Cheap Email Marketing Services: 5 Great Budget Tools Compared (2021)

On the hunt for the cheapest email marketing software to run your campaigns without needing to take out a second mortgage?

The price tag on AWeber, ConvertKit, ActiveCampaign, or Constant Contact too high?

In this post, we’re going to introduce five of the cheapest email marketing software options you can find. We’ll explore what makes each one unique, and help you settle on the best solution for your business. Let’s dive right in!

Here’s our lineup of the best tools for cheap email marketing:

• Sendinblue
• Cakemail
• MailerLite
• SendGrid
• Sendy

1. Sendinblue (www.sendinblue.com)

First up, Sendinblue is a fairly well-known name in the email marketing space. This is a full-featured email marketing platform offering a range of tools to help you create, send, and optimize your email campaigns.

It also comes with a generous free tier, along with several affordably-priced monthly plans to choose from. These are some of the reasons marketers call it the ultimate alternative to Mailchimp or GetResponse.

Key features

• Create and customize emails quickly, using a drag-and-drop editor or use pre-built templates
• Add the perfect opt-in form to your site, via some handy form builder tools with custom fields
• Benefit from various email marketing automation options, including autoresponders (drip campaigns) and eight workflow templates you can use to set up campaigns fast
• Set up list segmentation and manage your subscriber data through a CRM (and sync your contacts with HubSpot)
• Track each campaign’s metrics with analytics tools
• Set up your email campaigns with A/B testing
• Use Sendinblue’s landing page builder
• Add SMS messaging and transactional emails to the mix
• A detailed WordPress plugin that lets you handle everything from the comfy confines of your WordPress dashboard

Sendinblue pricing

For the budget-conscious, Sendinblue offers a useful free tier. It includes all the platform’s key features and lets you add unlimited contacts to your list. The only restriction is a limit of 300 emails sent per day.

If you need to surpass that daily send limit, the paid plans start from just $25 per month (the Lite plan).

Sendinblue is a good option if…

As one of the cheapest email marketing software options, Sendinblue’s key selling point is its scalability. If you’re looking to try out an email campaign or two without investing a ton of resources, you can start out on the free plan and work your way up as needed. Plus, the fact that you can service an unlimited number of subscribers is awesome.

This service also makes email marketing a very streamlined affair, with many templates and workflows to help get you up and running in a flash. The deliverability rates are also great across the board for different campaign sizes.

2. Cakemail (www.cakemail.com)

For small business owners, it can be smart to look for an email marketing tool designed for companies just like yours. That’s what Cakemail is – a tool built with the needs of small businesses firmly in mind.

It provides some useful time-saving features and is one of the cheapest email marketing software choices out there.

Key features

• Build email newsletters quickly, by making a few simple customizations to professional templates
• Create and reuse your own templates, and add in your business’ branding
• Divide your email list into targeted groups, and send different messages to each

Cakemail pricing

Cakemail offers a number of pricing tiers, which vary based on how many contacts you want on your list.

The cheapest plan includes up to 500 contacts for only $8 per month, and the next tier up allows for up to 1,000 contacts at $12 per month.

Each plan lets you send an unlimited number of emails and includes all of the platform’s features. There’s also a free 30-day trial if you just want to give the service a test run.

Cakemail is a good option if…

If you’re looking for a simple and streamlined option, Cakemail can be an excellent choice.

While it lacks some of the email automation features more elaborate services offer, it makes managing your list and creating email campaigns simple and painless.

It’s a solid option for small businesses that don’t need advanced features for lead generation, but only want to pick recipients, add subject lines, write their message, and hit send.

3. MailerLite (www.mailerlite.com)

While MailerLite is one of the cheapest email marketing software tools you can find, it still manages to offer a comprehensive package. This service helps you through every step of your email marketing campaigns, including building and sending emails, and designing landing pages for interested recipients.

Key features

• Design emails using an intuitive drag-and-drop email builder that requires no coding experience
• Gather subscribers through different types of signup forms, landing pages, or on social media
• Automate your email campaigns, and create customized workflows
• Track your engagement, open rates, click-through rates, and unsubscribes using easy-to-understand analytics reports in real-time
• Easily build pop-ups and landing pages to gather subscribers and turn them into customers ready to take out their credit cards

MailerLite pricing

When it comes to cost, MailerLite keeps things simple. All of its plans include the same feature set and permit unlimited emails per month.

The only difference between tiers is how many subscribers you can have.

The free plan lets you have up to 1,000 subscribers, and there’s a $15 per month option that includes up to 2,500 subscribers.

MailerLite is a good option if…

All in all, MailerLite is one of the best and most well-rounded options available.

It provides plenty of help creating your emails, managing your list, and automating your campaigns, while keeping the cost low. There are also email marketing webinars to educate you on some aspects of the trade.

In addition, it’s a particularly strong choice if you’re also looking for a tool to help you design pop-ups on your site to attract subscribers, as well as landing pages where you can send those who open your emails. This makes it a great option for bloggers.

4. SendGrid (sendgrid.com)

Some of the tools we’ve introduced so far focus on making email marketing a streamlined and simple process.

SendGrid, on the other hand, is ideal if you’re looking to get as much control over the process as possible. It permits a lot of customization and tweaking, both in your individual emails and your campaigns as a whole.

Key features

• Create emails using a drag-and-drop email editor, pure HTML, or a combination of the two
• Select from a library of responsive email templates
• Build customized campaigns and workflows, and use it as your marketing automation tool
• Segment your list, personalize emails, and do your list management effectively
• Send your ecommerce emails through SendGrid (WooCommerce, Shopify, Salesforce, etc.)
• Perform tests and measure analytics, in order to perfect your future campaigns

SendGrid pricing

If you just want to give SendGrid a try, there’s a free plan that includes most of the primary features. However, this plan is a bit limited when it comes to the sending allowance of 100 emails per day. The next tier pro plan is $14.95 per month, plus $10 per for every 10,000 contacts you maintain. On the far end of the spectrum there are also enterprise plans available (if you’re looking for those, you can also check out Mailjet).

SendGrid is a good option if…

While SendGrid is one of the cheapest email marketing software tools, it can still get pricey if you have a lot of contacts.

However, it’s ideal for smaller businesses and startups that don’t need to send a lot of emails but do want access to a ton of features and customization options. SendGrid also offers a custom API and good customer support, making it a solid choice for developers.

5. Sendy (sendy.co)

Last but not least, let’s look at an option that’s quite different from our previous email marketing service providers. Most email marketing solutions, including all four on this list so far, are “software as a service” (SaaS) tools that require you to pay a monthly fee for as long as you want to use the service.

Sendy, on the other hand, is a self-hosted application that you can install on your own server (much like WordPress). It then lets you send emails using Amazon’s cloud-based Simple Email Service (SES).

Key features

• Send unlimited emails through Amazon SES
• Set up automated emails, which will send in response to specific triggers
• Segment your subscriber list, and send targeted emails to particular audiences
• Store custom information about your subscribers, and use it to personalize messages as needed
• View detailed analytics reports on your campaign metrics

Sendy pricing

To purchase the Sendy software, you’ll pay a one-time price of $59. After that, there are no ongoing fees to use the Sendy software.

However, to deliver the emails from Sendy, you’ll also need to sign up for the Amazon SES service. This service is still quite cheap, costing just $1 per 10,000 emails that you send.

Sendy is a good option if…

Over the long term, Sendy is the cheapest email marketing software on our list, which makes it the best budget-conscious choice, especially if you need to send bulk emails.

It also offers a great deal of control and flexibility, since you can use the software however you like, and you aren’t beholden to a particular service.

However, this is the least beginner-friendly option and can take a little work to get up and running. Therefore, you may need someone on hand with the technical skills to get Sendy off the ground.

Final thoughts on the cheapest of the best email marketing services

Email marketing is important, but that doesn’t mean it has to break the bank.

If you’re looking for the cheapest and best email marketing software (that still provides the features you’ll need), these are our final recommendations on where to start:

Do you have any questions that would help you decide between these various tools? Let us know in the comments!

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