The best email newsletter software enables businesses to send promotional emails, social media, a mailing list, automated emails.
For every $1 you spend on email marketing, you receive $44. That’s a ridiculously high return on investment.
But the benefits of email marketing run deeper than mere financial gain. Email marketing allows you to build a relationship with your customers which most other marketing methods don’t.
This makes your customers feel like you’re part of their daily lives when they receive your emails in their inbox. It also allows you to notify readers of new blog posts, podcasts, or online videos.
Every business that has an online presence must capture leads as they visit your site or you’ll be wasting precious web real estate.
And that begs the question, with email marketing being such a crucial part of every business’s success, which newsletter tool are you using to convert email subscribers into lifelong customers?
Depending on your email marketing goals, one newsletter tool might be a perfect fit while others are a horrible choice. And you must choose carefully or you risk buying software with options you’ll never need or worse, software without enough options for your business needs.
So which is the best email marketing software to use this year? Well, in this post, we’ll cover:
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Why Use Email Newsletter Software?
Every creative or business owner should have an email marketing strategy in place as it allows building a better relationship with customers or readers.
On top of that, you can send personalized emails to your subscribers to make them feel special and relate with your brand more. This could be as simple as adding their name in the first line of your emails or sending them tips and tutorials based on the content they’re interested in.
If you’re in doubt, check out these examples of the best newsletter today. The creative entrepreneurs behind them are earning six and seven figures a year.
Convinced? Great. Here is a list of the best email newsletter software available right now:
1. ConvertKit
Compared to other email newsletter software, ConvertKit is a bit pricey. But all its plans, including the free plan, come with unlimited amounts of emails sent. This is great for bloggers who post a lot of content and want to update their email subscribers every time a new post goes live.
Their free plan is great for anyone with under 1000 email subscribers but its features are quite limited since there’s no autoresponder or automation features available. And it only allows you to choose from 3 email design templates.
However, a big pro is that it’s super simple to use. Sending targeted newsletters, automating campaigns, publishing landing pages, and creating sign-up forms are easily done with a click of a few buttons.
Who Is ConvertKit For?
If you’re starting out with email marketing and you’re looking for a tool that’s easy to use but gets the job done, ConvertKit is for you.
Read our ConvertKit review.
2. Ghost
This content management system (CMS) software doubles as a type of newsletter software
It’s built for content publishing management with email newsletters as an add-on. You can also buy custom themes to change the look and feel of your website and newsletter. It’s also blazing fast.
Ghost pricing ranges from $29 per month to $199.
Who Is Ghost For?
It is designed for content publishers and start-up businesses who take publishing and newsletters seriously but don’t care about ads or plugins. It’s an alternative to Substack.
3. Substack
Substack is a dedicated newsletter platform that comes without any technical headaches. It’s built for creating, sending and growing a newsletter business. Many former and current journalists are on it.
Substack pricing is free so long as your newsletter is free, and it stays this way no matter how many subscribers you have. If you charge for your newsletter, then Substack charges 10% of that cost.
It costs 2.9% of your billing rate for subscribers plus 30 cents per transaction.
Who Is Substack For?
It’s popular with journalists, freelance writers, podcasters, and bloggers who want to grow an online community.
Listen our interview with Substack co-founder Hamish McKenzie.
4. Constant Contact
Constant Contact is one of the most popular email newsletter software since it has over 650,000 users.
It has useful tools that allow you to create and manage surveys, events, marketing campaigns, and even customer coupons.
Constant Contact’s interface is super easy to use and everything you need can be found on its dashboard, including the editor. Here you can type in the automated emails you intend to send your subscribers.
Everything in Constant Contact is simple and the same goes for its pricing plans. Their paid plan is based on how many subscribers you have, with a pay-as-you-go option available. However, I highly suggest trying their 60-day free trial first, before you buy one of their plans.
However, a small drawback to Constant Contact is that one could say it’s a bit too simple. There are hardly any advanced features, so this isn’t the software for you if you have a massive email list and you want advanced automation options.
Who Is Constant Contact For?
Constant Contact is great for beginners who are on the fence about email marketing and who’d like a long free trial. Constant Contact has a free trial of 60 days, which is the longest in the industry.
5. Mailchimp
The biggest reason why Mailchimp is so popular is because of its price, which is $0. It has a free pricing plan until you reach 2000 email subscribers and 12000 emails sent per month. So you can basically use almost all Mailchimp’s features without spending a dime.
You can grow a huge email subscriber list without buying email software that has tons of marketing automation tools you won’t need as a beginner.
And even though it’s free, it still keeps up with most email tools. It’s beginner-friendly and easy to get up and running. It’s also a breeze to manage your email campaigns with Mailchimp’s dashboard.
Last, you don’t have to use a separate tool to build a landing page and capture leads. Mailchimp allows you to create your own landing page, pop-ups, and automated email sequences.
Who Is Mailchimp For?
Mailchimp is a simple email marketing tool that’s great for people starting out with email marketing. If you want to build a huge subscriber list without spending a dime, Mailchimp is for you.
6. Active Campaign
Active Campaign has the best deliverability amongst all email newsletter software. If you go to emailtooltester.com, you’ll see that Active Campaign has a deliverability rate of 96%.
So if you’re just looking for a tool that allows you to collect a bunch of email addresses and send newsletters to those subscribers without it landing in the spam or promotions tab, then Active Campaign is for you.
In addition to its insanely high deliverability rate, Active Campaign has the best automation tools in the business.
And this is the main reason people love it. It has powerful marketing automation tools and they’re easy to use, which is a difficult combination to pull off.
It has taken email customization to the next level since everything is visual and easy to automate. If you send emails to your subscribers, you can choose what you want to do next based on how they reacted to your previous email.
Another helpful feature I like about Active Campaign is that you can send emails to your subscribers based on their timezone, not yours. Nobody likes getting a bunch of emails in the middle of the night. But Active Campaign will wait for the appropriate time to deliver the email in your subscriber’s inbox.
Active Campaign’s pricing plans are also affordable since there’s a lot of helpful features on its cheapest paid plan. I feel like most email marketing software will put all the cool features on the expensive plans so you must buy those plans if you truly want a functional email marketing campaign.
But with Active Campaign, you’ll get a ton of options on their cheap plan that you’ll never get on other cheaper paid plans. However, their more expensive pricing plans do contain advanced options like;
- Facebook custom audience
- Better social media integrations
- Unlimited emails
- Text marketing
- Predictable sending
Who Is Active Campaign For?
Active Campaign is the perfect email marketing tool for people who want the highest possible deliverability rate and advanced automation options.
What Should I Look For In An Email Newsletter Tool?
Email marketing software powers the bulk emails you send your subscribers every day. But some are too complicated, expensive, and don’t allow for much customization. However, here’s a simple checklist you can follow when choosing an emailing software;
- Does it offer compelling templates?
- Does it have a good deliverability rate?
- Is it simple to use?
- How much personalization is on offer?
- Does it allow you to track your email’s performance?
Does It Offer Compelling Template Options?
Maybe you just published a blog post that you think will solve all your audience’s problems. So you write a compelling email that lets your subscribers know what it’s missing if they don’t read this post. You check in the next day and your blog post is far from viral. What could’ve gone wrong? A poor newsletter template!
You can write the perfect email, but if your newsletter template isn’t appealing, it’ll be sent straight to the trash can. Luckily, if you choose any of the email software in this post, you won’t have this problem because they all have eye-catching newsletter template designs.
Does Your Email Marketing Software Have Good Deliverability?
Deliverability is something that most people overlook when choosing email marketing software because they think that after they hit “send”, their email will pop up in the subscriber’s inbox. But this isn’t the case.
Most email newsletter software only delivers 80% to 90% of the emails you send. The rest goes into the dreaded promotions tab. And it doesn’t matter how good your email is if your subscribers can’t find it.
Luckily there’s a free, online tool that you can use to check your email software’s deliverability rate. Simply head on over to emailtooltester.com and there’ll be a ton of different email software to choose from. Next, choose the email software that you’d like to use and you’re good to go.
How Simple And Convenient Is It To Use?
Creating and sending newsletters to your subscribers should be an easy process. Nobody wants to spend more time searching how to use an email tool than actually using it. This causes lots of unnecessary headaches and it wastes precious time.
But luckily, all email software listed in this post is simple to use and has powerful marketing automation tools.
Which Segmentation Options Are on Offer?
If you have a huge mailing list, you’ll want email software that allows you to segment subscribers and send customized emails to those segments without much trouble.
You’ll also need the right tools to know each subscriber’s demographic so you can send them the proper customized emails.
Do It Provide In-Depth Performance Reports?
In email marketing, tracking the performance of your emails is everything. It can make or break your campaign.
How will you know if your emails are performing or not if your email software’s analytics isn’t up to standard? Powerful email software will tell you your open rate, conversion rate, click-through rate, and unsubscribe rate.
The Best Email Newsletter Software: Final Thoughts
Capturing emails and nurturing those leads is an essential part of every business since it allows you to build a relationship with your audience. But most email software requires you to pay a lot of money for a mediocre and difficult-to-use interface. But luckily the email software featured in this post is easy to use and affordable.
If you’re ready, read our guide on how to start a newsletter.
FAQs
How Do I Grow My Email List?
The best way to quickly grow your email list is to offer your potential readers something free in return. Called a lead magnet, it incentivises readers to give you their email address. All you have to do is send traffic to a landing page, either free via content market or paid via ads.
How Do I Improve My Open Rate?
The first step is to improve your deliverability rate which can be done by choosing the right email marketing platform. Next, experiment with different subject lines and see which works and which don’t. Another way of improving your open rate is to personalize your emails by segmenting your subscribers.
