The common (and highly misinformed) belief is that email marketing isn’t relevant amidst all the other contact points (social media channels, apps, broadcast media, etc.) brands have with customers. What do you need to capitalize on this potential of email marketing? The best email marketing tools. These free email marketing tools reduce your email marketing campaign management work by 90% by automating all key tasks of the process. To start with any of these best free email marketing tools, you don’t even have to pay anything. Once you know what works and wish to scale up, you can upgrade your free plan to a premium plan.
Email marketing can be understood as a multi-step process. You cannot do all the work involved on your own. And even if you have superhuman capabilities, why waste time on something that can be automated or simplified with free email marketing tools? Hold your horses before selecting a random option and keep your money, business reputation and clients safe. First, you need to understand what to look for in the paid and free Email Marketing Tools.
It may seem like finding the right email marketing service provider or the right tool isn’t difficult. After all, most email marketing tools are pretty similar in features and pricing. You will find a free trial or basic version in a vast majority of tools. Also, they all seem to have roughly similar features too.
Most tools promise to automate the email marketing workflow for you, help you track your stats, make sure you send more and better emails, and build deeper customer connections. But, there’s one thing that separates top email marketing tools that are digital marketers’ most significant assets—the ability to deliver on the promises made. Now, the real challenge here is to find a tool that actually works for your business and your set of customers.
To make your choice a notch easier, here is our carefully curated list of paid and free email marketing tools in India.
Founded in 1995, Constant Contact is one of the largest email marketing service providers today. It has been growing into new spaces not yet covered by other providers and offering user-friendly and straightforward customization and integration options.
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Constant Contact offers a 60-day, 100-contacts free trial. The basic plan starts at $20 per month and goes up to $95 per month. They have a 30-day money-back guarantee and discounts if you pay for 6 months or one year in a go.
Bottom line: Best for those who want their email marketing tool to do more than just that.
SendInBlue is a young and dynamic email marketing tool that offers users a unique platform that combines email and SMS campaigns. It has a generous free plan that can help small businesses or individuals looking for a budget solution to their bulk emailing needs.
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Bottom Line: Great for marketers on a budget.
GetResponse has a user base of over 350,000. The reason it is so popular is that it offers much more than just email marketing. It is an all-in-one marketing platform, to say the least. It is an easy-to-use, intuitive, and robust offering.
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Being so loaded with features, GetResponse does not offer a free plan. However, you do get a 30-day free trial. The smallest plan starts at $15 a month, and for the bigs shots, the highest plan costs $1199/month.
Bottom Line: Great fit for medium-sized businesses looking for multiple features with easy implementation options.
If you are specifically looking for free email marketing tools, there is nothing better than HubSpot. It has a feature-packed free plan with premium upgrade options. HubSpot is a fast-growing service provider, primarily catering to the needs of growing businesses.
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HubSpot comes loaded with all these features in the free plan itself. The free version has a cap of 2000 emails per month. If you are looking for A/B testing and higher caps, only then should you choose the paid plans. (Either $50/month or $800/month)
Bottom Line: The best option for complete email marketing with free tools.
ConvertKit is a very niche-based email marketing tool provider that was launched in 2013 by Nathan Barry. It is specifically targeted towards the “Creators” People most likely to benefit from ConvertKit include Instagram stars, vloggers, bloggers, writers/authors, and course creators.
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ConvertKit offers the same features with all their plans. The only difference is the number of subscribers.
All these plans come with a 14-day free trial and 30-day money-back guarantee.
Bottom Line: Perfect fit for individuals and small teams that wish to send plain text emails.
Chances are you already have an idea about MailChimp. It could be due to their cute company mascot. Or the fact that it is the leading email marketing tool with over 1 billion emails sent using Mailchimp each day.
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Bottom Line: MailChimp has the best free plan. It certainly is the best among free email marketing tools that can be used by individual bloggers and small business owners looking for loaded features without having to pay a penny.
Drip is a newly emerging email marketing platform with tools targeted at eCommerce website owners, marketers, and bloggers. It brings to the table intelligent marketing automation in a beginner-friendly way. And this is why this new age tool shines bright among the best email marketing tools.
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Drip offers unlimited mail sends for all their plans, including the free option. The free option, however, has a limit of 100 subscribers. The paid plans have an option for 2500 subscribers ($49/month), 5000 subscribers ($122/month), and custom plans for over 5000 subscribers. The paid plans come with a 14-day trial and 30-day refund window.
Bottom Line: Ideal for eCommerce store owners with multiple products and an elaborate marketing sequence looking for easy solutions.
We aren’t entirely sure, but the chances are that AWeber is the first email marketing tool to use the autoresponder. It has been around since 1998 and is a through and through email marketing solution loaded with features. It completely justifies its tag of a high-quality email marketing tool.
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Weber offers the same features across all its plans that differ only on the basis of subscriber count. The plans start from $19/month for up to 500 subscribers and go up to $149/month for up to 25,00 subscribers. For more subscribers, you can get a custom quote. There is no free plan or money-back guarantee, but a 30-day free trial that helps you try before you buy.
Bottom Line: Ideal for small teams willing to streamline their email marketing efforts.
ActiveCampaign markets itself as a complete marketing tool with special emphasis on email marketing. If you are looking for logical funnels and give preference to quality over bulk emailing software, ActiveCampaign offers just that.
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ActiveCampaign has no lifetime free plans, but it does offer a 14-day free trial with 100 contacts and 100 emails sent. The lowest costing plan is pegged at $15/month with 500 subscribers, and the highest plan priced at $499 offers space for 10,000 subscribers.
Bottom Line: ActiveCampaign is an ideal pick for those who want complex automation tools with advanced CRM features.
BenchMark is an email marketing tool built to favor SMEs. With a loaded free plan, it effectively offers more for less. It is a desktop-only platform, and you cannot preview the email on mobile devices, but the free plan more or less does make up for that.
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Benchmark has a free plan that would suit your needs if you don’t need to send more than 250 emails a month. The number of subscribers in this option is unlimited. Paid plans start from $11.89 (600 subscribers), and the highest plan for 3500 subscribers costs $37.39.
Bottom line: BenchMark is an ideal pick if you need advanced features on a low budget. The free plan is generous in features and would work fine if you can limit the number of emails you need to send.
Every tool mentioned in the list has its own advantages and is suitable for diverse needs. Top digital marketers use these tools and they can be called the key to efficient and result-based marketing on the Internet.
In general, HubSpot and MailChimp stand out as the best free email marketing tools that are likely to meet most of your needs. The best way to find the ideal email marketing tool for your requirements is to carry out an email marketing tool comparison. Make sure the tool your pick has scope to include emerging trends like mobile optimization, responsive and interactive emails, and process automation.
No matter what tool you pick, make sure you make complete use of the power of email marketing and leverage it to your best advantage.