13 Best Email Marketing Software for Businesses in 2023

The avalanche of digital transformation has changed the conventional model of businesses. Previously, marketers didn’t exactly know who their customers were, their expectations of them, and how they could expand and reach their new leads.

But, now the times have changed, and marketers can target the right people at the right time and send them information that is narrowed down to their requirements.

How do they achieve this the answer is through email marketing software. It is a form of marketing technique where emails are automatically sent to existing customers as well as potential customers to grab their attention.

But, the concept of “one size fits all” is not applicable in the current scenario; you cannot send the same email to everyone in your database. You need to filter your emails depending on the type of customer you are targeting.

It is made possible through email marketing tools that help you to design your email marketing strategy and send it across personalized messages.

Here is a rundown on some of the best email marketing software for small businesses:

1. Constant Contact

Constant Contact doesn’t have anything out of the blue to offer, but it is not at all underwhelming concerning performance and deliverability. It comes with two plans: email and an email plus plan with a free trial of 60 days.

Benefits of constant contact:

• Constant Contact is easy to learn as they have several online classes that train users to master their email marketing automation software
• Constant Contact is affordable for all types of businesses as they charge you based on the number of contacts in your list.
• The delivery system of Constant connect is good, so there is a 97% chance that your email will land in the recipient’s inbox. In case the email bounces, you immediately know the reason.
• Constant Contact automatically manages the unsubscribe list, and your mail never lands up in a mailbox if the user has unsubscribed.
• It is compliant with all the email laws and affordable for small businesses.

Both plans allow you to send unlimited emails with features like contact management, list-building tools, pop-up forms, reporting features, email templates, social media tools, and more.

The cheapest email plus plan is priced at $45 per month for 500 contacts, and the most expensive one is $335 for 50 000 contacts.

2. DirectIQ

DirectIQ offers an easy-to-use email marketing interface that delivers results.

DirectIQ lets marketers build stunning email campaigns automatically. It is connected to all popular websites and services like Shopify and WordPress. You can quickly transfer all your contacts and start sending emails easily. 

Oh, and did we mention for FREE? Yes, DirectIQ has a Forever Free Plan, so marketers can start small, and DirectIQ will be right there to scale with them!

Benefits of DirectIQ

• Take advantage of their A/B campaign setup page. Choose the best template, select a few criteria, add some segmentation, and they’re good to go!
• Track email open rates, click-through rates, geo-tracking, and even spam complaints from a centralized dashboard. DirectIQ puts it all together in beautiful charts, graphs, and visuals.
• Automate email marketing. Get beautifully designed emails, segmented campaigns, social media tools, and free use of the best smartphone and tablet-compatible email templates.

Features

• Drag-and-drop email designer to build your custom campaign
• A wide selection of responsive email templates
• WordPress email marketing integrations to create powerful sign-up forms that are highly customizable and easy to add to your site
• API gives you the ability to connect your email platform to other software in your tech stack

Pricing 

Free Plan allows you to send 6000 emails to 1000 contacts.

Paid options begin at $15/mo with Send Limit of 15,000 emails per month.

The unlimited plan starts from $25/mo and lets you send 25,000 emails per month.

3. Sendinblue

Sendinblue is an all-in-one marketing tool used by more than 80000 SMBs and enterprise clients worldwide. As an open platform, its mission is to work alongside other solutions while powering peoples' websites and funnels. Main features include email & SMS marketing, marketing automation, signup forms, landing page builder, Chat, CRM, Facebook advertising, and retargeting.  

Benefits of Sendinblue:

• Customer service is available in six different languages (English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese)
• Free Sendinblue WordPress plugin to build signup forms, send emails, and set marketing automation.
• A free user can store as many contacts as they want
• Advanced user segmentation
• Marketing automation workflows
• Possibility to build 2-way sync with any CRM & ESP on the market. 

Plus, a rich catalog of native 2-way integrations with  Mailchimp, Hubspot, ActiveCampaign, Constant Contact, Salesforce, Pipedrive, and Typeform.

Pricing 

It offers a free plan that includes 9000 emails per month, marketing automation for up to 2000 contacts, and Chat & CRM solution. 

A premium account will enable you to send 120k emails monthly with all advanced features for $66 per month. You can check the Sendinblue pricing here.

4. Drip

Drip is a great email marketing tool widely used by bloggers, marketers, and e-commerce businesses. It is a good option for small companies because it offers various add-ons that integrate popular website builder tools such as woo commerce and WordPress.

They have smart segmenting options and intelligent marketing tools and are super easy to learn and start. Drip comes with live chat support, webinars, and tutorials to help users get hold of their email marketing software.

Benefits of Drip marketing tools:

• Good integration option with multiple applications that extends the usability of this software.
• It can help create targeted campaigns, i.e., you send emails to users of a specific profile.
• Automated workflows of drip have a set of assorted triggers and corresponding responses. So, you do not have to manage those manually.

It offers a free trial plan for up to 100 users, and then its plan is priced at $41 per month.

5. Aweber

Aweber is another excellent option to consider for its attractive pricing list. One of the main competitors to MailChimp is touted as one of the popular bulk email marketing software.

Some of its features include:

• Newsletter templates
• Drag and drop editing
• Integrated signup forms.

Benefits of using Aweber:

• Aweber has an insanely good customer service
• Advanced options for integration with applications like Zendesk, PayPal, WordPress, Leadpages, and Salesforce, to name a few.
• Access to 6000 of the stock photo library
• Provides a detailed overview of each customer, such as the source of customers and whether they have purchased anything or have subscribed for service.

Aweber offers a 30-day free trial period, which charges $19 monthly for up to 500 contacts. They have incredible customer service through live chat, email support, and live webinars, so your issue is resolved within minutes.

6. MailChimp

MailChimp is one of the best email marketing software that offers an easy-to-understand dashboard.

Benefits of MailChimp:

• The integration of MailChimp to various platforms, such as WordPress and Shopify, is smooth.
• It is an excellent option for businesses that want to build their lists without the initial investment.
• It is quite a good pick for small businesses as they can target many customers without investment.
• MailChimp has two types of plans one is the monthly plan, and the other is the pay-as-you-use. The latter is a good fit for people who rarely send emails.

Features with the free version:

• Grow your list up to 2000 contacts.
• Send up to 12000 emails.
• All standard features are accessible.

Features with paid version:

• Easy email creator
• Social networking integration
• Timewarp
• Import contacts from existing subscribing lists

Another thing to boast about MailChimp is that they are one of the trusted brands, so your emails will never end up in the trash box. Email sent via MailChimp are sure to land in your users' inboxes. Here's an in-depth take on MailChimp pricing with all available plans and offers.

7. Active Campaign:

Active campaign is an excellent email marketing automation software if your main concern is email automation. They also offer CRM features that are less sharp than their email automation. You get a beautifully designed dashboard between your campaigns and other services.

Some of its benefits are:

• Active campaign amalgamates both email and SMS marketing perfectly
• You can monitor the activities of each of your customers and respond to them based on what they do on your website.
• CRM platform, as well as marketing automation capabilities
• Zapier and WordPress integration
• Segment contacts based on location, action, behavior, and social data.

Pricing

The plan for the Active campaign starts at $9 per month, and you can also request a demo test with some features. The pricing of the Active campaign may get on the higher side with time, but it is worth a try if your primary objective is complex automation needs.

8. GetResponse:

A super popular email marketing platform that is easy to use, affordable, and a good option for small businesses and beginners. It has some great features which make your marketing automation super simple.

Features of GetResponse:

• Drag and drop builder with some creative options
• 500 and more templates for newsletters
• 1000+ stock photos to access
• Forms with Social media management
• Enhanced segmentation options

Benefits of GetResponse:

• Lead generation with A/B testing
• Integrates with third-party software such as Optinmaster, SalesForce, GoogleDocs, ZenDesk, etc.
• Track the performance of all your campaigns in one place.
• It is simple to track and view the history of your campaigns with GetResponse.

The editing features of GetResponse are not at par as compared to others in this list.  It comes with a 30-day free trial, ranging from $15 to $799 per month enterprise plan.

9. Moosend

Moosend is an email marketing automation tool with many features to help you kickstart your email marketing efforts. 

Moosend will provide the platform's drag-and-drop builder, responsive email templates, and advanced automation to save you time.

The platform allows you to segment your audience to send highly targeted emails that increase conversions. You'll have access to online forms to help you generate leads and an intuitive landing page builder. 

Apart from that, Moosend also includes real-time analytics to make data-driven decisions about your email marketing campaigns.

Benefits of Moosend:

• Advanced marketing automation
• Responsive email newsletter templates
• Advanced user segmentation
• Landing page builder to help you increase your conversion rates
• Real-time data and analytics
• Customer support

Paid options begin at $9 per month and include all available features, such as a landing page builder, online forms, transactional emails, and more. You can always sign up for the free trial and see whether Moosend is your ideal email marketing platform.
Here's an in-depth analysis of Moosend’s pricing with all available plans and offers.

10. ConvertKit

A robust email marketing tool with some great features and incredible performance. It is super easy to use, which is quite popular among professional bloggers and marketers.

ConvertKit offers many services that are not as comprehensive as their peers. The reason is that ConvertKit is an affordable option that helps build your lists, making it an excellent choice for people who have just kickstarted their business.

Benefits of ConvertKit:

• It has a clear and intuitive interface.
• Offers easy content upgrades with signup forms.
• You can create your automation workflows based on various triggers.
• Easy to implement marketing automation.
• Charge-free for duplicated subscribers.

Some of its essential features are:

• Easily segment contacts based on the type of customer, which can be either a purchasing customer or a potential customer.
• Customizable opt-in forms.
• Drip campaigns

ConvertKit doesn’t provide A/B testing, so it might disappoint some users.

The free trial period is 14 days, so you can try it for any of their plans.

The pricing of ConvertKit starts at $29 per month to $79 per month, which supports 5000 subscribers.

11. InfusionSoft

InfusionSoft is an old email campaigning software that facilitates email campaigns based on automated funnels and landing pages.

Benefits of InfusionSoft:

• Automates sales and marketing efforts, so you maintain a consistent brand reputation while offering a personalized customer experience.
• Centralized contact information helps to improve the efficiency of the sales team.
• Data is accessible from various devices, whether tablets or smartphones.
• It is an all-in-one online solution that integrates CRM, Contact management, e-commerce, and marketing automation.
• This software can send trigger emails even in the rarest of rare circumstances.

The downside of InfusionSoft is the complex system they have. When you compare it with other similar tools, you realize that it is super difficult to learn and put into implementation. Even a simple task, such as sending a newsletter, is complicated. InfusionSoft is expensive, so you must decide whether you need its high-performing technical capabilities.

It starts at $99 for 500 contacts and goes up to $274 for 10,000 contacts.

12. Sendhippo

SendHippo is quite a novice player in this market and is worth a try marketing tool. It is a great email marketing automation software for small businesses. It is affordable and offers almost all the services you get with other marketing tools.

Here are some impressive features and benefits:

• Drag and drop email template designer
• Several plans to suit the varying requirements of the user
• A broad spectrum of templates to choose from
• Mobile-friendly emails
• Easy creation of segments
• Reach customers’ inboxes when they are most likely to respond.
• Track your report and see your performance in real-time.
• Multichannel marketing
• Integrates with any email client smoothly.

Get Started with their lite package from $6.99 / month and Plus Package from $15.99/month.

13. Campaigner:

Campaigner is not a go-to option for most small businesses as it lacks some essential features. Though, it has some benefits to offer for small businesses.

Here is a list of some of them:

• Mobile-friendly builds
• A/B testing
• Google Analytics and CRM integration
• List segmentation based on triggers and behavioral instincts of customers.
• Email automation and workflows

The segmentation process works well, but sometimes it slows down the process when you add too many filters. It also has issues with Gmail delivery in some cases.

Conclusion

The question always ends with which email service to choose when so many exist.

The answer depends on your marketing needs, budget restrictions, and at what stage you are incorporating the email marketing automation software. Before zeroing down on your option, here are a few things to keep in mind:

• The number of contacts: You need an easy upgrade option to start building the list. In case of a stable list, compare the prices among the available tools.
• Segmentation: Create a list of the basic requirements to segment your lists. Based on these details only you should consider your options.
• Budget: Pricing matters, so find a service that meets your basic requirements at an optimum budget.
• Analytics and reporting: Many businesses want to track their performance and strategize their marketing plan accordingly. So, make sure to check the sample analytic reports.
• Ease of use: Automation processes should be easy to understand and use. If you are a small business, you cannot hire a dedicated workforce to manage your software. Opt for an option that is not very complicated for your needs.