Email marketing, as a concept, can seem a little tricky to get your head around. You need to know the difference between an email marketing and an email marketing tool, and how the first can be made possible by the second. You need to know the difference between free tools and paid tools and when it’s okay to use one or the other. You even need to know what you can do with email marketing beyond just sending out emails once in a while—how it can help you track your audience and their behavior, what sorts of things you want to look for when you’re tracking them, and how you’ll use that information when you have it.
If all this seems like too much to take in, don’t worry. That’s why we’re here.
Welcome to Email Marketing Tools Free’s blog!
Email Marketing Tools Free
So you’ve decided to start focusing more effort on your ‘small’ business, and perhaps you’re still working out of your bedroom, but your customers don’t need to know that.
You’ve been sending out emails to your list of around 50-200 recipients that you’ve built up over the last few months, but Outlook isn’t quite cutting it anymore. Sometimes your emails get lost in the void that is spam folders, and then there was that one time you accidentally CC’d instead of BCCing! That sadly caused a few unsubscribes, which, of course, had to be removed manually.
There must be a better way, right?
It might be time to try out a more professional email tool. But wait, before you cry out ‘professional = expensive’, there are actually a bunch of free email marketing services that can do the job well. No more spam surprises and no more embarrassing personal data breaches.
Table of Contents
Video: Free Email Marketing Services Review
What can I expect from free email marketing software?
Free email marketing services [Table]
Free Email Marketing Services in Detail
What’s with this ‘free plan’ talk?
What do I get for (not spending) my hard-earned cash?
What limitations do free email marketing services have?
Conclusion: What’s the best free email service for you?
Video: Free Email Marketing Services Review
Check out our video review of the top 3 free email marketing services: MailerLite, Mailchimp, Omnisend
Smart Finder: Find the Best Option in 1 Minute
What can I expect from free email marketing software?
With email marketing RIO at 4400% (that’s $44 for every dollar you spend on your email campaign!), it’s well worth using a free email marketing service to start bringing in the big bucks!
You’ll be pleasantly surprised at just how much you can get for absolutely nothing! Some don’t even set a cap on the number of subscribers you can have or the number of emails you can send a month.
You’ll also see that other features such as landing pages, transactional email and automation are sometimes included, so look out for these nice extras.
The specific features that appeal to you will depend on the needs of your business. However, there are a few things to look out for when selecting an email marketing service:
Are email templates included for free? And are the designs attractive?
Does the free plan include landing pages and what are the designs like? (These can be very useful if you don’t have a website yet)
Is email automation included? And can I segment my contacts into different lists?
Will the reports offered give me the data I need?
Is there a limit to the number of forms I can create?
Are transactional emails included (if that’s something you need)
Most often, the provider will include its own logo in your email, you might want to see what this actually looks like as some are more subtle than others
What other tools does it integrate with? (Especially worth considering if you have an ecommerce site)
What kind of support do you get? Mailchimp, for example, is notoriously difficult to get in contact with on the free plan
We’ve arranged all this information in the table below to give you a better idea of where each tool shines.
So who are these free email marketing services you speak of?
Good question. I’ve put them into a handy table for you below!
AWeber’s free plan includes a good range of features and a reasonable email allowance. You’ll have access to email and landing page templates, and also phone support. (Read our full review)
PROVIDER WHAT’S INCLUDED FOR FREE? COMMENTS
MailerLite
5 stars
1,000 subscribers
12,000 emails p/m
Automations, landing pages and reports
MailerLite offer a decent amount of features on its free plan. This includes autoresponders, sophisticated webforms, (limited) reporting and email support. There are only basic structural templates included, however. (Read our full review)
Sender
4.5 stars
2,500 subscribers
15,000 emails p/m
Autoresponders + transactional emails
Push notifications
Forms
This simple and easy-to-use email marketing tool includes a sizeable sending allowance and some handy extras like automations and push notifications.
Moosend
4.5 stars
1,000 subscribers
Unlimited emails
All features included
No Moosend branding in emails
In terms of extras, this is probably one of the more generous free plans we’ve seen, with access to nearly all areas of the tool (landing pages and team accounts not included). It’s also the only tool we’ve tested that doesn’t include its own branding in your emails. (Read our full review)
MailChimp
4.5 stars
2,000 subscribers
10,000 emails p/m
Reporting
List management
Mobile features
You have restricted features available on the free account (e.g. no advanced segmentation and delivery by time-zone). You’ll only have access to email or chat support for the first 30 days, and you won’t be able to schedule your newsletters, which is a real pain. But you will have a generous subscriber amount, and it’s pretty user-friendly. Note that there’s a small ad banner in each email you send. (Read our full review)
Sendinblue
4stars
Unlimited subscribers
9,000 emails p/m
Marketing automation
CRM
Basic reporting
Sendinblue’s free plan is a little more restricted in terms of emails. You can have up to 9,000 p/m, but there is also a daily limit of 300. You also have their branding present in all emails. (Read our full review)
Zoho
4stars
6,000 emails p/m
2,000 contacts
Up to 5 users
Reports
With decent email and subscriber allowances, Zoho’s Forever Free plan is worth checking out. Though automation and campaign scheduling are reserved for its paying customers, it does allow you to use its CRM features and offers a wide range of modern email templates. (Read our full review)
Omnisend
4stars
500 emails p/m to 250 contacts
Unlimited subscribers
Landing pages
60 international SMS
Segmentation & automation
Website tracking
Though the sending allowance is small, Omnisend’s free plan comes with all advanced features, including landing pages, website tracking and marketing automation. (Read our full review)
GetResponse
4stars
500 subscribers
Unlimited emails
Website/landing page builder, plenty of email templates
GetResponse slightly lets itself down by only allowing for 500 subscribers, however, their offering of unlimited emails is pretty appealing. Additional features include a well-designed website builder, but no marketing automation. (Read our full review)
SendPulse
4stars
500 subscribers
15,000 emails p/m
Web push notifications
Transactional emails
Basic autoresponders
A large sending allowance and some unique messaging features make SendPulse’s free plan a top option for multichannel marketers.
EmailOctopus
3.5 stars
2,500 subscribers
10,000 emails
Stats for 30 days only
A refreshingly simple newsletter software with very low prices. Doesn’t have a whole load of features but what it does, it does well. You can integrate it with numerous other tools through Zapier.
HubSpot
3.5 stars
1million subscribers
2,000 emails p/m
CRM
Webforms
HubSpot’s free plan is slightly limited in terms of emails, as you have a monthly sending limit of just 2,000. They are, however, pretty generous with subscribers and CRM features. Their branding is present in all emails. (Read our full review)
AWeber
3.5 stars
Up to 500 email subscribers
3,000 email/month
Landing pages
One list
Simple automation
AWeber’s free plan includes a good range of features and a reasonable email allowance. You’ll have access to email and landing page templates, and also phone support. (Read our full review)
Mailjet
3.5 stars
Unlimited subscribers
6,000 emails p/m
Reporting
Similar to Sendinblue, Mailjet have a sending limit on their free plan, and a daily limit of only 200 emails. (Read our full review)
Benchmark
3
Unlimited subscribers
250 emails p/m
Webforms
List management
Basic A/B testing
Thought the free plan includes unlimited subscribers, with an allowance of 250 emails/month, you won’t be able to do much. (Read our full review)
MoonMail
3
2,000 subscribers
300 emails p/m
Basic support
List segmentation
This Amazon-powered email service is disappointingly stingy in their free plan, with a limit of just 300 emails per month and 1 campaign per day.
CleverReach
3
250 subscribers
1,000 emails p/m
Reporting
Webforms
CleverReach’s free allowance is pretty limited when you compare it to other newsletter services. There is also a small ad in your outgoing emails that can’t be removed. (Read our full review)
For in-depth reviews, please also check out our ranking table.
With the above table, you can see that it’s perfectly possible to use a free newsletter creator for your small business needs, at least up to a certain point, depending on how big your dreams (a.k.a. contact lists) become.
Free Email Marketing Services in Detail
Now that you’ve got an idea of what each of the tools offer, let’s take a closer look at their features and limitations.
MailerLite – ticks most of the boxes
mailerlite free email marketing serviceAs its name suggests, MailerLite’s focus is on delivering a simple, no-frills email marketing service. The result is an easy-to-use newsletter tool with some surprisingly useful features (think landing pages, forms, and marketing automation). And their ‘Free Forever’ plan gives you access to most – but not all – of their features.
What we liked: This free emailer is super intuitive, so even if you’re an email marketing novice, you’ll have no problem getting campaigns up and running. And as long as you have less than 1,000 subscribers, you can send 12,000 emails a month, and even set up single-trigger automation workflows and landing pages for free.
Where they should improve: Unfortunately their templates aren’t available on the free plan, meaning you’ll need to build your own. There’s no spam or design testing, and while we like their workflow-based automation editor, it’s limited to just a handful of automation functions (sending trigger-based emails, updating contact fields, etc.).
Who is the free plan suited to? We think MailerLite is one of the best free email marketing services around. But we think it’s especially handy for budget-conscious small businesses looking for an easy, all-in-one solution for their inbound marketing.
MailerLite Video Review
Free trial: www.mailerlite.com
Sender – easy does it
Sender
A simple interface and smooth user experience make Sender one of the easiest email marketing tools to use. Its free plan also has a substantial allowance of 2,500 subscribers and up to 15,000 emails per month. You get a nice amount of features included too – automations, transactional emails, push notifications and forms.
What we liked: The automations included on the free plan are surprisingly advanced – you’ve got options to send abandoned cart campaigns, for example, and to perform actions such as moving subscribers to different lists or updating custom field values. In general, the simplicity of the tool is a nice change from the overcomplexity of other similarly-featured tools.
Where they should improve: While the email template designs aren’t bad, it would be nice to have a few more on offer. Integrations are limited to just a handful of third-party applications, including WordPress, WooCommerce and Magento.
Who is the free plan suited to? If you’re after an easy-to-use, no-nonsense email marketing service (with a few nice extras thrown in), you’ll appreciate Sender’s simplicity and utility.
Free Trial: sender.net
Moosend – packed with all the extras
Moosend
Here’s an email marketing platform that really caught our attention. Design-wise, it’s probably one of the more eye-pleasing ones out there, with a colorful interface and fun branding. Although the free plan only allows for up to 1,000 subscribers, the rest is actually pretty generous – you get unlimited emails, access to almost all features (landing pages and team accounts excluded), and, amazingly, no Moosend branding in your emails.
What we liked: The drag-and-drop email editor is easy to use and flexible, allowing you to create 3 and 4-column layouts. You’ve also got a nice selection of around 40 email templates to choose from, plus cool extras such as spam testing, A/B testing and automations.
Where they should improve: Although it works well for the most part, there are a few things that could run smoother, such as the email and automations editor. We also encountered a few issues with deliverability at the beginning, and would recommend keeping a close eye on campaign performance rates.
Who is the free plan suited to? If your list is on the smaller side and you want to take advantage of perks like spam testing and unbranded emails, Moosend could work well for you.
Free Trial: Moosend.com
MailChimp – Making email marketing fun
Mailchimp free email marketing service
Let’s face it – email marketing can be a little dry sometimes. MailChimp is a breath of fresh air, and their fun and quirky branding, paired with some solid, user-friendly features, have helped it quickly become the world’s most popular email marketing service.
Their free account gives you 10,000 emails a month for up to 2,000 contacts, with access to landing pages, forms and reporting. However, if you want ad-free emails and access to features like A/B testing, chat/email support, inbox previews, campaign scheduling and time zone delivery, you’ll need to upgrade to one of their monthly or pay-as-you-go plans.
What we liked: They have a great variety of well-designed and (mostly) mobile-responsive templates, with plenty of flexibility to edit as needed. Their reporting is comprehensive, with stats on conversions, social activity, e-Commerce tracking and email domain performance. You’ve also got forms that easily integrate with your site, landing pages, and over 800 third-party integration options.
Where they should improve: The free emailer plan only allows for single-step automations (i.e. autoresponders) and you can’t even schedule your campaigns, which is really one of the main reasons for using an email marketing service. Emails also have a tendency to end up in Gmail’s Promotions tab – fine if your emails are promoting sales and offers, but less than ideal if they’re informational or transactional. The interface could also be a bit more user-friendly. Find out more in this Mailchimp alternatives post.
Who is the free plan suited to? Marketers who want to send nice-looking promotional emails to a relatively large number of subscribers. Be aware that once you move onto a paid Mailchimp account, you’ll see a pretty big jump in price.
MailChimp Video Review
Free Trial: mailchimp.com
Sendinblue – doing one-on-one right
Free email marketing services
Starting out as a transactional email provider, Sendinblue have successfully expanded into the email marketing service space, offering advanced features such as SMS marketing and email automation.
On their free plan, you can have an unlimited number of subscribers and send up to 9,000 emails a month, although there’s a daily cap of 300 emails. A few of the features are also off-limits – you won’t get access to email heat maps, details of openers and clickers, or ad-free emails.
What we liked: Marketing automation is a little more sophisticated than other tools’, with options to build and even test various campaign workflows (e.g. based on page visits, email engagement, product purchases). Reporting is also pretty good, although it’s a little annoying that the free plan doesn’t give you details of who opened and clicked. Their paid plans are pretty affordable, starting at only $25 for 40,000 emails.
Where they should improve: While their templates are mobile-responsive, they could do with a wider variety (although you can always find and use your own templates). And they’re missing features such as A/B testing, which come as standard in most other tools.
Who is the free plan suited to? If your email marketing is less about newsletters and more about sending trigger-based campaigns (such as welcome emails, abandoned cart emails, or emails based on web visits/email engagement), Sendinblue is a decent option to try. You can also send mass emails for free.
Sendinblue Video Review
Free Trial: www.sendinblue.com
Zoho Campaigns – the Swiss Army Knife
zoho campaigns – free email service
Zoho are kind of a big deal in the sales and marketing world. Their impressive suite of services means that marketers and small business owners can find all that they need under one roof.
Zoho Campaigns is where the email marketing magic happens, and with a great selection of well-designed templates and an easy-to-use editor, it’s well worth checking out if you’re on a budget.
What we liked: Well-designed interface that is easy to navigate. The editor is fast and offers all the main elements, including columns, video and polls. A cool feature is that you can upload images from Unsplash directly in the editor. Segmentation is also possible. We particularly liked their range of email and form templates.
Where they should improve: It’s a bit disappointing that no kind of automations are included in the free plan, though if you want this feature you can get it for as little as $5/month. The form builder could be easier to use with the use of drag and drop technology.
Zoho recently removed the ability to A/B test your campaigns and even schedule them on the free plan. They also halved the email allowance, which makes it quite limited compared to some tools on this list.
Who is the free plan suited to? Zoho Campaign’s free plan is for anyone looking for an easy-to-use email marketing service with excellent design templates. If you need basic email marketing automation and don’t want to pay, you’d be better off going with MailerLite.
Try out Zoho for free!
Omnisend – a smart tool for ecommerce
Omnisend free email marketing service
As an email service that’s strongly geared to ecommerce, Omnisend has a lot of exceptional features, including automation workflows, the ability to automatically add your store’s products to your newsletters, and cool email add-ons like scratch cards and gift boxes. What’s more, all of these features are available on the free plan, along with website tracking, 24/7 support, deep reporting, and landing pages. Not bad at all.
Unfortunately, a recent change in Omnisend’s pricing means that the number of emails you can send has decreased dramatically. What were 15,000 emails per month (2,000 per day) are now just 500, and you can only contact 250 subscribers. This might work for you if you need an advanced service but have few subscribers, but I imagine you’ll quickly outgrow the allowances.
Free Trial: www.omnisend.com
GetResponse – a free plan with unlimited emails
Sales funnel software: GetResponse
GetResponse has only recently added a free plan to their offering, but we’re very happy they have. We’ve been following GetResponse’s product updates for years, and can say that they have some very interesting niche features, though you’ll see below that the features included on their free plan are slightly more limited. These pro, paid features include webinars, sales funnels and advanced marketing automation
What we liked:
What is included are unlimited emails and a website builder with 5 GB of bandwidth. You can also connect your own domain and make use of their SEO-optimization tools.
There are over 500 email templates to choose from, and the editor is flexible and easy-to-use.
Where they should improve:
Unfortunately, you can only store up to 500 subscribers on the free plan, which isn’t many compared to the other tools on the list. You’re also limited to just one landing page.
Autoresponders and automations are reserved for higher-tier paid plans, and, of course, you’ll have to put up with the GetResponse branding.
Who is the free plan suited to?
Small businesses with few subscribers looking for a tool to set up both a simple website and manage their email marketing.
Free trial: www.getresponse.com
SendPulse – for multichannel messaging
Sendpulse free email marketing
SendPulse offers a multichannel platform for marketers looking to do more than just email marketing. Its wide range of features includes web push notifications, SMS, Viber and even transactional emails via SMTP.
SendPulse’s free plan is one of the more generous in terms of sending limits, with a monthly allowance of 15,000 emails, however, you are only allowed up to 500 subscribers.
What we liked: You get access to some very useful features even on the free plan, including autoresponders, A/B testing, a website builder, CRM features and advanced reporting such as click heat maps and opens by location. Web push notifications come included in the free plan, and you can also opt to have a free monthly plan of 12,000 SMTP emails.
Where they should improve: I came across a few issues with their email editor, which was at times buggy and slow. Without a workflow-based editor for basic autoresponders, these can also be a bit cumbersome to manage.
Who is the free plan suited to? A multichannel platform won’t appeal to everyone, but if your business uses web push or transactional emails to communicate with customers, SendPulse’s free plan could save you a considerable amount of time and money. The fact that it comes with a CRM and website builder is an added bonus.
Free Trial: sendpulse.com
EmailOctopus
emailoctopus
After Mailchimp and Moosend, here’s another animal in the email marketing zoo. EmailOctopus is a special breed: it used to be built on top of the Amazon SES service that provides the email infrastructure. The AWS account is optional now, though, meaning that you can use it just like any other newsletter service.
They let you have a generous 2500 subscribers for free, with a sending limit of 10,000 emails per month. If you are using Amazon’s servers, you can even use the free quota of currently up to 62,000 emails. “Currently”, because this can always change.
What we liked: prices on the paid plans are on the lower end (e.g. 50,000 subscribers for $115 per month) and once set up, the Octopus proved a well-spirited newsletter tool that is extremely easy to use. There’s an API available as well as a Zapier integration.
What they should improve: The range of features is a bit limited, though, if you are only looking to send classic newsletters and autoresponders you may have everything you need.
Who is the free plan suited to? I’d recommend EmailOctopus mainly to cost-conscious marketers who maybe already have an Amazon SES. They also seem to be relaxed about senders dealing with cryptocurrency and affiliate marketing. Industries other email providers often reject.
Free plan: www.emailoctopus.com
HubSpot – A place to manage your contacts
HubSpot – The CRM powerhouse
Collect contacts through HubSpot’s forms, manage contacts in their advanced CRM and send up to 2,000 emails a month for free. You can also add unlimited users and assign contacts to each of them.
The drag and drop editor is pretty smooth and helpfully points out anything you might have missed. Unfortunately, they do not offer anything special when it comes to email templates – you just have one basic newsletter or promotion template to customize. It’s also not possible to unload your own or code it in HTML.
If you want access to templates, automations and landing pages, you’ll have to upgrade to their Sales or Marketing Hub.
What we liked: You have access to a robust CRM, form builder, ads and a few other cool features. In terms of ease of use, the software doesn’t feel overwhelming at all. Primarily a CRM, they are generous when it comes to contacts, allowing you to store up to 1 million for free!
Where they should improve: Though there is (virtually) no cap on contacts, you might find that 2,000 emails a month isn’t enough. You’ll also have to put up with the HubSpot branding being present at the end of every email you send. They could also include a few nice templates in the free plan or at least the option to upload your own.
A limitation to HubSpot’s free plan is that you’re not able to properly authenticate an email sending domain through SPF and DKIM – that said, they didn’t score too badly in our deliverability testing.
Who should use the free plan: Small to medium-sized businesses who are in need of a decent CRM – because this is where HubSpot really shines. You’ll need to take into account that the monthly sending limit is quite low compared to other tools (though one-to-one sales emails don’t count towards this) and neither A/B testing nor automations are included.
Try HubSpot out for free!
AWeber – Phone support included for free!
aweber
AWeber is a Pennsylvania-based free email marketing service, and with over 20 years of experience under their belt, it’s fair to say they know the business. In fact, AWeber’s claim to fame is that they invented the autoresponder. But what does the free plan come with and how does it compare to the other emailing services on the list?
What we liked: AWeber’s free plan includes many of its paid features, including simple marketing automation, landing pages, unlimited users, phone support and thousands of stock photos.
You’ll have access to its entire newsletter and landing page template library, which comes with a good selection of mobile-responsive designs.
Where they should improve: The analytics are a bit thin on the free plan. If you want access to webpage and email sales tracking, you’ll need to upgrade to the paid plan. Bear in mind that your emails will include AWeber branding, and you can only manage 1 list.
We also find the subscriber limit quite low compared to other email marketing services like MailerLite and Mailchimp.
Who is the free plan suited to?
AWeber’s free plan is a good option for those who want 24/7 support and would rather receive this over the phone. It’s also an advantage that there’s no daily sending limit.
AWeber Video Review
Try AWeber for free
Mailjet – lots of potential
MailJet free email marketing service
Another newsletter provider traditionally known for sending transactional emails, Mailjet has evolved into a more complete email service, although their features are still relatively basic. Their free plan is generous in terms of capacity (unlimited contacts and up to 6,000 emails a month, with a 200-email daily limit). It’s a little less generous in terms of access, however – premium features like automations, segmentation and A/B testing are only available to try out for free for 30 days.
What we liked: The drag-and-drop editor is a breeze to use, and they have a decent range of email templates to choose from.
Where they should improve: Everything still feels a little new and unpolished – there’s just a handful of automation workflows available, for example, and lots of features still under development.
Who is the free plan suited to? If volume is important to you, and you don’t need sophisticated features, Mailjet’s free plan will serve you well.
Free Trial: www.mailjet.com
Benchmark – sleek and simple
Benchmark free email marketing service
With a clean and minimalist design, Benchmark is one of the most user-friendly newsletter tools we’ve tried. What’s more, their free Starter plan gives you access to all areas – marketing automation, forms, surveys and reporting included – with a few caveats (you won’t be able to activate automations or A/B tests, for example, and sign-up forms will only allow you to add 75 subscribers a day). You’ll also only have 250 emails/month, which is not many at all.
What we liked: They have a great variety of modern-looking and mobile-friendly templates, and a drag-and-drop editor that’s hard to beat in terms of usability. Support, even on the free plan, is fast and responsive. And they offer integration with over 300+ tools, including WordPress, Facebook and Shopify.
Where they should improve: Deliverability rates with Benchmark were disappointingly low (particularly to Outlook and Hotmail inboxes). You’re also unlikely to stay on the free plan for very long, as they charge $5/month to upgrade your image storage from 10MB to unlimited and only allow for 250 emails/month.
Who is the free plan suited to? Businesses who tend to send more text-based emails might have a better chance of staying under the file storage limit (and having their emails delivered) – so if you’re after a nicely designed and straightforward tool, Benchmark is a good choice.
Benchmark Video Review
Free Trial: www.benchmarkemail.com
MoonMail – powerful, but at a price
MoonMail free email marketing service
MoonMail leverages Amazon’s cloud network to send their email and was built with volume in mind. Their free plan however is one of the most restrictive, with just 300 emails a month, and a daily cap of 1 campaign a day (with only 10 recipients per campaign). You’re obligated to use their own domain as the email sender address, and have no access to automations. Support and the ability to edit custom fields is also limited. Plus, we have to say their tool isn’t the easiest to use, with a lot of back and forth required to set up campaigns.
Free Trial: moonmail.io
CleverReach – professional but limited
CleverReach free email marketing service
CleverReach offers a complete, enterprise-grade email marketing service, with functions like marketing automation, forms, and reports. Their Lite plan gives you access to most of their features and allows up to 1,000 emails to a maximum of 250 subscribers every month for free.
What we liked: Their editor is easy to use. We also like their workflow-based automation editor, comprehensive reporting, and handy campaign calendar.
Where they should improve: The free plan is very limited in terms of automations, templates and registration forms. And it’s a shame that not all their templates are responsive.
Who should use the free plan: If your list is small and EU compliance is a big priority for you, CleverReach is the way to go – double opt-ins come as standard, and data is hosted within Europe.
Free Trial: www.cleverreach.com
What’s with this ‘free plan’ talk?
If you’re like me, whenever you hear the word ‘free’ for apps or tools you’re probably wondering ‘so what’s the catch?’
Well, it’s not a catch so much as a ‘freemium model’. This basically means that you may have certain restrictions perhaps based upon the number of subscribers you can have, emails you can send or features available. In most cases, though, if you’re a small business these plans will be enough to get you up and running!
And I guess the ‘catch’ is that once your budget has become a little less lean, you’ll be so happy with the service you’re using that you’ll stick with it and invest in a higher plan. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
What do I get for (not spending) my hard-earned cash?
Well, to begin with, we’ve only shown you ‘hosted’ newsletter services, which basically just means that you don’t need your own email server or to install anything on your computer. In other words, they’re fully self-contained services. Nice and easy right?
Also, they all have a form of bounce management. This means that the service automatically takes care of emails that don’t reach their recipient, after a couple of tries, by removing them from your list. This helps keep your contact lists clean and uncluttered.
Even though your newsletters will most likely be the most useful emails your customers have ever received, there will always be those who aren’t as enlightened, and that’s where the next service comes in handy. They all offer quick and easy unsubscribe management, which can take place without you needing to do anything.
And finally, another useful feature of these providers is that they can provide you with statistics. Now you’ll be able to find out who’s actually opening your emails, and which ones are more popular than others…after all, it’s basically a popularity contest. May the best newsletter win.
What limitations do free email marketing services have?
Most free emailers restrict either subscriber or email numbers, and sometimes both, so pay attention to these amounts when deciding. All of the providers seem to restrict access to some features, so be aware of what is and isn’t included on their free plans. Also, most newsletter tools also put their own branding within your newsletters (usually a small badge in the footer).
A premium feature that you won’t find with any of these providers is marketing automation, so it’s worth taking that into account. It’s often also not possible to access advanced reporting with most of these free accounts either. So if you need this kind of sophistication you may need to open up your wallet. You can get an idea of prices, and compare them between providers, with our newsletter cost calculator.
In regards to recommendations, I’d probably try out MailerLite or Sender to begin with, they have relatively good subscriber and email limits, along with an easy-to-use system. MailerLite has some great features, such as landing pages and multiple languages, while still being wallet-friendly, even in their paid plans. Sender includes advanced automations for free.
Conclusion: What’s the best free email service for you?
While there are a number of free email providers, it’s good to not only be aware of the limitations of each but also to go with one that feels best for you. To figure this out, simply TRY them…they’re free after all!
In need of CRM software? Check out this detailed list of the best free CRM providers.
free bulk email marketing
Email has long been one of the most effective marketing channels for businesses of all sizes. But finding an email service provider that can keep up with the number of emails you need to send can be a challenge — especially if you don’t have much of a budget (or no budget at all). Sending bulk emails is important to reach large audiences with your newsletters, promotional emails, and basically just communicating with your list in general. But you don’t just want to send emails without being able to understand how those emails are performing, right? That’s why we’ve put together this list of free bulk email marketing services so you can compare the features and find the right one for your business.
Compare Email Marketing Software
Best for
Features
Pricing
Rating
EmailOctopus
EmailOctopus is an email marketing software solution for anyone who’s ever wanted simplicity and performance.
WEBSITE
Small to large businesses.
Auto-Responders, Campaign Analytics, Drip Campaigns, Dynamic Content
$24.00 /month (free starter package)
Convertkit
Convertkit gives you the fluidity and flexibility desired in email campaign creation and execution.
WEBSITE
Creators, bloggers and podcasters.
Landing Pages/Web Forms, Marketing Automation, Mobile Optimized Emails, AB Testing
$29.00 /month (free trial)
Sendinblue
Sendinblue is the quintessential business marketing platform. It’s more than email and SMS marketing.
Companies of all sizes.
Content Management, Customizable CTAs, Analytics/ROI Tracking, Campaign Analytics, Drip Campaigns
$25.00/month (free trial)
Omnisend
Easy-to-use omnichannel platform: email, sms, push notifications and automation
Small and medium ecommerce businesses that want to generate sales on autopilot
Email marketing, marketing automation, SMS, push notifications, pop ups & forms
Free – reach up to 250 contacts & 500 emails/mo; Paid plans start at $16/mo
EngageBay Inc
EngageBay offers software for businesses that want all the benefits of a suite of tools without worrying how they integrate with each other.
Small to medium size businesses.
AB Testing, Audience Targeting, Account Management, Automated Scheduling, Activity Tracking
$10.79/month (free starter package)
Visit our in-depth comparisons and reviews for all solutions on offer in this category
Read Reviews
10 Free Bulk Email Marketing Services Rated and Compared (2022):
- Elastic Email
- Mailgun
- Amazon SES
- SendPulse
- Sendinblue
- Sender
- MailerLite
- Omnisend
- Mailjet
- Mailchimp
Read more
What Is a Bulk Email Service?
A bulk email service is an email service capable of sending emails to a large number of recipients at once. Bulk emails are generally used for advertising or marketing campaigns as well as to send out updates to your email list. The types of emails you might send include newsletters, promotional emails, transactional emails, shipping notifications, reports, password resets, and more.
You need a reliable bulk email service provider to send emails at this volume because doing it from your own email server is likely to get you flagged as a spammer. Bulk email services are specifically built with large volumes of email in mind and know how to send your emails so your sender reputation remains intact and so you don’t find yourself on the wrong side of the email gods.
What to Look for in a Bulk Email Service
There are a few key features that you’ll want to look for in a bulk email service before committing:
Security and reliability
Email tracking
List management
Email design
Price
Security and Reliability
Security and reliability are hands down the most important feature to look for in your bulk email service. When you’re sending out a large volume of emails in a short amount of time, you need to be able to do it without triggering any spam filters. Your bulk email provider should give you the option to choose an SMTP server and use batching (sending emails out in smaller batches) to send out your bulk emails instead of sending them out all at once.
Email Tracking
Most bulk email services will give you at least some basic email tracking tools so you can check open and click rates, deliverability, and other common email marketing benchmarks and metrics. Some of the more powerful tools will offer in-depth analytics.
List Management
The bulk email service you choose should give you the option to add and manage your email marketing list. This includes features that will help you segment your list and keep your list clean and free from duplicates and inactive emails.
Email Design
Typically, a bulk email service isn’t going to include as many design options as the average email marketing service provider, but it should include at least some basic design tools. If there aren’t any design tools available, the platform should at least give you the option to import your own design or paste an HTML email template.
Price
Cost is going to be a factor for some businesses. On our list, we’ve included free bulk email marketing services that include additional features and functionality on their paid plans. No matter your budget, you’ll be able to find a bulk email marketing service for you on this list.
10 Free Bulk Email Marketing Services
As we mentioned, bulk email marketing services are used to send a large volume of emails via SMTP, API, or a web interface. These tools are generally less expensive than marketing email services, but that’s because they tend to have fewer bells and whistles. Here are the 10 free bulk email marketing services we’re loving right now.
- Elastic Email
elastic email Email Marketing Service
Elastic Email is a free bulk email marketing service that’s easy to use. You can manage your recipient list for each marketing campaign and the platform includes autoresponders. The platform also includes web forms that you can add to your emails as well as a WordPress plugin for the WordPress users out there. Since Elastic Email offers API access, you can integrate the platform with the apps you already use. In addition, Elastic Email allows for sub-accounts and includes A/X testing features.
💡 Features
Email designer or upload your own HTML email template
List management
Sending and scheduling options
Autoresponders
Unlimited web forms
Subscriber form WordPress plugin
Landing pages
Tags and custom fields
Segmentation functionality
Unlimited sub-accounts
Email automations and workflows
A/X testing
Detailed reporting
Email verification
24/7 support
✔️ Pros and Cons
😊 Web forms and landing pages for lead generation
😊 Less expensive than other options
😊 Tracking and dashboards have lots of info
😊 Great support
😩 Emails might end up in spam
😩 Reputation can drop quickly if you’re not using the platform correctly
😩 Some users reported that their accounts were closed for sending phishing emails
💰 Pricing
Free plan allows you to send up to 100 emails per day
Unlimited: $15/month for up to 5,000 contacts
Unlimited Pro: $30/month for up to 5,000 contacts
Email API: $0.10/1000 emails + $0.40/day
Email API Pro: $0.12/1000/emails + $1/day
- Mailgun
Mailgun bulk email marketing solution
Mailgun is another bulk email marketing service that has a robust API for sending, receiving, and tracking emails. It also offers SMTP integration for easy sending of bulk transactional emails, email validation in real-time, advanced email analytics, tracking engagement metrics, and more.
💡 Features
Base features:
Email APIs, SMTP relay, and webhooks
Suppression management
Email tracking and analytics
99.99% guaranteed uptime SLA
5 days of log retention (15 days with Growth, 30 days with Scale)
Detailed documentation
Limited 24/7 ticket support
Higher-level plan features:
Inbound email routing
1 dedicated IP (foundation 100k and up)
Email address validations
Inbox placement tests
1-day message retention (3-day with Growth, up to 7 days with Scale)
✔️ Pros and Cons
😊 Can set up alias emails without needing to set up new email accounts
😊 Easy to set up and use in WHM
😊 Clean and useful dashboard
😩 Not the easiest interface to customize messages
😩 More expensive compared to other bulk email marketing services
😩 Some users experienced downtime of system servers
💰 Pricing
Pay As You Grow: 5,000 free emails/month for three months, then pay only for what you send
Foundation: $35/month up to 50,000 emails (additional emails charged at $0.80/1000 emails)
Growth: $80/month up to 100,000 emails (additional emails charged at $0.80/1000 emails)
Scale: $90/month up to 100,000 emails (additional emails charged at $0.80/1000 emails)
- Amazon SES
Amazon SES is a bit complicated to get set up, but once that’s done, it’s an easy-to-use bulk email marketing service. It includes tons of features like tracking and mass mail. Amazon SES offers detailed reports so you can monitor the performance of your account, get anti-spam feedback, and track tons of email marketing metrics.
💡 Features
Multiple ways to send emails — the Amazon SES console, SMTP interface, and the Amazon SES API
Shared IP addresses are monitored to ensure high deliverability
Users can lease dedicated IP addresses or set up dedicated IP pools
Users can bring their own IP addresses to use with the service
Supports all industry-standard authentication mechanisms — DKIM, SPF, and DMARC
Access SMTP endpoint without requiring an internet gateway in a VPC
Captures information about the entire email response funnel — numbers of sends, deliveries, opens, clicks, bounces, complaints, and rejections
Use the Global suppression list to remove bounced emails from your sending list
Reputation dashboard to track issues that could impact the delivery of your emails
Use CloudWatch to create alarms that notify you when your bounce or complaint rates reach certain thresholds
Deliverability Dashboard helps you understand and remediate issues that could impact the delivery of your emails (like suboptimal email content or attempting to email users who have unsubscribed or bounced in the past)
Accept or reject email based on the email address, IP address, or domain of the sender
Mailbox simulator to test how your application handles certain scenarios (like bounces or complaints) without impacting your sender reputation
✔️ Pros and Cons
😊 First 62,000 emails are free to send
😊 Has great deliverability
😊 Easy to use after initial setup
😩 Support is slow
😩 Configuration settings are complicated
💰 Pricing
First 62,000 emails are free to send from applications hosted in EC2
Sending email from an email client or other software package: $0.10/1,000 emails + $0.12/GB of attachments
Receiving email: $0 for the first 1,000 emails you receive, $0.10 for every 1,000 emails you receive after that + $0.09 for every 1,000 incoming email chunks
Related Content:
23 Best Email Marketing Software Platforms for 2022
Email Marketing Best Practices
10 Ways to Grow Your Email Marketing Lists
- SendPulse
SendPulse is less a bulk email marketing service and more of an all-in-one communication platform. It lands on our list because it also includes a bulk email sender tool. SendPulse’s free bulk email sender includes automated chatbot campaigns and push notifications. The platform has free email templates, event-triggered emails, and more.
💡 Features
Resend to unopened with a new subject line
Segment recipients based on interests and demographics
A/B testing
Set user access levels
Integrate with your CRM or CMS
Mobile app
✔️ Pros and Cons
😊 Analytics are good
😊 Easy to use
😊 Nice backend site
😩 Filters are quite finicky
😩 Support isn’t great
💰 Pricing
Free plan up to 500 subscribers and 15,000 emails
Standard: $8/month up to 500 subscribers or $76.80/year
Pro: $9.60/month up to 500 subscribers or $92.16/year
Enterprise: $13.44/month up to 500 subscribers or $129.02/year
- Sendinblue
Sendinblue is a bulk email marketing service that includes automation, email templates, and more with a drag-and-drop interface. You can use it to segment your email marketing list based on demographics and interests and use that information, along with contact information, to personalize your email marketing. We especially like the send time optimization feature (available on higher-level paid plans) that lets you send your emails at just the right time for each contact.
💡 Features
Base features:
Email campaign designer (mobile-friendly designer)
Email template library
SMS marketing
Email and SMS personalization
Chat
Higher-level plan features:
A/B testing
Remove Sendinblue logo
Send time optimization
Landing page builder
Facebook Ads
✔️ Pros and Cons
😊 Great contact management, filtering, and segmentation
😊 Modern web-tracking and lead-scoring functionality
😊 Templates are nice looking and easy to use
😩 Transition between drag-and-drop and HTML isn’t great
😩 Might be hard to configure with dedicated IP
😩 CRM functions might be a bit limited
💰 Pricing
Free plan for unlimited contacts and up to 300 email sends per day
Lite: $25/month for up to 10,000
Premium: $65/month
Enterprise: By quote
- Sender
Sender is another of our favorite free bulk email marketing services that also has great paid plans, too. With Sender, you can send emails using customizable templates or use the drag-and-drop building to create your own newsletters and emails. There’s also a custom HTML editor for coding your own email templates.
💡 Features
High email deliverability
Smart automations
Library of templates to choose from (or build your own)
Personalize your messages
Advanced analytics tools
Advanced email delivery infrastructure
Plugins for popular content management systems (CMS) like WordPress, WooCommerce, PrestaShop, and more
Landing pages
SMS marketing
Push notifications
✔️ Pros and Cons
😊 Support is great
😊 Strong deliverability
😩 No image library to store used images
😩 Can be difficult to navigate
💰 Pricing
Free plan for up to 2500 subscribers and 15,000 emails/month
Monthly Subscription: starts at $11/month for up to 5,000 subscribers and 60,000 emails/month
Prepaid Credits: $35 for 10,000 credits; cost per credit goes down as you buy more
- MailerLite
MailerLite is one of the free bulk email marketing services on our list that is great for beginners. It has drag-and-drop functionality that makes it really easy to create awesome newsletters as well as an easy way for eCommerce businesses to add product listings. With the bulk email sender, you can send automated emails and even make certain sections of your newsletters visible only to certain subscribers. This is called dynamic content and is absolutely great for providing relevant information to your segments without having to create an entirely separate email for each of those segments.
💡 Features
Create your emails from templates, a custom HTML editor, rich text editor, or the drag-and-drop tool
Built-in photo editor
Includes a website builder, landing pages, popups, and embedded forms
Subscriber management
Advanced targeting features
Email automation
Personalization and segmentation
A/B split testing
Deliver by time zone
Auto resend
RSS campaigns
Tracking and analytics including campaign reports, surveys, click maps, and opens by location
✔️ Pros and Cons
😊 Free plan includes automation features
😊 Easy to use
😊 Landing page editor
😩 No CRM features
😩 Limited reporting
😩 No advanced automations
💰 Pricing
Free up to 1,000 subscribers and up to 12,000 emails per month
Paid plans start at $10/month for unlimited emails per month
Pricing is based on the number of subscribers
Sites Pro Add-on: $10/month to create as many web pages and landing pages as you want
MailerPro Add-on: $100/month for priority support
Dedicated IP Add-on: $50/month and recommended if you’re sending more than 50,000 emails/week
- Omnisend
Omnisend’s bulk email marketing services are perfect for eCommerce business owners and others. It includes preset automations, integrates with your shop to give you better customer targeting and key insights into shopping behavior, and offers multiple marketing channels (email, SSM, and MMS) so you can reach your customers wherever they are. Omnisend offers up a template library, automations, product analytics, and funnels with easy-to-use drag-and-drop control.
💡 Features
Library of templates
Customize emails to fit your brand — add products, dynamic discount codes, and save them as presets
Drag-and-drop editor
Dynamic discount codes
Automations Library has pre-built workflows
Drag-and-drop workflow editing
AI-driven customer analytics, segmentation, and insights
Customizable, TCPA, and GDPR compliant forms and automated messages
Aggregate sales and performance metrics as well as detailed campaign and automation reports
Omnichannel customer experience with email, SMS, and more channels in one platform
Migration tools
Multi-store accounts
Tons of integrations
✔️ Pros and Cons
😊 Product picker lets you add products to your emails easily
😊 Templates look great
😊 Great customer service
😊 Easy to track performance of newsletters and automations
😩 Can’t integrate multiple shops
😩 Monthly fees vary
😩 Email designers might find the templated system frustrating
💰 Pricing
Free plan for up to 15,000 emails/month
Standard: $16/month or $156/year
Pro: $99/month or $960/year
Enterprise: By quote
SMS: $0.015 each
MMS: $0.045 each
- Mailjet
Mailjet is a bulk email marketing service that supports real-time collaboration between team members. You can use the drag-and-drop editor to create great mail layouts, add image and text blocks, and even buttons for social media sharing. Mailjet also has subscription forms to help you grow your email list as well as an SMTP server and quite extensive documentation.
💡 Features
Intuitive drag-and-drop editor
Responsive email newsletter templates
Real-time team collaboration
Inbox Preview tool, so you can see exactly how your email will display
Native WordPress plugin
A/B testing tool
Marketing automation tools
Advanced statistics
Integrate Mailgun to schedule, send, and track emails using SMTP server or RESTful API
Subscription forms
Contact management to organize and segment subscribers
✔️ Pros and Cons
😊 Great deliverability reputation
😊 Easy to configure website to send emails from there
😊 Useful dashboard and reporting
😩 Customer service doesn’t exactly “wow” users
😩 System sometimes lags
😩 Lack of re-engagement campaign functionality
💰 Pricing
Free plan for 200 emails/day (6,000/month)
Essential: $15/month or $162/year
Premium: $25/month or $270/year
Custom: By quote
- Mailchimp
Mailchimp is one of the more popular bulk email marketing services on our list. It offers inbuilt marketing tools, a bulk email verifier, and custom domains for increasing sales. You’ll also be able to use Mailchimp to create and share social ads, emails, landing pages, and even postcards (yep, actual postcards). Mailchimp has behavioral targeting and predicted demographics features to help you reach the right people at the right time as well as a subject line helper, real-time marketing automation, and A/B testing.
💡 Features
Build a website with a custom domain
Signup forms, landing pages, social posts and ads, and a lookalike audience finder
Customer dashboards
Segmentation tools
Integrates with the tools you probably already use
Pre-built segments, tags, behavioral targeting, and predicted demographics
Award-winning support
✔️ Pros and Cons
😊 Thorough reporting tools
😊 Simple and easy-to-use email editor
😊 Includes an online store builder (US and UK users)
😩 Plans can get expensive, fast
💰 Pricing
Free plan for up to 2,000 subscribers
Essentials: $9.99/month
Standard: $14.99/month
Premium: $299/month
Plans vary depending on the number of subscribers
Choose From the Best Free Bulk Email Marketing Services
Each of the free bulk email marketing services on our list will meet your needs. The tool you choose will depend on various factors like your budget, the features you need, and who is going to be using the tool in your business (developers will gravitate towards a different tool than bloggers, for example). As long as the bulk email marketing service you choose is reliable and has good deliverability, you’ll see improvements in your email marketing strategy and be able to meet your marketing goals.
Conclusion
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