5 Best Platforms for Email Marketing in 2025
No matter your area of expertise, email marketing is one of the most powerful channels you can use to build an audience, sell digital products, and generate consistent revenue online.
But if you're trying to choose an email marketing platform, it can often feel overwhelming, especially since there are so many options and they all have distinct, crucial differences.
That's why today, after nearly six months of testing and research, I'm excited to share my updated reviews of the best email marketing platforms for online business owners so you can make an informed decision about which one is right for you.
5 Best Platforms for Email Marketing
Hey, I'm Ahmed and welcome back to ozearn.com, where we help everyday experts build profitable online businesses.
For context, I currently have over 25,000 email subscribers and I actually used to work in email marketing full time as the Senior Launch Manager for Ramit Sethi and then the Director of Marketing Engagement at Teachable.
So I've worked with email lists of all sizes from one subscriber up to 1 million, and I've probably used a dozen email marketing platforms in my career and with clients.
First, we need the ability to send broadcast emails which go out at a set date and time. Common examples include newsletters or sales promotions.
Second, we need the ability to segment our audience, which means that we can use subscriber data to include or exclude subscribers from certain emails. So one example might be excluding buyers from a promotion for a course they already own.
And third, we need to be able to create automated workflows which are triggered by an action like submitting an email address or making a purchase. A few examples include delivering a lead magnet or creating an on demand webinar sales series, but the opportunities are endless.
We also need a platform that stays up to date with modern compliance regulations, which is usually a given but worth mentioning since data protection is so important.
From there, you'll need to decide if you're looking for an all in one platform or a specialist. I classify an all in one as a platform that includes the three primary functions needed to run an online business, which include website creation, email marketing and product sales, and fulfillment, which often includes one on one services.
An all in one could be for you if you want to simplify and keep everything in one place. And although you might miss out on some customizations or features for the right business owner, I think the trade off would be worth it.
On the other hand, a specialist platform focuses solely on one function and a true email marketing platform will be a better fit for business owners who want more customizations a true email automation builder and a personalized set of features to suit your needs.
If curious, our number one pick for all in one platforms is currently Kajabi and you can visit kajabi if you'd like to claim an extended 30 day free trial through my partner link.
But for this comparison, I'm going to focus on email marketing smart specialists so with that in mind, here are my top five email marketing platforms for online business owners, loosely arranged in order from simplest to most complex.
Platform for Email Marketing #1: Beehiiv
Let's start with platform number one, Beehiiv. Beehiiv markets themselves as the best newsletter platform built for growth without complexity, and their focus on simplicity is one of their biggest advantages.
For example, their email builder is both intuitive and highly customizable, so you can create text based or highly designed emails to suit your brand.
But Beehiiv's real competitive advantage is its focus on list building and monetization through network effects. For example, you can build your list with a referral program to incentivize your subscribers, or you can cross promote your newsletter with other Beehiiv creators.
You can also monetize your following through their native ad network or by offering premium paid newsletter subscriptions to your audience.
It's noteworthy that Beehiiv doesn't take a cut of your paid newsletter, which makes them a great alternative to Substack. That said, Beehiiv has only the bare essentials when it comes to segmentation and automation, and they don't have a true CRM which will be optional for most business owners.
So for example, you can build a basic welcome sequence, but other automations or triggers might be impossible as of the time of this recording, and that might be a deal breaker if you need intermediate or advanced options.
They also lack a few basics like landing page creation and the option to collect user data beyond just email addresses. So for example, without using a workaround, you couldn't collect first names to personalize the start of your emails to say, you know, hey Ahmed.
In terms of price point, they have a free plan which includes up to 2,500 subscribers and limited features. But my hunch is that most business owners will want to use their scale plan, which includes automations and most of their superpower features.
You can visit beehiiv to create a free account and you'll also automatically unlock all scale features for 30 days so you can test Beehiiv's full functionality.
Platform for Email Marketing #2: MailerLite
Up next is platform number two, Mailerlite. MailerLite is a great budget email marketing platform, and they have one of the strongest free plans. With up to 1,000 subscribers and all essential features.
When you log in, MailerLite's admin dashboard is streamlined and easy to navigate, and although some competitors might have more features, those add ons are just noise and clutter unless you actually use them. If I head over to campaigns, I find their email designer easy to use and highly customizable.
You can choose from either the simple rich text editor or the full featured drag and drop editor. And I appreciate that you can use the same block style editor to create landing pages, popups and embeddable forms.
Under Automations, Mailerlite offers all of the basic features you'd expect from an email marketing platform, including different trigger types, emails, delays, conditional splits and actions. They also allow AB automation testing on paid plans, which is surprisingly rare.
But the main feature missing from Mailerlite's automation builder is the concept of goals. For example, imagine a sales sequence of three emails pitching the same online course. If someone buys the course after email number one, you probably don't want to continue pitching them emails two and three and in other email marketing platforms you can create something called a goal or event which would remove buyers from the rest of the automation and they also give you more data in reports.
You can create workarounds in Mailerlite, but I think it's a noteworthy feature that separates not only Mailerlite but most budget email marketing platforms.
They've also historically had some of the strongest deliverability in the industry, and deliverability measures the percentage of your sent emails that actually make it to your subscribers inboxes.
Mailerlite not only ranks in the green today, but they're consistently ranked among the top platforms. Overall I think Mailerlite is probably the most well rounded budget email marketing platform and you can visit with Mailerlite to create your own free account and start testing.
Platform for Email Marketing #3: ConvertKit
The third email marketing platform is ConvertKit. ConvertKit is one of the most popular email marketing platforms for online business owners. And since their product is built specifically for digital creators, I think they have the best overall usability for many coaches, course creators and solopreneurs.
Let's start with a preview of their email builder which has been updated to include a block based designer for more customization. They also have a basic landing page editor, embeddable forms, banners and popups, and a full featured automation builder.
In addition to the essential actions like sending an email and conditional splits, ConvertKit also has something called an event which would allow a subscriber to jump ahead or exit the automation if a key event happens like a purchase.
They've also started differentiating themselves by offering more ways to build your list through network connections. For example, if you join their creator network, you become eligible to cross promote newsletters with other ConvertKit creators, so you'd help drive subscribers to each other's audiences.
You can also get paid to promote relevant newsletters to your audience, or you can enable a referral system to incentivize your own subscribers to share your newsletter with their friends.
When you choose a landing page template, you're locked into the block layout set by ConvertKit, but if that feels limiting, you can choose to create landing pages on your primary website like Squarespace or WordPress, and use ConvertKit to create embeddable forms instead.
It's also noteworthy that their analytics are very minimal and you can't see any insights about your automations. That said, they recently announced a new Insights Dashboard available on their Creator Pro plan, so that might be worth exploring.
You can visit ConvertKit to get started, and they do have a free plan with limited features and a set number of subscribers.
Platform for Email Marketing #4: ActiveCampaign
The fourth email marketing platform on our list is ActiveCampaign. ActiveCampaign has long been considered a top email marketing platform for intermediate and advanced email marketing needs.
Although you don't need to be too technical to be a user, they have a great range of features, customizations, integrations and detailed reports, so let's take a quick look.
Here's a Preview of the ActiveCampaign email builder where you can use a drag and drop tool to customize your campaigns. I also find their segmentation tool easy to use and I like that I can segment my audience based on their actions like clicks or page views, not just tags.
I also want to showcase the Automation Builder, which has an extensive list of possible triggers and actions for your workflows. This gives you the freedom and flexibility to build nearly any possible automation. And since it's a drag and drop tool, I don't think you need to be especially technical to use ActiveCampaign's Automation Builder.
On top of that, they also have CRM features which allow you to manage deals through a pipeline. So if client work or sales conversations are a major part of your business strategy, then that could be a deciding difference.
That said, ActiveCampaign is on the upper end of our price range and although their extra functionality does match the price. Unless you plan to use those features, then it might be overkill for business owners who want to keep things simple.
I'd also say that some users, including me, have experienced a bit of lag time on the platform. And I'd also say that there's a small learning curve compared to our previous picks. But both are symptoms of a big, very capable platform with a lot of happy customers.
And if you're curious to check it out, you can visit ActiveCampaign to test it out with a free trial.
Platform for Email Marketing #5: Bento
Up next is platform number five, Bento. Bento is a newer email marketing platform with powerful automation features that rival, if not surpass, ActiveCampaign.
The first is their focus on deliverability, which measures your ability to reach subscribers inboxes. Unlike other platforms, Bento includes features like email validation, spam validation, blacklist monitoring, and batched email sending for bigger lists.
And since Gmail and Yahoo are enforcing stricter guidelines, Bento's features and best practices can offer a huge advantage to help you reach the inbox.
But the second reason you might choose Bento is for their powerful automation builder. Where you can choose from a comprehensive list of triggers, actions and other options on the left. Then within the main area you can easily drag, drop and connect your pieces or click a specific action to make edits.
Let's also take a look at their email builder and whether you're creating a broadcast email or an automated email, you can choose between the text editor or the drag and drop editor. The text editor is great for simple emails that are mostly text based, while the drag and drop editor offers full design customization, although the email builder itself is very user friendly.
Overall, I think Bento is best suited for a tech savvy business owner who is comfortable with a bit of coding and data based logic.
And even if you are tech savvy, I would expect a learning curve when you're first getting started since Bento is fundamentally different than any other platform on this list. But that's also why it's so customizable and flexible and once you learn how it works, your options will be truly unlimited.
So if you're comfortable with tech that I think Bento is a great all around email marketing platform and you can visit Bento to test it out with a free 30 day trial.
Also, since there are a few popular email marketing platforms that didn't make the cut, I thought I would do a lightning round to talk about a few additional platforms.
Substack is a popular newsletter platform, but they aren't a true email marketing platform because you can't segment your audience nor can you build automations.
If you are currently using Substack, especially for a paid newsletter, I might recommend Beehiiv instead since they don't take a cut of your payments and they do offer additional email marketing functionality.
Or you could consider another option on our list if you're ready to expand. Mailchimp is one of the most well known email marketing platforms and it's largely because they used to have a popular free plan with up to 2,000 contacts.
But that said, their pricing has changed significantly and their free plan is severely limited. Their paid plans are also both more expensive and less capable than my other picks, so that's why they don't make the cut.
Flodesk is known for two things, their affordable $35 per month price point which with unlimited subscribers and their feminine email templates.
But their automation builder lacks a goals feature and I think it's too simplistic for most online business owners long term. And I personally think other email builders are more intuitive and customizable.
Klaviyo is a popular option for e commerce businesses who primarily sell physical products. I don't have any experience with them personally, but my impression is that they're better suited for those physical e commerce businesses than they are for digital products, courses or services.
Brevo, formerly SendinBlue, looked promising in early testing since they have a clean, modern interface and comparable price points.
But after working with a client in Brevo, we realized that the automation builder has a massive limitation that makes it challenging to add existing contacts to automations. And this happens regularly where contacts might download a freebie, sign up for a webinar, or even purchase a course or digital product and then you wouldn't be able to enroll them in an automation to deliver follow up emails. So I don't currently recommend them, but that could always change in the future.
GetResponse is unique because they offer a full marketing suite beyond just email marketing, including things like webinars, landing pages and a slew of other features.
So for transparency, I haven't tested them enough personally to graduate them into my top ranks, but I think they're worth checking out, and if you have any personal experience, I would love to hear what you think in the comments.
There are also other great platforms that for various reasons don't make my top picks, e.g. AWeber, Constant Contact, Drip and several others are all perfectly good. But based on my testing and the criteria that I believe most online business owners are looking for, I had to be decisive about my ranks and that's the only reason why they haven't made the cut.
But if you currently use any platform that I haven't mentioned and you're happy with it, I would strongly recommend that you stick with it. I would only switch if you can identify specific limitations that your current email marketing platform can't do, and in that case you can make a short list of requirements and use those requirements to choose another platform from our list.
Conclusion:
I know we've covered a lot today, but I do wanna share this Key Takeaway There is truly no such thing as a best email marketing platform. There are just different options that suit different businesses.
So to help you make your decision, I would start by creating your own needs assessment where you list any must have features that are important to you and from there you can create maybe one to two free trials in your top platforms to see which one feels best.
And after that I truly believe that the only detrimental choice you could make is letting the fear of choosing incorrectly prevent you from taking action at all.
Many of these platforms could work for many of us. There's not only one right answer. So trust your gut and see if you can make a choice that will work for you for the next six to 12 months, if not longer.
