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.
Web Platform
Free tier: 3,000 subscribers/15,000 emails per month
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:
See my MailRelay Tutorial for more data.
MailPoet lets you easily create and send newsletters to your supporters directly from your WordPress site.
Free tier: 1,000 subscribers with sending service
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.
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.
Free tier: 6,000 emails per month (daily sending limit of 200), unlimited subscribers
Also the next tier of $8.69 for 30,000 emails is also very budget-friendly.
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
Read my MailerLite tutorial for more details.
Free tier:
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.
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.
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.
Free tier: 1,000 subscribers, unlimited emails
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.