Top 10 Affordable Email Marketing Software

If you’re an email marketing manager, you know how challenging it is to target the right consumer segment, trigger the right email campaign at the right time, and monitor marketing metrics for performance evaluation. 

Enter email marketing software. These tools automate email communication between a business and its prospects and customers. The software manages mailing lists, monitors marketing campaign effectiveness, and increases email marketing efficiency.

But not every business can afford to invest in high-end software. We went looking for some affordable email marketing tools to help you get the job done while staying in line with your budget. 

We compiled this list of 10 affordable email marketing tools, based on reviews from users just like you and the starting price for each product as found on vendor’s websites. (Products are listed alphabetically. You can find our full methodology at the bottom of this page.)

1. Direct Mail

Direct Mail is an email marketing tool designed for Mac and iPhone users only. It lets you personalize emails using the recipient’s name, company name, and 15 additional fields. You can also add, remove, and rearrange text, videos, buttons, and fonts to customize email templates. 

You can add customized sign-up forms in your email marketing campaigns. It has a smart targeting capability to target specific subscribers by segregating your list into different groups or using the automation tool to set segmentation rules.

Direct Mail lets marketing teams schedule message delivery and set up automated campaigns with multiple triggers such as bulk emails, new subscriptions, subscriber birthdays, and upcoming events. Its dashboard offers a real-time view of key email marketing campaign metrics including clicks, bounce rates, and unsubscribes to give you data-driven insights into interactions and engagement. 

Direct Mail is a web-based tool with a dedicated mobile app for iOS devices. It offers customer support via email and chat.

Email automation in Direct Mail (Source)

2. EngageBay

EngageBay is an integrated sales and marketing tool with email marketing, campaign monitoring, and marketing automation. On the email side, it lets you design, run, and manage customized marketing campaigns. 

The email marketing platform comes with pre-designed email templates—you can personalize them by adding contact details such as full name and email address—which are saved and auto-filled every time you send an email. The tool lets you customize pre-installed templates or create new ones using its drag-and-drop interface and text editor. 

You can apply filters such as location, source, customer type, age, and purchase history and then target specific segments of your email list. It lets you track your campaign performance using key metrics including click-through rates, unsubscribe rates, and conversion rates, and get data-driven insights. It offers a complete view of customer interactions including emails exchanged and calls made.

EngageBay is a web-based tool with a mobile app for iOS and Android devices. You can reach the customer support team via email, phone, and chat.

Email contacts in EngageBay (Source)

3. Envoke

Envoke lets marketers select a pre-built template or design and customize one using an intuitive drag-and-drop interface and HTML editor. You can also create custom templates to suit your brand language. 

The email marketing service platform lets you personalize your emails with subscriber’s details. Envoke also offers a feature to automate recurring targeted emails such as welcome, birthday, anniversary, and promotional emails.

Envoke uses subscriber segmentation to categorize qualified, ready, and willing-to-engage leads. The tool also facilitates customer journey mapping and creates customized reports to see which approach is working and what needs improvement by highlighting new visitors and potential leads.

Envoke is a web-based tool and offers customer support via email, chat, phone, and a knowledge base. You can also check out its FAQs section to get quick solutions. 

Email automation in Envoke (Source)

4. MailerLite

MailerLite is email marketing software that helps you grow your subscribers, build customer relationships, and automate workflows. It has a dedicated email template library coupled with drag-and-drop, text, and HTML editors to help you create personalized email campaigns. 

MailerLite helps marketers closely monitor campaign performance with key reporting metrics such as unsubscriber counts, spam complaints, bounce rates, and new subscribers, and get insights into areas that need improvement. The tool has A/B testing capability so you can compare two different email versions to evaluate which is more effective.

MailerLite allows you to send tailor-made target emails to specific customer segments at a static time or based on the subscriber’s time zone. It also offers marketing automation tools, web forms, pop-up customizations, survey templates, and landing page builders.

MailerLite is a web-based tool with a mobile app for iOS devices. You can reach out to its customer support team via email, chat, phone, and 24/7 (live rep). 

Email A/B testing in MailerLite (Source)

5. Outfunnel

Outfunnel is a marketing automation tool that supports email marketing, web tracking, and lead scoring. The software connects all sales and marketing tools to save time spent recording customer information across different tools. It allows marketers to send automated email series or one-off emails to the contacts defined in the CRM (customer relationship management) tool. 

Outfunnel records email engagement data, including the number of opens, clicks, and unsubscribes, in the CRM. This data helps marketers calculate the lead score and narrow it down to potential leads. Using web tracking and lead scoring reports, incorrect or invalid email addresses can be eliminated to render a clean database. 

Outfunnel is a web-based tool, offering customer support via chat, email, or the knowledge base.  

Email marketing data sharing in Outfunnel (Source)

6. Remarkety

Remarkety is an email and SMS marketing platform that helps marketing teams improve email campaigns and grow sales. It includes a library of email templates that you can customize to deliver a branded experience. You can also use its drag-and-drop interface to create your own HTML template. 

With A/B testing, you can compare different types or versions of a campaign and measure which version is most effective. Remarkety identifies potential leads and sends out automated emails, increasing brand awareness, retention, and sales. 

Remarkety identifies and segments your customers based on their behavior, preferences, location, age, and other factors. Following that, it creates and sends targeted campaigns with personalized content to the right segment at the right time in order to boost engagement.

The tool includes an intuitive reporting dashboard with key metrics such as open rate and click rate to help marketing teams test, iterate, and improve their campaigns. 

Remarkety is a web-based tool, offering customer support via email, chat, and phone.

Email automation sequence in Remarkety (Source)

7. Sender

Sender is an email campaign creation, delivery, and analysis platform with smart automations, high email deliverability, pre-built email templates, and other features to support marketing teams. It helps marketers create subscription forms with custom fields such as name, birth date, location, and email address in order to grow their subscriber base. 

With Sender’s subscriber segmentation, marketers can filter and segment subscribers based on their latest activity or personal details to send out more personalized emails.

Sender includes a library of email templates with drag-and-drop customization, aiding users in creating intuitive marketing messages. The software has robust email analytics features, including open and click tracking, date and time analysis, and click maps, allowing you to measure and improve your email campaigns. 

Sender is a web-based tool, and offers customer support via chat, email, FAQs, and a knowledge base.

Email customization in Sender (Source)

8. Sendinblue

Sendinblue is an email marketing platform and communications tool that offers a responsive design email builder with a template library and customizable elements such as icons and logos. You can also build a new design from scratch that aligns with your campaign requirements. Sendinblue also provides a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) HTML email editor for advanced users who want to write their code.

Sendinblue eliminates the manual effort that goes into segmenting recipient lists and guessing their preferences with its A/B testing feature. This feature compares two different email variants and evaluates which one is more effective, ensuring 100% optimized campaigns.

Sendinblue uses real-time reports and heat maps to help marketers record results and evaluate campaigns. 

This web-based tool has a mobile app for both iOS and Android devices. You can reach its customer support team via email, chat, and phone, or use its knowledge base to get answers to common queries.

Email clients in Sendinblue (Source)

9. Systeme.io

Systeme.io helps marketers grow their mailing lists for newsletters and email campaigns. The software offers email automation to send automated, scheduled emails to keep your subscribers engaged. Systeme.io also uses autoresponders to streamline your campaigns and save time on manual responses. 

Systeme.io allows you to use behavioral targeting by personalizing your email campaigns with the recipient’s name and other details. It also offers subscriber categorization (based on their location, age, and more) to help you send out tailor-made emails to specific groups. 

The email marketing software makes tracking and analyzing the performance of your campaigns easier. It identifies the best performing campaigns and shows you how you can optimize your low performing ones.

Systeme.io is a web-based tool, offering customer support via email and live chat. You can also check out its knowledge base to learn about related topics.

Email editor in Systeme.io (Source)

10. UseINBOX

UseINBOX is an email marketing solution with drag-and-drop newsletter creation, campaign automation, real-time reporting, and subscriber management capabilities. It allows marketers to use pre-built newsletter templates or build professional newsletters from scratch, and customize them with the drag-and-drop design tool and custom HTML editor. 

The email marketing tool helps marketers set up email campaigns and automate recurring emails for birthdays, promotions, and anniversaries. With INBOX application programming interface (API), users can create, edit, and delete newsletters, manage contacts, and integrate with third-party applications such as a CRM.

UseINBOX helps marketing teams track campaign performance in real-time using key metrics such as opens, click-through rates, reading time, and bounce rates. It contains an A/B split campaign feature that compares different campaigns and helps you make changes based on subscriber behavior. 

UseINBOX is web-based software, offering support via email, phone, chat, and a knowledge base. 

Email marketing dashboard in UseINBOX (Source)

How to choose the best affordable email marketing software for your business

Here are some things to keep in mind in order to select the best email marketing service for your business needs:

• Pick a tool that meets your specific needs: To stay within your budget, focus only on the features you need. Some of the key email marketing features you should consider are campaign tracking and reporting, custom template creation, and email automation. Make a checklist of your must-have features and invest in a tool that meets your requirements.

• Use the free trial period: Some email marketing software providers offer a free trial of their platform, which usually comes with limited access for 30 days. If you are not sure about the features you’ll need, use free trials to test out the functionality and pick the right tool.

• Consider all pricing plans: Email marketing software providers often offer different pricing plans that increase in cost as features are added. Once you’ve shortlisted a tool, take a good look at its pricing plans. Consider all the features listed under each plan and see which one would best align with your marketing objectives.

Common questions to ask software vendors when selecting a email marketing tool

These are some common questions you can ask software providers before making your final purchase:

• Which features do I get with a base plan? Basic or affordable plans usually have limited features. Make sure it has the features you need for your email team.

• Do I have to pay additional fees for custom templates? You may want to create custom email templates with your own HTML code. In that case, ask vendors about any additional costs or charges.

• Does it support multiple users? If you need multiple users to have access to the software (such as marketers and project managers), ask vendors how many users are included at each pricing tier.

• What type of support do I get with a basic plan? Examine the basic or affordable plan’s technical assistance options. Sometimes, free versions of software do not get priority support. Check all the available channels (such as real-time chat, voice call, and video call, among others) of technical support.