Best Email Marketing Software and Services for 2020

Constant Contact Pricing

Constant Contact has two plans, Email and Email Plus, that can fit into the budgets of most small businesses. Additionally, Constant Contact offers a 60-day free trial.  

Both plans have everything you need to create professional email campaigns. With each plan, you can send unlimited emails. Each plan comes with customizable templates, contact management and list-building tools, pop-up forms, tracking and reporting features, an image library and a mobile app.

The difference between the two plans is that Email Plus offers dynamic signup forms, 2GB of file storage, access for up to 10 users, email automation, event marketing, online donations, plus surveys and coupons. Here's more that you should know about Constant Contact's pricing:

• The prices for both plans are based on list size. If you prepay for six months, you receive a 10% discount; if you prepay for 12 months, you get a 15% discount. Additional discounts are available for nonprofits. Special plans are available for franchises and associations.
  
  
• Prices for the Email plan start at $20 per month for up to 500 subscribers and $65 per month for up to 5,000 contacts. The most expensive package is $335, which supports 50,000 contacts.
  
  
• The cheapest package for the Email Plus plan starts at $45 per month, and you can send emails up to 500 contacts. For 2,500 contacts, the cost is $70 per month. The most expensive package is $335 for 50,000 contacts.
  
  
• If you have more than 50,000 subscribers, you need to reach out to Constant Contact for a price quote.
  
  
• If your contact list changes from one billing cycle to the next, Constant Contact will automatically adjust your fee.
  
  
• The 60-day free trial includes all of Constant Contact's tools, including templates, images, an email editor, contact management, reporting and live support. But, you can only send emails to 100 contacts or less.

Constant Contact Features

Constant Contact has an array of tools that make it easy to create eye-catching, appealing email marketing campaigns. Here's what we liked about Constant Contact.

A/B Split Testing

With Constant Contact's A/B testing feature, you create two different subject lines that are each sent to a portion of your contact list. The software determines the better-performing subject line and automatically sends the winner to the rest of your audience.

Autoresponders

With Constant Contact's autoresponders, you can create a series of personalized, automated emails that will be sent automatically based on certain triggers. You can automate emails such as welcome messages to new subscribers, and birthday and anniversary emails to existing customers.

Deliverability

Constant Contact boasts a 97% deliverability rate. The company also offers resources on its website where you can learn about email best practices and phrases that may trigger spam filters.

Email Editor

When you click "Create Email," you have the choice to add your website. If you select that option, Constant Contact scrubs your website to find your brand's colors, logo and social media accounts, then adding them to the email. Next, you pick a template and edit it using the drag-and-drop tools. If you aren't sure how to use the email editor, a video automatically plays when you're in the editor for the first time. When we used Constant Contact's email editor, we created and sent an email in less than 10 minutes. The emails we sent hit the right inboxes, not the "spam" or "promotions" folder.

Email Templates

Constant Contact has dozens of templates in its library. Each template is reusable and built for both desktop and mobile. Once you pick a template, you can customize it with your own images as well as your brand's colors and fonts.

List Management

You can upload your existing contacts with Excel, Outlook and Salesforce. When you upload new contacts, you can use tags to categorize them, such as "VIP donor" and "prospect." Constant Contact automatically removes duplicates and unsubscribed contacts for you so you don't have to manually manage your lists.

Reporting

Once you send emails out, you can immediately view reports from the campaign. Statistics include open rates, click rates, the number of emails sent, bounces, successful deliveries, unsubscribes, spam reports, and did not opens. You can also view what links are clicked, social media statistics and poll responses. In this dashboard, you have the option to resend an email.

Pros

We found a lot of positives to Constant Contract. Among the benefits that stood out most to us include: 

• Ease of use: Constant Contact is one of the easiest email marketing services to use. Its email editor is outstanding. Even if you have never designed an email, the editor automatically scrubs your website to find your logo, colors and social media profiles. Once it has this information, you can easily customize templates to create an appealing email. There are dozens of templates to pick from, and you can save your favorite templates so you can quickly reuse it to create a new email. 

• Integrations: Constant Contact integrates with several other services, such as Excel, Salesforce, Outlook and list-building tools. You can sync contact data easily and so much more. Constant Contact has integrations for the software applications that a lot of small businesses use and rely on. 

• Automation: You can send automatic emails triggered by customer actions so you have a response in place when consumers are interested in your products or services.

Cons

There were a couple of potential drawbacks to be aware of. Here are some limitations of Constant Contact.

• No free option: While Constant Contact has a 60-day free trial, many email marketing services provide a free version of their software, often with limited capabilities. Constant Contact does not offer a free option.
  
  
• Limited A/B testing variables: The best email marketing services let you compare multiple variables with your A/B tests, such as different designs. Constant Contact's A/B testing feature only lets you change email subject lines, which is limiting.

Customer Support

Constant Contact has a variety of resources to help you. Along with its extensive knowledgebase and videos, it offers chat and phone support. When we reached out, Constant Contact's representative was helpful and not at all pushy, and answered all of our questions.

Benchmark Pricing

A standout benefit of Benchmark is the selection of service plans it offers. The plans are based on the number of subscribers your business has. All plans include a simple drag-and-drop email editor, responsive templates, signup forms, basic drip campaigns, RSS email campaigns, email delivery management, Google Analytics tracking, list management and segmentation, list hygiene, reports, surveys and polls, unlimited video storage, and 10MB of free image gallery storage. All plans also offer multiple integrations, including ones with social media, e-commerce, email templates and existing contact lists.

Here is a breakdown of Benchmark's pricing and terms:

• With its free starter plan, you can send email campaigns to an unlimited number of subscribers and up to 250 emails per month. This free version includes a lot of services, but it's missing some key features, such as behavior-based email follow-up and list management automation, website engagement automation, automated customer journey templates, automated responses to shopping cart abandonment, targeted emailing, master accounts and subaccounts, and A/B testing. You can start with the free plan and upgrade anytime you want.
  
  
• Paid packages start at $13.99 per month for 600 subscribers. Every paid plan includes every feature, including Benchmark's automation tool (Marketing Automation Pro) and unlimited email sends.
  
  
• If you have 1,000 subscribers, the packages start at $21.99 per month. Prices start at $31.99 for 2,500 subscribers, and at $81.99 for 10,000 subscribers.
  
  
• Benchmark has plans for every size of business, including those with massive contact lists. Its most expensive plan is $29,200 per month for 7.14 million subscribers.

Add-ons are available with any plan. For instance, the list verification add-on ensures you have the highest-quality subscribers and deliverability. This feature is an extra $3 per month for every 1,000 subscribers.

For an extra $5 a month, you can upgrade from basic storage to unlimited storage for image hosting. You also have the option, for $28.95 per month, to add a dedicated IP, which gives you more control of your sending reputation and delivery to inboxes.

To see how your email campaigns will look on any device on every browser, you can add inbox checkers for an extra $14 per month for 100 tests. Benchmark doesn't offer a free trial, but you can try out its free version before upgrading to a paid account.

Benchmark Features

Benchmark has a vast set of features and tools that anyone can use to create successful and attractive email campaigns.

A/B Split Testing 

You can compare campaigns to determine which one performs the best. For instance, you can test two different subject lines and send the highest performer to the remaining subscribers. A/B testing is also available for delivery times; Benchmark will determine when your subscribers are most likely to open your email campaigns.

Email and Newsletter Templates 

Benchmark has an extensive list of attractive and customizable templates for different industries, holidays and email types. Once you pick a template, it's simple to customize it with your brand's colors, photos and logo.

Email Designer 

Benchmark offers different features that make it simple for any marketer to create an eye-catching email. The drag-and-drop editor allows you to create emails from a layout or template, so you can deliver a professional and attractive newsletter even if you lack graphic design experience. All you have to do is drag and drop feature blocks and images into place.

The tools to create automatic responses, surveys and polls are also very user-friendly. Each takes you through the process step by step. You can edit your images by adding effects, stickers or a message over your photo. Even if you're new to mass-email software, you can easily create successful email campaigns.

The code editor is for individuals who want to do their own coding. You can write your own HTML or copy and paste from another source. With the plain text editor, you also have the option to create text-only emails with no images or formatting options. If you're good at HTML, you can build your own email from scratch or edit the HTML of a template. You can use the dual view to see the design of the email while you're still editing it.  

Inbox Checker 

Before you send out your email, you can preview it in Firefox, Internet Explorer and Chrome. Along with web-based previews and Window and Mac OS inboxes, you can see how it will appear on mobile devices.

Integrations 

Benchmark works with more than 300 other applications, including WordPress, Facebook, Google, Shopify, Slack, Etsy and Salesforce. With the WordPress plugin, you can build an email list directly on your WordPress website and send email versions of your blog posts. With Facebook, you can put Benchmark's email signup form on your business's page to allow visitors to subscribe to your emails without leaving Facebook.  

List Builder 

Along with attractive emails and effective drip campaigns, building your list of contacts is critical to successful email campaigns. To get users to subscribe, you can put Benchmark's popup and embeddable email signup forms on your website, blog or social networks.

The list management tool allows you to segment, import and integrate your contact lists. You can segment your lists by demographics, likes and dislikes, or geolocation to send the most appropriate content to each customer.

You can add contacts to your list one at a time by copying and pasting in email addresses, or in bulk by importing XLS, CSV and TXT files. Benchmark integrates with a lot of third-party applications, which makes it easy to upload your existing lists from other services. When you input contacts, you can also enter a lot of information about each one – including their address, phone number and important dates like their birthday – to build comprehensive customer profiles. This information is particularly handy for drip campaigns.

With contact list automation, you can automatically send emails based on each contact's information, like a birthday discount or other event-based email. You can also automate actions based on customers' opens and clicks in email campaigns.

Marketing Automation Pro 

Benchmark's Marketing Automation Pro gives you the ability to send out automated email series triggered by website and email engagement. With this tool, you can easily design a customer journey and not worry about sending follow-up emails.

Marketing Automation Pro works by allowing you to pick a trigger, such as when a customer subscribes and is added to your contact list. Then Benchmark sends the email you chose – in this case, a welcome email. It will then follow up at the optimal time, usually a couple days later.

Benchmark allows you to create multiple automated journeys for your customers. You can use one of its marketing automation templates or create your own. Its featured templates include welcome messages for new subscribers, promotions that target follow-ups based on opens or clicks, and feedback requests.  

Email Campaign Analytics 

Once you send your email, you can immediately view a report that shows the total numbers of recipients, opens, clicks, bounces and unsubscribes. The report graphs the data in a way that's easy to understand. This dashboard shows your campaign's link performance, displaying the URLs clicked and a click map. You can also view opens by geolocation of customers.

Pros

As one of our best picks, Benchmark offers considerable benefits. These are some we found especially valuable.

• Ease of use: Of the email marketing software tools we reviewed, Benchmark is one of the easiest to use. All of its tools walk you through each step. If you're unsure how to use any of the tools, there are support options to help you along the way, such as live chat, a blog, a monthly newsletter and videos describing how to use each feature. It also has a phone line and email available for customer service.
  
  
• Responsive email creator: When we used Benchmark's drag-and-drop editor, we were able to create an interactive and responsive email with custom pictures, colors and content in a matter of minutes. With more than 200 templates designed for specific industries and holidays, it's easy to find a relevant template. Another tool that makes building emails a breeze is the image library. You can add frequently used pictures, such as logos in your library, in seconds.
  
  
• Contact management tool: Benchmark's contact management and automation tools are simple to use. Each tool provides easy-to-follow steps, and there are videos throughout the dashboard to ensure you know what you're doing.   
  
  
• Mobile app: Benchmark has a mobile application for iPhone and Android that makes it easy to view your emails, add contacts and see analytics on your email campaigns.
  
  
• Variety of plans: Benchmark offers a selection of plans based on the number of subscribers a business has, and it has a free version you can test before committing to a paid service.

Cons

The only problem we had with Benchmark was that our emails sometimes landed in spam folders. However, we sent emails from a personal Gmail account, which are less credible than emails sent from a company or business domain. When you select a personal email as the "from" address, Benchmark warns you that using a personal or general ISP email address like Gmail, Yahoo, or Outlook hurts delivery rates.

Customer Support

We were pleased with Benchmark's customer support. The representatives were prompt and courteous when we spoke over live chat, answering all our questions. You can contact Benchmark by phone, live chat or email.

Sendinblue Pricing

Sendinblue offers five different pricing plans, starting with a free plan and going up to enterprise. Here is a detailed breakdown of each plan:

• The free plan allows you to send 300 emails per day to unlimited contacts and offers a mobile-friendly email designer, a template library, email personalization, SMS marketing, A/B testing, contact segmentation, customizable signup forms, a sales CRM, transactional emails, API features, templating language, a workflow editor, page tracking, real-time reporting, email support and marketing automation workflows for up to 2,000 contacts.
  
  
• The Lite plan is $25 for 40,000 emails per month and includes all features from the free plan plus no daily sending limit.
  
  
• The Essential plan is $39 for 60,000 emails per month and includes all features from the free and Lite plans plus the removal of the Sendinblue logo from your emails and access to advanced statistics.
  
  
• The Premium plan is $66 for 120,000 emails per month or $173 for 350,000 emails per month and includes all features from the previous plans plus Facebook ads, landing pages, marketing automation, live chat support and multi-user access.
  
  
• The Enterprise plan is based on custom quotes and includes all previous features plus 10 or more users, managed setup, priority customer support, a dedicated account manager, dedicated infrastructure, priority sending and single sign-on.

Sendinblue Features

Drag-and-Drop Editor

Sendinblue offers an easy-to-use drag-and-drop email editor with predesigned templates and the ability to create your own templates from scratch.

Email Customization

The editor makes it easy to add custom touches to every email with dynamic personalization features. This helps boost engagement and create return customers.

Segmentation

Sendinblue allows you to segment your contacts into groups based on criteria such as age, gender, geolocation and behavior to ensure you send the right emails to the right recipients.

A/B Testing

With A/B testing, you can determine what subject lines are the most effective, what name should be in your "from" field, and if different send times affect the click rate. Sendinblue's A/B tests let you determine the size of your sample groups and build multiple variations, and Sendinblue will send the winning email to the remainder of your contact list. 

Automation 

Sendinblue's marketing automation tools ensure your emails get to the right people at the right time. You can target contacts based on behaviors and preferences. When you create automated campaigns, you can pick from predesigned workflows or build your own with custom rules. Some options for automated campaigns are a welcome series for new email subscribers, birthday emails and notifications for blog updates. Others are available based on subscriber activity, e-commerce workflows and more. 

CRM

Sendinblue offers easy setup with a CRM to help you manage your customer relationships. The CRM centralizes all of your contacts' information, automatically organizes the information for more effective communication, and allows you to set tasks, assign them to members of your team and set deadlines.

Marketing Automation

You can increase efficiency and save time by setting up workflows based on customer information and behavior. By setting triggered emails, you can automatically send signup forms or welcome emails to new customers, or you can go advanced and create custom workflows for each customer.

Transactional Emails

Sendinblue makes it easy to set up and send transactional emails by providing different setup options, including API, SMTP Relay, e-commerce plugins and marketing automation. You can customize the types of email you want, and monitor your emails' success rate with engagement and deliverability statistics.

Signup Forms and Landing Pages

You can grow your contact list with embedded signup forms in your emails, and foster a more targeted visitor experience by creating dedicated landing pages for each of your unique campaigns.

Pros

Sendinblue offers several advantages that made it one of our best picks. These are some aspects that make it particularly useful.

• Free plan: Rather than a free trial, Sendinblue offers a free version of its software that allows up to 300 emails per day and unlimited contacts, with no contract or credit card details required. The free version provides all the necessary features to create an effective email campaign, and you can use it for as long as you like.
  
  
• Ease of use: Sendinblue's email creation tool is straightforward and easy to use, with a drag-and-drop editor and a selection of email templates. You can upload your own images, though they must be 5MB or smaller, and edit them with a variety of built-in tools.
  
  
• SMS capability: Sendinblue also offers SMS (texting) integration, meaning you can import your texting contacts and send text-message campaigns with your email marketing account.
  
  
• Marketing automation: Sendinblue offers several marketing automation features – including detailed workflows, custom rules and triggered emails – to save time and streamline your campaigns.

Cons

Despite its many benefits, there are a few potential issues that large businesses should be aware of before moving forward with Sendinblue. 

• Basic templates: The predesigned templates are limited compared to some other companies' selections, and you cannot customize them – which would be fine for a company looking for simple and straightforward templates, but not ideal for a large company with complex, highly specific needs and widely diverse audience segments.
  
  
• Limited integrations: Sendinblue does offer a variety of integrations with other programs, but it has fewer than most of the other companies we reviewed, so it may be missing an integration with software that's an important part of your workflow.
  
  
• Low daily send limit on free plan: While the free plan offers many features, it has a daily send limit of 300 emails. While this is pretty standard for a free plan, large businesses should consider this before opting for the free version. For many midsize and large businesses, this may remove the otherwise-convenient free plan as an option..

Customer Support

Sendinblue offers multiple help pages, online tutorials and FAQs, and an online submission form and phone number for technical help. When we reached out to the company, we spoke to a friendly and helpful representative who answered our questions and was not pushy in trying to sell us on the software.

November 2020: Mailchimp has created an online community for freelancers and agencies to help them connect with small business clients. The community is called Mailchimp & Co. and will provide freelancers with tools to find new work and improve their skills, as well as access to Mailchimp's resources, rewards and training programs. According to Mailchimp, 40% of its service providers are freelancers, and freelance work increased by 25% over the second quarter of this year. The announcement comes at a time when freelancing is on the rise, accelerated by the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to a report by digital freelance marketplace Upwork, 2 million Americans began freelancing within the past 12 months.

Mailchimp Pricing

Mailchimp offers multiple plans that can fit into the budget of nearly any business. Each plan includes multiuser accounts, Mailchimp's extensive knowledgebase, marketing automation, target and segmented lists, as well as analysis and testing features. Besides creating and sending email campaigns, users can create landing pages, pop-up forms, Google Remarketing Ads, and Facebook and Instagram ads with any plan. 

Here is a breakdown of Mailchimp's plans and what they offer: 

• Mailchimp's Forever Free plan comes with an extensive list of features. Free plans accommodate up to 2,000 contacts, and you can send up to 12,000 emails per month. This plan is free until you have more than 2,000 contacts. 
  
  
• The Essentials plan is based on the number of subscribers you have. Prices start at $9.99 per month for 500 contacts and end at $25 per month if you have between 1,501 to 2,000 contacts. The Essentials plan includes everything in the free plan along with the ability to add custom branding, access to live chat and email support, more target and segmentation tools, as well as increased reporting and testing tools. To find out how much you would pay for the Growing Business package, use Mailchimp's pricing calculator. 
  
  
• Mailchimp's Standard plan starts at $14.99 per month for 500 contacts and includes everything from the Essentials and Free plans, plus advanced analytics, retargeting ads, custom templates, and event-based automation series.
  
  
• Mailchimp Premium starts at $299 per month; it is suited for larger businesses that require increased capabilities and support. Premium includes all the features from the previous plans, plus advanced segmentation, multivariate testing, unlimited role-based user access and phone support.

Mailchimp Features

Here are some of Mailchimp's best features.

A/B Testing

With A/B testing, you can determine what subject lines are the most effective, what name should be in your "From" field, and if different times affect the click rate. Mailchimp's A/B testing lets you determine the size of your sample group and build three different versions. It sends the winning email to the remainder of your contact list. 

Analytics

Even with the Forever Free plan, you get a good set of metrics. The Reports dashboard informs you who opened your email, what links they clicked, what emails bounced and who unsubscribed. The reports also document successful deliveries, the number of forwards, clicks per unique opens and spam complaints. Mailchimp tracks subscribers with the most opens and the social performance of your campaigns; the numbers and reports are outlined in graphs, which makes understanding the data simple. 

Automation

With Mailchimp's marketing automation tools, your emails get to the right people at the right time. You can target campaigns to contacts based on behaviors and preferences. When you create automated campaigns, you can pick from pre-designed workflows or build your own with custom rules. Mailchimp's automations include a welcome series, a happy birthday email and notifications for new blog updates. Others are available based on subscriber activity, e-commerce workflows and more. 

Build Ads and Landing Pages

With Mailchimp, you can create Google, Facebook or Instagram ads. You can also create mobile-friendly landing pages. Mailchimp has two versatile landing page templates that you then modify to create and publish landing pages. 

Email Editor

Mailchimp's email editor is simple. To get started, you can begin with a basic layout, themed template or code your own email. Its responsive templates and designs are created for all devices, including desktop and mobile. With the email editor, you can personalize the "To" field with each contact's first name, last name, or both. You then set how the sender will be listed and what the subject line will be with your email. When it comes to the design of your email, drag-and-drop tools make it simple to customize every aspect of the template: text, dividers, images, videos, social shares and social follows. You can also add frequently used pictures, such as logos, to your image gallery so it's easy to quickly find and insert pictures. Before sending your email, Mailchimp scans it for any errors that could cause it to land in a spam folder. You also have the option to share your campaign on both Facebook and Twitter.

Integrations

Mailchimp integrates with several applications, including hundreds of e-commerce apps like Shopify, Magento, WooCommerce, PrestaShop and BigCommerce. By integrating Mailchimp with your e-commerce store, you can capture order information, create targeted campaigns, automate follow-ups and send personalized notifications. 

Mailchimp Pro 

Mailchimp Pro is an add-on with advanced features. It costs $199 per month (sorry, Pro cannot be used with the Forever Free plan) and for that monthly fee, you get more list segmentation options, additional list fields and TimeWarp. With the regular Mailchimp, you are allowed 30 list fields; Pro users, however, have access to 50 more fields. These extra fields let you personalize and target your campaign content. TimeWarp schedules delivery of email campaigns based on subscribers' time zone. Another thing that's unique about Mailchimp Pro versus the other plans is greater flexibility with A/B split testing. For instance, you can preview your email and see exactly what it will look like in different email clients and on different devices. While regular Mailchimp plans come with A/B testing, the Pro add-on includes a more robust version that lets you test multiple variables to see how various changes affect different aspects of your campaigns. Finally, Mailchimp Pro provides better analytics, including comparative reports, compliance insights, delivery insights and stop delivery.

Pros

There are a number of benefits to using Mailchimp, including:

• Ease of use: Even if you've never used an email marketing platform before, rest assured, Mailchimp is extremely easy to learn and use. The dashboard is easy to understand, and it's simple to find the features and tools you need. Its email creator offers step-by-step directions, so it's hard to miss a step. Mailchimp also offers drag-and-drop tools that make creating emails, adding pictures, and customizing emails simple.
  
  
• An online knowledgebase: If you have a question, you can browse through Mailchimp's knowledgebase and blog that offer answers to a number of frequently asked questions. It has guides on how to build an email list and how to create a marketing automation journey.
  
  
• A mobile app: Mailchimp's mobile app lets you create and send campaigns from your phone or tablet. You can also manage lists, add new subscribers and analyze reports on the go. Additionally, the app can send you sales notifications and daily summaries of your campaigns' performance.
  
  
• Automation: With Mailchimp's free version, there are more than enough analytics to pinpoint what is working with your email campaigns and what isn't. The reports show who is opening your emails, what links people are clicking on, who unsubscribed, and what email addresses bounced. 

Cons

There are a couple of items to be aware of with Mailchimp. Here's what you need to know before signing up:

• Limitations with the free plan: The Forever Free plan doesn't provide ongoing customer service. You get access to email support for 30 days, and live chat isn't offered at all. However, there is an extensive knowledgebase and blog that can answer most of your questions.
  
  
• Deliverability with Gmail: A second concern with Mailchimp concerns how emails are delivered in Gmail. Mailchimp states that it doesn't have any control when it comes to the placement of its emails in Gmail. When we sent emails to Gmail accounts, they landed in the promotions tab. While the promotions tab is better than having your email go to the spam folder, users are less likely to check that tab as often as the primary tab in Gmail.

Customer Service

Mailchimp offers online resources and a contact form available on its website. And while live chat isn't available with free accounts, when we reached out to Mailchimp through email, we received a response the next day. The representative answered all our questions and wasn't pushy. When you sign up with the free plan, you have access to email support for the first 30 days. After that, if you need one-on-one help, you can always browse through Mailchimp's guides and tutorials. And if you decide you want more features with your emails, Mailchimp's paid plans are very reasonable and still easy to use.