Best Email Marketing Service for Small Businesses: Top 5 in 2022

Many email marketing services don’t serve small businesses well, not because they are bad products, but because they weren’t built with small enterprises in mind.

Most large, enterprise solutions are too expensive and all-purpose for small businesses: 

  • They come cluttered with features you don’t need but must pay for.
  • They have complex learning curves.
  • Support is spread thin and unable to provide timely, personalized help.

On the flip side, many services marketed as small business solutions:

  • Offer overly basic versions of essential features.
  • Are expensive relative to their capabilities.
  • Are too busy trying to become large, enterprise platforms.

The best email marketing service for your small business should be affordable, easy to use, and integrate well with your other marketing tools. It should offer key features at the level of complexity you need them and have a support team that responds fast and well.

In this post, we’ll discuss the top 5 email marketing software small enterprises can use to grow their audience and automate their marketing. We’ll start by discussing SendX and examining what makes this software the best for small businesses.

If you’d like to try out SendX yourself, sign up for a free trial. Or book a personal demo to learn how it can help your business thrive.

5 Best Email Marketing Services for Small Businesses

  1. SendX – Best for small businesses
  2. MailChimp – Best for beginners and free users
  3. GetResponse – Best for building sales funnels
  4. Constant Contact – Best for e-commerce integrations
  5. Convertkit – Best for content creators

SendX: #1 Best Email Marketing Service for Small Businesses

SendX has powerful automation and features to help you build your list, manage campaigns, and transform leads into customers. It also has detailed analytics to help you track your strategy’s success and convert behavioral insights into action.

We built SendX after noticing that many small enterprises make trade-offs between affordability and value when shopping for email marketing solutions. They often have to choose between breaking the bank and settling for low-cost options inadequate for their needs.

SendX solves this value-for-money problem by providing all the features small businesses need to achieve email marketing success without forcing them to give up valuable features or settle for subpar functionality.

Part of why we can do this is because we built SendX specifically for email marketing. It’s not a general-purpose software with email marketing services as an add-on. As a result, the app isn’t bloated with features that drive up costs without being useful for small businesses.

What Users Like About SendX

Why 3,000+ businesses choose SendX and why you might also want to:

Easy to use

SendX has a clutter-free user interface that makes navigation intuitive for beginners as well as experts. You can import contacts, launch your first campaign, build popup forms, and view analytics straight from the homepage.

There’s no complex learning curve. You get a full tour to help you set up your account when you sign up. Plus, every feature on the app comes with a microcopy explaining what the feature does with example use cases to help you get started even if you have no experience.

The software comes with a drag-and-drop editor you can use without any coding knowledge. You also get a host of customizable campaign and automation templates tailored for many business use cases.

Simple but powerful automation

SendX uses an intuitive trigger-action-based automation system, which is powerful when paired with our advanced segmentation features. You can use it to build complex automation rules and personalized customer journeys that nurture and convert your leads on autopilot.

sendx email marketing automation options

Automatically respond to specific actions on your site, update lists and segments, alert your sales team, change audience tags, activate lead nurturing or upselling campaigns, and more based on whether or not subscribers meet the criteria you’ve defined as triggers.

Automation triggers can be as simple as someone signing up for your newsletter, clicking a link, or making a purchase.

You can also create more complex triggers. For example, you might want to activate a drip campaign or assign a tag only when a subscriber who signed up in the last three weeks and has made $300+ purchases visits a product page.

SendX has an extensive list of in-built triggers and actions for different use cases, but you can also create custom triggers and build your own automation rules from scratch.

Besides email and website actions, you can automate responses to actions on other third-party marketing tools in your arsenal. Some tools SendX integrates seamlessly with include:

  • ClickFunnels and Instapage for lead generation,
  • E-commerce platforms like Shopify and WooCommerce, 
  • Payment channels like PayPal and Stripe, 
  • Customer relationship management software (CRMs) like Pipedrive,
  • Webinar tools like Demio, and much more.

You can also use Zapier to connect any third-party tools we don’t directly support.

Pocket-friendly pricing model

Many email marketing apps limit how much you can engage with your audience—they cap the number of emails you can send per month and charge you for exceeding limits.

If your business model requires you to send many emails to your subscribers, things can quickly get expensive. You could end up paying much more than you planned since it can be tough to determine what your real costs will amount to each month.

At SendX, we use a straightforward pricing model that doesn’t factor in the number of emails you send. Our pricing is more predictable because we only consider the number of subscribers you have.

This means you can send unlimited emails, create unlimited lists, and access all SendX features, regardless of your subscription plan. We also don’t charge you for duplicate contacts and will help you fix such incidences where we catch them.

Our business plan starts at just $7.49/mo for 1,000 subscribers and is one of the most affordable options available. Learn more about our pricing.

Reliable support

While virtually every email marketing service offers support, customers scarcely get the quality of support they need. Sometimes you reach out to support and wait for hours, only to receive an unclear or nonchalant response suggesting fixes you’ve already tried.

Having real-time, two-way conversations with customer support teams is difficult since many teams are spread too thin to give each customer the attention they deserve.

SendX solves this problem by providing you with a dedicated account manager and a support team that holds your hand every step of the way.

This team assists you throughout (and after) the onboarding process and can take over some tasks for you. Such tasks include, but aren’t limited to, importing your contacts and setting up your account.

You can also book free consultations with our customer service team or reach us via email, phone, or live chat anytime you need assistance. You’ll get swift, helpful, and personalized responses.

What Users Say About SendX

SendX currently has an average rating of 4.6 out of 5 stars from verified users on G2 and Capterra, both popular software review sites. SendX is also a 2022 G2 High Performer.

Here’s what users have to say:

sendx user review

Read the full review.

sendx user review

Read the full review.

sendx user review

Read the full review.

sendx user review

Read the full review.

Is SendX Right for You?

Many of our small-business customers are service-based businesses, content creators, SaaS startups, and e-commerce brands. But we also cater to other business types, including those who often need help finding a home, such as affiliate marketers and online casinos.

We’re not particular about the type of business you do, as long as you do responsible email marketing and are serious about seeing results.

Our platform provides you with a mix of standard and advanced features, such as:

  • Unlimited emails & drip campaigns
  • Advanced audience segmentation & automation
  • Signup and web form builders
  • Landing page builders
  • Custom triggers
  • WYSIWYG drag & drop editor
  • Dynamic content
  • Send time optimization
  • API & third-party integrations
  • Lead capture & auto-tagging
  • Autoresponders
  • A/B testing
  • Customizable templates
  • In-depth analytics

But while we offer several third-party integrations directly or through Zapier, we might not be right for you if you want a platform with hundreds of direct integrations and a native CRM.

How to Use SendX

Signing up on SendX takes only a few seconds, and you can begin setting up your account immediately.

1. Import contacts and set up

Import your existing subscribers to SendX by uploading a .csv spreadsheet containing their contact information yourself, or let us handle it for you. We also help you declutter your list by removing duplicate contacts.

sendx contact import menu

2. Launch your first campaign with SendX

You can send newsletters, drip campaigns, and auto-triggered emails with SendX. You can also create A/B split test campaigns to test which email versions generate better results.

Choose from our library of 1,500+ templates when sending out your first newsletter campaign or promotional drip sequence with SendX. Our templates are categorized by industry and use cases, and you can customize them to meet your needs. We also offer 500,000+ stock images to spruce up your emails.

sendx email marketing campaign editor

Use our drag-and-drop or plain text editor to design your emails, then preview them when you’re done. The preview shows you how your emails will render on different device types, and you can also send test emails to ensure everything is fine before launching.

Once you’re satisfied, schedule a time for your emails to go out. Define trigger conditions if you’re sending out drip campaigns or setting up auto-triggered emails.

SendX has various features you can use to increase campaign success, such as dynamic content, in-built spam filters, and send-time optimizations.

In-built spam filters improve your deliverability rates, and you can use dynamic content to personalize emails by changing what parts recipients see based on their behavior or assigned segment.

You can also use historical data, timezone, and 30+ smart-send parameters to deliver your emails when subscribers are most likely to respond. Our 1-click resend feature boosts open rates by letting you resend unopened emails with new subject lines using a single click.

3. Track and optimize campaigns with analytics

Monitor the success of your campaigns and A/B tests on the SendX dashboard with open rates, click-throughs, unique clicks, and other metrics. You can also connect drip campaigns and landing pages to Google Analytics to track web activity from clicks and much more.

analytics on the sendx email marketing platform

Your SendX dashboard shows you what links your audience clicked, how many times each link was clicked, and where these interactions came from. It also has heatmaps that show how recipients interacted with your campaigns, which parts they skipped, lingered on, etc.

You can see individual subscribers who’ve interacted with your campaigns, their tags, the lists and segments to which you assigned them, and previous campaigns they’ve interacted with. These insights can help you design better campaigns and drip sequences.

4. Grow your audience and convert leads

Grow your subscriber list and convert leads with personalized and contextual popups, embedded forms, and SEO landing pages. Choose from our robust collection of customizable templates or build yours from scratch using custom HTML and CSS.

sendx pop-up form builder

Use lead generation features like exit-intent triggers to capture leads just before they leave your website. You can also use automation to tag or assign leads to segments based on the information they provide and the specific forms or pages that converted them.

Click here for a full list of SendX features, or you can sign up for a free trial to see how these features work.

More Top Email Marketing Platforms for Small Enterprises

SendX is one of the best email marketing software for small businesses, but that doesn’t mean it’s right for everyone. Let’s explore other platforms that provide great marketing services for small enterprises.

MailChimp: Best for Beginners and Free Users

mailchimp homepage

MailChimp began as an app for sending out newsletters, but it has since grown into an all-in-one marketing tool with more features. It has segmentation and automation capabilities, form and landing page builders, autoresponders, analytics, a drag-and-drop editor, and a native CRM.

MailChimp has a forever-free plan for up to 500 subscribers with a 2,500 monthly email limit. Paid plans for 500 contacts start at:

  • Essentials – $11/mo
  • Standard – $17/mo
  • Premium – $299/mo

Prices scale with features, list size, and email send limit.

The free plan is suitable for businesses with small lists and little to no email marketing experience. While it doesn’t have any advanced features, it does have basic analytics, templates, form and landing page builders, and third-party integrations.

You’ll need to scale up to higher plans for more advanced features as your needs change, especially if you want to take advantage of the platform’s CRM and automation workflows.

Here’s what their customers are saying:

mailchimp user review

Read the full review.

mailchimp user review

Read the full review.

GetResponse: Best for Building Sales Funnels

getresponse homepage

GetResponse lets you send automated campaigns, segment contacts, perform A/B tests, and build responsive forms and landing pages equipped with payment gateways and other tools for building straightforward conversion funnels.

The platform has a free plan for up to 500 subscribers and tiered paid plans. Paid plans (billed yearly) for up to 1,000 contacts start at:

  • Email marketing –  $15.58/mo 
  • Marketing automation – $48.38/mo 
  • E-commerce marketing – $97.58/mo 

Although GetResponse also markets itself as an all-in-one platform, you must be subscribed to high-tiered or custom plans (Marketing Automation and above) to take advantage of the features that make it truly all-in-one, such as its CRM and automation workflows.

Here’s what their users say:

getresponse user review

Read the full review.

getresponse user review

Read the full review.

Constant Contact: Best for E-commerce Integrations

constant contact homepage

Constant Contact is a feature-rich platform most suitable for businesses with small contact lists, especially those looking for features and integrations targeted at e-commerce.

The software comes with in-built social sharing tools, integrated Facebook and Instagram ads, and many third-party e-commerce integrations. You can also add products from your online stores in emails on higher plans.

Plans for up to 500 contacts start at $9.99/mo for the Core plan and $45/mo for the Plus plan. Though the Core plan shares many features with the Plus plan, it lacks proper automation and has fewer integrations.

One drawback with this platform is the steep price jump as your contact list grows. The Core plan goes up to $35/mo for 501 to 2,500 contacts. Unfortunately, your monthly emails remain capped at 24 times the number of contacts you have, after which you must pay for each additional email.

What their users are saying:

constant contact user review

Read the full review.

constant contact user review

Read the full review.

ConvertKit: Best for Content Creators

convertkit homepage

ConvertKit was designed as a niche email marketing solution for digital content creators, such as bloggers, course creators, podcasters, and YouTubers. It’s also suitable for product or service-centered businesses like coaching.

The platform comes with features like audience segmentation, visual automation builders, and form and landing page builders. But it also includes niche features, such as the ability to sell digital products and paid newsletter subscriptions on the platform.

ConvertKit offers a free plan for up to 1,000 subscribers. The paid plans (billed yearly) start at:

  • Creator – $9/mo for 300 subscribers ($25 for 1,000 subscribers)
  • Creator Pro – $25/mo for 300 subscribers ($50 for 1,000 subscribers)

Although the paid plans are feature-rich, the free plan is very limited. The Creator plan shares many features with the Creator Pro plan, but it doesn’t provide in-depth reporting.

Here’s what their users say:

convertkit user review

Read the full review.

convertkit user review

Read the full review.

Choosing the Best Email Marketing Service for Your Small Business

Choosing an email marketing platform is serious business, but that doesn’t mean it has to be difficult. The best option for you will be the one that meets your requirements while staying within your budget.

If you need all the best features in one place at an affordable price, go with SendX. It’s a scalable, low-cost solution that’s easy to use and equipped with advanced segmentation and automation features to help you grow your revenue with minimal effort.

Try SendX today by signing up for a free trial or booking a personal demo.

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