Email marketing is the easiest and most budget-friendly marketing channel that can give you the highest return on your investment. But the problem is, you still need to invest some amount of time and money on it. And being a small business, you wouldn't want to spend your budget on a tool that doesn't fulfill your needs.
Let's help you choose the best email automation software for small businesses to streamline your efforts and stay in constant contact with your customers.
Features to look for in an email automation tool
Before choosing the right tool for your business, you need to know what features to look for. I'll walk you through the most important features you should consider when choosing email automation software for your marketing campaigns:
Easy-to-use interface without a steep learning curve
Drag and drop email editor to send beautifully designed interactive emails without a designer
Bulk email sender with options to segment and create multiple targeted campaigns with personalization
A/B testing and in-built analytics to track what's working best
Integrations with other tools like a CRM for collecting and processing more data
Other factors like pricing, ratings, and customer reviews
đź’ˇ Related guide: Benefits of Email Marketing for Small Businesses
Best Email automation software for small businesses
We have curated a list of the best email automation software for small businesses by considering the aforementioned attributes. Let’s take a look at them.
| Email automation tool | Free plan/trial | Paid plans start from | G2 rating |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mailmodo | 21-day free trial | $38.44 | 4.6 |
| Zoho | free plan | $3 | 4.3 |
| Mailchimp | free plan | $4.61 | 4.4 |
| Moosend | free plan | $9 | 4.7 |
| Omnisend | free plan | $16 | 4.5 |
| MailerLite | free plan | $9 | 4.7 |
| Get Response | 30-day free trial | $15.6 | 4.2 |
| Brevo | free plan | $25 | 4.5 |
| ConvertKit | free plan | $9 | 4.4 |
Now, let’s dive deep into the nitty gritty of each of these email automation software.
1. Mailmodo
Maintaining regular email campaigns is difficult, especially for small businesses. However, most email marketing software requires hefty investments without fitting scalability.
So, if you have a small business with limited cash flow, Mailmodo is your perfect companion to roll out ROI-driven email campaigns. From template builder to contact management, this nifty tool is the best email marketing software offering every necessary email marketing solution and beyond.
With Mailmodo, you can create dynamic, engaging, and shareable content and retain and even attract new customers. This email automation tool makes your emails interactive with elements like forms, calendars, carts, and widgets. Thanks to the multi-step forms, your subscribers can even submit their responses via email.
Mailmodo offers over 400 AMP and HTML templates for you to use and get inspired.
With its drag-and-drop builder and AI-automated content generation, you can cut down your email creation time to half
The platform’s email gamification elements like wordlemail, spin the wheel, and calculators make your emails more engaging and impactful.
Rating: 4.6/5 stars on G2
Pricing: Mailmodo offers you a 21-day free trial to test out all the features. Apart from that they have the following plans:
| Plans | Pricing |
|---|---|
| Lite | $38.44/Month |
| Pro | $76.89/Month |
| Max | $144.17/Month |
2. Zoho
Zoho campaign is another popular email automation tool among small businesses for email marketing needs. Here, you can build forms, embed them in your emails, and automate email sequences with ease. You also get responsive email designs, trigger automated workflows, and contact management solutions.
Zoho offers you features to add or import contacts and track user behavior for better personalization
It also comes with a customizable drag-and-drop email builder that lets you craft an email journey specific to your email cycle.
As a small business pinpointing the best time to send your emails can be a struggle. Zoho comes with a send time optimization feature which will help you stay on top of your subscriber’s inbox.
However, Zoho Campaign users often complain about its clucky interface and longer adaption time.
Rating: 4.3/5 stars on G2
Pricing: You can use the Zoho Campaign's free plan. It also offers the following paid plans with more advanced features:
| Plans | Pricing |
|---|---|
| Standard | $3/Month |
| Professional | $4.50/Month |
3. Mailchimp
Another fan-favorite email automation tool is Mailchimp. Here, you will get automated and advanced multi-channel tools to create highly personalized content and send the right email at the right time.
With MailChimp you can send product-specific emails to customers according to their search history. However, the AMP approval takes longer than the alternatives.
They also have a centralized dashboard to keep all your marketing data in one place and manage your email campaigns holistically
Mailchimp also analyzes hundreds of millions of data points and gives you suggestions for crafting better-performing emails.
Rating: 4.4/5 rating on G2
Pricing: Mailchimp offers you a free version. The paid subscriptions include:
| Plans | Pricing |
|---|---|
| Essentials | $4.61/Month |
| Standard | $6.88/Month |
| Premium | $137.48/Month |
4. Moosend
Moosend is another affordable email automation software that comes with a variety of features for an effective email marketing strategy. And if you don't want to invest in it right away, you can opt for their free 30-day trial to see if this fits your needs.
Moosend offers you features like building lists, customizing their pre-designed templates, and creating newsletters within minutes.
Their automation will help you track important data and analytics like open rates, click-through rates, purchases, etc. Based on this you can understand what makes your audience buy from you.
All of their plans come with features that can help you increase your conversion rates drastically like A/B testing, exceptional segmentation filters, email heatmap analytics, etc.
Rating: 4.7/5 stars on G2
Pricing: Apart from the free plan, let’s look at Moosend’s paid subscriptions:
| Plans | Pricing |
|---|---|
| Pro | $9/Month |
| Enterprise | Customizable |
5. Omnisend
As the name suggests, Omnisend is one of the best email automation tools for omnichannel marketing. And the best part is, their free plan is loaded with generous features. What can be better for a small business on a tight marketing budget?
Omnisend comes with an email builder that has hundreds of templates that you can personalize as you want.
They have powerful segmentation features. So you can create targeted campaigns as per your customer data and improve conversions
They also offer robust automation and pre-built workflows to help you perform better. And you can even get performance reports for each campaign.
Rating: 4.5/5 stars on G2
Pricing: Omnisend offers a free plan. You can also choose its paid subscriptions according to your requirements:
| Plans | Pricing |
|---|---|
| Standard | $16/Month |
| Pro | $59/Month |
6. Mailerlite
As a relatively new email marketing platform, Mailerlite packs impressive automation features suitable for small businesses. From welcome emails to abandoned cart reminders, here you can create email marketing campaigns based on customers’ buying behaviors.
Mailerlite also delivers advanced marketing workflows in the intuitive automation builder. However, there are some issues with the verification process on the platform.
You can create engaging emails that accommodate unique customer needs with Mailrelite’s interactive content blocks and drag-and-drop editors.
The platform offers triggers to send automatic and targeted emails across specific email lists.
Mailerlite also offers A/B testing for subject lines, content and send times. It allows up to 3 workflow variations without test limits so that you can leverage the best possible email sequences.
Pricing: Mailerlite offers a free version, which makes it a convenient tool if your budget is limited. Now let’s see its paid subscription plans:
| Plans | Pricing |
|---|---|
| Growing Business | $9/Month |
| Advanced | $18/Month |
| Enterprise | Customizable |
7. GetResponse
Another affordable but effective email automation software is GetResponse. Here, you can nurture subscribers with AI-generated and highly personalized email content.
Besides email automation, a small business also needs the right performance insights to grow. GetResponse’s marketing analytics will help you here by tracking your email campaign performance. However, report customization on this platform is limited.
With Getresponse, you can collect contacts signup forms, popups, landing pages, and native integrations.
This email automation tool offers a data-driven segmented list. Every email will be relevant to the recipient’s needs and help you retain your subscribers.
With GetResponse’s timely popups, push notifications, and live chats, you can make your CTAs more impactful and turn subscribers into customers.
Pricing: GetResponse offers a free trial for you to test out its services. Its paid plans include:
| Plans | Pricing |
|---|---|
| Email Marketing | $15.6/Month |
| Marketing Automation | $48.4/Month |
| E-com Marketing | $97.6/Month |
| GetResponse Max | $999/Month |
8. Brevo
Small businesses often struggle to expand their clientele. But Brevo and its smart email automation will not only convert subscribers but also create lasting relationships with them.
Here, you can use Brevo’s free templates or create your unique email design effortlessly. The platform will also segment your contact list and send out the right emails at the right time.
Brevo’s servers are designed to get you the best deliverability so that every email gets your recipient’s attention.
The plans are based on email volume, not on the number of contacts. So if you are a small business owner, Brevo is a very cost-effective email marketing service option for you.
Pricing: Brevo offers a free plan with basic email marketing features. The paid subscriptions include:
| Plans | Pricing |
|---|---|
| Starter | $25/Month |
| Business | $65/Month |
| Brevo Plus | Customizable |
9. Convertkit
Last but not least, ConvertKit is another popular email automation platform among small businesses. The platform offers great automation capabilities like intuitive email editors and powerful sales funnel tools that will help you enhance your conversion rate. It also offers automated email sequences and wins your subscriber’s attention easily.
However, the platform sends emails to the recipient to confirm their subscription which may affect your campaign’s effectiveness.
With easy email templates and a clutter-free writing experience, ConevrtKit will make email marketing a cakewalk for you
This email marketing tool segments your subscribers so that you can deliver highly targeted emails.
With ConvertKit, you can build single or multiple entry point automations. This will ensure that your audiences go across the pre-built customer journeys you created for them.
Rating: 4.4/5 stars on G2
Pricing: Convertkit offers a free plan. You can also choose one of the following paid subscriptions.
| Plans | Pricing |
|---|---|
| Creator | $9/Month |
| Creator Pro | $ 25/Month |
Takeaway
A good email automation software can help your business tremendously. From nurturing your prospects, and increasing conversions, to engaging with your customers, you can do it all without spending loads of money.
So before you choose one, create a list of all the features that can fulfill your business needs. After that, go through the features of the tools mentioned above, and check their pricing. If you need to, send an email or book a call with their team for further questions. And I would personally suggest you first sign up for a free trial to test it out. That's the best way to make sure you're not wasting your budget on the wrong tool.
