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MailerLite is both an email marketing service (with a knack for simplifying email campaigns) and a website builder (for leveling up your business).
With a successful email marketing tool, you can easily drive traffic to your website, convert subscribers, generate leads, and so on.
In this MailerLite review, we’re taking a deep dive into MailerLite to see if ,the platform can do all that.
More specifically, we’re examining its core features, pros, cons, and pricing — and also revealing a free alternative.
Strap yourself in as there’s more to cover.
Let's get started. Shall we?
MailerLite’s homepage
MailerLite has been in existence since 2010 and is an original brainchild of Eimantas Norkunas and Ignas Rubežius.
The MailerLite platform has rapidly grown since then — the result of over 800,000 companies subscribing to MailerLite every month, no doubt.
Unfortunately, the popular company recently changed hands with the Lithuania-based Vercom S.A (a cloud communication platform), which acquired MailerLite in April 2023 for an estimated $90 million.
This explains the new version of MailerLite.
You might be wondering: “What can MailerLite email marketing software do for my small business?”
With MailerLite’s feature-set, you can:
If you want a marketing tool that aims to grow your audience and drive revenue, then MailerLite might be a good fit for you.
Overall, MailerLite has a lot going for it — and there’s also a lot we like about the platform.
But, in some areas, we believe it can do better.
Let’s take a closer look at the best (and worst) of MailerLite.
We’ve combed through hundreds of verified user reviews to compile a comprehensive list of MailerLite’s pros and cons.
Pros
Cons
Want to know more about what makes the MailerLite platform tick?
If so, here are MailerLite’s key features to help you see what it can do for you — but most importantly, to help you make a good buying decision.
MailerLite boasts a variety of functionalities up its sleeve.
In this section, we’re going to cover (in great detail) MailerLite’s key features and show you how they can grow and scale your business.
An efficient drag-and-drop email editor lets you pull images and modules into place within the email design, with ease — creating beautifully-designed emails that stand out in the inbox.
To ensure your design emails appeal to your subscribers, MailerLite gives you total control over your designs using its 3 email editors:
1. Drag-and-drop email editor — Great for beginners who are looking to create and design emails without coding a single element.
MailerLite’s drag-and-drop editor
This drag-and-drop email editor lets you add interactive blocks of content to your emails that encourage customer engagement, boost conversions, and increase click-through rates (CTRs).
Additionally, the editor allows you to track your design changes and level up your personalization by targeting email blocks to different audiences at once.
You can also use its built-in image editor to tweak pictures.
2. Rich text editor — Ideal for users with little experience in building and designing emails for campaigns.
MailerLite’s rich-text editor
The rich-text email editor lets you compose emails by combining a touch of plain text with the formatting capabilities of HTML.
With this email editor, you can structure your plain text emails using social media links, images, bullet points, table blocks, and other essential elements to enhance your messaging and connect with subscribers.
3. Custom HTML editor — Perfect for individuals with experience writing or importing HTML codes to create emails from scratch.
MailerLite’s HTML email editor
With the custom HTML editor, you can import pre-made email designs into the editor and speed up your design workflow.
Additionally, it helps you monitor email campaigns with quick maps, deliverability reports, and a range of email performance metrics — to identify what's working and what can be improved in your campaigns.
Overall, these editors are easy to use.
They also come with multiple email templates, covering various categories such as photography, events, blog and updates, ecommerce, and so on.
MailerLite’s email templates
Now that you’ve finally created and designed beautiful emails, how will you ensure that they reach the right people at the right time?
Short answer: Automate your emails.
Automating your emails helps you grow and scale your business.
More precisely, email automation guides your subscribers through every step of the process and helps you send triggered emails (without lifting a finger) — from the welcome email to the buying stage.
But the question remains: Can MailerLite email marketing solutions help you automate your emails?
The MailerLite platform lets you automate your emails by building automated email workflows to help you reach your audience faster.
For instance, you can automate a book promotion, birthday offer, trigger campaign (as seen below), or even a series of emails.
An example of MailerLite’s automated workflow
With MailerLite’s email automation feature, you can:
Besides MailerLite automating your email campaigns (to help deliver a better experience), it also integrates with WooCommerce and Shopify to send abandoned cart emails.
Overall, with the right mix of personalization and email automation, MailerLite can help you get through the noise to your prospects.
But to generate more business and increase brand value, you need to do more than just automate your emails — you need to build a website.
If you want to show people who you are, or what your business does, then you need to create a website.
The good thing is that MailerLite lets you create a website for free (the platform's Free plan allows for such. We’ll cover more of this later).
With MailerLite’s drag-and-drop website builder, you can build and design simple websites using multiple layouts and interactive elements.
MailerLite’s website builder
The only unconventional thing about creating a (free) website using MailerLite is that you have to connect it to a subscriber group.
While this isn’t something to cry wolf about, it can be a bit confusing for small business owners (or practically anyone) learning how to create and design a website using the MailerLite platform for the first time.
Just for the record, you can connect signup forms with multiple groups.
If creating a website feels like a tedious and joyless task, MailerLite lets you build your website with customizable templates covering different categories, including ecommerce, events, education, etc.
MailerLite’s website templates
Just choose a web design (that tickles your fancy) from a library of website templates and customize it to match your brand, then start building.
With MailerLite’s website builder, you can:
But building and designing a website is just half the journey.
You need to integrate your MailerLite account with other popular web services to help achieve a more efficient workflow for your business.
Like most email marketing tools, MailerLite comes with multiple native integrations with third-party services, including Shopify, Stripe, WordPress, WooCommerce, Squarespace, and many more.
MailerLite’s third-party featured integrations
MailerLite can also integrate with major social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and so on.
Besides connecting to all the major social networks, MailerLite also integrates with Gravity, Couponcarrier, SendOwn, ConvertPlay, MiloTree, and many other related web services.
If you fail to find a specific app integration, just connect MailerLite to the Zapier app and then proceed from there.
Zapier is a bridge that links MailerLite with hundreds of other popular web applications.
While MailerLite isn't the perfect email marketing software out there, it packs more features than we’ve covered in this MailerLite review.
Let’s briefly explore some of the platform's additional features worth paying close attention to.
MailerLite comes with extra but professional features that could greatly appeal to your business and individual needs.
But will these features move the needle on your email marketing needs?
These bonus features will most likely appeal to you if they align with your marketing goals or if you’ll frequently use them for your business needs.
With that said, how much will MailerLite cost?
Before we crunch the numbers, it’s worth noting that MailerLite pricing is based on the number of subscribers.
(Note: The pricing options seen below are based on 1,000 subscribers).
MailerLite pricing plans
MailerLite comes with 4 pricing options:
If you want to try out MailerLite, its Free plan (which is free for up to 1,000 subscribers) offers most of the platform's key features:
Overall, the MailerLite platform's pricing options are affordable, at least, for the features you get in return.
The only downside is that MailerLite’s Free plan isn’t entirely free.
In other words, when your 30-day free trial expires, you’ll be charged the monthly subscription rate (unless you cancel beforehand).
Want to know how MailerLite stacks up against the competition?
Let’s find out!
MailerLite can provide the best email marketing solutions, but there are other more affordable and easy-to-use email marketing tools — with great email marketing capabilities to grow and scale your business.
Among the best MailerLite alternatives is systeme.io.
Here’s why:
Moosend and Sendinblue are also great MailerLite alternatives.
But first, let's dive deep into the abyss of systeme.io.
systeme.io logo
An all-around marketing platform is the greatest foundation for creating successful email marketing campaigns.
And systeme.io is certainly one of the best — a treasure trove of all marketing tools and features.
Our intuitive platform gives you all the tools you need to jumpstart your marketing with fast and easy emailing.
We're talking about a marketing suite that lets you do the following:
Our platform also leads the way when it comes to providing tools that are critical in keeping up with your competitors.
More correctly, systeme.io has helped thousands of business owners kickstart their business with easy-to-use tools — think sales funnels, online courses, website builders, etc, all in the same organized place.
Don't just take our word for it!
See what our customers have to say about our platform.
In summary, systeme.io solves customers’ pain points that keep most business owners awake at night.
How much does our platform cost?
systeme.io pricing options
Compared to MailerLite, our price point is more affordable.
We specifically have 4 scalable pricing options:
The best part?
All our pricing plans (including the Free plan), come with the broader ability to do the following:
Speaking of which, our Free plan is free forever (and we won’t even dare ask for your credit card details).
This means you can test-drive all our advanced features, including other powerful additional features, completely free of charge.
Can other MailerLite alternatives match our platform’s functionalities?
Moosend logo
Moosend is an email marketing and automation software, and a MailerLite alternative with multiple features and an affordable price point.
However, Moosend and MailerLite have stark differences.
For example, Moosend allows you to set multiple triggers and sit back as your audience receives your campaigns.
Meanwhile, the MailerLite platform lets users create just a single trigger.
What’s more, MailerLite’s HTML email editor limits you to a few content blocks when building email campaigns, lowering your conversions.
On the flipside, Moosend’s email editor offers an array of content blocks.
With the Moosend feature-set, you can:
Like all other generic email marketing platforms, you’ll experience some drawbacks while using the Moosend platform:
For example:
Now let's see how much Moosend costs.
Moosend pricing plans
Moosend’s pricing model is simple and straightforward and equally based on the number of your subscribers.
That said, the platform has 3 pricing options:
To get started, you can try Moosend’s features for the next 30 days before upgrading to the Pro plan.
But once your subscription expires, you’ll be required to give out your credit card details (to be charged the monthly subscription rate).
As such (and like MailerLite) Moosend’s free plan isn’t entirely free!
Overall, Moosend’s free trial lets you access freely all of the platform's marketing automation features:
However, it limits your access to a dedicated account manager, premium campaign performance services, and priority phone support.
If the lack of these features is a deal-breaker, skip ahead to Sendinblue.
Sendinblue logo
Sendinblue is an all-in-one marketing software that takes care of your entire email marketing needs — or, to put it more bluntly, it’s an affordable MailerLite alternative that also boasts more features.
But there are some drawbacks to using this platform.
For example, Sendinblue has lots of features available so if you’re unfamiliar with using them, it can get difficult (and frustrating) at first.
The platform also has a steep learning curve, especially when you want something custom-made.
It offers multiple email templates for your campaigns, but it doesn't offer any design services.
Sendinblue also compels you to create a separate account for your subscribers as it requires both its database and server to store your data.
Although it fails to meet expectations in some areas, Sendinblue is still a notable email marketing platform with advanced automation options.
With Sendinblue’s feature-set, you can:
Unlike MailerLite, you can track users’ activity on your website using Sendinblue’s automation features to trigger workflow actions.
If you’re looking for an email marketing tool that creates user-friendly automation workflows, this platform might be a good fit for you.
So, how much does Sendinblue cost?
Sendinblue’s pricing plan
Like other email marketing tools, Sendinblue’s pricing model is based on the number of subscribers you have.
Overall, Sendinblue has 4 pricing options:
Sendinblue claims its Free plan is free to use without a time limit (free forever), and that it comes in handy when you're on a low budget.
But in the real sense, the Free plan is specifically designed to allow you time to grow your email list then once you achieve more than 2,000 subscribers, you’ll be required to subscribe to a paid plan.
This means Sendinblue’s Free plan isn’t truly free.
We’ve seen these MailerLIte alternatives' key features and pricing options, so which one should you choose for your email marketing needs?
As you’ve seen, all these email marketing tools are great at what they do — but who stands above the rest?
Here’s an overview of how MailerLite, systeme.io, Moosend, and Sendinblue compare against each other.
Compared to other formidable email marketing solutions, systeme.io sticks out a mile — it not only offers a real Forever-free plan, but it’s also the world's easiest all-in-one marketing platform.
Still curious about the MailerLite platform?
We've compiled some of MailerLite’s frequently asked questions.
Yes, they are. Most of MailerLite’s features are on the Free plan.
So, once you get started with the platform, you’ll get free access to auto-resend emails, email templates, and 24/7 live chat support.
Yes, it’s possible to use MailerLite with WordPress.
Just install the MailerLite plugin for WordPress and then start collecting subscribers straight from your WordPress website into your MailerLite account.
It takes 5 easy steps to create a group in MailerLite:
1. First, navigate to the “Subscribers” page
2. Click on the “Groups” tab
3. Next, click “Create group”
4. Then enter the name of your new group
5. Lastly, click “create”
With your group now created, get ready to add subscribers.
Yes, you can. However, it’s worth noting that if you need simple CRM features, MaileLite will work just fine.
But if you’re more interested in a CRM system’s flexibility and capabilities, you need to integrate MailerLite with a more powerful CRM system.
Want to create automations that your audience will love?
You’ll most likely benefit from the multiple digital marketing tools that the MailerLite platform offers.
In summary, MailerLite is for people looking for simple email marketing solutions, and ways to create landing pages, websites, and signup forms.
But if you need an all-in-one marketing platform that's more versatile for email marketing, includes more unlimited features, and is also more affordable — we highly recommend systeme.io.
Systeme.io can do everything MailerLite can, and so much more, including automating your emails and selling digital products.
Sign up with systeme.io today, and put your business on autopilot.
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