How to choose right?

My decade-long experience in consulting primarily revolves around email marketing and promotions managed by email automation tools.

I worked in pretty much every tool that is worth knowing, from 1-2k to 400k large lists. I consistently reached 40+% opens with up to 20ish % ctr on sequences I built. The larger list I was managing was 700k in email, and even larger in Manychat (chabot).

what I look for in an email tool

I look for a tool specifically to fit an early stage, solo-driven bootstrapping business project, (one or multiple) which would send both value content and promotions through email and want to build a great list. (high engagement, high earning-per-sub)The following 10 criterias are pretty strict. A tool that fails even one will likely get a “Not Recommended” badge. Failing a 2-3 ‘preferably’ requirements will also, because probably there is something else better. It doesn’t mean that it’s all bad, just not the most beneficial choice. In a few cases a took may get a “Recommended if…” badge. if it exells in an area so much that it makes sense for a certain business model despite other shortcomings.

  1. 1A low starting price with small increments – preferably a credit option, and allowing to add multiple domains and senders
  2. 2Integrations options to give access in other tools – preferably beyond Zapier
  3. 3Ability to send a welcome message – preferably with multiple (drip) emails
  4. 4HTML form embed to be able to use 3rd party lead gen. tools. – preferably a usable Landing page with a custom domain to be able to start super lean.
  5. 5UX feels familiar and clear, efficient to do the fundamental day-to-day contact and campaign management – preferably no unnecessary clicks, confusion and annoyance
  6. 6Segmentation ability by engagement, conversion, interest & random, both inclusion and exclusion on campaigns –  preferably being able to add custom fields (at least text), plus if there is LTV or some value option
  7. 7Email editor inspires to write directly in – preferably offering some brand similar vibe, and a quality feel in the inbox, preferably button insert option
  8. 8Click-the-link preference – so subscribers can sign their preference of getting or not getting a topic by clicking a link – preferably tagging option
  9. 9Basic moving automation – move subs to another list or add tag if they purchase – preferably made in a way that I see and know instantly who goes where, what is happening.
  10. 10Accurate reports on the campaigns (and sequences) – preferably not buried 10 clicks deep at each campaigns

So based on these criterias, as well as usability, value on price and subjective affection, here my 3 top choices all with pros and cons:

The Best Email tool options

The one you will absolutely love from the start (and so will your readers), is

Option 1 – Flodesk

Flodesk is minimalist, beautiful, simple mailer with a great taste in templates and typography. Your emails will look gorgeous and personal. Intimate to a level.

Your subs will smile opening your emails. You will smile setting them up. The Flodesk team will smile getting $38 from you for a 400 large list. Everybody will smile.

Joking aside, if you have 1 prime project, I recommend to go with Flodesk. Low risk of wasting time, overcomplicating, and you can provide a fantastic reading experience.

Flodesk does enough on the automation part without overcomplicating things.

You will be able to send relevant value content, onboarding, presell sequences – and then close with a good promo. You will not get lost, or overbuild against your own good.

Notice that I strongly favor clean interfaces that get the best out of your mind instead of distracting your attention. Flodesk is such.

The pricing is flat– $38/mo regardless of the sizeof the list.

This means that beyond 5000 subs it will get cheaper than most other options, it also means that below that, you are somewhat overpaying.

To sweeten that a bit, follow my link, and you can secure a 19/mo deal for the first year. A little clock above your head to get things moving and build up your earning in 12 months. Speaking of:

Pretty Little Checkouts: They recently added a checkout functionality, making building a paid email lists/courses business tech easy(er). More on this  model on the upcoming mini-course. (make sure to check if your country is supported for the checkout function – unfortunately only some of the western-european countries are, mine is not)

Flowdesk is a gorgeously designed, minimalist email tool, that I can heartfully recommend if you want to unclutter your email marketing. (if you feel that you need my help click here)

Activate your -50% on Flodesk

Strong point – Unbelievable Design

The emails look gorgeous. The UX is the best I’ve seen in 30-40 email tools I tested or worked with. 

Weak point – Integrations

It’s getting better. Beside Zapier, now Surecart support them too.

They added a Shopify int. too lately, so if you have a webshop on that platform you are in a treat.

It is a great choice if 

  • you sell 1-time fee digital courses
  • monthly paid publications sent by email
  • do consulting & freelancing in a field where style matters,
  • have a stylish high-ticket ecommerce site (preferably on Shopify), 
  • have a highly-monetized list (eg. affiliate or paid subscription)

It is not a good option if

  • run a ‘cheap-lots’ webshop, with constant discount driven sales (Klaviyo is better on that)
  • have a side project with little time to invest,
  • if your list has small to no monetization – like this site here.
  • need to integrate to a lot of 3rd party tools, syncing tags, downgrades etc. (they are improving – but rather option 2 then)

Activate your -50% on Flodesk

Option 2 – Convertkit

I have been using Convertkit since their early days, where they had a clear concept of what they are and a very great UX. Simple trigger rules, sequences and that’s it. 

Then they became one of the most popular tool in the market and this brought in the unnecessary ‘add-more-functions’ race and the steep price increase that goes with it.

With this being said Convertkit is still a great tool at its core…most of my client are on it, so through them I use it about daily. For a small but established (Phase 2) business, I’d recommend it for 3 reasons.  

Exclusions are set at an email level. You put people on a sequence by automations. Then take the ones out by exceptions on a message level. This is cleaner and less prone to erroneous messaging. (eg. someone didn’t check your GDPR consent, already bought or or pressed mute on a trigger link)

Snippets + dynamic text. You can simply add shortcode placeholders to sequences. And then you can add anything to them, that will then show everywhere where the shortcode is placed. This allows you to show timely promos within auto emails. 

You can also use this with conditional text to show or hide it based on text. This can be very handy if you run a membership site. (eg. show the relevant login links to members, but not to non-members)

Integrations. As one of the most popular tools, it integrates with virtually everything natively, or via Zapier, Make or the other integrator tools. 

Choose Convertkit

Strong point – Snippets

I think this is the strongest case for Convertkit. That you easily add dynamic parts to evergreen sequences without going through them individually.

Weak point – Cost

Unlike the first 2 options Convertkit gets more expensive as your list grows. It’s not the worst, but if you don’t monetize your list it’s not a good option.

Become loong – This will matter later, but something I don’t like is that there are no ways to organize sequences, tags or rule into folders. With most of my clients where we use it for 5+ years, there is an endlee…eess scrolling through these tabs. (still scrolling as we speak)

It is a great choice if 

  • you have high income and a good customer / subscriber ratio
  • you run a course or community site with everything synced 
  • you run big product launches and email campaigns
  • you want to use liquid coding and dynamic fields
  • You run paid newsletters & email-courses and Flodesk Checkout isn’t available in your country

It is not a good option if

  • if you are cost sensitive
  • if you don’t need the above mentioned perks
  • if you have a large list that you don’t monetize and send just occasional emails

go with Convertkit

Option 3 – Still looking

I was recommending FluentCRM as an option 3, which I was using (trying to use) on some of my smaller projects. I picked it based on some reliable recommendations, and mostly because of its list-size independent flat fee and seemingly rich features. 

Big mistake. I hate using it. The UX is treacherously bad, the editor is horrible, and it’s hard to get around not using their also junk FluentForms.

I also realized that being within the WordPress dashboard is not a pro. You don’t want to be there unless you must. 

So now I’m evaluating a few cost effective options for low priority projects in their starting phase.

Other email tools I know in and out (worked in extensively)Active Campaign, Drip, MailerLite, Klaviyo, Omnisend, BirdSend, EasySendy, GetResponse, MailChimp, Eloqua, Infusionsoft, Hubspot, Ontraport

Tools I tested but didn’t use with a large live listPardot, Benchmark, MadMimi, Robly, Moosend (old one), Freshmail, SendinBlue(Brevo), EmailOctopus, ActiveTrail, ElasticEmail, SendFox