The 9 Best Email Marketing Services for Ecommerce Stores

Email marketing continues to drive phenomenal results for businesses across the spectrum—ecommerce, in particular—despite overly confident declarations of its death. 

You own your email list, making it one of the best ways to reach customers at a time when search engines and social media platforms are throttling opportunity for organic search and referral traffic. It’s no wonder the marketing world is falling back in love with email marketing.

There’s no shortage of email marketing services to choose from. Below, we’ll look at the various options offered by some of the best to help you decide which service is right for your business.

How to choose the right email marketing tool for your store

Every email marketing service is a little different, though most offer a lot of the same basic features. Still, it can hard to differentiate all of the available options and figure out which one is best for your needs. There are a few basic features every ecommerce business needs in an email marketing service:

• Ready-made templates that can be customized to suit your needs
• Audience-segmentation features for sending targeted emails based on customer profiles
• Smart automation for scaling your email marketing efforts without constant monitoring
• Opt-in forms that can be embedded on your website or integrated with your Shopify store
• Detailed analytics for gauging how an email marketing campaign performs

Each solution approaches these features a little differently—how they do so can factor into your ultimate decision.

You’ll also want to make sure the service you choose can handle your intended volume. If you plan to send 5,000 emails a day to 200,000 subscribers, you don’t want a service that caps off below those numbers. And, of course, you’ll want to pick a service that falls within your price range. Fortunately, many of the email marketing services we rounded up offer free versions or trials, letting you sample the value of each.

The best email marketing software

Here, in no particular order, are 9 of the best email marketing services for ecommerce stores, and a look at the features, pricing, and unique strengths of each.

1. Klaviyo
2. Omnisend
3. Conversio
4. Rare.io
5. Remarkety
6. Constant Contact
7. SmartrMail
8. Emma
9. Campaign Monitor

1. Klaviyo

Who it’s great for: Merchants who are ready to go all-in on their email marketing efforts.

Klaviyo pricing

• Free: Allows for up to 250 subscribers and 500 email sends. When you cross over either of those thresholds, you’ll be prompted to upgrade to a paid plan.
• Paid plans: Start at $25 per month for up to 300 subscribers and unlimited sends. The price increases based on the size of your list. Some Klaviyo users says costs can add up (faster than other services) as your email marketing operation grows, so this platform is best for merchants who are ready to really invest in their email marketing operation.

Notable features

Klaviyo is one of the few email marketing services designed specifically for ecommerce. Its powerful segmentation tools can pull in data from across your store, divvying up your list automatically—helping you segment better.

Users report that email flows and automation work seamlessly in Klaviyo and are a breeze to set up, despite a more basic and less intuitive email editor feature.

2. Omnisend

Who it’s great for: Merchants who don’t want to spend a lot of time building automated email campaigns.

Omnisend pricing

• Free: Offers up to 15,000 emails per month or 2,000 emails per day. Omnisend also offers a free 14-day trial on Standard and Pro tiers.
• Standard: Starts at $16 per month for up 5,000 subscribers and 60,000 emails per month. Pricing increases based on subscriber count.
• Pro: Starts at $199 per month for up to 9,000 subscribers, with unlimited emails. Pricing increases based on subscriber count.
• Enterprise: Costs a flat $2,000 per month and includes features designed for enterprise use, like single sign-on and unlimited emails and subscribers.

Notable features

Omnisend is one of the pricier email marketing providers on this list, but users say it’s worth the cost. Robust automation and workflows make quick work of many steps that often need to be performed manually when building an email sequence on other platforms.

Shopify and Omnisend users say integration is seamless, allowing for dynamic sign-up boxes, pop-ups, and landing pages to help grow their email lists and capture new leads.

3. Conversio

Who it’s great for: Merchants wanting to engage customers and build loyalty while also boosting sales.

Conversio pricing

Conversio’s pricing packages are a little different from those of other services. The platform charges based on customers, and is one of the only email marketing services to include all features in every pricing tier. Plans start at $20 per month for up to 500 customers and increase as high as $850 per month for up to 250,000 customers. Conversio offers a free 30-day trial including all of its features.

Notable features

Many email marketing platforms focus on transactional and lead nurturing emails, but Conversio wants in on the whole customer journey. Its feature set includes powerful segmentation designed for cross- and upselling. 

The platform makes it easy to keep customers loyal and engaged by encouraging them to review and post their own photos of your products, and by automating follow-up emails and customer feedback requests.

4. Rare.io

Who it’s great for: Merchants who want to squeeze more sales out of their email list.

Rare.io pricing

• Free: Caps at 249 contacts, but includes unlimited campaigns and automations, and a library of conversion-tested templates.
• Growth: Starts at $24 per month for 250–999 subscribers, and up to 10 emails per subscriber and three automated emails.
• Pro: Starts at $39 per month for 10,000 contacts and includes 10 emails per contact and five automated campaigns.
• Exec: One of the most affordable and scalable pricing tiers available, starting at $79 per month per 10,000 contacts and includes unlimited everything, a dedicated account manager, and premium support.

Notable features

Rare.io markets its software as predictive and smart email marketing and offers the features to back it up. The service works in conjunction with ecommerce platforms to automatically determine the best products to recommend and when customers are most likely to buy.

Instead of segmenting, Rare.io focuses on sending individual, personalized emails, providing Amazon-level product recommendations without any work on the user’s end.

5. Remarkety

Who it’s great for: Merchants who want ready-made campaigns to get them off the ground in a hurry.

Remarkety pricing

• Basic: Starts at $25 per month for up to 500 subscribers, includes unlimited sends, and supports most campaign types.
• Starter: Starts at $100 per month for up to 3,000 subscribers and unlimited sends. Supports all campaign types and private branding.
• Advanced: Starts at $300 per month for up to 20,000 subscribers and unlimited sends. Includes everything in Starter, plus phone support, custom API, and a personal onboarding session.
• Professional: Starts at $800 per month for up to 100,000 subscribers and 1.2 million sends. Also offers a dedicated account manager, an email expert to setup your account, and custom email template design.

Remarkety offers a free 14-day trial that includes all its premium features.

Notable features

Remarkety takes “ready made” a step further than other services, offering not just email templates, but completely pre-built campaigns for cart abandonment, reactivation, and more. On the down side, some users say the software could benefit from more custom-script options. 

Remarkety’s email marketing service offers smart product recommendations driven by AI, and its software boasts a 99% delivery rate. Users like its reporting features, and, with a strong focus on ROI, its dashboard goes beyond vanity metrics and even offers proactive feedback on campaigns, based on industry benchmarks.

6. Constant Contact

Who it’s great for: Merchants more concerned with sending transactional and newsletter-type campaigns instead of revenue-driving emails.

Constant Contact pricing

• Email: Ranges from $20 per month for up to 500 subscribers to $335 per month for up to 50,000 subscribers. This tier does not include email automation or coupons.
• Email Plus: Ranges from $45 per month for up to 500 subscribers to $335 per month for up to 50,000 subscribers. Includes automation, subject-line testing, and coupons.

Note: Once you surpass 10,000 subscribers, Email and Email Plus plans even out in cost.

Constant Contact also offers one of the best free trials: 60-day access to the full feature suite, plus live expert help.

Notable features

Constant Contact was one of the first email marketing vendors, dating back to 1995. In those years, it’s perfected one of the easiest drag-and-drop editors available.

Constant Contact communicates seamlessly with Shopify’s ecommerce platform, though some users report dissatisfaction with the software’s revenue-tracking features, making it less suited for ecommerce.

7. SmartrMail

Who it’s great for: Merchants who want mobile-first design baked right in.

SmartMail pricing

• Basic: Ranges from $29 per month to $53 per month for up to 5,000 subscribers. The Basic plan caps at 12 monthly emails per subscriber, which is more limited than most comparable plans.
• Advanced: Starts at $99 per month and includes unlimited sends, advanced features, and priority support.
• Enterprise: $1,999 per month and includes SmartrMail’s full ecommerce feature suite plus platinum support, a dedicated account manager, and deliverability optimization.

SmartrMail offers a free, full-featured 15-day trial period.

Notable features

Personalization can drive outsized results and revenue in email marketing, and SmartrMail says its personalization—based on purchase history and browsing behavior—can boost sales by up to 167%.

SmartrMail’s platform is one of the few whose design defaults to mobile first. Some users say this results in a less customizable mobile view than other email marketing tools.

8. Emma

Who it’s great for: Consultants and agencies that need to manage multiple accounts.

Emma pricing

• Pro: Starts at $89 per month for up 10,000 contacts. Comes with most of the standard email marketing features but includes only one automation workflow.
• +Plus: Starts at $159 per month for up to 10,000 contacts. Comes with unlimited automation flows, landing page builder, and Salesforce integration.
• Emma HQ: Starts at $229 per month for 10,000 contacts. Includes everything that makes Emma one of the most robust email marketing platforms on this list, including activity dashboard, approvals and tiered account structure, and private branding.

Notable features

Emma is an email marketing tool designed for both beautiful and effective emails.

Emma’s suite of features is designed for businesses that need to manage multiple email accounts. The detailed reporting dashboard and mailing score metric allow users to quickly gauge performance at-a-glance. Emma is also one of the only email marketing services that offers multi-user sign in and tiered accounts (including approvers). 

Use the Marketing Calendar app to get a bird’s-eye view of your campaigns and adjust as necessary. Emma is one of just a few platforms to offer a mobile app, letting you check your performance anywhere, anytime.

9. Campaign Monitor

Who it’s great for: Small to mid-size merchants who want an all-around simple and capable email marketing solution.

Campaign Monitor pricing

• Basic: Starts at $9 per month for up to 500 subscribers and 2,500 emails. Includes all the core email marketing features you need and key analytics.
• Unlimited: Starts at $29 per month for up to 500 subscribers and unlimited emails. Includes advanced marketing automation, unlimited inbox previews, and priority customer support.
• Premier: Starts at $149 per month for up to 500 subscribers and unlimited emails. Includes everything in the Unlimited plan, plus pre-built engagement segments, send-time optimization, advanced link tracking, and premier phone and email support.

Campaign Monitor doesn’t offer a free trial, but you can get a taste by setting up an account, creating a campaign, and sending it to up to five subscribers before selecting a plan.

Notable features

When it comes to all-around features, ease of use, and value, Campaign Monitor is one of premier email marketing services. Its drag-and-drop editor and email templates prioritize beautiful design, or you can build your own custom emails in HTML from the ground up.

Campaign Monitor is one of the few platforms that places emphasis on transactional emails, in addition to marketing emails, helping you squeeze more value out of every email you send. Its unique visual journey designer makes it seamless to keep all of those campaigns organized and working toward the same goals.

The best tool is the one that fits your business

New and capable email marketing tools pop up every day, extending well beyond those on this list. Your goal should be not only to find a solution that’s more than just a great email marketing service. You also need a solution that’s the best email software for you, working for your business and your customers, and helping you drive more engagements, more sales, and more loyalty.

Hopefully this roundup has given you an idea of where to start. Now it’s time to take full advantage of those free trials and test the waters so you can start putting email marketing to work for your business.