over the past 7 years of running my online business I have tried tested and used nearly all of the major email marketing tools out there

I currently have over 28,000 subscribers on my list I use Integrations with a WordPress blog and online course platform and even with a Shopify store so I have a pretty objective view on this and in this blog post I will go through each of the email providers that I personally used to help you find the perfect tool for your needs

I should note that this blog post isn’t sponsored by any of the tools that I mention but if you would like to support me for free you can use the affiliate links below once you have made your choice

now to save time I will tell you first about the provider that I cannot recommend although a lot of people actually start with it and I will quickly explain why

so MailChimp it’s been around for many years and for a very long time it was popular because it had the most generous free plan that was the only advantage of MailChimp but these days there are better email providers with even more generous free plans and if that’s the main factor for you check the company that I will cover next

now the biggest disadvantage of MailChimp is that their paid plans are not really worth the price for example if you have about 5,000 contacts you will be paying around $100 per month and even then with their standard plan you will get some limits like credit system for the number of automations that you can run

so in my opinion MailChimp price doesn’t justify choosing it over other tools

with that out of the way let’s talk about convert kit and it has recently changed their name to a short name just kit

it’s a great option especially if you’re a content creator like me if you have a blog or you run a YouTube channel or maybe you have a podcast

I have been using it for Solid 3 years in my business this days kit is even more attractive than before because it’s free plan is the most extended on the market right now

you can grow your list up to 10,000 subscribers and never pay a cent for it

moreover this free plan allows you to run one Automation and one email sequence so say you have one product that you want to sell to your audience you can actually build an automation for it and run it on this free account for as long as you want to

all the other features like tagging and segmenting your subscribers um unlimited landing pages and opt-in forms unlimited email newsletters all of this is included in this free plan and you can even sell digital products right here on the free kit plan

while kit doesn’t offer as many Advanced customization options as some tools like active campaign it’s still very powerful for creators who want more Simple Solutions

in terms of pricing on the paid plans kit is a bit on the higher end compared to some other platforms

so here you go that would be the first Pitfall when you move the toggle here on the subscriber count your pricing quickly goes up to $150 per month when you have just 20,000 subscribers

in my experience convert kit has direct Integrations that are set with most of the platforms like WordPress uh think ify or teachable and Shopify so if you’re using any of this it’s a great option to consider

overall convert kit is a excellent choice for creators that are looking for a tool that’s straightforward and effective at the same time

by the way this blog post is being published close to the biggest annual sale of Black Friday and it’s actually the best time to use my links below to test this email providers and to be ready to make the decision by the time when the promotion actually starts

usually most of the email providers offer great deals on Black Friday especially on their annual P payment plans so keep that in mind and use this time to test the tools

next I want to talk about active campaign because after using kit I actually migrated to this provider and it’s the one that I’m currently using

and after testing using it for several months I have to say in my opinion it does offer the most powerful email automation Builder out there

it provides tons of customization options and it is packed with Advanced features like sidetracking landing pages forms and even CRM functionalities

they also offer plenty of Integrations with e-commerce platforms and even transactional email Services

it is also important to note that active campaign has the best deliverability rate

I have been checking these numbers on the site called email tool tester.com they do very thorough testing of all tools and they update this at least once a year and you can see that active campaign is at the top of the list

they also do have the best customer support that I have had from any email provider so far

most of email providers only reply to you within 24 hours via email or through a ticket system so if you have a more urgent question or issue you still have to wait those 24 hours or so to get a response

active campaign has a live chat feature with real people texting you in real time

it’s not like 24/7 but the live chat is available for very extended working hours and I would note here that the hours here are aligned best with us-based customers

on the downside I have to be honest active campaign is a bit pricier than some other email providers but like I said the quality of support the best Automation workflows and the highest deliverability rates might really justify the price for you

so if you need the most robust tool for your online business then active campaign is the way to go

now moving on to ma mailer mailer light this is a tool that I really like and I’ve been using it for uh my smaller website for a couple of years now

it’s simple and easy to recommend at least easier than to pronounce their name

let’s look at the deliverability graph on the site see mailer light is right below active campaign and at the same time it is in the lower pricing range

mailer light is light as the name suggests meaning that it offers all the essential email marketing features and nothing too advanced or fancy like you might see in the previous email provider

it has a clean userfriendly interface and their pricing is very affordable

they also offer a free plan for up to 1,000 contacts which includes a drag and drop editor website builder and email automation features things that by the way MailChimp doesn’t even offer on some of their paid plans

but for the pricing at around 5,000 contacts you will pay $39 per month or $50 uh for the advance plan

I would compare mailer light to Kit as they have similar features and functionality so at 5,000 subscribers you will already pay $79 on the kits monthly plan

mailer light also integrates with platforms like Shopify however it doesn’t offer as many customization options as some other tools so you will need to consider that

I don’t particularly like one thing about it melee light has more strict rules in regards to affiliate marketing than other email providers

they have a very weird explanation in their terms that affiliate marketing is prohibited but affiliate links are fine

they go on to explain the difference and I read it like five times in a row and I’ve been doing affiliate marketing for SE seven years now and for the love of God I still don’t understand it

and their support wasn’t of much help when I asked them what I can actually do and where is the line between doing affiliate marketing and using affiliate links

what I understand is that they can actually interpret it Case by case so I never felt sure about using this email provider for my main business where I regularly review or recommend different products like even in this blog post for example

now let’s talk about Mand which I have been using for about a year as well

Mand is great for small to medium-sized businesses looking for a feature reach tool without being too expensive

I would focus on their email marketing automations because moand offers impressive tools even comparable to more expensive platforms like active campaign but at a lower cost

for example if you have a list of 15,000 subscribers you will pay $128 per month on Mand and $265 per month on active campaign

another standout feature of Mand is its Advanced segmentation and personalization capabilities

you can segment your audience based on different behaviors or demographics and you can personalize your emails using custom Fields fields to boost engagement

Mand also integrates with popular e-commerce platforms like woocommerce and Shopify as well as with CRM systems and other business tools so it can be a good choice if you run a e an e-commerce business as well

one downside of Mand is that it lacks some of the deeper CRM features that you will find in tools like active campaign but again at a lower price tag Mand can offer similar versatility

it is also quite high on the deliverability scale here

it was also nice that Mand has live chat support like active campaign the only difference is that their working hours are actually tailored better for European customers because that is where the company is based

so if you’re based in Europe like I am this might be a great option for you too

let’s talk about flawes

I started hearing about this email provider more and more in the blogging communities because a lot of bloggers tend to have pretty large email lists over at least 50,000 subscribers and on most of the email providers your bills at this number of subscribers goes into the thousands per year

for example on kit which as I mentioned earlier is very popular among creators and bloggers with the list up to 55,000 subscribers you will already be paying at least $3,790 per year and that’s on their average average plan not the most expensive and if only you’re buildt annually

so when your blog is making a lot of money you might not pay attention to this business expense but a lot of bloggers were hit by Google algorithm updates in the past year

their traffic and income might have dropped like in half or more but their email list was still very big

so it’s just the monthly bill suddenly looks for them very high when their income dropped so much

some were thinking about even deleting their email list but well your list is the only asset that you really own and that is not affected by the algorithms right

so many bloggers started looking for a cheaper email provider and that’s how I found out that there is only one that I know of that allows you to have unlimited subscribers and has a fixed monthly fee no matter how big is your email list

so it’s flaw desk

it’s just $38 per month and you have unlimited everything unlimited subscribers unlimited email sends and at this affordable price point

if you know any other provider that offers that let me know in the comments I’m genuinely curious to know

flawes is primarily aimed at small businesses and solar entrepreneurs because it lacks some Advanced features such as automations with with multiple triggers

now I personally don’t use flow desk for two reasons

one is their stateof art beautiful email designs are just not for me

I prefer the basic email templates with no design at all that makes my email campaigns look really close to just a personal email that I would send someone through my personal Gmail you know

and second I do need more advanced automations in my business

besides that I also try to find any comparison of flowes uh deliverability rates with other email providers that I mentioned today and it just doesn’t show up anywhere

I think it’s because their affiliate program actually is like the worst compared to any other email provider to the point that I don’t even have an affiliate link below for flawes

but it is understandable at their affordable and fixed price rate but still this might be actually the reason why you will rarely find flow desk in any comparison reviews

and I will just take a guess that they cannot just keep up with the great deliverability uh rate while offering businesses unlimited subscribers and unlimited emails for just $38 per month

for someone who’s just starting $38 a month might be actually a lot

so if you’re a beginner and you have a very small email list you’re probably better off with a free kit plan or something

the reason that I did add flow desk to this blog post is because it might be a good option for creators who had a huge list but they lost their traffic or their business isn’t doing that great lately

so flawes could help you save money and keep staying in contact with your email list for just $38 per month

now if you’re interested in more in-depth review of my current email provider which is active campaign I have linked the detailed review article above and if you want to test any of these platforms check my links below

thanks for reading this blog post