8 Best Email Marketing Services For Communicating At Scale

Sep 06, 2022 by Simon Hilton

If you're running an online business, then leveraging the best email marketing services to scale your revenues and communicate with your audience effectively is important.

The best email marketing platforms like Convertkit and Sendinblue make it easy for you to build beautiful emails, grow your mailing list, personalize outreach, and ensure that your emails actually reach their intended recipient.

More advanced features now also make it possible to segment your audience, automate outreach, cater your send times by user location, and convert customers directly by taking payments - the best email marketing platforms also have 100s of direct integrations into your broader tech stack.

It's not always easy to pick through the noise and select the best email service for your business. That's why we've reviewed the best email marketing services out there to save you time, energy, and effort.

Best Email Marketing Services & Platforms

We've researched and tested the top email marketing services and platforms so that you can make a quick and easy decision on which platform offers your business the best fit.

ConvertKit - best for creators
Sendinblue - best all-in-one
Mailchimp - best for startups
Klaviyo - best for ecommerce
Omnisend - best for personalization
Aweber - best for small businesses
Mailerlite - best deliverability
GetResponse - best for big brands

Focused Look At The Best Email Marketing Platforms & Services

ConvertKit - Best Email Marketing Service For Creators

ConverKit - best email marketing service for creators

If you operate in the creator economy then ConvertKit is the perfect solution.

There are nearly 500,000 creators (including podcasters, authors, artists, and musicians) using ConvertKit's email marketing services to promote to over 250 million subscribers.

Here at Visualize Value, we also use ConvertKit to build our mailing list, automate our onboarding sequences, and drive revenue through our email marketing channel.

When it makes sense, we've used ConvertKit's 'earn' features to capture pre-order sales.

You can also check out our dedicated ConvertKit review to find out more.

The key features we like:

Landing pages designer - ConvertKit makes it easy to build beautiful landing pages quickly. They have a tone of pre-built templates that cater for different types of messaging (for example driving course sign ups, or promoting pre-order runs). Everything within the ConvertKit ecosystem is drag and drop, so you don't need any coding skills, and all templates are optimized cross-device
Sign up forms - just like ConvertKit's landing page builder, there are a number of high converting sign up form templates you can leverage to increase your sign up rates. And if you need some creative inspiration, there are over 100k stock images that you can access to improve look and feel
Automation features - one of the best things about ConvertKit is thier automation features. We use ConvertKit to onboard new users (sending them through automated onboarding sequences based on where/how they sign up). It's possible to customize these automated sequences based on the users action, and groups of users can be easily segmented to receive different messaging, or be comunicate to in a different way
Visual analytics - it's easy to monitor how automated sequences are performing, as ConvertKit's visual analytics show you where users are stalling within your email funnels, or dropping out. This makes it easy to make fixes and optimize
Sell digital products directly - ConvertKit integrates with Stripe, making it easy to convert customers directly. Simply build a landing page with a checkout option (ConvertKit supports all popular payment methods/currencies) and you're good to go. We recently launched our brand new course, Compound Content, and over 500 pre-order sales were captured through ConvertKit directly
Codeless set up - it's easy to use all of ConvertKit's tools and templates. Throughout the platform, everything is drag and drop, and ConvertKit points out ways to optimize content, and subject lines to increase conversion rates. It's also easy to add tags to personalize your emails with ease
Integrations - for us, it's important that our email marketing service integrated with our ecommerce frontend (Shopify), and our online course delivery platform (Mighty Networks). Thankfully, ConvertKit does both. On top of this, there are hundreds of integrations available so that you can tie ConvertKit into your wider tech stack

ConvertKit Pricing

ConvertKit offers a 30 day free trial before sign up to any of their plans. From there, there are a couple of options.

Free - free for first 300 subscribers, unlimited broadcasts
Creator - starts at $9 per month, unlimited broadcasts, includes automation, migration, third-party integrations
Creator Pro - starts at $25 per month, unlimited broadcasts, includes newsletter referral system, subscriber scoring, and advanced analytics

The free plan offers a great way to start building your list, but as soon as you surpass 300 sign-ups you will need to move on to a paid plan. The paid plans scale based on the number of subscribers on your list.

Sendinblue - Best All-In-One Email Marketing Service

One of the best all-in-one platforms for digital marketers is Sendinblue.

Unlike ConvertKit which focuses solely on email and digital products, Sendinblue offers additional communication features like SMS messaging and live chat. They also supply digital teams with a shared inbox to manage customer communications.

The key features we like:

Communicate via email, SMS, chat - Sendinblue has a range of communication features that allow you to easily create email or SMS marketing campaigns to target your audience. They also have a chat feature that allows you to track where your customers are on your website (in real-time), whilst giving you the chance to interact with them (to collect their data or convert a sale)
Drag and drop email builder - it's easy to build email campaigns using Sendinblue's drag-and-drop email builder. Once you've built the email, you can drop in personalization and select which groups of your audience should receive the email. From there, Sendinblue's machine learning engine will optimize when each email is sent to your audience based on their send time feature - this will ensure more of your emails get delivered
Personalization features - there are some great marketing tools to personalize email content and manage your audience effectively. This includes a fully-fledged CRM which your entire team can access, the ability to segment your audience based on their declared interests, previous activity, or demographics, and access to automated processes to target and re-target segmented groups. Sendinblue also has a range of existing optimized workflows you can leverage
Conversion features - if you're looking to convert traffic directly within your email marketing service then Sendinblue has you covered. Build beautiful signup forms, and landing pages, and even launch Facebook ads directly within your Sendinblue CRM
Integrations and analytics - like many of the best email marketing platforms, Sendinblue is integrated into hundreds of digital marketing tools, including Shopify, Woo Commerce, Big Commerce, Magento, and Stripe. That means it's easy to tie Sendinblue into your e-commerce platform. There is also a full range of analytics allowing you to see real-time analytics, and run A/B testing

Sendinblue Pricing

It's free to sign up to Sendinblue which is helpful when you're just getting started. This plan allows you to build an initial list of up to 300 contacts. From there, the paid plans kick in.

Free - unlimited contacts, 300 emails per day
Lite - starts at £16.50 per month, and includes no daily send limits, email support, A/B testing features, and the ability to remove the Sendinblue logo
Premium - starts at £41.65 per month, and includes marketing automation, Facebook ads, landing page builder, multi-user accounts, and customer support
Enterprise - custom packages are available which also get you access to priority sending, a dedicated customer success manager, and access for 10+ users

Mailchimp - Best Marketing Service For Startups

Mailchimp is used by over 13 million businesses and was one of the first email marketing platforms to explode in popularity when digital marketing took off.

It remains one of the best email marketing services around, featuring over 300 integrations, and a large partner network that is there to help get you set up.

There is also the ability to build the majority of your tech stack on Mailchimp's platform, making it perfect for startups and small businesses.

The key features we like

One-stop shop - as well as email marketing, Mailchimp allows you to build websites, e-commerce stores, appointment scheduling apps, and buy domains. Some businesses love to keep everything under one roof, and Mailchimp is great for that
Email performance - Mailchimp's email marketing tools are extremely powerful, they have a drag-and-drop email builder, subject line helper, and access to endless templates and creatives. Mailchimp has been operating for some time, and also has some of the best delivery rates in the business
Automation and analytics - like other leading email marketing platforms, you can set up behavior-based automation so that your audience gets targeted in a personalized and relevant way. Mailchimp also provides you with detailed analytics, including heat map technology to show you where on your emails your audience is clicking and engaging
Full suite of products to market your business - alongside email, Mailchimp gives you the ability to launch social media ads, and they have a full suite of A/B testing tools, as well as the functionality to run surveys. Mailchimp also features over 300 integrations with the majority of major digital marketing service providers (including shopping carts, online course platforms, and payment technologies)

Mailchimp Pricing

We've previously used Mailchimp and have nothing but good things to say. It's priced affordably and includes everything you need to market your business via email.

Free - 2,500 sends, daily limit of 500 sends
Essentials - starts at $11 per month, 500,000 sends per month
Standard - starts at $17 per month, 1,200,000 sends per month
Premium - starts at $299 per month, contact for custom quote

Mailchimp's free and essential plans don't include advanced reporting like predicted demographics, purchase likelihood, or Mailchimp's lookalike audience finder. However, the free plan makes it easy to get set up, and you can scale your access as and when required.

Klaviyo - Best Email Marketing Service For Ecommerce

If you're running an e-commerce store, then Klaviyo offers you a great option.

Klaviyo is an e-commerce marketing automation platform that makes it possible to communicate with customers via email, and SMS marketing. Their technology is already integrated with over 220+ e-commerce marketing tools and can connect seamlessly with your wider e-commerce tech stack.

The key features we like:

Advanced personalization - one of the best things about Klaviyo is it helps you constantly come up with new marketing angles to engage your audience and drive sales. Within the platform, you can access tones of templates for different strategies, including VIP communications, discount emails, newsletters, store opening announcements, and product suggestion quizzes - this takes the onus away from you so your can build
Rocket fueled segmentation - it's easy to slice and dice your audience using Klaviyo so that you target sections of your audience with the right message - build custom groups based on predicted lifetime value, order data, location, and behavior
Templates and forms - access tonnes of proven marketing templates that are already working to convert customers for thousands of digital businesses. Set up a different signup forms to target different audiences based on time on page, number of visits, device, and behavior
220+ e-commerce integrations - it gives you peace of mind that Klaviyo stays on top of integrating with the best e-commerce tools out there so that you can focus on growing your business. Whether you are using Shopify, Woocommerce, Magento, or BigCommerce, Klaviyo integrates seamlessly
Advanced SMS features - if you're looking to build SMS marketing into your communication strategy, Klaviyo has you covered. More than 10,000 Klaviyo customers are using their SMS features, running fully automated SMS marketing campaigns from their Klaviyo instance

Klaviyo Pricing

The pricing structure is straightforward with Klaviyo. They offer a generous free plan to get you started, and then as you scale, there are various solutions that sit at an affordable price point.

Free - 500 monthly email sends
Email - starts at $45 per month > 15,000 sends per month
Email and SMS - starts at $60 per month > 15,000 sends per month + 1,250 texts per month
Enterprise solutions - get in touch for custom pricing

Omnisend - Best Personalized Email Marketing Service

If you're looking for a Klaviyo alternative, then Omnisend is another e-commerce-focused email marketing service you can rely on.

Trusted by over 70,000 brands, Omnisend offers many of the same features as Klaviyo, with the added benefit that you can also integrate web push notifications. Omnisend also integrates directly into hundreds of e-commerce tools.

The key features we like:

Drag and drop content editor - dynamic content blocks make it easy to design emails and landing pages, and you can integrate unique discount codes and product recommendations directly within Omnisend
High converting templates - access libraries of high converting email templates within Omnisend. Once they are created you can re-use them, and share them across your account if you are running multiple stores or brands
Segment audiences - build custom audience segments based on a range of customer metrics, including average order value, purchase recency, and behavior
A/B testing tools - leverage Omnisend's campaign boosting features to enhance look and feel and write better subject lines. Once you're up and running, A/B test email creative to see which converts at a higher rate, and pass these learnings back into future campaigns
Analytics - directly measure ROI within the platform, and learn what's working best with email reporting. This includes sales tracking and attribution, campaign reports, click maps
Hundreds of integrations - Omnisend is directly integrated into the wider e-commerce tech stack. Like Klaviyo, there are constantly adding e-commerce integrations so that you have peace of mind as you scale

Omnisend Pricing

Omnisend's Pro plan allows you to send unlimited emails and starts at $59 per month. This scales up depending on the number of contacts you want to add. All of the Omnisend plan's give you an affordable way to get your email marketing off the ground.

Free - up to 250 contacts, 500 emails per month
Standard - starts at $16 per month, 500 contacts, 6,000 emails per month, 60 SMS per month
Pro - starts at $59 per month, up to 500 contacts, unlimited emails, 3,933 SMS per month

Aweber - Best Email Marketing Service For Small Businesses

If you are a small business owner looking for an affordable, and reliable service, then we'd recommend checking our Aweber.

Aweber is a one-stop shop for all of your email marketing needs. It's easy to build landing pages, manage push notifications, and automate your email campaigns all under one roof.

And Aweber is extremely easy to use - you can get set up in minutes.

The key features we like:

East to build email templates - Aweber's email builder makes it easy to design beautiful emails. There are tons of email templates available and thousands of high-quality stock images to choose from
Autopilot your email sends - set up automated welcome emails, abandoned cart notifications, confirmation emails, and more. When you're ready to send newsletters or announcements to your customers, Aweber makes it easy to build, schedule, and send your email
Track emails with analytics - if you want to access more advanced features like A/B testing, Aweber has you covered. Once your email runs, check out which creatives convert better via Aweber's analytics and reporting tools
World-class email deliverability - Aweber ensures your emails get delivered to their target recipient, meaning you can focus on growing your business
Build an online store and accept payments - drive sales directly within the Aweber platform by creating an online store, or build landing pages to accept payments. Aweber allows you to accept payments in over 100 currencies
Outstanding customer support - Aweber offers 24/7 customer support across email, and live chat, and also operates phone support between 8am-8pm
100s of integrations - Awever integrates directly with Facebook, Shopify, Etsy, Paypal, and WooCommerce

Aweber Pricing

Aweber's pricing structure is simple to understand. Get set up for free, and subscribe up to 500 contacts. From there, if you need to scale pricing starts at $16.15 per month and scales based on the number of subscribers you need on your plan.

Free - up to 500 subscribers
Pro - Starts at $16.15 per month, and increases depending on the number of subscribers, but there are never any send limits

Mailerlite - Best Email Marketing Service Deliverability

Mailerlite - best email marketing service for personalization

Mailerlite is another brilliant all-in-one email marketing service that will help you grow your business.

Mailerlite is used by over 1.5 million customers and has all the functionality you need to build your email list, send emails, and convert customers.

They also won awards in 2022 for deliverability and customer service, which is a great reason to opt for Mailerlite.

The key features we like:

Build beautiful campaigns - Mailerlite's drag-and-drop editor allows you to easily build out your email creatives, and their rich-text editor allows you to personalize copy and optimize language to help with conversions. The editor also allows you to customize HTML and contains a free image library to boost the look and feel
Send targeted campaigns - like other email marketing services, Mailerlite can deliver by timezone, allow you to segment the audience, personalize messages, and build interest groups. This gives you the power to build targeted campaigns that are relevant to each group of customers
Automate workflows - there is a wide automation feature set built into Mailerlite It's possible to set up triggers to automatically send emails based on events, set up RSS feeds, and sync your email marketing strategy with Facebook custom audiences
Continuously improve campaigns - there are a host of incremental features that improve the variation of your campaigns. Mailerlite's reporting dashboards make it easy to see how your campaigns are performing, as well as opening up the functionality to run A/B testing, view click maps, opens by location, and run surveys and quizzes
Integrations - Mailerlite is directly integrated to all major e-commerce providers, including Shopify, Woocommerce, Stripe
Market leading customer support - access some of the best customer support on the market. Mailerlite are online 24/7, and the average response times are 5 minutes
Additional functionality - Mailerlite is truly a one-stop-shop, there are products that enable you to build websites, collect leads, and sell digital products directly. If you are not utilizing a wider e-commerce tech stack, this is useful for boosting conversions

Mailerlite Pricing

Mailerlite has an excellent free plan which allows you to subscribe 1,000 contacts on your list. From there, you can send 12,000 emails per month. After that, there are plans for growing businesses, enterprises, and those in between.

Free - 1,000 subscribers, 12,000 monthly emails, 1 user
Growing Business - 1,000 subscribers, unlimited emails, 3 users
Advanced - 1,000 subscribers, unlimited emails, unlimited users
Enterprise - custom pricing for large organizations

GetResponse - Best Email Marketing Service For Big (and small) Brands

If you're a brand with multiple users looking for email marketing services, then GetResponse is one of the best options out there.

Big brands like Zendesk, Revolut, Ikea, and Stripe use GetResponse to run their email marketing campaigns, develop dedicated websites and landing pages for converting customers, and create places online to engage dedicated audiences (using webinars, and other engaging content formats).

The key features we like:

Landing page builder - for big and small brands, GetResponse makes it easy to build email templates with drag-and-drop features without requiring any coding skills. It's also easy to access thousands of stock images and inspiring email templates to get you off the ground - with access to over 2 million shutterstock images and thousands of giphy GIFs
Thousands of integrations - GetResponse has one of the largest ranges of 3rd party integrations into wider marketing tools - this makes it easy for big brands to integrate GetResponse into the wider tech stack
Build dedicated websites and landing pages - access over 200+ templates including sign-up forms, popups, and landing pages to quickly spin up areas to host online content and convert customers. Launch Google Ads, and Facebook Ads directly in the Getresponse interface and host webinars and live events directly
SMS marketing and push notifications - build SMS outreach campaigns and operate push notifications onsite to drive conversion and automate communication. It's also possible to build conversion funnels and automate email campaigns based on user action
Advanced features - build custom segments, generate dynamic content, and set up custom sending schedules based on location, and user behavior. Getresponse also makes it easy to run A/B testing

GetResponse Pricing

Like some of the other leading email marketing services, GetResponse has a free plan which allows you to add up to 500 contacts to your list. After that, they have plans for marketing automation and e-commerce teams.

While GetResponse is built for the world's biggest brands, as a small or medium-sized business you can also access the same features at an affordable price point, providing you with the ability to scale.

Free - up to 500 contacts
Email Marketing - £13 per month, starting at 1k contacts per month
Marketing Automation - £44 per month, starting at 1k contacts per month
Ecommerce Marketing - £89 per month, starting at 1k contacts per month
Free plan for 30 days

Why it's important to invest in an email marketing service

If you're still on the fence about investing in an email marketing platform, then think again.

Email marketing revenues continue to compound, and are projected to touch $18 billion per annum in 2027 - that's 100% growth on 2022's projected revenue of $9.6 billion.

Here's why there is no slowing down when it comes to email marketing.

Email marketing services drive efficiency for business owners

Scale distribution - it remains true that one of the most effective (and cheapest ways) to contact a big audience quickly is via email. Unlike social media platforms where you're competing for attention, once someone opens your email, their attention is yours
Personalization - people like to buy from people, communicate with your customers and build rapport. We get some of our most valuable feedback from customers who reply to our email marketing campaigns
Email is still heavily used - while it's become unfashionable to talk about email marketing, it's still where consumers spend their time. In fact, it's estimated that there will be over 4 billion email users by 2025

Email marketing services take care of the heavy lifting

The reason that email marketing platforms like Mailchimp grew so quickly is that they offered businesses and creators the ability to build, manage, and communicate with large audiences effectively.

Platforms like Gmail, and Outlook are useful when it comes to sending internal communications, but if you're dealing with thousands of customers, who all joined your mailing list at different times, and in different ways, they're not built for purpose.

Here's how the best email marketing services help.

Increase sign up rates - the best platforms make it incredibly easy to sign up, and they allow you to customize the experience via drag and drop builers
Easily send and schedule emails - it's easy to set up automated emails to welcome new audiences, schedule order confirmation sequences, and set up unique dedicated campaigns. Email can be scheduled, and can be set up to go out at dedicated times based on a users location
Manage and segment subscribers - one mode of communication does not work when you'e dealing with a large audience. Some customers will care about specific products, and areas of your business more than others. Email marketing services make it easy to personalize content, and only outreach to customers who fit your send criteria
Offer people the ability to unsubscribe - it's always painful to see people unsubscribe from your email communication, but it happens. The best email marketing software takes care of this process for you, savings you a lot of time
Design beautiful emails - it's never been easier to access hundreds of pre-built templates that are designed to convert. Without any coding experience whatsoever, you can drop in your brand, mock up your emails, and get them sent - ensuring your emails align with your brand image
Achieve higher delivery rates - nothing else matters if your emails do not get delivered. The best email marketing services spend all day every day ensuring that their emails get delivered to your audience. This alone is a huge reason to send your marketing communication via email marketing platforms
Advanced analytics - if you don't know where or why people are not engaging with your emails, then you run little chance of driving revenue from the channel. The best email marketing platforms include visual analytics to show you how each stage in your email marketing funnel is performing

In order to pick the right email marketing service for your business, check out our list of the best platforms. While each of the platforms on our list contain the majority of these features, some are better than others when it comes to specific features.

Ensure that you pick an email marketing service that scores well on the features you care about.

Sign Up For The Best Email Marketing Services & Platforms For Your Business

It's time to start moving, building, and sending.

Pick the email marketing service that best fits your needs and requirements, and take the time to compare platforms by signing up for free trials.

Once you make your selection, also ensure that the platform is built for scale, so that you're well equipped to take your business to the next level as you grow.

For creators, we recommend ConvertKit as our email marketing services of choice. For those looking for a braoder platform, with the ability to communicate via email, SMS marketing, and chat, check out solutions like Sendinblue, Klaviyo, and Omnisend.

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