marketing tool stack logo dark

Marketing Tool Guide

August 27. 2022

The best tools to crush email marketing in 2022

Feeling overwhelmed by the amount of email marketing tools that all seem to promise the same? We’ll help you find the right tools to get the most out of your email marketing in 2022 - on any budget!
Mockup created by Kerfin3d

Email marketing remains a powerful marketing channel in 2022. To crush it you need appropriate tools that are affordable, easy to use, and that will help you to increase your revenue by nurturing and converting potential customers.

But with an overwhelming 450+ email marketing tools, the tool landscape is pretty crowded, and almost all of them seem to promise the same.

We are here to help you.

Other email marketing tool guides will only provide you with lists of leading providers and their pros and cons but leave you alone with the question of which one is best suited for you. They also only talk about email sending providers. These tools are the most important ones and the core of your email tool stack, but after you choose one, there are so many more tools that will help you further optimize your KPIs.

This guide is dedicated to helping you choose the right email marketing platform and helping tools, based on your business model and the features you need.

That’s why this guide is divided into the following sections:

  1. Email automation & newsletter tools (ESPs): The core platform of your email marketing
  2. Email template builder tools: Create personalized and good-looking emails
  3. Email form and popup builder tools: Generate more leads and grow your email list with smart popups
  4. Email deliverability analytics & monitoring tools: Analyze and monitor your domain reputation and email deliverability
  5. Email deliverability optimization tools: Improve the deliverability and open rates of your email campaigns

You will end up with a clear understanding of how these tools can help you with your email marketing and which tools are suited best for your needs.

Let's get started with finding the perfect email marketing platform for you!

Email Marketing Platforms

Your ESP, which stands for email sending provider is by far the most important tool in your email marketing tool stack.

At the core it allows you to manage your contacts and send them emails. It helps you to collect new contacts and segment them based on the information they gave you or how they interacted with your emails and website. Create beautiful-looking email templates, and build automation like welcome- or cart abandonment flows.

Depending on your needs, some of them also allow you to send SMS, build landing pages, or integrate a chatbot on your page. Some even come with an integrated CRM system and help center for your sales team.

There are over 450+ ESP tools out there and all of them have different feature sets, integration possibilities, and pricing. So the right choice is heavily dependent on your needs.

That is why this section is clustered in the following use cases:

Choosing the right email marketing ESP does make a huge difference in your chances of success in email marketing and will save you hundreds of hours in the long run.

We help you find the right one for your specific needs – Let’s go!

Basic Newsletter Tools

So you just started out with email marketing or simply want to send out newsletters to your customers, and don’t want to pay for advanced automation functionalities you are not using.

Although you don’t want to fully close the door for email automation and would like to send out simple automation like a welcome flow.

These tools are for you!

If you are a small business selling digital products or if you’re looking to monetize your audience directly within your email tool, you should also check out the recommended tools for bloggers and creators.
sendinblue logo icon email marketing tool

Sendinblue

Cloud-based
Our Recommendation
$ (Freemium)
Newslettering
CRM
Landing Pages
E-Commerce
Email Automation
Sendinblue combines everything you need for email marketing in one clean, performant, and easy-to-use tool.

Their advanced reporting possibilities, intuitive email editor, and automation functionalities, which are more comprehensive than from other low-cost tools, make Sendinblue one of the best choices you can make.

It is a great choice if you want to start for free because Sendinblue’s free plan does not lack a lot of functionality like most competitors and allows you to have as many contacts as you want. Only if you’re sending out more than 300 emails per day.

Their paid plan starts at 19€ and allows you to send more than 300 emails per day. More features like the landing page builder, SMS, CRM, and sales automation come with the premium plan, starting at 49€/month.

Shop Integrations:

Shopify
WooCommerce
Magento
Shopware

This is what Sendinblue looks like:

VISIT TOOL PAGE
mailer lite logo icon email marketing tool

MailerLite

Cloud-based
Great Low Budget Alternative
$ (Freemium)
Newslettering
Paid Newslettering
Landing Pages
Basic Email Automation
Super low-cost and user-friendly email marketing tool. Best suited for small businesses, freelancers, or personal side projects.

MailerLite has a very clean and simple interface, but it also includes all of the essentials you need for email marketing. It even got e-commerce shop integration possibilities, a landing page builder, and allows you to set up a paid newsletter. A feature, almost non of all the other solutions here have to offer.

With 1,000 contacts and the ability to send up to 12,000 emails for free, MailerLite got a great free plan. If you’re growing and need more than that, mailerLite is still the most affordable email tool recommended by us starting at 9$ for more options and unlimited email sending.

Shop Integrations:

Shopify
WooCommerce
BigCommerce
Magento

This is what MailerLite looks like:

VISIT TOOL PAGE
mailchimp logo icon email marketing tool

Mailchimp

Cloud-based
Great Alternative with lots of Integrations
$$ (Freemium)
Newslettering
E-Commerce
Landing Pages
Basic Email Automation
Mailchimp is probably the best-known email tool among startups. They are here since the early days and so they got tons of integration possibilities and collaborate with almost all relevant marketing tools that offer integration for your email tool.

Mailchimp comes with lots of features, like a/b testing, email automation, a landing page builder, and e-commerce integration possibilities.

Although the free plan does not offer many of these features, it includes 2,000 contacts and up to 10,000 monthly emails send. That is why Mailchimp is a classic choice for companies, that have a tight budget and do not need many functionalities. Because if you want to keep your 1,000 contacts their paid plan starts at 59$, which is more expensive than most competitors.

Shop Integrations:

Shopify
WooCommerce
BigCommerce
Shopware

This is what Mailchimp looks like:

VISIT TOOL PAGE

Advanced Email Automation Tools

All of the tools that you will find in this guide offers all the standard features and functionality you would expect from an email marketing tool, including the possibility to create automated email flows.

But the following tools come with way more possibilities and allow a deeper integration into your current systems for more advanced and customizable automation setups.
activecampaign logo icon email marketing tool

ActiveCampaign

Cloud-based
Our Recommendation
$$$ (Free Trial)
Newslettering
CRM
E-Commerce
SMS
Chat
Landing Pages
Advanced Email Automation
ActiveCampaign is the most advanced all-in-one email marketing platform and one of the most preferred choices among email marketers.

Besides its chat integration, landing page builder, and SMS support, it also comes with a full-fledged CRM system that rivals even Hubspot. As an e-commerce business, you can connect your store to exchange user AND product data, which you can use within their first-in-class automation builder.

The automation builder is very comprehensive, thus easy to use, and allows you to use every possible data point available for your automatons. You can also set up split testing of whole automation flows.

There is no free plan available. But their entry plan starts at only 9$ per month for 500 contacts and 29$ for 1,000 contacts, which is very reasonably priced for what it has to offer.

Shop Integrations:

Shopify
WooCommerce
BigCommerce
Magento

This is what ActiveCampaign looks like:

VISIT TOOL PAGE
getresponse logo icon email marketing tool

GetResponse

Cloud-based
Great for Selling Digital Products
$$ (Freemium)
Newslettering
E-Commerce
Landing Pages
Push Notifications
Popup Builder
Chat
Advanced Email Automation
GetResponse is a feature-packed email marketing platform helping you to get more leads and sales. It comes with integrated webinars, spam testing, and the possibility to sell your products directly within your emails.

Features, that ActiveCampaign does not offer. So if that sounds interesting to you, GetResponse could be a great alternative. GetResponse’s automation builder is also pretty advanced, but not as advanced as the one from ActiveCampaign.

They recently introduced a free plan allowing you to send unlimited newsletters to up to 500 contacts and build one landing page. The paid plan starts at 13€ for 1,000 contacts, but marketing automation are only included in the higher tier plans starting at 44€ per month

Shop Integrations:

Shopify
WooCommerce
Magento
PrestaShop

This is what GetResponse looks like:

VISIT TOOL PAGE
costomerio logo icon email marketing tool

Customer.io

Cloud-based
Great for SAAS and Marketplaces
$$$ (Free Trial)
CDP
Newslettering
SMS
Push Notifications
Advanced Email Automation
Costomer.io is a customer data platform and automated messaging platform with deep integration into your software.

The big difference between Customer.io and all the other email marketing tools here is their integrated CDP, which stands for customer data platform. The tool tracks every single user of your website or software and all their interactions to create a comprehensive profile of them, and make this data available to you to use in your automation.

The automation builder is easy to use, super advanced, completely customizable, and lets you send emails, SMS, push- and slack notifications.

The setup requires some developer work, but their API is loved by pretty much every developer that ever used it.

There is no free plan available and pricing starts at 150$ per month. With that, you can track up to 12,000 users and send them unlimited emails, SMS, and push notifications. That is definitely a lot more than other email tools start, but since Customer.io can replace an external CDP, it is actually pretty cheap.

This is what Customer.io looks like:

VISIT TOOL PAGE

Email Marketing Platforms for E-Commerce

If you are running an e-commerce business, email marketing is a great way to educate and further nurture potential customers, keep them up to date about your newest products, get them to buy from you again, and much more. And all that, without any additional media spend needed.

So your email marketing software should have good automation features and integrate with your shop system. That way, you can use your users' shopping behavior as trigger points for specific emails and personalize the content they will receive from you.
klaviyo logo icon email marketing tool

Klaviyo

Cloud-based
Our Recommendation
$$ (Freemium)
Newslettering
E-Commerce
SMS
Social Advertising
Email Automation
Klaviyo is built for e-commerce businesses and their needs and comes with seamless integrations to all major shop systems.

With their pre-built template library, you can browse through and set up proof-tested e-commerce automation flows with only a click. Besides email, they also allow you to send out SMS.

You can create different segments based on your customer data and purchase history or let Klaviyo’s advanced AI take over and for example decide when a previous customer is ready to buy from you again.

If you want to dive deeper into your customers' behavior, Klaviyo got super detailed analytics and data visualization functionalities.

Klaviyo does not have different pricing tiers. So you will get access to every feature, even in the free plan, which allows you to manage up to 250 contacts and send them 500 emails. After that, the pricing starts at 20$ per month for more contacts and emails and 5$ for sending out more SMS.

Price for managing 1,000 contacts: 30$ (+40$ for SMS)

Shop Integrations:

Shopify
WooCommerce
BigCommerce
Salesforce
Magento
PrestaShop

This is what Klaviyo looks like:

VISIT TOOL PAGE

Great alternatives

You cannot go wrong with Klaviyo. But if you want to also compare it to some other options, Drip, and Activecampaign are two other solutions you should check out.

Drip recently switched its product focus and fully went into e-commerce. They offer pretty much the same functionality then Klaviyo at the same price. ActiveCampaign, which we already talked about here, also has great e-commerce integration possibilities and if you are already familiar with them and don’t want to miss their best-in-class automation possibilities, or want to use their CRM, it could be a great choice as well.

In case, you are using Shopware as your e-commerce system, Mailchimp and Sendinblue are the only tools from this list, that can connect to your shop system out of the box. Get more information on them here and here.

Email Marketing Platforms for Blogger & Solopreneurs

We already talked about simple and easy-to-use email marketing tools. They are great for any kind of project to get started.

If you are a blogger, a company of one, or any other kind of creator looking for ways to better monetize your audience, the following tools might suit you better.

They come with test and proven templates for creators like you and allow you to sell your digital products directly via email or set up a paid version of your newsletter.
convertkit logo icon email marketing tool

ConvertKit

Cloud-based
Our Recommendation
$$ (Freemium)
Newslettering
Paid Newslettering
E-Commerce
Landing Pages
Popup Builder
Basic Email Automation
This Email Platform is made for any kind of creator like bloggers, musicians, authors, or coaches.

Build your landing pages, run webinars, set up email flows, and sell your products directly via ConvertKit without the need to set up an online shop.

The tool is simple to use, yet pretty powerful. You can set up one-click connections to almost any other platform, that is built for creators, like course platforms and online shops. Their automation builder has anything you need, but ConvertKit has left out some more advanced features that are mostly not relevant for creators, and would just inflate complexity.

The free version allows you to manage up to 300 subscribers but is missing automated email flows, third-party integrations, and more features. To add them, ConvertKits paid plan starts at 9$ per month. For 25$ per month, you can also unlock subscriber scoring and an integrated referral system. Something that I personally was looking for for years.

Shop Integrations:

Shopify
WooCommerce
Gumroad

This is what ConvertKit looks like:

VISIT TOOL PAGE
mailer lite logo icon email marketing tool

MailerLite

Cloud-based
Great Alternative
$ (Freemium)
Newslettering
Paid Newslettering
E-Commerce
Landing Pages
Basic Email Automation
MailerLite also does have great features for creators like paid newsletters, referral programs, all kinds of integrations, and the possibility to sell digital products.

It is cheaper than ConvertKit, but ConvertKit makes a better job with its pre-made templates and their focus on helping creators. In my opinion that is clearly worth the extra money.

We already talked about MailerLite here, if you want to learn more about it.

Shop Integrations:

Shopify
WooCommerce
BigCommerce
Magento

This is what MailerLite looks like:

VISIT TOOL PAGE

Email Marketing Platforms for B2B Companies

As a B2B company you need to have a strong CRM system, but do not want to miss out on marketing automation possibilities. Therefore most companies use two different tools for sales and marketing.

But that's not needed, as the following tools will show you.
hubspot logo icon email marketing tool

Hubspot

Cloud-based
Our Recommendation
$$$ (Freemium)
Newslettering
CRM
Chat
CMS
Help Desk
Landing Pages
E-Commerce
Email Automation
Hubspot is an all-in-one marketing platform for B2B businesses with a very strong CRM and a wide variety of features for your marketing.

Collecting leads, managing, and nurturing them is a breeze. That's why so many companies love HubSpot despite the high cost. They have a starter plan for 45$/month but for more advanced features, you end up paying 1.600$ for 2.000 contacts.

It is not the right choice if you are a small business without ambitions to hire a bigger sales team later on.

At the core, Hubspot is a CRM system with email marketing and automation on top.

Shop Integrations:

Shopify
WooCommerce
BigCommerce
Magento
PrestaShop

This is what Hubspot looks like:

VISIT TOOL PAGE
activecampaign logo icon email marketing tool

ActiveCampaign

Cloud-based
Great Alternative
$$$ (Free Trial)
Newslettering
CRM
E-Commerce
SMS
Chat
Landing Pages
Advanced Email Automation
As previously mentioned, ActiveCampaign is my overall favorite email marketing tool with the most advanced automation possibilities. So it is no surprise, that they also come with a built-in CRM system.

If you are not a big enterprise company or marketing automation possibilities are more important than the perfect sales process, ActiveCampaign is a great alternative to Hubspot and only costs a tenth.

If that sounds interesting, check out our more in-depth look on ActiveCampaign.

Shop Integrations:

Shopify
WooCommerce
BigCommerce
Magento

This is what ActiveCampaign looks like:

VISIT TOOL PAGE

Email Template Builder Tools

Apart from a good sending tool and automation possibilities, the emails you will send are the most important part of your email marketing success.

So you should make them look good and deliver your point.

If you use one of the ESP systems we recommend above, you will already have a pretty solid email template builder.

But if you are looking for something more advanced or you are using some other tool to send your emails that does not come with a great builder, a dedicated template builder is what you need.

The following tools are easy-to-use, come with lots of pre-designed templates, and have lots of additional features like adding dynamic content, that can be changed even after the email was sent out.
stripo email logo icon email marketing tool

Stripo

Cloud-based
Our Recommendation
$$ (Freemium)
Template Builder
Stripo is a feature-heavy email design platform with a huge template gallery.

You can connect it to almost every ESP out there, so you don’t need to export and import your emails into your email-sending tool.

But Stripo is more than just a good-looking and easy-to-use email design tool. With their extensive AMP technology, you can embed dynamic, real-time content like products, feedback forms, or even small games into your emails.

Before you send out the email, you can share it with your team for approval.

You can use Stripo for free with access to dynamic/AMP blocks. But you won’t be able to connect the tool to your ESP directly. So you need to export and import your templates or use Zapier for that. For the ESP integration, access to premium templates, and some more features, the basic plan comes at $12.50 per month.

ESP Integrations:

ActiveCampaign
Acumbamail
AWeber
Braze
Campaign Monitor
CleverReach
Constant Contact
Elastic Email
GetResponse
Gmail
Hubspot
Klaviyo
Mailchimp
MailUp
Mailgun
Mailjet
Marketo
Outlook
iContact
SendGrid
Sendinblue
Zendesk
Zoho

This is what Stripo looks like:

VISIT TOOL PAGE
topol io logo icon email marketing tool

Topol

Cloud-based
Great Alternative with a Data-Feed
$ (Freemium)
Template Builder
E-Commerce
Easy-to-use drag-and-drop email builder with beautiful-looking pre-made templates.

Besides reusable custom blocks and personalization possibilities, you can connect a product feed to easily include products with up-to-date information.

This is great for all e-commerce stores that do not have an email tool with integration to their shop system.

Topol offers a free plan, but without any advanced features. However, the Pro plan comes at very competitive pricing. For only $10 per month, you get full access for up to 3 team members.

ESP Integrations:

Sendinblue
Mailchimp
Gmail
Outlook
Sendy

This is what Topol looks like:

VISIT TOOL PAGE
litmus logo icon email marketing tool

Litmus

Cloud-based
Enterprise Alternative
$$ (Free Trial)
Template Builder
Email Analytics
Litmus does come with great features to not only design but also test and analyze the performance and user interaction of your emails.

Their analysis functionalities will also learn from the user interaction to make suggestions on how to optimize your emails. Their AI can also take over if you want to further personalize the email experience for your customers.

Litmus comes with every feature that is important for a big enterprise company like collaboration and streamlined review and approval processes.

But because it targets enterprise companies, it only integrated with a few of the smaller ESP systems discussed in this guide.

They also do not have a free plan and the basic plan starts at $79 per month.

ESP Integrations:

Mailchimp
Hubspot
Marketo
Constant Contact

This is what Litmus looks like:

VISIT TOOL PAGE

Deliverability Monitoring Tools

You put a lot of effort into your email marketing and your email lists are filling up. The last thing you want is that your elaborately created content lands in the recipient's spam folder, or even worst is getting blocked by the provider.

The worst part about that situation is, that you probably don’t even notice it, while your open rates keep declining.

It does not need spammy emails. Sometimes a wrong setting at your domain provider or a broken template can negatively affect your deliverability.

The following tools will help you to avoid this worst-case scenario. They can run tests for all known providers, to check your deliverability, spam score, or if your domain is on a blacklist, and if so, help you to remove any technical problems.
glockapps logo icon email marketing tool

GlockApps

Cloud-based
Our Recommendation
$$ (Freemium)
Deliverability
Spam Checker
Monitoring
GlockApps is an all-in-one email deliverability suite. It allows you to run spam and deliverability tests and monitor all known blacklists and relevant factors that may affect your email deliverability score.

The tool also helps you to find and solve technical issues, and protect your domain from phishing and spoofing attacks.

You can run up to 3 spam tests and analyze 10,000 DMARC emails per month for free. If you want constant monitoring and spam testing, the paid plan starts at 59$ per month.

This is what GlockApps looks like:

VISIT TOOL PAGE
mailgenius logo icon email marketing tool

Mailgenius

Cloud-based
Free one-time Checker
Free
Deliverability
Spam Checker
If you are just getting started or do not have a very big audience list, monitoring your email delivery rate constantly and paying for that is a little bit of an overkill.

With Mailgenius, you can check your email deliverability and get notified regarding all possible problems for free. You don’t even need to sign up for their service to use this tool.

Just copy the email displayed on their website, send an email from the address you want to check and you will get redirected to a dashboard, that’ll show you your results and how to fix problems if there are any.

GlockApps does also allow you to do that in their free plan, but not in such detail.

This is what Mailgenius looks like:

VISIT TOOL PAGE

Deliverability Optimization Tools

The previously described tools help you to analyze and monitor your deliverability score, and to remove technical problems.

Besides technical problems and spammy content, low deliverability and open rate can also cause you problems. You can also get flagged from important providers if you start sending a lot of emails from a new Domain.

The following tools can help you warm up your inbox and filter your email lists for spammy, or broken email addresses.

Note that some email sending providers do have similar features built into their email tool already, so you should check that out before using one of the following tools.
debounce logo icon email marketing tool

DeBounce

Cloud-based
Our Recommendation
$ (Free Trial)
Deliverability Optimization
List Cleaning
DeBouce helps you verify your email lists by filtering out invalid and spammy email addresses. This way you don’t send out emails, that doesn’t have a chance to get delivered or opened and therefore have a negative impact on your deliverability score.

You can simply upload a list with addresses, or connect any notable ESP provider and debounce will verify new signups for you in real-time.

The first 100 verifications are for free. After that, a verification costs between 0.0003$ and 0.002$, depending on how many credits you purchase upfront. If you for example generate 15,000 new subscribers, you will pay 15$ to verify them.

ESP Integrations:

ActiveCampaign
AWeber
CleverReach
ConvertKit
Campaign Monitor
Drip
lemlist
Mailchimp
MailUp
Mailjet
MailerLite
Pipedrive
Salesforce
SendGrid
Sendinblue
SendX
Zendesk
Zoho

This is what Debounce looks like:

VISIT TOOL PAGE
warmbox logo icon email marketing tool

Warmbox

Cloud-based
Great Addition for Cold Emailing
$ (No Free Option)
Deliverability Optimization
Email Warmup
If you start sending emails from a new domain and already have a big list, it is important to warm up your sending domain. Otherwise, you risk ending up in your recipients' spam folder and hurting your inbox reputation. That is especially important if you plan to send out cold emails.

Warmbox will steadily send out more and more emails every day to different recipients and providers and interact with your emails, like a perfect engaged lead would do, to steadily increase your email deliverability.

For 15$ a month you can send out 50 emails per day. If you need more, you can send out 250 emails for 69$ per month.

If you are using one of the ESP providers, we discussed in the first section, you can choose if you want to send out emails from your own, or the tool's domain. If you choose the latter, this tool is not relevant for you!

ESP Integrations:

Amazon SES
Gmail
iCloud
Outlook
Mailgun
SendGrid
Sendinblue
Zoho

This is what Warmbox looks like:

VISIT TOOL PAGE

We expand and update our database every week

Sign up now to be the first to know as soon as there is a new tool that fits in your tool stack and is worth a try