5 Best Free Email Marketing Software Options to Add
Not all free email marketing software is created equal; are you making an informed decision?
When you’re a small business or a startup, you have to fight for every single marketing dollar. We get it. You might feel hard-pressed to walk into your CEO’s office and pitch an investment of hundreds of dollars a month for email marketing software.
But what if you didn’t have to? What if you could make that pitch, but this time the software is free?
Let’s look at five free email marketing software systems that you can use to scale your small-business marketing. For each, we’ll look at what you get with the free plan, what you get if you decide to upgrade, and some pros and cons.
For a full breakdown of the methodology of how we selected these products, click here. Software options are presented in alphabetical order.
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Overall rating: (4.5/5) Ease-of-use rating: (4.5/5) Customer service rating: (4.5/5) Reviews: 10,900+ |
Mailchimp’s all-in-one marketing platform has a user-friendly design and tons of integration opportunities.
As the backbone for your customer relationships, they provide AI-powered, user-friendly tools. Mailchimp users can send marketing emails and automated messages, create targeted ad campaigns, build landing pages, send postcards, facilitate reporting and analytics, and sell online.
In 2017, Mailchimp was named one of Fast Company’s most innovative companies; in the following year, Mailchimp ranked 11th on the Forbes Cloud 100 list.
Pros |
Cons |
|---|---|
| Huge integration list including WordPress, Twitter, Facebook, Magento, Salesforce, ZenDesk, BigCommerce, Drupal, Mandrill, and Google Analytics. | Difficult to customize sign-up forms. |
| Easy-to-read analytics reports that show side-by-side comparisons of your email performance compared with past emails or others in your industry. | Some features excluded in free version, including autoresponders, spam filter diagnostics, email client testing, delivery by time zone, advanced social media monitoring, and email/chat support. |
Pricing Information |
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| Free plan: Forever Free plan for up to 2,000 contacts. Paid plans: Start at $9.99 per month for 50,000 contacts. |
Note: Listed pros and cons are derived from features listed on the product website and product user reviews on Gartner Digital Markets domains (Capterra, GetApp, and Software Advice). They do not represent the views of, nor constitute an endorsement by, Capterra or its affiliates.
Mailchimp’s email design app (Source)
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Overall rating: 4.5/5 Ease-of-use rating: 4.5/5 Customer service rating: 4.5/5 Reviews: 230+ |
MailerLite is focused on simplicity, excellent customer support, and beautiful email design. MailerLite’s streamlined, user-friendly software allows you to quickly create email campaigns, track their results, and manage subscribers.
Since its founding in 2009, this Lithuanian company’s stellar user satisfaction has drawn it praise and recognition. In 2012, the company was awarded the “Lithuanian Internet Award” for the best web app, and in 2017 it topped a Forbes chart for customer satisfaction.
Pros |
Cons |
|---|---|
| MailerLite is a light solution; first-timers won’t be confused by a lot of features. | Advanced marketers may find that it lacks features they need. |
| The free plan includes A/B testing, autoresponder capabilities, and embedded forms to gather email addresses. | The template gallery is a little skimpy compared to the competition. |
Pricing Information |
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| Free plan: 12,000 emails per month to 1,000 subscribers. Paid plans: Start at $10 per month for unlimited emails to up to 1,000 subscribers. |
Listed pros and cons are derived from features listed on the product website and product user reviews on Gartner Digital Markets domains (Capterra, GetApp, and Software Advice). They do not represent the views of, nor constitute an endorsement by, Capterra or its affiliates.
MailerLite’s email design app (Source)
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Overall rating: 4.5/5 Ease-of-use rating: 4.5/5 Customer service rating: 4.5/5 Reviews: 90+ |
SendPulse is a New York-based, Ukrainian startup that has been around since 2015. This newcomer to the email marketing game has caught people’s attention with a generous free plan and cool features such as SMS texts and web push notifications (for an additional charge).
SendPulse prides itself on its AI system and personalization capabilities. These technologies enable users to communicate with all devices by email, SMS, web push, SMTP, etc.
Pros |
Cons |
|---|---|
| The high threshold on the free plan means that you won’t have to pay until you’ve really had a chance to see what SendPulse is capable of. | Some users found the template options to be a bit limited. |
| The system is simple and easy to pick up in short time. | In some users’ experience, the system performed slowly when completing tasks such as sending emails and importing contacts. |
Pricing Information |
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| Free plan: 15,000 emails per month for less than 2,500 subscribers. Paid plans: Start at $9.85 per month. |
Listed pros and cons are derived from features listed on the product website and product user reviews on Gartner Digital Markets domains (Capterra, GetApp, and Software Advice). They do not represent the views of, nor constitute an endorsement by, Capterra or its affiliates.
Sendpulse’s campaign statistics portal (Source)
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Overall rating: 4.5/5 Ease-of-use rating: 4.5/5 Customer service rating: 4.5/5 Reviews: 200+ |
The colorfully named SendinBlue is an email marketing service from France that has been around since 2010. They now have a North American office in Seattle, and offer services in French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and German.
SendinBlue offers marketing automation, email campaigns, transactional emails, SMS messages, chat, CRM, Facebook ads, and retargeting ads.
Pros |
Cons |
|---|---|
| Thanks to its simple design, you need very little technical know-how to launch a campaign. | Reviewers are split on SendinBlue’s customer service; some love it, while others have reported rough experiences. |
| The system offers automated text messages (for an additional charge), so you have two channels to reach your customers. | Some users find the main interface to be a bit convoluted. |
Pricing Information |
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| Free plan: 9,000 emails per month (there is a daily limit of 300) to unlimited subscribers. Paid plans: Start at $25 per month for 40,000 emails per month with no daily limit to unlimited subscribers. |
Listed pros and cons are derived from features listed on the product website and product user reviews on Gartner Digital Markets domains (Capterra, GetApp, and Software Advice). They do not represent the views of, nor constitute an endorsement by, Capterra or its affiliates.
SendinBlue’s scheduling/automation platform (Source)
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Overall rating: 4.0/5 Ease-of-use rating: 4.0/5 Customer service rating: 4.0/5 Reviews: 160+ |
Zoho Campaigns, the email marketing tool from California-based SaaS developer Zoho, offers a generous free plan that includes premium features such as A/B testing, reports, and templates.
Users can create responsive email campaigns using ready-to-use email templates or the drag-and-drop editor. The software also helps you analyze email reports to better plan, execute, and manage future email campaigns.
Pros |
Cons |
|---|---|
| You can design your own templates. | The system is a little more involved than others, meaning it could take several hours to launch a campaign. |
| Integrates with other Zoho products such as Zoho CRM, as well as G Suite. | You can’t embed videos in your emails. |
Pricing Information |
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| Free plan: 12,000 emails per month for up to 2,000 subscribers. Paid plans: Start at $5 per month for unlimited emails to up to 500 subscribers. |
Listed pros and cons are derived from features listed on the product website and product user reviews on Gartner Digital Markets domains (Capterra, GetApp, and Software Advice). They do not represent the views of, nor constitute an endorsement by, Capterra or its affiliates.
Zoho Campaign’s social media campaign manager (Source)
The free email marketing software for your business
All of these email marketing software solutions offer their free users quality tools to build and execute their marketing strategy. You can also visit Capterra’s email marketing software directory to check out other options.
Methodology
Qualifying software solutions met the GDM market definition for email marketing software: Email marketing software helps users leverage their email channel to deliver and optimize marketing messages — such as brand newsletters or contextually relevant, real-time and personalized communications — in support of multi-channel engagement across the customer life cycle.
The provider also must offer a permanent, free software solution to customers. To make the list of best free email marketing software, the vendor must have a minimum of 150 total reviews on Capterra, and a minimum of 20 reviews on Capterra in the past six months.
