10 best email marketing software of 2024

Reading Time: 13 minutes

How we wrote these email marketing software reviews: We used testimonials and ratings from popular peer-to-peer review platforms G2 and Capterra to provide an objective overview and help you find the best email marketing platforms for your business.

With the right strategy and tools, email marketing can be an affordable and effective way to nurture and convert leads, delivering an average ROI of $36 for every $1 spent.

However, maximizing this potential requires compelling email content and the right platforms to execute the campaign successfully. When looking for the best email marketing platforms you should consider if they fit your unique requirements and optimize your workflow.

To assist you in making an informed decision, we’ve tested the top 10 tools for email marketing to understand their strengths and functionalities.

How to choose the best email marketing software

There are quite a few email service providers (ESPs) and CRMs available. This can make it rather difficult to determine which of these is the best fit for your business.

To help you decide, we analyzed the following factors in  email marketing software:

• Price: We considered various business sizes and needs, favoring email software that offer free-forever plans, free trials, or good bang for your buck
• Ease of use: It’s 2024, and you shouldn’t need technical skills to use email marketing software. We favored email software that both novice and experienced marketers can use with little to no difficulty
• Deliverability: It’s important that your emails land in your customers’ inboxes, so we gave higher priority to software with excellent email deliverability
• Integrations: You should be able to connect your tech stack with your email software, so the number and breadth of integrations is key
• Customer support: You should receive timely help when you need it, so we assessed customer support based on ratings given on review platforms

Best email marketing software: Comparison

Email marketing software	Best for	Free plan	Cheapest plan	Rating from users
Omnisend	Ecommerce stores of all sizes	✅	$16/month for 500 contacts	G2: 4.6 Capterra: 4.7
Moosend	New ecommerce stores	❌	$9/month for 500 contacts and unlimited emails	G2: 4.6 Capterra: 4.7
Drip	Extensive automations	❌	$39 for unlimited emails and 2,500 contacts	G2: 4.4 Capterra: 4.5
HubSpot	SaaS businesses	✅	$20/month/seat for 1,000 marketing contacts	G2: 4.4 Capterra: 4.5
Mailchimp	Solopreneurs and startups	✅	$13 for 5,000 emails and 500 contacts	G2: 4.3 Capterra: 4.5
MailerLite	Small ecommerce businesses	✅	$10/month for 500 subscribers and unlimited monthly emails	G2: 4.7 Capterra: 4.7
ActiveCampaign	Email marketing with built-in CRM integration	❌	$15/month for 500 marketing contacts	G2: 4.5 Capterra: 4.6
AWeber	Extensive library of email templates	✅	$14.99 for 3 users and unlimited subscribers	G2: 4.2 Capterra: 4.4
GetResponse	B2B businesses	❌	$19/month for 1,000 contacts	G2: 4.2 Capterra: 4.2
Brevo (formerly Sendinblue)	Businesses on a budget	✅	$25/month for 20,000 emails and unlimited contacts	G2: 4.5 Capterra: 4.5

Use our email pricing calculator below to quickly compare price rates and features with other top platforms. Input your desired number of contacts, choose up to two other email marketing providers from the list, and see how Omnisend stacks up against them.

Let’s explore the top email marketing platforms available today. We’ll highlight their unique features, benefits, and drawbacks to assist you in selecting the one that best fits your business needs.

1. Omnisend

Best for ecommerce stores of all sizes.

G2 rating: 4.6

Capterra rating: 4.7

Omnisend proves that a quality marketing tool doesn’t have to break the bank.

Omnisend is an email and SMS marketing software designed specifically for  ecommerce stores to build customer loyalty and generate more sales. With one-click integration with Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce and more, you can seamlessly sync your data and start designing campaigns.

Omnisend is a powerful platform with a suite of features designed to enhance your email marketing’s return on investment — even on the free plan. If you need to send more than 500 emails each month, Omnisend offers affordable paid plans starting at just $16 per month.

Get access to a large library of modern templates, automatically incorporating your store’s branding for quick and easy email customization.

Omnisend’s capabilities extend beyond email, covering the entire on-site marketing funnel. It includes tools for collecting subscribers via popups and landing pages, and automated workflows like abandoned cart triggers or welcome messages to increase sales in less time.

Key features

• Email template library with 250+ templates for newsletters
• Intuitive drag-and-drop builder for easy email template design and editing
• Integrations with major ecommerce platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, and Magento as well as with Zapier for custom integrations via API
• Reports for campaign performance and automation results, featuring click-map reports, open rates, click-through rates, and sales data
• Automatic integration of your store’s branding on your email and popup templates
• Customizable and TCPA and GDPR-compliant forms for capturing visitor contact details, along with popups and landing pages
• Flexible segmentation for better customer targeting and personalized communication
• AI-assisted customer lifecycle segmentation for increased customer lifetime value

Why choose Omnisend?

Omnisend simplifies the process for ecommerce brands to attract and retain customers with high-converting email, popup, workflow, and segmentation templates. Plus, it’s consistently 40% cheaper than other leading ESPs, offering merchants a much higher ROI.

This could be why it’s a top-rated email marketing system, boasting more than 5,100+ five-star reviews on Shopify and a 4.1 rating on EmailTooltester.

Pros and cons

Pros

✅ Award-winning 24/7 support

✅ Full-featured ecommerce email marketing

✅ High level of customization and easy-to-use interface

✅ Excellent deliverability

✅ Extensive integrations

Cons

❌ Free plan is limited to 500 emails/month

❌ Features are tailored to ecommerce

Pricing

A free plan allows you to send up to 500 emails per month and access most of the advanced features available to paid plan users.

What’s more, Omnisend provides round-the-clock email and live chat support — even on the free plan.

• Standard: $16/month
• Pro: $59/month

Try Omnisend for free.

2. Moosend

Best for new ecommerce stores.

G2 rating: 4.6

Capterra rating: 4.7

Moosend is a newer email marketing software that many consider cheap and effective. It’s a good platform for new ecommerce stores becoming familiar with email marketing and offers tools for improving performance, such as the ecommerce AI.

When testing Moosend, we found the user interface to be clean and intuitive. The campaign editor makes it simple to design professional emails, even for those without technical skills.

The template library offers a good variety, and customizing these templates is straightforward. We particularly appreciated the real-time reporting, which provides instant insights into campaign performance.

Key features

• Campaign editor for creating professional-looking emails
• Forms and popups for building your email list
• Real-time reporting, analytics, and customer insights
• Email personalization features for better customer targeting
• Ecommerce AI tool that provides suggestions to improve email marketing performance

Pros and cons

Pros

✅ Very affordable pricing

✅ Easily customizable templates

Cons

❌ Small number of integrations

❌ Not great for established or advanced marketers

Why choose Moosend?

Moosend offers one of the most affordable entries into email marketing. Consider this platform if you’re a new ecommerce business.

Pricing

Although no free plan is available, Moosend offers a 30-day free trial to try out the features. For 500 subscribers, pricing is as follows:

• Pro: $9/month
• Enterprise: Custom pricing

3. Drip

Best for extensive automations.

G2 rating: 4.4

Capterra rating: 4.5

Drip is well-known for having great automation workflows that can be combined with segmentation. This integration allows you to better target your customers and send them relevant messages at the right time.

Drip offers 16 workflow templates that encompass the entire customer journey. They’re easy to customize, and with list targeting and segmentation, you can create more personalized experiences for various customer groups.

The email builder is user-friendly, although it could benefit from enhanced drag-and-drop functionality.

Key features

• Simple yet powerful customer journey automation workflows
• Email builder for creating on-brand emails
• A/B testing to identify effective strategies
• Audience and list segmentation

Pros and cons

Pros

✅ Easy to set up and use automated workflows

✅ Very good customer support

Cons

❌ Lacks some drag-and-drop features for designing templates

❌ Limited ecommerce integrations

Why choose Drip?

Drip offers a range of ready-made templates to help you improve your email marketing automation.

Pricing

No free plan is available. Drip’s pricing is based exclusively on the size of your subscriber list and send volume.

There’s no lower-cost option tailored for businesses with small subscriber lists. Pricing starts at $39 per month for up to 2,500 contacts and scales from there.

4. HubSpot

Best for SaaS businesses.

G2 rating: 4.4

Capterra rating: 4.5

HubSpot is all-encompassing, equipped with a multitude of features to support your marketing, sales, affiliates, and creative teams. For that reason, we find that it’s best suited for larger companies, especially SaaS businesses.

HubSpot impresses with strong deliverability, native integrations, and a host of popular marketing and sales tools. The platform offers intuitive A/B testing for content and template designs, along with powerful segmentation and personalization features that enable highly targeted campaigns.

However, the sheer number of features may be overwhelming for small-to-medium businesses.

Key features

• Easy-to-use email editor and well-designed templates to adapt to your brand
• Native integration with HubSpot’s free CRM to enhance sales outreach and customer communications
• A/B testing for different content and template designs
• Robust landing page editor for quickly creating campaign-specific pages
• Powerful segmentation and personalization to extend customer LTV

Pros and cons

Pros

✅ Ability to collect data on more of your marketing efforts

✅ Easy lead generation

Cons

❌ Can be overwhelming for small or medium businesses

❌ Gets expensive quickly

Why choose HubSpot?

If you have a SaaS business, HubSpot can help you streamline customer management. Plus, you can integrate extra customer support features such as live chat and chatbots.

Pricing

There’s a free plan for generating email leads for up to five users. The paid plans are as follows:

• Starter: $20/month/seat for up to 1,000 contacts
• Professional: $890/month for up to 2,000 marketing contacts
• Enterprise: $3,600/month for up to 10,000 contacts

5. Mailchimp

Best for solopreneurs and startups.

G2 rating: 4.3

Capterra rating: 4.5

Mailchimp is one of the most popular email marketing platforms for good reason. It’s user-friendly and effectively supports communication for businesses of all types.

Due to its focus on budding businesses and entrepreneurs, this email marketing software doesn’t offer as many advanced features as other tools on this list. As a result, many brands often look for Mailchimp alternatives as they grow.

Key features

• Content optimizer with suggestions for more engaging emails
• Great reporting features for tracking email campaign efficiency
• Advanced automation for sending triggered emails
• Segmentation tools to better target customers

Pros and cons

Pros

✅ A generous free plan

✅ Easy-to-use interface for building campaigns

Cons

❌ Gets expensive for larger contact lists

❌ Not for established or advanced marketing

Why choose Mailchimp?

Mailchimp is one of the easiest email marketing platforms for startup businesses. It helps beginners grasp the essentials of email marketing and effective practices.

However, once you’re established, you might find the need for a more robust email marketing software.

Pricing

A free plan is available. For up to 500 contacts, the pricing is as follows:

• Essentials: $13/month
• Standard: $20/month
• Premium: $350/month

6. MailerLite

Best for small ecommerce businesses.

G2 rating: 4.7 

Capterra rating: 4.7

MailerLite has earned a reputation over the years as one of the best email marketing platforms for small businesses. Its intuitive interface gives small ecommerce businesses more time to focus on other areas.

It’s one of the free email marketing platforms with essential features that are useful even for established brands, although it may lack more advanced features for larger teams.

We enjoyed features such as the website builder and surveys, which can help small businesses innovate and stay competitive.

Key features

• Website builder to help you create landing pages without the need for separate apps
• Pre-built workflows to automate your marketing campaigns
• Email verifier to clean and optimize your subscriber list for better deliverability
• Drag-and-drop interface for quickly and easily designing emails
• Wide selection of email templates

Pros and cons

Pros

✅ Easy and simple to use

✅ A good number of email templates

Cons

❌ Not many integrations

❌ Can take a while to set up an account

Why choose MailerLite?

MailerLite isn’t just easy to use — it’s simple enough for small teams or solopreneurs to effectively manage essential email marketing with no problems.

Pricing

A free plan is available. For up to 500 subscribers, pricing is as follows:

• Growing Business: $10/month
• Advanced: $20/month
• Enterprise: Custom pricing

7. ActiveCampaign

Best for email marketing with built-in CRM integration.

G2 rating: 4.5

Capterra rating: 4.6 

Like HubSpot, ActiveCampaign boasts a built-in CRM, including sales automation. The Sales Suite includes contact lead scoring and SMS prospect nurturing.

For brands needing these features, ActiveCampaign serves as a powerful workhorse that could eliminate the need for subscriptions to other sales tools. However, it’s best suited for larger businesses that have more comprehensive processes and bigger budgets.

This tool also offers special pricing options tailored for non-profit entities.

Key features

• Easy-to-use automation workflows with a simple drag-and-drop interface
• Triggers to notify sales teams, create new tasks, and automate lead nurturing
• Segmentation options that allow you to personalize your messages
• Lead scoring to assess how contacts interact with your business and the potential for conversions
• Integration with SMS, Facebook Custom Audiences, and on-site messaging to augment your email marketing

Pros and cons

Pros

✅ Strong automation features

✅ Friendly and responsive customer support

Cons

❌ Lite plan is limited (and requires Lite+ upcharge)

❌ Gets expensive quickly (with big price jumps due to contact size)

Why choose ActiveCampaign?

If you use CRM and email marketing software separately, ActiveCampaign offers the best of both these features in one tool.

Pricing

No free plan is available, but there is a 14-day free trial. Paid plans are as follows:

• Lite: $15/month
• Plus: $70/month
• Professional: $187/month
• Enterprise: $323/month

8. AWeber

Best for an extensive library of email templates.

G2 rating: 4.2

Capterra rating: 4.4

AWeber is one of the top email marketing platforms for creating professional and on-brand emails. Its email editor integrates well with the popular graphic design tool Canva.

AWeber also has an extensive library of email templates to help you get started more quickly. Beyond that, it has excellent deliverability, ensuring that your emails reliably reach your customers’ inboxes.

Key features:

• Drag-and-drop email editor with 600+ pre-built email templates
• Landing page editor for easily creating campaign-specific pages
• Email segmentation to target specific customer groups
• Automated email campaigns to win back abandoned carts or welcome subscribers
• Web push notifications for more ways to reach your shoppers

Pros and cons

Pros

✅ Large library of email templates

✅ Web push notifications

Cons

❌ Free plan has limited features

❌ Segmentation options are limited until the higher plans

Why choose AWeber?

AWeber has wide-ranging features. If you genuinely value extensive options for email templates, this might be the email marketing system for you.

Pricing

A free plan is available. For 500 subscribers, paid plans are as follows:

• Lite: $14.99/month
• Plus: $29.99/month
• Unlimited: $899/month

9. GetResponse

Best for startups and SMBs.

G2 rating: 4.2

Capterra rating: 4.2

GetResponse has a lot to offer, especially with its inbound marketing features. These features, combined with affordable pricing plans, make it best suited for startups and small businesses.

The impressive visual automation builder allows you to easily create custom automated workflows. Its pre-built email templates and product recommendations also make it a great overall email marketing software.

Key features

• Email and SMS marketing to reach customers in more ways
• Smart product recommendations to encourage upsells and cross-sells
• Behavioral targeting for more personalized messaging
• Wide-range of useful ecommerce integrations
• Website and landing page builders to acquire and engage visitors

Pros and cons

Pros

✅ Excellent, affordable marketing automation

✅ Live chat and webinar capabilities

Cons

❌ Imperfect drag-and-drop for landing pages and forms

❌ Limited customer support

Why choose GetResponse?

GetResponse offers a comprehensive email and SMS marketing suite, but it would best suit startups and small businesses focused on inbound marketing.

Pricing

GetResponse provides a free trial for 30 days. For up to 1,000 contacts, paid plans are as follows:

• Email Marketing: $19/month
• Marketing Automation: $59/month
• Ecommerce Marketing: $119/month
• GetResponse MAX: $1,099/month

10. Brevo

Best for businesses on a budget.

G2 rating: 4.5

Capterra rating: 4.5

Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) is one of the email marketing automation tools that can integrate email and SMS marketing to boost your conversions. Its most impressive feature might be its affordability, as it offers 20,000 emails for just $25 per month.

However, we found a catch. It costs an extra $12 per month to remove the Brevo logo and use certain features, such as A/B testing and heat maps. Nevertheless, for small businesses on a tight budget, even the basic plan can get the job done.

Key features

• Integrated email and SMS marketing to reach more customers
• Easy-to-customize email templates
• User-friendly drag-and-drop editor that requires no technical knowledge
• 60+ advanced integrations
• Insightful reporting and subscriber analytics

Pros and Cons

Pros

✅ Easy-to-use email marketing

✅ A good variety of email templates

Cons

❌ Limited email layout options

❌ Limited customer support

Why choose Brevo?

If you’re eager to get started with an email marketing platform but have a limited budget, Brevo offers a good suite of features for a reasonable price.

Pricing

A free plan is available for 300 emails per day. For 20,000 emails or more per month, paid plans are as follows:

• Starter: $25/month
• Business: $65/month
• Enterprise: Custom pricing

Methodology: how we chose the best email marketing platforms

To assess the quality and suitability of the email marketing software listed here, we analyzed reviews on independent platforms that mentioned the various tools’ features, channels and integrations, reputation, price, customer support, and limitations.

We favored apps that have high ratings (4.5 and above) on independent review sites, offer free plans, and have strong customer support reviews. We also personally evaluated the ease of use of these tools and noted that in the reviews.

Honorable mentions

While we reviewed a significant number of email marketing tools, we couldn’t cover them all. To keep this guide laser-focused on the top email marketing software for various business needs, we had to leave out some apps that still deserve a mention.

Some of the tools we analyzed that didn’t make the list include:

• Klaviyo
• Campaign Monitor
• Ontraport
• TotalSend
• SharpSpring
• Ortto (Autopilot)
• Rejoiner
• InfusionSoft (Keap)
• Marketo
• Eloqua
• Pardot by Salesforce
• iContact
• Emma
• MailPoet
• Sendloop

Best email marketing software: summary

Once again, here are the best tools for email marketing based on reviews from trusted platforms:

• Omnisend: great for ecommerce businesses focused on increasing sales
• Mailchimp: an easy-to-use tool if you’re just starting out
• Drip: an extensive library of automation workflows
• HubSpot: best for SaaS businesses
• MailerLite: simplified email marketing for small ecommerce stores
• ActiveCampaign: best for both email marketing and CRM
• Moosend: an affordable email marketing tool for new ecommerce stores
• AWeber: offers lots of ready-made email templates
• GetResponse: email marketing that works best for startups and SMBs
• Brevo: an affordable option for budget-conscious businesses

FAQ

For more info, review the FAQ below for answers to common questions about email marketing:

1. What is email marketing software?

Email marketing software is a tool that helps businesses manage and automate email campaigns. It allows you to build email lists, segment your audience, design professional newsletters, and track results.  

2. How do you choose an email service provider?

Choosing an email service provider depends on your needs. Consider factors like list size, budget, desired features, and ease of use. Popular email service provider options include: 

• Omnisend
• Moosend
• Drip
• HubSpot
• Mailchimp
• MailerLite
• ActiveCampaign
• AWeber
• GetResponse
• Brevo

For a more detailed look at how to choose a provider, download our free guide.

3. Is email marketing software the same as CRM?

Email marketing is different from CRM. CRM software is all about managing customer relationships through contact management and lead scoring for sales teams.

On the other hand, email marketing software focuses on communication through email. It helps you to build subscriber lists, design and send email campaigns, and track performance.

4. Which are the best tools for email marketing automation?

Choosing the best email marketing automation tool depends on your specific needs and budget. Some factors to consider include the size of your contact list, the level of automation you require, industry, and budget. 

Some of the email marketing software with strong automation capabilities include:

• Omnisend
• Drip
• MailerLite
• Moosend    

5. Which email marketing tools are free?

Several free email marketing tools are available to jumpstart your campaigns. Some of the popular ones include:

• Omnisend
• HubSpot
• Mailchimp
• MailerLite
• AWeber
• Brevo

6. Which email marketing software uses AI?

The best email marketing software programs that use AI are Mailchimp, Omnisend, and Brevo. They offer AI-assisted features like personalized content recommendations, predictive analytics to optimize campaign performance, and automated customer segmentation for targeted messaging.

7. How to get started with email marketing software?

Getting started with email marketing is easier than you think. Here are some resources to help you:

• How to make an email marketing strategy
• Email marketing 101: Beginner’s guide to building successful campaigns
• 20+ email marketing best practices by category [+examples]
• Email marketing automation: Explanation, strategies, & tools
• Email marketing cost: The definitive guide for 2024