Newsletters & email marketing

What is the best newsletter platform for creators? beehiiv is the newsletter platform in this category, with a free plan for up to 2,500 subscribers and no cut taken from paid subscriptions.

beehiiv includes a website, podcast hosting, a community, digital products and an ad network on every plan. It takes 0% of paid subscriptions and digital product sales, leaving only Stripe's processing fee. It scores 4.0 on Trustpilot from 409 reviews, 4.5 on G2 from 40, 4.6 on Product Hunt from 26 and 4.4 on Capterra from 16. Some Trustpilot reviewers report plan changes with little notice and price rises, and there is no official mobile app.

Which email marketing tool is free? beehiiv and Interact have free plans; Privy and ScaledMail don't.

beehiiv's free plan allows unlimited sends to up to 2,500 subscribers, with a website and podcast included, though automations, polls and A/B testing need a paid plan. Interact's free plan covers two quizzes, 100 responses a month and one user, but its free quizzes switch off after 100 responses and have no integrations. Privy offers a 15-day trial without a card, and its displays switch off when the trial ends.

What is the best pop-up and email tool for Shopify shops? Privy combines sign-up pop-ups, email and SMS for Shopify, BigCommerce and Wix shops, and its pop-ups-only plan from $24 a month works alongside an existing email tool.

Privy's pop-up builder includes spin-to-win, exit intent, quizzes and cart savers. The Email and SMS plan starts at $30 a month for up to 1,500 mailable contacts, rising to $165 at 10,000 and $840 at 100,000, with unlimited sends on every paid plan. It scores 4.6 on G2 from 122 reviews, 4.4 on Capterra from 50 and 3.4 on Trustpilot from 5.

Two points matter for UK shops. SMS to UK numbers is listed as coming soon, so the SMS features don't help UK customers yet, and uninstalling the Shopify app doesn't cancel the plan, a frequent complaint in reviews.

How do quizzes grow an email list? A quiz asks visitors for their email address before showing their result, and Interact then tags each lead by result in your email tool.

Interact builds personality, assessment and product recommendation quizzes, and connects to more than 40 tools, including Mailchimp, Kit, Klaviyo, Flodesk and beehiiv. It scores 4.7 on G2 from 122 reviews. Plans are set by email leads a month: - Free: 100 responses a month, 2 quizzes, 1 user - Lite: $39 a month, or $27 billed yearly, for 500 leads, 5 quizzes and 2 users - Growth: $89 a month, or $53 billed yearly, for 2,000 leads, 20 quizzes, 5 users and white-labelling - Pro: $209 a month, or $125 billed yearly, for 8,000 leads, 50 quizzes and 10 users

What do you need to send cold email at scale? Cold outreach needs separate sending inboxes and domains, which ScaledMail sets up and manages for you; it is infrastructure rather than a newsletter tool.

ScaledMail provides Google Workspace inboxes from $3.50 each a month, Microsoft Outlook at $50 a domain for 25 inboxes, and SMTP at $3.75 a domain, with SPF, DKIM and DMARC configured within 24 to 72 hours. It works with sequencers such as Smartlead, Instantly, Apollo and lemlist, which are paid for separately. It scores 4.8 on Trustpilot from 46 reviews, where reviewers praise its dedicated Slack support channel. Billing is monthly with no long-term contract.

How do you pay less for email marketing? Yearly billing saves up to 20% on beehiiv and up to 40% on Interact, and staying within a free plan's limits costs nothing.

beehiiv's prices rise with list size: Lite costs $49 a month on yearly billing at 1,000 subscribers and $399 at 100,000, and its branding stays on emails until Pro, from $95 a month billed yearly. Interact's branding comes off on Growth, from $53 a month billed yearly. Privy has no annual prices on its public page and only considers refunds within 10 days of a charge, never on annual plans. beehiiv says all sales are final. All four price in US dollars and none state how UK VAT is charged.