Email automation is a technique in digital marketing that enables bloggers to collect email addresses from their site users and send marketing and sales emails to subscribers. This guide covers the 9 best email marketing tools that help you automate your email campaigns for free. These great platforms save you time and money, especially if you’re getting started.
Automating your email marketing campaigns helps you find the right audience for your business and actively engage with them. It allows you to automate tasks like newsletter signup in the background while you engage in other valuable tasks like product creation. You can as well send personalized emails to all your audience, prospects, or active customers.
Whether you have a blog or are running an online business, the email automation tools herein help you request feedback from your customers. But that’s not all. They also allow you to send exclusive offers and guides to your subscribers and strengthen customer relationships.
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Bulk Email Marketing Tools for Small Businesses
Here’re some of the best tools for email marketers, whether you’re a complete beginner or expert or working with a large or small business. I will include the unique features of each tool and then give my recommendations as to which one is best for who and why.
The following table summarises what you can enjoy from all 9 email marketing tools for free, including maximum subscribers and monthly email-sending limits. And the lowest monthly subscription fee. Some tools have free email automation features, while others don’t. And with the free options, you’ll be unable to remove their branding from your emails.
| Tool | Contacts | Emails/m | Automation | Branding | Cheapest |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sender | 2,500 | 15,000 | Yes | Yes | $8.33/m |
| Sendinblue | Unlimited | 9,000 | Yes | Yes | $25/m |
| ConvertKit | 1,000 | Unlimited | No | Yes | $9/m |
| Omnisend | 250 | 500 | Yes | Yes | $16/m |
| Mailchimp | 500 | 2,500 | Yes | Yes | $11/m |
| Aweber | 500 | 3,000 | One | Yes | $16.15 |
| GetResponse | 500 | Unlimited | No | Yes | $15.54 |
| Pabbly | 100 | Unlimited | Yes | Yes | $24/m |
| EmailOctopus | 2,500 | 10,000 | Yes | Yes | $8/m |
By now, you already know which email marketing platform suits your need. However, you’d still need to consider other factors discussed in the subsequent section. Including what type of audience each of the nine tools is best suited for and why. Keep reading for more comparisons.
Suggested Reading: 11 Best SEO Tools That Will Boost Your Website Traffic
1. Sender: Most Affordable & Reliable Tool
Sender is one of the best free email marketing tools, with unique features that ensure deliverability. It helps you “spend less and do more,” My research shows that it is one of the cheapest email marketing platforms in the market you can use to scale your business.
If you want to save time, this tool is suitable for any form of business. And if you’re a complete beginner, you can use the platform for free and collect up to 2,500 email subscribers.
Other features that you’ll enjoy for free include:
- Sending up to 15,000 emails per month
- Email Automation features
- Google Analytics Tracking
- SPAM Check
- Pre-Built Workflows and Automation Splits
- Custom Trigger Automations
- HTML and Plain Text Editors
- Drag & Drop Editor
So, if you want to create awesome and responsive emails, Sender allows you to do that for free. But you get to send more emails and collect email subscribers if you signup for premium versions. And surprisingly, they have the cheapest rates, from $8.33 if you signup for the annual version. You’ll also have access to great email templates and guides to help you out.
2. Sendinblue: Unlimited Contacts
Sendinblue is another incredible tool that helps email marketers automate their email campaigns. With it, you can enjoy additional features like landing page creation and customer relationship management. You can also use free email designs to create awesome emails.
Unlike Sender, whose free version only supports up to 2,500 subscribers, with Sendinblue, you can collect or add an unlimited number of contacts. More interestingly, it allows you to add unique attributes to all your contacts and segment them into lists for more targeted marketing.
Still, some of the other features you enjoy while using Sendinblue for free include:
- Unlimited Contacts
- Mobile-friendly email designer
- Email & SMS personalization
- Advanced segmentation
- Customizable signup forms
- Transactional email and SMS sending
- Marketing automation workflows with up to 2,000 contacts
- Real-time reporting
However, Sendinblue’s free option allows you to send 300 emails daily (9,000 monthly) compared to the 15,000 by Sender. And in terms of pricing, Sendinblue’s cheapest subscription is $25 per month compared to Sender’s $8.33 per month. In terms of pricing and daily email-sending limits, Sender is way more affordable and more suitable for beginners than Sendinblue.
Bottom line: Sendinblue is one of the best free email marketing platforms for bloggers or small businesses looking to collect unlimited contact, automation, and email segmentation.
Recommended Reading: Email Marketing for Beginners: Success Tips you Need to Know
3. ConvertKit: Best for Content Creators
ConvertKit is an easy-to-use and effective email marketing platform designed to suit content creators like authors, YouTubers, and podcasters. It helps the creators to grow and monetize their audience, primarily through collecting emails and selling products.
The tool has helped coaches like Xayli Barclay reach more clients. Xayli says, “There is no way I could manage communication and conversion with hundreds of thousands of people without ConvertKit.” It has also enabled authors like Jennifer Armstrong to get more readers. Jenifer says, “ConvertKit helps me get the word out to the people who care about my work. They really did sign up for my newsletter just to find out about me.“And you could be next!
Despite its free version lacking basic automation features, you get to enjoy the following:
- Collect 1,000 email subscribers
- Create unlimited landing and link pages
- Customizable domain and unlimited traffic
- Unlimited opt-in forms to collect emails
- Landing page and form templates
- List growth reporting
- Subscriber tagging and segmentation
- A/B split testing
- Resend unopened campaigns
- Conditional email content
ConvertKit’s lowest subscription ($9) is much cheaper than Sendinblue’s ($25) but slightly higher than Sender’s ($8.33). However, in terms of the number of subscribers the free versions can hold, Sendinblue is the most favorable (unlimited contacts), followed by Sender (2,500 contacts). Lastly, ConvertKit allows a maximum of 1,000 subscribers for the free version.
One disadvantage of ConvertKit is that it pays less attention to e-commerce-focused features, given its target audience. However, if you’re a content creator, this tool can be used to grow your audience, automate your marketing campaigns, and market and sell your products.
4. Omnisend: Best Email Automation Tool
Omnisend is the best tool for you if at all your main focus is automating emails, push notifications, and SMS. Its free plan allows you to collect 250 contacts and send 500 emails monthly. So you can create forms and manage subscribers, set up email automation to save time and let you focus on more valuable tasks, and segment your contacts for more targeted emails.
Other features that you get to enjoy while using the free version include:
- Pre-built automation & workflows
- Facebook custom audiences
- Professional-looking email templates
- Popups & signup forms
- Unlimited segmentation
- Sales & performance reports
- A/B testing
- Customer support via email
Omnisend is best suited for e-commerce businesses looking to automate their email and SMS marketing. Check it out and signup if you want to create excellent subscription forms, reach your customers on their phones through SMS, or include push notifications on your site.
5. Mailchimp: Best for Small Businesses
Mailchimp is a leader in email marketing and automation that helps you get more opens, clicks, and sales for your business. More interesting is that you can use its Inbox Preview to see and customize how your emails will look with different email service providers.
Some of the features you’ll get to enjoy for free include:
- Send up to 2,500 emails per month (500 per day)
- Collect 500 email contacts
- Email support for the first 30 days
- Pre-built Email Templates
- 300+ Integrations
- Basic Reporting & Analytics
- Forms & Landing Pages
- Monitor campaign engagement
- Understand purchasing behavior
However, with the free version, you’ll miss some excellent features like email scheduling and automation, A/B and multivariate testing, and the ability to add different users.
Still, Mailchimp is the best email automation tool for small businesses. It gives you incredible insights like customer engagements, purchasing behavior, and reliable reporting analytics. That’s what the company has been helping businesses and professionals do since 2001.
6. AWeber: Alternative for Businesses
Aweber helps you grow, sell, and engage with your audience from a single platform. With it, you can get started for free and enjoy awesome features like email marketing, landing page builder, email automation, e-commerce page creation, and web push notification on your site.
Specifically, some of the features that the free option comes with include the following:
- Collecting up to 500 email subscribers
- Sending up to 3,000 emails per month
- One landing page and one email automation
- Web push notifications
- Drag and drop builder
- Signup forms and email templates
- Thousands of professional images
- Sell Products and Services with AWeber Ecommerce
So, Aweber is the best email marketing alternative for your business if you have a small business or an online store. You can get started free and even integrate apps like WordPress, Paypal, Facebook, Shopify, Etsy, Woocommerce, and hundreds of other integrations.
You can also subscribe to the premium features for $16.15/month for your first 500 subscribers. And you’ll access unique features and analytics that will help you understand what links your audience and clicking and how often. Then use the data to understand what type of content suits your audience and increase your campaigns’ opens, clicks, and conversions.
7. GetResponse: Best Tool for Everyone
GetResponse is one of the most powerful and simplified tools. It best suits entrepreneurs, online marketers, marketing managers, and large companies. And you can get started for free, send emails, create pages, and automate your marketing campaigns. It is a suite of marketing tools that helps get your business online and increase sales leads to it.
With the free option, you get to enjoy features like:
- Collect or import up to 500 contacts
- Send unlimited emails monthly
- Use a visual email editor
- Track your clicks
- Access to predesigned templates
- Manually create promo codes
- Spam checker
- Two-factor authentication
- 5GB bandwidth
- Connect your domain
Unfortunately, the free option does not come with email automation features, nor can you integrate apps like WordPress, Paypal, and Shopify. However, it helps you connect with your customers and prospects, and its lead-generation tools help you create an email list for your business and turn anonymous visitors into fans. Or you can go pro from $15.58/month.
8. Pabbly: Email Verification & Automation
Pabbly is a powerful email marketing platform that has fantastic tools and features. With just $24/month, you can send unlimited emails to 5,000 subscribers, compared to $16 Omnisend and AWeber charges for 500 subscribers. It helps you grow your business, not the bills.
Its free email marketing features include the following:
- Email marketing automation
- Send unlimited emails to 100 subscribers
- Email personalization and segmentation
- Auto-follow ups
- Connect external STMPs
- Email and chat support
- Drag and drop email builders
- Email verification features
If you’re managing an online business and want access to great automation and email verification features to clean your email list, Pabbly is the best and cheapest alternative for you. Its free email marketing tools help you create automation workflows to automate your emails using actions, add delays, and other activities based on the email recipient’s response.
9. EmailOctopus: Cheapest Email Platform
Email Octopus is one of the market’s best free email marketing and automation tools. With just $8/month, you can send 10,000 emails to 500 subscribers monthly. Compared with all the other tools, they have the cheapest package with unique automation, features, and reporting.
With the free plan, you can enjoy features like:
- Collect up to 2,500 email contacts or subscribers
- Send 10,000 emails monthly
- Time-based automated campaigns
- Unlimited automated email sequences
- Reports available for 30 days
- Email personalization using merge tags
- Create up to 3 landing pages
- Create popup and inline forms for your website
- Advanced segmentation on list fields and email activity
If you’re on a tight budget and want to enjoy unique features like automation and email campaigns to promote your business online, Email Octopus is the best alternative for you. All users, including those with free or paid plans, have unlimited access to email templates.
FAQs on Free Email Marketing Tools
Email marketing allows you to stay in touch with customers and potential buyers. It helps you deliver content that keeps them engaged and up-to-date with the latest products and promos. Studies claim that keeping existing customers is five times cheaper than acquiring new ones.
Absolutely! Email marketing is even becoming more relevant and effective than before. Emails are the leading approach businesses use to reach their audience and customers, and they have a high ROI than other channels.
Sender is the best all-around email marketing tool used by small and large businesses. Other tools include Sendinblue for collecting unlimited contacts, Convertkit for creators, Omnisend, Mailchimp, AWeber, GetResponse, Pabbly, and Email Octopus.
Sender, Email Octopus, and Sendinblue are the most effective email tools based on the number of subscribers you can collect and the emails you can send using their free versions.
Convertkit is a reliable free email marketing tool best suited for bloggers and other content creators like YouTubers and musicians. It is best suited to this specific audience.
Mailchimp is a reliable email marketing platform for small businesses, including online shops and bloggers. It helps you customize your blog, drive traffic to it, and expand your business. However, it becomes expensive if you have a large email list.
One potential problem with email marketing is that sending many emails can annoy your audience. You can avoid this problem by splitting your list and sending targeted emails to ensure your audience does not mark them as spam, delete your email or unsubscribe.
Conclusion: What Next?
The article covered nine powerful email marketing tools you can use for free and promote your content or products. And one advantage of using email marketing is that it allows you to keep in touch with existing contacts and customers, which is less costly than getting new leads.
Depending on the type of creator you are, here is what each of the nine tools is best for:
- Sender: Most Affordable & Reliable Tool Online
- Sendinblue: Collect Unlimited Contacts
- ConvertKit: Best for Content Creators like bloggers
- Omnisend: Best Email Automation Tool
- Mailchimp: Best for Small Businesses
- Aweber: Cheaper Alternative for Businesses
- GetResponse: Best for Everyone, including entrepreneurs
- Pabbly: Affordable Email Verification & Automation
- EmailOctopus: Cheapest Email Platform for businesses
Please pay attention to the number of subscribers you can collect while using the free version and the number of emails you can send monthly. And other features like automation, forms and landing page creation, reporting and analytics, list segmentation, and email personalization.
You’ll notice that the free version does not allow you to remove their branding across all these email marketing and automation tools. But if you’re a complete beginner, you can use them for free, create landing pages and forms, and build an email list. And then you can go pro.
Let me know which tools you use for your email marketing. And if you want to learn how email marketing works, check out this complete Email Marketing Guide. Then let me know if you have any questions or feedback. You can contact me for SEO and content marketing.
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