Free email marketing is an effective way to promote your products and services without spending a dime on advertising. However, it’s not just about sending emails. As with any marketing, you need to apply the right strategies and techniques if you want to succeed.
In this article, we’ll show you how to do free email marketing step-by-step. In fact, we’ll go beyond that and share proven tips and tricks to help you get the most out of your email campaign.
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How To Do Free Email Marketing
If you are pressed on time and just want a quick but insightful overview of the best free email marketing solutions, here’s the complete comparison table!
When it comes to choosing the right free service, there are some key things to consider:
- See if they provide you with unlimited email campaigns or not.
- Check the number of subscribers you can email.
- Take a look at the features included in the free version/trial.
Getting a free service doesn’t mean that it’s a bad service, just limited (regarding time or email sending). Before you decide which tool you’ll use, though, you need to think about what happens when you outgrow the free plan.
To help you out, today we’ll see some of the best email marketing services you can get for free. Plus, what they offer if you decide to get the paid version.
1. Moosend
Free Plan/Trial: Unlimited emails/month for 1,000 subscribers (30-day free trial)
Best for: eCommerce, SaaS, SMEs, Publishers, Bloggers, Agencies
Unique feature: Drag-and-drop email template builder
Moosend is among the top email marketing and marketing automation services that let you create elegant email marketing campaigns, automate your marketing efforts, and boost your lead generation. With a variety of responsive email newsletter templates, which you can use on the free version, the drag-n-drop email builder will allow you to become a creation pro without any technical expertise.
Apart from the unlimited email campaigns, Moosend also lets you try its marketing automation workflows and powerful segmentation features for free to see how you can boost your open rates and conversions.
Your free Moosend account also lets you test the advanced reporting and analytics feature to track your campaign performance. On top of that, you can take the online form builder and landing page editor for a free spin to see how you can increase your subscriber count effortlessly.
Overall, Moosend’s platform is an excellent option for new businesses and marketers that want to send unlimited email campaigns for up to 1,000 subscribers. You can also check the workflow, landing page, and form builders yourself by creating a free account.
Moosend Features
- Email newsletter templates you can fully customize
- Drag-n-drop builder to easily create your campaigns
- Marketing automation to simplify tedious tasks
- Email list segmentation to maintain list hygiene
- Online forms to increase your lead generation
- Real-time reporting and analytics to monitor performance
- Integrations to streamline your marketing efforts
Moosend Pricing
Moosend has paid plans starting at $9/month and will give you access to all unique features, including the form and landing page builders, the SMTP server, segmentation, reporting, and more. You can sign up for a free Moosend account and get unlimited emails for up to 1,000 contacts.
2. HubSpot
Free Plan/Trial: 2,000 emails/month
Best for: SMBs, SaaS, Agencies
Unique feature: Free CRM
If you want a free email marketing tool to fuel your entire marketing funnel, HubSpot is the one for you. The tool is an all-in-one growth platform that helps you grow and scale your business.
What’s interesting about HubSpot’s free email marketing software is that it comes with many other marketing tools that make your email marketing all the more powerful. HubSpot is known for its CRM and powerful marketing automation platform designed to give you insight into your audience and how your marketing efforts influence them.
Apart from the CRM, you also get beautiful newsletter signup forms to capture leads, a customizable landing page builder, social media, Facebook ads management, and more. On top of all the optimization, the free plan will give you access to analytics tools to improve your strategy.
All in all, HubSpot is among the best free email marketing services to increase your lead generation, manage your lists, and ensure your email deliverability, despite its quite restrictive monthly email sending limit.
HubSpot Features
- Subscription forms to capture your leads
- Contact management features
- Facebook, Instagram, Google, and LinkedIn ads
- Reporting and conversion analytics
- Landing page builder to boost conversions
HubSpot Pricing
HubSpot’s free plan is ideal for small business owners who want all the tools to start email marketing. For more, paid plans start at $50/month, giving you form follow-up emails, email health insights, and upgraded functionality.
3. Sendinblue
Free Plan/Trial: 9,000 emails/month (300/day) for unlimited subscribers
Best for: eCommerce, Publishers, Agencies
Unique feature: SMS personalization features
Sendinblue is a free email marketing platform that started as a transactional email platform and then expanded its reach into email marketing and marketing automation. The tool will give you access to a drag-n-drop builder to customize your email templates and create your newsletters.
While the template library isn’t rich, Sendinblue is great if you need mobile-responsive campaigns. Apart from its email creation abilities, the free email newsletter service equips you with SMS marketing features to engage with mobile users.
Email and SMS personalization are also available on the free plan, along with various segmentation options to manage your contact list more easily. Marketing automation is also included in the free plan. You can create workflows with the workflow editor, but you can only target up to 2,000 contacts.
Overall, Sendinblue is a great email marketing tool with SMS marketing options and a good sender score. However, you should keep in mind that your email campaigns will include the Sendinblue logo.
Sendinblue Features
- Mobile-friendly newsletter campaigns
- SMS marketing personalization for targeted messages
- Advanced segmentation options to group subscribers
- Contact lists and details to keep your contacts organized
- Send transactional emails and SMS sending
- Online form builder to boost lead generation
Sendinblue Pricing
Sendinblue’s free plan has all the necessary features you need but with a strict daily email sending limit of 300. Paid plans start at $25/month, offering A/B testing tools and more advanced features.
4. MailerLite
Free Plan/Trial: 12,000 emails/month for 1,000 subscribers
Best for: Creatives, Bloggers, SMBs, NPOs
Unique feature: A/B Testing features
Another unique platform in our free email marketing services list is MailerLite. The platform has a simple UI and a user-friendly drag-and-drop editor to take the hassle out of creating email campaigns even if you have limited experience.
Furthermore, what makes MailerLite a great free option for creatives and bloggers is the rich text editor and the built-in photo editing feature to create newsletter images that represent your brand.
Apart from email marketing, the free version will give you access to email automation features, including advanced segmentation, contact tagging, and its famous A/B testing tools. Reporting and analytics are, of course, part of the free version, giving you email campaign reports and surveys.
In general, MailerLite’s free email marketing service is simple and straightforward for beginners who want to grow their list and send their first email campaign, especially if they don’t mind the platform’s logo.
MailerLite Features
- Unsubscribe page builder
- Built-in photo editing to make attractive emails
- Subscriber management to keep your lists clean
- A/B split testing to find which elements perform better
- Reporting and survey to track your email performance
MailerLite Pricing
Mailerlite is among the best free email marketing services you can get to reach your audience. The platform offers subscriber-based paid options starting at $10/month, and you get access to additional features like promotion popups and delivery by time zone.
5. Mailchimp
Free Plan/Trial: 10,000 emails/month for 2,000 subscribers
Best for: eCommerce, Publishers
Unique feature: Behavioral targeting tools
Mailchimp is one of those free email marketing services that are too popular to miss. The platform will equip you with basic email newsletter templates, A/B testing, and even a built-in CRM to help out with your venture.
When it comes to creating emails, Mailchimp has a Creative Assistant that resizes your designs based on your brand. If you rely heavily on visuals, Mailchimp also gives you access to its content studio to store photos, graphics, and more.
What’s more, Mailchimp’s behavioral tagging will help you create targeted marketing campaigns like abandoned cart emails. Website engagement is also something Mailchimp offers in the free plan, allowing you to monitor site views.
Overall, Mailchimp’s free newsletter service can benefit your first email marketing endeavors. Nevertheless, like some of the other free Mailchimp alternatives in this list, you can’t get rid of the branded footer.
Mailchimp Features
- List management tools to keep your contacts organized
- Behavioral targeting for more relevant email content
- Basic email newsletter templates to get started
- Integrations with popular apps including Gmail
- Single-step automation
Mailchimp Pricing
The platform’s free plan will give you access to some great features to get started. For more, Mailchimp’s pricing starts at $17, offering social post scheduling and retargeting ads.
6. MailJet
Free Plan/Trial: 6,000 emails/month (200/day) for unlimited subscribers
Best for: SMEs, eCommerce, Enterprises
Unique feature: SMTP relay service
MailJet is a platform that started as a transactional email service. Later, it evolved into an email marketing platform with advanced email marketing tools, APIs, and Webhooks. MailJet is one of the free email marketing services that provide a “pay as you grow” pricing model that can be pretty beneficial if you’re low on budget.
The email service’s drag-n-drop email builder is easy-to-use, while the basic segmentation features will help you create more personalized email campaigns for your target audience. Furthermore, MailJet lets you collaborate on emails with your teammates, allowing you to update numerous elements simultaneously.
Now, as far as customer support is concerned, this free email marketing tool doesn’t offer online customer support for their free plan. Despite the lack of an online support team, MailJet’s free version makes newsletter design easier, offering you basic automation tools to get started.
Mailjet Features
- Store unlimited contacts details
- Email campaign co-creation
- Reporting and advanced email stats
- SMTP relay service
Mailjet Pricing
MailJet’s free plan might be a bit limited compared to the other free email marketing services. For extra features and online customer support, the platform offers three tiers starting at $9.65/month.
7. SendPulse
Free Plan/Trial: 15,000 email/month for 500 subscribers
Best for: eCommerce, SMEs
Unique feature: Resend to non-openers
If you want to go multi-channel fast and easy and have all the tools for that (mostly) available, then you’re looking at the right free email marketing tool, as you can get more than just… well, email marketing tools.
SendPulse offers options for SMS marketing, Viber marketing, transactional emails, and so on. But, is everything you may need to be included in this free email marketing tool? Well, its features are pretty versatile and useful for a variety of industries, giving you the ability to create beautiful campaigns using Sendpulse’s responsive email templates and email automation features.
The free email marketing tool lets you personalize your campaigns to create more targeted welcome emails, re-engagement campaigns and more. Finally, Sendpulse’s unique features allow you to target your non-openers and boost your open rates.
SendPulse Features
- HTML editor
- Web push notifications
- Segmentation and personalization
- Integrations with eCommerce platforms like Shopify and Woocommerce
SendPulse Pricing
Sendpulse’s free plan will give you a generous number of email sends per month but to a small number of subscribers. To send more, you need a paid plan, starting at about $8,5/month.
8. EmailOctopus
Free Plan/Trial: 10,000 emails/month for 2,500 subscribers
Best for: SMEs, eCommerce, NPOs
Unique feature: Easy-to-use Editor
What started as a feature of Amazon’s SES service, EmailOctopus, has proven to be one of the best free email marketing services with the easiest-to-use email builder and clean UI. While EmailOctopus doesn’t have many features, it’s pretty nice for an email marketing tool that just started as an independent service.
Email list management is also pretty easy to grasp, allowing you to add fields, import, and export your lists in a breeze. The free version will equip you with the necessary segmentation and personalization features to send better email content that speaks to your audience.
Overall, EmailOctopus has some great tools that are ideal for beginners who need basic customer support and don’t mind the branding.
EmailOctopus Features
- Statistics stored for 30 days
- Drag-n-drop email editor
- Basic customer support
- Email list management
EmailOctopus Pricing
Simplicity is the best thing you get from EmailOctopus’ free plan. To get free control of your email design and priority support, you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan starting at $24/month.
9. Benchmark Email
Free Plan/Trial: 250 emails/month for unlimited contacts
Best for: SMBs, Bloggers, Agencies
Unique feature: Live engagement reports
Benchmark is an SMB-loving program and a worthy free Constant Contact alternative. It is one of those free email marketing services with a strong presence in more than fifteen countries.
This tool is straightforward. Super-simple, one would argue. But simple doesn’t mean bad, and indeed, Benchmark’s free email marketing tool is quite well-known out there. The intuitive and easy-to-use email editor will save you valuable time, while the responsive templates will also display nicely.
Apart from email marketing, Benchmark Email will give you access to simple lead generation, basic reporting, and a lite version of its marketing automation features to get you started. Overall, Benchmark Email is an excellent free email marketing option to learn the ropes and create your first email drip campaigns.
Benchmark Email Features
- Basic drip campaigns and signup forms
- Live engagement reports
- Email delivery management tools
- Polls and surveys
Benchmark Email Pricing
Benchmark is a great free service to get you started, but it’s a bit limited. To unlock the more advanced features of the platform, Benchmark Email offers two paid options starting at $15/month.
10. CleverReach
Free Plan/Trial: 1,000 emails/month for 250 subscribers
Best for: B2B, SMBs, eCommerce
Unique feature: Reminder emails and autoresponders
CleverReach is among those free email marketing services that started as something else. In this case, the tool is a technology service provider for email marketing that has come to be one of the free email marketing tools to talk about.
But is CleverReach as clever as it claims to be when it comes to its free email tools? Well, CleverReach earns points for its clean and straightforward UI and short learning curve. While the drag-n-drop builder is fairly easy to use, there’s still some room for improvement.
The free tool also allows you to connect your CMS, CRM, and shop systems via the CleverReach Plugins. Among others, you can benefit from the service’s reminder emails to give your webinars and other reminder-needing events a boost.
CleverReach Features
- Plugins such as Shopware, WordPress, and Salesforce
- View unsubscribes from contact list
- Import HTML campaign
- Automated reminder emails
CleverReach Pricing
CleverReach’s free plan is great for beginners who don’t need many features. Paid plans start at $20, giving you access to autoresponders, removing ads, and lifting your email marketing automation limitations.
unlimited subscribers email marketing
1. MAILRELAY
Max Subscribers | 15000 |
Max Email Per Month | 75000 |
Yes, it’s 75,000 emails for free per month with 15,000 subscribers. All you need to do is just follow their Twitter, Facebook and Google+ account to enjoy that. Very economic if you already have huge number of subscribers for your email marketing. Mailrelay is an advanced email marketing platform that lets your create, send and manage your newsletters, and understand your subscribers’ behaviour.
Mailrelay Key features:
- No advertisement
- Technical support
- Simple HTML editor
- Free Templates
- Subscription forms
- Schedule your campaigns
- Autoresponders
- API for developers
- Certified solution
- Automatic control of bounces
- Automatic management of Opt-outs
2. SENDPULSE
Max Subscribers | 15000 |
Max Email Per Month | 75000 |
With artificial intelligence (AI), hyper-personalization and predictive analysis included in SendPulse, this marketing tool provides multiple additional features and functions. SendPulse help its users to increase the open rate by 50% with the presence of AI in your email marketing campaign. Not to forget they have web push feature and SMS to your users.
SendPulse Key features:
- Resend to unopened
- Segmentation
- A/B Testing
- User Access Levels
- Integration
- Mobile App
3. BENCHMARK
Max Subscribers | 2000 |
Max Email Per Month | 14000 |
If you love to click and drag to design your newsletters, Benchmark provides customizable, responsive and beautiful email templates. Furthermore, the extras, such as send surveys, up-to-date analytics with open rate and integration options make your email marketing process simplified and easy.
Benchmark Key features:
- Drag & Drop Editor
- Photo Editing
- Email Templates
- Code Editor
- Marketing Automation
- Signup form
- Polls & surveys
- Report
- A/B Testing
- Always look good with inbox checker
- Integrate with 300+ Apps
4. CAMPAYN
Max Subscribers | 500 |
Max Email Per Month | 12500 |
The flexible design features and tech support make this email marketing software trusted by AirBnb, Mercedes-Benz, Avon and more. You can easily create email newsletters that match with your website with professional looking emails. They also have mobile app to allow you to access your reports, and add contact to your email list on the go.
Campayn Key features:
- Email Design: upload custom HTML, add to calendar buttons, add Google Maps Images, attach files
- Contact Manager: segmentation, double opt-in
- Sign Up Forms: website forms, hosted forms, Facebook forms, Popup lightbox forms
- Email Automation: Welcome messages, automated newsletter, saying ‘Happy Birthday’, blog updates
- Email Deliverability
- Reporting: activity, location, devices, ROI Tracking
5. MAILCHIMP
Max Subscribers | 2000 |
Max Email Per Month | 12000 |
MailChimp is the world’s largest marketing automation platform. Established since 2001, this marketing tool no longer only functions as email marketing but has expanded with even more features. If you want to save time for installation, MailChimp is considered the easiest because its integration library covers most of the popular Content Management System (CMS).
MailChimp Key features:
- Marketing Automation
- Email Templates
- Abandoned Cart
- Landing Pages
- Google Remarketing Ads
- Facebook Ads
- Instagram Ads
- Product Recommendations
- Mobile App
6. ZOHO
Max Subscribers | 2000 |
Max Email Per Month | 12000 |
Zoho Campaigns helps you to build your audience, run targeted email campaigns, and increase your reach. If you need more features for your business, Zoho provides comprehensive business management software especially their customer relationship management (CRM) system. Not to forget Zoho can connect to other business applications for your email marketing.
Zoho Key features:
- Subscriber management
- A/B testing
- Pre-designed templates
- Drag-and-drop editor
- Autoresponders
- Workflow
- Merge tags
- Dynamic Content
- Social Media platform integration
- Real-time analytics
- Mobile App
7. VERTICALRESPONSE
Max Subscribers | 300 |
Max Email Per Month | 4000 |
Whether you are an e-commerce business owner, small business, blogger, or from a non-profit-organization, VerticalResponse can be very helpful to you. It is trusted by over 1 million businesses for their email marketing needs. Reach up to 40% more of your audience with their automated follow-up emails. VerticalRepsonse is free for non-profit programs if you meet their requirements.
VerticalResponse Key features:
- Easy-to-use editor
- Automated follow-up emails
- Autoresponders and email series
- Advanced reporting
- Landing page builder
- A/B testing
- Test kit
- Surveys
- Integrations
- HTML Editor
- Contact Management
- Scheduling
Conclusion
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