Overview
- Jump To Details
![HubSpot]()
HubSpot
Best Overall - Jump To Details
![Klaviyo]()
Klaviyo
Best for Robust Reporting and Analytics - Jump To Details
![Campaigner]()
Campaigner
Best for Experienced Marketers - Jump To Details
![Mailchimp]()
Mailchimp
Best for Marketing With E-Commerce - Jump To Details
![Brevo]()
Brevo
Best for Small Business Marketing Automation - Jump To Details
![iContact]()
iContact
Best for Beginners - Jump To Details
![Zoho Campaigns]()
Zoho Campaigns
Best for Existing Zoho Customers - Jump To Details
![Campaign Monitor]()
Campaign Monitor
Best for Basic Campaigns and Newsletters - Jump To Details
![Constant Contact]()
Constant Contact
Best for Small Audience Marketing - Jump To Details
![GetResponse]()
GetResponse
Best for SMB Automation - Jump To Details
![Omnisend]()
Omnisend
Best for Beginners with Limited Resources
Even with the wealth of distribution channels available today, email remains a cornerstone of digital marketing strategies. Whether you're deploying direct promotional campaigns, distributing newsletters, extending special offers, or gathering survey data, email is a proven way to boost engagement, drive new customer acquisition, and improve retention rates. However, effective email marketing requires more than just a mailing list. Organizations also need tools to automate delivery, create compelling emails and campaigns, and track metrics. PCMag has been testing leading email marketing platforms for a decade, evaluating their capabilities, ease of use, effectiveness, and more. Our Editors' Choice winners—including Brevo, Campaigner, HubSpot, and Mailchimp—represent your current best bets. Read on for all our top picks, links to our in-depth reviews of each, and buying advice to help you choose the right email marketing solution for your business.
You Can Trust Our Reviews
Deeper Dive: Our Top Tested Picks
![HubSpot]()
HubSpot
Best OverallWhy We Picked It
More than just an email marketing tool, HubSpot Marketing Hub is a comprehensive martech platform that integrates most of the features marketers at small to midsize businesses need. In that sense, it's competitive with enterprise-grade products like Salesforce. Because of its integrated nature, its focus is increasingly on tracking and optimizing the entire customer journey, not just the email experience.
Who It's For
If you're happy with your current CRM and related sales tools, choosing HubSpot as your email marketing tool will probably be overkill. If, on the other hand, you're looking for a single solution that integrates CRM, email, and other features, HubSpot has a lot to offer. Just be aware that the price won't be cheap, and the rich feature set means you might confront a steep learning curve.
Pros
- CRM integration included
- Vast selection of social media management options
- Stellar marketing automation
- Offers integrations with other HubSpot solutions
Cons
- Confusing and expensive pricing tiers
- Steep learning curve
Learn MoreHubSpot Review![Klaviyo]()
Klaviyo
Best for Robust Reporting and AnalyticsWhy We Picked It
Klaviyo is a full-featured platform for email marketers focused on sales. In addition to its robust e-commerce features, the company offers targeted solutions for the retail, wellness, and restaurant industries. Klaviyo provides a comprehensive feature set out of the box, and it supports a wide range of integrations with third-party software to enhance your campaigns. What's more, it has some of the best reporting and analytics capabilities of any email marketing tool we've tested.
Who It's For
If your sales team already has experience with email marketing, they'll likely be impressed by Klaviyo's rich feature set. If, on the other hand, you're just getting your feet wet with this form of marketing, you could find yourself at a loss as to how to take the best advantage of the service's many options. Klaviyo's lack of phone support could make it difficult to quickly resolve issues, but its responsive email and live chat support may suffice for many businesses.
Pros
- Excellent reporting tools
- Exhaustive list of templates for all core features
- Visually oriented for ease of use
Cons
- Somewhat limited customer support options
- Requires email marketing proficiency to be most effective
Learn MoreKlaviyo Review![Campaigner]()
Campaigner
Best for Experienced MarketersWhy We Picked It
Campaigner is a highly customizable email marketing solution that offers a wide range of features at a competitive price. It integrates with an impressive menu of third-party software, and it features a powerful workflow designer. It's also easier to use than some of its competitors.
Who It's For
You can't go wrong with Campaigner for your email campaigns. However, if your business is midsize or larger, and you need an email marketing system that can scale to mass-marketing campaigns targeting large email lists, Campaigner may just be your best bet. If, on the other hand, your operations are not yet so ambitious and you want a system that integrates more general-purpose marketing automation tools, you may want to look elsewhere.
(Editors' Note: Campaigner is owned by Ziff Davis, PCMag's parent company.)
Pros
- Productivity-focused UI
- Versatile templates and options
- Comprehensive online resources and onboarding
- Useful automation tools
- 24/7 support
Cons
- Lacks a free version
- Complex and unintuitive workflow automation
Learn MoreCampaigner Review![Mailchimp]()
Mailchimp
Best for Marketing With E-CommerceWhy We Picked It
A longtime player in the email marketing space, Mailchimp has steadily improved its product to meet the demands of its large customer space. While its core focus remains email, it has integrated CRM and even website-building features into its recent releases, all without compromising its consistent, comfortable UI.
Who It's For
If you're looking for a market-leading email marketing solution, there's no denying that Mailchimp has long occupied that position. Although it's been steadily adding other marketing features, the new tools aren't as fully baked as those in some competitors' offerings. If it's a comprehensive digital marketing package you're looking for, consider other options.
Pros
- Full marketing hub
- Extremely easy to use
- Convenient email templates and helpful reports
- Improved AI recommendations and automation
- Optional web hosting plans
- Respectable free tier
Cons
- Lower pricing tiers offer fewer features than before
- Relatively expensive
Learn MoreMailchimp Review![Brevo]()
Brevo
Best for Small Business Marketing AutomationWhy We Picked It
Since leaving behind its former Sendinblue branding, Brevo has evolved from a basic email marketing package to a more comprehensive marketing hub. It includes built-in CRM features and advanced automation capabilities, plus a broad portfolio of integrations with third-party software. It also features an attractive price that's sure to turn heads.
Who It's For
Small to midsize businesses looking to get started with email marketing will find a good partner in Brevo. You won't get the same feature set as some of the more costly entries in our roundup, but you'll save money. Brevo is rapidly expanding its service, so you might be surprised at what it delivers in terms of upgrades once you're onboard. Be aware, though, that it primarily targets small to midsize businesses, so it might not fully meet the needs of enterprises.
Pros
- Simple and easy to use
- Great email builder and template customization
- SMS and WhatsApp marketing support
- Good range of automation and integrations
- Free tier
Cons
- Limited landing pages
- Some features use credits and cost extra
- Occasionally lethargic loading
- Some finicky data importing
Learn MoreBrevo Review![iContact]()
iContact
Best for BeginnersWhy We Picked It
iContact is a full-featured email marketing system that caters to beginners. AI-powered content and subject-line generation features complement a friendly, drag-and-drop email creation tool. iContact has a strong anti-spam policy and uses filters to help customers avoid any pitfalls. Additionally, an open API, a library of prebuilt integrations, and Zapier support make connecting the software with other business systems a snap.
Who It's For
Newcomers to email marketing should consider iContact. Its AI-powered content generation tools can help kick off your campaigns with the language and tone that will best connect with your prospects, while others can help you avoid issues with spam filters and regulations. Just keep in mind that iContact lacks much built-in CRM functionality; you need to connect another product to get those features.
Pros
- Highly accessible for beginners
- Wide variety of email-building tools and resources
- Useful metrics
- Helpful anti-spam controls
- Appealing interface
Cons
- Limited CRM functionality
- Few automation and landing page offerings in Standard plan
- No longer offers forever-free plan
Learn MoreiContact Review![Zoho Campaigns]()
Zoho Campaigns
Best for Existing Zoho CustomersWhy We Picked It
Zoho offers an entire portfolio of business software, and the various elements of the suite are tightly integrated. In the case of Campaigns, its integration with Zoho CRM will be especially attractive. This integrated approach also makes Zoho a good choice for businesses looking to replace a disparate collection of legacy software, and for early-stage companies looking to quickly get up and running. In addition, Zoho also provides a wealth of education and help resources, plus 24/7 phone support.
Who It's For
If the concept of an integrated suite of business applications with a consistent, well-designed UI appeals to you, Zoho should definitely be on your radar. You'll have the additional benefit of a single source of support across multiple teams. However, if a standalone email marketing system is what you're looking for, and you don't need the other applications Zoho supplies, we have a hard time recommending Zoho Campaigns at its price.
Pros
- Well-designed campaign and marketing tools
- Convenient integration with Zoho services
- Outstanding reports feature
Cons
- Some dated template designs
- Initial setup takes time
- Could be costly for some SMBs
Learn MoreZoho Campaigns Review![Campaign Monitor]()
Campaign Monitor
Best for Basic Campaigns and NewslettersWhy We Picked It
Campaign Monitor is a no-frills email marketing system with an attractive UI. It doesn't try to be a complete marketing automation solution or integrate CRM capabilities, like some others in this roundup. You can compose emails, set up campaigns, and track your progress—and that's about it. That said, Campaign Monitor will let you get the job done, even if you don't have previous experience with email marketing.
Who It's For
Campaign Monitor doesn't have all the bells and whistles of more full-featured competitors, but that could end up being its appeal for small organizations just getting started with email marketing. It quickly gets you up and running, and delivers most of the tools to run basic email campaigns. Just don't expect it to grow with your more sophisticated marketing ambitions.
Pros
- Versatile email templates
- Easy-to-use WYSIWYG interface
- Simple automation tool
- Good SMB analytics
Cons
- Difficult contact importing when matching custom fields
- Importing HTML templates doesn't always work
- Lacks live support chat
- Phone support isn't available with every tier
Learn MoreCampaign Monitor Review![Constant Contact]()
Constant Contact
Best for Small Audience MarketingWhy We Picked It
With its focus squarely on email marketing for small businesses, including SMS and social media marketing. It's easy to use, includes some basic marketing automation tools, and it has added integrations with third-party software, such as CRMs and e-commerce systems. Another useful tool is its Spaminator, which helps ensure your emails don't land in recipients' spam boxes.
Who It's For
Companies that are just getting started as e-commerce retailers should find Constant Contact offers the basics of what they need. Its UI is intuitive and elegant, and its integrations make it easy to start working with existing contact lists and plug into e-commerce systems. Be aware, however, that it can be expensive if your contact lists are very long, and competitors do a better job with complex campaigns.
Pros
- Intuitive and elegant UI
- Wide range of third-party integrations
- Superior email deliverability rate
Cons
- Templates don't offer much flexibility
- Relatively expensive if you have thousands of contacts
- Lacks multi-channel automation
Learn MoreConstant Contact Review![GetResponse]()
GetResponse
Best for SMB AutomationWhy We Picked It
GetResponse provides tools for both traditional email marketing and marketing automation. It offers a copious menu of pre-built email templates, while a drag-and-drop editor makes it easy to keep branding consistent across campaigns. A generative AI feature even helps you brainstorm email subject lines and text. Premium plans unlock sophisticated marketing automation tools, including drip campaigns, event-based automation, split automation, visited URL automation, and more.
Who It's For
If you're looking for an email marketing platform with an attractive interface and decent marketing automation features, GetResponse deserves your attention. It provides prompt 24/7 support via email and chat, too. Just keep in mind that the exact set of features you get depends on the plan you choose.
Pros
- Competitive pricing
- Saved blocks in email builder universalize branding
- Interactive tutorial built into automation tool
- Responsive live chat and email support
Cons
- Segmentation tools are somewhat limited
- Reporting tool is insufficient for in-depth analysis
- Several fundamental features require upgraded plans
Learn MoreGetResponse Review![Omnisend]()
Omnisend
Best for Beginners with Limited ResourcesWhy We Picked It
Omnisend is an affordable, full-featured email marketing system that even inexperienced marketers will find simple to use. It has a clean, uncomplicated UI and offers a robust collection of prebuilt templates for email messages and step-by-step automations to get you started. It also integrates with SMS messaging to let you run multi-channel campaigns.
Who It's For
Email marketing novices will appreciate Omnisend's emphasis on templates for rapid campaign development. It's also a good choice if you plan to make heavy use of SMS. However, more experienced marketers may notice some limitations. For example, Omnisend's reporting and analytics capabilities are not as rich as some competing products. Be aware, also, that SMS messaging incurs additional monthly fees that can prove costly depending on the volume you send.
Pros
- High-quality newsletter templates and email builder
- User-friendly tools for small and midsize marketers
- Excellent customer support
- Affordable plans
Cons
- SMS costs can quickly add up
- Comparatively weak analytics and automation
Learn MoreOmnisend Review
Buying Guide: The Best Email Marketing Software for 2024
What Is Email Marketing Software?
Email marketing software can manage your contact lists, help you design and send compelling emails, and track whether the recipients opened and read them. Options range from text-based templates that marketers can quickly customize to more complex HTML or JavaScript ones. The good news is that it doesn't cost much to get started, nor is it an arduous undertaking. Many of the solutions in this roundup offer free trials and affordable starter plans, and some even provide onboarding services for new customers.
Email marketing can take several forms. For example, some businesses might decide that their most effective marketing tactic is a newsletter delivered to a gated subscriber community. Others might want to tie their emails directly to their product and sales engines so that they can provide special offers and deals to recipients.
Each approach requires different tools for creating and getting the source email out. Email marketing tools can also help you segment your subscribers by demographics and engagement levels. And you'll probably want to integrate them with other back-end accounting and customer relationship management (CRM), and inventory management systems.
Does Email Marketing Still Work in 2024?
There's some perception in the market that email is becoming outdated in light of new channels such as chat, SMS, social media, web landing pages, and even the metaverse. That's true to some extent—and modern, multi-channel marketing campaigns should undoubtedly take advantage of as many of these channels as possible—but that's no reason to ignore email.
According to market research firm Statista, email usage is still virtually ubiquitous. According to the company's estimates, around 360 billion emails will be sent and received daily throughout 2024. It expects that figure to grow to more than 400 billion by 2027.
What Does Email Marketing Cost?
The good news is that the cost to reach prospective customers via email is generally low, while the profit potential is high.
Many email marketing plans include unlimited emails per month and bill you based on subscriber numbers. If you have a small list, look for a free plan, a low-cost plan that supports several hundred subscribers, or even a pay-as-you-go plan. On the flip side, many of these services also offer high-volume plans with 100,000 or more contacts.
As a result, the prices of email marketing contenders we review here vary widely. They start at about $3 per month (paid annually) to send out 500 emails per month in Zoho Campaigns and can go way up from there. Occasionally, it might even make sense to negotiate a custom plan directly with a sales rep.
How to Get Started With Email Marketing
Getting up and running with email marketing software isn't difficult. Generally, you'll know right away whether you like a product's user interface (UI) or not. Most of the services we reviewed offer free trials, so you can poke around before dropping any cash. The majority have modern graphics and uncluttered layouts. These are not the complex business software UIs of yesterday.
Be sure to look at how a vendor provides tech support, too, since several vendors don't make support as available as we prefer. Some offer 24/7 phone support, email help, and live chat, while others leave you to rely on online documentation and limited live support hours. The best services offer a combination of self-serve help resources (such as FAQs and articles) and live support via chat or phone when you can't solve an issue yourself.
Finally, consider any regulatory compliance issues. For example, if you plan to market to customers in Europe, make sure that your software can help you with GDPR compliance. In the US, on the other hand, HIPAA mandates how you can use certain protected health information in your campaigns, while other laws govern how you can market to minors. Consult with your potential vendor to ensure it can help you with the regulations that apply to your organization.
Does Email Marketing Work With Mobile Devices?
One significant change in email marketing has been increased engagement on mobile devices rather than PCs. Mobile users access email throughout the day and wherever they are. Thanks to payment services like Apple Pay and Google Pay, smartphones have also evolved as e-commerce tools. This can make mobile email a one-stop shop that lets customers go from marketing to purchasing in a single session.
The growing importance of mobile means you should pay special attention to the email designer and analytics sections of any email marketing service. The designer should be able to preview how your email looks in a responsive format, meaning the HTML correctly sizes images and other elements depending on the viewing device.
You should also be able to segment your audience based on mobile device data. Some tools might force you to create custom reports to see this data, which means you may have to export it to a third-party business intelligence (BI) tool.
Can Email Marketing Integrate With Other Software?
Another modern trend in email marketing tools is integration with other systems, most notably CRM and e-commerce tools. Some of the more advanced email marketing services have even begun to resemble CRM systems. It makes sense because both types of software deal with managing and communicating with customers.
One tactic marketers increasingly use to build trust in their email messages is incorporating user-generated content (UGC). For example, an email might include a customer review of a product, like those you'd find on e-commerce sites like Amazon. UGC can also draw from other channels, including online forums and social media.
How Does Email Marketing Use AI?
Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a big part of many digital marketing efforts, and email is no exception. AI improves email marketing mechanics such as A/B testing and audience segmentation. Depending on how much information you can feed from your CRM and sales systems, it can also help personalize email content to individual customers.
With the correct data, AI can select content, modify customer experiences on the fly, and even interact directly with customers via a natural-language chatbot. If any of that sounds attractive, you must look closely at how a prospective email marketing service implements AI and what kinds of features it offers.
Another area where AI can help is with the marketing automation capabilities that most email suites offer to some degree. Automation technology is most suitable for prolonged, email-based interactions or drip campaigns. An important aspect of this is tracking the customer journey and the various touchpoints customers face from initial contact to closing the sale.
How Can You Customize Email Campaigns?
The best email marketing services offer custom autoresponders. These help you stay in touch with your contacts by automatically generating emails based on special occasions (such as a customer's anniversary, birthday, or past purchases), welcome emails for new subscribers, or thank-you emails for recent purchases, to give some examples.
The most advanced email marketing services offer custom workflows to specify triggers based on actions (such as opening an email or making a purchase) or inaction (such as ignoring emails). With these services, you can also set up a series of emails (such as tutorials) to send to segments of users, and you can pause or stop a campaign at any time. You can also move contacts into new segments once they complete their tutorials.
This level of customization can get very complex, so it's important not to get overwhelmed at the start. Building a map to help automate your email marketing starts with what you want to tell customers, when you want to say it, and why. Follow that plan, and you'll quickly build a journey that might start with a welcome email post-purchase and gradually drill down to more targeted offers as your relationship with that customer grows.
How to Solidify Your Email Marketing Strategy
Sending out campaigns isn't much help unless you can track your successes and failures and quickly make adjustments. All the services in this roundup offer some level of tracking, whether it's simple open and click-rate data, color-coded charts and statistics, or even integration with Google Analytics. Once you've got some data on your campaign, you can tweak your content to see what works using features like A/B testing, in which one part of your audience receives an email built one way while another gets a different version.
In addition to A/B testing, many services now offer multivariate testing, which involves using multiple variations of an entire campaign to test which one performs best. Search engine optimization (SEO) is another important factor for content and landing pages. The right keywords can directly lead your subscribers from their email platform onto your website.
