If you just recently started your blog/online business, cutting your costs is vital. Free-tier email automation tools are a great way to save money, but only if you get the needed functionality.
Most reviews like this are written for affiliate commission purposes. This one is different. I have tried the tools I list and my purpose is to help you save money, therefore you will find the less promoted platforms here that you can use as part of your WordPress sales funnel.
No matter which service you choose, I highly recommend that you study my guide on email deliverability for best results.
MailRelay
Web Platform
Free tier: 3,000 subscribers/15,000 emails per month
- Massive sending with a high speed engine
- High delivery rate
- Free templates, drag & drop and HTML editor
- Campaigns, Automation & SMTP
- Spam score detection system to avoid possible problems even before you send the email campaign.
- Statistics
- Accept payment by credit card, PayPal, transfer and PagSeguro
The Mailrelay email marketing platform was developed 100% by their company (based in Madrid, Spain).
This gives a decisive advantage when you compare it with other ESPs, as they can customize it according to customers’ needs and integrate it into your CRM or portal, allowing with a single account 3 options for sending email marketing campaigns:
- through a powerful web-based software
- through your own email client with the attached database and
- by SMTP with your CRM.
See my MailRelay Tutorial for more data.
MailPoet
MailPoet lets you easily create and send newsletters to your supporters directly from your WordPress site.
Free tier: 1,000 subscribers with sending service
- Campaigns & Automation
- To send emails, use your own web host, the MailPoet sending service or third party SMTP
- Statistics
- Subscribers are also WordPress users
- Create segments based on opens and clicks
- WooCommerce integration
If flawless deliverability is your goal, they’ve got your back. MailPoet delivers 30+ million emails each month to inboxes, not spam boxes. With the MailPoet Sending Service, you can be confident your emails will reach their destination on time, every time.
See my MailPoet Tutorial for more data.
Post SMTP Plugin
Port SMTP is not an email marketing service, but you absolutely need it if your WordPress blog sends any emails (even notifications).
It happens very often that the emails sent by the native mechanism of your blog get delivered hours later or don’t arrive at all.
The plugin takes over delivery of email generated by your WordPress site and sends it through SMTP. This way you get a 100 percent delivery rate.
You also get the option to debug any email delivery errors.
MailJet
Free tier: 6,000 emails per month (daily sending limit of 200), unlimited subscribers
The next (Basic) tier pricing of $8.69 for 30,000 emails is very budget-friendly.
Unfortunately the Marketing Automation feature is only available in the Premium plan, $20.95 for 30,000 emails.
- Unlimited Contacts
- APIs, SMTP Relay, Webhooks
- Advanced Email Editor
- Advanced Statistics
- Marketing Automation only for paid plans
MailerLite
MailerLite is one of the fastest growing email marketing companies.
They have an awesome office in Vilnius, Lithuania and also remote staff around the globe.
They help more than 600,000 businesses around the world keep in touch with their customers.
Free tier: 1,000 subscribers and 12,000 emails per month
Up to 2,500 subscribers: $15
- Email campaigns
- Drag & Drop Editor
- Newsletter Templates
- Landing Pages
- Email Automation
- Advanced Segmentation
- A/B Testing
- Email Campaign Reports
- Domain Authentication
Read my MailerLite tutorial for more details.
SocketLabs
Free tier:
- Unlimited subscribers
- 40,000 emails in the first 30 days, then 2,000 per month
2,000 emails don’t seem like a lot, but it’s still 66 emails per day.
Their next tier is 40,000 email for $39.95 per month, roughly $10 per 10K emails.
SocketLabs has over 10 years of industry experience in email and they excel in inbox delivery.
- Drag and drop design
- Regular emails
- Drip campaigns
- Domain Authentication (SPF/DKIM)
- Reliable SMTP Relay for email delivery
- Email support
- Detailed reporting
The SocketLabs WordPress Plugin is a free SMTP plugin that allows you to easily route email generated by WordPress through SocketLabs rather than the default wp_mail() function that WordPress provides. This ensures that your email gets delivered.
SendGrid
Free-tier: Send 40,000 emails for 30 days, then 100/day forever.
Over 80,000 paying customers trust SendGrid to send more than 50 billion emails every month.
- Domain Authentication (SPF/DKIM)
- Transactional Templates
- Regular campaigs
- Automation campaigns only for paid plans
- APIs, SMTP Relay, and Webhooks
- Ticket support
- Advanced Statistics
MooSend
Free tier: 1,000 subscribers, unlimited emails
- Drag-and-drop editor
- Newsletter templates
- Email automation
- Advanced list segmentation
- Powerful real-time analytics
- Professional SMTP service
- No logo
- Knowledge base, webinars, video tutorials
Wrapping it up
By using marketing automation tools to perform lead nurturing and follow-up, you make it possible to concentrate on other parts of your business and thereby increase your revenue.
