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8+ Best Cheap Email Marketing Software, Tools & Services

This article has been written and researched by our expert Avada through a precise methodology. Learn more about our methodology

Sam

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Daniel

Researcher

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Statistics show that email marketing can deliver an ROI of $44 for every $1 spent. Undeniably, email marketing is an essential tool of digital marketers to promote their services and products.

So if you have products to sell online or want to keep your subscribers and customers up to date with the latest newsletters, there’s nothing more valuable than email marketing.

In this article, I have compiled a list of the best cheap email marketing software, tools, and services. “Best cheap email marketing software” is not an exaggeration. I’ve tried and tested each major email marketing tool, compared their prices and features to bring you this detailed list.

With any of the software mentioned here, you can create email campaigns from scratch using a drag and drop builder. You can also integrate the services to send bulk emails. You can also use lead capture tools to gain subscribers, track emails after they’ve been sent, and much more.

These cheap email marketing tools allow you to preview your email campaigns to see how they will end up in the customer’s inbox. You can use these tools to send all types of email campaigns, including subscriptions, promotions, and verifications.

All of these are essential features an eCommerce business should use. After reading, you can choose the one that best suits your company’s needs. Let’s get started!

Why should you try a cheap email marketing software?

As one of the most cost-effective marketing tools for all sizes of businesses, email marketing can be beneficial for any company. Because email marketing is simple to manage, gives you full control, and allows users to establish a direct communication with the customers.

However, many business owners still fall for the trap of “higher pricing equals better features”. In reality, you don’t need a big budget to begin with email marketing, because:

  • Many email marketing softwares offer a free trial. You can simply take them for a test drive before using.

  • A well-built tool won’t require any real custom work done to start using.

  • Some email marketing services are very cheap or even have a free plan.

You can have both the best and cheapest email marketing software, you should realize that, especially if you are a small business owner. Let’s meet our first contestant:

1. AVADA Email Marketing - The best cheap email marketing software

AVADA Email Marketing
AVADA Email Marketing

AVADA Email Marketing is a dedicated tool created mainly for eCommerce businesses. The software offers powerful email automation workflows and many beautiful pre-built email templates to start sending. Not to mention, the app also lets users access SMS marketing - a powerful way to increase the reach of the message.

AVADA Email Marketing’s top features are:

  • Newsletter templates to send mass emails with targeted segments.

  • Abandoned cart recovery emails for customers who have abandoned their carts and push them to check out.

  • Emails to welcome new subscribers and urge them to make the first purchase.

  • Transactional emails to automate the customer service of a business.

  • Segmentation to group customers with different criteria and send tailored email campaigns.

  • Automation workflows with optional split to send automated emails based on recipients’ responses.

  • Cross-sell and upsell emails to make customers shop more.

  • An email editor that is easy to use and has professional layout with customizable elements

  • Many well-designed email templates to save time and start sending campaigns right off the bat.

  • Auto-sync customers data to sync your Shopify store’s data with AVADA Email Marketing.

  • Lead capture tools such as opt-in form or

  • Comprehensive reports to help you track the effectiveness of your email campaigns.

AVADA Email Marketing
CAPTION

But I know what you came here for: You want to see if this software has the best price for its features. The good news is that AVADA Email Marketing already has a free plan for users with up to 1,000 contacts and sending 15,000 emails per month. This plan offers basic features with basic automation flows and some lead capture tools. For a small or new business, that is more than enough to start engaging with your subscribers.

If you are satisfied with the free plan and want to have advanced features, the Pro plan starts at $9/month to send unlimited emails. The subscription fee will increase based on the number of the contacts you have on the list. There is a calculator on the pricing page so you can know exactly how much you need to pay for your plan. If that is still not enough, you can even sign up for an Enterprise plan and have the best support.

Throughout the research, I found out that AVADA Email Marketing has the best free plan among the email marketing software mentioned in this list. The low pricing of $9 for the pro plan is also highly competitive. The best deal is that the free plan already gives you many features to grow your email list, send automated emails, and take care of your subscribers.

For that matter, AVADA Email Marketing is the number one cheap email marketing software for not only having fantastic features but also the ability to scale with the size of a business.

2. Moosend

Moosend
Moosend

Moosend is a cheap and fully functional email marketing service with all the features you need to create beautiful email campaigns with a high conversion rate. You can create landing pages for your brand using ready-made templates, send automated emails based on the subscribers’ behaviors, and harness ecommerce AI to generate more sales.

You’ll also be able to send cross-sell email campaigns based on your customers’ shopping habits and track how often they buy your products so you can promote products right at the time the customers need most. This has a lot of potential to help new eCommerce businesses to provide a more personalized email experience.

Moosend has personalization features for users to build unique emails for their target customers with about 40 responsive themes to choose from. Of course, all of these themes are customizable and beautiful. The free plan of Moosend allows you to send unlimited emails with a list of up to 1,000 subscribers. If you have more subscribers on your list, you’ll need to switch to paid plans, which start at $8 per month and also increase based on the number of people on the list.

3. Cakemail

Cakemail
Cakemail

For small business owners, it may be wise to look for an email marketing software designed for companies your size. Cakemail is what you should consider then, it is a tool built around the needs of small businesses. It offers a number of useful time-saving features and is one of the cheapest email marketing services options available.

With Cakemail, you can build email newsletters in no time and make some simple customization to have professional-looking email templates. You can also create and reuse these templates, then add in your brand’s branding elements. The software also lets you divide the list into targeted groups and send tailor messages to each group.

Cakemail offers a number of different pricing plans based on how many contacts you have on your list. The cheapest plan is free and includes up to 2,000 contacts and 12m000 emails per month. The next tier allows up to 75,000 contacts snf 4 email list for $7 per month as the starting point

There is also a 30-day free trial available if users just want to run a test of the service. With 600 email templates, Cakemail is a good option for its price. However, the pro plan lets you send on 12X the account limit with up to 75,000 subscribers, which means it can get harder to scale once you have a large fan base.

Also, Cakemail puts a separate pricing plan for transactional emails, making it harder to access the automation features of the software. The Growth plan lets you send up to 1 million emails starting at $12/month. I’m not a fan of this move for pricing plans since customers should get what they want at a reasonable pricing.

4. MailerLite

MailerLite
MailerLite

While MailerLite being one of the cheapest email marketing software you can find, it still manages to offer a number of comprehensive email marketing features. This service helps users through every step of creating email marketing campaigns, including building and sending emails, and creating landing pages for interested recipients.

Much like other names on this list, MailerLite has an intuitive drag and drop email builder that requires no coding knowledge from users. You can attract more subscribers through different types of landing pages, sign up forms, and social media forms. With customized workflows and automation, you can increase engagement, click-through rates, and open rates of your campaigns at a low price.

For the cost, MailerLite keeps it simple with all pricing plans having pretty much the same feature set and allows users to send unlimited emails per month. The only difference is the number of subscribers on the list for each tier.

The free plan of MailerLite lets users have up to 1,000 subscribers, the paid plans start at $10/month, but $15 is the actual cost you should use for a small email list with under 2,500 subscribers.

All in all, MailerLite is a particularly good email marketing software with a few cheap pricing options. Users can create campaigns, manage the list, automate campaigns, design pop-ups and landing pages at a relatively low cost. This makes the software a fantastic option for bloggers. However, I view the scalability of MailerLite rather disadvantageous when moving to higher pricing plans.

5. Sendy

Sendy
Sendy

Most of the email marketing solutions on this list are “software as a service” (SaaS) email marketing tools that require users to pay a monthly fee for as long as they want to keep using the service.

On the other hand, Sendy is a self-hosted email marketing application that you can install on your own website’s server (just like WordPress). The software then allows you to send emails with Amazon’s cloud-based Simple Email Service (SES)

The key features of Sendy is the ability to send unlimited emails through Amazon SES, set up automated emails, segment the subscriber list, store custom information about the subscribers, personalize messages as needed, and view detailed analytic reports on your email campaign metrics.

To purchase the Sendy email marketing software, you need to pay the price of $59. Why is it among the best cheap email marketing services? Because it is a one-time fee - after paying, you don’t have any more ongoing fees. However, to start sending emails from Sendy, you still need to sign up for the Amazon SES service, which costs only $1 for each 10,000 email sends.

Over the long term, Sendy is definitely the cheapest option in this email marketing software list, especially if you want to send bulk emails. However, Sendy is also the least beginner friendly software on the list and you may need someone with technical expertise to get it up and running.

6. Aweber

Aweber
Aweber

Aweber’s built-in AI-powered design builder helps users create beautiful and branded emails in just a few minutes. The software also features a drag and drop template builder and a landing page builder so you can keep things looking good and branded. There’s also powerful automation and a campaign marketplace where users can import well-performing campaigns into their accounts to use as a guide for campaigns.

There is a free plan on Aweber for up to 500 subscribers and 3,000 email sends per month. After that, pricing starts at $16.15 per month. The price also goes up based on the number of subscribers, but you will always be able to send unlimited emails. The landing page feature which is available in both plans is a valuable point to make Aweber one of the best cheap email marketing tools.

7. Sendgrid

Sendgrid
Sendgrid

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

On the other hand, SendGrid is the ideal choice if you are looking to have as much control over the process as possible. It allows for a lot of customization and fine-tuning, both in your single email newsletter and your campaigns in general.

In general, Sendgrid lets you create email using a drag and drop editor, select your design from a library of responsive email templates, then build customized email campaigns and workflows as a part of your marketing automation strategy. With the ability to integrate with popular eCommerce platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, Salesforce, etc, Sendgrid is a fantastic email marketing tool for online stores.

If you want to give Sendgrid a try, they have a free plan with most of the primary features. You can have up to 2,000 contacts and can send up to 6,000 emails per month. This is relatively low, but for a new business, this is all you need to start with email marketing.

The next tire pricing plan starts at $15 per month and increases for both the number of subscribers and emails. That said, if you want a plan specific to your needs (such as sending many emails to a small list), Sendgrid can give you the exact cost.

8. Mailjet

Mailjet
Mailjet

Create meaningful emails that can engage your subscribers with Mailjet’s many easy-to-use features. The email marketing software lets you design responsive emails using ready-made templates with just a few clicks. You can also manage and segment your audience so you will be able to send the right messages to the right people and track your email campaign results with advanced insights.

The free plan lets users send up to 6,000 emails per month and a maximum of 200 emails per day. Want to use more of Mailjet? The basic plan starts at $9.65 per month with no daily sending limit and up to 900,000 emails per month. The free plan already gives you unlimited contacts with advanced email editors and advanced statistics so you can start building your email list with the right email campaigns.

Final words

Email marketing is essential for eCommerce businesses, but it doesn’t have to break the bank. If you are a small company, these best cheap email marketing software, tools & services are just what you need. They have all the fantastic features for email marketing and stay at a relatively low cost.

For the best recommendation, AVADA Email Marketing is the well-rounded solution that balances between key features and pricing. With 1,000 contacts, 15,000 emails per month, and all incredible features like email templates, automation workflows, SMS marketing, etc, at the free plan, this software is the best option for the money.

Do you have any questions to decide between these tools? Let me know in the comment section below!


Sam Nguyen is the CEO and founder of Avada Commerce, an e-commerce solution provider headquartered in Singapore. He is an expert on the Shopify e-commerce platform for online stores and retail point-of-sale systems. Sam loves talking about e-commerce and he aims to help over a million online businesses grow and thrive.