Standard plan. Click here and redeem the coupon code INFLUENCES206 during checkout.
What makes this one of the best free email marketing software?
- The free plan is a steal and the upgrades are rather flexible.
- The eCommerce integrations instantly pull products you want to sell into the email.
- It has creative signup forms like popups, landing pages, and a wheel-of-fortune game.
- Send out discount codes or scratch cards.
- Create automation reports and A/B test campaigns.
- Retain mobile audience using mobile-friendly email templates.
- Send out automated emails for abandoned carts and order confirmations.
- Also offers enterprise solutions for bigger companies.
Who should use it?
Omnisend is a great free option for eCommerce stores. You can still use this free email marketing software if you’re not running a store, but you’ll miss out on a lot of the unique functionality.
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.
ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign – Marketing Automation Platform with Robust A/B TestingActiveCampaign-split-testActiveCampaign-OpenReads-Report-Exampleactivecampaign dashboardActiveCampaign-split-testActiveCampaign-OpenReads-Report-Exampleactivecampaign dashboardActiveCampaign-split-test
In the past couple of years, marketing automation trends have shown that they’re here to stay and ActiveCampaign isn’t just an email marketing app — it’s more of an end-to-end marketing automation tool that comes jam-packed with features.
If you sign up for the “Plus” plan, for instance, you get access to ActiveCampaign’s CRM software (complete with sales automation, contact, and lead scoring), etc.
Since we’re focusing on email marketing software in this article, though, we’ll be evaluating ActiveCampaign based on its email marketing features, not on how it stacks up as a CRM or sales tool.
Best features:
- List segmentation
- Robust A/B testing
When it comes to list segmentation, ActiveCampaign allows you to segment your subscribers using both lists and tags.
Both systems come with their own pros and cons — so it’s great that ActiveCampaign lets you decide which best suits your needs.
Next, ActiveCampaign also comes with a top-notch A/B testing feature.
With ActiveCampaign’s A/B testing, you can:
- Choose when you want to determine a winner (during your test, or after your test has concluded).
- Decide on the split of traffic between different variants.
- Decide how the winning message is determined (best click rate or best open rate).
Best of all, ActiveCampaign even comes with a function that allows you to test the ENTIRE automation workflow.
Predictive Content: ActiveCampaign has already proven to be the email marketing software with the most robust A/B testing. It’s gone a step beyond A/B testing using the NLP (currently in beta) to predict which version of content a user is most likely to click on in an email.
All in all, this is the app to beat when it comes to A/B testing.
Pricing: No Free Plan. Plans start from $15 per month.
Integrations: You can connect ActiveCampaign to 100+ apps like Facebook Lead Ads, Salesforce, Unbounce, PayPal, Calendly, etc. using connector apps like Automate.io. Below are a few most popular integrations you can use right away:
Marketing & CRM Apps:
E-Commerce & Payment Apps:
Best suited for: Advanced email marketers who intend to focus on A/B testing.
As mentioned, ActiveCampaign comes with a highly rigorous A/B testing feature. Not all email marketing tools allow you to split-test your campaigns to this degree (for instance, some might only give you the functionality to test email subject lines).
On top of this, ActiveCampaign’s A/B testing campaign reporting also blows all the other email marketing apps out of the water.
Bearing this in mind, if you want to make A/B testing a key part of your email marketing strategy, ActiveCampaign is the way to go!
Conclusion
Email marketing is the most influential part of any digital marketing campaign. MailerLite has features that are built to boost your email marketing campaign. As far as free email marketing software is concerned, this one beats all other email services because of its user-friendly UI and various features you can use while building your business or promoting your products, which makes it an essential part of every online plan.